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naraburns  nihil supernum  6mo ago (text post)   28852 thread views

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.

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“It’s time to be cruel,” and Knesset member Ariel Kallner calling for a “Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 48,” a reference to the massacre and expulsion of more than 750,000 Palestinians upon Israel’s founding.

So I looked up more on this Nakba:

Before, during and after the 1947–1949 war, hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages were depopulated and destroyed. Geographic names throughout the country were erased and replaced with Hebrew names, sometimes derivatives of the historical Palestinian nomenclature, and sometimes new inventions. Numerous non-Jewish historical sites were destroyed, not just during the wars, but in a subsequent process over a number of decades. For example, over 80% of Palestinian village mosques have been destroyed, and artefacts have been removed from museums and archives.

You shouldn't be able to get away with this sort of thing right in the middle of the 20th century. After that, it's no wonder if there are Palestinians who will never accept Israel, and I also think Israel doesn't really have a leg to stand on to negotiate, as it's not really a legitimate state, just a top-down imposition.

Debating this elsewhere, some reactions were "Oh, but the Arabs wouldn't accept the partition plan", but why should they, why does the UN have the right to just impose that on them? Actually, the UN involvement just makes Israel seem like another High Modernist fuck up, another of the numerous errors of the first half of the 20th century.

Addressing something Ike Saul said below:

I don’t view Israelis and Brits as colonizers any more than the Assyrians or the Babylonians or the Romans or the Mongols or the Egyptians or the Ottomans who all battled over the same strip of land from as early as 800 years before Jesus’s time until now. The Jews who founded Israel just happened to have won the last big battle for it.

No, I am not moved by appeals to ancient history. That cycle has to end at some point, and the end of WW II seems like a good stopping point for that sort of shenanigan.

Also, you can't have your high officials expressing themselves like the guy above and like this:

Gallant said that he had ordered “a complete siege of the Gaza Strip,” which is home to 2.2 million Palestinians, nearly half of them children. “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” he said. “We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.”

Netanyahu:

The weak crumble, are slaughtered and are erased from history while the strong, for good or for ill, survive. The strong are respected, and alliances are made with the strong, and in the end peace is made with the strong.

You can't talk like this and then pretend you're the civilized party here! Though of course, looking at the so-called developed nations, especially America, maybe they don't talk like this, but they sure behave like it, so maybe there actually are no or few civilizations around.

But that doesn't make me think Israel is legitimate, it just makes me think the developed world is fake too.

Sam Kriss had a great article on Israel from some time ago:

It was almost inconceivable that this wasteland had been made by Jews, that my people and my religion could have created something so ungodly. I did not recognise myself in this mirror. Jews—like Mel Brooks, like Franz Kafka, like Albert Einstein, like Bruno Schulz, like Woody Allen, like the Coen brothers, like Walter Benjamin, like me. People with sexual hangups and a good sense of humour. Bookish men with overbearing mothers. Latkes and lokshen pudding. Candles on a Friday night. Jews, the guilty conscience of Europe, the bearers of messianic hope through every generation—reduced to this.

American support for an ethno-nationalist state can't last. All it takes is a sufficiently left-wing administration coming around to undo this by simply withdrawing support, which could easily happen in the next few decades.

Apologies if this is too much heat, but looking at the circumstances of Israel's founding, Israel genuinely just seems to me to be an injustice. Maybe Israel could have happened legitimately if they hadn't been in such a hurry, and maybe the hurry could have been excused because of the Holocaust, but not to the point that you pull a Nakba.

EDIT: And of course, Hamas' attacks were barbarous, but that doesn't really conjure up legitimacy for the state of Israel. Why should they?

The question is not about the legitimacy of Israel. Israel was founded on blood like any other state in the world. Before that the territory was british, and before that it was ottoman (turkish) for centuries. So do you think Turkey was the legitimate owner of this territory? Anyway they didn't get it peacefully from the crusaders, who took it by force from the arabs. Those arabs took it by force from the byzantine empire. I don't think I need to continue.

Nowadays, Israel is a strong state and a nuclear power. Perhaps it has no right to exist but it will exist anyway. The earlier you accept it, the earlier a more acceptable solution than this awful status quo can be found.

Anyway they didn't get it peacefully from the crusaders

That's because they got it from the Mamluks, who got it from the Ayyubids, who got it from the crusaders. The sands of the Levant have been watered by a lot of blood.

Nothing wrong with having your own country with ethnic preference for your kin and discrimination against non-kin, strong border walls, and brutality against foreign intruders. The issue is when Israeli/Israel supporters tell us we can't have it in our own country. For example the ADL as highlighted by Carlson. It's not the police brutality, the bombing of innocent civilians, the colonization... it's the hypocrisy.

Well, it wasn't clear from my comment but the brutality and the settlements are not necessary for Israel to exist, so they aren't justified at all. I mean, if you are searching for a peaceful solution and not to justify your own crimes.

Are you sure about that? They may be the most pragmatic solution after all. Why do you think they're doing it if they're not necessary?

Out of hate, perhaps? Or as a revenge? I'm pretty sure raping women is useless for the freedom of palestinians, it does not prevent hamas to do it. People do not always act in their best interests... if they did, there would be no suicide terror attack

My hypothesis for suicide attacks is that they would be a way to manage mental illness in the Middle-East.

While in the US disturbed, isolated teenagers may become fodder for gun control fed conspiracies, in the Middle-East they could serve as a tribute to the local islamists. While the family may not necessarily approve of the insurgents' actions, giving away their failson would be better than any other family member or other forms of extortions. If they do approve of the insurgency, then it may be the most effective way a particularly defective family member may contribute to it.

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