Opinion of this quote

[bedstuy]

The rewriting of history by the anti-Israel crowd is just shameless. 

The land Israel sits on is the Jewish homeland.  That area was conquered by Assyrians, Seleucid Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Mamluk Turks.  Jews didn't leave Israel by choice for the most part.  They were mostly sold in slavery in the Roman Empire and forced to flee at various points.  That's not to say that Israel belongs to Jews.  I don't think any land belongs to any one national group per se.  But, the land of Israel is not an ancestral Arab territory.  So, there's that.

Why was Israel created?  The places where Jewish people did live between the 1880s and 1940s were none to hospitable.  What instigated the two great migrations to Israel?  You have the horrible persecution in the Russian Empire by Alexander III and the holocaust. (Do the Israel haters have a problem with Jews escaping to Argentina or the United States?  Isn't that colonizing in your book?) Well, all that came to a head in the holocaust and you had a horrible refugee problem.  What were Jews supposed to do post-holocaust?  Stay in Poland?  Jews had been prevented from moving anywhere and when they stayed put, people killed millions of them and oppressed them.  So, if you give Jews an opportunity to have their own state, they're going to see it as a singular chance to find a place to live in peace and security.  Whose fault is that?  Not the Jews clearly, that's the fault of Russia and Germany.

Would it have been better if Jews were all allowed to immigrate to the US?  I think so.  But, that didn't happen.  What happened was that Jews took that singular chance and founded their own state.  Was that a majority Arab state?  No.  Israel in 1948 was majority Jewish in population.  Did Jewish people steal land?  Maybe some did, but most bought land from Arabs.  So, before Israel was invaded by the entire Middle East, Israel was being as fair as possible and not creating their state using mass violence.  Once Israel was invaded, Israel needed defensible borders and you had the logical insanity of war.  One side does something bad, the other retaliates and so on.  That's what wars are like, it's never nice or fair.  Every war like that has refugees.  But, Israel has no reason to apologize for winning for its survival.   

Once you get to that point, what's the solution?  Kill the Arabs with kindness?  Refuse to defend yourself because, who really deserves to have a state anyway?  Israel could have been better, sure.  But, just imagine if the roles were reversed.  Wouldn't the Palestinians just start an outright genocide?  That's the moral difference here.  God bless Elizabeth Warren for realizing that and defending the Jewish people.  That's the liberal, progressive thing to do.  Israel is a convenient target because they actually listen to critics and they're a "white" western, powerful country.  But, just as might doesn't make right, might doesn't make wrong. 

[bedstuy]

The rewriting of history by the anti-Israel crowd is just shameless. 

The land Israel sits on is the Jewish homeland.  That area was conquered by Assyrians, Seleucid Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Mamluk Turks.  Jews didn't leave Israel by choice for the most part.  They were mostly sold in slavery in the Roman Empire and forced to flee at various points.  That's not to say that Israel belongs to Jews.  I don't think any land belongs to any one national group per se.  But, the land of Israel is not an ancestral Arab territory.  So, there's that.

Why was Israel created?  The places where Jewish people did live between the 1880s and 1940s were none to hospitable.  What instigated the two great migrations to Israel?  You have the horrible persecution in the Russian Empire by Alexander III and the holocaust. (Do the Israel haters have a problem with Jews escaping to Argentina or the United States?  Isn't that colonizing in your book?) Well, all that came to a head in the holocaust and you had a horrible refugee problem.  What were Jews supposed to do post-holocaust?  Stay in Poland?  Jews had been prevented from moving anywhere and when they stayed put, people killed millions of them and oppressed them.  So, if you give Jews an opportunity to have their own state, they're going to see it as a singular chance to find a place to live in peace and security.  Whose fault is that?  Not the Jews clearly, that's the fault of Russia and Germany.

Would it have been better if Jews were all allowed to immigrate to the US?  I think so.  But, that didn't happen.  What happened was that Jews took that singular chance and founded their own state.  Was that a majority Arab state?  No.  Israel in 1948 was majority Jewish in population.  Did Jewish people steal land?  Maybe some did, but most bought land from Arabs.  So, before Israel was invaded by the entire Middle East, Israel was being as fair as possible and not creating their state using mass violence.  Once Israel was invaded, Israel needed defensible borders and you had the logical insanity of war.  One side does something bad, the other retaliates and so on.  That's what wars are like, it's never nice or fair.  Every war like that has refugees.  But, Israel has no reason to apologize for winning for its survival.   

Once you get to that point, what's the solution?  Kill the Arabs with kindness?  Refuse to defend yourself because, who really deserves to have a state anyway?  Israel could have been better, sure.  But, just imagine if the roles were reversed.  Wouldn't the Palestinians just start an outright genocide?  That's the moral difference here.  God bless Elizabeth Warren for realizing that and defending the Jewish people.  That's the liberal, progressive thing to do.  Israel is a convenient target because they actually listen to critics and they're a "white" western, powerful country.  But, just as might doesn't make right, might doesn't make wrong. 

Your racism is showing.

"But why can't white people use the n-word?!?!"

I'm confused as to why that's racist and what that has to do with the n-word.  But, it shows your naive, Eurocentric leftist bias that you try to turn this conflict into a racial issue. 

[bedstuy]

I dunno, the assumption that the Palestinians would attempt to 'start a genocide' were the roles reversed in the region seems a tad racist, given you know, no support for that proposition in real life and given your distaste for those that have the guts to fight for the land they're being pushed off of.

If having that opinion makes me racist against Arab people, by the same token, you're an anti-Semite. 

But, I don't think you're an anti-Semite.  I think you're just a dude who wants to take the position that offers him the most leftist street cred.  You're not interested in having a understanding of this issue, you want want to have a position that demonstrates your anti-imperialist/pro-third world stance.  And, I guess I'm a jerk or capitalist stooge or something for disagreeing with you and therefore also racist.  OK, noted.

[bedstuy]

I dunno, the assumption that the Palestinians would attempt to 'start a genocide' were the roles reversed in the region seems a tad racist, given you know, no support for that proposition in real life and given your distaste for those that have the guts to fight for the land they're being pushed off of.

If having that opinion makes me racist against Arab people, by the same token, you're an anti-Semite. 

But, I don't think you're an anti-Semite.  I think you're just a dude who wants to take the position that offers him the most leftist street cred.  You're not interested in having a understanding of this issue, you want want to have a position that demonstrates your anti-imperialist/pro-third world stance.  And, I guess I'm a jerk or capitalist stooge or something for disagreeing with you and therefore also racist.  OK, noted.

I don't understand you doubting the of my sincerity in taking up the cause of the oppressed in Palestine. This isn't a position I adopted overnight because I was commanded to do so by some secretive central committee somewhere. It's a position I held even before I identified as a Marxist, and it has less to do with me being a Marxist than it has to do with me not identifying with a nation that expelled the Palestinians from their homes and now forces them to live in an open-air prison, which they regularly bomb when one of those prisoners have the guts to fight back against their oppression.

I called you a racist precisely because that's what you are and that's what your sentiments convey. The idea that the Palestinians, if given the chance, would gladly massacre the Israelis because reasons (that you give no support for) is a corollary to your dominant worldview, which is that the Israelis have a right to that land, the Palestinians do not, and Israel is in the right and the Palestinians in the wrong. We must preserve the Jewish state as a Jewish state is basically how that (and all Zionist arguments on the subject) goes. I don't understand how you can plausibly argue that preserving a state entirely on the basis that is for only certain kinds of people is not racist or exclusionary. That same argument didn't work for South Africa, and it certainly should not work for a nation engaging in the same shameful disregard for human rights.

Well, now that's you've made a few factual statements I think I have a better sense of things.  We don't agree on the basic facts and you don't understand my position at all.  I don't have the time to educate you on the history of Israel or this conflict, but suffice to say, you are just dead wrong on the ground level facts. 

In short, Israel gives full political and civil rights to its non-Jewish citizens.  Israel is a Jewish state, sure, but you wonder why the one Jewish state is a problem, but not the huge number of Christian and Islamic states.  The fact that non-Jews are not drafted and Israel provides a sanctuary to international Jewry might upset you, but it's not racism at all.  It speaks more to the fact that Israel has needed to take in Jewish refugees to protect them from oppression.  What do you think the Jews of Yemen should have done?  Just allowed Arabs to kill them in Yemen?

I support a two state solution built on land swaps and international access to Jerusalem's holy sites.  I think the Palestinians should have their own state and they deserve to live peacefully.  I have all the sympathy in the world for Palestinians.  The problem is that their leadership is homicidal and genocidal as expressed by the Hamas charter.  You can just see the difference in values in the fact that Israel uses missiles to protect its citizens and Hamas uses its citizens to protect its missiles.

The reason I think Jews would suffer under Arab rule is that the Palestinian leadership has said as much and that's what happens in every Islamic fundamentalist country.  You're telling me that a virulently anti-Semitic organization, which uses the worst anti-Semitic propaganda, which hates Jewish people and targets civilians would respect human rights if they had the ability to massacre Israel's Jews.  And anyway, where is the fundamentalist Islamic anti-Semitic country that affords Jewish people full political and civil rights?  My point about how Hamas wants to launch a ethnic/religious cleansing campaign is not just based on reasons.  It's based on what Hamas has said and their behavior of killing civilians left and right.

[bedstuy]

The rewriting of history by the anti-Israel crowd is just shameless. 

The land Israel sits on is the Jewish homeland.  That area was conquered by Assyrians, Seleucid Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Mamluk Turks.  Jews didn't leave Israel by choice for the most part.  They were mostly sold in slavery in the Roman Empire and forced to flee at various points.  That's not to say that Israel belongs to Jews.  I don't think any land belongs to any one national group per se.  But, the land of Israel is not an ancestral Arab territory.  So, there's that.

I long for the time when an American arguing for the ridiculous argument that Jews had the right to create Israel due to historic rights shocked me, but those days of naivety are unfortunately long gone. And it's probably an utter waste of time to try to explain this but do you understand what your argument implies? Forget about this giving the Natives Americans rights over the whole of the American continent, this would mean that England is not the ancestral land of the English people -  they after all settled there several centuries after most Jews left Palestine. There is simply no way to make this argument without making you look both ignorant and an Israeli hack.

I think anyone can live anywhere dude.  Jewish people ought to be allowed to live in Brazil, America, Israel, China, Saudi Arabia, etc.  Arabs ought to be allowed to live anywhere too.  There is no land that belongs to one ethnic group.  I don't see how that's being an Israeli hack.  Do you think there was something wrong with the Jewish immigration to Ottoman or British Palestine?

Why was Israel created?  The places where Jewish people did live between the 1880s and 1940s were none to hospitable.  What instigated the two great migrations to Israel?  You have the horrible persecution in the Russian Empire by Alexander III and the holocaust. (Do the Israel haters have a problem with Jews escaping to Argentina or the United States?  Isn't that colonizing in your book?) Well, all that came to a head in the holocaust and you had a horrible refugee problem.  What were Jews supposed to do post-holocaust?  Stay in Poland?  Jews had been prevented from moving anywhere and when they stayed put, people killed millions of them and oppressed them.  So, if you give Jews an opportunity to have their own state, they're going to see it as a singular chance to find a place to live in peace and security.  Whose fault is that?  Not the Jews clearly, that's the fault of Russia and Germany.

This argument is a waste of space considering it fails to address how all this was the fault of the Palestinians

It wasn't.  But, that was the problem.  Under your rules, Jews couldn't live in any land that belonged to another ethnic group, they couldn't buy land because that's imperialist, what should they have done?  Is it just that they're an ethnic group without a country as of a certain date so they should just disappear?

Would it have been better if Jews were all allowed to immigrate to the US?  I think so.  But, that didn't happen.  What happened was that Jews took that singular chance and founded their own state.  Was that a majority Arab state?  No.  Israel in 1948 was majority Jewish in population.  Did Jewish people steal land?  Maybe some did, but most bought land from Arabs.  So, before Israel was invaded by the entire Middle East, Israel was being as fair as possible and not creating their state using mass violence.  Once Israel was invaded, Israel needed defensible borders and you had the logical insanity of war.  One side does something bad, the other retaliates and so on.  That's what wars are like, it's never nice or fair.  Every war like that has refugees.  But, Israel has no reason to apologize for winning for its survival. 

 
First, most of the land was actually bought from absentee landlords, and the actual people living there were not consulted. Second, buying land does not give anyone the right to control some territory. Thirdly, Palestine was only a third Jews when it was divided without the agreement of the majority of the population. So the Palestinians have no reasons to apologize with not agreeing with this injustice.

The Jewish state in 1948 was majority Jewish, but that was less than half of Palestine.  And, I agree it wasn't fair that Palestinians couldn't return to their land.  Who could call that fair?  That cause of that unfairness was shared between Arabs and Jews however.  Most of those people voluntarily left and couldn't come back because of the whims of Arab nationalists and the historical circumstance.  Ultimately, you just have to realize that the Arab tried to destroy the state of Israel and they lost.  We need to move on from that at some point.  That's coming up on 70 years ago.  I mean, the partition of India and Pakistan was unfair to the people of the subcontinent.  But, here in the West we don't get upset out of our minds about the various irredentist claims over Kashmir.  This is just a case of automatic sympathy for the party with less power and the idea that perceived first world power should act "civilized" and the perceived third world people are noble savages who just can't help but lob missiles at children.

Once you get to that point, what's the solution?  Kill the Arabs with kindness?  Refuse to defend yourself because, who really deserves to have a state anyway?  Israel could have been better, sure.  But, just imagine if the roles were reversed.  Wouldn't the Palestinians just start an outright genocide?  That's the moral difference here.  God bless Elizabeth Warren for realizing that and defending the Jewish people.  That's the liberal, progressive thing to do.  Israel is a convenient target because they actually listen to critics and they're a "white" western, powerful country.  But, just as might doesn't make right, might doesn't make wrong. 

So you've already had ridiculous appeals to history, emotional outbursts without any relevance to the discussions at hand and now you're resorting to conjuring imaginary and impossible alternate history scenarios? Why not simply state that Israel is always right - that would at least be straightforward and honest?

No.  I think I have an even-handed view of Israel.  I think we should have a two-state solution and Israel should stop building settlements yesterday.

[bedstuy]

No, that's not how things work. First, you can only live in a country with that country's permission, otherwise you're an illegal immigrant. And the mass settlement with the purpose of taking over a country is not immigration, it's invasion. Especially if the local population is not consulted. No independent Palestinian state would have allowed itself to be taken over like this.
For a corresponding counterexample, would you allow the Palestinian refugees and their descendants to immigrate to Israel?
And if you don't believe that no land belongs to one ethnic group, why bring up the absurd argument of Jewish historical rights?

I didn't make the argument that Jewish people historically have a right to Israel.  I made the point that no one ethnic group has an a priori right to live anywhere.  I was saying that it's ridiculous to say that Arabs "own" Palestine and are the only people allowed to be citizens of a state in Palestine. 

On the greater point, Jewish people during the first and second aliyah to were being expelled from Eastern Europe and there was a huge rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe.  They were refugees who legitimately immigrated to escape pogroms and anti-Semitism in Europe.  They should have just stayed in Russia getting raped and murdered by the Tsar's goons until the holocaust showed up and ushered them off this mortal coil?  That's the idea?  It's certainly one answer to the Jewish question, which I suppose good Christian Europeans would prefer because it leaves things all tied up with a neat little bow.

And, ultimately I'm a realist, you can immigrate to where people allow you to immigrate to.  That's how the modern nation-state system works.  But, you can't say, oh, those people didn't deserve to immigrate there because a priori, God has decided that all Jewish people must live in the USA, Poland and the western parts of the Russian Empire.

"My" rules exist only in your imagination. I have nothing against immigration that is approved by the country being entered. And yes, more countries should have granted asylum to the Jews before WWII and the failure of most to do so contributed indirectly to the Holocaust, but that doesn't mean that it's right to take over other countries (and of course by the time Israel was founded, there war was over and there were other options to safeguard the Jewish people).

I agree with you retrospectively.  But, people post WWII didn't have the benefit of knowing the future.  It's understandable why people thought Jews absolutely needed their own state for their very survival as a group, looking from the perspective of the anti-Semitism of the 1880s to 1940s.  And, that's the problem, zionism was a quixotic, frankly bad idea in many ways.  But, basically any national formation is bloody and nonsensical.  The United States certainly can't be proud of our treatment of the Indians.  Should we allow Sioux people to fire rockets at Rapid City to make up for that?

It's more likely that Israel receives less sympathy because they inflict most of the suffering. And remember that it was you who brought up a historical argument. I certainly don't deny Israel's right to exist now, but the history of its foundation is quite a different matter.

I didn't bring up the history in response to what you said.  I brought it up to people inventing their own  distorted history to imply that Israel has no right to exist or defend its citizens.

But neither you, nor Warren and most Congress members believe in actually taking any measures to encourage Israel to take the path to peace. So all these noble words only conceal an unprincipled and unconditional support of Israel.

People who treat Israel unfairly and beat the drums of anti-Semitism aren't helping either.  We're not going to browbeat Israel into pacifist toleration of Hamas murdering Israeli citizens.  And, sure, I don't think there's going to be a solution in the near future.  We're stuck because most of the Palestinians and many of the Israelis prefer perpetual war to a diplomatic solution.

[bedstuy]

The United States certainly can't be proud of our treatment of the Indians.  Should we allow Sioux people to fire rockets at Rapid City to make up for that?

The comparison that Israeli apologists make to our own colonization and settlement of North America is a monstrous misrepresentation.

What was acceptable in the 1600s is not necessarily acceptable in the 20th century or today. If Israel wanted to enact chattel slavery, would you be saying, "Well WE did it prior to the 1860s. If you don't allow them to, you're a raving anti-semite who wants them all to die in Hitler's ovens you Nazi!"

We didn't have to kill very many Indians since most of them died from all the diseases we and the Spanish brought there from Europe.

And the American Indians have by and large ceased to exist as a distinct people in modern America. There are a few on reservations, but they largely wear Western clothes, speak English and often don't even practice their traditional religion. They often intermarried with white and black Americans; I can claim Native American ancestry as can just about any American whose family has been here a decent amount of time. If you tried to find out what tribe's land was taken when and locate their direct descendants to give it back, it would more or less be impossible. Too much time has gone by. Too much migration and merger and splitting of tribes has happened. The definition of who qualifies as a Native American has become very fluid.

By contrast, the Palestinians have not disappeared as a people. It would be very easy to locate land deeds from less than a century ago. Many of those people are still alive, or their children or grandchildren are. There has been virtually no intermarrying between Israelis or Palestinians and they and their culture have, by design, remained outside the Israeli state and Israeli society. So the idea that a "Native American" solution would be acceptable in the context of Israel and the Palestinians is absurd, as is the idea that there is any moral equivalency between white Americans driving natives into the woods in the early 1600s and Israelis burning Palestinian olive orchards in the 2010s. They should know better.

Well, that's certainly wrong on many levels as it pertains to Native Americans.  But, more to the point, I didn't imply that anything that happened to Palestinians is justified.  I meant, just because your group of people legitimately suffered, you don't get to fire missiles at innocent civilians and blatantly violate rules of war.  Hamas is clearly the villain here and there's nothing that could justify their tactics and ideological program.  The cause of Palestinian statehood and human rights is kind of irrelevant to this current situation.  It could be the best cause, most righteous cause in the world, if you're pursuing using Hamas's tactics, you're at fault for both your attacks and the response. 

[bedstuy]

Well, that's certainly wrong on many levels as it pertains to Native Americans.  But, more to the point, I didn't imply that anything that happened to Palestinians is justified.  I meant, just because your group of people legitimately suffered, you don't get to fire missiles at innocent civilians and blatantly violate rules of war.  Hamas is clearly the villain here and there's nothing that could justify their tactics and ideological program.  The cause of Palestinian statehood and human rights is kind of irrelevant to this current situation.  It could be the best cause, most righteous cause in the world, if you're pursuing using Hamas's tactics, you're at fault for both your attacks and the response. 

This is what would happen if Hamas stopped shooting rockets: Israel would end their military operation, the troops would go home, the settlement construction in the West Bank/Judaea and Samaria/Cisjordan would continue and nothing would change.

So what incentive do they have to do that? At this point, the general sense among Hamas seems to be that Israel is never going to seriously negotiate anything and isn't going anywhere, but if they're going to be there then Hamas is going to ensure that their existence is as miserable as possible. And Israel has more or less taken the same stance - they can't eliminate the Palestinians or send them all to Jordan, so they're going to make their lives as unpleasant as they can for the time being.

The goal in both cases is to get the other side to "self deport" to borrow a Mittism.

That's another silly argument.  Not shooting rockets at civilians won't immediately solve the Israel-Palestinian conflict, I agree.  That's hardly a test for whether you should continue an action though.  Nothing, by itself, will lead to peace.  But, observing basic conventions of human decency would be a good start, and that goes for both sides.  Both sides need to start taking steps towards peace, even if there's no guarantee the other side will reciprocate.  However, the thing that locks the situation in place though is the mass scale violence.  Hamas is clearly the driving force behind that and they need to stop.

On the point of Israel's intentions, I don't think it's clear.  Israel has seriously negotiated with the Palestinians in the past.  If you go back to the time before the second intifada, there were serious negotiations.  Look at the Oslo Peace Accords and the Camp David summit.  Israel has negotiated in good faith when they didn't feel this huge threat to their security.  I think they would again if they had a partner for peace.  If there was a sane, orderly Palestinian government to negotiate with Israel would likely be forced to make serious concessions by the international community.

[bedstuy]

Well, that's certainly wrong on many levels as it pertains to Native Americans.  But, more to the point, I didn't imply that anything that happened to Palestinians is justified.  I meant, just because your group of people legitimately suffered, you don't get to fire missiles at innocent civilians and blatantly violate rules of war.  Hamas is clearly the villain here and there's nothing that could justify their tactics and ideological program.  The cause of Palestinian statehood and human rights is kind of irrelevant to this current situation.  It could be the best cause, most righteous cause in the world, if you're pursuing using Hamas's tactics, you're at fault for both your attacks and the response. 

This is what would happen if Hamas stopped shooting rockets: Israel would end their military operation, the troops would go home, the settlement construction in the West Bank/Judaea and Samaria/Cisjordan would continue and nothing would change.

So what incentive do they have to do that? At this point, the general sense among Hamas seems to be that Israel is never going to seriously negotiate anything and isn't going anywhere, but if they're going to be there then Hamas is going to ensure that their existence is as miserable as possible. And Israel has more or less taken the same stance - they can't eliminate the Palestinians or send them all to Jordan, so they're going to make their lives as unpleasant as they can for the time being.

The goal in both cases is to get the other side to "self deport" to borrow a Mittism.

That's another silly argument.  Not shooting rockets at civilians won't immediately solve the Israel-Palestinian conflict, I agree.  That's hardly a test for whether you should continue an action though.  Nothing, by itself, will lead to peace.  But, observing basic conventions of human decency would be a good start, and that goes for both sides.  Both sides need to start taking steps towards peace, even if there's no guarantee the other side will reciprocate.  However, the thing that locks the situation in place though is the mass scale violence.  Hamas is clearly the driving force behind that and they need to stop.

On the point of Israel's intentions, I don't think it's clear.  Israel has seriously negotiated with the Palestinians in the past.  If you go back to the time before the second intifada, there were serious negotiations.  Look at the Oslo Peace Accords and the Camp David summit.  Israel has negotiated in good faith when they didn't feel this huge threat to their security.  I think they would again if they had a partner for peace.  If there was a sane, orderly Palestinian government to negotiate with Israel would likely be forced to make serious concessions by the international community.

When Mahmoud Abbas tried to negotiate with them unilaterally, Israel claimed that wasn't valid because he wasn't representing the entire government. Whenever he tries rapprochement with Hamas, Israel claims they still won't negotiate because now Hamas is involved and they don't like Hamas. What if the Palestinian Authority simply refused to negotiate with an Israeli government that had a right-wing party like Yisrael Beitenu in its coalition? You can't just refuse to talk to someone because you don't like their internal political reality. Hamas's political success in Palestinian elections is Israel's own fault more than anything else.

When the suicide bombings stopped in the mid-2000s, Israel responded by building more settlements. When the rocket attacks from Gaza stop, there are more settlements. When the rocket attacks started up again, there were more settlements.

Why are you so unwilling to acknowledge that the fact that the settlement construction continues is a pretty big red flag that Israel has no interest in negotiating?

You can't very well negotiate with a government completely divided into ideologically disparate camps.  If you Hamas refuses to keep the Palestinian Authority's promises, that makes things very difficult.  And, yes, the Israeli right wing is increasingly a huge problem and they're terrible people.  I can't argue with that.

But, on the missiles point, if the Palestinians are going to make not attacking civilians a bargaining chip, I don't think there is any reason to negotiate.  And anyway, do you really think Israel is dissuaded from building settlements in the West Bank because of rockets in Gaza?  

[bedstuy]

My point is that the Palestinians' primary grievance against Israel is the settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Nothing the Palestinians have or haven't done has stopped Israel from doing that.

But their logic is that if Israel is going to do that no matter what, they're going to try to make Israel as miserable as possible. They would rather have a settlement full of stressed-out, PTSD-suffering Israelis than one full of happy, unperturbed Israelis because the former would hopefully go back to Israel proper or pressure their government to change their policies.

That is also the reason they attack civilians (though I'd point out that nearly every Israeli who has died during this operation has been a non-civilian). The rockets, as you know, kill very few people. They're not designed to kill people. They're designed to scare people and make their lives stressful and unpleasant so that they will pressure their government to pursue a different set of policies. Of course it could just as easily have the opposite effect - emboldening them to vote for politicians who will be even more hardline and uncompromising.

When you're dealing with an area that small, civilians are going to be impacted no matter what. I don't know why you're ignoring the fact that Israel has recently killed nearly 700 civilians. Why aren't you asking them to stop doing that?

Israel is trying to get rid of the rockets and tunnels used to transport them into Gaza, they're not trying to kill civilians.  What Israel has done is perfectly legal under the rules of war.  Maybe they could be more careful about avoiding civilian casualties, but that's largely impaired by Hamas using the human shield strategy. 

As far as the settlements, I'm kind of confused.  There are no settlements in Gaza or anywhere where the rockets can hit.  And, sure, the rockets don't kill a lot of people.  That's because their range is not highly populated and Israel protects its civilians, instead of using them as human shields.

[bedstuy]

Why are you so unwilling to acknowledge that the fact that the settlement construction continues is a pretty big red flag that Israel has no interest in negotiating?

You can't very well negotiate with a government completely divided into ideologically disparate camps.  If you Hamas refuses to keep the Palestinian Authority's promises, that makes things very difficult.  And, yes, the Israeli right wing is increasingly a huge problem and they're terrible people.  I can't argue with that.

But, on the missiles point, if the Palestinians are going to make not attacking civilians a bargaining chip, I don't think there is any reason to negotiate.  And anyway, do you really think Israel is dissuaded from building settlements in the West Bank because of rockets in Gaza?  

 
I noticed you didn't answer one question and chose to deflect it with another.  Does not the fact that no matter the reason or the season, Israel continues to build settlements on occupied Palestinian land show it's true interests?  Yes, Hamas' strategy hasn't been effective in changing that fact, but nothing seems to change that.

By the same logic, does the US invasion and occupation of Iraq mean that the insurgency was justified in every horrible thing they did?  If there's a flaw in a country's policy, terrorism is automatically justified?  I'm dismayed at where Israel has gone in the past 20 years.  That doesn't mean that Israel has lost the basic sovereignty of the right to defend itself.  And, let's not forget that some of the West Bank is disputed territory.  It's not agreed on anywhere that we're ever going to return to 1967 borders. 

My point is that the Palestinians' primary grievance against Israel is the settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Nothing the Palestinians have or haven't done has stopped Israel from doing that.

But their logic is that if Israel is going to do that no matter what, they're going to try to make Israel as miserable as possible. They would rather have a settlement full of stressed-out, PTSD-suffering Israelis than one full of happy, unperturbed Israelis because the former would hopefully go back to Israel proper or pressure their government to change their policies.

That is also the reason they attack civilians (though I'd point out that nearly every Israeli who has died during this operation has been a non-civilian). The rockets, as you know, kill very few people. They're not designed to kill people. They're designed to scare people and make their lives stressful and unpleasant so that they will pressure their government to pursue a different set of policies. Of course it could just as easily have the opposite effect - emboldening them to vote for politicians who will be even more hardline and uncompromising.

When you're dealing with an area that small, civilians are going to be impacted no matter what. I don't know why you're ignoring the fact that Israel has recently killed nearly 700 civilians. Why aren't you asking them to stop doing that?

Israel is trying to get rid of the rockets and tunnels used to transport them into Gaza, they're not trying to kill civilians.  What Israel has done is perfectly legal under the rules of war.  Maybe they could be more careful about avoiding civilian casualties, but that's largely impaired by Hamas using the human shield strategy. 

As far as the settlements, I'm kind of confused.  There are no settlements in Gaza or anywhere where the rockets can hit. And, sure, the rockets don't kill a lot of people.  That's because their range is not highly populated and Israel protects its civilians, instead of using them as human shields.

No, but there are settlements all over the West Bank, which is precisely the source of the grievance. Yes, Israel dismantled its Gaza settlements, but that is meaningless considering they then proceeded to construct a number in the West Bank that far exceeded those they dismantled. If you were going to attack Israel, would you do it from the West Bank, which is essentially under de facto IDF control, or would you do it from Gaza, where Israel has no presence? Which would be easier to do?

As for the Gaza civilians, exactly where do you expect them to go so that they won't be harmed by the present Israeli incursion? They're not allowed to leave the Gaza Strip. You can pat the IDF on the back for giving them advance notice of attacks, but when they have no wherewithal to actually go to a safe location, it's totally pointless. Israeli civilians have bomb shelters they can go to when Hamas fires rockets at them. There are no bomb shelters in Gaza - kind of hard to make those when you're barred from importing building materials to make them. You might as well give them no warning and kill them suddenly - at least that way they won't spend their last minutes and hours in a state of panic and terror.

Hamas puts rockets in schools and international aid buildings, they put rocket launchers next to apartment buildings, they're not just firing from Gaza, they're using Gaza City's inhabitants as human shields. 

My point on the settlements is that the rockets aren't terrorizing settlers, they're hitting Israel.  And, as for the military occupation of Palestinian territory, doesn't Hamas's behavior show that Israel needs that military occupation for its own safety.  Israel pulled out of Gaza and Gaza became a launching pad for people making war on Israel.  Doesn't that play into the hand of the Israeli right wing?

[bedstuy]

Why are you so unwilling to acknowledge that the fact that the settlement construction continues is a pretty big red flag that Israel has no interest in negotiating?

You can't very well negotiate with a government completely divided into ideologically disparate camps.  If you Hamas refuses to keep the Palestinian Authority's promises, that makes things very difficult.  And, yes, the Israeli right wing is increasingly a huge problem and they're terrible people.  I can't argue with that.

But, on the missiles point, if the Palestinians are going to make not attacking civilians a bargaining chip, I don't think there is any reason to negotiate.  And anyway, do you really think Israel is dissuaded from building settlements in the West Bank because of rockets in Gaza?  

 
I noticed you didn't answer one question and chose to deflect it with another.  Does not the fact that no matter the reason or the season, Israel continues to build settlements on occupied Palestinian land show it's true interests?  Yes, Hamas' strategy hasn't been effective in changing that fact, but nothing seems to change that.

By the same logic, does the US invasion and occupation of Iraq mean that the insurgency was justified in every horrible thing they did?  If there's a flaw in a country's policy, terrorism is automatically justified?  I'm dismayed at where Israel has gone in the past 20 years.  That doesn't mean that Israel has lost the basic sovereignty of the right to defend itself.  And, let's not forget that some of the West Bank is disputed territory.  It's not agreed on anywhere that we're ever going to return to 1967 borders. 

Those are some lovely strawmen you raised, but they did absolutely nothing to answer the question that was raised by Indy TX. I wanted you to answer one simple question, not have you raise more to avoid giving an answer yet again.  Si I'll repeat, does not the fact that no matter the reason or the season, Israel continues to build settlements on occupied Palestinian land show it's true interests?

Some people in Israel think Judea and Samaria are Jewish land and must be a part of Israel.  I would say that's about 30% of Israel.  The majority though still support a two-state solution built on dismantling some of the settlements.  But, I think Israel's actions in Gaza are unrelated to the settlements.  That's not a dodge, I think that's just a reflection of the facts on the ground.

But, if you look at the negotiation as, Hamas gives up the right to launch rockets at Israel and Israel moves back to the 1967 lines, you're nuts.  That's not negotiation, that's hostage trading and nobody would expect any nation to capitulate under those terms. 

[bedstuy]

bedstuy, I am not talking at all about the actions currently going on in Gaza.  I am talking only about the settlements and Israel's demonstrated intransigence on that one issue and the degree to which it demonstrates Israel's unwillingness to negotiate on any basis other keeping all the land it wants.

Israel unilaterally left Gaza.  What have the Palestinians done?  I mean, I generally agree that Israel's settlement policy is horrible and illegal.  But, there's no unanimity in Israel over the idea that all the settlements need to stay. 

But, if you look at the negotiation as, Hamas gives up the right to launch rockets at Israel and Israel moves back to the 1967 lines, you're nuts.  That's not negotiation, that's hostage trading and nobody would expect any nation to capitulate under those terms. 

I wouldn't call the settlement locations Israel has occupied by the name hostages.  For one thing hostage-taking implies the hostages could be given up.  If an analogy is to human actions is to be used, bride-napping would seems to be a closer parallel, tho even that is too strongly spiced with sage for me to be comfortable with.  Besides, there's no way the father-in-law will ever sanctioned the forced marriage.  Still, I can understand why Israel might be worried it could suffer the same fate as Shechem and his kin when they tried to come to terms with Dinah's brothers.

I meant Israel's population in range of the rockets was the hostage in that scenario.  Israel can't give up any significant concessions in exchange for Hamas not firing rockets. 

[bedstuy]

bedstuy, I am not talking at all about the actions currently going on in Gaza.  I am talking only about the settlements and Israel's demonstrated intransigence on that one issue and the degree to which it demonstrates Israel's unwillingness to negotiate on any basis other keeping all the land it wants.

Israel unilaterally left Gaza.  What have the Palestinians done?  I mean, I generally agree that Israel's settlement policy is horrible and illegal.  But, there's no unanimity in Israel over the idea that all the settlements need to stay. 

And simultaneously built more settlements in the West Bank to house not only those moved out of Gaza but also additional occupiers.  So basically, Israel engaged in a PR stunt giving in hopes that the fact that their "withdrawal" meant an expansion of its activities and then got upset when the Palestinians saw through their prestidigitation.  So long as Israel remains a democracy, unanimity isn't needed to continue expanding settlements, just a solid majority and there's absolutely no indication that there will not continue to be a solid majority for continued expansion indefinitely.

Most people in Israel do not consider Judea and Samaria to be completely part of Israel.  That's a minority opinion.  If there was an end to Hamas fighting a war on Israel and there was a Palestinian government that could negotiate, they could restart the peace process.  Until that happens, you're right in a sense.  Except that the blame doesn't lie entirely on Israel, it's shared between Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab world that wants to use the Israeli occupation to divert attention from domestic issues.

[bedstuy]

At least you're willing to admit that Israel has a share of the blame.  But I think you're wrong about a majority of Israelis not wanting to keep control of the West Bank.  Certainly a majority oppose integrating it into Israel proper because of the massive increase in Arab citizens that would result if all of the West Bank, including the ghettos the Palestinians have been forced into there, were part of Israel.  Maintaining the bantustans while obtaining the desired lebensraum for Zion appears to be the generally accepted Israeli policy given what has happened over the last four decades since the Yom Kippur War under a wide variety of governments.  (Politically loaded words used on purpose as they are useful shorthands despite not being fully accurate.)

If you're going to compare Israel to Nazi Germany, you don't exactly have your figure on the pulse of Jewish people.  That's really offensive honestly.

[bedstuy]

I mean, I generally agree that Israel's settlement policy is horrible and illegal.  But, there's no unanimity in Israel over the idea that all the settlements need to stay. 

There's no unanimity among Palestinians that Hamas firing rockets into Israel is a good idea either, but Israel has no problem collectively punishing them for that.

Why is it beyond the pale for the Palestinians to collectively punish Israel for their own non-unanimous decision?

So, people in East Jerusalem adding a bedroom to their house is tantamount to firing rockets at civilians?  I don't support Israel building settlements either, but it's not warfare.  It's provocative and wrong, but it must be dealt with using peaceful means. 

To further distinguish, I think Israel is following established international norms of warfare.  Going into Gaza to destroy rockets and their access points is in response to a military threat and proportional to its scope.  It's not just, Israel disapproves of Hamas so they're going to bomb Gaza.  It's not collective punishment, even if that's the net effect of any war.

Hamas, on the other hand, constantly violates the basic international rules of war.  They're a terrorist group that targets civilians.  That's not a legitimate tactic.  What they should do is recognize Israel's right to exist, renounce terrorism and come to the bargaining table.

[bedstuy]

At least you're willing to admit that Israel has a share of the blame.  But I think you're wrong about a majority of Israelis not wanting to keep control of the West Bank.  Certainly a majority oppose integrating it into Israel proper because of the massive increase in Arab citizens that would result if all of the West Bank, including the ghettos the Palestinians have been forced into there, were part of Israel.  Maintaining the bantustans while obtaining the desired lebensraum for Zion appears to be the generally accepted Israeli policy given what has happened over the last four decades since the Yom Kippur War under a wide variety of governments.  (Politically loaded words used on purpose as they are useful shorthands despite not being fully accurate.)

If you're going to compare Israel to Nazi Germany, you don't exactly have your figure on the pulse of Jewish people.  That's really offensive honestly.

Lebensraum was a policy goal of German nationalists of a variety of stripes, not just the Nazis.

I'm sure you have lots of pedantic justifications for why you're allowed to say offensive, borderline anti-Semitic things.  That doesn't make it appropriate discourse.

[bedstuy]

At least you're willing to admit that Israel has a share of the blame.  But I think you're wrong about a majority of Israelis not wanting to keep control of the West Bank.  Certainly a majority oppose integrating it into Israel proper because of the massive increase in Arab citizens that would result if all of the West Bank, including the ghettos the Palestinians have been forced into there, were part of Israel.  Maintaining the bantustans while obtaining the desired lebensraum for Zion appears to be the generally accepted Israeli policy given what has happened over the last four decades since the Yom Kippur War under a wide variety of governments.  (Politically loaded words used on purpose as they are useful shorthands despite not being fully accurate.)

If you're going to compare Israel to Nazi Germany, you don't exactly have your figure on the pulse of Jewish people.  That's really offensive honestly.

Lebensraum was a policy goal of German nationalists of a variety of stripes, not just the Nazis.

I'm sure you have lots of pedantic justifications for why you're allowed to say offensive, borderline anti-Semitic things.  That doesn't make it appropriate discourse.

And equating criticism of Israel to antisemitism is appropriate?  In many ways, Israel continues to act as a late 19th century European power when it comes to how it treats its neighbors.  Which is isn't too surprising since Zionism came of age as a political viewpoint in late 19th century Europe.

I'm not getting into one of your loops of pedantry and being purposefully obtuse.  What I said is appropriate rational discourse, what you said is not.  And, if you actually think Israel is like Nazi Germany, you're an idiot. 

I mean, I generally agree that Israel's settlement policy is horrible and illegal.  But, there's no unanimity in Israel over the idea that all the settlements need to stay. 

There's no unanimity among Palestinians that Hamas firing rockets into Israel is a good idea either, but Israel has no problem collectively punishing them for that.

Why is it beyond the pale for the Palestinians to collectively punish Israel for their own non-unanimous decision?

So, people in East Jerusalem adding a bedroom to their house is tantamount to firing rockets at civilians?  I don't support Israel building settlements either, but it's not warfare.  It's provocative and wrong, but it must be dealt with using peaceful means. 

To further distinguish, I think Israel is following established international norms of warfare.  Going into Gaza to destroy rockets and their access points is in response to a military threat and proportional to its scope.  It's not just, Israel disapproves of Hamas so they're going to bomb Gaza.  It's not collective punishment, even if that's the net effect of any war.

Hamas, on the other hand, constantly violates the basic international rules of war.  They're a terrorist group that targets civilians.  That's not a legitimate tactic.  What they should do is recognize Israel's right to exist, renounce terrorism and come to the bargaining table.

When your government demolishes the house of the person next door because that person isn't the right religion so that you can add that extra bedroom, you're certainly not leaving them with a shortage of reasons to be firing rockets.

What "peaceful means" deter that kind of behavior? They've been doing it for at least 40 years. I'm sure if linking hands and singing Kumbaya were effective, it would have been done by now.

If you think it's perfectly OK to shoot rockets at civilians, I don't know what to tell you.  If you think Hamas's terrorist tactics are legitimate and helpful to the situation, we have to just agree to disagree.

[bedstuy]

If you think it's perfectly OK to shoot rockets at civilians, I don't know what to tell you.  If you think Hamas's terrorist tactics are legitimate and helpful to the situation, we have to just agree to disagree.

I don't think it's "perfectly OK."

Do you think it's "perfectly OK" that Israel has been shelling a UN-run school full of children?

At this point, there's really no substantive difference between what these two groups of people are doing apart from the fact that one is the official military of a recognized government and the other is a para-military organization affiliated with a political party in an unrecognized state.

Israel kills civilians unintentionally in the process of legal, proportional self-defense.  Israel abides by the Geneva Conventions and tries to avoid civilian casualties.  Israel follows every international rule of war in defending itself. 

Hamas targets Israeli civilians, uses their own population as human shields and engages in terrorism and flagrant violations of human rights.  In fact, Hamas has used UN schools as weapons depots.

The two sides couldn't be more different.

[bedstuy]

At this point, there's really no substantive difference between what these two groups of people are doing apart from the fact that one is the official military of a recognized government and the other is a para-military organization affiliated with a political party in an unrecognized state.

Israel kills civilians unintentionally in the process of legal, proportional self-defense.

[...]

The two sides couldn't be more different.

You're both wrong.  There have been far too many of these unintentional incidents in this campaign for Israel to claim the summit of morality.  Higher up the slopes of morality than Hamas, but clearly not the summit, so while they are different, they could be more different, and they ought to be.  Since the fighting in Gaza would not be occurring without the presence of the IDF there, primary responsibility for civilian deaths there belongs to the IDF despite the unjustified actions of Hamas.  The numbers of dead Palestinian civilians compared to the number of dead IDF personnel, let alone the relatively miniscule number of Israeli civilians clearly demonstrates that the Israeli response has not been proportionate by any reasonable definition of the word proportionate.

That's neither here nor there in terms of the rules of war.  There's no requirement that your civilians need to die at the same rate as another belligerent's civilians.  In those terms, the US was in the wrong during WWII because Germany lost thousands of civilians and we lost hardly any.  Should the US have refrained from any bombing campaign in occupied Europe because Nazi bombers couldn't reach the US?  That's blatantly silly and would seek to punish Israel for protecting its citizens instead of using them as human shields as Hamas does.

Rather, I mean proportional as its used in the discussion of the legality of warfare.  Under the rules of war, Israel's actions in Gaza are totally justified. 

If you want to make the argument Israel could take more pains to avoid civilian casualties, I might agree with that.  There's no requirement though that Israel protect civilians in Gaza at the expense of civilians in Beersheba.