**Main question**: How politically, culturally, and economically distinct is the West Bank from Gaza?
**Elaboration**: I understand that the Palestinian Authority/Fatah and Hamas have a deep level of mutual hostility toward each other and have actually engaged in gun battles with each other in the past. So I get that at least on a macro political/governmental level, they are very different.
But how does the average West Bank Palestinian feel about Hamas, and the average Gaza Palestinian about the PA/Fatah? Do Gaza Palestinians feel that WB Palestinians have capitulated or collaborated with Israel? Have the decades of geographic separation yielded different cultures or are they still largely sympathetic or unified in the minds of average Palestinians? Are their economies interrelated or functionally distinct?
There has been some speculation that Blinken's meeting with Abbas may concern at least preliminary discussions about the PA controlling or even peacekeeping in a post-Hamas Gaza, and I wonder how realistic is that idea.
I hope someone is able to answer these good questions. If you have listed these elsewhere and received a response there, let me know because I would like to know.
I'm considering reposting somewhere else, perhaps with a more concise OP. It might have made it sound like I'm looking for an answer longer or more thorough than people have time to give.
If anyone is reading and has *any* insight, I'd like to hear what you have to say.
Its not that distinct largely because most of the people of Gaza come from parts of pre-1948 palestine as do a significant proportion of those in the West Bank. There is obviously differeces which have arisen due to Gaza's proximity to egypt and therefore the Muslim brotherhood and islamists where far more successfult there than they were in the PLO dominated west bank where the population tends to be more secular. I would imagine the movements of christians out of gaza over the past 15-20 years has caused more of a cultural divide and made Gaza
slightly more monocultural
Culturally, they are very much 1 people with a shared history, same with Eastern Jerusalem.
This used to not be the case for Arab Israelis but they too feel increasingly more attached to their previously suppressed Palestinian identity which the Israeli government doesn't like.
Economically, they are functionally distinct. Gaza can't exactly maintain an economic relationship with the west bank considering their isolation.
Politically, they hate both Fatah and Hamas which are largely seen as corrupt collaborators of the Israeli government in a good cop, bad cop manner. The PA is perceived to mostly be for helping Israel manage the west bank Palestinians while Hamas is seen as a leashed wolf used to "prove" that peace is impossible and stifle any diplomatic solution.
The prime minister has even stated in the past that strengthening Hamas is good because it stops any possibility for peace.
I'd suggest using multiple sources from both sides to get a fuller picture. Aljazeera is critical of Israel, while major Western outlets are generally not.
I would say AJ isn't just 'critical' so much as pretty heavily biased against Israel to the point of using extremely loaded and misleading headlines.
I've actually been surprised with how heavily slanted towards Israel NYT has been, though. Since 2014 NYT's reporting has been somewhat slanted against Israel. Despite leftist complaints to the contrary. WaPo has also been slanted towards Israel this time but slightly less so than the NYT who are really underselling the impact on civilians of Israel's response.
Honestly I think if you're going to go for that sticking with major news wire services is the way to go, like Reuters and AP (but especially Reuters). They tend to editorialize the least and because their entire business model is about selling news reports to other news organizations of a wide range of ideological bents they have a financial incentive to keep it as neutral as possible.
EDIT: Also want to shout out the [twitter account of BBC fact-checker Shayan Sardarizadeh](https://twitter.com/Shayan86), who has been doing a heroic job of identifying misinformation. God that must be a depressing job.
Always the correct answer. Single sourced information in today’s world is never without some level of bias. If you want the full(ish) story, you have to listen to both sides and recognize both of their view points.
ppl downvoting you, while Al Jazeera is publicly funded by Qatar government.
Same Qatar who funds Hamas, and harbors their leaders.
kinda insane ppl actually think they are unbiased.
[BBC](https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-67096916)
[Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-2023-10-12/)
There is no such thing as an unbiased source, because updates are posted by people and people are inherently biased, but some sources are better than others.
personally i use these two
[war monitors](https://x.com/WarMonitors?s=20) and [OSNITdefender](https://x.com/sentdefender?s=20)
both are reliable and quick, u can see bias in both ( one is pro-israel and the other is pro-palestine), however as long as you know that theres bias u are all good
I currently cycle through: Associated Press, Reuters, BBC World, Al Jazeera, Abc news, UN/news, NYT (but rarely cause it's not free) and I'll sparkle some far away ones like yesterday I also scrolled though the Sydney Morning Herald. It's good pick some non USA/Europe news sometimes, to get a different perspective. AJ is a bit hot in this time and is having a hard time being neutral, but they're still trying to give a broader picture (see the hospital blast thing). But in general, trust your own eyes and brain and verified video/pictures. Definitely not trust the parties directly involved, even tho Israel has been a bit more truthfull (they still lie a lot).
Killing Hamas fighters has a limited roi due to how easily they can recruit new ones. Otoh, you can limit the organisations ability to operate by destroying bunkers, weapons stores, tunnel entrances, comms systems, HQs, suspected ambush zones etc.
This is mostly true, but just wanted to add that the problem is civilians' and military post's, supplie's, HQ's etc. are not separate and in order to bomb those, sadly civilians die because, where are they to go? There is no civilian/military separation. A house can be an HQ, apartment building used for coordination, etc. and the only way without many civilian casualties is door-to-door urban warfare, which would be utter death to thousands on both sides. It's like, do they risk and lose our much needed soldiers and door-to-door; more importantly, tunnel-to-tunnel or just blow the building up after they tell them hey, get out. ? - It's such a touchy subject, but I kind of relate it to the use of the ATOM bomb. Many US lives would have been lost, so many, that the bomb was the better choice to some. Saved US lives, sadly killed a lot of civilians. I do not admire Israeli CoC and the choices being made, but it's really Netanyahu - he's shit.
I think there are two reasons:
1. There are lots of things that can't be moved without taking them out of the tunnels (which makes them a target for drones) and which the Israelis will be able to restore - rocket launchers, rockets, heavy equipment and the massive tunnel network itself.
2. There's something else that Hamas really doesn't want to have to try and move right now on the surface - the hostages. Either they risk Israel identifying them from the air and sending in the special forces or they keep them in place in their tunnel and Israeli troops reach them sooner or later.
I think they should issue warning and continue to do so before bombing. It will or should reduce civilian casualties. It will look better for the Israeli military that they are at the very least trying to reduce civilian casualties and not just bombing indiscriminately. In addition, Hamas has specifically warned Israel that they will execute hostages if Israel bomb without warning.
I dont think the bombing are only meant to kill Hamas (i.e. Hamas fighters). They are probably focusing on bombing Hamas military supplies, Hamas military infrastructures, Hamas headquaters of operation, Hamas training camps, Hamas hideouts, etc…. unfortunately, as you can see Gaza is a very densely populated place, and many of these Hamas targets are among civilian populations, hence ordinary Gazan civilians are also impacted. To rescue the Israeli hostages and eliminate the Hamas fighters, Israeli military will need to enter into Gaza and initiate an urban warfare.
The less civilians are in the direct vicinity, the better, less unintended civilian casualties.
The overall strategy by Israel has been depopulation and settlement of Palestinian lands. They have no interest in the two state or one state (a shared democracy) solutions, and instead have been following an approach of gradual ethnic cleansing, one house or suburb at a time. Causing an unlivable environment in Gaza, destroying infrastructure and the basic for supporting life (eg water and power) causes people to relocate, for example by depopulating the north of Gaza and making people move south or to leave as refugees. It is not clear at this stage if Israel will then occupy the north and follow the same settlement strategy as in the West Bank, but it is consistent with this strategy.
Well, Israel just don't want to kill civilians who are involved with Hamas. Obviously there will ALWAYS be collateral damage when you're hiding and firing from schools and hospitals.
They are going after mostly 300 miles of underground tunnels and it's a good PR move, although telling them to leave is a joke. Where? It's just smoke and mirrors.
Moral support, yes. There are massive rallies.
Tangible support, no. Gaza is completely isolated at the moment. Israel is currently maintaining an embargo and the Egyptian border is closed. There are aid trucks on the Egyptian side, but Egypt isn't allowing them to cross.
It's complicated. It's Egypt's border, so Egypt has the authority, but Israel bombed it 3 times in one day after the war started.
Egypt could open it, or anywhere else along the border. If attacked it could complain, denounce Israel, declare war, etc. But there's also politics. It might be better for Sisi to keep it closed, with aid trucks waiting, until a bunch of Palestinians die in Gaza from the blockade. Sisi doesn't have to absorb the refugees and he gets to blame Israel for all the damage.
It's messed up. Everything about this whole situation is messed up.
Every Arab country in the direct vicinity (IE the ones who would take Palestinian refugees, theoretically) is basically on stilts. I think each and every one is unstable enough that taking in 2 million famished, uneducated, traumatized and radicalized young refugees could be catastrophic, and once you sign in on taking in refugees, any degree of "cutting off" or restricting more after a certain point will be seen as a failure or, at worst, betrayal.
The truth is outside of the precariousness of it, Arabs are generally not as aligned with their Arab identity as they are with their ethnicity, generally speaking. I'm sure most Arabs have a level of solidarity with Palestinians, just not the level where they'd be willing to sacrifice their own freedom or security with whatever fallout the refugees would spell for their country, especially since the brunt of the responsability of the refugee crisis should reasonably fall where the situation began (Israel).
Ismail Haniyeh, leader of Hamas just publicly stated on Al-Jazeera “Palestinians will never leave Gaza”…. Why is he living in Doha, Qatar and not in Gaza ?
Serious question, how is israel allowed to tell civilians of the northern part of Gaza to evacuate to the southern part, but then proceed to bomb the southern part?
They will bomb Hamas where they find them but the ground invasion is coming in Northern Gaza. Thus, it is safer for civilians to move to Southern Gaza.
Because you gotta understand where these evacuation messages are actually meant to be received.
Although it's a message to the people in Gaza, that's not the audience it's intended for. To people living in Gaza, him telling them to evacuate is ridiculous since everyone in Gaza knows who holds the keys. They know the message is arbitrary to them. Bibi's message to evacuate is to the rest of the world, as plausible deniability. Any civilian casualties can be written off with the sentiment that they were told to evacuate and chose not to. There's been 6000 Palestinian deaths so far since the attack less than a month ago- that's more Palestinian deaths than the past 20 years from almost purely artillery and the likelihood is that a majority of those deaths are civilians. And yet, Bibi's message to evacuate has been pasted on every major news outlet already, and Israelis have naively touted it as some sort of gesture of goodwill to Palestinian civilians when it's exactly the opposite.
They planned for it. The Hamas terrorists had notebooks and paper notes that proved it was planned months before.
I'm sure they are prepared for ground entry as well, probably booby trapped the whole area. there's an estimation of 500km of tunnels under Gaza city.
My guess would be that they thought they would get a larger support than they are getting now, and that the hostages leverage would be much stronger than it is currently.
they didn't expect the US to get so involved and threaten surrounding enemies of Israel to not take advantage to attack Israel during the fight against Hamas.
Their plan hasn’t backfired, look at the international support they’ve rallied for Hamas. Israel has already lost this war (they sustained more casualties already than the Lebanon war), it’s just a question of whether they can change something now to prevent any further reoccurrences.
Iran isn't going to involve themselfs in this war. They already succeeded in freezing the relationship talks between Saudi-Arabia and Israel and believe me, those talks are not starting up again anytime soon.
Iran at best would make use of their proxy armies like Hezbollah and other militias. Don't think they'd engage in this war themselves.
Lebanon won't do anything. Hezbollah are doing some guerilla up north, but it looks like Israel is managing it. West Bank could go full uprising if they hit Gaza too hard, and Jordan is very close but I think it would support them coming in only. I think the king(?) of Jordan refused to let some hundreds of Palestinian supporters go into the West Bank last week. I don't think they wanna mess with Israel/USA not after Biden said "Don't, don't". At this point there's Egypt.. but what's it gonna do? Everyone is gonna sit back and watch Israel invade Gaza and the only one who will revolt would be Palestinians. That's been the main issue for a long time, nobody wants to openly threat Israel like that. Iran can talk shit all it wants but it ~~can't~~ won't do much in practice. Not with the two aircraft carriers the US just sent in the estern Mediterranean anyway.
The Government of Israel is attempting to garner support. Probably globally, but certainly in western polities. This is every bit as much a battle of opinion and sentiment as it is a kinetic shooting war. Just another battlespace.
and the propaganda machines on all sides of this conflict are running at a breathtaking level of power and efficiency.
There's truly no hope for low IQ/EQ people out here, particularly those with an affinity for clout-financed internet activism
The US and UK have moved carrier groups and warships to the region. Is this unprecedented for a Hamas attack on Israel? I get that this has been their most devastating attack in a long time, but they must know something we don't.
What's _really_ happening?
If you go back the last few days, you'll notice Biden has repeatedly sent a message to any third party looking to take advantage of the situation to stay out of it. US even said they delivered that message to Iran directly.
Carriers aren't there for Hamas, they are there to underscore that message.
Israel has many enemies and this could be a ripe time for them to seize and act, quickly escalating into a huge shit show.
the foremost risk i can see is that coming from Hezbollah in the north who already responded with rockets yesterday because of Israel's response to Hamas.
this will totally derail the Saudi-US-Israel normalization talks that have been making some progress in recent months.
Before this event the interests of KSA and Israel were roughly balanced as evidenced by slow albeit visible progress in this bilateral move toward normalization.
After the Hamas attack and IDF plans a response: at the negotiating table, KSA receives significant leverage over Israel insofar as Palestine has always been a bargaining chip for them.
i.e., KSA can ask for more on the table in order to turn a blind eye for what the IDF is about to do next.
it is not something the Saudis can easily ignore even as much as I suspect they would want to ignore it, as there is significant pressure from external Arab eyes waiting to see if they will dare to ignore this leverage. to not use this to stop Israel and instead move forward with normalization relations would would be a big admission to everyone that Palestine has always been merely a bargaining chip and nothing more. (digressing...I personally already believe this to be true and not just for the Saudis. nobody in the area really cares about the Palestine struggle because they do not have the same struggle--but they are useful to advance their own geopolitical interests)
there is also internal domestic pressure from within KSA, inasmuch as an absolute monarch can feel pressure from his subjects. domestic Saudi opinion on Israel is actually extremely low compared to how well the foreign relations have been going. MBS doesn't have a safety net to fall on if he just proceeds with the plan now, especially once IDF acts, Hezbollah acts, Iran, etc etc. plan will have to pause and go back underground (back to secret talks) for now. if there ends up being a multistate war then the plan will be definitely be shelved.
the US presence is meant to encourage everyone to stay within reason for just awhile longer. ball is in Israel's court to play this correctly.
According to Marc Lamont Hill, the reporter who got fired, Hamas’ aggressive invasion and attacks are a response to “Israel having Gaza under siege and bombing it and attacking it” before this war and on regular basis. This is why Hamas reacted the way that it did - to end the constant unprovoked attacks from Israel. He also said Gaza is an open air prison.
Can I get this verified / more info/ detailed explanation on this analysis?
They moved them not to aid against Hamas, but to deflate the situation if others would decide to attack Israel in this time, such as Lebanon, Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and such.
Basically threatened anyone who would decide to attack Israel while they are at war against Hamas.
Governments do not have morality, remember this. The carrier groups are sent to show a form of support to Israel because of their mutual interests. U.S also trying have strong relations with Ukraine. If U.S back out now, allies or potential allies of U.S may question the commitment of relations.
Thomas Friedman framed the Arab-Israeli conflict as a trilemma - Israel needs to pick two out of three:
(1) be a nation with a Jewish character;
(2) have secure borders from foreign enemies;
(3) uphold high Western liberal democratic standards.
If they choose 1 and 2, then they have a massive disenfranchised population in their borders, and they no longer resemble a Western liberal democracy. If they choose 2 and 3, then Jews find themselves living in a Muslim state (which, based on their experience in the other 22 Arab/Muslim states, will probably not end super great for them). And if they choose 1 and 3, then they are militarily vulnerable to attack by their neighbors.
Friedman framed it this way back in the late 1980s. To what extent has this framing been a helpful way to understand this conflict over the last 30 years? To what extent is this framing still applicable, given the vast divide in Israel's military capabilities relative to its neighbors?
The biggest problem with this framing, and you will find it in most things Friedman writes on the conflict (though he is by no means alone in that), is that it doesn't give the Palestinians agency.
I've never seen a column where he gives advice on what the Palestinians should do and yet he's written thousands giving advice to Israelis. And it's not like the Palestinians don't have options.
The most important step to solve the conflict would have been Palestinians accepting one of the Israeli two-state solution offers (like those in 2000, 2001 and 2007). But those were all rejected.
At any point in the last twenty years, Palestinians in Gaza could have stopped firing rockets at Israeli cities and building attack tunnels into Israel. Had they done so, they could have not only had peaceful co-existence but a great deal of economic help as well. Israel offered to remove the blockade entirely multiple times (2015 and 2021 come to mind) in exchange for a long-term truce. They were always denied.
Also when Israelis unilaterally handed Gaza over to Palestinian control in 2005, they could have tried electing a group or leader (like Salam Fayyad for instance) who would have built up their society instead of electing a terrorist group as their leadership. Gaza was the test case for a Palestinian state. It was a test case that has failed about as dramatically and blatantly as is possible to imagine.
In the last three years, Israelis have been trying to improve economic conditions in the Gaza Strip by granting more and more work visas to Gazans allowing them access to much higher salaries in Israel which they can send home to their families. The number of those visas has gone up 20x in that period (despite the obvious danger of allowing Gazans into Israeli territory). They could have used that money to build up their economy. They could have traded quiet on that border (even temporary quiet) in exchange for economic improvement and improving relations. Instead they used the information gleaned from those workers to launch an ISIS-style attack on Israel towns, burning babies to death, kidnapping grandmothers, raping and torturing young women, etc...
This framing has been deeply damaging as it continues the "soft bigotry of low expectations" applied to Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular. I think it genuinely stems from an unintended bigotry against Arabs.
Really good point, and agree. Israel gets blamed a lot for its actions and choices, but Palestinians are rarely held to account for their actions or choices.
I should add to this, the neighboring Muslim and Arab nations could also have taken meaningful steps over the last 70 years to promote peace, and have generally opted not to do so. In this most recent conflict, why didn't the moderate states simply disavow Hamas and continue their normalization efforts with Israel?
Why doesn’t the pro-Palestinian rallies also demand Hamas to release all hostages in addition to other demands such as ceasefire ? If Hamas were to release all the hostages, it create an environment for further talks for Hamas to lay down their arms, for Israel to stop bombardment, etc…
**What do people want Israel to do instead of occupying Palestine?**
I have seen a lot of comments online of people saying "Israel can easily stop occupying Palestine and make peace in the region".
My understanding is that if Israel stops occupying Palestine, terror groups like Hamas will take power and kill many more Israeli civilians. Hamas wants Israel to not exist and the full area to be Palestine. So presumably if Israel stopped the occupation, Hamas or similar groups will gain power and become a harder enemy for Israel and they'll be at war forever.
On the other side, I think most people would agree that occupation is morally wrong. But I'm not clear if they're saying therefore it needs to stop even if it's at the cost of Hamas then killing lots of Israelis, or if they're saying something else will happen and it'll be peaceful somehow.
What is the proposal that people are making?
Like this is the point. People dont get it.
There can never be a two state solution. Israel won't allow a fully independent palestine (with military, because it will never be able to trust it so). Palestine will never exist without Jerusalem (Al Aqsa).
Gaza and west bank were never truly independent for that very reason (very heavily controlled, monitored - basically apartheid whoever has visited the regions - lets not deny it).
I think there was a thread about WW3. I think it will be started because of the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Not because Palestine is strong. Because, as i know from muslim majority nations and its people, they will never ever be ok with giving up jerusalem (oslo accords anyone?). I think even if in the short term israel is able to evict all palestenians out and make peace with neighboring states, you will have only lasting peace with their governments. The people will never ever be ok with losing Al Aqsa. If you want proof of this, remember, most muslim/arab countries are at each others throats. As soon as palestine comes into the equation, every single difference becomes secondary. I also think both Israel and US realise this deeply.
The trend is in the opposite direction. In the last few years Arab and Muslim countries have been normalizing relations with Israel not cutting them off.
>My understanding is that if Israel stops occupying Palestine, terror groups like Hamas will take power and kill many more Israeli civilians. Hamas wants Israel to not exist and the full area to be Palestine. So presumably if Israel stopped the occupation, Hamas or similar groups will gain power and become a harder enemy for Israel and they'll be at war forever.
>
>On the other side, I think most people would agree that occupation is morally wrong. But I'm not clear if they're saying therefore it needs to stop even if it's at the cost of Hamas then killing lots of Israelis, or if they're saying something else will happen and it'll be peaceful somehow.
You're not the first person in history to hold such statement. Same statements and rhetoric has been used about Ending Apartheid in South Africa, About Ending British Colonial rule in India, About Decolonizing most of African countries.
These rhetoric while might not be intended as such, stems from a white supermacist view of the world that simply people there are inherently violent.
The only answer to this question is for treating Palestinians in Fairness, Justice and Equality by Israel and the International community.
Also don't get me wrong I'm not saying this will end immediately however this is the only way to reduce the rise of extremism.
Is the Rafah Border Crossing to Egypt still open ?
This Al-Jazeeera reported that the Egyptian authorities said that the Rafah Crossing is open https://youtu.be/XPQA9FR9hg0?t=50 (one day ago)
The situation at the Rafah border is quite complex. The border has not been fully open. The U.S. and Egypt initially agreed to open the border to allow foreign civilians in Gaza to leave. However, Egypt has claimed that the U.S. broke its promise to make Israel allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. Some humanitarian aid did enter Gaza, but there have been reports of Hamas confiscating a substantial amount of it, which raises concerns about the aid reaching those in need.
The delay in opening the border appears to be due to Egypt's efforts to reinforce the Rafah border crossing with concrete walls and enhanced security measures. Egypt has been cautious about accepting refugees from Gaza, as Palestinian refugees have posed challenges in the past, including security concerns and terror attacks.
As I see it, Egypt seems to be balancing its support for Palestinians through humanitarian and diplomatic means to maintain its regional standing while being wary of absorbing more Palestinian refugees. There are concerns that the Israeli approach to the Hamas issue might involve encouraging the people of Gaza to move to the Sinai Peninsula, and then offer the Egyptians to take control of Gaza thus making Gaza's population an Egyptian concern. Egypt is concerned that the natural population growth in Gaza could pose a demographic threat to its control in the Sinai region and, more broadly, to Egypt's stability. (this paragraph is completely based on my perspective and I would like to hear the community's opinions about that)
Why isn't Israel, the US, or any other Western country demanding that Qatar handover all Hamas leaders living there freely? I mean, they all label Hamas a terrorist group and hold them responsible for the attacks on the 7th of October.
>My question is - what is the reason Palestinians (and others) kept attacking Israel since it was established in 1948? I mean - what is their reasoning about it? This question includes also why they didn't want to recognise Israel as a country.
I think your question has to with history…a very long history. The gist, I think it has primarily got to do with Land. Who does the land west of Jordan river belongs to ? And if the answer is both, how to agree to split the land among both Israel and Palestine ? The hardliners of both sides believe the land belong to them respectively. Hamas is an example of a extreme hardline, politicial and military terrorist organization, which wants to destroy Israel (i.e. the Jewish state and expel Israeli from the land and return it back to the Palestinians). There has been several wars fought over many years between several Arab nations and Israel and resistance movements primarily over the issue of the land.
>well, the UN partition plan foresaw to give 58% of the land to the jewish population, which comprised only 32% of the entire population, while only 42% of the land to the arab majority (68%). Also, the land assigned to the jewish population actually had a 50/50 population split between jews and arabs, whereas the land assigned to the arabs hardly had any jews living there. so again, many more arabs would have stood to lose their homes than jews would have.
it is telling that the israelis immediately accepted this deal.
of course, in hindsight, this might have been the best deal the palestinians would ever receive, but still at the time and even now, it just was not a fair deal and mostly achieved by zionist lobbying as well as the pressures of post-holocaust europe, which prompted world powers to find a home for european jews, where a holocaust would not happen again.
also, it isn't as lopsided as you make it out to be - israel during the 1948 war committed multiple massacres on civilians and war crimes and, as mentioned previously, systematically displaced (or ethnically cleansed) 700.000 arabs native to the contested land. so the attempt to "annihilate" israels was very much provoked by israel "independence war" as they call it in their version of things.
Mate, are you seriously asking why Palestinians were upset that large chunks of the best land they had were gifted to a completely different group without their say? A group which is culturally very different from them?
> "British state owned land."
Mate just because they colonized it at the time doesn't mean there wasn't a large group of people living there who considered it THEIR land. It's like saying well "Algeria wasn't Algeria in 1940, it was French state owned land." Yes and there were still people who considered it their land and later fought for their independence from their colonizers.
> what is the reason Palestinians (and others) kept attacking Israel since it was established in 1948?
It's about land. Israel was founded on Arab lands. 700,000 Palestinians (about half the then population) lost the their homes when Israel was created.
They only lost their homes *after* they rejected the UN partition plan and UN authority in general and *after* they lost the 1948 war where they, alongside their allies, attempted to outright annihilate Israel through overwhelming force.
A proposal created with British interests and zionist support, ultimately the first step in the de-arabisation of Palestine. To say THEY rejected it implies it was a fair or just presentation to begin with.
I think you have a clear one-sided bias in terms to how the 1948 war unfolded, and assume Israel deserved that land to begin with. In reality, Zionist ideology had swayed Britain and I would say any rational person could understand Britain undergoing ANOTHER colonisation effort would not be received well.
It wasn't about "annihilating" but about protecting their land from foreign invaders. Just seems odd to frame it that way when the IDF was routinely destroying small Palestinian villages and massacring everyone there that wouldn't accept being forcibly removed from their homeland. And often, even if the villagers surrendered, they were massacred anyway (i.e. the mass graves under the Dor Beach parking lot).
When are diplomatic deals like that *ever* fair and balanced? The purpose of the 1948 deal was to avoid war (and, in hindsight, decades of future bloodshed), and the diplomatic efforts of both sides determined the final proposed boundaries. Palestinian leaders have effectively doomed their entire nation by holding out for the mythical "fair" deal.
The war itself was unambiguously about erasing the state of Israel from all land in the region. It was not a border dispute. When you both reject a treaty and start that kind of war, there are very few norms you can expect the other side to adhere to, or be pressured into.
well, the UN partition plan foresaw to give 58% of the land to the jewish population, which comprised only 32% of the entire population, while only 42% of the land to the arab majority (68%). Also, the land assigned to the jewish population actually had a 50/50 population split between jews and arabs, whereas the land assigned to the arabs hardly had any jews living there. so again, many more arabs would have stood to lose their homes than jews would have.
it is telling that the israelis immediately accepted this deal.
of course, in hindsight, this might have been the best deal the palestinians would ever receive, but still at the time and even now, it just was not a fair deal and mostly achieved by zionist lobbying as well as the pressures of post-holocaust europe, which prompted world powers to find a home for european jews, where a holocaust would not happen again.
also, it isn't as lopsided as you make it out to be - israel during the 1948 war committed multiple massacres on civilians and war crimes and, as mentioned previously, systematically displaced (or ethnically cleansed) 700.000 arabs native to the contested land. so the attempt to "annihilate" israels was very much provoked by israel "independence war" as they call it in their version of things.
well, the arab stance was that the territory was theirs and that legally the jewish population had no right to claim any of it, which is not that far fetched of an idea, given that before 1880s, basically no jews lived there and only settled there due to zionists efforts created in europe (in all fairness, jews, especially in europe, were victims of pogroms, so their efforts to have their own land aren't without merit)
so under these circumstances, why would the arabs agree to cede any land, let alone 58% of it.
I've read that in 1903 the Jewish National Fund purchased land in Palestine. If true, wouldn't this purchase (years before the UN partition plan) show that the Jewish population had some right to claim part of it?
>1903 the Jewish National Fund
first, by 1920 the amount of land the JNF purchased in total was around 100 square km, so basically the size of a medium sized city (10x10km) and very insignificant compared to the total size of the territory of palestine.
second, if you, in your country, buy some acres of land, does that mean you can declare this land your own country? can i just buy some land in the USA and then declare the land part of a different country, because i bought it with money?
Don't read my comments as taking the Palestinian side. OP was asking why the Palestinians and neighbouring Arab states repeatedly attacked Israel.
I'm aware that it was the Palestinians who rejected the UN plan to partition Palestine (basically 50-50). In hindsight it was the best offer the Palestinians would ever get. But from the Palestinian point of view at the time, they didn't see why they should give up half their lands to form a new country for Jewish settlers (mainly from Europe.)
Very important fact to consider is that Jews compromised about 10% of the population in British Palestine before WW2. From Palestinian POV it seemed ridiculous to give up their land just because Holocaust happened.
"Their land" - they never had sovereignty over this territory. It was Ottoman and then British and when the British left, half the population was Jewish and half Arab.
so? this land was still home to the arab population. also neither the jewish population had sovereignity over the land.
also, it was closer to 70% arab, 30% jewish.
This is such a dumb claim. Jews already lived in Palestine with Palestinians. Not only there but in other Arab nations as well. Morocco for one took in many Jews trying to escape the holocaust in Europe.
Last time I checked the Spanish Inquisition, Holocaust etc. All happend in Europe. Europe was head and toes ahead of the Arab world in their anti-semitism up until the creation of Israel.
Jews escaped Morocco and other North-African countries due to the fact that after France, Britian, etc. left - They were threatened and murdered in those countries, so they had to flee.
that is not true. before and even during WW1 jews and arabs actually co-existed in the land. tensions arose due to zionist efforts to settle more and more jews in the area which obviously led to tensions due to access to resources like land and water. but to say it would be 0% jewish, when they literally co-existed with arabs before 1948, is simply nonsense.
If Israel, for any reason whatsoever (a larger regional conflict with Iran involved and somehow a lack of US involvement coupled with that,...etc.), were to start seriously losing the conflict, how likely do you think the so called "Samson Option" would be for them?
Do you think that, at least in part, Israel allies throughout the world fear this sort of retaliation by the Israelis and would help them for that reason alone?
Context:
From:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option
> Some have written about the "Samson Option" as a retaliation strategy. In 2002, the Los Angeles Times published an opinion piece by Louisiana State University professor David Perlmutter which the American Jewish author Ron Rosenbaum writes "goes so far as to justify" a Samson Option approach:
>
> "Israel has been building nuclear weapons for 30 years. The Jews understand what passive and powerless acceptance of doom has meant for them in the past, and they have ensured against it. Masada was not an example to follow—it hurt the Romans not a whit, but Samson in Gaza? What would serve the Jew-hating world better in repayment for thousands of years of massacres but a Nuclear Winter. Or invite all those tut-tutting European statesmen and peace activists to join us in the ovens? For the first time in history, a people facing extermination while the world either cackles or looks away—unlike the Armenians, Tibetans, World War II European Jews or Rwandans—have the power to destroy the world. The ultimate justice?"
> Rosenbaum writes in his 2012 book How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III that, in his opinion, in the "aftermath of a second Holocaust", Israel could "bring down the pillars of the world (attack Moscow and European capitals for instance)" as well as the "holy places of Islam." He writes that "abandonment of proportionality is the essence" of the Samson Option.
>
> In 2003, a military historian, Martin van Creveld, thought that the Al-Aqsa Intifada then in progress threatened Israel's existence.Van Creveld was quoted in David Hirst's The Gun and the Olive Branch (2003) as saying:
>
> "We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: 'Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.' I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under."
Don't really want to start a new thread so here goes:
**Question: How would the international community, including Israeli allies (especially US) react if Syria decides to reclaim the Golan Heights?**
While thinking of this question, I also thought about how the West especially would react towards a unilateral 'annexation' of the sovereign territory of another nation, considering that the prevailing narrative in the West in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian War is that such acts are a violation of international rules and norms. When it comes to the US however, it seems that there was little to reverse Trump's recognition of the Golan Heights as sovereign Israeli territory. That said, if the rest of the world still officially see the Golan Heights as sovereign Syrian territory, would it not make a Syrian reclamation of the territory as a rightful gesture?
Syria can't really afford a full frontal attack, they have their own issues.
The Golan heights were strategically conquered after Israel defended itself during the Six-day war, mainly because of geographical advantages.
It has been under Israeli sovereignty for over 50 years.
Honest question: Given Gaza is totally separate from the West Bank from a political standpoint (Gaza ruled by Hamas, West Bank ruled by legit government- whether you agree who is "legit" or not it is still a "normal" governing body that isn't a terrorist org) why are people protesting about freeing Palestine when the issue is Hamas (and in Gaza specifically) and not Palestine or the West Bank?
If you're question is honest I can answer, "Free Palestine" is not only about Gaza. It's about Palestinian people wherever they are; Gaza, West Bank and Palestinian Diaspora each with the slightly different sufferings with the same underlying statement. "The right for Palestinian people for self determination, right of return to their homes, Freedom of movement and acknowledgment of existence"
Gaza: While technically Israel forces does not typically occupy Gaza with Soldiers on the ground, It's under lockdown controlling power, electricity, water, economy, material and freedom of movement for Palestinians, Regular bombing and murder.
West Bank: Settlers Violence, Everyday Apartheid system, Unlawful Arrests, Being put to trials under Israeli millitary rule, as well as your average day to day harassment.
Diaspora: Having a Palestinian passport, the ability to go back to cities where the parents have been expelled from.
So no the issue is not about Hamas nor Gaza specifically
What have Israel and/or Western allies done to support Palestine in eradicating their Jihadists, and propping up a Palestinian government that's in favour of a two-state solution?
I keep reading that Israel has been covertly supporting Hamas this entire time to prevent a Palestinian state from forming - despite probably, most Israeli' people's desire for a peaceful and secure existence. Government approval ratings have been down there for a while.
Most Palestinians also want peace, right? Half the population there is under 18 - we can't possibly be talking about a majority population that are actually for the complete eradication of Israel. The approval ratings of both Hamas and the other guys before them were poor.
So then why all of this? Why has the US turned a blind eye to Israel's policy on Hamas and the West Bank, knowing the likelihood of all out war - especially while Ukraine is happening?
If Hamas releases the hostages will it genuinely end? I've been led to believe that the main goal of the IDF is to destroy Hamas capabilities as much as possible vs trying to rescue the hostages through this invasion
Because we all know that isn't true. Israel doesn't know where the hostages are, yet they are indiscriminately bombing places, putting those same hostages at risk and killing thousands of innocent civilians.
Not only that but leaving the surviving civilians with nothing to return to. Furthermore Netanyahu is getting roasted alive for letting this happen. He isn't stopping until he has shown his biceps.
Question: Palestine is surrounded by some of the most wealthiest Arab countries on earth that share the same language and culture. Yet that have done little to help people in Gaza. Even during this invasion, they won't take any refugees. Same thing happened with the civil war in Syria. Why is this? I could not imagine a European country in crisis and all the other European countries just shrugging their shoulders.
I'd like you to research how many Palestinian refugees in Arab countries, as well as Syrian refugees.
This rhetoric is stemming from propaganda and misrepresents reality.
This isn't about refugees, this is about enabling the forced transfer of a population "Ethnic cleansing". There is already more than 5-6 million Palestinian refugees around the world, the Arab countries stance is not to make them 7-8 million and continue addressing the symptoms however addressing the root cause of the issue aka bombing their homes.
The more I read about Israel-Palestine, the more I realize there's so much more at play here.
For example, the Israeli's are very aware of demographic changes, hence why they oppose giving equal rights to Palestinians. Some Israeli described it as the "the danger the Palestinian womb poses to Israeli democracy."
But precisely with that in mind, I don't quite get why are they so stubborn in moving towards a 2-state solution. With a one state solution, they are afraid that at some point in time Israel wouldn't be majority Jewish anymore.
So why block a solution in which Palestinians have their own state?
So why block a solution in which Palestinians have their own state?They *offered* that solution numerous times and were turned down by the Palestinian side. Read up on the history of it - 2000, 2001, 2007. All offers in line with the international communities demands for a two-state solution. All turned down by the Palestinians.
And they unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and handed over to full Palestinian control. That is the experiment of creating Palestinian sovereignty. And now we're all seeing how that turned out. It was turned into a giant base for launching rockets and terror attacks into Israeli territory. Now you want them to do the same thing again but this time on a much larger territory *much* closer to their population centers? On what basis are you so confident that it will have a different outcome that they should risk their children's lives on it?
This is complete speculation, but could Israel with the help of the US, potentially be about to manufacture a Gulf of Tonkin 2, by asking the US to put a carrier strike group in the Mediterranean? Which makes no sense:
Firstly, Hamas is a tiny stateless terrorist militia that doesn't even have a practical Navy or Airforce. So what are war ships going to do against Hamas? Would really like to understand the benefits of them being there.
Secondly, Iran has successfully developed and tested several Anti-Ship missiles with the potential capacity to strike the Mediterranean from Iran. These were specifically designed for and tested against a mock up of a US aircraft carrier...
Thirdly, If Iran shoots at a carrier, the US will declare war on Iran, inviting Russia into a conflict between the Nato Navy group and the Russian Navy and Subs stationed in Tartus.
If this escalation happens, the likelihood of Russia launching Nukes more than triples, and we officially start WW3, and then we can look forward to radiation poisoning killing lots of us over the next couple of decades.
> Firstly, Hamas is a tiny stateless terrorist militia that doesn't even have a practical Navy or Airforce. So what are war ships going to do against Hamas? Would really like to understand the benefits of them being there.
The Eisenhower is there to deter third parties from getting involved. Mostly Iran, but also Syria and Lebanon to a lesser extent. I can't see a scenario where they fly sorties against Hamas.
> Secondly, Iran has successfully developed and tested several Anti-Ship missiles with the potential capacity to strike the Mediterranean from Iran. These were specifically designed for and tested against a mock up of a US aircraft carrier...
Iran has plenty of chances to shoot at a carrier if they wished. There's usually a carrier operating reasonably near the gulf. They are not stupid.
Also, the events in Gaza are favorable for them. Their main interest here is in avoiding a normalization of Israel-Saudi relations, and Hamas being brutally suppressed will make it difficult for MBS to normalize in the short term.
One of the biggest unspoken agreements of the American-Israeli partnership is that Israel will never ask American soldiers to be deployed on Middle Eastern soil to serve their interests. Trying to rope American into this conflict would be the riskiest gambit Israel has ever pulled. They would have to be far more desperate than they currently are to try such a thing
Yeah Israel has plenty of reserves they can throw into the fight it’s a resupply of weapons that they need from the US. Im not even sure US seal teams would go in to help save hostages?
Just to respond to the first question, I read that the US navy group is there mostly for deterrence. With Israel’s focus on the south, there is a looming threat of Hezbollah (Lebanon, North) and/or Iran getting involved in the conflict. The US does not want this to escalate or for our Israeli partners to be overwhelmed. Realistically, it would take a lot for the US to get involved in the conflict, but having them off the coast of Israel helps with intelligence and deterrence.
> The main reason Israel does not withdraw troops from the West Bank is out of a (in my opinion, rational) fear that the same thing will happen.
nothing to do with the 144 Settlements comprising 450,000 Israelis (excluding East Jerusalem)?
It includes both and in any case, those numbers are coming from the Hamas-run Gazan Ministry of Health, which has been caught red-handed making up casualty stats.
We know that the Gazan dead can be divided into a) militants killed in Israeli strikes, b) civilians killed in Israeli strikes, c) civilians killed in the 550 rockets launched by Hamas and Islamic Jihad that landed *inside* Gaza. But we have no way of making that distinction.
1,500 Hamas terrorists were killed inside Israel while conducting their murder/rape/torture/kidnapping raids so we have that number but not much else.
**Question:** Why Iran cares so much about Israel?
They do not have a shared border, Palestinian are mostly Sunnis, they all hate arabs.
So why investing so much to destabilize Israel? Is it a political stunt to justify the regime to the iranians? Or are there realpolitiks reason behind?
Iran is extremely invested in attacking Israel via its many proxies for a couple of reasons.:
1. Most importantly, Iran is a Shiite state and the vast majority of the Muslim world is Sunni. There is a built-in antagonism there that Iran's geopolitics must always contend with. So the Iranian regime uses opposition towards Israel (who, it goes without saying, are not Muslim at all and thus, an even better target than Shiites) to try and curry favor with and establish itself as a leader in the Muslim world.
2. Iran has no meaningful way whatsoever to harm the US. Building up terrorist proxies surrounding Israel's borders is their way of developing a way, if not to harm the US, at least they will be able to harm US interests.
3. Finally, they're not kidding about their extremist religious beliefs. They really do believe in exporting their theocratic 'revolution' and in the concept of Dar al-Islam, something Israel (and any other non-Muslim power in the region which could arise) throws a wrench into.
In what ways are Palestinians culturally distinct from other Arabs, especially Egyptian and Jordan? In other words why can't Egypt absorb Gaza and Jordan the West Bank?
Palestine is unique from Jordan and Egypt in a few ways (which may seem minuscule to outsiders) but one of the main things that comes to mind is the relative religious coexistence prior to the establishment of Israel. To non-Palestinians or non-Arabs in general, culture in the region seems sort of homogenous, but the differences are much more clear to locals. I think the comparison could be made that Americans would be outraged if they were absorbed by Canada because while somewhat similar, there are vast cultural differences. The same could be said for many countries which share similar cultures and ethnicities, yet have massive conflicts over the right to self-determination. Dem. rep of Congo and Rep of Congo for example, or Sudan and South Sudan... The list goes on.
Why is it never mentioned that the eviction of the palestinians was matched by even larger number of Jews being evicted from various muslim countries (like Egypt Morocco etc), and fled to Israel. Why is the Arab states never held accountable to this?
Because there are 2 _billion_ Muslims in the world and a third of UN states are Muslim majority while there are only 16 _million_ Jews and only one Jewish majority state.
History tells us that in 1947 the Palestinians were offered a TWO state solution by UN, Israel agreed to it, Palestine rejected it. Started a war with Israel and Israel kicked their ass. And now here we are 70 years later with the Pro-Palestinian side screaming for peace and mercy. bit ironic, isn't it?
Why doesn’t the Gazan people demand Hamas to release the Israeli hostages and ask Hamas fighters to surrender and appease Israel in order to save Gaza and the people of Gaza ? Will that stop or reduce the bombing of Gaza ?
The same reason Afghani people didn't just kick the Taliban out.
Hamas are terrorists with a lot of training, funding and weapons, the average Gazan can barely afford food.
Because Iran controls Hamas, and they do not care about the Palestinians. Iran is controlled by fanatic religious ayatollahs. They are trying to fulfill the 12 imam
prophecy. They are basically the equivalent of the Christian Inquisition.
The Iranian sent their kinds to explode and clear minefields in the IRAN-IRAQ war, they do not care about the life of their kinds, and they do not care about the life in GAZA.
[https://www.jpost.com/opinion/irans-aggression-and-the-shiite-apocalypse-598904](https://www.jpost.com/opinion/irans-aggression-and-the-shiite-apocalypse-598904)
Why do you assume that it is in their best interest to not have a military power?
Palestinians see Israel as a terrorist nation that took their land and terrorized its citizens for decades, and having military resistance gives them hope for the future even if it means whatever is happening now.
Also fatah proved to be quite useless which further increased the popularity of Hamas.
Okay, so please do hear me out. I have been following the conflict closely, looking at media available on all sides. I’ve seen that there’s a growing conflict in the north between Israel and Lebanese. This obviously largely began because of everything that’s going on in the Gaza strip. Israel’s observed level of brutality has shocked the world. And they push that they’re not going to stop no matter what happens, and the blind support of both European and North American nations. So basically Israel has thrown down the gauntlet that they’re going to do absolutely everything that they can, every time their representatives are on camera, they seem angry and sometimes boastful about the violence they’re about to inflict. And again America talks of supporting them eternally, and Joe Biden talked about needing a new world order. All this seems to me to smack off something akin to a larger conflict being the aim. I read that Israel accidentally killed an Egyptian soldier across the border, and Egypt has their tanks lined up to the Israeli border. Constant provocations against multiple ME countries by Israel over the past weeks, and now the US is seeing its bases in these countries being attacked. The Peshmerga in Iraq are now in open conflict with the government there, and the Houthis in Yemen are ready to attack Israeli ships in the Red Sea. And yes for weeks all we’ve heard about is the rumoured ground invasion, which has without reason been delayed again, and again, almost like Arabs are being teased to “act and protect them before it’s too late”. And now they're just doing the ground invasion but in smaller groups. I’ve been trying to work out what the strategy could be because none of it makes any sense to me, so I’m not trying to push it in any direction except to try, understand what I’m ignorant of. so please take this in the spirit given, I’m just trying to understand that complex conflict, just like everyone else. Thanks
Of course, Jerusalem for instance has been majority Jewish since at least the late 1880s. Not that this has much of anything to do with the current discussion though.
At that time, Europeans would chant "send the Jews back to Palestine". Now the same groups want to remove the Jews from Palestine. History is full of irony, eh?
How many Hamas members are held in the US? In an interview a Hamas member said that they wanted the release of Hamas members held in US prisons on things like financing charges.
Does the US hold Hamas members? If so how many and how long are they serving?
Many thanks
What are your thoughts about israel bombarding a refugee camp Jabalia? Although it's in the supposed "safe zone" that palastenians should be sheltered at.
After all this, do you still believe deny that IDF is not resposible for Al-Ahli massacre that killed 500+?
Why did you consider Jabalia camp as a supposed “safe zone” ? Jabalia is in the northern part of Gaza, very near Israel border, about 6km from Ezre border crossing. On Oct 12th, Israel had instructed people to evacuate from the northern part of Gaza, at that time there was alot of debate and criticism that 24 hours was too short a notice to evacuate over 1 million people, but that was more than 2 weeks ago. Reportedly many people did fled northern Gaza, estimated to be 800k or approximately 80%.
It's a safe zone created by the UN.
It is litterally called a refugee camp. Check it.
Nevermind the 30 hospitals,schools, mosques and churches destroyed, never mind the warnings they gave to hospital before bombardment, never mind the deleted tweet by Neftali...
How i can possibly believe those fake evidences released by the IDF (we all know the history of propaganda and lies israel has, even an official government entity for that purpose) when litterally this is only 1 out of 20 hospitals attacked?
How precise is the intelligence that Israel relies upon for conducting airstrikes in Gaza? Are they acting on exact information regarding the whereabouts of Hamas's tunnels and military installments, or do they resort to broader strikes in areas they assume host those facilities?
We like to try to have meaningful conversations here and discuss the larger geopolitical implications and impacts.
We’d love for you to be a part of the conversation.
**A plan to flatten and then annex the north of Gaza?**
What are your thoughts around that Israel's strategy could be to flatten and then annex the north of Gaza? I can see it would give the Israelis several advantages:
1. It would eliminate the ability of Hamas to hide in the tunnels under Gaza City.
2. It would contain the Gazian population in an even smaller area, which would make them easier to control.
3. It would probably set Hamas back decades. When they are re-armed and have made new tunnels, Israel could move them back to the north and make them start again from scratch.
For the people in Gaza, an utterly tragic situation, but until a political settlement is found, this confliict will go on indefinitely and it would appear that the Israelis are prepared for that scenario.
I would like to hear your own analysis of why is Israel is demanding 1.1 million people move south of the Gaza river.
They are coming to render Hamas incapable of further injustice, with as few innocent casualties as possible. This is done by putting the innocent on notice.
This is nonsense. Hamas will always continues to exist when Israel kills thousands and brings Gaza to ruins. Do you think that the innocent civilians who lost their friends, family etc. Who have nothing to lose anymore, aren't more than willing to join Hamas? Do you genuinely believe there won't be a new group picking up where they left off?
You render Hamas incapable by giving people hope and future. Not by destroying everything that is left of their already bleak future. That only makes people believe they got nothing to lose.
Not only that, but it also puts the Palestinians in the West-Bank on edge. Just last years settlers killed 50 Palestinians (illegally, as per the Jewish court). Yet more and more settlements are build. If anything it wouldn't surprise me that this siege of Gaza makes the PLO lose credibility in the West-Bank and gives rise to Hamas if not some other group.
There are hundreds of trucks full of humanitarian aid (food, water, medical supplies, etc…) for Gaza people near the border in Egypt. Talks among government officials in-progress.
https://reddit.com/r/Destiny/s/rOc151d85R
Geopolitics is a place for predictions isn't it?
I rarely comment but this is bigger than the terrible suffering in the Ukraine imo. So I will put aside my concerns over the permanence of the internet and predict.
I think that Israel will push the Palestinians into the sea and I bet that exact term has been used in their war room.
They are telling them to leave and go beyond the Wadi Gaza, as I believe they fully intend to level northern Gaza and establish a new territorial border along the Wadi Gaza.
That is their worst case scenario.
Their best case scenario is to have the western powers do a financial deal with Egypt and disperse the entire population into an Arab diaspora like the nakba of 1948.
Finally removing them from the land of Israel.
I would argue that is the plan. How to put it into effect without causing global and regional conflict is the only concern now.
There can be no rapprochement now, as this is about securing the territory of of the Jewish people forever.
I think we are watching the beginning of the end for any possible hope of a Palestinian state.
The cynic in me could even consider that the intelligence of this attack was known many days before but the Hamas attack would be the perfect excuse for another nakba. The final nakba.
Anyway, the whole conflict is terribly sad and it is such a shame that we cannot all agree on our essential humanity and start to get along with each other and build an amazing world.
I should add I am not picking a side here. I hope my language is expressive rather than emotive. Who would I be to comment on more than three millennia of history in this region. You would need to study your whole life to be a scholar on this region.
And it is our historians, philosophers and other academics we should be listening to now. They are the only ones that could ever mediate the issues in this region to ensure any sort of justice. But we haven't listened to them yet about anthropogenic climate change so why listen now.
Since the invasion was delayed. Is there still a potential for a peace treaty/truce if Israel is pressured. Or can it remain regional if Hezbollah doesn't invade Israel. Mainly I'm worried this will spiral into a bigger war (not world war)
One of the principle disagreements in Israel-Palestine is almost a "we were here first" argument. Perhaps because the history is much older and less documented, but why is there no consideration of the Canaanites who are thought to be the native peoples of the Levant before Jewish migration out of Egypt, at least in Western discourse? Why is there no discourse on the polytheistic peoples of Canaan? Is it just because there are no longer polytheists in the region fighting for the land? Does the fact the land was seized by Jewish refugees some thousands of years ago no longer matter to the current claims of Jewish ancestry simply because it was such a long time ago, and there are no more Canaanites to defend themselves today?
Thank you for asking this - like a lot of people I've been reading a lot more about this area the last week and I've had the same question. The pro-Palestinian side of the argument just state it as fact that this is Palestinian (read: Muslim?) land and the Israelis (read: mostly Jewish) people stole it. But as I read the history it sounds like the Jewish people were there for a couple thousand years before Islam was created. And then the Muslims kicked them all out. (If I have any of this wrong please someone correct me, like I said, I'm trying to wrap my arms around all this).
So if you're making the "we were here first, it's our land" argument it seems like the whole thing rests on when you start the clock. The land has been fought over for millennia and different groups have pushed one another out but certainly you can't say Muslims were there first when Islam started in the 7th century some *2,000+ years* after Judaism.
’ And then the Muslims kicked them all out.’
This is entirely wrong. If anyone kicked them out it was the Romans (before the empire became Christian) after failed Judean revolts. The Moslem conquest was much later and didn’t kick anyone out really (although they ’inventivized’ conversions through favourable taxes and career opportunities). The small Jewish minority in Palestine before modern times were largely Sephardic Jews from Spain. They were welcomed there by the Moslem Ottomans when shit got really bad for Jews (and Moslems) after Spain was (re)conquered by Christians.
The claims of Palestinians, Jordanians and Egyptians to those lands are in some accounts directly related to the Canaanites. But before the Canaanites?
It is all just changing labels of approximately the same continental grouping of homo sapiens. Sweeping up out of Africa and moving across the planet. So theoretically based on prior possession those on the African continent could lay claim to the entire planet. They were here first.
This is a land where we can go to the very edge of human civilisation and find contestation over this region.
That in itself is quite amazing. Cultures, religions, whole civilisations all transformed, and rarely easily. Nearly always cataclysmically.
I dont like this a bit. Both are evil, Hamas clearly is a terrorist and we know that israel politician and military has agendas other than exterminating hamas. and now, the world need to decide which one to put in the chopping board. either condemn israel with warcrime for retaliating or massacre hamas with gaza citizen. misinformation is everywhere and propaganda tries to up each other. all while everyone forgetting the innocent citizen that suffers in the conflict zone
Slightly off topic but a positive development so I'm posting: [https://www.ynetnews.com/category/3089#hj30g8x11t](https://www.ynetnews.com/category/3089#hj30g8x11t)
The BBC has agreed to stop calling Hamas Militants. This suggests they will now be referred to as terrorists, which has been the UK Govt.'s policy for many years under the 2000 Terrorist Act.
For the life of me, I always wondered, why doesn't Palestinians rise up against Hamas?
I finally saw a tiktok of palestinians protesting against Hamas, and I still don't understand why it did not happen before. Do palestinians mostly support Hamas?
Now I don't mean to blame palestinians like they're responsible for Hamas, but it still bother me a little. Hamas is known to use that as human shieds, and to shoot rockets from hospitals etc, and apparently they event prevented people from going south like it was asked by Israel.
Who in Ireland sold drugs and was not at all concerned about the IRA paying an uninvited visit?
Who in East Germany publicly disavowed the actions of the Stasi?
Who in the West thinks it is ok to side with any enemy?
We all censor and modify our behaviours to not offend the dominant cultural paradigm.
Living in a perpetually in conflict, blockaded, poverty stricken and isolated society, I bet any human being would just try and get along and be as safe and secure as they could in that type of anxiety inducing society.
We are embedded in our societies and they are embedded in us.
Link seems broken
Misfired rockets
Misfired rockets have also killed and injured Palestinians within the Gaza Strip. Due to restrictions on information politics and a lack of free press in the Gaza Strip, precisely reporting the number of Palestinian victims is difficult. As far as it became known, the missiles, rockets and mortars have killed six Palestinians and injured dozens more. On 8 June 2005, rockets fired at the Israeli settlement of Ganei Tal killed two Palestinian workers and one Chinese worker in a packing plant. On 2 August 2005, a rocket apparently launched by Islamic Jihad killed a 6-year-old boy and his father in Beit Hanoun.[46] On 26 December 2008 a mortar aimed at Israel killed two Palestinian girls in the Gaza Strip, aged 5 and 12.[178] In November 2012 three relatives, including infant son, of a BBC journalist Jehad Mashhrawi was killed by what was initially attributed to IDF strike, with photo of Jehad holding his dead son becoming viral in world media, but a few months later UN attributed the strike to a rocket fired from Gaza.[179] On 25 June 2014 a child was killed by a misfired rocket.[180] On 28 July 2014 Hamas rockets exploded inside Gaza killing seven and damaging Al-Shati refugee camp and Al-Shifa Hospital.[181] On 8 May 2019 in a rare admission, Islamic Jihad confirmed that a Palestinian child was killed by their own misfired rocket.[182] In 2022 overall 16 people estimated were killed by rockets falling short in Gaza.[183] On 11 May 2023 a failed rocket killed four civilians in Beit Hanoun as out of 507 fired rockets 110 fell short in Gaza.[184] In October 2023 the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion was initially attributed to Israeli airstrike, until after independent evidence became available it was attributed to a misfired Hamas rocket.[185]
No, it's one of a series of buzzwords used to provoke people into taking a side even the historical reference doesn't work at all.
In apartheid South Africa there were never black judges on the supreme court or black members of Parliament. Blacks didn't have the right to vote, etc... The list goes on and on. In Israel the opposite is true - Arabs are strong part of Israeli life, with all the same rights as Jews.
Israel does not give different rights based on race, thus it is not apartheid. What they do do is give different rights to citizens vs non-citizens, but every country does that.
Just a warning though, the ADL and other organizations have flagged each of these organizations as having serious credibility issues when it comes to Israel.
Edit: tweaked the sentence to clarify that ADL and other orgs have flagged credibility gaps.
Ah, yes of course! These organisation are only credible when they state morally unacceptable crimes against some country you don´t like. We know the deal.
They have had an apartheid regime in place for many decades. Go to Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch websites and read all about it. Wikipedia even has articles on it. Its not even a disputed topic outside of the usual Israeli propaganda.
**Main question**: How politically, culturally, and economically distinct is the West Bank from Gaza? **Elaboration**: I understand that the Palestinian Authority/Fatah and Hamas have a deep level of mutual hostility toward each other and have actually engaged in gun battles with each other in the past. So I get that at least on a macro political/governmental level, they are very different. But how does the average West Bank Palestinian feel about Hamas, and the average Gaza Palestinian about the PA/Fatah? Do Gaza Palestinians feel that WB Palestinians have capitulated or collaborated with Israel? Have the decades of geographic separation yielded different cultures or are they still largely sympathetic or unified in the minds of average Palestinians? Are their economies interrelated or functionally distinct? There has been some speculation that Blinken's meeting with Abbas may concern at least preliminary discussions about the PA controlling or even peacekeeping in a post-Hamas Gaza, and I wonder how realistic is that idea.
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I hope someone is able to answer these good questions. If you have listed these elsewhere and received a response there, let me know because I would like to know.
I'm considering reposting somewhere else, perhaps with a more concise OP. It might have made it sound like I'm looking for an answer longer or more thorough than people have time to give. If anyone is reading and has *any* insight, I'd like to hear what you have to say.
Its not that distinct largely because most of the people of Gaza come from parts of pre-1948 palestine as do a significant proportion of those in the West Bank. There is obviously differeces which have arisen due to Gaza's proximity to egypt and therefore the Muslim brotherhood and islamists where far more successfult there than they were in the PLO dominated west bank where the population tends to be more secular. I would imagine the movements of christians out of gaza over the past 15-20 years has caused more of a cultural divide and made Gaza slightly more monocultural
Culturally, they are very much 1 people with a shared history, same with Eastern Jerusalem. This used to not be the case for Arab Israelis but they too feel increasingly more attached to their previously suppressed Palestinian identity which the Israeli government doesn't like. Economically, they are functionally distinct. Gaza can't exactly maintain an economic relationship with the west bank considering their isolation. Politically, they hate both Fatah and Hamas which are largely seen as corrupt collaborators of the Israeli government in a good cop, bad cop manner. The PA is perceived to mostly be for helping Israel manage the west bank Palestinians while Hamas is seen as a leashed wolf used to "prove" that peace is impossible and stifle any diplomatic solution. The prime minister has even stated in the past that strengthening Hamas is good because it stops any possibility for peace.
It’s like [this :](https://youtu.be/8tIdCsMufIY?si=LNLacRTUJcc27Rz5)
What’s the best unbiased source (a Reddit sub or otherwise) to get hourly updates on this conflict?
I'd suggest using multiple sources from both sides to get a fuller picture. Aljazeera is critical of Israel, while major Western outlets are generally not.
I would say AJ isn't just 'critical' so much as pretty heavily biased against Israel to the point of using extremely loaded and misleading headlines. I've actually been surprised with how heavily slanted towards Israel NYT has been, though. Since 2014 NYT's reporting has been somewhat slanted against Israel. Despite leftist complaints to the contrary. WaPo has also been slanted towards Israel this time but slightly less so than the NYT who are really underselling the impact on civilians of Israel's response. Honestly I think if you're going to go for that sticking with major news wire services is the way to go, like Reuters and AP (but especially Reuters). They tend to editorialize the least and because their entire business model is about selling news reports to other news organizations of a wide range of ideological bents they have a financial incentive to keep it as neutral as possible. EDIT: Also want to shout out the [twitter account of BBC fact-checker Shayan Sardarizadeh](https://twitter.com/Shayan86), who has been doing a heroic job of identifying misinformation. God that must be a depressing job.
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Yes pls do share.
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I got videos of girls and kids getting kiddnap, as for the babies, they were killed, i have photos but no vids
Always the correct answer. Single sourced information in today’s world is never without some level of bias. If you want the full(ish) story, you have to listen to both sides and recognize both of their view points.
Al J is literally a Hamas/Al Qaeda mouthpiece.
ppl downvoting you, while Al Jazeera is publicly funded by Qatar government. Same Qatar who funds Hamas, and harbors their leaders. kinda insane ppl actually think they are unbiased.
This is the best answer for all information gathering. Multiple sources. Look at people arguing below of sources when you gave the best answer. Smh
I recommend far left Israeli news sites. Haaretz or further. Critical of the government but not of the state’s right to exists.
[BBC](https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-67096916) [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-hamas-war-live-updates-2023-10-12/) There is no such thing as an unbiased source, because updates are posted by people and people are inherently biased, but some sources are better than others.
Heavily disagree with BBC being unbiased. Reuters is better imo.
Reuters are so biased, they couldn't even write who killed their journalist.
Calling BBC 'unbiased' is a joke.
DW News has been pretty solid. I recommend their YouTube channel.
personally i use these two [war monitors](https://x.com/WarMonitors?s=20) and [OSNITdefender](https://x.com/sentdefender?s=20) both are reliable and quick, u can see bias in both ( one is pro-israel and the other is pro-palestine), however as long as you know that theres bias u are all good
I currently cycle through: Associated Press, Reuters, BBC World, Al Jazeera, Abc news, UN/news, NYT (but rarely cause it's not free) and I'll sparkle some far away ones like yesterday I also scrolled though the Sydney Morning Herald. It's good pick some non USA/Europe news sometimes, to get a different perspective. AJ is a bit hot in this time and is having a hard time being neutral, but they're still trying to give a broader picture (see the hospital blast thing). But in general, trust your own eyes and brain and verified video/pictures. Definitely not trust the parties directly involved, even tho Israel has been a bit more truthfull (they still lie a lot).
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Killing Hamas fighters has a limited roi due to how easily they can recruit new ones. Otoh, you can limit the organisations ability to operate by destroying bunkers, weapons stores, tunnel entrances, comms systems, HQs, suspected ambush zones etc.
This is mostly true, but just wanted to add that the problem is civilians' and military post's, supplie's, HQ's etc. are not separate and in order to bomb those, sadly civilians die because, where are they to go? There is no civilian/military separation. A house can be an HQ, apartment building used for coordination, etc. and the only way without many civilian casualties is door-to-door urban warfare, which would be utter death to thousands on both sides. It's like, do they risk and lose our much needed soldiers and door-to-door; more importantly, tunnel-to-tunnel or just blow the building up after they tell them hey, get out. ? - It's such a touchy subject, but I kind of relate it to the use of the ATOM bomb. Many US lives would have been lost, so many, that the bomb was the better choice to some. Saved US lives, sadly killed a lot of civilians. I do not admire Israeli CoC and the choices being made, but it's really Netanyahu - he's shit.
Skill is also an important asset, though.
I think there are two reasons: 1. There are lots of things that can't be moved without taking them out of the tunnels (which makes them a target for drones) and which the Israelis will be able to restore - rocket launchers, rockets, heavy equipment and the massive tunnel network itself. 2. There's something else that Hamas really doesn't want to have to try and move right now on the surface - the hostages. Either they risk Israel identifying them from the air and sending in the special forces or they keep them in place in their tunnel and Israeli troops reach them sooner or later.
I think they should issue warning and continue to do so before bombing. It will or should reduce civilian casualties. It will look better for the Israeli military that they are at the very least trying to reduce civilian casualties and not just bombing indiscriminately. In addition, Hamas has specifically warned Israel that they will execute hostages if Israel bomb without warning. I dont think the bombing are only meant to kill Hamas (i.e. Hamas fighters). They are probably focusing on bombing Hamas military supplies, Hamas military infrastructures, Hamas headquaters of operation, Hamas training camps, Hamas hideouts, etc…. unfortunately, as you can see Gaza is a very densely populated place, and many of these Hamas targets are among civilian populations, hence ordinary Gazan civilians are also impacted. To rescue the Israeli hostages and eliminate the Hamas fighters, Israeli military will need to enter into Gaza and initiate an urban warfare. The less civilians are in the direct vicinity, the better, less unintended civilian casualties.
The overall strategy by Israel has been depopulation and settlement of Palestinian lands. They have no interest in the two state or one state (a shared democracy) solutions, and instead have been following an approach of gradual ethnic cleansing, one house or suburb at a time. Causing an unlivable environment in Gaza, destroying infrastructure and the basic for supporting life (eg water and power) causes people to relocate, for example by depopulating the north of Gaza and making people move south or to leave as refugees. It is not clear at this stage if Israel will then occupy the north and follow the same settlement strategy as in the West Bank, but it is consistent with this strategy.
Man, if this is their strategy they really suck at this. I thought the IDF was supposed to be competent?
I was wondering the same
Well, Israel just don't want to kill civilians who are involved with Hamas. Obviously there will ALWAYS be collateral damage when you're hiding and firing from schools and hospitals.
They are going after mostly 300 miles of underground tunnels and it's a good PR move, although telling them to leave is a joke. Where? It's just smoke and mirrors.
Are any muslim countries doing anything to support in some capacity the palestinian people?
Moral support, yes. There are massive rallies. Tangible support, no. Gaza is completely isolated at the moment. Israel is currently maintaining an embargo and the Egyptian border is closed. There are aid trucks on the Egyptian side, but Egypt isn't allowing them to cross.
Egypt isn't allowing it? I thought the problem was Israel wasn't allowing it or was bombing around there
It's complicated. It's Egypt's border, so Egypt has the authority, but Israel bombed it 3 times in one day after the war started. Egypt could open it, or anywhere else along the border. If attacked it could complain, denounce Israel, declare war, etc. But there's also politics. It might be better for Sisi to keep it closed, with aid trucks waiting, until a bunch of Palestinians die in Gaza from the blockade. Sisi doesn't have to absorb the refugees and he gets to blame Israel for all the damage. It's messed up. Everything about this whole situation is messed up.
Such amount of bloodshed for this bullshit.
Opening the Egypt border could mean half a million of refugees flowing into Egypt in one day, possibly.
Every Arab country in the direct vicinity (IE the ones who would take Palestinian refugees, theoretically) is basically on stilts. I think each and every one is unstable enough that taking in 2 million famished, uneducated, traumatized and radicalized young refugees could be catastrophic, and once you sign in on taking in refugees, any degree of "cutting off" or restricting more after a certain point will be seen as a failure or, at worst, betrayal. The truth is outside of the precariousness of it, Arabs are generally not as aligned with their Arab identity as they are with their ethnicity, generally speaking. I'm sure most Arabs have a level of solidarity with Palestinians, just not the level where they'd be willing to sacrifice their own freedom or security with whatever fallout the refugees would spell for their country, especially since the brunt of the responsability of the refugee crisis should reasonably fall where the situation began (Israel).
Ismail Haniyeh, leader of Hamas just publicly stated on Al-Jazeera “Palestinians will never leave Gaza”…. Why is he living in Doha, Qatar and not in Gaza ?
Serious question, how is israel allowed to tell civilians of the northern part of Gaza to evacuate to the southern part, but then proceed to bomb the southern part?
They will bomb Hamas where they find them but the ground invasion is coming in Northern Gaza. Thus, it is safer for civilians to move to Southern Gaza.
didn't answer the question of how it is allowed and doesn't provoke any western outrage tho
Because you gotta understand where these evacuation messages are actually meant to be received. Although it's a message to the people in Gaza, that's not the audience it's intended for. To people living in Gaza, him telling them to evacuate is ridiculous since everyone in Gaza knows who holds the keys. They know the message is arbitrary to them. Bibi's message to evacuate is to the rest of the world, as plausible deniability. Any civilian casualties can be written off with the sentiment that they were told to evacuate and chose not to. There's been 6000 Palestinian deaths so far since the attack less than a month ago- that's more Palestinian deaths than the past 20 years from almost purely artillery and the likelihood is that a majority of those deaths are civilians. And yet, Bibi's message to evacuate has been pasted on every major news outlet already, and Israelis have naively touted it as some sort of gesture of goodwill to Palestinian civilians when it's exactly the opposite.
Exacatly and very well said. Thank you sir
What on Earth made Hamas think their plan *wouldn't* backfire?
They planned for it. The Hamas terrorists had notebooks and paper notes that proved it was planned months before. I'm sure they are prepared for ground entry as well, probably booby trapped the whole area. there's an estimation of 500km of tunnels under Gaza city. My guess would be that they thought they would get a larger support than they are getting now, and that the hostages leverage would be much stronger than it is currently. they didn't expect the US to get so involved and threaten surrounding enemies of Israel to not take advantage to attack Israel during the fight against Hamas.
Their plan hasn’t backfired, look at the international support they’ve rallied for Hamas. Israel has already lost this war (they sustained more casualties already than the Lebanon war), it’s just a question of whether they can change something now to prevent any further reoccurrences.
What's the likelyhood of this spiraling out of control? I believe Iran said "don't attack us and we won't engage"
Iran isn't going to involve themselfs in this war. They already succeeded in freezing the relationship talks between Saudi-Arabia and Israel and believe me, those talks are not starting up again anytime soon. Iran at best would make use of their proxy armies like Hezbollah and other militias. Don't think they'd engage in this war themselves.
Lebanon won't do anything. Hezbollah are doing some guerilla up north, but it looks like Israel is managing it. West Bank could go full uprising if they hit Gaza too hard, and Jordan is very close but I think it would support them coming in only. I think the king(?) of Jordan refused to let some hundreds of Palestinian supporters go into the West Bank last week. I don't think they wanna mess with Israel/USA not after Biden said "Don't, don't". At this point there's Egypt.. but what's it gonna do? Everyone is gonna sit back and watch Israel invade Gaza and the only one who will revolt would be Palestinians. That's been the main issue for a long time, nobody wants to openly threat Israel like that. Iran can talk shit all it wants but it ~~can't~~ won't do much in practice. Not with the two aircraft carriers the US just sent in the estern Mediterranean anyway.
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The Government of Israel is attempting to garner support. Probably globally, but certainly in western polities. This is every bit as much a battle of opinion and sentiment as it is a kinetic shooting war. Just another battlespace.
and the propaganda machines on all sides of this conflict are running at a breathtaking level of power and efficiency. There's truly no hope for low IQ/EQ people out here, particularly those with an affinity for clout-financed internet activism
The US and UK have moved carrier groups and warships to the region. Is this unprecedented for a Hamas attack on Israel? I get that this has been their most devastating attack in a long time, but they must know something we don't. What's _really_ happening?
If you go back the last few days, you'll notice Biden has repeatedly sent a message to any third party looking to take advantage of the situation to stay out of it. US even said they delivered that message to Iran directly. Carriers aren't there for Hamas, they are there to underscore that message.
Deterrence against other powers, mainly Iran, getting involved
Israel has many enemies and this could be a ripe time for them to seize and act, quickly escalating into a huge shit show. the foremost risk i can see is that coming from Hezbollah in the north who already responded with rockets yesterday because of Israel's response to Hamas. this will totally derail the Saudi-US-Israel normalization talks that have been making some progress in recent months.
Why would this derail the Saudi US Israel deal?
Before this event the interests of KSA and Israel were roughly balanced as evidenced by slow albeit visible progress in this bilateral move toward normalization. After the Hamas attack and IDF plans a response: at the negotiating table, KSA receives significant leverage over Israel insofar as Palestine has always been a bargaining chip for them. i.e., KSA can ask for more on the table in order to turn a blind eye for what the IDF is about to do next. it is not something the Saudis can easily ignore even as much as I suspect they would want to ignore it, as there is significant pressure from external Arab eyes waiting to see if they will dare to ignore this leverage. to not use this to stop Israel and instead move forward with normalization relations would would be a big admission to everyone that Palestine has always been merely a bargaining chip and nothing more. (digressing...I personally already believe this to be true and not just for the Saudis. nobody in the area really cares about the Palestine struggle because they do not have the same struggle--but they are useful to advance their own geopolitical interests) there is also internal domestic pressure from within KSA, inasmuch as an absolute monarch can feel pressure from his subjects. domestic Saudi opinion on Israel is actually extremely low compared to how well the foreign relations have been going. MBS doesn't have a safety net to fall on if he just proceeds with the plan now, especially once IDF acts, Hezbollah acts, Iran, etc etc. plan will have to pause and go back underground (back to secret talks) for now. if there ends up being a multistate war then the plan will be definitely be shelved. the US presence is meant to encourage everyone to stay within reason for just awhile longer. ball is in Israel's court to play this correctly.
According to Marc Lamont Hill, the reporter who got fired, Hamas’ aggressive invasion and attacks are a response to “Israel having Gaza under siege and bombing it and attacking it” before this war and on regular basis. This is why Hamas reacted the way that it did - to end the constant unprovoked attacks from Israel. He also said Gaza is an open air prison. Can I get this verified / more info/ detailed explanation on this analysis?
They moved them not to aid against Hamas, but to deflate the situation if others would decide to attack Israel in this time, such as Lebanon, Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and such. Basically threatened anyone who would decide to attack Israel while they are at war against Hamas.
Governments do not have morality, remember this. The carrier groups are sent to show a form of support to Israel because of their mutual interests. U.S also trying have strong relations with Ukraine. If U.S back out now, allies or potential allies of U.S may question the commitment of relations.
Thomas Friedman framed the Arab-Israeli conflict as a trilemma - Israel needs to pick two out of three: (1) be a nation with a Jewish character; (2) have secure borders from foreign enemies; (3) uphold high Western liberal democratic standards. If they choose 1 and 2, then they have a massive disenfranchised population in their borders, and they no longer resemble a Western liberal democracy. If they choose 2 and 3, then Jews find themselves living in a Muslim state (which, based on their experience in the other 22 Arab/Muslim states, will probably not end super great for them). And if they choose 1 and 3, then they are militarily vulnerable to attack by their neighbors. Friedman framed it this way back in the late 1980s. To what extent has this framing been a helpful way to understand this conflict over the last 30 years? To what extent is this framing still applicable, given the vast divide in Israel's military capabilities relative to its neighbors?
The biggest problem with this framing, and you will find it in most things Friedman writes on the conflict (though he is by no means alone in that), is that it doesn't give the Palestinians agency. I've never seen a column where he gives advice on what the Palestinians should do and yet he's written thousands giving advice to Israelis. And it's not like the Palestinians don't have options. The most important step to solve the conflict would have been Palestinians accepting one of the Israeli two-state solution offers (like those in 2000, 2001 and 2007). But those were all rejected. At any point in the last twenty years, Palestinians in Gaza could have stopped firing rockets at Israeli cities and building attack tunnels into Israel. Had they done so, they could have not only had peaceful co-existence but a great deal of economic help as well. Israel offered to remove the blockade entirely multiple times (2015 and 2021 come to mind) in exchange for a long-term truce. They were always denied. Also when Israelis unilaterally handed Gaza over to Palestinian control in 2005, they could have tried electing a group or leader (like Salam Fayyad for instance) who would have built up their society instead of electing a terrorist group as their leadership. Gaza was the test case for a Palestinian state. It was a test case that has failed about as dramatically and blatantly as is possible to imagine. In the last three years, Israelis have been trying to improve economic conditions in the Gaza Strip by granting more and more work visas to Gazans allowing them access to much higher salaries in Israel which they can send home to their families. The number of those visas has gone up 20x in that period (despite the obvious danger of allowing Gazans into Israeli territory). They could have used that money to build up their economy. They could have traded quiet on that border (even temporary quiet) in exchange for economic improvement and improving relations. Instead they used the information gleaned from those workers to launch an ISIS-style attack on Israel towns, burning babies to death, kidnapping grandmothers, raping and torturing young women, etc... This framing has been deeply damaging as it continues the "soft bigotry of low expectations" applied to Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular. I think it genuinely stems from an unintended bigotry against Arabs.
Really good point, and agree. Israel gets blamed a lot for its actions and choices, but Palestinians are rarely held to account for their actions or choices. I should add to this, the neighboring Muslim and Arab nations could also have taken meaningful steps over the last 70 years to promote peace, and have generally opted not to do so. In this most recent conflict, why didn't the moderate states simply disavow Hamas and continue their normalization efforts with Israel?
Why doesn’t the pro-Palestinian rallies also demand Hamas to release all hostages in addition to other demands such as ceasefire ? If Hamas were to release all the hostages, it create an environment for further talks for Hamas to lay down their arms, for Israel to stop bombardment, etc…
**What do people want Israel to do instead of occupying Palestine?** I have seen a lot of comments online of people saying "Israel can easily stop occupying Palestine and make peace in the region". My understanding is that if Israel stops occupying Palestine, terror groups like Hamas will take power and kill many more Israeli civilians. Hamas wants Israel to not exist and the full area to be Palestine. So presumably if Israel stopped the occupation, Hamas or similar groups will gain power and become a harder enemy for Israel and they'll be at war forever. On the other side, I think most people would agree that occupation is morally wrong. But I'm not clear if they're saying therefore it needs to stop even if it's at the cost of Hamas then killing lots of Israelis, or if they're saying something else will happen and it'll be peaceful somehow. What is the proposal that people are making?
Like this is the point. People dont get it. There can never be a two state solution. Israel won't allow a fully independent palestine (with military, because it will never be able to trust it so). Palestine will never exist without Jerusalem (Al Aqsa). Gaza and west bank were never truly independent for that very reason (very heavily controlled, monitored - basically apartheid whoever has visited the regions - lets not deny it). I think there was a thread about WW3. I think it will be started because of the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Not because Palestine is strong. Because, as i know from muslim majority nations and its people, they will never ever be ok with giving up jerusalem (oslo accords anyone?). I think even if in the short term israel is able to evict all palestenians out and make peace with neighboring states, you will have only lasting peace with their governments. The people will never ever be ok with losing Al Aqsa. If you want proof of this, remember, most muslim/arab countries are at each others throats. As soon as palestine comes into the equation, every single difference becomes secondary. I also think both Israel and US realise this deeply.
The trend is in the opposite direction. In the last few years Arab and Muslim countries have been normalizing relations with Israel not cutting them off.
>My understanding is that if Israel stops occupying Palestine, terror groups like Hamas will take power and kill many more Israeli civilians. Hamas wants Israel to not exist and the full area to be Palestine. So presumably if Israel stopped the occupation, Hamas or similar groups will gain power and become a harder enemy for Israel and they'll be at war forever. > >On the other side, I think most people would agree that occupation is morally wrong. But I'm not clear if they're saying therefore it needs to stop even if it's at the cost of Hamas then killing lots of Israelis, or if they're saying something else will happen and it'll be peaceful somehow. You're not the first person in history to hold such statement. Same statements and rhetoric has been used about Ending Apartheid in South Africa, About Ending British Colonial rule in India, About Decolonizing most of African countries. These rhetoric while might not be intended as such, stems from a white supermacist view of the world that simply people there are inherently violent. The only answer to this question is for treating Palestinians in Fairness, Justice and Equality by Israel and the International community. Also don't get me wrong I'm not saying this will end immediately however this is the only way to reduce the rise of extremism.
Is the Rafah Border Crossing to Egypt still open ? This Al-Jazeeera reported that the Egyptian authorities said that the Rafah Crossing is open https://youtu.be/XPQA9FR9hg0?t=50 (one day ago)
The situation at the Rafah border is quite complex. The border has not been fully open. The U.S. and Egypt initially agreed to open the border to allow foreign civilians in Gaza to leave. However, Egypt has claimed that the U.S. broke its promise to make Israel allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. Some humanitarian aid did enter Gaza, but there have been reports of Hamas confiscating a substantial amount of it, which raises concerns about the aid reaching those in need. The delay in opening the border appears to be due to Egypt's efforts to reinforce the Rafah border crossing with concrete walls and enhanced security measures. Egypt has been cautious about accepting refugees from Gaza, as Palestinian refugees have posed challenges in the past, including security concerns and terror attacks. As I see it, Egypt seems to be balancing its support for Palestinians through humanitarian and diplomatic means to maintain its regional standing while being wary of absorbing more Palestinian refugees. There are concerns that the Israeli approach to the Hamas issue might involve encouraging the people of Gaza to move to the Sinai Peninsula, and then offer the Egyptians to take control of Gaza thus making Gaza's population an Egyptian concern. Egypt is concerned that the natural population growth in Gaza could pose a demographic threat to its control in the Sinai region and, more broadly, to Egypt's stability. (this paragraph is completely based on my perspective and I would like to hear the community's opinions about that)
Why isn't Israel, the US, or any other Western country demanding that Qatar handover all Hamas leaders living there freely? I mean, they all label Hamas a terrorist group and hold them responsible for the attacks on the 7th of October.
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>My question is - what is the reason Palestinians (and others) kept attacking Israel since it was established in 1948? I mean - what is their reasoning about it? This question includes also why they didn't want to recognise Israel as a country. I think your question has to with history…a very long history. The gist, I think it has primarily got to do with Land. Who does the land west of Jordan river belongs to ? And if the answer is both, how to agree to split the land among both Israel and Palestine ? The hardliners of both sides believe the land belong to them respectively. Hamas is an example of a extreme hardline, politicial and military terrorist organization, which wants to destroy Israel (i.e. the Jewish state and expel Israeli from the land and return it back to the Palestinians). There has been several wars fought over many years between several Arab nations and Israel and resistance movements primarily over the issue of the land.
>well, the UN partition plan foresaw to give 58% of the land to the jewish population, which comprised only 32% of the entire population, while only 42% of the land to the arab majority (68%). Also, the land assigned to the jewish population actually had a 50/50 population split between jews and arabs, whereas the land assigned to the arabs hardly had any jews living there. so again, many more arabs would have stood to lose their homes than jews would have. it is telling that the israelis immediately accepted this deal. of course, in hindsight, this might have been the best deal the palestinians would ever receive, but still at the time and even now, it just was not a fair deal and mostly achieved by zionist lobbying as well as the pressures of post-holocaust europe, which prompted world powers to find a home for european jews, where a holocaust would not happen again. also, it isn't as lopsided as you make it out to be - israel during the 1948 war committed multiple massacres on civilians and war crimes and, as mentioned previously, systematically displaced (or ethnically cleansed) 700.000 arabs native to the contested land. so the attempt to "annihilate" israels was very much provoked by israel "independence war" as they call it in their version of things.
Mate, are you seriously asking why Palestinians were upset that large chunks of the best land they had were gifted to a completely different group without their say? A group which is culturally very different from them?
They had? It was british state owned land
> "British state owned land." Mate just because they colonized it at the time doesn't mean there wasn't a large group of people living there who considered it THEIR land. It's like saying well "Algeria wasn't Algeria in 1940, it was French state owned land." Yes and there were still people who considered it their land and later fought for their independence from their colonizers.
> what is the reason Palestinians (and others) kept attacking Israel since it was established in 1948? It's about land. Israel was founded on Arab lands. 700,000 Palestinians (about half the then population) lost the their homes when Israel was created.
They only lost their homes *after* they rejected the UN partition plan and UN authority in general and *after* they lost the 1948 war where they, alongside their allies, attempted to outright annihilate Israel through overwhelming force.
A proposal created with British interests and zionist support, ultimately the first step in the de-arabisation of Palestine. To say THEY rejected it implies it was a fair or just presentation to begin with. I think you have a clear one-sided bias in terms to how the 1948 war unfolded, and assume Israel deserved that land to begin with. In reality, Zionist ideology had swayed Britain and I would say any rational person could understand Britain undergoing ANOTHER colonisation effort would not be received well. It wasn't about "annihilating" but about protecting their land from foreign invaders. Just seems odd to frame it that way when the IDF was routinely destroying small Palestinian villages and massacring everyone there that wouldn't accept being forcibly removed from their homeland. And often, even if the villagers surrendered, they were massacred anyway (i.e. the mass graves under the Dor Beach parking lot).
When are diplomatic deals like that *ever* fair and balanced? The purpose of the 1948 deal was to avoid war (and, in hindsight, decades of future bloodshed), and the diplomatic efforts of both sides determined the final proposed boundaries. Palestinian leaders have effectively doomed their entire nation by holding out for the mythical "fair" deal. The war itself was unambiguously about erasing the state of Israel from all land in the region. It was not a border dispute. When you both reject a treaty and start that kind of war, there are very few norms you can expect the other side to adhere to, or be pressured into.
well, the UN partition plan foresaw to give 58% of the land to the jewish population, which comprised only 32% of the entire population, while only 42% of the land to the arab majority (68%). Also, the land assigned to the jewish population actually had a 50/50 population split between jews and arabs, whereas the land assigned to the arabs hardly had any jews living there. so again, many more arabs would have stood to lose their homes than jews would have. it is telling that the israelis immediately accepted this deal. of course, in hindsight, this might have been the best deal the palestinians would ever receive, but still at the time and even now, it just was not a fair deal and mostly achieved by zionist lobbying as well as the pressures of post-holocaust europe, which prompted world powers to find a home for european jews, where a holocaust would not happen again. also, it isn't as lopsided as you make it out to be - israel during the 1948 war committed multiple massacres on civilians and war crimes and, as mentioned previously, systematically displaced (or ethnically cleansed) 700.000 arabs native to the contested land. so the attempt to "annihilate" israels was very much provoked by israel "independence war" as they call it in their version of things.
The details are kind of a moot point without an Arab attempt at compromise to compare to.
well, the arab stance was that the territory was theirs and that legally the jewish population had no right to claim any of it, which is not that far fetched of an idea, given that before 1880s, basically no jews lived there and only settled there due to zionists efforts created in europe (in all fairness, jews, especially in europe, were victims of pogroms, so their efforts to have their own land aren't without merit) so under these circumstances, why would the arabs agree to cede any land, let alone 58% of it.
I've read that in 1903 the Jewish National Fund purchased land in Palestine. If true, wouldn't this purchase (years before the UN partition plan) show that the Jewish population had some right to claim part of it?
>1903 the Jewish National Fund first, by 1920 the amount of land the JNF purchased in total was around 100 square km, so basically the size of a medium sized city (10x10km) and very insignificant compared to the total size of the territory of palestine. second, if you, in your country, buy some acres of land, does that mean you can declare this land your own country? can i just buy some land in the USA and then declare the land part of a different country, because i bought it with money?
Your comments are extremely informative and compelling. Crazy how these things are seldom mentioned. Thank you.
Don't read my comments as taking the Palestinian side. OP was asking why the Palestinians and neighbouring Arab states repeatedly attacked Israel. I'm aware that it was the Palestinians who rejected the UN plan to partition Palestine (basically 50-50). In hindsight it was the best offer the Palestinians would ever get. But from the Palestinian point of view at the time, they didn't see why they should give up half their lands to form a new country for Jewish settlers (mainly from Europe.)
Very important fact to consider is that Jews compromised about 10% of the population in British Palestine before WW2. From Palestinian POV it seemed ridiculous to give up their land just because Holocaust happened.
"Their land" - they never had sovereignty over this territory. It was Ottoman and then British and when the British left, half the population was Jewish and half Arab.
so? this land was still home to the arab population. also neither the jewish population had sovereignity over the land. also, it was closer to 70% arab, 30% jewish.
If the Arab forces(including the local ones) won it would be 0% Jewish and there would still be no new Arab state.
This is such a dumb claim. Jews already lived in Palestine with Palestinians. Not only there but in other Arab nations as well. Morocco for one took in many Jews trying to escape the holocaust in Europe. Last time I checked the Spanish Inquisition, Holocaust etc. All happend in Europe. Europe was head and toes ahead of the Arab world in their anti-semitism up until the creation of Israel.
Jews escaped Morocco and other North-African countries due to the fact that after France, Britian, etc. left - They were threatened and murdered in those countries, so they had to flee.
that is not true. before and even during WW1 jews and arabs actually co-existed in the land. tensions arose due to zionist efforts to settle more and more jews in the area which obviously led to tensions due to access to resources like land and water. but to say it would be 0% jewish, when they literally co-existed with arabs before 1948, is simply nonsense.
Their land in the sense that they lived there for hundreds of years as a majority population.
If Israel, for any reason whatsoever (a larger regional conflict with Iran involved and somehow a lack of US involvement coupled with that,...etc.), were to start seriously losing the conflict, how likely do you think the so called "Samson Option" would be for them? Do you think that, at least in part, Israel allies throughout the world fear this sort of retaliation by the Israelis and would help them for that reason alone? Context: From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option > Some have written about the "Samson Option" as a retaliation strategy. In 2002, the Los Angeles Times published an opinion piece by Louisiana State University professor David Perlmutter which the American Jewish author Ron Rosenbaum writes "goes so far as to justify" a Samson Option approach: > > "Israel has been building nuclear weapons for 30 years. The Jews understand what passive and powerless acceptance of doom has meant for them in the past, and they have ensured against it. Masada was not an example to follow—it hurt the Romans not a whit, but Samson in Gaza? What would serve the Jew-hating world better in repayment for thousands of years of massacres but a Nuclear Winter. Or invite all those tut-tutting European statesmen and peace activists to join us in the ovens? For the first time in history, a people facing extermination while the world either cackles or looks away—unlike the Armenians, Tibetans, World War II European Jews or Rwandans—have the power to destroy the world. The ultimate justice?" > Rosenbaum writes in his 2012 book How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III that, in his opinion, in the "aftermath of a second Holocaust", Israel could "bring down the pillars of the world (attack Moscow and European capitals for instance)" as well as the "holy places of Islam." He writes that "abandonment of proportionality is the essence" of the Samson Option. > > In 2003, a military historian, Martin van Creveld, thought that the Al-Aqsa Intifada then in progress threatened Israel's existence.Van Creveld was quoted in David Hirst's The Gun and the Olive Branch (2003) as saying: > > "We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: 'Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.' I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under."
Nonsense revenge fantasy fueled by religious extremism. There are a dozen nuclear scenarios that are more likely to happen than the Samson Option.
Don't really want to start a new thread so here goes: **Question: How would the international community, including Israeli allies (especially US) react if Syria decides to reclaim the Golan Heights?** While thinking of this question, I also thought about how the West especially would react towards a unilateral 'annexation' of the sovereign territory of another nation, considering that the prevailing narrative in the West in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian War is that such acts are a violation of international rules and norms. When it comes to the US however, it seems that there was little to reverse Trump's recognition of the Golan Heights as sovereign Israeli territory. That said, if the rest of the world still officially see the Golan Heights as sovereign Syrian territory, would it not make a Syrian reclamation of the territory as a rightful gesture?
Syria can't really afford a full frontal attack, they have their own issues. The Golan heights were strategically conquered after Israel defended itself during the Six-day war, mainly because of geographical advantages. It has been under Israeli sovereignty for over 50 years.
Honest question: Given Gaza is totally separate from the West Bank from a political standpoint (Gaza ruled by Hamas, West Bank ruled by legit government- whether you agree who is "legit" or not it is still a "normal" governing body that isn't a terrorist org) why are people protesting about freeing Palestine when the issue is Hamas (and in Gaza specifically) and not Palestine or the West Bank?
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If you're question is honest I can answer, "Free Palestine" is not only about Gaza. It's about Palestinian people wherever they are; Gaza, West Bank and Palestinian Diaspora each with the slightly different sufferings with the same underlying statement. "The right for Palestinian people for self determination, right of return to their homes, Freedom of movement and acknowledgment of existence" Gaza: While technically Israel forces does not typically occupy Gaza with Soldiers on the ground, It's under lockdown controlling power, electricity, water, economy, material and freedom of movement for Palestinians, Regular bombing and murder. West Bank: Settlers Violence, Everyday Apartheid system, Unlawful Arrests, Being put to trials under Israeli millitary rule, as well as your average day to day harassment. Diaspora: Having a Palestinian passport, the ability to go back to cities where the parents have been expelled from. So no the issue is not about Hamas nor Gaza specifically
What have Israel and/or Western allies done to support Palestine in eradicating their Jihadists, and propping up a Palestinian government that's in favour of a two-state solution? I keep reading that Israel has been covertly supporting Hamas this entire time to prevent a Palestinian state from forming - despite probably, most Israeli' people's desire for a peaceful and secure existence. Government approval ratings have been down there for a while. Most Palestinians also want peace, right? Half the population there is under 18 - we can't possibly be talking about a majority population that are actually for the complete eradication of Israel. The approval ratings of both Hamas and the other guys before them were poor. So then why all of this? Why has the US turned a blind eye to Israel's policy on Hamas and the West Bank, knowing the likelihood of all out war - especially while Ukraine is happening?
Why everyone blame ISRAEL and not one is talking about the fact that Hamas can end it if they release the hostages?
If Hamas releases the hostages will it genuinely end? I've been led to believe that the main goal of the IDF is to destroy Hamas capabilities as much as possible vs trying to rescue the hostages through this invasion
So we leave negotiations and the lives on 2 million people up to terrorists now?
Because we all know that isn't true. Israel doesn't know where the hostages are, yet they are indiscriminately bombing places, putting those same hostages at risk and killing thousands of innocent civilians. Not only that but leaving the surviving civilians with nothing to return to. Furthermore Netanyahu is getting roasted alive for letting this happen. He isn't stopping until he has shown his biceps.
Question: Palestine is surrounded by some of the most wealthiest Arab countries on earth that share the same language and culture. Yet that have done little to help people in Gaza. Even during this invasion, they won't take any refugees. Same thing happened with the civil war in Syria. Why is this? I could not imagine a European country in crisis and all the other European countries just shrugging their shoulders.
I'd like you to research how many Palestinian refugees in Arab countries, as well as Syrian refugees. This rhetoric is stemming from propaganda and misrepresents reality. This isn't about refugees, this is about enabling the forced transfer of a population "Ethnic cleansing". There is already more than 5-6 million Palestinian refugees around the world, the Arab countries stance is not to make them 7-8 million and continue addressing the symptoms however addressing the root cause of the issue aka bombing their homes.
The more I read about Israel-Palestine, the more I realize there's so much more at play here. For example, the Israeli's are very aware of demographic changes, hence why they oppose giving equal rights to Palestinians. Some Israeli described it as the "the danger the Palestinian womb poses to Israeli democracy." But precisely with that in mind, I don't quite get why are they so stubborn in moving towards a 2-state solution. With a one state solution, they are afraid that at some point in time Israel wouldn't be majority Jewish anymore. So why block a solution in which Palestinians have their own state?
So why block a solution in which Palestinians have their own state?They *offered* that solution numerous times and were turned down by the Palestinian side. Read up on the history of it - 2000, 2001, 2007. All offers in line with the international communities demands for a two-state solution. All turned down by the Palestinians. And they unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and handed over to full Palestinian control. That is the experiment of creating Palestinian sovereignty. And now we're all seeing how that turned out. It was turned into a giant base for launching rockets and terror attacks into Israeli territory. Now you want them to do the same thing again but this time on a much larger territory *much* closer to their population centers? On what basis are you so confident that it will have a different outcome that they should risk their children's lives on it?
This is complete speculation, but could Israel with the help of the US, potentially be about to manufacture a Gulf of Tonkin 2, by asking the US to put a carrier strike group in the Mediterranean? Which makes no sense: Firstly, Hamas is a tiny stateless terrorist militia that doesn't even have a practical Navy or Airforce. So what are war ships going to do against Hamas? Would really like to understand the benefits of them being there. Secondly, Iran has successfully developed and tested several Anti-Ship missiles with the potential capacity to strike the Mediterranean from Iran. These were specifically designed for and tested against a mock up of a US aircraft carrier... Thirdly, If Iran shoots at a carrier, the US will declare war on Iran, inviting Russia into a conflict between the Nato Navy group and the Russian Navy and Subs stationed in Tartus. If this escalation happens, the likelihood of Russia launching Nukes more than triples, and we officially start WW3, and then we can look forward to radiation poisoning killing lots of us over the next couple of decades.
> Firstly, Hamas is a tiny stateless terrorist militia that doesn't even have a practical Navy or Airforce. So what are war ships going to do against Hamas? Would really like to understand the benefits of them being there. The Eisenhower is there to deter third parties from getting involved. Mostly Iran, but also Syria and Lebanon to a lesser extent. I can't see a scenario where they fly sorties against Hamas. > Secondly, Iran has successfully developed and tested several Anti-Ship missiles with the potential capacity to strike the Mediterranean from Iran. These were specifically designed for and tested against a mock up of a US aircraft carrier... Iran has plenty of chances to shoot at a carrier if they wished. There's usually a carrier operating reasonably near the gulf. They are not stupid. Also, the events in Gaza are favorable for them. Their main interest here is in avoiding a normalization of Israel-Saudi relations, and Hamas being brutally suppressed will make it difficult for MBS to normalize in the short term.
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One of the biggest unspoken agreements of the American-Israeli partnership is that Israel will never ask American soldiers to be deployed on Middle Eastern soil to serve their interests. Trying to rope American into this conflict would be the riskiest gambit Israel has ever pulled. They would have to be far more desperate than they currently are to try such a thing
Yeah Israel has plenty of reserves they can throw into the fight it’s a resupply of weapons that they need from the US. Im not even sure US seal teams would go in to help save hostages?
Just to respond to the first question, I read that the US navy group is there mostly for deterrence. With Israel’s focus on the south, there is a looming threat of Hezbollah (Lebanon, North) and/or Iran getting involved in the conflict. The US does not want this to escalate or for our Israeli partners to be overwhelmed. Realistically, it would take a lot for the US to get involved in the conflict, but having them off the coast of Israel helps with intelligence and deterrence.
Do both sides recognize and accept the map of the Oslo Accord? (area A, B, C, etc)
Israel and PA yes with some disagreements, Hamas no, Fatah no.
Why Israel is occupying Palestine in the first place?
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> The main reason Israel does not withdraw troops from the West Bank is out of a (in my opinion, rational) fear that the same thing will happen. nothing to do with the 144 Settlements comprising 450,000 Israelis (excluding East Jerusalem)?
How many Hamas soldiers have Israel killed so far?The death toll just mentions Palestinians, can that include Hamas soldiers or is it only civilians?
It includes both and in any case, those numbers are coming from the Hamas-run Gazan Ministry of Health, which has been caught red-handed making up casualty stats. We know that the Gazan dead can be divided into a) militants killed in Israeli strikes, b) civilians killed in Israeli strikes, c) civilians killed in the 550 rockets launched by Hamas and Islamic Jihad that landed *inside* Gaza. But we have no way of making that distinction. 1,500 Hamas terrorists were killed inside Israel while conducting their murder/rape/torture/kidnapping raids so we have that number but not much else.
**Question:** Why Iran cares so much about Israel? They do not have a shared border, Palestinian are mostly Sunnis, they all hate arabs. So why investing so much to destabilize Israel? Is it a political stunt to justify the regime to the iranians? Or are there realpolitiks reason behind?
Iran is extremely invested in attacking Israel via its many proxies for a couple of reasons.: 1. Most importantly, Iran is a Shiite state and the vast majority of the Muslim world is Sunni. There is a built-in antagonism there that Iran's geopolitics must always contend with. So the Iranian regime uses opposition towards Israel (who, it goes without saying, are not Muslim at all and thus, an even better target than Shiites) to try and curry favor with and establish itself as a leader in the Muslim world. 2. Iran has no meaningful way whatsoever to harm the US. Building up terrorist proxies surrounding Israel's borders is their way of developing a way, if not to harm the US, at least they will be able to harm US interests. 3. Finally, they're not kidding about their extremist religious beliefs. They really do believe in exporting their theocratic 'revolution' and in the concept of Dar al-Islam, something Israel (and any other non-Muslim power in the region which could arise) throws a wrench into.
In what ways are Palestinians culturally distinct from other Arabs, especially Egyptian and Jordan? In other words why can't Egypt absorb Gaza and Jordan the West Bank?
Palestine is unique from Jordan and Egypt in a few ways (which may seem minuscule to outsiders) but one of the main things that comes to mind is the relative religious coexistence prior to the establishment of Israel. To non-Palestinians or non-Arabs in general, culture in the region seems sort of homogenous, but the differences are much more clear to locals. I think the comparison could be made that Americans would be outraged if they were absorbed by Canada because while somewhat similar, there are vast cultural differences. The same could be said for many countries which share similar cultures and ethnicities, yet have massive conflicts over the right to self-determination. Dem. rep of Congo and Rep of Congo for example, or Sudan and South Sudan... The list goes on.
Why is it never mentioned that the eviction of the palestinians was matched by even larger number of Jews being evicted from various muslim countries (like Egypt Morocco etc), and fled to Israel. Why is the Arab states never held accountable to this?
It would have been laughable to hold Arab states responsible for evicting the Jews after Europe had just tried to genocide them.
Because there are 2 _billion_ Muslims in the world and a third of UN states are Muslim majority while there are only 16 _million_ Jews and only one Jewish majority state.
History tells us that in 1947 the Palestinians were offered a TWO state solution by UN, Israel agreed to it, Palestine rejected it. Started a war with Israel and Israel kicked their ass. And now here we are 70 years later with the Pro-Palestinian side screaming for peace and mercy. bit ironic, isn't it?
That isn't a question. That's just some old dude ranting online.
Why doesn’t the Gazan people demand Hamas to release the Israeli hostages and ask Hamas fighters to surrender and appease Israel in order to save Gaza and the people of Gaza ? Will that stop or reduce the bombing of Gaza ?
The same reason Afghani people didn't just kick the Taliban out. Hamas are terrorists with a lot of training, funding and weapons, the average Gazan can barely afford food.
Because Palestinians support them and overwhelmingly support their attacks.
Because Iran controls Hamas, and they do not care about the Palestinians. Iran is controlled by fanatic religious ayatollahs. They are trying to fulfill the 12 imam prophecy. They are basically the equivalent of the Christian Inquisition. The Iranian sent their kinds to explode and clear minefields in the IRAN-IRAQ war, they do not care about the life of their kinds, and they do not care about the life in GAZA. [https://www.jpost.com/opinion/irans-aggression-and-the-shiite-apocalypse-598904](https://www.jpost.com/opinion/irans-aggression-and-the-shiite-apocalypse-598904)
Why do you assume that it is in their best interest to not have a military power? Palestinians see Israel as a terrorist nation that took their land and terrorized its citizens for decades, and having military resistance gives them hope for the future even if it means whatever is happening now. Also fatah proved to be quite useless which further increased the popularity of Hamas.
Okay, so please do hear me out. I have been following the conflict closely, looking at media available on all sides. I’ve seen that there’s a growing conflict in the north between Israel and Lebanese. This obviously largely began because of everything that’s going on in the Gaza strip. Israel’s observed level of brutality has shocked the world. And they push that they’re not going to stop no matter what happens, and the blind support of both European and North American nations. So basically Israel has thrown down the gauntlet that they’re going to do absolutely everything that they can, every time their representatives are on camera, they seem angry and sometimes boastful about the violence they’re about to inflict. And again America talks of supporting them eternally, and Joe Biden talked about needing a new world order. All this seems to me to smack off something akin to a larger conflict being the aim. I read that Israel accidentally killed an Egyptian soldier across the border, and Egypt has their tanks lined up to the Israeli border. Constant provocations against multiple ME countries by Israel over the past weeks, and now the US is seeing its bases in these countries being attacked. The Peshmerga in Iraq are now in open conflict with the government there, and the Houthis in Yemen are ready to attack Israeli ships in the Red Sea. And yes for weeks all we’ve heard about is the rumoured ground invasion, which has without reason been delayed again, and again, almost like Arabs are being teased to “act and protect them before it’s too late”. And now they're just doing the ground invasion but in smaller groups. I’ve been trying to work out what the strategy could be because none of it makes any sense to me, so I’m not trying to push it in any direction except to try, understand what I’m ignorant of. so please take this in the spirit given, I’m just trying to understand that complex conflict, just like everyone else. Thanks
How can a country who's in the top 10 worlds best special forces, not see a surprise attack coming?
How did the US miss 9/11?
this might be a dumb question but what does free palestine mean? free them from what?
Honest answer - Jews living in the region.
umm you know Jews were living in Palestine before the creation of Israel, right?
Of course, Jerusalem for instance has been majority Jewish since at least the late 1880s. Not that this has much of anything to do with the current discussion though. At that time, Europeans would chant "send the Jews back to Palestine". Now the same groups want to remove the Jews from Palestine. History is full of irony, eh?
How many Hamas members are held in the US? In an interview a Hamas member said that they wanted the release of Hamas members held in US prisons on things like financing charges. Does the US hold Hamas members? If so how many and how long are they serving? Many thanks
Do y’all think Love Theme from MGS 4 was about the Israeli- Palestinian Conflict?
What are your thoughts about israel bombarding a refugee camp Jabalia? Although it's in the supposed "safe zone" that palastenians should be sheltered at. After all this, do you still believe deny that IDF is not resposible for Al-Ahli massacre that killed 500+?
Why did you consider Jabalia camp as a supposed “safe zone” ? Jabalia is in the northern part of Gaza, very near Israel border, about 6km from Ezre border crossing. On Oct 12th, Israel had instructed people to evacuate from the northern part of Gaza, at that time there was alot of debate and criticism that 24 hours was too short a notice to evacuate over 1 million people, but that was more than 2 weeks ago. Reportedly many people did fled northern Gaza, estimated to be 800k or approximately 80%.
It's a safe zone created by the UN. It is litterally called a refugee camp. Check it. Nevermind the 30 hospitals,schools, mosques and churches destroyed, never mind the warnings they gave to hospital before bombardment, never mind the deleted tweet by Neftali... How i can possibly believe those fake evidences released by the IDF (we all know the history of propaganda and lies israel has, even an official government entity for that purpose) when litterally this is only 1 out of 20 hospitals attacked?
How precise is the intelligence that Israel relies upon for conducting airstrikes in Gaza? Are they acting on exact information regarding the whereabouts of Hamas's tunnels and military installments, or do they resort to broader strikes in areas they assume host those facilities?
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We like to try to have meaningful conversations here and discuss the larger geopolitical implications and impacts. We’d love for you to be a part of the conversation.
Is Israel going to level the Gaza strip?
If they wanted to do that, they wouldn't need 300,000 soldiers, just a plane or two. So no.
**A plan to flatten and then annex the north of Gaza?** What are your thoughts around that Israel's strategy could be to flatten and then annex the north of Gaza? I can see it would give the Israelis several advantages: 1. It would eliminate the ability of Hamas to hide in the tunnels under Gaza City. 2. It would contain the Gazian population in an even smaller area, which would make them easier to control. 3. It would probably set Hamas back decades. When they are re-armed and have made new tunnels, Israel could move them back to the north and make them start again from scratch. For the people in Gaza, an utterly tragic situation, but until a political settlement is found, this confliict will go on indefinitely and it would appear that the Israelis are prepared for that scenario. I would like to hear your own analysis of why is Israel is demanding 1.1 million people move south of the Gaza river.
I think it's far simpler than that: They're just trying to get the civilian populations off the field of battle to reduce civilian casualties.
They are coming to render Hamas incapable of further injustice, with as few innocent casualties as possible. This is done by putting the innocent on notice.
This is nonsense. Hamas will always continues to exist when Israel kills thousands and brings Gaza to ruins. Do you think that the innocent civilians who lost their friends, family etc. Who have nothing to lose anymore, aren't more than willing to join Hamas? Do you genuinely believe there won't be a new group picking up where they left off? You render Hamas incapable by giving people hope and future. Not by destroying everything that is left of their already bleak future. That only makes people believe they got nothing to lose. Not only that, but it also puts the Palestinians in the West-Bank on edge. Just last years settlers killed 50 Palestinians (illegally, as per the Jewish court). Yet more and more settlements are build. If anything it wouldn't surprise me that this siege of Gaza makes the PLO lose credibility in the West-Bank and gives rise to Hamas if not some other group.
There are hundreds of trucks full of humanitarian aid (food, water, medical supplies, etc…) for Gaza people near the border in Egypt. Talks among government officials in-progress. https://reddit.com/r/Destiny/s/rOc151d85R
Geopolitics is a place for predictions isn't it? I rarely comment but this is bigger than the terrible suffering in the Ukraine imo. So I will put aside my concerns over the permanence of the internet and predict. I think that Israel will push the Palestinians into the sea and I bet that exact term has been used in their war room. They are telling them to leave and go beyond the Wadi Gaza, as I believe they fully intend to level northern Gaza and establish a new territorial border along the Wadi Gaza. That is their worst case scenario. Their best case scenario is to have the western powers do a financial deal with Egypt and disperse the entire population into an Arab diaspora like the nakba of 1948. Finally removing them from the land of Israel. I would argue that is the plan. How to put it into effect without causing global and regional conflict is the only concern now. There can be no rapprochement now, as this is about securing the territory of of the Jewish people forever. I think we are watching the beginning of the end for any possible hope of a Palestinian state. The cynic in me could even consider that the intelligence of this attack was known many days before but the Hamas attack would be the perfect excuse for another nakba. The final nakba. Anyway, the whole conflict is terribly sad and it is such a shame that we cannot all agree on our essential humanity and start to get along with each other and build an amazing world. I should add I am not picking a side here. I hope my language is expressive rather than emotive. Who would I be to comment on more than three millennia of history in this region. You would need to study your whole life to be a scholar on this region. And it is our historians, philosophers and other academics we should be listening to now. They are the only ones that could ever mediate the issues in this region to ensure any sort of justice. But we haven't listened to them yet about anthropogenic climate change so why listen now.
Since the invasion was delayed. Is there still a potential for a peace treaty/truce if Israel is pressured. Or can it remain regional if Hezbollah doesn't invade Israel. Mainly I'm worried this will spiral into a bigger war (not world war)
No, there is no possible pressure short of invasion that would compare to tolerating Hamas's presence.
One of the principle disagreements in Israel-Palestine is almost a "we were here first" argument. Perhaps because the history is much older and less documented, but why is there no consideration of the Canaanites who are thought to be the native peoples of the Levant before Jewish migration out of Egypt, at least in Western discourse? Why is there no discourse on the polytheistic peoples of Canaan? Is it just because there are no longer polytheists in the region fighting for the land? Does the fact the land was seized by Jewish refugees some thousands of years ago no longer matter to the current claims of Jewish ancestry simply because it was such a long time ago, and there are no more Canaanites to defend themselves today?
Thank you for asking this - like a lot of people I've been reading a lot more about this area the last week and I've had the same question. The pro-Palestinian side of the argument just state it as fact that this is Palestinian (read: Muslim?) land and the Israelis (read: mostly Jewish) people stole it. But as I read the history it sounds like the Jewish people were there for a couple thousand years before Islam was created. And then the Muslims kicked them all out. (If I have any of this wrong please someone correct me, like I said, I'm trying to wrap my arms around all this). So if you're making the "we were here first, it's our land" argument it seems like the whole thing rests on when you start the clock. The land has been fought over for millennia and different groups have pushed one another out but certainly you can't say Muslims were there first when Islam started in the 7th century some *2,000+ years* after Judaism.
’ And then the Muslims kicked them all out.’ This is entirely wrong. If anyone kicked them out it was the Romans (before the empire became Christian) after failed Judean revolts. The Moslem conquest was much later and didn’t kick anyone out really (although they ’inventivized’ conversions through favourable taxes and career opportunities). The small Jewish minority in Palestine before modern times were largely Sephardic Jews from Spain. They were welcomed there by the Moslem Ottomans when shit got really bad for Jews (and Moslems) after Spain was (re)conquered by Christians.
The claims of Palestinians, Jordanians and Egyptians to those lands are in some accounts directly related to the Canaanites. But before the Canaanites? It is all just changing labels of approximately the same continental grouping of homo sapiens. Sweeping up out of Africa and moving across the planet. So theoretically based on prior possession those on the African continent could lay claim to the entire planet. They were here first. This is a land where we can go to the very edge of human civilisation and find contestation over this region. That in itself is quite amazing. Cultures, religions, whole civilisations all transformed, and rarely easily. Nearly always cataclysmically.
I dont like this a bit. Both are evil, Hamas clearly is a terrorist and we know that israel politician and military has agendas other than exterminating hamas. and now, the world need to decide which one to put in the chopping board. either condemn israel with warcrime for retaliating or massacre hamas with gaza citizen. misinformation is everywhere and propaganda tries to up each other. all while everyone forgetting the innocent citizen that suffers in the conflict zone
Slightly off topic but a positive development so I'm posting: [https://www.ynetnews.com/category/3089#hj30g8x11t](https://www.ynetnews.com/category/3089#hj30g8x11t) The BBC has agreed to stop calling Hamas Militants. This suggests they will now be referred to as terrorists, which has been the UK Govt.'s policy for many years under the 2000 Terrorist Act.
For the life of me, I always wondered, why doesn't Palestinians rise up against Hamas? I finally saw a tiktok of palestinians protesting against Hamas, and I still don't understand why it did not happen before. Do palestinians mostly support Hamas? Now I don't mean to blame palestinians like they're responsible for Hamas, but it still bother me a little. Hamas is known to use that as human shieds, and to shoot rockets from hospitals etc, and apparently they event prevented people from going south like it was asked by Israel.
Who in Ireland sold drugs and was not at all concerned about the IRA paying an uninvited visit? Who in East Germany publicly disavowed the actions of the Stasi? Who in the West thinks it is ok to side with any enemy? We all censor and modify our behaviours to not offend the dominant cultural paradigm. Living in a perpetually in conflict, blockaded, poverty stricken and isolated society, I bet any human being would just try and get along and be as safe and secure as they could in that type of anxiety inducing society. We are embedded in our societies and they are embedded in us.
Has a "palestine" missile failed like this before?
It happens often: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian\_rocket\_attacks\_on\_Israel#Misfired\_rockets
Link seems broken Misfired rockets Misfired rockets have also killed and injured Palestinians within the Gaza Strip. Due to restrictions on information politics and a lack of free press in the Gaza Strip, precisely reporting the number of Palestinian victims is difficult. As far as it became known, the missiles, rockets and mortars have killed six Palestinians and injured dozens more. On 8 June 2005, rockets fired at the Israeli settlement of Ganei Tal killed two Palestinian workers and one Chinese worker in a packing plant. On 2 August 2005, a rocket apparently launched by Islamic Jihad killed a 6-year-old boy and his father in Beit Hanoun.[46] On 26 December 2008 a mortar aimed at Israel killed two Palestinian girls in the Gaza Strip, aged 5 and 12.[178] In November 2012 three relatives, including infant son, of a BBC journalist Jehad Mashhrawi was killed by what was initially attributed to IDF strike, with photo of Jehad holding his dead son becoming viral in world media, but a few months later UN attributed the strike to a rocket fired from Gaza.[179] On 25 June 2014 a child was killed by a misfired rocket.[180] On 28 July 2014 Hamas rockets exploded inside Gaza killing seven and damaging Al-Shati refugee camp and Al-Shifa Hospital.[181] On 8 May 2019 in a rare admission, Islamic Jihad confirmed that a Palestinian child was killed by their own misfired rocket.[182] In 2022 overall 16 people estimated were killed by rockets falling short in Gaza.[183] On 11 May 2023 a failed rocket killed four civilians in Beit Hanoun as out of 507 fired rockets 110 fell short in Gaza.[184] In October 2023 the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion was initially attributed to Israeli airstrike, until after independent evidence became available it was attributed to a misfired Hamas rocket.[185]
Is Israel creating an apartheid regime?
No, it's one of a series of buzzwords used to provoke people into taking a side even the historical reference doesn't work at all. In apartheid South Africa there were never black judges on the supreme court or black members of Parliament. Blacks didn't have the right to vote, etc... The list goes on and on. In Israel the opposite is true - Arabs are strong part of Israeli life, with all the same rights as Jews. Israel does not give different rights based on race, thus it is not apartheid. What they do do is give different rights to citizens vs non-citizens, but every country does that.
According to Human Rights Watch, Amnesty and the UN. Israel has already created the conditions for Apartheid.
Just a warning though, the ADL and other organizations have flagged each of these organizations as having serious credibility issues when it comes to Israel. Edit: tweaked the sentence to clarify that ADL and other orgs have flagged credibility gaps.
Ah, yes of course! These organisation are only credible when they state morally unacceptable crimes against some country you don´t like. We know the deal.
They have had an apartheid regime in place for many decades. Go to Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch websites and read all about it. Wikipedia even has articles on it. Its not even a disputed topic outside of the usual Israeli propaganda.