That dog knew what he was doing. Listen to the hound, my man . . . always listen to the hound.
That dog knew what he was doing. Listen to the hound, my man . . . always listen to the hound.I didn't get that far, a dog woke me up.
yes, I like that plan.maybe we can give them Texas or Florida?
No, I mean everyone's well-being. Everyone including Israelis. What is good for everyone is peace, but that isn't good for Israeli or Palestinian leaders, so everyone suffers to the point they all want to execute each other's babies.I think you mean the well being of people who are not Israeli citizens. That is how the Israeli electorate would see it.
I know the reality is our governments aren't always going to take the most wise way forward. They afterall somewhat represent their voters, and most voters are irrational on good days, let alone when events like these happen.You are just out of touch with reality if you think any democratic country, or any country for that matter, would respond to this attack in the manner you are suggesting. It's never going to happen, anywhere.
This has nothing to do with Netanyahu either, asshole that he is. In fact, he and his Likud party have run the government going on 25 years now because Israel's Labor Party offered the Pals a state in 1999. They rejected it and chose instead to start up a wave of suicide bombings. They were seen as shitting the bed and putting Israeli citizens at risk, so they've been in the political wilderness for a quarter century. In any event, the Israeli labor party is fully behind Israel's retaliation now. There aren't really any dissenters. And you shouldn't expect there to be, because this is how any democratic government would respond, not with the political suicide you suggest.
I'm exactly like all the rest of us here, an armchair general dependent on a wide range of sources, trying to discern the facts of the situation through the fog of war.Your welcome to go through what the Israeli government released and give an expert opinion. That said, I wouldn't recommend it.
In order for that to happen the hostages have to be released. In order for that to happen someone has to pay.No, I mean everyone's well-being. Everyone including Israelis. What is good for everyone is peace, but that isn't good for Israeli or Palestinian leaders, so everyone suffers to the point they all want to execute each other's babies.
But the "disregard for civilian life". That is easy to defend. Hamas shelters itself among civilians. Israel has stated it will restore water, food, electricity when Hamas releases its hostages. Hamas claims to govern Gaza, if so, Hamas cares not about Gaza. The disregard for Palestinian life here is on Hamas.I know the reality is our governments aren't always going to take the most wise way forward. They afterall somewhat represent their voters, and most voters are irrational on good days, let alone when events like these happen.
Regardless, Israeli disregard for civilian life is indefensible. We don't live in eye for an eye days anymore.
The national Palestinian movement formally split politically, geographically and strategically after Hamas beat Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council elections. Factional fighting erupted after the two parties failed to reach a power-sharing agreement. Hundreds of Palestinians died. The Palestinian Territories divided into two: Hamas ruled Gaza, and Fatah led the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank. The 2011 Arab uprisings inspired demonstrations in the Palestinian Territories. Both the West Bank and Gaza witnessed protests by Palestinians fed up with the years-long strife between Fatah and Hamas. If I recall ... Fatah and Hamas responded to public pressure by signing a unity deal that brought together all factions. But it was short-lived. The rise of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood in 2012 boosted the profile of Hamas. But the momentum soon dissipated; the Brotherhood was forcibly ousted in mid-2013. Hamas was further isolated.@Puffnstuff when was the last election in Gaza?
It was never about the specific act of beheading but more of an attempt to stop false news and conspiracy theories intended to enflame for an agenda. How often in this country has society been eroded from false news?It's fucking stupid arguing about who is more to blame historically and focus on where the parties involved go from here. Or if children were "beheaded" or not. Children were intentionally targeted and killed. INTENT is the key word here. INTENT has always been the key word when civilians are killed in this conflict. All the false equivalence is wasted breath and a futile conversation. No nation on earth would tolerate what Hamas just did to their civilians. NONE! ZERO! Intentionally targeting and slaughter of civilians. Most likely the biggest slaughter of Jews since WWII.
Any good way forward must entail dealing more decisively with those who oppose good outcomes. Any group or state that refuses to countenance both the right of Israel to exist and the right of peaceful Palestinians to self-determination and a meaningful future must be marginalized. Prominent among these is Iran, so it will be important not to let this derail accords between most other regional powers and the West. And it certainly includes the far right in Israel, but there’s every indication that this can be a turning point in Israeli politics. Bibi will be gone. Not immediately. But when the dust clears, it's clear from some of the commentary out of Israel that he's toast. Netanyahu’s policies since 2009 absolutely did help Hamas grow. And all the money and aid sent down to gaza goes through Hamas.
Israel has been isolating Hamas since 2007. It hasn’t worked. All that “isolating Hamas” will do is give them another decade to build up and radicalize Palestinians while raging at the blockade. Hamas needs to be eliminated and the lives of individual Palestinians need to get better. That cannot happen so long as Hamas remains in power; they will continue to act in ways that force Israel to respond in ways that hurt Palestinians.
allowing Hamas to continue to exist leaves a negative feedback loop in place with no possible good outcome. Hamas holding power, dedicated to the destruction of Israel, necessitates a blockade for the protection of Israel. The blockade causes misery for Palestinians. They are exposed to constant anti-Israel propaganda, an easy sell because Israel are the enforcers of the blockade, even if Hamas are the ultimate cause. This creates a negative feedback loop to recruit more Palestinians to Hamas and require an even more impregnable blockade. I'm not suggesting that ALL that’s required is the removal of Hamas and some magical positive outcome that has eluded us for 50 years will emerge. But I don’t see how it’s not a necessary first step. The second step is the hard right Israeli government.
Israel will root out Hamas, and the only way to do that is with ground troops. Israel has a duty of care to try to protect civilians, but not if that entails the survival of Hamas as a threat. If Hamas refuses to ALLOW the safe segregation of civilians from where they operate or where they are shooting rockets and shooting at Israeli troops, that’s on Hamas. I don’t believe that most Palestinians cannot understand that supporting a group that advocates and attempts the destruction of Israel while using Palestinian civilians as shields is going to end badly for them. And any Palestinian who still thinks Hamas were good advocates for their rights now has a bleak opportunity to reconsider, because when Hamas is destroyed and thousands of people on both sides are dead they WILL have a new choice to make. It’s not clear exactly what that choice will look like, but when Hamas are gone as the group is today, there will be huge impetus and international support for change.
The national Palestinian movement formally split politically, geographically and strategically after Hamas beat Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council elections. Factional fighting erupted after the two parties failed to reach a power-sharing agreement. Hundreds of Palestinians died. The Palestinian Territories divided into two: Hamas ruled Gaza, and Fatah led the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank. The 2011 Arab uprisings inspired demonstrations in the Palestinian Territories. Both the West Bank and Gaza witnessed protests by Palestinians fed up with the years-long strife between Fatah and Hamas. If I recall ... Fatah and Hamas responded to public pressure by signing a unity deal that brought together all factions. But it was short-lived. The rise of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood in 2012 boosted the profile of Hamas. But the momentum soon dissipated; the Brotherhood was forcibly ousted in mid-2013. Hamas was further isolated.
In 2017, the Palestinian Authority tried to pressure Hamas into reconciliation by cutting payments for fuel, electricity and government salaries. But a preliminary deal between the PA and Hamas stumbled over disputes about public finance and Hamas’ refusal to demilitarize. Sometime in 2018, an assassination attempt on Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, which the PA blamed on Hamas, doomed prospects for compromise. Hamas has been running things in Gaza.
sometimes i feel a good analogy like this might help americans understand the history of that region. a little to close to home analogy using a US state and or city as an example.yes, I like that plan.
And we can move the former Texan's into a strip on the north side of Texas, fenced off. Surrounded by a smart wall. For everyone's safety. And not allow them to vote.
We can even start negotiations for a two state solution, a Texas republic, that gives them a small strip of their former territory. You know Texan's used to be slave holders, it is only fair they give up most of their land as reparations.
The new PDF could implement universal conscription to insure the freedom of the new state from all comers, and keep the Texan's safely behind the walls of their enclaves. I am sure a peace agreement could be arrived at in time.
Pay what? What are they asking for in return?In order for that to happen the hostages have to be released. In order for that to happen someone has to pay.
Nobody is willing to pay the price for peace.
That doesn't defend it unless Hamas is actively attacking Israel in a way that cannot be stopped by other means. I admit I don't follow this closely enough to know what destruction Hamas is currently reining down on Isreal, if any. AFAIK the Iron Dome is intercepting all/most Hamas rockets as it always has. I haven't heard of any Israeli rocket deaths, but I haven't exactly been looking either.But the "disregard for civilian life". That is easy to defend. Hamas shelters itself among civilians.
Why start at 1999. Why claim a virtue out of offering someone a bedroom in a house they thought was theirs? If the US decided to set up a US state called Palestine based strictly on Sharia law in the middle of Israel would Israelis simply say fine by us or would we have a centuries long war to recover the land? I think the historic blunder was to create a religious state in the middle of what was the home of a majority of people who lived there and belonged to a different religion, and a religion uniquely designed to deal with being fucked with. You speak of political suicide as if the creation of a Zionist state didn't include that inevitability. It is truly sad but how you expect the government of Israel to respond is not just true of a democratic Israel but of all people everywhere. It's just that the wheel has turned.I think you mean the well being of people who are not Israeli citizens. That is how the Israeli electorate would see it. You are just out of touch with reality if you think any democratic country, or any country for that matter, would respond to this attack in the manner you are suggesting. It's never going to happen, anywhere.
This has nothing to do with Netanyahu either, asshole that he is. In fact, he and his Likud party have run the government going on 25 years now because Israel's Labor Party offered the Pals a state in 1999. They rejected it and chose instead to start up a wave of suicide bombings. They were seen as shitting the bed and putting Israeli citizens at risk, so they've been in the political wilderness for a quarter century. In any event, the Israeli labor party is fully behind Israel's retaliation now. There aren't really any dissenters. And you shouldn't expect there to be, because this is how any democratic government would respond, not with the political suicide you suggest.
I just could not agree more.Nir Avishai Cohen, a major in the reserves of the Israel Defense Forces, is the author of the book “Love Israel, Support Palestine.”
I was in Austin, Texas, for work on Saturday when I received a call from my commander in the Israel Defense Forces to return to Israel and head to the front line. I didn’t hesitate. I knew that the citizens of my country were in real danger. My duty first and foremost is to join the fight against those who unleashed a massacre on my people. I boarded the first flight I found out of Austin to head home to join the I.D.F. reserves, where I serve as a brigade operations command officer.
During my long flight to Israel, my mind couldn’t rest. I was trying to write down my feelings and thoughts about everything happening — and everything that’s about to happen — in my beloved country.
Little by little, the dimensions of the horrors of the most brutal attack that Israelis have experienced since the establishment of the state were being revealed. Hundreds of Hamas terrorists slaughtered more than 1,200 people, including women, children and older people. About 150 citizens and soldiers have been taken captive. There’s nothing in the world that can justify the murder of hundreds of innocent people.
But I’d like to say one thing clearly, before I go to battle: There’s no such thing as “unavoidable.” This war could have been avoided, and no one did enough to prevent it. Israel did not do enough to make peace; we just conquered the Palestinian territories in the West Bank, expanded the illegal settlements and imposed a long-term siege on the Gaza Strip.
For 56 years Israel has been subjecting Palestinians to oppressive military rule. In my book “Love Israel, Support Palestine,” I wrote: “Israeli society has to ask itself very important questions about where and why the blood of its sons and daughters was spilled. A Messianic religious minority has dragged us into a muddy swamp, and we are following them as if it were the piper from Hamelin.” When I wrote these words last year, I didn’t realize how deep in the mud we were, and how much more blood could be shed in so little time.
I am now going to defend my country against enemies who want to kill my people. Our enemies are the deadly terrorist organizations that are being controlled by Islamic extremists.
Palestinians aren’t the enemy. The millions of Palestinians who live right here next to us, between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan, are not our enemy. Just like the majority of Israelis want to live a calm, peaceful and dignified life, so do Palestinians. Israelis and Palestinians alike have been in the grip of a religious minority for decades. On both sides, the intractable positions of a small group have dragged us into violence. It doesn’t matter who is more cruel or more ruthless. The ideologies of both have fueled this conflict, leading to the deaths of too many innocent civilians.
As a major in the reserves, it is important to me to make it clear that in this already unstoppable new war, we cannot allow the massacre of innocent Israelis to result in the massacre of innocent Palestinians. Israel must remember that there are more than two million people living in the Gaza Strip. The vast majority of them are innocent. Israel must do everything in its power to avoid killing innocent people and to focus on destroying the militant army of Hamas.
This war, like others before it, will end sooner or later. I am not sure I will come back from it alive, but I do know that a minute after the war is over, both Israelis and Palestinians will have to reckon with the leaders who led them to this moment. We must wake up and not let the extremists rule. Palestinians and Israelis must denounce the extremists who are driven by religious fanaticism. The Israelis will have to oust National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and their far-right circle from power, and the Palestinians will have to oust the leadership of Hamas.
I try to look for shreds of hope. The Yom Kippur War, the most difficult war that Israel had known until this week, started by surprise in 1973. After a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt was finally signed in 1979, the border with Egypt — one that was once the site of the dead and wounded — became a border of peace.
Israelis must realize that there is no greater security asset than peace. The strongest army cannot protect the country the way peace does. This current war proves it once again. Israel has followed the path of war for too long.
At the end, after all of the dead Israelis and Palestinians are buried, after we have finished washing away the rivers of blood, the people who share a home in this land will have to understand that there is no other choice but to follow the path of peace. That is where true victory lies.
Reprinted from NYT (paywall)
I’m Going to War for Israel. Palestinians Are Not My Enemy.
groups.google.comOpinion | I’m Going to War for Israel. Palestinians Are Not My Enemy.
This war could have been avoided, and no one did enough to prevent it.www.nytimes.com
I just could not agree more.
Amen to this!Nir Avishai Cohen, a major in the reserves of the Israel Defense Forces, is the author of the book “Love Israel, Support Palestine.”
I was in Austin, Texas, for work on Saturday when I received a call from my commander in the Israel Defense Forces to return to Israel and head to the front line. I didn’t hesitate. I knew that the citizens of my country were in real danger. My duty first and foremost is to join the fight against those who unleashed a massacre on my people. I boarded the first flight I found out of Austin to head home to join the I.D.F. reserves, where I serve as a brigade operations command officer.
During my long flight to Israel, my mind couldn’t rest. I was trying to write down my feelings and thoughts about everything happening — and everything that’s about to happen — in my beloved country.
Little by little, the dimensions of the horrors of the most brutal attack that Israelis have experienced since the establishment of the state were being revealed. Hundreds of Hamas terrorists slaughtered more than 1,200 people, including women, children and older people. About 150 citizens and soldiers have been taken captive. There’s nothing in the world that can justify the murder of hundreds of innocent people.
But I’d like to say one thing clearly, before I go to battle: There’s no such thing as “unavoidable.” This war could have been avoided, and no one did enough to prevent it. Israel did not do enough to make peace; we just conquered the Palestinian territories in the West Bank, expanded the illegal settlements and imposed a long-term siege on the Gaza Strip.
For 56 years Israel has been subjecting Palestinians to oppressive military rule. In my book “Love Israel, Support Palestine,” I wrote: “Israeli society has to ask itself very important questions about where and why the blood of its sons and daughters was spilled. A Messianic religious minority has dragged us into a muddy swamp, and we are following them as if it were the piper from Hamelin.” When I wrote these words last year, I didn’t realize how deep in the mud we were, and how much more blood could be shed in so little time.
I am now going to defend my country against enemies who want to kill my people. Our enemies are the deadly terrorist organizations that are being controlled by Islamic extremists.
Palestinians aren’t the enemy. The millions of Palestinians who live right here next to us, between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan, are not our enemy. Just like the majority of Israelis want to live a calm, peaceful and dignified life, so do Palestinians. Israelis and Palestinians alike have been in the grip of a religious minority for decades. On both sides, the intractable positions of a small group have dragged us into violence. It doesn’t matter who is more cruel or more ruthless. The ideologies of both have fueled this conflict, leading to the deaths of too many innocent civilians.
As a major in the reserves, it is important to me to make it clear that in this already unstoppable new war, we cannot allow the massacre of innocent Israelis to result in the massacre of innocent Palestinians. Israel must remember that there are more than two million people living in the Gaza Strip. The vast majority of them are innocent. Israel must do everything in its power to avoid killing innocent people and to focus on destroying the militant army of Hamas.
This war, like others before it, will end sooner or later. I am not sure I will come back from it alive, but I do know that a minute after the war is over, both Israelis and Palestinians will have to reckon with the leaders who led them to this moment. We must wake up and not let the extremists rule. Palestinians and Israelis must denounce the extremists who are driven by religious fanaticism. The Israelis will have to oust National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and their far-right circle from power, and the Palestinians will have to oust the leadership of Hamas.
I try to look for shreds of hope. The Yom Kippur War, the most difficult war that Israel had known until this week, started by surprise in 1973. After a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt was finally signed in 1979, the border with Egypt — one that was once the site of the dead and wounded — became a border of peace.
Israelis must realize that there is no greater security asset than peace. The strongest army cannot protect the country the way peace does. This current war proves it once again. Israel has followed the path of war for too long.
At the end, after all of the dead Israelis and Palestinians are buried, after we have finished washing away the rivers of blood, the people who share a home in this land will have to understand that there is no other choice but to follow the path of peace. That is where true victory lies.
Reprinted from NYT (paywall)
I’m Going to War for Israel. Palestinians Are Not My Enemy.
groups.google.comOpinion | I’m Going to War for Israel. Palestinians Are Not My Enemy.
This war could have been avoided, and no one did enough to prevent it.www.nytimes.com
Why start at 1999. Why claim a virtue out of offering someone a bedroom in a house they thought was theirs? If the US decided to set up a US state called Palestine based strictly on Sharia law in the middle of Israel would Israelis simply say fine by us or would we have a centuries long war to recover the land? I think the historic blunder was to create a religious state in the middle of what was the home of a majority of people who lived there and belonged to a different religion, and a religion uniquely designed to deal with being fucked with. You speak of political suicide as if the creation of a Zionist state didn't include that inevitability. It is truly sad but how you expect the government of Israel to respond is not just true of a democratic Israel but of all people everywhere. It's just that the wheel has turned.
Religion is fundamentally undemocratic. Nobody should or would care what anybody's religious beliefs are so long as the have no effect politically. It is the certainty of belief that leads to war.
Let me add that what I feel I could see would happen and many decades ago looking at this problem since I was a child. The point I wish to emphasize is that the way I see it is not how I wish it to be. It is the people on both sides caught up in machine thinking for whom I have pity. The response of sleeping humanity is mechanical and has to be exactly as it is so long as we stay asleep. This is the tragedy in my opinion.
Yeah, I posted the proposed map of the British earlier in the thread. The UN accepted the map reasonable and were prepared to implement that as two states, with really strange borders). Unfortunately, the Zionists at the time didn't like the idea. Hell, IIRC, even the Russian (Stalin) backed it.You''re right, no need to start in 1999. We can go back to 1948, and before that, 1939, when the Palestinians were also offered statehood, by the UN and by the British, respectively. As I said upthread, those were more generous offers. The British offer would have given them a sovereign state in 80% of Palestine. This to a people who up until that time were stateless. That is hardly, as you say, "Offering someone a bedroom in a house they thought was theirs" it it?
Rejecting all these offers, time and time again, and choosing terrorism instead, which in turn has ensured that hardline governments continue to be elected in Israel, then creating a narrative of Palestinian victimhood based mainly on the Israeli response to said terrorism - all of that, is not the behavior of a true victim, or at least not anyone who is a victim of anyone but themselves.
The feeling of being a victim is as old as verbal abuse because of the connection between words that trigger the concepts in which we communicate and internalize our feelings of victimization. This is because the rules of conduct which we are forced to adopt to be accepted by the surrounding culture are imposed by words we learn carry threat. By implying that the pain we felt in learning we are under threat is constantly used to control our behavior we all feel we are victims of torment because we all went through it.You''re right, no need to start in 1999. We can go back to 1948, and before that, 1939, when the Palestinians were also offered statehood, by the UN and by the British, respectively. As I said upthread, those were more generous offers. The British offer would have given them a sovereign state in 80% of Palestine. This to a people who up until that time were stateless. That is hardly, as you say, "Offering someone a bedroom in a house they thought was theirs" it it?
Rejecting all these offers, time and time again, and choosing terrorism instead, which in turn has ensured that hardline governments continue to be elected in Israel, then creating a narrative of Palestinian victimhood based mainly on the Israeli response to said terrorism - all of that, is not the behavior of a true victim, or at least not anyone who is a victim of anyone but themselves.
This is acceptable to the Zionist supporters in this thread. Always has been. And some enjoy it. They have been excusing Israel for so long this people are sub human to them
I broadly agree, that the Palestinians could have had a state had they chosen to compromise on one and they should own the fact that their obstinacy is a major contributor to their current misery.You''re right, no need to start in 1999. We can go back to 1948, and before that, 1939, when the Palestinians were also offered statehood, by the UN and by the British, respectively. As I said upthread, those were more generous offers. The British offer would have given them a sovereign state in 80% of Palestine. This to a people who up until that time were stateless. That is hardly, as you say, "Offering someone a bedroom in a house they thought was theirs" it it?
Rejecting all these offers, time and time again, and choosing terrorism instead, which in turn has ensured that hardline governments continue to be elected in Israel, then creating a narrative of Palestinian victimhood based mainly on the Israeli response to said terrorism - all of that, is not the behavior of a true victim, or at least not anyone who is a victim of anyone but themselves.