The Present Israel-Palestine Conflict Thread

[Indy Texas]

Also in my experience there are four kind of "pro-Palestinians" outside Muslims.

1: The obnoxious left, the people for whom this is another cause celebre. Yes they're right but they also happen to be really really irritated, and they don't seem to used a single brain cell to decide why they support the palestinians. Also they're not necessary lefties, but usual they are.
2: The changing middle, these people have to some degree been pro-Israel or at least neutral toward the conflict, but Israel's behaviour have gotten them to lose their respect for Israel, and especially the settlements piss them off.
3: The irritated right, these people don't have any big problem with Israel's general behaviour, they care nothing for Palestinians, but some points of Israel's behaviour irritate or rub them the wrong way them, and the Israeli attitude of "my way or the highway" have made these people choose the highway.

4: The anti-semitic unicorns, some people says these people exist, sometimes even the media says these people exist. But honestly most anti-semites don't seem to have a big problem with Israel murdering Arabs.

Muslims as a whole are not "pro-Palestinian." The fact is that a Muslim in Bangladesh or Malaysia doesn't give a damn whether or not the Palestinian people ever have their own nation-state. They just can't abide the idea that "The Jews" would be the ones giving you a ticket to see the Dome of the Rock Mosque.

As for the others....

1: The Left used to be decidedly pro-Israel because prior to 1967, Israel was exactly the sort of place Leftists liked - a quasi-socialist, communitarian state that was pursuing sustainable agriculture and all that. By the end of the 20th century, the old democratic socialist political consensus had evaporated in Israel and the growth of settlements in the West Bank and (at the time) Gaza smacked of neo-imperialism and discrimination.

2: Spot on. Pretty much the "rational center" of the American/Western European electorate.

3: Paleoconservatives and some Paulites strongly dislike Israel and always have. Some of them, I'm sorry to say, actually are somewhat anti-Semitic, though that was more of an issue in the mid-20th century than it is today. Today, the issue is more that Israel seems like the end result of neoconservatism and the Military-Industrial Complex run amok - billions of dollars going to support a country that, because all of its neighbors basically hate it, is always going to exist in some state of war.
As for their views on the Palestinians, some of them are pro-Palestinian because of the sizable Christian minority in the Palestinian community. They view Israel's subjugation of the Palestinians as an affront to the Christian heritage of that area as a result. I've read articles in The American Conservative that focus more or less solely on the plight and exodus of Christians from the region, but seem to be indifferent to what happens to the Muslims there. Some of them don't like Palestinians either because - "Ew, Arabs, how uncivilized" - but they hate Israel/The Jews more so that sentiment wins the day.

4: To the extent that these unicorns are out there, they're going to be found in the Islamist strain of Islam and in number 3 above.

[Indy Texas]

"Jews are being targeted all across Europe"

"*world's smallest violin image*"

This thread has been a fascinating exercise in the dropping of pretenses, as well as a wonderful justification of Israel's existence and its nuclear program.

How many Jews have been killed the last 10 years in Europe, I'm going to guess with your great knowledge about Europe you can answer that.

As for nuclear arms, I don't care one way or another, the whole Samson Option is a empty threat, quite useful as one, but still empty.

How many will it take for you to care?

Ray, I'm trying very hard to understand how a synagogue in Europe getting vandalized has anything to do with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

You seem to operate by some bizarre calculus where the various wrongs done to Jews in Europe throughout history gives the State of Israel the right to heap suffering and indignation specifically on Palestinians in the present day, despite the fact that I'm fairly sure there were no Palestinians at the Spanish Inquisition, or in England during the expulsion of the Jews or in Auschwitz manning the trains.

[Indy Texas]

Are some people not aware of the fairly severe persecution of Jewish people across Europe from groups of Muslim fundamentalists? As Jewish people fled Sweden's third city the city Mayor stated that they should make Israel behave better if they wanted to be able to live safely in the city. Just to give an example of what I suspect Ray was alluding to.

You still haven't answered my question. Jews are being persecuted by Muslim fundamentalists in Europe. How is that the Palestinians' fault?!

[Indy Texas]

As for the Palestinians themselves, I'm hoping for a peaceful solution with the West Bank, hopefully via integration and democracy rather than trying to carve two bowlderized states out of one tiny area. I think that boat has sailed with Gaza and Hamas, unfortunately. Perpetual war seems like the only outcome there.

If you want democracy and integration of the West Bank, you've just thrown the concept of Israel as a majority-Jewish state out the window.

I'd like to think that in such a scenario, the Arab majority would stand on the side of liberal democracy and pluralism, but past experiments in the region suggest that isn't guaranteed.

My own family has all but given up on the prospect of an independent Palestine for fear that at best it would be just another Islamic country and that at worst it would go the way of Iraq under ISIS.

[Indy Texas]

Depends on the synagogue in question of course. I'm sure there's many Reform ones that aren't comfortable with many of Israel's actions, but there are many others that are pretty Likudnik in their outlook, and protesting one of those isn't anti-Semitic. The Israeli embassy obviously is a more relevant thing to protest, but unless you live in the capital of the city that's not an option.

It's kind of like protesting a church that's quite outspoken against homosexuality and gay marriage. That's fair game. Protesting just some random church without even looking up their position on gay marriage on the other hand would be dumb.

It makes zero sense to give grief to European or American Jews who just want to have their shabbas in peace for the same reason it makes zero sense to vilify your local Muslim community every time someone blows themselves up in Afghanistan or elsewhere.

If you want to protest Israel's actions and there's not an Israeli embassy or consulate, just go to a park and have a demonstration. Why is it necessary to make completely innocent people the object of your indignation?

[Indy Texas]

The number of Israeli children killed vs. the number of Palestinian children killed:

I presume it's no less topical for me to bring up the fact that there have been many more Palestinians who could be considered war criminals than Israelis?

...what does that even mean? How do you figure that?

[Indy Texas]

Nanny Bloomberg is going to fly to Israel on his private jet to protest the FAA's flight ban on US carriers providing service to Tel Aviv in light of the rocket fire the area near the airport has sustained.

The man who protected New Yorkers from certain death by large sodas apparently would rather Americans subject themselves to Hamas rocket fire to "show solidarity with the Israeli people."

[Indy Texas]

The former director of the American Jewish Congress has offered his take in Politico, though I doubt Ray Goldfield, dead0man and others will like what he has to say.

[Indy Texas]

Which is weird because they do more THAN ANY NATION IN HISTORY at limiting civilian casualties.  What other nation calls the building before bombing it to warn the people inside?  What other nation drops a small bomb first after the phone call to show they are serious?  Yes, mistakes have been and will be made.  It's especially hard to limit casualties when the local bad guys force civilians to stay in certain places at gun point.  It's especially hard when the bad guys use their hospitals, schools, ambulances and UN facilities (all 4 of those are documented have happened in the last week) to hide or launch their terror weapons.


The IDF cares and SHOWS they care more about civilians in Gaza than the people in charge of Gaza.  I don't understand how any thinking person can come up with any other conclusion.

Israel also uses a very weird definition of civilian that the rest of the world doesn't.

A sizable contingent of Israelis consider anyone living in Gaza to be fair game because Hamas won an election once several years ago.

There's also their practice of mafia-style collective punishment and vendettas. Your second-cousin-once-removed is a suspected Hamas member? Your house just got bulldozed. Sorry.

[Indy Texas]

The former director of the American Jewish Congress has offered his take in Politico, though I doubt Ray Goldfield, dead0man and others will like what he has to say.

I don't like or dislike what he has to say.  He made his complaints and critiques without the subtle (or not so subtle) racism we see way too often from others on the subject.  I can understand being against the invasion (I'm not FOR the invasion, but I understand the reasons why).  I can understand thinking it's fine to just hide under the now effective Iron Dome and let the world watch while the angry impotent dogs fire their weapons of terror at civilians by the thousands while doing limited physical damage.  I don't agree with it and think targeting of the launchers is a valid response, but it's a valid argument.

Sorry I'm not as foaming with hate as so many here on the other side.

"Angry impotent dogs" - yeah, no foam in your mouth.

Just curious, dead0man, why are you so invested in this?

If you don't like Islamist terror groups killing and victimizing non-Muslims, you ought to turn your attention to Boko Haram and other such groups, which have killed and kidnapped far more people in Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa than Hamas has done in Israel.

You seem to be more bothered by injury and death when it is brought on Jews of white European ancestry than you are when it's visited on black Africans. Guess their lives just aren't worth as much - and you're definitely operating from the Yisrael Beiteinu play book with that very racist logic.

[Indy Texas]

Israel has banned radio stations from giving the names of the children who have been killed thus far in the Gaza war.

Because free and democratic societies censor media all the time.

Look! Over there! Someone in Europe said something bad about Jewish people! Please direct your attention in that direction!

[Indy Texas]

I think dead0man is blissfully ignorant of the fact that Israel supported Hamas in the '90s to undermine the PLO, which hated Hamas.

And now they're paying for it, much as we had to pay after we supported those anti-communist "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan in the '80s only to see many of them turn their guns on us.

[Indy Texas]

Brazil and Ecuador have withdrawn their ambassadors from Israel.

And Israel totally went there when responding...

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[Indy Texas]

I hope it happens to dead0man just to see his reaction. I am sure he will be very understanding.

I have no idea how'd react, but I can guarantee you one funking thing, my grand kids wouldn't still be "refugees" firing rockets across the Missouri River 70 years later.

What would they be doing, then? Assuming the Native Americans refused to give them citizenship or freedom of movement and made them all live in, say, a section of Oklahoma that was under a complete embargo?

[Indy Texas]

I'm tired of wasting my time answering your drive by's.  You don't discuss things, you make accusation posts and then flee only to come back several days later with more of the same.  Perhaps you should just stick to bullying Bushie.  You're much better at that.

You're the one who talks about "good guys" and "bad guys" like you're a f^&#ing eight year-old who watched Top Gun when he snuck out of bed.

As far as I can tell, you're a card-carrying member of the Israel Can Do No Wrong Ever Caucus. You complain about Hamas targeting civilians when Hamas has killed 2 Israeli civilians and Israel has killed nearly 700 civilians. (But I'm sure they "really do care" as you're so fond of saying)

Bushie is a lazy, fat f#$%. And you're a stubborn armchair general with an immature "Kill them bad guys, woo hoo! Yee haw!" attitude to foreign policy. And tomorrow, we're all going to wake up and Bushie is still going to be a lazy, fat f#$% and you're still going to be a dollar store John McCain. Who's the real waste of time?

[Indy Texas]

ISIS is now threatening to get involved in the conflict.

If that happens, you would basically have the beginning of World War III.

Time for Israel and Hamas to get their sh!t together.

[Indy Texas]

Funny that the Western media has pasted the capture of one of their guys as the top story while burying the continued mass civilian casualties under it.

Funny that certain people to overlook how 1,700 people have died in Syria in the past week. Like many murders in this country, killings of the dispossessed only seem to arouse their attention when "privileged" groups are doing the killing.

1. There is, as you mentioned, an enormous power disparity between Israel and Gaza; one side is almost entirely killing soldiers while the other is primarily killing civilians; Assad and the rebels (who are now almost entirely Islamists; the moderates we were backing are more or less dead) have been slaughtering each other as well as many civilians. And in Israel, human interest stories like cats and owls that were hit by rockets get more traffic than articles about the slaughter in Gaza.

What side would that be?

...Hamas.

[Indy Texas]

State Department tells Israel to stop attacking schools.



Pretty strong language, though regrettably just that.

Well at least in diplo-speak we know this is the equivalent of "F**k off."

It's worth noting that they never actually mention Israel by name. It's as if there's a ghost lurking in Gaza making shells spontaneously explode in schools.

[Indy Texas]

And here we have a Palestinian girl whose home was demolished by Israel trying to retrieve her books from inside. Oh well, she's clearly a terrorist and those books are probably copies of the Koran and Mein Kampf. There was no other option.

[Indy Texas]

The flip side of that question is, when a militarized Palestinian state with a Hamas-led government fires the first rocket that kills an Israeli civilian, and Israel considers it an act of war from a neighboring state and sends in the troops, what will people say?

I would say more power to them. But I'd say the more likely scenario would be Israel invading Palestine based on some trumped up accusation that some Jewish settlers who wound up on the wrong side of the border had some rocks thrown at them and that Israel had a duty to "protect the Jewish residents of Palestine" in the same manner that Russia had its duty to "protect the ethnic Russians of Ukraine."

I don't know why Israel would be so bothered by a militarized Palestine when they're already surrounded by several militarized countries that have attacked them in the past and didn't have any trouble repelling them. A Palestinian military that is an organ of the state is far less likely to do something as inflammatory as attack Israel than a non-state militia like Hamas is. And if Israel doesn't allow Palestine to have a full-fledged military, Hamas is going to fill that void just as it does now. And the Palestinian government will have no more ability to control the actions of those militias than they do now.

[Indy Texas]

dead0man, how would you have reacted if you were alive in the early 20th century and the future Israelis were doing things like blowing up hotels and killing British soldiers. They got rewarded for those actions with their own country.

[Indy Texas]

It's kind of funny that even the Jewish terrorists called before hand to warn people.

To answer your question, I would have been against the terrorists, just like most Zionists were at the time.

Citations needed.

[Indy Texas]

It's not a good sign that so many people on your side are so ignorant of the history.  Anyway....
cite the 1st

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2nd link

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Bolded items emphasis mine. Calling the hotel operator is fair warning? The staff probably assumed it was a prank. I wonder if their descendants had the courtesy to call that UN school before proceeding to attack it.

Official statements from two Jewish organizations and David Ben-Gurion = a majority of Zionists?

Anyway, you're missing the point. People blew a bunch of s#@% up and demanded their own state, and they were subsequently given their own state. That kind of sets a precedent. Is it surprising that another group of people is presently blowing s#@% up and demanding their own state?

You keep screaming bloody murder about "firing rockets at civilians" when a whopping three Israeli civilians have actually been killed by rockets in this present conflict. Ten Palestinian civilians were killed by Israeli raids just in the West Bank, which isn't even where the conflict is taking place.

So tell me just what it is that you would do if you were a resident of Gaza? You're not allowed to leave. You can't import or export goods or services and as a result you're probably unemployed. Even if you don't like Hamas, they're the only game in town. And Israel has zero intention of ever granting you sovereignty, rocket attacks or not. So what, at that point, would you suggest the people of Gaza do?

[Indy Texas]

Like I've also repeatedly said, they need to go the Gandhi, MLK Jr way.

African-Americans in 1960s America and Indians under the British Raj were deprived of many political rights, but their economic and humanitarian situations were far better than anything Gazans experience. Quite frankly, the Palestinians would be so lucky if Israel paid half the attention to them that the British did to the Indians. The British left India an infrastructure of bureaucracy and civil institutions that mimicked those of Britain or any other developed Western country - they were spared the hellish post-colonial strife of places like sub-Saharan Africa. Israel has done the opposite - they've more or less guaranteed that Gaza and the West Bank are wholly ungovernable by the Palestinians or by Israel.

[Indy Texas]

India wouldn't have had a Gandhi if neighboring countries were funding and abetting more radical alternatives out of a desire to weaken the British for their own personal reasons.

It's worth pointing out that Israel was giving money to Hamas under the table as recently as the early '90s in an effort to weaken the PLO - and they were no less aware back then that Hamas called for the elimination of Israel in their charter.

Meanwhile, most of the PLO's member parties were basically co-opted by the West's revolutionary left. You had a bunch of gated community communists from Germany, France and Japan imposing themselves on Palestinian guerrillas as a way to piss off their parents and they ended up doing far more harm than good to the Palestinian independence movement. The Soviets also tacitly encouraged the PFLP and DFLP's antics because all those airplane hijackings and botched bombing attempts were seen as a big poke in the eye to the capitalists and NATO.