Right. Given the high quality of discussion on OTC about other issues, it would be nice to have some Troper input on this thorniest of Middle Eastern issues. Tropers wanting a brief overview of Israel should check out its Useful Notes page, or Israel
and Palestine's country profiles on the BBC.
At the outset, however, I want to make something very clear: This thread will be about sharing and discussing news. Discussions about whether the existence of Israel is justified would be off-topic, as would any extended argument or analysis about the countries' history.
So, let's start off:
At the moment, the two countries, prodded by the United States, are currently attempting to negotiate peace. A previous round of talks collapsed in 2010 after Israel refused to order a halt to settlement building on Palestinian land. US mediators will be present.
The aim of the talks is to end the conflict based on the "two state solution" - where independent Palestinian and Israeli states exist alongside each other. Both sides have expressed cynicism, although the US government has said it is "cautiously optimistic".
Key issues of the talks:
- Jerusalem: The city is holy to both Islam and Judaism. Both Palestine and Israel claim it as their capital. Israel has de facto control over most of it, a situation its Prime Minister has said will persist for "eternity". Some campaigners hope it can become an international city under UN or joint Israeli/Palestinian administration.
- Borders and settlements: The Palestinian Authority claims that the land conquered by Israel in the Six Day War of 1967 (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) is illegally occupied, and must be vacated by Israel in the event of a future Palestinian state. However, there are over 500,000 Israeli citizens living in settlements across the "Green line". Israel claims that a future Palestinian government would oppress or ethnically cleanse them, whilst many settlers claim that the land is rightfully theirs, as they have an ethno-religious link to it as part of the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people.
- Palestinian refugees: In 1948, around 700,000 Palestinian Arabs left the territory of the new Israeli state. The reasons why are still debated - preferably elsewhere. The Palestinian negotiators wish for them and their descendants to have a right of return to Israel. The Israeli government considers only those who were actually forced away all those years ago to have a legitimate claim (if that). The US government considers them all refugees, to Republican fury.
So you can see why its never been fixed. The religious dimension in particular has a lot of people vexed - asking Muslims or Jews to abandon Jerusalem has been likened to asking Catholics to skip communion.
Still, there's hope. Somewhere. The latest developments in the region:
- Israel has released 26 imprisoned Palestinian prisoners convicted of attacks on Israeli civilians and agreed to release another 78 in the future.
- Israel has OK'ed development of 900 new homes east of the "Green Line" in a controversial move ahead of the talks.
- Hamas is to execute publicly two prisoners in Gaza
- The new Palestinian government will not reunite the feuding Gazan and Transjordanian (West Bank) elements of Hamas and Fatah.
edited 15th Aug '13 2:10:49 PM by Achaemenid
Looks like Biden hasn't seen photos of alleged beheadings, apparently IDF officials refuse to confirm the report as well which doesn't necessarily means its untrue but reason to be cautious. At the very least it may have telephoned from '40 civilians including babies' to '40 babies'
Edit its a timeline but hit show more on the initial article
Edited by Gaiazun on Oct 11th 2023 at 6:01:54 AM
I'm dubious since the Bush administration fumbled the intelligence situation leading up to 9/11 and wound up with a lot more power as a result, but different situations. I suppose I'm just cynical.
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
If the CIA had come out publicly and accused Bush and the Republican party of deliberately sabotaging their job with culture war bullshit then there'd have been a very different attitude post 9/11
Edited by LeGarcon on Oct 11th 2023 at 8:56:24 AM
Oh really when?
In the name of being honest
The botched IDF response to the attack is also a direct result of the fact that most of its manpower and resources were away looking out for settlers in the West Bank. That's on Bibi/Smotrich/Ben-Gvir's pro-settler policies as well.
Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)
Goku Black
which has been consistent across reports. The number of actual decapitations seems to be up in the air (fuck what a weird thing to write).
He says: "They cut off heads… of children, of women."
And in another live broadcast, Zedek describes "40 babies at least were taken out on gurneys" - which is where the widely shared 40 figure comes from.
In an interview with Sky's Mark Austin on Tuesday evening, Israeli economy minister Nir Barkat echoed a similar claim: "We've seen just now... we've heard of 40 young boys. Some of them were burned alive. Some were beheaded. Some were shot in the head."
Edit: ![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Oh. He also basically empowered hamas. A terrorist group to keep power away from the PLO only for the whole thing to blow up as you find out why you don't do that.
Edited by miraculous on Oct 11th 2023 at 6:17:16 AM
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
"They are very worried. With two abductees, they could have negotiated with Israel for permission to build a seaport and freedom for hundreds of prisoners held in Israeli jails. With more than 100 abductees, they will face the entire Israeli army inside Gaza. That's the tragedy of their success," the diplomatic source added.
This reminds me of IJA soldiers at the Nanking Massacre; Chinese troops essentially broke after very little resistance, so the Japanese experienced a lot of unexpected military success that they didn't know what to do with. The commanders lost control of their troops and discipline fell apart, and the soldiers in turn went nuts on a Rape, Pillage, and Burn spree.
Edited by somerandomdude on Oct 11th 2023 at 9:23:12 AM
ok boomer
In the name of being honest
Honestly, at this point, I wouldn't be too surprised if it turns out that the political leadership in Doha weren't informed about the planned attack until it actually kicked off. There's a lot of tail-wagging-the-dog vibes coming off the aftermath, especially the Hezbollah and Iranian responses.
Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)
Goku Black
Tbh I think it's possible th is was just intended to kidnap a few people for prisoner exchanges and further resources.
Expect the defenses fell apart so easily they just went wild.
It also might be why Nethanya and Idf ignored this. As they didn't think it would end up as such a large scale massacre.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
What do you mean by the Hezbollah response? Genuinely.
Getting unconfirmed word that Hezbollah fighters breached from the north of Israel.
Edited by TURI12345 on Oct 11th 2023 at 5:43:11 PM
Maybe actually quote the posts in question instead of linkdumping and hoping people figure out which post is which?
Use quoteblocks [[ quoteblock ]] text goes here [[ /quoteblock ]]
Just remove the spaces between the brackets
and It's after 05:38 in this part of the world now. I mistake and published instead of clicking "Preview" I clicked on "Post"...
I actually wanted to be Resileaf
The main difference is that the failure of the intelligence services for 9/11 is that they individually had all the pieces to understand what was going to happen, but no one thought to get everyone's pieces together to complete the puzzle. It wasn't self-sabotage, it was a failure to communicate.
Israeli Border Police reported that an officer engaged Hamas fighters in a hijacked vehicle on Saturday and shot them while on a motorbike.
Edited by Ominae on Oct 11th 2023 at 10:23:31 AM
Oh, bother.
My family actually knows some people in Israel. So far they all seem to be okay, though they are obviously worried about this mess.
Disgusted, but not surprised
So Nethanya is lying that no one warned Him in advance. Honestly at this point I fully think that well he expected an attack. He probably expected it to be way less than a massacre on this scale. As in easily beaten back. Hence why he's trying to deflect blame.
It's a fake Benjamin Netanyahu could not do this even if he wanted to (just to make things of their accuracy he didn't want).
If that is the case can you explain to me why the Likud party wasn't the ruling party part of the 36 government?
I am still trying to wrap my head on how Mossad and the IDF didn't see in coming and were caught that under prepared.
Also Hezbollah threatened to attack USS Gerald R. Ford and released a video on their weapons systems.
Yeah...good luck with that.
There are a lot of reasons for this...
I feel like he allowed this to happen to consolidate power.
What power? Even if you ignore the common sense that said he couldn't do this. It still sounds more like a crazy conspiracy.
That is what he said yes. But he (and others) have an agenda against Benjamin Netanyahu, so it's not something that needs to be taken in too much in a serious way.
Egypt is on the verge of an economic collapse (gg Sisi regime) and is already dealing with an IS insurgency in the Sinai, plus refugees coming from Sudan in the south. A mass arrival of refugees from Gaza might just push it past the breaking point without outside help.
You didn't mention the problems that Gaza (Hamas) already does to Egypt in the Sinai Peninsula.
If I had to guess one of the reasons that people are talking about this differently than past conflicts, it's that the scale of this is much bigger. Israel's past conduct has not been in anyway good however the total number of people killed in the last major conflict (2021) is on the order of a few hundred at most, certainly less than 500 (least that's what the wikipedia page says). Thousands were wounded and displaced, and again that's bad, but in this current conflict we've already reached a combined death toll of over 2000 (both sides sustaining over 1000 deaths at this point) and it's only been 4 days. That previous conflict took two weeks. This is bigger.
If you going to publish the numbers of dead please added a source:
(I think that should be a rule) Not that I think someone published fake.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Israel80%93Palestine_crisis
For what endgame? I already said that we can't rule Gaza even if we try and mention what will happen if we try.
part 1:
From the pinned header. It's verboten I'm afraid.
part 2:
@Hodor 2
I've been appalled at the callous nature some people I normally agree with have treated the terrorist attack.
At least AOC's "you can think Palestinians get a raw deal without being a monster about it" statement showed some sanity.
respond to part 1: It's strange to find such a rule, are there author's topics, with such a rule? Anyway, thanks.
respond to part 2:
Why what do they say?
(part 1 and part 2 are from post. I split my response into two parts).
That is why I wrote "rule" not "Democratic legitimacy".
he PNA isn’t able to rule Gaza because they themselves have no democratic legitimacy and Hamas are an armed group which the PNA have no ability to fight.
It is totally possible for Hamas to be switched out, it however would require a military occupation, and for that occupation to result in peace it would need to be part of a peace process, not a conquest process.
It should also be noted what’s said in subtext here. The people saying this are of the view that every Jewish Israeli is an occupier, they’re not talking about settlers in the sense of people who moved to illegally occupied West Bank land 2 years ago after the residents were forced out at gun-point. They’re talking about people born and raised in the area who happen to be of Jewish decent. They’re also talking about anyone who happens to visit the area as a tourist.
On the flip side, in the US New York Congressional Representative AOC put out a statement condemning antisemitic activity at a pro-Palestine rally carried out in New York on Monday. She said
(A quote I chose not to quote)
and that
[[/quoteblock]]
(A quote I chose not to quote)
Part 1: That is why I wrote "rule" not "Democratic legitimacy".
Part 2: I not going to get into your opinion but please slipe the post or say that you quoted two different people. Because it seems like it was taken from one post.
Hareetz published an article Netanyahu bears responsibility for this Israel-Gaza War (paywalled) and Israeli veteran group breaking the silence posted something similar on twitter. It seems a big reason the Gaza border was undermanned is because soldiers were deployed to protect settlers in the West Bank which has been Netanyahus big push.
(In the original post was a link to the article on the Haaretz website (in English) that I didn't quote).
I found where and when the organization said this. And I am pretty sure that the organization just says its agenda. That leaves a bad taste in this case because it feels more like they just use the situation.
What has happened is tragic, and deliberate murder of civilians and especially children is contemptible, no matter who does it. But the attack didn't happen unprovoked, it didn't happen because Israel had been "too nice". The brutality of Hamas is inexcusable, but even today on twitter, I have been told that BDS is equally genocidal, so I question what form of redress even is supposed to be allowed? In 2018 people from Gaza had an unarmed protest march, and the IDF shot 200 people dead. Israeli settlers regularly chant "Death to Arabs" but I've been told "Free Palestine" is a genocidal slogan. If you make peaceful protest impossible, don't be surprised when violence is seen as the only option.
[13]]
I not going to mention my opinion about this topic (Because I am a citizen of one of the sides). But I do think that you should mention that Hamas took control of this protest from the original initiators.
Source:
https://twitter.com/MEMRIReports/status/996365500308492291
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/201880%932019_Gaza_border_protests
Tbh I think it's possible th is was just intended to kidnap a few people for prisoner exchanges and further resources.
Expect the defenses fell apart so easily they just went wild.
It also might be why Nethanya and Idf ignored this. As they didn't think it would end up as such a large scale massacre.
No that is not the case here... there were over than 600 humans who took a part in this attack (and we still have terrorists in the areas for a few days after the first attack/penetration happened. More than this from what was published more than a few of them have arrived with some supplies so they could stay in the areas for some time), As for the part with the connection, they had one because they had contact to the internet in real-time. And few more reasons that I don't going to get into detail here. As for the part with the kidnapping, it's not the main goal here... Because of obvious reasons.
1 By the way, how does the United States of America deal with the subject of the abductees? After all, there are American citizens among the kidnapped (and the dead) the same question for the European citizens that were kidnapped (I just didn't find any information about this subject).
2 By the way, something that was published here is that the terrorists brought with them Dates fruit does someone know why?
Getting unconfirmed word that Hezbollah fighters breached from the north of Israel.
Not by soldiers but they did send something.
so what is Hamas and what are their reasons for waging war in Israel (and do those reasons have anything to do with the existence of Israel in general)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas
https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADB183A9_AD85A7B3
https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/979E90A1
Edited by TURI12345 on Oct 12th 2023 at 11:49:06 AM
OG Troper
The fact that people will just sidestep the part where IDF killed 200 unarmed people because some of them were members of Hamas is precisely the problem I have with the Israeli and western bloc coverage of the conflict. Hospitals in Gaza treat members of Hamas so it's OK to bomb them. Hamas members live in apartment buildings, so the entire building is a legitimate target. Hamas members live in Gaza, so the use of white phosphorous, and bombing a refugee crossing is OK. And again, this is precisely why Netanyahu likes giving them legitimacy over the Palestinian Authority, it's so much easier to just say the other side are complete monsters.
Hamas does intentionally put their forces and resources in civilian areas and buildings precisely so the IDF has to engage in collateral damage just to hit one of them.
Partialy, yes, but given the density of Gasa population they would have to go out of their way to distance themselves from civilians.
Edited by Smeagol17 on Oct 12th 2023 at 12:41:42 PM
Got any explanation besides just dropping the link without context?
Made contact with someone I know who did Masters with me back in Singapore. Been told that he's alright in Gaza...
Especially if the theories that he wanted something to happen (just not of this magnitude) turn out to hold any water.
At best he was utterly incompetent, at worst he was deliberately saboting his own country's national secdurity.
Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.