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naraburns  nihil supernum  7mo ago (text post)   29935 thread views

Israel-Gaza Megathread #2

This is a refreshed 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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random bullshit: activist greta thunberg posted a picture of herself supporting gaza. sharp eyed observers noticed the subtle dogwhistle in the background of a blue octopus plushie, and she's been forced to delete it and apologize for this dangerous display of antisemitism.

Note that the dangerous display of antisemitism was some bullshit dogwhistle and not implicit support for Hamas.

There is a difference between support for Gaza and support for Hamas? I thought they won an election.

And Hamas hasn't allowed another election since 2008. I think we can be charitable enough to say that a rift between Hamas and the Palestinians might have developed a bit in the last 15 years.

Per this poll, 57% of Gazans have a "very positive" or "somewhat positive" view of Hamas. 49% say Hamas should not stop calling for Israel's destruction.

If I would be polled what I think about terrorists ruling my area - not sure whether I would tell that I hate them.

In such situation reaching this 57% is likely overestimate.

I don't know, if I were Hamas I would probably wouldn't want my support to appear too high in polls, because their best weapon is the innocents they hide behind. If it turns out that the innocents are pretty much in full support of Hamas, they stop being so innocent and Hamas lose their best shield, both literally in battle and figuratively. Though there's also a lower bound of apparent support that Hamas also has to avoid, at which the Palestinian civilians might decide they have a good enough chance if they start a civil war to stop/disarm Hamas.

True; the "Stand with Gaza" sign was the part where she's supporting Hamas, not the plushie.

What slogan do you want someone who doesn’t want the Israeli state to kill or displace Palestinians to use?

‘Jews have no right to defend themselves’ or maybe ‘brown people can never do anything wrong’. Israel pulled out of Gaza in 200, Gaza then proceeded to elect a terrorist group which then started shooting at Israel. Israel blockaded them to prevent the inflow of weapons and promised it would stop if Gaza stopped shooting, it didn’t stop killing random Israelis for 16 years, then tore down the fence and killed more random Israelis, at which point Israel is now bombing them.

There isn’t a reasonable framework in which Israel isn’t well within its rights to bomb Gaza, and Hamas’s habit of putting military facilities in civilian infrastructure guarantees that Israel will kill and displace Palestinian civilians by doing so. You could be Amish level pacifist I guess, but that’s not a pro-Palestine framework. The only framework that allows you to be pro-Palestine is either ‘Palestinians are brown, and thus automatically right regardless of the facts of the case’ or ‘Israelis don’t have the right to defend themselves for some reason’.

Why is “Israelis don’t have a right to continue to settle on Palestinian land and they should give it back” so hard to say?

Why is “Israelis don’t have a right to continue to settle on Palestinian land and they should give it back” so hard to say?

Because it's equivalent to "Israeli Jews should be pushed into the sea."

How is it equivalent exactly? Besides the millenia old blood feud that's tied to it, I mean.

Because to the Palestinians, Palestinian land is "from the river to the sea".

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It’s clearly not, and if the pro-Israeli side is so simplistic about it why even have a discussion? Do you really think “roll back the extralegal settlements in the West Bank” is the same as “exterminate the Jews in Israel?” Be serious.

He is serious. Rolling back the West Bank settlements is not equivalent to exterminating all the Jews, but it is also not equivalent to leaving Palestinian land. Because the Palestinians are very clear, it is all Palestinian land. They consider Tel Aviv an illegal settlement.

Respecting Palestinian claims to the land does indeed mean exterminating Israel.

Except that's not the Palestinian demands(which are "Israelis out, from the river to the sea Palestine will be free, it's all ours").

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Gazans get your shit together? Israel has pulled out of Gaza in 2005 and there has been no attempts to resettle it.

This is exactly the sort of thing I'd hate when it was used by the Left against the Right, and turns out... I still hate it. A pox on whoever first decided that "dogwhistles" were a thing. You might as well say she's pro-corporate-monopolies.

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