50 years to the day

[Harry]

I love you guys have no respect for Montucky, the only guy with any real experience, in the middle East, outside of Wikipedia.

The only one of us who risked anything. You should all be college professors.

Uh, there are several maggots here with Middle East experience.

[teleee]

Uh, there are several maggots here with Middle East experience.

Don’t go confusing him neither facts. I still have several colleagues I consider to be friends from my time in the Middle East (construction, not military). They are a mixed group of Jewish, Muslim and Christian and right now I feel for all of them.


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[Core Shot]

Just keep advocating for more bombs as your defense stock portfolios rise. Jerking off to war videos. Entertaining someones lust for nuclear war because his life ended up so shitty he wants the whole world in with his own miserable existence. Others who are literally calling for an actual genocide. This place is populated with rich white trash. You’re all doing a great job!!

Everyone over there fighting for that land has been there for millennia. Arabs kicked the Jews out. Jews kicked the Arabs out. Arabs kicked the Jews out. Wash, rinse, repeat. I don’t care which side anyone is on, it’s the dumbest territorial sandbox leadership bullshit with the highest stakes and it needs to stop.

The Christianity thread isn’t ripping on Christianity it’s ripping on the hypocrisy of people in the US claiming to be Christians but behaving in a way that has nothing to do with basic tenets of Christianity.

You’re saying you don’t mind Muslims but hate Islam. That’s entirely different. The basic tenets of Islam aren’t that much different Judaism or Christianity, they get twisted by fanatics and they’re clueless about their own faith. Is that an explanation that you can understand. I’ve known many peaceful, loving and generous Muslims that wish no one harm, it’s the basis of their religion. You might as well say you hate Christians and Jews too because they are all at the basest level Abrahamic religions and they worship the same god.


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Fuck. I’m agreeing with McPhee and the unicorn? Mind blown

[gravitylover]

I don't think that's what they want. They want the land without the Jews on it.

Fixed

[mcski]

I don’t think it’s too far in the past for reparations to be on the table or even some version of right of return. Dismissing it out of hand as suicide sounds a bit too much like the arguments for apartheid white South Africans made in the early 80s. 10 years later it was a whole new world and the scare stories didn’t happen. Unfortunately, there are a lot of extremists in both sides that make it suicidal for any leader to make real concessions

[MultiVerse]

The Palestinian case would be a lot stronger if they had embraced nonviolent resistance.

[AK47bp]

The Palestinian case would be a lot stronger if they had embraced nonviolent resistance.

But would this thread exist?

[ex-powderbroker]

I don’t think it’s too far in the past for reparations to be on the table or even some version of right of return. Dismissing it out of hand as suicide sounds a bit too much like the arguments for apartheid white South Africans made in the early 80s. 10 years later it was a whole new world and the scare stories didn’t happen. Unfortunately, there are a lot of extremists in both sides that make it suicidal for any leader to make real concessions

i am not an expert in south african history. did they have decades of terrorism, massacres, etc? i’d say israel is going on about 100 years exactly but there were earlier ones in Tsfad (twice), etc.

[mcski]

Yes, the ANC waged bombings and terror campaigns much like Begin and Ben Gurian did. Mandela was leader of the armed wing and unbelievably was still on terrorism watch lists until 2008

[ex-powderbroker]

hmm i’ll look it up. it’s of course not a parallel to israel which is NOT an apartheid state. the easiest solution is to stop occupying another’s land and respect the innocent people who want a peaceful life in the borders of 1967.

[Lvovsky]

I think we agree on this... pointing out the futility of going back 5 or 225 generations to establish rights, then trying to establish whether the older or more recent right is more right when nobody or almost nobody is left alive from the time of the claim is fraught and fixating there can put people into mindsets of untenable solutions.

Asking Israel to choose national suicide is a ridiculous ask, but that is what Hamas wants (and more).

Asking Palestinians to accept the status quo is also ridiculous but that was the policy of Netanyahu's gov.

It will be necessary to look at the now and the forward if there is to be a sustainable peace. But it will be hard for the Israelis pull back from settlements and hand land over to the Palestinians after what happened in Gaza over the last 18 years. It is hard to make a lasting peace with a group of people that either mostly wants to kill you or tolerates and elevates major groups that want to kill you.

Sadat was killed by Egyptians for making peace.
Rabin was killed by a radical Israeli for making peace.

I felt like it was a turning point when normalization with the Saudis and then more governments was on the horizon. Marginalizing Hamas was going to allow for a de-escalation that would allow more moderate voices to work in genuine favor of Palestineans. And then Netanyahu would have lost his power base.

But Hamas and Iran couldn't tolerate that... (and Russia saw opportunity)

Netanyahu will probably go away after this crisis, but his faction was heavily strengthened by Oct 7. It's all so tragic and depressing. The cycle of violence has to stop for a good 50 years.

Thank you for very thoughtful post. Seriously.

[frorider]

Good summary Summit

[MagnificentUnicorn]

But would this thread exist?

Probably, it’d be like the Ukraine thread


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[AK47bp]

Probably, it’d be like the Ukraine thread


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That thread was started due to violence as well.

[rod9301]

Israel is an ethnically diverse country made up mostly of people with Middle Eastern roots.

Only about 30% of Israeli Jews are Ashkenazi, or the descendants of European Jews. The rest are Mizrahi or Sephardic or Beta descended from Jews in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia; who lived for many generations under Muslim rule then Muslim Ottoman rule. Another 21% of Israel's population are Arab Muslim or Arab Christian descendants of what was the region of Palestine who remained in Israel. 3% are Bedouin-Israelis.

Most modern day Palestinians are descendants of about 700,000 Arabs who were displaced in the 1947 civil war and the 1948 Arab invasion. Somewhere between 500,000 and 800,000 Middle Eastern Jews were displaced by Arabs around the same time.

Thanks, good info

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[MultiVerse]

But would this thread exist?

Heh, just image if Arafat had said yes to this in 2000:

[MagnificentUnicorn]

That thread was started due to violence as well.

I’m seeing a pattern here


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[riser4]

hmm i’ll look it up. it’s of course not a parallel to israel which is NOT an apartheid state. the easiest solution is to stop occupying another’s land and respect the innocent people who want a peaceful life in the borders of 1967.

If elements of the situation look like apartheid, why isn't it ok to say that?

1967 borders are fine with one exception. Israel should not give up the Golan Heights. They need it for for two reasons. Water and military strategic value. Plus, fuck Syria.

[ex-powderbroker]

what looks like apartheid? israeli arabs serve in the govt, have their own political parties, etc. a palestinian in lebanon can’t even be a lawyer. which is apartheid?

in south africa, no one was denying that black people were citizens but they were restricted from basically everything.

people who want to use the apartheid metaphor insist the occupied regions are simultaneously part of israel while being pally land. the problem is that right now neither is true.

so i’m against using the term apartheid or any other hyperbole to describe this fucked up situation (genocide, open air prison, etc).

the truth is fucked up enough.

[JimmyCarter]

what looks like apartheid? israeli arabs serve in the govt, have their own political parties, etc. a palestinian in lebanon can’t even be a lawyer. which is apartheid?

in south africa, no one was denying that black people were citizens but they were restricted from basically everything.

people who want to use the apartheid metaphor insist the occupied regions are simultaneously part of israel while being pally land. the problem is that right now neither is true.

so i’m against using the term apartheid or any other hyperbole to describe this fucked up situation (genocide, open air prison, etc).

the truth is fucked up enough.

You glazed over a few other things (much as amnesty seems to overlook Hamas’ role in exacerbating some of these issues)

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/ca...-of-apartheid/

[summit]

Heh, just image if Arafat had said yes to this in 2000:

Israel PM Barak made that offer in 2000 despite PM Rabin being assassinated by a radical Israeli (while at a peace rally) just a 5 years earlier for making peace in Oslo with Arafat.

It's such a fucking joke that Arafat said no, being offered almost everything, despite negotiating from a position of weakness, and decided a terror campaign was a better idea.

But then he was a terrorist dictator, and an asshole. That he got the Nobel Peace Prize was a fucking joke.

Nobody would deal with Arafat after that. Horrific terrorism ensues. Israel tries a unilateral peace move and pulls out Lebanon in 2000 and out of Gaza in 2005 dragging out all the Jews by force from their homes.

So the West Bank elected Abbas (PA (PLO)) while Gaza Elects Hamas.

In 2008, Israel offers Abbas an EVEN BETTER DEAL than Arafat was offered in 2000. Again it addressed the Israeli "settlement issue." And Abbas says NO PEACE while Hamas continued rocket barrages of civilian areas and terror bombings.

This is why even the erstwhile Arab partners of Palestine started to doubt the utility of maintaining the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as the external boogeyman to distract their subject populations as they are all functionally autocracies, some with elections for show. Most of them presided of post-colonially arbitrarily drawn up artificial states created post-Ottoman/post-British, so maintaining external foci of anger helped suppress unrest. Israel was clearly not going away while it was potentially a useful strategic partner against Iran and peace in Israel would also curry Western favor which was needed for weapons deals. The West didn't want to sell some weapon systems to Arab nations that might use them on Israel. But the Palestinian terror mindset that the Arab nations had fomented and stoked for decades was now biting them in the ass. No Palestinian leadership and indeed most Palestinians could not see any real pathway to even a generous two state solution. Palestinian power structure and culture zeitgeist was based around eternal victimhood, martyrdom/terrorism, and the destruction of Israel either de facto or de jure.

You are Israel:
Your militarily inferior neighbor won't accept generous peace terms or more generous peace terms.
When you unilaterally offer peace, your neighbor elects a terrorist organization that proceed to do terrorist things to your civilians, even more than before you tried to leave the fight.
International aid money and infrastructure to your neighbors are used to enrich terrorist leaders, build weapons of terror, and fund enculturation of terrorism as an ideal.

What do you do now?

This is how Netanyahu's policies were able to get support, even though they don't offer a pathway to peace or real security either! It's all fucked.

50 years of peace to break the cycle. And that clock got a hard fucking reset on Oct 7. It seriously makes me want to cry.

[MontuckyFried]

what looks like apartheid? israeli arabs serve in the govt, have their own political parties, etc. a palestinian in lebanon can’t even be a lawyer. which is apartheid?

in south africa, no one was denying that black people were citizens but they were restricted from basically everything.

people who want to use the apartheid metaphor insist the occupied regions are simultaneously part of israel while being pally land. the problem is that right now neither is true.

so i’m against using the term apartheid or any other hyperbole to describe this fucked up situation (genocide, open air prison, etc).

the truth is fucked up enough.

Don't forget. Many who use such rhetorical terms are also the same people who scream "iT's JuST liKE JiM CroW!" any time a politician proposes anything they perceive to negatively effect [insert marginalized group here], like when ending affirmative action was being debated. It's meant to be inflammatory and stir emotions, no matter how misguided. The "genocide" one was is particularly amusing. Especially when only ONE side intends on wiping out the other. If Israel on the other hand was interested in genocide, then they're sure doing a bad job of it considering the population growth of the various groups over the years.

[riser4]

Israel PM Barak made that offer in 2000 despite PM Rabin being assassinated by a radical Israeli (while at a peace rally) just a 5 years earlier for making peace in Oslo with Arafat.

It's such a fucking joke that Arafat said no, being offered almost everything, despite negotiating from a position of weakness, and decided a terror campaign was a better idea.

But then he was a terrorist dictator, and an asshole. That he got the Nobel Peace Prize was a fucking joke.

Nobody would deal with Arafat after that. Horrific terrorism ensues. Israel tries a unilateral peace move and pulls out Lebanon in 2000 and out of Gaza in 2005 dragging out all the Jews by force from their homes.

So the West Bank elected Abbas (PA (PLO)) while Gaza Elects Hamas.

In 2008, Israel offers Abbas an EVEN BETTER DEAL than Arafat was offered in 2000. Again it addressed the Israeli "settlement issue." And Abbas says NO PEACE while Hamas continued rocket barrages of civilian areas and terror bombings.

This is why even the erstwhile Arab partners of Palestine started to doubt the utility of maintaining the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as the external boogeyman to distract their subject populations as they are all functionally autocracies, some with elections for show. Most of them presided of post-colonially arbitrarily drawn up artificial states created post-Ottoman/post-British, so maintaining external foci of anger helped suppress unrest. Israel was clearly not going away while it was potentially a useful strategic partner against Iran and peace in Israel would also curry Western favor which was needed for weapons deals. The West didn't want to sell some weapon systems to Arab nations that might use them on Israel. But the Palestinian terror mindset that the Arab nations had fomented and stoked for decades was now biting them in the ass. No Palestinian leadership and indeed most Palestinians could not see any real pathway to even a generous two state solution. Palestinian power structure and culture zeitgeist was based around eternal victimhood, martyrdom/terrorism, and the destruction of Israel either de facto or de jure.

You are Israel:
Your militarily inferior neighbor won't accept generous peace terms or more generous peace terms.
When you unilaterally offer peace, your neighbor elects a terrorist organization that proceed to do terrorist things to your civilians, even more than before you tried to leave the fight.
International aid money and infrastructure to your neighbors are used to enrich terrorist leaders, build weapons of terror, and fund enculturation of terrorism as an ideal.

What do you do now?

This is how Netanyahu's policies were able to get support, even though they don't offer a pathway to peace or real security either! It's all fucked.

50 years of peace to break the cycle. And that clock got a hard fucking reset on Oct 7. It seriously makes me want to cry.

You're not completely wrong.

Israel should unilaterally address the settlement issue though, deal or no deal. Remove the West Bank settlements. Remove the ring settlements cutting off East Jerusalem. That would have been better before those Hamas assholes shit on everything. Now everything is fucked. At least permanently freeze settlement construction.

What got me years ago (20-25 years ago?) was some stories on NPR where the settlements were bulldozing ancient Palestinian olive trees for construction. That's fucked up. I have a hard time forgiving that.

[MontuckyFried]

Since 2-state solutions are completely off the table for the overwhelming majority of Palestinians according to recent polling data, let's run two different hypothetical winner takes all scenarios and be honest.

Would the ethnically "Arab," religious Muslims be better off under:
(A) Palestine (which will obv be led by either PLO or Hamas, or even some theoretical new governing body)
(B) Israel as is

Now let's flip the scenario and say Israel cedes ALL the land to Palestine, saying "Fuckit. Here. It's all yours. Happy now?"
Would the Jewish people and other religions, regardless of ethnicity be better off under:
(A) Palestine
(B) Israel

If you're being honest, the answer to both should CLEARLY be Israel by every possible measure. So people can cry all they want about Palestinians being under such oppression by Israel, but they'd be far more fkd under the thumb of Hamas, the PLO, or any other group of jerks who take in billions in foreign aid meant for infrastructure and bettering their situations, and squandering it on enriching their leaders and pumping out crappy rockets. People have GOTTA quit projecting their own morals and values as if this is how the leaders in that region think. They don't. Like not at all. If they cared SO much about the Palestinian people, they wouldn't be living large in Qatar while their own people suffer in squalor and poverty.

[summit]

People have GOTTA quit projecting your own morals and values as if this is how the leaders in that region think. They don't. Like not at all. If they cared SO much about the Palestinian people, they wouldn't be living large in Qatar while their own people suffer in squalor and poverty.

This part is tragically impossible to argue with.