Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

remember the last time they dismantled settlements and withdrew? what happened then? oh yeah, hamas moved in and started firing rockets. def a good idea to try the same thing again to stop these rockets.

I remember there was looting/rioting and Palestinians burned some synagogues that were left behind (yr talking about 2005 right?)

xxp

anyway I just pulled that out of a hat - they could say they are stopping new settlements, or something else, whatever would most undercut Hamas' position as the morally righteous underdog (which btw I do not actually believe they are in case that isn't clear)

yes, but i'm talking about the fact that hamas immediately took control of gaza and started bombing israel - which is exactly what is going on today. the last withdrawal from settlements led directly to the rockets happening today. offering to withdraw from more settlements to stop these rockets seems insane to me. it'll just lead to new rockets, this time much much closer to tel aviv and jerusalem!

like i understand not liking the occupation. i don't like it. it's distasteful/immoral to be in control of ppl who don't have a vote. that's why i think israel should annex the whole bloody thing and give citizenship to the palestinians living there. but just leaving unilaterally, in light of 2005, is not a feasible option.

Mordy, I know there's false images about. There's also real ones: http://www.nrc.nl/inbeeld/2014/07/08/gaza-stad-is-getroffen-door-een-zwaar-israelisch-luchtoffensief/

No need to inform me about falsely attributed images. There're enough that are from today. Israel going all out in bloody vengeance.

you call it vengeance, i call it an appropriate response to 80 rockets

if you can't prevent missiles being shot at your biggest city w/ a military response you aren't really a country anymore.

I guess there are a bunch of countries that aren't actually countries by this estimation. sucks to be you, Costa Rica!

it'll just lead to new rockets, this time much much closer to tel aviv and jerusalem!

I don't really get how current policy of antagonizing Hamas and lending moral credence to their claims of unjust oppression really reduces the number of rockets either. The picture you paint implies that Hamas will bomb Israel *no matter what Israel does* so Israel might as well bomb back. But imo all this does is increase the amount of misery going around, it doesn't actually lead to any conclusive resolution, it just fuels the fire. Do you think if Israel's "targeted bombing" (sad megalol at this general concept too, btw) at "jihad operatives + rocket stockpiles" (which in practice inevitably leads to innocent deaths/collateral damage) is targeted enough that the Arab world - hell, the rest of the world including the twitterverse - will all say, "oh, gee this is perfectly reasonable, good on you Israel!" No, of course not. Hamas will win the "hearts and minds" battle if Israel bombs anything. Israel takes the moral high ground, not only will fewer people die, they will have stronger international support and a better position from which to negotiate a permanent solution.

xp

i think protecting your ppl comes first, before looking good in front the international community.

i also suspect that it doesn't really matter what israel does, the arab world will never be won over. they might ultimately negotiate / make peace but it won't be because israel moved them by not responding to rocket fire.

It's in in appropriately huge and devastating "response". Bombing innocent people who cannot flee anywhere because they are trapped. 40.000 reservists called up.

But by all means, keep calling a nation a 1000 times more forceful attacking Palestine "an appropriate response"... It's against international laws, but we all know how Israel feels about that.

If these false justifications makes you feel this is 'right', make you sleep well at night, by all means.

you legit argue like a child, LBI.

all i can say is thank god israel is 1000 times more powerful than the palestinians bc in 67 and 73 they weren't 1000 times more powerful than the arab nations attacking them and it was miraculous that they survived. now they can guarantee their own survival.

and what a glorious, trouble-free, amoral survival it is

The bully never looks good

"oh did you hit me? I STAB YOU"

survival is rarely trouble free, but it's better than the alternative

No, I don't. You sweep all of Israel's force and actions under the 'nuanced' misnomer "appropriate response". There is no discussing this with you when that is the be all and end all.

You think Israel is entirely in it's right to lash out like this. You refuse to acknowledge the devastating effects, for ever trapped in the 'but they started it!' discourse.

If you want childish, there you are.

I can't think of anything more childish than constantly beating up someone smaller than you and then being angry when they don't stop fighting back

like omg they're firing rockets at our city from their garbage dump! maybe it's because we have a city.

^^ that.

The way that you guys discuss this, "vengeance," "lashing out," "beating up," in my eyes indicates how superficial your engagement with any of this really is. If you can't understand Israel's actions today in the context of defending its populace than you're always going to have to reduce military events to the asinine psychological topographies that exist in your own life. Israel isn't planning on risking IDF lives in a ground invasion because they're a big bully who hates the Palestinians. They're doing it because they have an obligation to protect the civilians who live in their country. The size of the force firing the rockets doesn't matter - just the fact that life has been disrupted while rockets land in Israel. Just like Israel had an obligation to build a fence because they had to protect their citizens against suicide bombers coming in from the West Bank. Maybe LBI feels like he can understand how the Palestinians feel and so he sympathizes with rock throwing, molotov cocktail launching, rocket shooting as an expression of their dissatisfaction. But no government has the luxury of sympathizing with the people firing rockets. That's not how governments work. Anywhere, afaik.

asinine psychological topographies that exist in your own life

no need to get personal

Like LBI, you don't like that when you discuss this with me, I won't talk on the terms laid out by the radical pro-Palestinian left. I can understand that you're frustrated. I do appreciate that you haven't been reduced to calling me a Ziofascism, or insinuated that I'm on the payroll of Israeli hasbara. But if you're really committed to peace, you need to understand the other POV. It seems to me like between the two of us, you're the one stuck in an echo chamber. You really have no grasp on what life is like for Israelis. You just have this hysterical emotional rhetoric cribbed from social media. My feed is full today of people praying for minimal casualties, and a quick cessation of hostilities, but who recognize that their lives can't continue until the rockets stop falling and the air sirens stop going off. They pray that the IDF doesn't go into Gaza because they have children serving that they are scared of losing. They aren't rah-rahing a campaign into Gaza because they are big bullies who hate Arabs.

re: military events - it's Israeli policy to *always* respond disproportionately to any violence inflicted on its populace, are you seriously suggesting otherwise? Hamas kills 3 people, Israel kills 20, etc. 8- rockets = threat of 40,000 reservists invading. The idea, now disproven with tiresome regularity, is that if the response is just forceful enough to stop the immediate danger but not so forceful that it looks like genocide, then somehow Israel will navigate the conflict to a successful (for them) conclusion. This calculus is so deeply cynical and inhumane it's hard to fathom, but that it's performed at all is due entirely to Israel's vast military superiority.

xp

You really have no grasp on what life is like for Israelis. You just have this hysterical emotional rhetoric cribbed from social media

dude you need to chill with the ad hominem shit. I am not on fb, I follow 20 people on twitter (all of whom are either friends/family, none related to Israel), I am not on social media.

it's rich that you complain about my echo chamber and then clearly delineate your own though, nicely done.

Every country that engages in a military conflict uses the tools available to them. The United States didn't hold back troops from Iraq or Afghanistan because their force was unfairly larger + more powerful than the Taliban or the Revolutionary Guard. The "proportionate" thing is one of the dumbest ideas to come out of I/P conflict imo. Israel should do its best to limit civilian casualties but should use whatever is at their disposal to neuter Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

I was more talking to LBI, Shakey, but okay.

The United States didn't hold back troops from Iraq or Afghanistan because their force was unfairly larger + more powerful than the Taliban or the Revolutionary Guard

idk if these are the examples of successful, morally defensible military operations that you want to make

I guess if Mexico were bombing us Mexico City would be a smoldering ruin tout de suite but that doesn't mean I would support it as justifiable

I only hear about proportionality when it comes to Israel responding to rocket fire in Gaza. I've never heard it regarding any other military conflict in my adult life of reading about worldwide conflict.

tbf the Israel/Palestinian conflict is p unique militarily

I certainly can't think of any analogous situation

The way that you guys discuss this, "vengeance," "lashing out," "beating up," in my eyes indicates how superficial your engagement with any of this really is. If you can't understand Israel's actions today in the context of defending its populace than you're always going to have to reduce military events to the asinine psychological topographies that exist in your own life.

But if you're really committed to peace, you need to understand the other POV. It seems to me like between the two of us, you're the one stuck in an echo chamber. You really have no grasp on what life is like for Israelis. You just have this hysterical emotional rhetoric cribbed from social media.

Holy shit, dude. The ego on you. And I'm the one stuck in an echo chamber? I need to understand the other POV? Do you have any idea how condescending you are? Telling me to get perspective, implying you do and I - or anyone else not agreeing with you - don't?

You know nothing about my 'POV', possible personal involvement or engagement. And for the sake of the argument, to keep things clean - ie. without ad hominems you indeed keep using - that shouldn't have to matter. Of course I won't call you a 'Ziofascist', why would I?

I don't care who you are, I care about what you say. But your continued condescending tone, claiming you are the only one with the right view on this conflict, the one with perspective, calling me frustrated, childish, hysterical even...

I've no use to 'discuss' this with someone who uses this sort of rhetoric and takes this attitude towards me. It is, quite frankly, insufferable. You won't see me in this thread anymore. It's no use speaking to someone who inherently feels he is right and the other "doesn't understand", doesn't have perspective. All the best.

guys i think we can all agree israelis burning palestinian children alive and palestinians claiming that some video of a pallas cat they shared on facebook was from nepal when actually it was from some zoo in england are pretty much equally evil offenses. though obv only one of these activities should be funded by the american govt.

protip LBI: if you want to know insufferable, try talking to someone who assumes that you can only hold a particular position to help you "sleep at night," and that you're morally bankrupt for not agreeing with them. if you can't see how your comments on this topic amount of emotional manipulation, then i guess you're right, better you should just bow out. if you want to actually discuss this without marginalizing other opinions as monstrous, I'll always be here to talk.

well this was productive

mordy you got any protips on burning a child alive?

yeah, don't do it.

not sure if you needed to be told but you seem pretty confused in general so better to be on the safe side.

wait are you gonna tell us that hamas actually burned that palestinian child alive cuz yr gut tells you or are you just gonna tell us that throughout history plenty of children have been burned alive so big whoop amirite. help me i'm confused. are either of these morally bankrupt? cuz god knows you're not that.

Mordy is there any actual support in Israel for your annexation plan? This is not a solution I hear bandied about anywhere else tbh, and while forcibly absorbing a population that doesn't want to be part of your country into your civil society obviously presents, um, certain difficulties (particularly at this late date) it does seem preferable to me - just from a political and moral standpoint. Of course it would be ... complicated.
xxp

Is there support for any plan? I mean, there is some support for a similar plan. Bennett has proposed annexing most of the area (though not all of it) and he is in a political party with a legitimate amount of support from the population. Caroline Glick wrote about a similar plan. A lot of the concern is about "demographic timebomb" stuff which imho is not a real consideration. I think it's a more feasible solution than two state atm. Well, the binational solution looks somewhat promising too.

idk what to tell you balls. i hope the perpetrators get life sentences.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/07/08/gaza_attack_how_egypt_s_military_government_helped_isolate_hamas_ahead_of.html

I assume being annexed by Israel is not a very popular plan for Palestinians, citizenship or no...

No, probably not.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2014/07/08/world/middleeast/ap-un-united-nations-iraq-chemical-weapons.html?ref=aponline

More Iraq news:

http://www.newsweek.com/isis-destroys-shiite-mosques-and-shrines-iraq-257683

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/06/ahmad-chalabi-pariah-iraq-next-prime-minister

Oh no, he's back.