Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

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.

Chalabi return is like hearing Paul Wolfowitz is going to be the next president of the US

Public health officials in Gaza said Wednesday that 35 people have been killed in the coastal strip by Israeli airstrikes, including 16 minors and five women. At least 300 other people, more than half of them women and children, were injured seriously enough to be taken to area hospitals, they said.

Israeli casualties = 0

There were no immediate reports of injuries from the rockets [fired from Gaza], most of which fell in open areas or were intercepted by the Israeli anti-missile system.

im pulling 4 palestine in world cup over us/germany/israel

wld guess palestinians are backing argentina http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19861023

We tried to strike nuclear reactor, Hamas says
Hamas says the most recent attack on the southern city of Dimona targeted Israel’s nuclear facilities.

The Iron Dome shoots down two rockets, but others are thought to have fallen in the area. No damage or injuries are reported.

smart, trying to hit a nuclear reactor

doesn't seem like it matters very much what they are trying to hit, since they can't hit anything

they've hit some homes + commercial residences, but the iron dome has shot down the most dangerous rocket trajectories

$1.5 billion in american taxpayer dollars for iron dome alone.

Palestinians don't even get an Aluminum Dome

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/07/09/330160839/what-happens-when-israeli-mourners-visit-a-palestinian-family

It's pretty silly to discount rocket volleys just because most of the rockets either don't hit their targets or get shot down. The logical implication is that if the rockets start killing Israelis then the Israelis are fully justified in whatever response. But I can't imagine that's the position of the folks taking that stance.

The problem seems to be and has always been that both countries harbor and coddle a sizeable extremist population. Most Israelis I imagine support some sort of satisfactory compromise, as I imagine do most Palestinians. But a hunk of both groups support no compromise and/or the destruction of the other side. Maybe not formally, like Hamas does, but certainly implicitly. I and apparently no one has any idea how to simultaneously curb two sets of policy-dictating extremist factions. That's what seems to be what sets this conflict apart. Usually there is an establishment and a rebellion, say. In this case, we've got two establishments, and two rebellious, internal extremist groups capable of really anything. Yet the odds of the establishment cracking down on its own people, people who provide an existential component of the respective country, are nil. Which of course makes each impotent govt responsible for the actions of its minorities, which leads to perpetual conflict and blame and revenge, since it becomes everyone's collective fault.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/frame_game/2014/07/gaza_civilian_casualties_while_hamas_targets_innocent_people_israel_tries.html

always hear this thread to the tune of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAcB787DfQ4

Funny, I always hear this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4qh_9vH1Ww

lol

Most Israelis I imagine support some sort of satisfactory compromise, as I imagine do most Palestinians.

I agree with most of what you're saying but this might be understating the gap between normative positions on both sides. I think questions like the division of Jerusalem, or the right of return for refugees, and descendants of refugees from 48, are controversial even for moderates. I'm also not convinced (unlike Kerry) that you can possibly settle the conflict without handling these major issues.

Well, compromise means compromise. Division of Jerusalem I could see, or the transformation of the city into some sort of neutral territory. (Not that that would stop extremist violence). But yeah, not a lot of give on the issue of right of return, for obvious reasons.

One difference between the two groups, I think, is that if you are Israeli and for any sort of compromise or peace, you are not branded a turncoat traitor and targeted as such. Israel may be on the restrictive side of democracy, but they enjoy free speech. The Palestinians and their supporters, I think it's really hard to generalize what they believe, because for lots of reasons they are not always free to say what they feel or believe for fear of repercussion.

Obvious solution is to require the mutual excision/repression/outlawing of extremist elements on both sides on the grounds of their representing an existential threat

Sure. But each like I said is a sizeable, significant existential component that dictates the direction of the government, often democratically. It'd be like saying the US could get a lot more done if we just outlawed Republicans and Tea Party and religious right people. Both extremist groups have long been integrated into the respective Palestinian and Israeli governments. It's not so simple to suddenly kick them out, esp. since the alternative is, what, Egypt under Mubarak? Libya under Gaddafi? Just about any Arab nation under just about any dictator? And a lot of good that does when the dictator goes away and, go figure, the extremists are still there.

my pie in the sky fantasy resolution is that w/ the lack of iranian funding, Egyptian support, gulf states concentrating on syria + PLO antagonism plus israeli aerial campaign hamas collapses (wishful thinking #1). israel then empowers (wishful thinking #2) abbas to run new elections in gaza + west bank. maybe PLO can pull together a moderate government (wishful thinking #3) that might have the representation to negotiate w/ israel. at that point maybe kerry releases the US framework plan and both peoples can have a referendum vote or something.

more likely: israel bombs hamas until hamas runs out of rockets (through shooting them - losing them in depot explosions) and then they agree to a cease fire, repeat in two years.

If the GOP was advocating for the destruction of California I dont think there would be any issues w outlawing such a traitorous element. We did already sort of fight a civil war over these ideas.

lol GOP has long done the best it could sans rockets.

unfortunately agree w mordy on likely scenario here