- Seven million Israeli Jews live there.
- Seven million Palestinian Arabs live there.
- Nobody is going anywhere.
- Nobody is going to kill their way to a lasting conclusion.
I imagine that one of the outcomes of this war will be the exit of both Hamas and Netanyahu from power. They had a weird sort of symbiotic if not parasitic relationship with each other. Netanyahu used Hamas to whip up the far-right of Israeli society, but there is plenty of evidence in his own words of how good Hamas was for his political aspirations. Hamas, for its turn, used Netanyahu, in part, for its justification for its dictatorial rule of the Gaza Strip and for its program of martyrdom.
What it brought the Israelis was the most violent anti-Jewish pogrom since the Polish pogroms at the end of the Second World War. Netanyahu promised to keep the population safe and he utterly failed. Once the war is over, he will, in almost every conceivable outcome, be turfed out of office.
What it brought the residents of the Gaza Strip was the near-complete destruction of any significant infrastructure. Gaza City, where 600,000 people lived, has been rendered almost as uninhabitable as the Moon.[2]. Over 11,000 people have been killed in Gaza and it is reasonable to suppose that the overwhelming majority of them didn't sign onto Hamas's plan of martyrdom. They didn't have a choice when Hamas diverted resources to build military infrastructure under their homes, schools, businesses and hospitals.
Someone might begin pointing out that the destruction rained down on Gaza by Israel was foretold in Lebanon in 2006, when a Hezbollah attack resulted in a month-long war that shattered much of Lebanon's infrastructure south of Beirut. The lesson then was that given a severe enough provocation, the Israelis would have no compunction about breaking everything they could.[3]
Once this war ends, then unless both sides recognize the essential truths of the situation and then decide to see about finding a way out of the fighting, then the sole alternative is going to be another war.
___________
[1] Pelting them with rotten fruit is probably not a good idea. Attractive though it might be.
[2] Other than a breathable atmosphere and a 24-hour day.
[3] As much as their Iranian paymasters may have desired otherwise, it is notable that Hezbollah stayed out of this war.
24 comments:
I suspect Iran prefers their other proxies not directly involved here. Hamas is the wrong flavor of Islam, so they win by disrupting Israel and weakening the Sunni.
Bibi has created the next generation of Palestinian fighters. Hamas has created some new Israeli fighters, but Bibi is doing it wholesale….creating yet another future problem and making solving the current one more difficult (which, of course, was exactly the goal of Hamas on the first place…as you point out, they are in each others embrace).
You have the makings of an excellent geo-political forecaster. This was something I was handed when I showed such a taste many moons ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T65fTy5SE54&t=72s
I've been invited to a new contest with a prize pool
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I can facilitate an entre for anyone that wants to get their feet wet.
If this is true, I may be in the game:
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Iran and their proxies want to nip around the edges as much as they can without getting committed for the most part. What that has to do with US aircraft carriers is up to you.
Hey here is a new idea! What if we just don't go to the Temple anymore? What if Jerusalem was like a bad dream? We have thousands of holy places. Why do we have to be like that?
Respectfully, some facts/realities:
#1: In the last 23 years before this present disaster....and according to a left-wing Israeli information web site...Israel has killed 21 Palestinians for every Israeli dead. Source:
https://www.btselem.org/statistics
In the present war, the kill ration is up to 10:1 and rising. When does an eye for an eye become war crime?
#2: Israel, from before its founding (when it was a Zionist dream) up to the present has always proclaimed its assertion of a Greater Israel, its version of 'from the river to the sea'. Source:
https://www.academia.edu/4689202/_P_a_g_e_THE_INCONVENIENT_TRUTH_ABOUT_ISRAEL_BY_ISRAELIS_AND_ZIONISMS_FOUNDING_PATRONS
What Hamas did to Israel, Israelis and to Palestinians was and is inexcusable atrocities. What Israel has been doing retail for 75 years is purposeful apartheid and, in as they saw, 'mowing the grass', a sort of extreme ethnic cleansing (such a nice word) amounting to slow-motion genocide. Just as our Indians are no longer a threat, Israel to do the same with the Palestinians.
That's reality. Ugly...and no longer acceptable to the wider world uneasy about its own past transgressions (it's so easy then to assault Israel for that in the present). The Jews of the world in the preceding millennia wrote profound commentary on human and civil rights (along with being the source of Christianity); now that it has its own land and power, it turns away. Yes, its early survival was a ferocious battle but it's time to put mad-dog reaction in its past. Hasbara has had its day, now the whole world is watching.
Maybe if Christians didn't keep slaughtering Jews living in their countries, the impetus to return to our ancestral homeland wouldn't have arisen. I don't recall a single European nation in the second half of the 1940s who said anything to the effect of "we're sorry, come on back and we'll do what we can to make you whole".
No, they happily waved bye-bye as the DPs left for Israel and America and they kept their property. And now, those same European counties (and the Arab nations, that expelled their Jews after the war) love carping about Israel.
And no, I haven't forgotten about the SS St. Louis.
Agree completely and vehemently, Comrade. All fucking nations have these skeletons in their closet and not just against the Jewish Other. Plenty of bandwidth in hate when the Other comes to the attention of homo sapiens.
In justice, German is the only nation I know of that has worked to confront its (Nazi) war crimes, though it's like fighting alcoholism. In that effort, it's keeping that skeleton in sight, with Stolperstein and other endeavors. There is a town near one of the death camps; during the Holocaust, its people, good Germans, "din't" hear what was going on. Now every very year, their children don a tag with the name of a child (Jewish, Romany, what does it matter?) who died there and walk to the death camp to make it real and present.
Bitching at Israel by others is a cheap shot...but the horror involved needs stop. Yet the far right intolerant Right in Europe seems to be coming back. Witness the Dutch election and the riot in Dublin.
But anyway, tell me, Stewart, where does rehashing all that shit get us in 2023? How does going over past grievances get us out of the doom loop that the Middle East has been in for decades?
Or, more simply: so, what?
Maybe if more people knew about the S.S. St Louis…the education system in the U.S. does little, if anything, to educate its students in U.S. historical biases and failures (and, if Republicans have their way, will teach even less).
I suspect that the biggest thing of any consequence that will come out of this war, if it does indeed wind down in a reasonable time frame, will be the fact that a major shift in the relationship of the civilian population of Israel in regards to owning of firearms.
Before this invasion on Oct. 7, it was not actually normal for civilians to own firearms, and definitely not normal for them to have them at home. Once it became obvious to those in power that they can't be in all places at one time, they encouraged civilians to apply for gun permits, and to get armed and to have ammunition available to protect themselves. It seems like America's left leaning anti gun people would take a lesson, but facts seem to be not that important in their hatred of gun ownership.
As far as comparing Palestinians to our native Indians, the Jews have lived in the area for over 3,000 years. They have been hated and attacked over just about all of that time. Hamas might have suffered 10-1 casualty rates, but Hamas is the one that has kept shooting rockets into Israel and sending suicide bombers into civilian populations. If they were to disband today, the war would be over, and peace would be much more realistic. Instead I think that Israel will continue to fight until Hamas is destroyed to the point that they no longer are able to bring any type of threat to Israel.
Comrade, in a somewhat meager way to explain Stuart's post, Those who forget history are bound to repeat it. Rehashing the past hopefully will open the eyes of those who commit these heinous acts.
As to getting out of the loop of terror, vengeance, relative peace, wash, rinse, repeat; I think the only way out is for those that are in positions to do something must come to the realization that people have the right to live in peace, and their current actions to effect change contribute nothing to daily existence of their respective peoples.
But what do I know, I'm just another old guy with an opinion (no offense to Stuart).
Dale
Meanwhile, the Serbs are nursing, butthurt from 800 years ago. The only way to peace is for everyone to turn the page on the pasr and I do not see that happening.
Best. Summation. Ever! This should be required to be read aloud after every piece of "news" (propaganda) and opinion (at least more honestly propaganda) everywhere.
My sincere and humble thanks.
God, this is such a train wreck.
Yes, absolutely Comrade, we need to turn the page and go on from here
Israel has two choices:
#1 It can go on immiserating Palestinians, playing Whack-A-Mole and doing duplicitous stuff like fostering Hamas to play off the PLO, while helping the PLO to become discredited and corrupt. Along with creating facts on the ground that destroy the territorial integrity of land that might be the land of Palestine....and, oops, killing civilians by the bargeload in the periodic spasms of violence which are the result of Israel treating them so magnanimously . Which in spite of years of hasbara, now convinces no one but the Israelis that what they do is anything but extermination. Increasingly, it plays badly on the world stage and to world Jews. BTW, did Israel need to give the goyim an excuse that think that Jews are child murderers? Listen to the reportage from NPR of the war; it's disastrous and difficult to dispute (albeit coming from Palestinians). You will note that Israel isn't really allowing any non-Palestinian reporters in the war zone, except for short sanitiized Potemkin tours.
OR
#2 Israel can choose to create and foster a land of Palestinians. Israel's survival is now more threatened by what it does in 'mowing the lawn' and its poisonous internal politics than it is from its external neighbors. They have gotten used to Israel being there and are making peace with it. Not Iran, of course, but most everybody else knows full well they are mad dogs who destabilize everything. The states that aren't failed (like Egypt and Saudi Arabia) should show Israel that it can deal with stability, but that destability like Lebanon and the occupied territory are nothing but baskets of snakes until they stabilize....and that Israeli's future lies in stabilizing them...and muzzling their ultra-nationalists, ultra-religious and settlers in defense of their internal stability.
I can put you in touch with my sabra friend Eldad, who was born in the days of the Mandate, grew up there, served 20 years in the IDF...and can tell you how it was that Jews and Palestinians and Druze and Christians and many others did get along.
Finally, big props to you for hosting this difficult dialogue in this walk through minefields. Hats off to Comrade Misfit.
I think that what Bad Tux said about the conflict makes the most sense, for what that's worth.
Hamas has effectively called Israel's bluff, and now Israel has no choice but to crush Hamas.
Aside from the civilian casualties, the real question is what will Israel do afterward?
Looking to our own past, Bad Tux posited that had we treated the Japanese and Germans after WW2 the way Israel treats the Palestinians, there would be Japanese and German terror cells wreaking havoc on the US on a daily basis. So the rest of the world, and most importantly, Israel, will have to rebuild Gaza after the war and afford the Palestinians a degree of self determination that the current Israeli government would never abide, or else live in a perpetual low level war forever, with occasional outbreaks of real hot war like we're seeing right now.
My beef with Israel is that its government prefers that situation to any kind of reckoning with its own behavior. Whether the Israeli people choose to keep the present government will probably determine what the middle east is like for the next few decades.
But I guess that everyone has their own idea about what *should* happen there, so who knows?
-Doug in Sugar Pine
Stewart,
I know Israel is a mess. The Haredi are parasites and as relentlessly evil as the Christian Taliban here, only if one put all of the Evangelicals on welfare. They basically contribute nothing to the state. They have more in common with the mullahs of Iran than they would admit.
But I am curious: What do you think the Palestinians need to do?
Humans are essentially tribal, that fact seems to permeate the history of nearly all conflicts. You can get them to pull together now and then, and even create Empires together, but eventually someone uses the old levers to gain power by vilifying some other tribe in the group. Intermarriage and mixing has somewhat reduced this issue, but it still rears its ugly head regardless. If an alien threat appeared, humanity might, just might, finally pull together…until the threat diminished, at which point….well, you know the story.
Heinlein encapsulated it best with Mike laughing at the monkeys…the biggest one beats a smaller one, who goes and beats another smaller one, and so on…
Comrade: But I am curious: What do you think the Palestinians need to do?
The Palestinians themselves are altogether hapless pawns, much as non-gang members in a barrio. Surely they must revile the Israelis, yet at the same time, know full well what happens if they snap and go berserk. Like being black in the South before 1950. For all they cheeer when Israelis suffer, they know that Hamas' actions bring apocalyptic wrath down upon them. And consider that half of them are children and a substantial number of them teenagers, that time of immaturity and hormonal sturm und drang.
There is precious little they *can* do other than take one of the many ways available to them to committ suicide and doom their family. Take a look at this, drawn up before the current conflagration
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Ff193dxjsfq2c1.jpg
Israel has *all* the *real* agency and power. Were it to deal with the haredi according to what I think they deserve, ditto with the ultras and truly offer Palestinians peace, land, resources and a future, I think the Ps would grab it with both hands like the blacks of America did...
But to do so, Israel would have to cede them power and resources...and Israel is greedy, just as us here in America. The Israeli who was making that future foreseeable was assassinated. For this to happen, Israel will have something of a civil war....a lot of those settlers have Uzis and their fanatical holy zeal. It will be the Irgun all over again.
Watch this video interviewing settlers (these seem more economically motivated than religious). I was struck by how much their attitudes sounded like white folk in the 1950's South who would say how blacks were really incacpable of full agency and citizenship, how they really didn't matter. They are carving a new life out of the Palestinian Arabs, to rob a line from the Firesign Theater.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/opinion/israel-settlements.html
And CP88:humanity may be tribal, but if we don't come to terms with each other and climate change, we will perish. I'm not optimistic...consider all the enterprise that think they have a right to continue "making" money, when wide swaths of our current economy need to be abandoned....and the GOP is in their pocket.
Regardless, Stewart, the Palestinians have at least a veto on the process. They're being sold a bill of goods by the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah, that, if they keep on fighting, they can push the Jews into the sea to drown and they can take back their great-grandfathers' farms (which combined, have a land area about the size of the western US).
And yes, there is a good segment of Israeli society that's happy with that, as it gives them the power to keep turning the screws.
Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.
Nebris, it’s not any classier to act the ass in Latin. You’re usually better than that.
Care to contribute something substantive??
Ok, ma'am...this is from a week ago: “The Palestinians are yesterday’s news. Egypt is a US Client State. Jordan is an Israeli satellite, propped up with US funds. Lebanon is a failed state. Syria is a total disaster. And Israel and the Saudis were quietly negotiating a defense and economic agreement [because of Iran being the greater threat] when Hamas launched its attack. It is almost certain that was the main reason for it, along with a desperate attempt to place them back on the political map. That has worked for now, but in six months, it will be once again be forgotten.
The Palestinians have rejected every deal since 1948. Now even their fellow Arabs are washing their hands of them…and Hamas leadership lives in a five star hotel in Qatar. It’s been a con-game since the Grand Mufti sat down for tea with Hitler.”
Or this from a few days ago: “The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is a Blood Feud between peoples that will only end when one of those peoples is gone. I know whom I’m putting my money on, tho I doubt I’ll live as long as it will take to pay up or collect on that bet.”
I'm 71 and have been actively watching this dance for at least 60 years. As a group, the Palestinians don't want peace. They want Israel destroyed. So yeah, Caedite eos.
All right, Nebris, that's fair. (Would help the casual visitor if you provided a link, tho.)
It was Abba Eban, fifty years ago, who said that the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. That still applies to the Palestinians. The rest of the Arab world seems to have quietly concluded that backing the Palestinian cause is futile.
it is notable that the only backers the Palestinians have are those meddlesome Persian mullahs who are trying to seem relevant.
Regardless, Stewart, the Palestinians have at least a veto on the process.
They have a veto like Americans would have a veto if Trump gets re-elected. The mob would be running America, like the mob runs Palestinian areas. Decency and sanity doesn't stand a chance, silver or lead.
the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
True that. Also true that Israel has never missed an opportunity to make sure they do. Israel doesn't want peace, it wants Greater Israel and the indigenous non-Jewish gone. That it kills 21:1 is just business. The cost of being Israel, not appalling, not a war crime. Just ghetto-ize and eliminate them. Not pretty, but true.
Oh, and today's NYTimes reports that Israel knew of Hamas' plans in detail over a year ago and dismissed them as aspirational:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-attack-intelligence.html
But anyway. Is there another species I can join?
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