Douche bag financebro Bill Ackman is rolling out the same stupid theory. It’s hard to know if he believes it, or just short and trying to get bailed out.
It is really hard to express how much I dislike the leaders of every side of this conflict. Absolutely no one trying to deescalate in any way for years. Tons of sympathy for every person on the ground who isn’t directly making it worse.
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bibi not even trying to put the lipstick on the pig anymore
More generations lost to hate. Sigh.
Gotta admit I don’t know much about the relations between the different countries, would Egypt for example allow refugees from Gaza?
If anything, Egypt is going to fortify their border with Gaza and shoot any migrants who try to break through.
AFAIK the Egypt/Gaza border is currently closed.
Yeah… this whole situations sucks. I have rarely been so infuriated at everyone involved studying a regions history. Just a whole bunch of selfish/stupid decisions. I realize here in the US we can easily justify some complaining about political dysfunction but honestly we aren’t even in Israel’s league on this… and I’m 1000% including the various Palestinian factions in that.
I honestly can’t remember if anyone has ever even attempted to negotiate in good faith in the last century there on any side at any point. I think the one guy that did got shot?
We (the US) need to wash our hands of the whole situation at the earliest possible opportunity. We aren’t making anything any better.
political suicide, but yes, the only morally non-horrible choice
well, that’s not true, the morally correct move is to put political pressure on israel to withdraw from the occupied territory but, yeah, nobody who has any shot of gaining any influence in US politics is ever going to do that
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remember in the 80s when it was suddenly ok to make an apartheid state the bad guys in pop culture
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A lot of folks just being used as pawns and fodder here.
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Yeah that’s why I’m advocating for withdrawal. I simply don’t trust us to execute. The morally correct choice is the choice you can actually make not the choice you wish you could.
Honestly there are a lot of situations around the world like this where we genuinely have no legitimate interests and should withdraw because our presence is making things worse.
Israeli politics are in the state they are in for the same reason that football helmets don’t actually prevent brain injuries in high level football. If they want to be assholes they need to do that shit on their own two feet… and at this point they’ve been mashing the asshole button for twenty years.
And the Palestinian leaders need to live in a world where 1) they can have meaningful diplomatic/trade ties with the outside world (including us) and 2) have to seriously consider what their actions are likely to trigger from a right wing Israeli government with less to lose. This whole dynamic where they gain political capital by making the problems worse is a huge part of why there’s no way out. I really cannot overstate how bad it is when there’s a moderate Israeli administration trying extremely hard to play nice and you respond with rocket attacks. Also coming to negotiations with the stated aim of eradicating the other party from existence isn’t constructive and makes it very hard to win votes being nice to you. Bibi has never had better friends than the guys over at Hamas seriously.
Bottom line is we’re making it much worse. The way for us to make peace in the middle east is to leave the goddamn room and let the people who actually live there settle it. The single most useful thing we could offer is resettlement to the US for as many Palestinians as want to come. Same kind of immigration status we give Cubans. Even that though we’re going to get accused of ethnic cleansing with some justification.
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I don’t think your description of the Palestinian situation here is correct. They don’t “gain support” or whatever. Hamas is a brutal totalitarian state that does whatever the fuck they want and will murder any sort of real opposition.
So brutal
Hamas is a pretty natural result of the conditions on the ground. Groups like Hamas thrive on chaos and conflict that allow them to extract rents providing security as well as pump public support for them. What do you think happens to Hamas support in the aftermath of some Palestinian kid getting murdered by trigger happy IDF forces?
For the leaders of Hamas this war will almost certainly be a win. Not on the battlefield but their power in Palestinian politics will be even more total after this is over and there will be an entire new generation of traumatized children to serve in their ranks going forward.
Totalitarian states care about public opinion quite a bit. Arguably the best thing about Democracy is that it provides an escape valve for public opinion which prevents peasant revolts. Totalitarian regimes don’t invest so heavily in propaganda and secret police because they don’t care about public opinion. They invest heavily in propaganda and secret police because all they do all day is worry about public opinion. To the point where if your opinion isn’t the kind of opinion they want the public to have they’ll separate you from the rest of the herd and/or kill you.
When Israel puts more pressure on the Palestinian areas they actively help Hamas. And they know this. The goal for the Israeli right is ethnic cleansing full stop. Hamas essentially making it impossible for the Palestinians to negotiate in a serious way helps the Israeli right immeasurably. That’s the toxic feedback loop I see causing things to get worse over the last 20 or so years.
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jesus man this is chefs kiss right here
just illuminates so much about humans doing shit that “feels” right but is actually counterproductive
the other thing that really fucking makes this impossible is that normal humans are convinced that there is always a good guy and a bad guy. Is hamas the good guys? clearly no, therefore Bibi must be the good guy. We regret to inform you that bibi is also a fucking bloodthirsty psychopath. the only good guys are the children.
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Yeah sometimes it really is both sides. If we’re being honest who hasn’t had the same kinds of thoughts about the eDems?
I think the core issue is that the Unites States method for selecting who gets promoted has been selecting for sociopaths and narcissists for at least 50 years… and we’ve been promoting similar systems around the world because that makes them more compatible with us.
The United States the empire honestly can’t die soon enough for regular Americans. It looks like we’re richer on paper, but that’s because it’s all for the benefit of like 25,000 people and the stats were designed to miss that entirely.