naraburns nihil supernum
6mo ago
(text post)
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
This topic perhaps more than others is impossible to find good analysis of. Could some of you help me understand the arguments around something?
I routinely see people call Gaza "an open air prison". But...isnt' Egypt participating in this open air imprisonment? Egypt has a border with Gaza. If the Israelis are imprisoning the Gazans, then aren't the Egyptians doing the same thing?
And why would these two groups coordinate on this? Same question goes for: shutting of water/electricity. Why would Egypt help Israel with this? Why doesn't Egypt simply give the Gazans the water they need?
edit: I think my question was unclear here. I understand the obvious answers which are basically: Hamas/Gaza are terrorists. Of course Egypt doesn't want them. What I'm asking for is for somebody to steelman the liberal position that Gaza is an "open air prison" and that this is Israel's fault.
And why would these two groups coordinate on this? Same question goes for: shutting of water/electricity. Why would Egypt help Israel with this? Why doesn't Egypt simply give the Gazans the water they need?
Downtrodden Palestinians are an important weapon in Islam's war on Israel--arguably, the most important weapon. They are the "victims" the Muslim world can hold up to show the perfidy and savagery of the Jewish state. If they stop being victims, then they stop being useful. The ~20% of Israel's citizens who are assimilated Palestinians are of no interest to the terrorists of Hamas (or their masters abroad).
None of the countries nominally "allied" with Palestine appear to give half a shit about the well-being of Palestinians. What they want is for there to be Muslims in Israel fighting the never-ending Jihad against Judaism. And better yet, for there to be disposable Muslims; certainly other Islamist countries are not in general keen on inviting Palestinian refugees into their nations, and there is no need for them to risk their lives fighting Israelis if the Palestinians will do it for them. The goal for Hamas is not, ever, peace--and certainly not anything like assimilation and coexistence.
This is also why there are so many advocates for Palestinian "right of return" under much broader conditions than have never been extended to any other ethnic group.
The Israel-Palestine conflict is complicated and ugly (on both sides!) in so many ways, but it simply cannot be understood without first acknowledging the central truth that it is a holy war, being funded and soft-supported around the world by hard-line Muslims (and their political stooges in American government, naturally). This is not, at bottom, about colonialism, or apartheid, or anything like that. It is about the deep, abiding intolerance of Muslims for non-Muslims, especially in the holy cities of Islam, including Jerusalem. Treating the conflict as resulting from anything other than simple, religiously-prescribed Muslim bigotry has littered history with failed peace agreements, because the problems those agreements attempted to solve have never been the real problem.
If the Palestinians stop fighting, there will be no more fighting. If the Israelis stop fighting, there will be no more Israel.
This narrative is awfully convenient from a pro-Israeli perspective, but if this was all motivated with holy war and religious bigotry, how come the Palestinian liberation movement was broadly secular before the 1980s? The leader of PFLP was after all a christian born Palestinian communist. And how come Israel had to help Hamas along in its infancy, to counter PLO? If this was all motivated by religious hatred, surely the islamist organizations would be at the forefront since the very beginning?
...how come the Palestinian liberation movement...
What does that matter to the Egyptians, Iranians, etc. who just need a convenient tool? What the Palestinians themselves think of all this is only marginally relevant, so long as they remain a functional tool. Israel's role in shaping that tool is also irrelevant; iron sharpens iron, and Hamas has shaped Israel as surely as Israel has shaped Hamas. But it is not Israel who ships arms into Palestine, not Israel who trains Hamas terrorists.
I am not "pro-Israeli" in any sense; as an American I am in fact deeply skeptical of Israel as a frankly unreliable ally. But this does not change the truth of the matter, which is that if Palestinians were not a convenient tool of anti-Israel Islamists (and, I suppose, the occasional secular anti-Semite) then the Palestinians would have no allies at all.
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Notes -
This topic perhaps more than others is impossible to find good analysis of. Could some of you help me understand the arguments around something?
I routinely see people call Gaza "an open air prison". But...isnt' Egypt participating in this open air imprisonment? Egypt has a border with Gaza. If the Israelis are imprisoning the Gazans, then aren't the Egyptians doing the same thing?
And why would these two groups coordinate on this? Same question goes for: shutting of water/electricity. Why would Egypt help Israel with this? Why doesn't Egypt simply give the Gazans the water they need?
edit: I think my question was unclear here. I understand the obvious answers which are basically: Hamas/Gaza are terrorists. Of course Egypt doesn't want them. What I'm asking for is for somebody to steelman the liberal position that Gaza is an "open air prison" and that this is Israel's fault.
Downtrodden Palestinians are an important weapon in Islam's war on Israel--arguably, the most important weapon. They are the "victims" the Muslim world can hold up to show the perfidy and savagery of the Jewish state. If they stop being victims, then they stop being useful. The ~20% of Israel's citizens who are assimilated Palestinians are of no interest to the terrorists of Hamas (or their masters abroad).
None of the countries nominally "allied" with Palestine appear to give half a shit about the well-being of Palestinians. What they want is for there to be Muslims in Israel fighting the never-ending Jihad against Judaism. And better yet, for there to be disposable Muslims; certainly other Islamist countries are not in general keen on inviting Palestinian refugees into their nations, and there is no need for them to risk their lives fighting Israelis if the Palestinians will do it for them. The goal for Hamas is not, ever, peace--and certainly not anything like assimilation and coexistence.
This is also why there are so many advocates for Palestinian "right of return" under much broader conditions than have never been extended to any other ethnic group.
The Israel-Palestine conflict is complicated and ugly (on both sides!) in so many ways, but it simply cannot be understood without first acknowledging the central truth that it is a holy war, being funded and soft-supported around the world by hard-line Muslims (and their political stooges in American government, naturally). This is not, at bottom, about colonialism, or apartheid, or anything like that. It is about the deep, abiding intolerance of Muslims for non-Muslims, especially in the holy cities of Islam, including Jerusalem. Treating the conflict as resulting from anything other than simple, religiously-prescribed Muslim bigotry has littered history with failed peace agreements, because the problems those agreements attempted to solve have never been the real problem.
If the Palestinians stop fighting, there will be no more fighting. If the Israelis stop fighting, there will be no more Israel.
This narrative is awfully convenient from a pro-Israeli perspective, but if this was all motivated with holy war and religious bigotry, how come the Palestinian liberation movement was broadly secular before the 1980s? The leader of PFLP was after all a christian born Palestinian communist. And how come Israel had to help Hamas along in its infancy, to counter PLO? If this was all motivated by religious hatred, surely the islamist organizations would be at the forefront since the very beginning?
http://web.archive.org/web/20090926212507/http:/online.wsj.com/article/SB123275572295011847.html
What does that matter to the Egyptians, Iranians, etc. who just need a convenient tool? What the Palestinians themselves think of all this is only marginally relevant, so long as they remain a functional tool. Israel's role in shaping that tool is also irrelevant; iron sharpens iron, and Hamas has shaped Israel as surely as Israel has shaped Hamas. But it is not Israel who ships arms into Palestine, not Israel who trains Hamas terrorists.
I am not "pro-Israeli" in any sense; as an American I am in fact deeply skeptical of Israel as a frankly unreliable ally. But this does not change the truth of the matter, which is that if Palestinians were not a convenient tool of anti-Israel Islamists (and, I suppose, the occasional secular anti-Semite) then the Palestinians would have no allies at all.
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Its convenience has no bearing on its truth.
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