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This is false, the blockade will obviously persist. A blockade is a form of hostility.
If it's that obvious, then you should be able to lay out the evidence and argument which makes it so.
Please do so.
TIA.
First of all, your entire premise is ridiculous. 'Palestinians attacking Israelis' is something that is always going to exist at some base level, just like 'Israelis attacking Palestinians' or 'Israelis attacking Israelis' or 'Israelis attacking Dutch people (and vice versa)' or whatever groups are in contact. So any claim that one will do X once Y is achieved, where Y is impossible, effectively just means that one does not actually ever intend to do X. Or in this case, that one falsely claims that one side has control over their faith, when that is not a reasonable thing to claim.
Israel has a history of refusing to work towards normalization, by demanding the impossible, and refusing to honor any deals that do not deliver the impossible. An example is the 2008 cease fire, where rockets attacks dropped to a tiny fraction of what they were before the cease fire, but Israel refused to adhere to the agreement unless Hamas was able to stop all Palestinians from using violence, which is not realistically possible. This is like demanding that the police stop all crime. A ridiculous ask that has nothing to do with reason or reality.
Secondly, the idea that if there is a brief period of no attacks at all, Israel will trust Palestinians enough to just open the borders and let everything through is absurd. The only evidence one needs to disprove this, is the Gaza peace plan which already demands that no attacks will be launched from Gaza (see point 1), yet does not promise any more than to let through specific goods. So the ending of the blockade is not part of the peace plan.
Finally, fact is that Israel perceives all kinds of fairly innocent things as attacks, so the idea that no actual attacks means that Israel won't perceive any attacks is also highly doubtful. Examples are: driving in a UN-marked convoy where Israel was notified of the route that they would take. Clearly marked ambulances riding around with alarm signals. People approaching food trucks to get food. All cases where people were considered treats and attacked with lethal force, and no evidence exist of any reasonable casus belli.
Since apparently you don't understand what I meant by "attacking," allow me to clarify for you. By your reasoning, the Swiss are "always attacking" France, in the sense there are regular attacks by Swiss people against French people. Nevertheless, there is no need for France to conduct military operations against Switzerland in the way that Israel has conducted military operations against Gaza.
With that in mind, all that the people of Gaza need to do is limit their degree of attacks towards Israel to something roughly comparable to the level of Swiss attacks against France. At that point, the Israeli hostilities will promptly cease.
I am skeptical. Would you mind providing a source for this so that I can scrutinize your claim? TIA.
Agreed. When I said "stop attacking Israel," I meant something long-lasting not something brief.
I'm a little confused by this. Are you talking about fog-of-war incidents which will inevitably take place during armed conflicts, especially since one side disguises their military activities as civilian activities as a matter of policy? Or are you talking about official Israeli policy?
Yes, and part of the process of ending conflicts is to change the perception of the remaining violence from 'our peoples are attacking each other' to something like 'criminals do bad things and they get punished.'
There is never an objective need. I have no objective need to eat. Only in the context of wishing to stay alive, does this need exist. However, if I desired death, then VSED would be an option, and then I would need to not eat. So any description of a need without a goal that supposedly has only one solution to achieve the goal, is deceptive. And if there are other options, or it is not obvious that the behavior will achieve the goal, then it is a choice, not a need. Even with the goal, there is still not automatically a need, since the goal is itself often a choice. Or would you accept a bank robber's reasoning that he had no other choice to achieve his goal of getting rich fast, so it was not a choice, but a need?
You are trapping yourself in your choice of words, to create a false narrative where Israel has no choices and Hamas/the Palestinians have the only real choices. This is just a way to rationalize your biases.
Actual reality is that Israel was happy with Hamas in control of Gaza. One month before the attack, Israel asked Qatar to increase the funding for Hamas. Israel believed that their oppression and security measures would ensure only limited resistance that they could manage by 'cutting the grass.' It is clear that this was a big mistake. However, the massive destruction and murders that followed the Oct 7 attack clearly do not solve anything.
Of course, you can argue that Israel could not react any differently due to Israeli culture, their politics, or whatever, but at that point there is no reason why Hamas or the Palestinians would not be subject to similar forces that would constrain their choices. So that makes 'just stop being violent against Israel(is), bro,' just a biased statement no different than 'just stop oppressing the Palestinians, bro.' These are statements for a war of rhetoric, to win for your side. They are not a path to peace.
Page 6
This just runs into the standard problem of one side demanding this 'long-lasting' period to be infinite, while not wanting to make any sacrifices on their own. Again, if you are not just biased but take the outside view, it is obvious that this just results in a stalemate where both sides demand that the other side make a sacrifice first.
I'm talking about institutional bias on the part of Israeli institutions like the IDF, which is caused both by intentional and unintentional causes. Refusing to actually investigate things honestly is an example of intentional bias.
Assuming that's true, so what? As I understand your argument, your position is that "stop attacking Israel" is an unreasonable condition on the cessation of hostilities, because you interpret the word "attack" as being so broad as to include any violence of any nature by any resident of Gaza against any Israeli.
And I'm telling you that's not what I meant. I used the word "attack" in a more narrow sense.
And using that definition, it is clear that your argument is wrong. For example, Jordan has stopped attacking Israel (in my sense of the word "attacking" and Israel has stopped conducting military activities against Jordan. All that Gaza needs to do is achieve the level of "non-attack" reached by Jordan.
Can you quote the relevant part of the paper for me? Are you claiming that page 6 shows that "rockets attacks dropped to a tiny fraction of what they were before the cease fire, but Israel refused to adhere to the agreement unless Hamas was able to stop all Palestinians from using violence, which is not realistically possible," because all I see is just a graph and nothing about Israel refusing to do anything.
No it doesn't. Again, just look at the case of Jordan. An infinite amount of time has NOT elapsed since the last attack by Jordan. Agreed?
Assuming for the sake of argument that this is true (and I highly doubt it) your argument proves too much. As far as I know, Israel has not been recently shooting at targets in Jordan, military, civilian or otherwise. If Israel biasedly interpreted non-hostile behavior by Jordanians as being worthy of military action, that's what one would expect.
Sorry for taking so long, was very busy.
It's not about how I interpret it, but how I believe that Israel will interpret it. Of course, you are free to try to convince me that Israel will interpret it differently.
Apples and oranges. Israel has never been able to blockade Jordan and didn't. Israel's goals with regard to the Palestinians (stealing their land) is also very different from their goals with regard to Jordan. Jordan is also an internationally recognized country, also by Israel, and Palestine is not.
Israel refused to stop their settlement expansion after the Oslo Accords were signed and in general refused to work towards the intended goal of a viable Palestinian state (certainly after the murder of Rabin), and after the intifada, chose permanent oppression of the Palestinians, including a blockade to attempt to deprive them of goods that can be used to wage war. After the October 7th attack, Israeli leadership has made genocidal statements, and not any statements showing a willingness to work towards a peace like with Jordan (again, a viable independent state with no blockade, with their own army, etc). So I believe that Jordan is not at all a good example and that your beliefs are fatally undermined by you completely ignoring the huge and very important differences between Jordan and the Palestinians.
How is it believable that Israeli leadership would trust Hamas enough to end the blockade after even a year of very limited violence that you would classify as 'no attacks,' given that politicians in the Israeli government made it clear that they believe that every Palestinian is a terrorist and that they want to kill all terrorists (which combined is a clear statement of genocidal intent)? Would you be willing to end a blockade of a group that you believed was out to murder you and has no intent to stop? How do you think such beliefs that are held by Israeli leaders are compatible with opening the borders to allow in goods that can be used for war (which includes basic building materials like pipes)? And again, with Jordan, Israel never had the option to blockade them. It is a completely flawed argument to claim that Jordan not being blockaded is due to them not engaging in violence, rather than because a blockade is not possible in the first place.
That part is not in the paper. I thought that you were just questioning the reduction in violence. For this question, please read chapter 1.3 in this overview of the situation made for British Parliament.
And on the bottom of page 4 you can see the peace deal as agreed by Hamas. Note the disparity in that Israeli made up demands (release of Gilad Shalit) that are not in the peace agreement, while Hamas did not make up any new demands. Also note that it is perfectly plausible that Hamas followed the peace agreement by not engaging in any violence themselves. The deal does not seem to require Hamas to stop violence by rogue elements, and given the low level of violence, it is perfectly plausible that the few remaining rocket and mortar attacks were done purely by rogue elements. It certainly did not make any rational sense for Hamas to provide Israel with reasons to not follow the deal, with such a meaningless level of violence that would not achieve anything for them (but would make sense for rogue elements with an intent to undermine the peace deal).
Also note that the report explains that Israel violated the cease fire agreement themselves by continuing with attacks (which would also increase the risk of retaliation by rogue Palestinians). At least one of these was a retaliatory attack on a rocket crew, which may be excusable (although still a violation of the agreement), but there were also IDF attacks on scavengers, fishermen, farmers and school children. Given all these IDF attacks and low number of attacks from Gaza (again, which may have been rogue attacks not under control of Hamas), I think that the demand by Israel for no attacks at all was utterly unreasonable, as they themselves could or would not even stop IDF attacks, and it would be far easier for Israel to stop violence from their side than for Hamas to do so. Also, Israel violated the peace agreement by not allowing 30 per cent more goods to enter the Gaza strip within 72 hours as agreed.
Anyway, I believe that the unwillingness of Israel to open the borders as agreed in 2008, with the justification that they require zero attacks at all, is sufficient proof that I am right that Israel will today latch on even very low amounts of violence to refuse to open the border, given that Israel is clearly no less angry/paranoid/etc right now than in 2008.
No, it's how you interpreted it. Do you need me to quote you where you did so?
Why does that make a difference? By YOUR definition of "attack," Jordan regularly attacks Israel. Why doesn't Israel retaliate against these attacks?
Can you please tell me (1) exactly what land Israel is trying to "steal," (2) how this land came to be the property of the "Palestinians,"; and (3) what is your basis for believing that Israel is trying to "steal" this land?
I am asking you this question because I want to understand your position.
As you surely know, there were Jewish people living in Gaza City, Hebron, and the Eastern part of Jerusalem before the Jews were ethnically cleansed from the 1920s to the 1940s. Are you claiming that these areas are part of the "land" that Israel is trying to "steal" from the "Palestinians"? If so, did this land belong to the Palestinian Arabs before or after the Jews were ethnically cleansed?
I really would like to know.
I'm a little confused, are you saying that Israel violated the Oslo accords? If so, could you please quote the exact clause which was violated and explain exactly what was done in violation?
It's not necessarily believable. It would depend in large part on whether Hamas renounced its goal of destroying Israel and stopped military preparation towards attacks against Israel.
Would you mind quoting the part you believe is relevant? TIA.
Let's see if I have this straight: The paper you link to provides (1) Hamas' understanding of the agreement; and (2) Israel's understanding of the agreement, and you conclude that Israel must be lying. Do I understand you correctly?
Can you please quote the part of the report which you believe shows this? TIA
Also, please answer my question from before:
An infinite amount of time has NOT elapsed since the last attack by Jordan. Agreed?
I've already extensively explained that actions are not based on objective fact, but based on perception. Actions by Jordanians are not perceived the same as the actions of Palestinians, by Israel. Furthermore, the power balance between Jordan and Israel is very different.
Your claim that your definition would be used by Israel, is merely supported by you referring to Jordan, and a refusal to acknowledge how Israel has actually dealt with the Palestinians. Your refusal to admit that the Palestinians are not comparable to Jordan, is getting silly now. You cannot just make a comparison, without making a credible case that the things you compare are actually sufficiently comparable, and you never addressed this.
Palestinian land, as assigned to a future Palestinian state by the UN. You can easily see how the land was taken by comparing maps over the decades and such.
Jews live and lived in many different countries. Are you claiming that Israel has a claim on land in the US, Germany, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain, Russia, etc, etc?
Your argument is so bad that I'm now seriously wondering whether you are just trolling, since this argument would be dismantled easily by any slightly intelligent debater, and exposes you as someone who does not understand that one cannot simply claim land based on one's ethnicity. If an American migrates to France, they cannot just claim that the land they bought is now American land. So either you have never used this very bad argument in a debate, despite this being one of these topics that is frequently debated, making that an unlikely option, or you knowingly use bad arguments in a debate.
This statement is completely at odds with your earlier claim that an end to the blockade would be achieved merely by stopping the attacks. Despite the debate starting over this exact point and having gone on for many posts now, you now suddenly make a claim that is very different from the one we have been debating so far, calling the honesty of all your previous posts into question.
The fact that you did not proactively note how this claim is different from the ones you made before, give any explanation of this sudden change, and how I should interpret it given the earlier posts, make me unwilling to debate with you further. I now have no idea what you are actually claiming and whether that is even something coherent and no trust that you will actually work towards a somewhat productive debate. Also, you keep making demands for me to explain and give more evidence, but do not meaningfully engage with my answers, for example, by clarifying whether you accept my evidence/claims, but you simply move on without addressing many of my key points.
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