Israel Palestine Conflict 2023

[McTrollson]

https://x.com/EverythingOOC/status/1713501218973102567?s=20

[ParlaySlow]

@LFS

Here is something I am struggling with: it definitely seems to me that much of the anti-Israel sentiment (not here, I’m talking about in the general public discourse) is based on the idea that Jews don’t belong in that area at all, and that they just showed up one day and kicked out people to whom it had always belonged.

That seems like a strawman to me. I think it’s based on the idea of violations of international law and disregard for human rights.

[Surf]

https://www.axios.com/2023/10/15/israel-resumes-water-supply-to-southern-gaza-after-us-pressure

Looks it’s only for part of Gaza

Israel Resumes Water Supply to Southern Gaza

[pvn]

how long before settlers move into the northern half of gaza?

[goofy]

Pleasantly surprising to see a piece like this in the NYT:

Opinion | There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive.

Second, the A.N.C. found it easier to maintain moral discipline — which required it to focus on popular, nonviolent resistance and use force only against military installations and industrial sites — because its strategy was showing signs of success. By 1988, when the A.N.C. expressed regret for killing civilians, more than 150 American universities had at least partially divested from companies doing business in South Africa, and the United States Congress had imposed sanctions on the apartheid regime. The result was a virtuous cycle: Ethical resistance elicited international support, and international support made ethical resistance easier to sustain.

In Israel today, the dynamic is almost exactly the opposite. Hamas, whose authoritarian, theocratic ideology could not be farther from the A.N.C.’s, has committed an unspeakable horror that may damage the Palestinian cause for decades to come. Yet when Palestinians resist their oppression in ethical ways — by calling for boycotts, sanctions and the application of international law — the United States and its allies work to ensure that those efforts fail, which convinces many Palestinians that ethical resistance doesn’t work, which empowers Hamas.

As Jewish Israelis bury their dead and recite psalms for their captured, few want to hear at this moment that millions of Palestinians lack basic human rights. Neither do many Jews abroad. I understand; this attack has awakened the deepest traumas of our badly scarred people. But the truth remains: The denial of Palestinian freedom sits at the heart of this conflict, which began long before Hamas’s creation in the late 1980s.

Most of Gaza’s residents aren’t from Gaza. They’re the descendants of refugees who were expelled, or fled in fear, during Israel’s war of independence in 1948. They live in what Human Rights Watch has called an “open-air prison,” penned in by an Israeli state that — with help from Egypt — rations everything that goes in and out, from tomatoes to the travel documents children need to get lifesaving medical care. From this overcrowded cage, which the United Nations in 2017 declared “unlivable” for many residents in part because it lacks electricity and clean water, many Palestinians in Gaza can see the land that their parents and grandparents called home, though most may never step foot in it.

Palestinians in the West Bank are only slightly better off. For more than half a century, they have lived without due process, free movement, citizenship or the ability to vote for the government that controls their lives. Defenseless against an Israeli government that includes ministers openly committed to ethnic cleansing, many are being driven from their homes in what Palestinians compare to the mass expulsions of 1948. Americans and Israeli Jews have the luxury of ignoring these harsh realities. Palestinians do not. Indeed, the commander of Hamas’s military wing cited attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank in justifying its barbarism last weekend.

Palestinians are not fundamentally different from other people facing oppression: When moral resistance doesn’t work, they try something else. In 1972, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, which was modeled on the civil rights movement in the United States, organized a march to oppose imprisonment without trial. Although some organizations, most notably the Provisional Irish Republican Army, had already embraced armed resistance, they grew stronger after British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians in what became known as Bloody Sunday. By the early 1980s, the Irish Republican Army had even detonated a bomb outside Harrods, the department store in London. As Kirssa Cline Ryckman, a political scientist, observed in a 2019 paper on why certain movements turn violent, a lack of progress in peaceful protest “can encourage the use of violence by convincing demonstrators that nonviolence will fail to achieve meaningful concessions.”

Israel, with America’s help, has done exactly that. It has repeatedly undermined Palestinians who sought to end Israel’s occupation through negotiations or nonviolent pressure. As part of the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Palestine Liberation Organization renounced violence and began working with Israel — albeit imperfectly — to prevent attacks on Israelis, something that revolutionary groups like the A.N.C. and the Irish Republican Army never did while their people remained under oppression. At first, as Khalil Shikaki, a Palestinian political scientist, has detailed, Palestinians supported cooperation with Israel because they thought it would deliver them a state. In early 1996, Palestinian support for the Oslo process reached 80 percent while support for violence against Israelis dropped to 20 percent.

The 1996 election of Benjamin Netanyahu, and the failure of Israel and its American patron to stop settlement growth, however, curdled Palestinian sentiment. Many Jewish Israelis believe that Ehud Barak, who succeeded Mr. Netanyahu, offered Palestinians a generous deal in 2000. Most Palestinians, however, saw Mr. Barak’s offer as falling far short of a fully sovereign state along the 1967 lines. And their disillusionment with a peace process that allowed Israel to entrench its hold over the territory on which they hoped to build their new country ushered in the violence of the second intifada. In Mr. Shikaki’s words, “The loss of confidence in the ability of the peace process to deliver a permanent agreement on acceptable terms had a dramatic impact on the level of Palestinian support for violence against Israelis.” As Palestinians abandoned hope, Hamas gained power.

Hamas — and no one else — bears the blame for its sadistic violence. But it can carry out such violence more easily, and with less backlash from ordinary Palestinians, because even many Palestinians who loathe the organization have lost hope that moral strategies can succeed. By treating Israel radically differently from how the United States treated South Africa in the 1980s, American politicians have made it harder for Palestinians to follow the A.N.C.’s ethical path. The Americans who claim to hate Hamas the most have empowered it again and again.

[goofy]

Checking in with the Israeli right wing:

Likud minister formulates regulations to imprison citizens who 'harm national...

non-paywall link

Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi is promoting regulations that would allow him to direct police to arrest civilians, remove them from their homes, or seize their property if he believes they have spread information that could harm national morale or served as the basis for enemy propaganda.

According to draft emergency regulations titled “Limiting Aid to the Enemy through Communication” drafted by the communications minister after consultation with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the jurisdiction to impose limitations on publications will be sweeping.

It will apply to both the general public and the media, as well as both local and foreign media (in contrast to the stated objective to limit Al Jazeera). It will also apply to the publication of factually correct statements, at the minister’s discretion.

It should be noted that the draft regulations, as formulated by the communications minister, fully contradict Israel’s democratic values and are unlikely to be approved by the government’s legal counsel.

Ironically, Karhi himself falls under the definition of offenses he published, having previously expressed contempt for Supreme Court justices, refused to state he will obey Supreme Court rulings, and, six months ago, expressed disdain for reserve soldiers who refused to volunteer (“The people of Israel will get by without you, and you can go to hell”).

[riverman]

https://x.com/igorbobic/status/1714329346385592793?s=46&t=XGja5BtSraUljl_WWUrIUg

[CaffeineNeeded]

So question here: Is the Biden Admin handling this crisis very well so far?

They have a lot of difficult goals here to achieve. They have to support their ally in Israel for all sorts of reasons. They didn’t loudly push back against the Israeli talk about cutting off everything to Gaza, but it wasn’t because they were going to look the other way. They let Israel have their grief and anger driven initial reaction, then tactfully talked them down some.

Israel also has very legitimate fears about stuff in the north, making it at least arguable preemptively striking there is the right thing to do. USA saying they will take down those targets if the north attacks and backing that up with two carrier strike groups both calms Israel from taking that risk and deters the north from attacking.

Add Biden actually traveling into Israel, which conveys additional support and deterrence. Really the main US goal has to be to get through the next few weeks without some massive widespread war breaking out.

[commonWealth]

I’m probably one of Biden’s bigger critics here, and I think he’s been excellent on both this and Ukraine.

[jmakin]

I wouldnt call the use of US weaponry involved in the wholesale slaughter of civilians, a huge percentage being children, as doing a good job, but I suppose the bar is pretty low.

[bbb7979]

Biden’s nailing it, IMO

[Surf]

Seems like deploying all these carriers and marines amphibious ships is a genuine effort to provide stability to prevent regional escalation. Also feel like him visiting maybe slowing things down too? Felt like there were going to be tanks rolling into Gaza like 5+ days ago

[Pwn]

Biden is handling it excellently for domestic politics.

Imo, by the time we are done the rest of the world will see the whole episode as the latest US exercise in might makes right.

[goofy]

Israel-Hamas war live: at least 500 casualties in Gaza hospital strike,...

yikes

[Pwn]

3000 people already killed in Gaza. When it’s all said and done, America’s enemies will argue a) the response was vastly disproportionate b) none of this would have happened if the IDF just had reasonable border security but instead they were busy bullying Palestinians in the West Bank and taking their land c) regardless of how you feel about the conflict, the US helping the already much stronger side while it is inflicting massive civilian casualties is immoral.

[boredsocial]

I want to point out how grateful I am for social media’s impact during this thing. When it first started pretty much everyone was full on go get 'em pro israeli, but that dialed way back rapidly as people got up to speed.

The 9/11 effect lasted less than a week this time which is kind of crazy. This hospital strike is the kind of thing that gives the US cover to do a lot less without looking like a bad ally, which is clearly what Biden wants.

One thing I’ll give Biden he’s been consistently against war in the Middle East since at least 2008 and has over and over again taken risks to try to get our country out. It’s going to be his biggest achievement in the history books probably. Getting out of Afghanistan and deescalating this Israel-Hamas conflict if he manages to do that are the stuff that should get you a Nobel not just being not W and black lol. Sorry Obama, I love you but that Nobel was kinda silly lol. You droned a lotta people.

[ParlaySlow]

Biden is probably doing ok in terms of the politics, but I assume history will suggest that he could have done more to limit the pending death and suffering.

[Surf]

That is super fucked up, feels like someone really pushing for this to have half a dozen countries involved. Just like the initial Hamas attack makes no sense except if they wanted a big war to start this makes no sense from Israel standpoint unless they want a even bigger war to start

[riverman]

We’ve reached the “bombing a hospital is somehow ok” portion of the proceedings. JFC

[McTrollson]

This is just going to get worse.