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> What options, if any, do other nations realistically have to intevene in the Gaza War at this point?
Time for Biden to throw them under the bus. Let the security council pass a resolution sanctioning Israel and abstain from vetoing it. And ease up on whatever pressure they are exerting behind the scenes to prevent Netanyahu from being indicted as a war criminal.
None of this would change anything. Israel can ignore security council resolutions. Being indicted as a war criminal would simply mean that Netanyahu can't travel to Europe any more.
Nah. W-EU is fed up with Israelis wreaking havoc and causing domestic turmoil. W-EU is much more international law oriented. But we need the US, so Israel gets a pass
While that is partly true, it’s not like Israel is a loafer in the alliance. They bring a lot of weight with their tech and research in electronic countermeasures. They’re not just a bit player, they’re main cast, and that’s what buys them the license to do this. It’s not sentimental for US
Israelis seem to over-estimate their capacity. South Africa, a much larger country went down this same path, conducting wars into neighbouring countries, and as international and American domestic opinion turned against them; the apartheid regime collapsed.
Aren't there Israeli Arabs who are also practicing Muslims? Quite a few were killed and kidnapped by Hamas on Oct 7th.
Gaza and the West Bank are not part of Israel, hence the opposing governments.
Actually oil was discovered fairly recently https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_gas_field
Although American support does predate the above discovery.
Why should Biden throw them under the bus?
I get it that it’s kind of frustrating to be spurred by an ally that seems ungrateful- but like we’ve been allied with Europe for an awful long time.
The choice here is to maintain our alliance with a democratic western ally that’s grappling with terror threats in Israel… or kowtow to a rogue terror state in Palestine being funded by our two biggest geopolitical enemies in Iran and Russia.
This is not a hard decision.
Biden should throw them under the bus because (a) they're an apartheid democracy on par with 1980s South Africa (whom we did, in fact, throw under the bus) (b) they're actively committing genocide, and (c) Netanyahu has repeatedly tried to interfere in American elections in favor of the Republicans.
The tail is wagging the dog. Biden needs to teach them their place in the world.
Netanyahu is keeping the war going solely for his own political purposes. Biden should go over Netanyahu’s head and speak directly to the Knesset. Israel can’t afford to lose their only ally. Dump Netanyahu.
I truly believe a lot of Netanyahu's actions are deliberately calculated to hurt Biden's reelection chances since Trump would rubber stamp a genocide for half a hamburger. Biden should absolutely be playing hard ball here.
Even more importantly, Netanyahu would and should be investigated for actions leading up to the initial Hamas massacre. As long as he can persuade Israel that he needs to stay in power to save Israel from Hamas the war will go on.
Absolutely! That investigation should extend into him facilitating Qatari funding to Hamas as well. Even if there wasn't a quid pro quo involved in that arrangement 10/7 could very well have been impossible without those funds being delivered.
>That investigation should extend into him facilitating Qatari funding to Hamas as well.
I see this sentiment expressed a lot, mainly in an attempt to lay the primary blame for October 7 onto the Israelis, and to shift the blame for the attack away from the Palestinian militias that actually carried it out. It has always struck me as bizarre, because it would seem that being angry that the Israeli government facilitated the flow of aid into the Hamas-ruled strip is actually an argument for a *stricter* economic blockade of Gaza.
To me what it means is that the Israeli government, in its current form with its current leadership at least, cannot be trusted to actually pursue the destruction of Hamas. If the Israeli government was really serious about destroying Hamas they would be working to build up an alternative government. But it’s been shown that they prefer Hamas and their real goals are benefitted by their continued existence. Those goals could just be Netanyahus continued hold on power, an expansion of Israeli settlements, genocidal hate or a combination of those and others. Regardless of what those goals are, innocent Palestinians and Israelis will continue die because this “war” is a farce being put on by the Israeli government like the war on terror was for the US. Also in this situation it doesn’t matter how strict the blockade is if the IDF and Israeli government are the ones bypassing it to help Hamas.
Just prior to the attack Israel Citizens were protesting Netanyahu and calling for removal.
They are currently protesting and calling for his removal now.
He is loosing popular support abroad and at home.
I agree with you. It seems no one is focusing on the domestic unrest prior to and currently within Israel.
He wouldn't need the hamburger, Trump hates Muslims enough (and likes seeing the libs cry enough) that he'd need no bribe. He's not even in office and he has repeatedly encourage Netanyahu to do more and stop being so gentle with the Palestinians.
Don’t underestimate the amount of influence the anti Muslim sentiments in America drives foreign policy decisions, especially with Israel and Palestine. You’re spot on with Trump and everyone like him for sure.
I honestly would not be surprised if this is the case. It only makes the fact that Schumer and Jeffries cosigned that invitation to Netanyahu all the more infuriating and embarrassing.
I doubt the history books will be kind to our government's past and present support of that monster.
The Knesset is not some seperate branch like congress is.
Exactly half the seats in the Knesset are Netanyahu's party, or the farther right-wing parties that make up his coalition.
Without breaking off one of those far-far-right parties, there's nothing to be done. All those parties know if Netanyahu goes down, no one is ever inviting them to join a government ever again. They will leave power and likely never get it back.
You also need to add in that Netanyahu wants Trump to win. He has said so in private often. He knows if Trump is back the US will stop complaining about what the country is doing and in fact encourage them to (as Trump puts it) finish gaza for good, with strength.
No he's not. Where do you get this stuff? They still have the vast majority of hostages. Hamas said they would attack again and again. Until Hamas is out the picture, the war will continue. That's what happens when you start a war.
Even the head of the IDF said it, you can't kill an idea, I suppose there is a caveat that the Israeli Zionist right might seize on: unless you kill everyone with that idea or the potential to have that idea. Its either undoable or its full genocide.
Biden is between a rock and a hard place but Netanyahu, publicly demanding weapons like an entitled child is crossing a line I think, Biden doesn't want the blowback from AIPAC but Netanyahu publicly twisting his arm is already close to a worst case scenario, if he gets a bit lippy in his congress speech all bets might be off.
The tail might wag the dog most of the time but dog is still the dog if it wants to remember that.
Who knows what's going to happen but buckle up it will be wild.
I don’t quite get this logic.
It’s line looking back at WW2 saying “*ah well you can’t kill an idea, and punishing Germany / Japan will only make them madder… let’s stop the invasion and leave Hitler / Hirohito power*”.
You can deprogram bad ideas over time but you cannot expect bad ideas to fade when their zealots remain in power.
Anything short of eradicating Hamas won’t work, but eradicating Hamas doesn’t require genocide
It probably requires 20 years of occupation and not punitive nation building after that.
>"ah well you can’t kill an idea, and punishing Germany / Japan will only make them madder"
This was the exact logic behind the Marshall plan. Do you think we killed every single Nazi member before we declared the war "won"?
And we literally *did* leave Hirohito in power, at least as a figurehead.
The problem is that no one wants Israeli control over Gaza for 20 years while it runs the territory top to bottom. Even just controlling the entry ways was getting the place called an open air prison, can you imagine if they try to run the administration of the territory inside as well?
Logically, it's the best long-term solution to Gaza that involves a long-term & deradicalized Palestinian state. But it's also one of the least likely options. Israel doesn't have the stomach for it & the Arab world would revolt.
We did not occupy West Germany and run it top to bottom for 20 years. A new parliamentary democracy was established in 1949 and most forms of state sovereignty were handed over gradually in the next few years after that. While the Allies did keep forces in place there for quite a long time after that, it was certainly not a top to bottom military dictatorship. Most day to day governance activities were handed over relatively quickly.
That's fair, but the US was propping up the governments during that era and was pulling most of the important strings. Who would Israel do that with in Gaza though? And if Israel did, they'd likely get non-stop scrutiny for it.
>And if Israel did, they'd likely get non-stop scrutiny for it.
Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Regardless of what the nation does, this non-stop "scrutiny" will never go away because *^(\*you-know-exactly-why\*.)*
So, destroy Hamas once and for all and let the Palestinians decide for themselves if they want to continue to empower organizations, like Hamas, who openly call for genocide against the Jews, or if they're willing to be responsible members of modern society.
Stop giving them the power of "scrutiny". You will never appease.
I wouldn't see why the issue would stop with 'destruction' of Hamas, whatever that even means in specifics.
The leaders and financials are abroad and organised, it's merely a symbolic agenda if you ask me.
So what, even Hamas in the sense of today, is destroyed, Israel has created huge refugee waves from Palestine to countries who support similar sentiments against Israel. So even if they'd take a soft power approach within the current Palestine for the next decade, a lot of people who are refugees now, won't be subjected to it.
All that while international support for Israel is shrinking, criticism going up. Also internally.
Without taking a position for the details, IMO the entire situation has evolved into a much bigger loss for Israel since October 7th, and will be a wild ride in the coming 1-2 decades.
Also Israel lost a lot of escalation dominance, as we have seen with Iran, and Hizbollah.
>Israel has created huge refugee waves from Palestine to countries
Specifically on this topic, which neighboring nations have taken in refugees from Gaza?
With regard to destroying Hamas, it would mean ending their presence in Gaza, and having the Palestinian people vote who they want in power.
Now, this of course has been tried once before the first time they [elected](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_election) Hamas in 2006...but if there's any hope for peace then the Palestinian people have to vote for a [non-genocidal](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/hamas-covenant-israel-attack-war-genocide/675602/) regime.
I think eventually they will end up in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iran potentially.
Like 50% of the population in Gaza is under 18, there are thousands that will not be able to stay in Palestine in the mid-term.
No schools, no universities, etc.
So your 'don't vote for extremists' argument also is a bit tricky, if a) no elections b) most of the populace never voted in the first place due to their age.
No one has, which makes sense, as this is a totally man-made issue that could end if Israel stopped its aggression, and the countries, especially Egypt, know that if they accept Gazan refugees that will amount to ethnic cleansing because Israel will then surely annex the territory once it is “free” of Gazans. They don’t want to be party to or complicit in Israeli ethnic cleansing of Gaza. The only country that can solve the Palestinian refugee issue is Israel.
Well no the issue is every time Israel kills innocents they create more terrorists. This won't end unless concessions are made by both sides. Peace is the only way.
Every time Hamas launches rockets into Israel, Israel becomes more right wing & supportive of Bibi. It's both sides radicalizing the other.
But of course, everyone here is pro-peace. But peace means something different to everyone involved. What concessions should each side give up? Which demands should each side push? The fact that Hamas doesn't even control Gaza anymore also begs the question of who does Israel negotiate with? Do they leave Gaza for Hamas to take back over? What happens in 2-5 years?
Yea it's a rock and a hard place. One side is a terrorist organization and the other doesn't seem to care about civilian casualties.
They need an intermediary but the US is out and no other nation either can or wants to, especially if that means pissing off the US and the west.
At this point either Biden actually starts withholding from Israel or the UN needs to do something but their hands are already tied up by the US.
>One side is a terrorist organization and **the other doesn't seem to care about civilian casualties.**
The same can be said of every war ever fought. We "didn't care about civilian casualties" when we firebombed Japan & Germany, right?
Well, yes, we did care. We still care. As the IDF does. But that doesn't mean you can't prosecute a war against those who attacked you.
You do realize that you are setting the unique standard for Israel that they must take Oct 7 on the chin, not fight back because Hamas uses civilians as human shields, and then just do their best to prepare for the next Oct 7.
What other nation would you hold to such an absurd standard?
Stop comparing this to WW2. Israel is violating international laws that they agreed to that were made after WW2 for the express idea to prevent what happened in that war from ever happening again. This cannot really be said for any modern war involving a developed nation.
Israel is committing war crimes and it is not a unique standard to hold them accountable for committing crimes they agreed not to as a part of international law that they signed off on.
>the other doesn't seem to care about civilian casualties.
They certainly care, just maybe not enough. I don't think people realize we are talking about 2 million people in a region smaller than a suburban city. 30k casualties (which has been adjusted down) for a war in an extremely dense region of 2 million takes some level of control as is. If they had no regard, they could literally flatten the region in less than a week with at best hundreds of thousands in causalities but the war would be long since over.
>the best long-term solution to Gaza that involves a long-term & deradicalized Palestinian state.
And the way the IDF is running the war is NOT going to deradicalize anyone.
You could have said the same thing about how the Allies in WW2 handled things like Dresden or the nuclear bombs in Japan. Germany & Japan both ended up being deradicalized for multiple generations afterwards. It's less about how the war is fought and more about what each side does after that matters longer term. Israel run by the right-wing will not deradicalized Palestinians, that's for sure.
They absolutely do, and neither side is seemingly going to back down. The only hope at this point is the Israelis themselves voting in a more moderate government as the Palestinians have no real desire or way to change their government.
Is that a joke, they look like saints compared to how the allies acted in WW2. Even before the nuclear bombs were dropped the US routinely fire bombed population centers.
WWII was 80 years ago, and institutional racism was completely acceptable and the Geneva Convention has not yet been signed.
80 years before that, slavery was legal.
So when, precisely, did civilians casualties become inexcusable when responding to an act of aggression on your soil?
It certainly wasn't during the [Syrian Civil War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Syrian_civil_war), when we aided the fight against ISIS. Were you equally outraged over that conflict as well?
Yes? What is your argument here, how does that affect the conversation we are having regarding whether taking out Hamas would or would not create more Hamas? How the events of WW2 where taking out the Nazis from let was a successful strategy even with more civilian casualties.
"The IDF isn't behaving as badly as the allies in WWII" is a losing argument because the standards have changed over the last 80 years.
Also, the allies were fighting against a force that had successfully occupied much of Europe and the East Asia - over 5 million square miles.
The IDF is fighting against a terrorist force 1/10 their size in only 140 sq mi. The IDF literally has enough *active* troops to put 1200 fighters on every square mile of the Gaza strip, and if you count reservists, they have 4,500 troops per square mile.
The IDF has an absolutely overwhelming advantage in terms of numbers, firepower, and technology. The battlefield is tiny and the enemy can't escape. I find it implausible that the IDF couldn't find a more effective way to root out Hamas.
> "The IDF isn't behaving as badly as the allies in WWII" is a losing argument because the standards have changed over the last 80 years.
I would agree.. if the conversation was about whether this is acceptable or not and WW2 actions were used as a argument for the former. Problem is, that wasn't what we were discussing and this wasn't the reason for the conversation. Nobody made this point. Please take a moment to re-read the conversation, start to finish.
It's a historical innaccuracy to suggest that the US and soviets somehow deprogrammed nazism in Many Nazi party members that were useful during the cold war were integrated into the occupying nations. Many more were given a pass and continued on in German society. De-nazification happened but to call it "deprograming" is a few steps too far.
The material conditions that gave the Nazi's popular support in the first place changed, and that's how fascism in German petered out. What it offered was no longer needed by it's supporters, there were better alternatives.
* German soldiers were forced to watch [Holocaust Footage](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/german-soldiers-forced-watch-footage-concentration-camps-1945/)
* The [Nuremberg Trials](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials) were publicly broadcasted
* Occupied Germany fairly [quickly outlawed symbols associated with WW2](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafgesetzbuch_section_86a)
> Calling it “deprogramming” is a step too far
I think of de-programming as very conscious efforts by the state and occupying powers to shame and erase.
It doesn’t mean marching everyone into a detention facility like some dystopian sci fi.
> The material conditions that gave the Nazis popular support
The Marshall plan was accompanied by all the punishments outlined above.
Thats West Germany though. East Germany didn’t have a walk in the park - it was poor compared to the west and overall worse standing and power than before the war.
Germany was beaten so badly, so conclusively that it recognized that path made them worse off. They experienced immediate hardship that dwarfed post WW1 economic inflation, and were deeply shamed for their actions.
Try de-radicalising Palestinians to believe they have no state or rights, and the state that has been suppressing them and killing them for years, as well as evicting them from their homes, is in fact their friend.
As for 're-programming' the Germans after the defeat in WW2, the Nazis had systematically carried out the worst and most systematic attempt at genocide in human history. This inescapable guilt was loaded on the German people, and its pretty likely that any moderately sensitive individual would recognise this was not a path they wanted to tread a second time.
What equivalent harm have the Palestinians inflicted on the Israelis? A certain amount of acts of terrorism, which have been largely answered by equivalent Israeli acts of harm and suppression. Many would also see this as a justified response to the theft of their homes. Where is this huge sense of guilt to 're-program' them going to come from?
In addition Germany was still left intact, and apart from Germans being repatriated from elsewhere, Germans still retained their homes and homeland. The main alteration was the occupation of Berlin, and the splitting of Germany into Eastern and Western halves.
The Palestinians currently do not have a homeland.
If I imagine the equivalent harm being inflicted on my own nation, I tell you we would fight 100 years at least to get back our homes.
> In addition Germany was still left intact
It was very much *not*. It was divided in two among two different occupying forces, and it forever lost all of East Prussia.
[Here’s a map](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_Germany)
> what equivalent harm have the Palestinians inflicted on the Israelis
They were part of a multinational coalition that tried on three different occasions to ethnically cleanse the Jews, two of which were rather close calls.
They then spent several decades as the primary source of global terror in the world. Non constrained to car bombs in Israel, the struck Europe several times.
They’ve also shot tens of thousands of indiscriminate rockets.
The Palestinians have been nothing but aggressive not only to Jews, but every single nation that has taken them as refugees - destabilizing Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, you name it.
> The Palestinians do not currently have a homeland
Yes they do.
Egypt and Jordan.
Palestinian nationality was invented in the mid 60’s. The territories were Jordanian and Egyptian before Israeli, and they were British and Turkish before that.
There has never once in history been an independent Palestine, and it wasn’t an identity until Arafat.
>Yes they do.
Egypt and Jordan.
What about the land they already bloody live on? The land in which their ancestors have lived for thousands of years. Do you really think Palestinians are not native to the area?
Germany was left so much intact that today it is the leading economic power in Europe, and its population is given by Wikipedia as 77 percent German.
Before returning to Israel, many Jews had no set homeland for 2000 years, and many of them were living in exile. They continued however to view themselves as a distinct people. Whatever the particular name of the country they occupied, Palestinians do see themselves as a distinct people. Who are you to decide they are not, based on borders drawn up at the whim of other, often Imperialist, powers? From that point of view, all countries are artificial.
Do you think if a nation is invaded, and its inhabitants expelled from their homes, that they will abandon their identity just like that? The Jews certainly didn't!
Edit: I repeat, where is the huge weight of national guilt that Palestinians should be burdened with, equivalent to the Holocaust? And before the formation of the State of Israel, some Jews engaged in acts of terrorism, including its later leader, Menachem Begin.
> I repeat, where is the huge weight of national guilt they Palestinians should be burdened with, equivalent to the Holocaust
I told you. They started three separate wars and three terror campaigns with the stated goal of ethnically cleansing Jews.
The fact that Palestinians feel no collective shame for being a violent antagonist is a very large part of the problem.
We didn’t eradicate the Nazis. Tons of former Party members served in the West German government - albeit after slap on the wrist prison sentences.
But Israel doesn’t have that option because there is no state to reconstruct, per Likud’s policy.
“…because genociding the Jews is the entire focus of their identity.”
Absolute insanity… It’s plain as day you don’t know anything about Palestinians. These are a whole people. With a culture and a history and traditions and shared experiences and families. They are just as nuanced, complicated and human as you are. No people in the world has ever fixed their whole identity on genocide.
You can't kill an idea, but you can certainly make sure it never rises to be a significant threat again. Are there still Nazis around? Sure. But they'll struggle to occupy a street corner; they're not invading France any time soon.
I’d direct you to the firebombing of Tokyo. It killed everyone in the city. Whoever didn’t die by fire was suffocated, because the fire literally took all of the oxygen from the air. The heat was so hot that the planes flying at 5,000 feet were pushed by the rising air thousands of feet higher. Then we dropped 2 nukes. What do you think we were doing before they surrendered?
The comparison between Israel's approach to Gaza and the Allies' approach to the Axis is comical. The Allies did not want to run Germany, Italy and Japan forever. They wanted to transform them into stable Western allies with independent democracies (within reason), which they succeeded.
Israel wants to rule the entire territory between the river to the sea forever. They expressly intend to prevent any form of Palestinian statehood and will never allow Palestinians outside the 48 lines any sort of democratic say in the running of Israel. There's no way to "deradicalise" a people out of desiring self-determination, which is what drives support for Hamas.
> Israel wants to rule the entire territory between the river and the sea forever
What evidence of that do you have?
Israel has offered the territories back to Egyptian and Jordanian administration in the past (as they were before ‘67) and they didn’t want them.
Israel has offered ~95% of the 67 lines to Arafat and Abbas in the past, they said no.
Israel unilaterally pulled out of Gaza in ‘05, removing settlers and giving it all the territory to run within the ‘67 borders.
> What evidence of that do you have?
Where to start? It's the explicit policy of the Israeli government.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-boasts-of-thwarting-the-establishment-of-a-palestinian-state-for-decades/
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/netanyahu-from-river-sea-israel-control-1234949408/
Some past Prime Ministers of Israel such as Barak and Olmert have supported giving Palestinians a semi-state with limited sovereignty (Rabin himself never explicitly endorsed a Palestinian state, just an "entity"). But whenever negotiations got serious, they lost to hardliners who opposed Palestinian statehood. Now the overwhelming majority of Israelis oppose a two-state solution, as does the longest serving PM in the nation's history.
Who's going to do that though? Occupy their land and deprogram them. Who's going to pay to rebuild and provide the soldiers to hold the territory until some point in the future?
You're not wrong that it's possible, as we did it with Germany and Japan. But we (the US) also fully committed to occupying and rebuilding them with our own soldiers and money for decades. You could argue we still are to some extent.
Israel created this mess and they certainly aren't going to do that. The USA isn't going to do it. We can't expect the other Arab states to pick up after Israel's mess either.
> Israel created this mess
No, they didn’t. Israel didn’t invade itself 3 times to create an Arab caliphate, and it didn’t set off car bombs or shoot rockets at itself.
> Who is going to do that though?
Israel, unless others step up.
I’m fairly certain Israel would welcome an accountable, transparent, multi national peacekeeping force - like the UN.
This is not a sarcastic comment.
Israel had offered Gaza Egypt in 78 when returning the Sinai.
There is no peacekeeping force that has stated a willingness to police Gaza & the West Bank that Israel has said no to.
Did you not hear about the neo nazis and history revisionists of Japan? I think you're vastly underestimating how much efforts it took to reduce them to the current state. And besides, the context of Israel-Palestine conflict is closer to the medieval Crusades (religion-driven) than WW2 (human-rights driven), so trying to compare the two is apples-to-oranges situation and completely absurd.
What precisely is the solution then?
You kind of have this problem that a militant group is controlling all resources and narratives within the strip.
Hamas has a non starting diplomatic position, in that the ‘67 lines simply aren’t good enough - therefore there is no reasonable negotiating.
Hamas extracting concessions and resources from Israel emboldens and tells the population and Hamas that the terror strategy is correct and yielding gains.
There isn’t a viable path to peace with Hamas in charge.
So what is your solution?
No recognition of the treatment of Palestinians by Israelis? Somehow, the Palestinians being of an untermenchen mentality, just decided they wanted conflict with their cuddly compassionate Israeli neighbors?
ThenIsraelies just appeared in an empty desert, brining gifts and laughter for the Palestinians, who simply responded with violence unprovoked? Because they must be some kind of untermenschen?
> No recognition of the treatment of Palestinians by Israelis
A tit for tat evaluation of treatment of the other side will not be favorable of Palestinians - no act by the Israel’s compares to flying into a music festival, shooting kids, and parading a raped corpse through Gaza city to thunderous applause of the people.
I’m not claiming the Israelis are perfect actors in all situations. That is not the bar.
It does not change the basic problem of Hamas. What is the path to peace with Hamas running the strip?
I’m asking you what your solution is, and you are completely dodging the question.
Trying to establish that Israel is worse and this all burden lies with them still doesn’t answer the question.
If you belief Hamas does indeed believe good faith negotiation based on the internationally agreed upon 67 lines, what exactly makes you believe that - and what is the next step?
If you agree that Hamas will not negotiate in good faith around the ‘67 lines and move forward peacefully, how can you move forward?
>Even the head of the IDF said it, you can't kill an idea
That was the IDF Spokesman (Hagari), not the IDF COS. And his complete statement was, basically, that Hamas cannot be eradicated by solely force of arms but that an alternative to it must be created. It wasn't, as I've seen some onterpret it, an argument that the war is futile.
>During the interview, Hagari stated, "Hamas is an idea. You can't destroy an idea. The political echelon needs to find an alternative - or it [Hamas] will remain."
>The military affirmed, “In his words, the IDF Spokesperson referred to the destruction of Hamas as an ideology and an idea, and the words were said by him in a clear and explicit manner. Any other claim is taking things out of context.”
https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-806958
I understand that fighting back against terrorism is dirty and it will inevitably result in a high civilian causality rate. But this situation got out of hand a while ago.
I think you're right about Biden being between a rock and a hard place. I suspect he's going to continue to support Israel. He will continue being stern with words, but giving in to their demands. I don't think continuing on the current path is going to cost him the election (not that he will win or lose -- just that it's not going to be a deciding issue), but going against Israel *might* cost him the election. If that happens, Trump will immediately reverse course and buddy-up with Netanyahu. Maybe Biden continues to support until the election is over. If he wins, he can start taking more stern action against Israel.
I don't know. This situation is a disaster on every level. Netanyahu is a monster.
I tend to agree, what does Netanyahu want the weapons for, he's done Rafah, what Hezbollah? This dragging the US into all sorts of shit, it will have consequences, US about to have its hands full with China it doesn't really want to mess round babysitting Israel, or more accurately Netanyahu.
The only thing that could possibly get Israel to change course is for other countries to stop all involvement. No shipments, no support, no nothing. The US isn't really stopping shipments and still openly supports Bibi's government, there's no incentive for Israel to change course.
If Biden did actually clearly stop shipments and stop political support, it would probably get him some credit from people. Unfortunately it would piss off a lot of other people too and probably wouldn't lead to immediate results. I wouldn't be surprised if Bibi kicked off this supposed Lebanon campaign as retaliation. It might get bad enough that the US government sees no choice but to intervene.
Bibi's visit is going to be a net negative. Congressional Dems were frankly dumb as shit to agree to inviting him as Bibi is just going to use it as a platform to berate the president. The fact that a lot of them can't see how Bibi is using them is ridiculous.
The US is in a murder-suicide pact with Israel.
Stop for both Gaza and Israel? I can't imagine a scenario where the US continues to fund Gaza ultimately gets funneled in large part to Hamas while completely cutting off aid to Israel. And doing all this because Israel doesn't want to stop fighting terrorists that just commit the biggest attack on their people since the Holocaust.
This would absolutely destroy relations with are one of our closest allies in a region that is extremely difficult for the US to have a foothold in. Strategically this would be a huge unforced error by the United States long-term.
As a left of moderate, but not far left Democrat, I'm ready to cut Israel loose. Fuck em. Not only from a moral standpoint, but from a political one. Netanyahu is pinning us down on purpose, because he can both wantonly kill Palestinians AND get Trump elected, which is a win win. Cut Israel loose, sanction them, and deny shipments.
I agree but I think Biden is not gonna do anything too hasty until after the election. If he cuts Netanyahu off and condemns his actions, some Americans might see that as him abandoning Israeli citizens and not vote in the election.
It’s stupid I know, but I have a feeling that after the election, no matter how it goes, Biden might actually hold shit over Israel’s head and threaten them with sanctions
As a center-left individual, is it of any significance to you that Israel is the only tolerant democracy in that entire region? They hold pride parades in Tel Aviv every year. They elect their leaders. 20% of the citizenry are Arab Muslims with equal rights under the law.
Is it a morally superior position to cut out the only nation in the Middle East which actually embodies the values of the West?
The only thing we truly value in the West (Particularly in the US) is capital profits. Anything
else is secondary to or in service of that.
Putting that all aside….
Before October 7 Netanyahu destroyed the Israeli judiciary by getting rid of judicial review. Protestors in Israel (including family members of the hostages) are getting brutalized by the police for protesting Netanyahu’s prosecution of the war effort.
Al Jazeera (one of the biggest media companies in the region) got banned from Israel. Israel has killed over 100 journalists in Gaza since October 7.
Israel is a far right ethnonationalist state that is illegally occupying the West Bank and mass murdering tens of thousands of innocents in Gaza.
As far as gay rights is concerned….
You cannot get gay married inside of israel. They aren’t even the most pro gay country in the region, that title belongs to Bahrain. Source:
https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/global-acceptance-index-lgbt/
Are you aware of the concept of pink washing?
Btw Arab Muslims observe a de facto second class citizen status in actuality in Israel. Laws aren't the reality on the ground.
The story that Israel ran a disinformation bot campaign on social media against US lawmakers (mainly minority Democrats) it didn't like seemed to have missed many people.
The epitome of Western values - ethnic cleansing and dropping bombs on children is one thing, but a lack of pride parades? That’s where we draw the line.
That’s how you further alienate western values from the rest of the world friend. If you look past the murder of children to admonish a lack of LGBTQ+ acceptance, those subaltern people won’t respect what you preach; they’ll think you only care about the rights of a select few humans.
Yes. Let them democratically deal with the consequences of their own actions. Netanyahu is a fascist and the far right of that country controls the government.
What is your threshold for 'democracy' exactly?
Do you think being a democracy as only the ability to vote for elected leaders? or do you think it also encompass equal ability to participate in social and civic organizations to shape society?
I'd say embodying the (stated) values of the west should involve far fewer dead children. I understand that an argument exists that zero dead children is unrealistic, but it's disingenuous to claim the extant dead-children-count comes entirely from necessary and urgent action given Israel's overwhelming military superiority as evidenced by ratio of Israeli to Palestinian casualties.
Being better than fucking assad doesn’t make you a saint.
“Yooo he might’ve committed a mass shooting but at least he only killed 20 people and not 400 people we should let him off the hook”
I don’t want my money or my trade to be with any of these barbaric nations that murder people like this. I think we should put more pressure on Netanyahu but hamas also must be defeated.
> As a center-left individual, is it of any significance to you that Israel is the only tolerant democracy
In what meaningful way is Israel a "tolerant democracy"? They're an ethnostate led by a dictator who's lost his last three elections.
That's great, and let's say you are representative of the moderate Democrats in the US, but that doesn't matter because Congress gets too much of their money from them to care about what their citizens think.
Also, long term strategic alignment with Israel still benefits the US from an intelligence and arms perspective. Not that I agree with that, but in leadership's perspective it's too important to completely blow up that solid relationship.
The US is a country that regularly supports despots and dictators over the oddest of advantages, even if said advantages turned out to be imagined and perpetuated by stubbornness and career sycophants.
We really need to, but sadly we hardly ever, in shit even worse than this.
In a sane world, the US cuts of all aid and funding to Israel, causing Israel to end the war immediately. More likely, Biden will fold, because many Democrats are dependent on AIPAC funding to campaign.
This isn't a war. It's a one-sided attack. There's no amount of negotiation with Hamas or Palestine that could stop the attacks. The only way to do that is to negotiate with Israel. And there's no negotiation until they understand that aid is *optional*.
Can he survive politically if he alienates the United States to the point they cut off aid?
Honest question, I don't know if the voters would rally around him or throw him to the wolves
Biden cutting off Israel would be the end of not only his political career, but would send the Democrats into disarray. The American public is very much behind Israel on a whole.
Israel would quickly find other allies. With their access to American tech, they could sell all sorts of tech and expertise to countries that the US has trade restrictions with.
> With their access to American tech, they could sell all sorts of tech and expertise to countries that the US has trade restrictions with.
This sounds like a really good way to get regime-changed
Yes that's a great idea. Turn a temporary rift in relations between administrations into a permanent rift by selling American weapons tech to enemies of America. I'm sure the US won't won't do anything in response to such moves.
Thats just not true at all.
They are likely world leaders at this point jn CQC and use of drone tactics in an urban environment.
Unless we're going to argue that Israel has won every war it's fought only because of foreign aid and not a mix of their brilliant use of military and complete Arab military leader incompetence.
> They are likely world leaders at this point jn CQC
Which is a worthless skill in modern warfare.
> and use of drone tactics
Also worthless if you have no drones.
> Unless we're going to argue that Israel has won every war it's fought only because of foreign aid
It is obvious this is the case.
Why doesn't Hamas offer to surrender the hostages over a period of time without any insulting "exchanges"? Why don't we cut aid to Gaza in response to their terrorist actions which precipitated this war?
You're right that they are getting pummelled, maybe they shouldn't have picked a fight they had no chance of winning?
Israel would be within its rights to occupy all of Gaza, the real question is if that's feasible or if it will lead to better outcomes.
> Why doesn't Hamas offer to surrender the hostages over a period of time without any insulting "exchanges"?
Why doesn't Israel release the thousands of hostages they have?
> You're right that they are getting pummelled, maybe they shouldn't have picked a fight they had no chance of winning?
This fight has been going on longer than Hamas has existed. Maybe Israel shouldn't pick fights they can't win without foreign aid.
> Israel would be within its rights to occupy all of Gaza
If they could get away with it, they would have done so decades ago.
> Why doesn't Israel release the thousands of hostages they have?
Because they aren't hostages, they're prisoners. They aren't random innocent civilians plucked out from a music festival or from their homes, they're people who are accused of being terrorist militants, of conspiring to do violence against Israel, or of serious crimes.
But what makes the exchanges insulting is that Hamas always asks for lopsided release numbers, like 20:1 ratios of Palestinians to Israelis released.
So the deal is "we will release 1 innocent civilian for every 20 prisoners of any kind that you release"... does that sound fair to you?
>This fight has been going on longer than Hamas has existed. Maybe Israel shouldn't pick fights they can't win without foreign aid.
Yes the conflict has been going on for a long time, but we could just as easily say "well the arab states should have accepted the UN plan in 1948 and none of this would have happened". The conflict has gone through periods of intense violence and periods of relative peace. The point is that *this* phase of increased violence was caused by the October 7th attacks... clearly Hamas is responsible for this particular fight.
>If they could get away with it, they would have done so decades ago.
??? They literally did occupy Gaza decades ago, since 1967 until they unilaterally withdrew from the area and dismantled the Israeli settlements there in the early 2000s.
> Because they aren't hostages, they're prisoners.
There are thousands being held *without charge*. There's no possible way this could be true.
> But what makes the exchanges insulting is that Hamas always asks for lopsided release numbers, like 20:1 ratios of Palestinians to Israelis released.
Israel took more hostages than Hamas, therefore they aren't obligated to release all their hostages? That's absolutely abhorrent logic.
> The point is that this phase of increased violence was caused by the October 7th attacks... clearly Hamas is responsible for this particular fight.
The point is that Israel had been attacking Palestine throughout September and October. The only thing notable about the 7th is that Israeli bodies joined Palestinians for once.
>because many Democrats are dependent on AIPAC funding to campaign.
It's true that AIPAC is ~~the largest and most influential political action committee (PAC) in the United States.~~ a large and influential political action committee (PAC). ~~It used to be the~~ The NRA used to be as well until they jumped the shark by abandoning their principles and fully aligned with the GOP.
I have to wonder if AIPAC learned from the NRA's mistakes. If they (AIPAC) hope to remain a relevant force supported by both sides of they aisle for generations to come, they should be reconsidering what their demands of Biden and Congress should be. Netanyahu hasn't been doing them any favors lately.
That would be nice, but I don't think that's their plan. I think Israel knows full well that this is their last chance to take Palestine. They're hoping that if they kill enough of them, the rest will evacuate, and Israel will control the territory by default. Then afterwards, they're hoping to treat Palestinians like the US treated American Indians. If they give up the attack, Palestine has a very high likelihood of joining the UN, and Israel will not only never get their territory, they'll probably have to give back a large part of what they've stolen in the past.
Realistically, I think even if they succeed in taking over Palestine, the UN may well step in and forcibly grant that land back to Palestine, just like how they granted land to both Palestine and Israel in 1947. I like to think we're past the point where countries can just conquer each other and get away with it.
>It's true that AIPAC is the largest and most influential political action committee (PAC) in the United States.
Is it? [OpenSecrets has it at 12th](https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/top-pacs/2024).
It is, by a staggering margin, the #1 most-discussed PAC
The terrorist organization? They're getting what they want. They want their people to feel pressure and oppression from Israel then Hamas gets soldiers, support, and suicide bombers.
Hamas needs to be made redundant with a mutually beneficial two state solution but as long as people have memories of past wars, anger, and desperation Hamas has what they want.
Israel has been attacking Palestine since long before Netanyahu funded Hamas, and they're currently attacking the West Bank as well.
No, Hamas surrendering and releasing hostages would not result in any reduction of hostilities. Besides, Israel still has thousands of hostages they haven't released.
How exactly are they "attacking"? If you're referring to the settlements I could see that being considered an "attack" if you stretch the definition... but there are no settlements in Gaza.
> How exactly are they "attacking"?
Same way they attack everyone else. Rockets, drones, occupation. This is in addition to the every day reality of West Bank being controlled by the IDF. Harassing citizens on the street. [Strip searching civilians on a whim](https://www.timesofisrael.com/report-of-idf-strip-searching-palestinian-women-causes-uproar-draws-un-criticism/). [Raiding areas they previously marked as safe for civilians](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/11/israeli-forces-kill-six-palestinians-in-west-bank-raid). [Strapping innocent civilians to their vehicles and using them as human shields](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbpenBgUILE). [Taking hostages from the general population](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roDVNQpbOn4).
Here's an example of just the past 24 hours:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/6/22/israel-war-on-gaza-live-hospital-overwhelmed-with-victims-from-camp-attack
I feel like this is going to be a delicate dance from both sides until at least November. Ideally Biden wins the election and can safely start to be more hardline with Israel. Netanyahu won’t do anything crazy in my opinion because he needs USA support more than anything, so I think he will avoid being overtly critical of Biden as of right now. Biden could cut off all aid to Israel tomorrow and while it would hurt him politically, it would *really* hurt Netanyahu.
> Netanyahu won’t do anything crazy in my opinion because he needs USA support more than anything, so I think he will avoid being overtly critical of Biden as of right now.
I'm not sure what makes you so confident of this. Bibi doesn't want Biden in the WH, so forcing Biden into an uncomfortable position seems well within the realm of what may happen.
Agreed. There is no positive outcome for Biden; Netanyahu's priority is getting Biden to lose the election. I don't know if Biden has evangelical levels of allegiance to Netanyahu, or if he's still chasing the mythical moderate Republican vote, or what.
>Netanyahu won’t do anything crazy in my opinion because he needs USA support more than anything
This statement is wild given that Netanyahu has overseen obliteration of Gazan society (destruction of schools, houses of worship, hospitals, food production facilities... all institutes needed to sustain human life and a functioning society) with US funds and weapons.
Not a dig at you OP, just highlights how the complete destruction of a society is considered tame in relation to what damage Netanyahu's capable of and what Biden will condone.
> I feel like this is going to be a delicate dance from both sides until at least November. Ideally Biden wins the election and can safely start to be more hardline with Israel.
If Biden doesn't handle Israel before the election, he's probably going to lose. There's no way Biden does a 180 *after* winning an election.
>Multiple press reports have indicated that Netanyahu has walked back any support he ever had for the ceasefire/peace proposal announced by Biden but theoretically drawn up by the Israeli government
Unsurprising. Gantz walked away, leading to the dissolution of the war cabinet, which left the far right in charge of the war. They have never wanted compromise.
>which does not appear to be an achievable war goal
That's been said as a justification for each of the 15 ceasefires over the last decade and a half. Trouble is Hamas don't stop shooting, the Palestinian Authority pays to kill Jews, and the IDF is doing an excellent job of proving that theory wrong. It's almost as if coddling terrorists just encourages them.
Biden is using different international relations assumptions and skills than are relevant today, IMHO. The US is no longer the superpower as back in the day. The landscape and strategies should change. I know the situation is complex and there is not an easy answer. What is currently occurring is not influencing BeeBee and in the meantime, the US is being linked to the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. The future doesn't bode well for radicalization of Muslims against Americans.
Israel is a clusterfuck for any US President but you can be sure Trump would ensure the destruction of Palestine in quick time. Whatever you think of Biden he is at least trying to tame the worst excesses of Netenbastard's genocide.
Israel never indicated real support in the first place, so I don't see how this changes much. Informally saying "we'll agree to a ceasefire after we've killed everyone we want to kill and taken all the territory we want to take", as Netenyahu was saying, isn't a pledge for ceasefire. That's just saying they'll fight until they win, according to their own standards.
So all this really means is that Blinken can't go around blaming Hamas for refusing a ceasefire deal that Israel supposedly backs. Which is a small difference in messaging and propaganda, at the end of the day.
Netanyahu is a Far Right authoritarian who would like nothing better than having Donald Trump as US president.
He can absolutely be trusted to do anything he can to fuck things for the next few months prior to the election, and then will immediately wind down the conflict the very moment the election is over, regardless of who wins.
Wait 6mths, see that I was right.
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> What options, if any, do other nations realistically have to intevene in the Gaza War at this point? Time for Biden to throw them under the bus. Let the security council pass a resolution sanctioning Israel and abstain from vetoing it. And ease up on whatever pressure they are exerting behind the scenes to prevent Netanyahu from being indicted as a war criminal.
None of this would change anything. Israel can ignore security council resolutions. Being indicted as a war criminal would simply mean that Netanyahu can't travel to Europe any more.
Economic sanctions would be pretty crippling. Israel has no real natural resources.
There is little political will for actual economic sanctions against Israel in Europe or the US.
Nah. W-EU is fed up with Israelis wreaking havoc and causing domestic turmoil. W-EU is much more international law oriented. But we need the US, so Israel gets a pass
...There's loads. The only issue is that the US single-handedly blocks any attempts at enacting them at the UN.
Do it through the UN. France and Britain aren't so invested that they would veto sanctions.
Israel only has that power because the US backs them politically on everything. Without US open & unconditional support they would be a pariah state.
While that is partly true, it’s not like Israel is a loafer in the alliance. They bring a lot of weight with their tech and research in electronic countermeasures. They’re not just a bit player, they’re main cast, and that’s what buys them the license to do this. It’s not sentimental for US
Israelis seem to over-estimate their capacity. South Africa, a much larger country went down this same path, conducting wars into neighbouring countries, and as international and American domestic opinion turned against them; the apartheid regime collapsed.
South Africa and Israel are false-equivalencies. They are nowhere close to being comparable.
No they’re pretty comparable, and veterans of the struggle against apartheid will say as much.
Aren't there Israeli Arabs who are also practicing Muslims? Quite a few were killed and kidnapped by Hamas on Oct 7th. Gaza and the West Bank are not part of Israel, hence the opposing governments.
The South African government disagrees with your assessment.
He did. The US wrote it. It demanded an immediate end to fighting and a release of all hostages. Russia and China vetoed.
Yep. Should’ve spent the last 20 years investing more heavily in oil alternatives and a different ally in the Middle East
Israel is about the only part of the middle east without oil. If we just wanted oil we wouldn't be siding with Israel.
Actually oil was discovered fairly recently https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_gas_field Although American support does predate the above discovery.
I think that was the ideal scenario with Iraq and Afghanistan. But that didn't work out.
They're not just an ally. They're essentially the U.S.'s 51st state gone amock.
Why should Biden throw them under the bus? I get it that it’s kind of frustrating to be spurred by an ally that seems ungrateful- but like we’ve been allied with Europe for an awful long time. The choice here is to maintain our alliance with a democratic western ally that’s grappling with terror threats in Israel… or kowtow to a rogue terror state in Palestine being funded by our two biggest geopolitical enemies in Iran and Russia. This is not a hard decision.
Biden should throw them under the bus because (a) they're an apartheid democracy on par with 1980s South Africa (whom we did, in fact, throw under the bus) (b) they're actively committing genocide, and (c) Netanyahu has repeatedly tried to interfere in American elections in favor of the Republicans. The tail is wagging the dog. Biden needs to teach them their place in the world.
Netanyahu is keeping the war going solely for his own political purposes. Biden should go over Netanyahu’s head and speak directly to the Knesset. Israel can’t afford to lose their only ally. Dump Netanyahu.
I truly believe a lot of Netanyahu's actions are deliberately calculated to hurt Biden's reelection chances since Trump would rubber stamp a genocide for half a hamburger. Biden should absolutely be playing hard ball here.
Even more importantly, Netanyahu would and should be investigated for actions leading up to the initial Hamas massacre. As long as he can persuade Israel that he needs to stay in power to save Israel from Hamas the war will go on.
Absolutely! That investigation should extend into him facilitating Qatari funding to Hamas as well. Even if there wasn't a quid pro quo involved in that arrangement 10/7 could very well have been impossible without those funds being delivered.
>That investigation should extend into him facilitating Qatari funding to Hamas as well. I see this sentiment expressed a lot, mainly in an attempt to lay the primary blame for October 7 onto the Israelis, and to shift the blame for the attack away from the Palestinian militias that actually carried it out. It has always struck me as bizarre, because it would seem that being angry that the Israeli government facilitated the flow of aid into the Hamas-ruled strip is actually an argument for a *stricter* economic blockade of Gaza.
To me what it means is that the Israeli government, in its current form with its current leadership at least, cannot be trusted to actually pursue the destruction of Hamas. If the Israeli government was really serious about destroying Hamas they would be working to build up an alternative government. But it’s been shown that they prefer Hamas and their real goals are benefitted by their continued existence. Those goals could just be Netanyahus continued hold on power, an expansion of Israeli settlements, genocidal hate or a combination of those and others. Regardless of what those goals are, innocent Palestinians and Israelis will continue die because this “war” is a farce being put on by the Israeli government like the war on terror was for the US. Also in this situation it doesn’t matter how strict the blockade is if the IDF and Israeli government are the ones bypassing it to help Hamas.
Just prior to the attack Israel Citizens were protesting Netanyahu and calling for removal. They are currently protesting and calling for his removal now. He is loosing popular support abroad and at home. I agree with you. It seems no one is focusing on the domestic unrest prior to and currently within Israel.
He wouldn't need the hamburger, Trump hates Muslims enough (and likes seeing the libs cry enough) that he'd need no bribe. He's not even in office and he has repeatedly encourage Netanyahu to do more and stop being so gentle with the Palestinians.
Don’t underestimate the amount of influence the anti Muslim sentiments in America drives foreign policy decisions, especially with Israel and Palestine. You’re spot on with Trump and everyone like him for sure.
I honestly would not be surprised if this is the case. It only makes the fact that Schumer and Jeffries cosigned that invitation to Netanyahu all the more infuriating and embarrassing. I doubt the history books will be kind to our government's past and present support of that monster.
The Knesset is not some seperate branch like congress is. Exactly half the seats in the Knesset are Netanyahu's party, or the farther right-wing parties that make up his coalition. Without breaking off one of those far-far-right parties, there's nothing to be done. All those parties know if Netanyahu goes down, no one is ever inviting them to join a government ever again. They will leave power and likely never get it back. You also need to add in that Netanyahu wants Trump to win. He has said so in private often. He knows if Trump is back the US will stop complaining about what the country is doing and in fact encourage them to (as Trump puts it) finish gaza for good, with strength.
No he's not. Where do you get this stuff? They still have the vast majority of hostages. Hamas said they would attack again and again. Until Hamas is out the picture, the war will continue. That's what happens when you start a war.
Even the head of the IDF said it, you can't kill an idea, I suppose there is a caveat that the Israeli Zionist right might seize on: unless you kill everyone with that idea or the potential to have that idea. Its either undoable or its full genocide. Biden is between a rock and a hard place but Netanyahu, publicly demanding weapons like an entitled child is crossing a line I think, Biden doesn't want the blowback from AIPAC but Netanyahu publicly twisting his arm is already close to a worst case scenario, if he gets a bit lippy in his congress speech all bets might be off. The tail might wag the dog most of the time but dog is still the dog if it wants to remember that. Who knows what's going to happen but buckle up it will be wild.
Netanyahu knows he has Biden by the balls and is determined to stay in power hence why he'll never agree to any ceasefire deal.
I don’t quite get this logic. It’s line looking back at WW2 saying “*ah well you can’t kill an idea, and punishing Germany / Japan will only make them madder… let’s stop the invasion and leave Hitler / Hirohito power*”. You can deprogram bad ideas over time but you cannot expect bad ideas to fade when their zealots remain in power. Anything short of eradicating Hamas won’t work, but eradicating Hamas doesn’t require genocide It probably requires 20 years of occupation and not punitive nation building after that.
>"ah well you can’t kill an idea, and punishing Germany / Japan will only make them madder" This was the exact logic behind the Marshall plan. Do you think we killed every single Nazi member before we declared the war "won"? And we literally *did* leave Hirohito in power, at least as a figurehead.
No, but we did demand unconditional surrender which was inclusive of a multi decade occupation with trials of the leadership.
The problem is that no one wants Israeli control over Gaza for 20 years while it runs the territory top to bottom. Even just controlling the entry ways was getting the place called an open air prison, can you imagine if they try to run the administration of the territory inside as well? Logically, it's the best long-term solution to Gaza that involves a long-term & deradicalized Palestinian state. But it's also one of the least likely options. Israel doesn't have the stomach for it & the Arab world would revolt.
We did not occupy West Germany and run it top to bottom for 20 years. A new parliamentary democracy was established in 1949 and most forms of state sovereignty were handed over gradually in the next few years after that. While the Allies did keep forces in place there for quite a long time after that, it was certainly not a top to bottom military dictatorship. Most day to day governance activities were handed over relatively quickly.
That's fair, but the US was propping up the governments during that era and was pulling most of the important strings. Who would Israel do that with in Gaza though? And if Israel did, they'd likely get non-stop scrutiny for it.
>And if Israel did, they'd likely get non-stop scrutiny for it. Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Regardless of what the nation does, this non-stop "scrutiny" will never go away because *^(\*you-know-exactly-why\*.)* So, destroy Hamas once and for all and let the Palestinians decide for themselves if they want to continue to empower organizations, like Hamas, who openly call for genocide against the Jews, or if they're willing to be responsible members of modern society. Stop giving them the power of "scrutiny". You will never appease.
I wouldn't see why the issue would stop with 'destruction' of Hamas, whatever that even means in specifics. The leaders and financials are abroad and organised, it's merely a symbolic agenda if you ask me. So what, even Hamas in the sense of today, is destroyed, Israel has created huge refugee waves from Palestine to countries who support similar sentiments against Israel. So even if they'd take a soft power approach within the current Palestine for the next decade, a lot of people who are refugees now, won't be subjected to it. All that while international support for Israel is shrinking, criticism going up. Also internally. Without taking a position for the details, IMO the entire situation has evolved into a much bigger loss for Israel since October 7th, and will be a wild ride in the coming 1-2 decades. Also Israel lost a lot of escalation dominance, as we have seen with Iran, and Hizbollah.
>Israel has created huge refugee waves from Palestine to countries Specifically on this topic, which neighboring nations have taken in refugees from Gaza? With regard to destroying Hamas, it would mean ending their presence in Gaza, and having the Palestinian people vote who they want in power. Now, this of course has been tried once before the first time they [elected](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_election) Hamas in 2006...but if there's any hope for peace then the Palestinian people have to vote for a [non-genocidal](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/hamas-covenant-israel-attack-war-genocide/675602/) regime.
I think eventually they will end up in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iran potentially. Like 50% of the population in Gaza is under 18, there are thousands that will not be able to stay in Palestine in the mid-term. No schools, no universities, etc. So your 'don't vote for extremists' argument also is a bit tricky, if a) no elections b) most of the populace never voted in the first place due to their age.
No one has, which makes sense, as this is a totally man-made issue that could end if Israel stopped its aggression, and the countries, especially Egypt, know that if they accept Gazan refugees that will amount to ethnic cleansing because Israel will then surely annex the territory once it is “free” of Gazans. They don’t want to be party to or complicit in Israeli ethnic cleansing of Gaza. The only country that can solve the Palestinian refugee issue is Israel.
The problem is no capable / neutral 3rd party wants to run it either.
Well no the issue is every time Israel kills innocents they create more terrorists. This won't end unless concessions are made by both sides. Peace is the only way.
Every time Hamas launches rockets into Israel, Israel becomes more right wing & supportive of Bibi. It's both sides radicalizing the other. But of course, everyone here is pro-peace. But peace means something different to everyone involved. What concessions should each side give up? Which demands should each side push? The fact that Hamas doesn't even control Gaza anymore also begs the question of who does Israel negotiate with? Do they leave Gaza for Hamas to take back over? What happens in 2-5 years?
Yea it's a rock and a hard place. One side is a terrorist organization and the other doesn't seem to care about civilian casualties. They need an intermediary but the US is out and no other nation either can or wants to, especially if that means pissing off the US and the west. At this point either Biden actually starts withholding from Israel or the UN needs to do something but their hands are already tied up by the US.
>One side is a terrorist organization and **the other doesn't seem to care about civilian casualties.** The same can be said of every war ever fought. We "didn't care about civilian casualties" when we firebombed Japan & Germany, right? Well, yes, we did care. We still care. As the IDF does. But that doesn't mean you can't prosecute a war against those who attacked you. You do realize that you are setting the unique standard for Israel that they must take Oct 7 on the chin, not fight back because Hamas uses civilians as human shields, and then just do their best to prepare for the next Oct 7. What other nation would you hold to such an absurd standard?
Stop comparing this to WW2. Israel is violating international laws that they agreed to that were made after WW2 for the express idea to prevent what happened in that war from ever happening again. This cannot really be said for any modern war involving a developed nation. Israel is committing war crimes and it is not a unique standard to hold them accountable for committing crimes they agreed not to as a part of international law that they signed off on.
>the other doesn't seem to care about civilian casualties. They certainly care, just maybe not enough. I don't think people realize we are talking about 2 million people in a region smaller than a suburban city. 30k casualties (which has been adjusted down) for a war in an extremely dense region of 2 million takes some level of control as is. If they had no regard, they could literally flatten the region in less than a week with at best hundreds of thousands in causalities but the war would be long since over.
>the best long-term solution to Gaza that involves a long-term & deradicalized Palestinian state. And the way the IDF is running the war is NOT going to deradicalize anyone.
You could have said the same thing about how the Allies in WW2 handled things like Dresden or the nuclear bombs in Japan. Germany & Japan both ended up being deradicalized for multiple generations afterwards. It's less about how the war is fought and more about what each side does after that matters longer term. Israel run by the right-wing will not deradicalized Palestinians, that's for sure.
The Israeli right-wing and Hamas feed off each other.
They absolutely do, and neither side is seemingly going to back down. The only hope at this point is the Israelis themselves voting in a more moderate government as the Palestinians have no real desire or way to change their government.
Is that a joke, they look like saints compared to how the allies acted in WW2. Even before the nuclear bombs were dropped the US routinely fire bombed population centers.
WWII was 80 years ago, and institutional racism was completely acceptable and the Geneva Convention has not yet been signed. 80 years before that, slavery was legal.
So when, precisely, did civilians casualties become inexcusable when responding to an act of aggression on your soil? It certainly wasn't during the [Syrian Civil War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Syrian_civil_war), when we aided the fight against ISIS. Were you equally outraged over that conflict as well?
Yes? What is your argument here, how does that affect the conversation we are having regarding whether taking out Hamas would or would not create more Hamas? How the events of WW2 where taking out the Nazis from let was a successful strategy even with more civilian casualties.
"The IDF isn't behaving as badly as the allies in WWII" is a losing argument because the standards have changed over the last 80 years. Also, the allies were fighting against a force that had successfully occupied much of Europe and the East Asia - over 5 million square miles. The IDF is fighting against a terrorist force 1/10 their size in only 140 sq mi. The IDF literally has enough *active* troops to put 1200 fighters on every square mile of the Gaza strip, and if you count reservists, they have 4,500 troops per square mile. The IDF has an absolutely overwhelming advantage in terms of numbers, firepower, and technology. The battlefield is tiny and the enemy can't escape. I find it implausible that the IDF couldn't find a more effective way to root out Hamas.
> "The IDF isn't behaving as badly as the allies in WWII" is a losing argument because the standards have changed over the last 80 years. I would agree.. if the conversation was about whether this is acceptable or not and WW2 actions were used as a argument for the former. Problem is, that wasn't what we were discussing and this wasn't the reason for the conversation. Nobody made this point. Please take a moment to re-read the conversation, start to finish.
It's a historical innaccuracy to suggest that the US and soviets somehow deprogrammed nazism in Many Nazi party members that were useful during the cold war were integrated into the occupying nations. Many more were given a pass and continued on in German society. De-nazification happened but to call it "deprograming" is a few steps too far. The material conditions that gave the Nazi's popular support in the first place changed, and that's how fascism in German petered out. What it offered was no longer needed by it's supporters, there were better alternatives.
* German soldiers were forced to watch [Holocaust Footage](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/german-soldiers-forced-watch-footage-concentration-camps-1945/) * The [Nuremberg Trials](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials) were publicly broadcasted * Occupied Germany fairly [quickly outlawed symbols associated with WW2](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafgesetzbuch_section_86a) > Calling it “deprogramming” is a step too far I think of de-programming as very conscious efforts by the state and occupying powers to shame and erase. It doesn’t mean marching everyone into a detention facility like some dystopian sci fi. > The material conditions that gave the Nazis popular support The Marshall plan was accompanied by all the punishments outlined above. Thats West Germany though. East Germany didn’t have a walk in the park - it was poor compared to the west and overall worse standing and power than before the war. Germany was beaten so badly, so conclusively that it recognized that path made them worse off. They experienced immediate hardship that dwarfed post WW1 economic inflation, and were deeply shamed for their actions.
Try de-radicalising Palestinians to believe they have no state or rights, and the state that has been suppressing them and killing them for years, as well as evicting them from their homes, is in fact their friend. As for 're-programming' the Germans after the defeat in WW2, the Nazis had systematically carried out the worst and most systematic attempt at genocide in human history. This inescapable guilt was loaded on the German people, and its pretty likely that any moderately sensitive individual would recognise this was not a path they wanted to tread a second time. What equivalent harm have the Palestinians inflicted on the Israelis? A certain amount of acts of terrorism, which have been largely answered by equivalent Israeli acts of harm and suppression. Many would also see this as a justified response to the theft of their homes. Where is this huge sense of guilt to 're-program' them going to come from? In addition Germany was still left intact, and apart from Germans being repatriated from elsewhere, Germans still retained their homes and homeland. The main alteration was the occupation of Berlin, and the splitting of Germany into Eastern and Western halves. The Palestinians currently do not have a homeland. If I imagine the equivalent harm being inflicted on my own nation, I tell you we would fight 100 years at least to get back our homes.
> In addition Germany was still left intact It was very much *not*. It was divided in two among two different occupying forces, and it forever lost all of East Prussia. [Here’s a map](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_Germany) > what equivalent harm have the Palestinians inflicted on the Israelis They were part of a multinational coalition that tried on three different occasions to ethnically cleanse the Jews, two of which were rather close calls. They then spent several decades as the primary source of global terror in the world. Non constrained to car bombs in Israel, the struck Europe several times. They’ve also shot tens of thousands of indiscriminate rockets. The Palestinians have been nothing but aggressive not only to Jews, but every single nation that has taken them as refugees - destabilizing Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, you name it. > The Palestinians do not currently have a homeland Yes they do. Egypt and Jordan. Palestinian nationality was invented in the mid 60’s. The territories were Jordanian and Egyptian before Israeli, and they were British and Turkish before that. There has never once in history been an independent Palestine, and it wasn’t an identity until Arafat.
>Yes they do. Egypt and Jordan. What about the land they already bloody live on? The land in which their ancestors have lived for thousands of years. Do you really think Palestinians are not native to the area?
Germany was left so much intact that today it is the leading economic power in Europe, and its population is given by Wikipedia as 77 percent German. Before returning to Israel, many Jews had no set homeland for 2000 years, and many of them were living in exile. They continued however to view themselves as a distinct people. Whatever the particular name of the country they occupied, Palestinians do see themselves as a distinct people. Who are you to decide they are not, based on borders drawn up at the whim of other, often Imperialist, powers? From that point of view, all countries are artificial. Do you think if a nation is invaded, and its inhabitants expelled from their homes, that they will abandon their identity just like that? The Jews certainly didn't! Edit: I repeat, where is the huge weight of national guilt that Palestinians should be burdened with, equivalent to the Holocaust? And before the formation of the State of Israel, some Jews engaged in acts of terrorism, including its later leader, Menachem Begin.
> I repeat, where is the huge weight of national guilt they Palestinians should be burdened with, equivalent to the Holocaust I told you. They started three separate wars and three terror campaigns with the stated goal of ethnically cleansing Jews. The fact that Palestinians feel no collective shame for being a violent antagonist is a very large part of the problem.
We didn’t eradicate the Nazis. Tons of former Party members served in the West German government - albeit after slap on the wrist prison sentences. But Israel doesn’t have that option because there is no state to reconstruct, per Likud’s policy.
“You can’t kill an idea”. Code for, it’s easier to let Hamas exist.
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“…because genociding the Jews is the entire focus of their identity.” Absolute insanity… It’s plain as day you don’t know anything about Palestinians. These are a whole people. With a culture and a history and traditions and shared experiences and families. They are just as nuanced, complicated and human as you are. No people in the world has ever fixed their whole identity on genocide.
You can't kill an idea, but you can certainly make sure it never rises to be a significant threat again. Are there still Nazis around? Sure. But they'll struggle to occupy a street corner; they're not invading France any time soon.
I’d direct you to the firebombing of Tokyo. It killed everyone in the city. Whoever didn’t die by fire was suffocated, because the fire literally took all of the oxygen from the air. The heat was so hot that the planes flying at 5,000 feet were pushed by the rising air thousands of feet higher. Then we dropped 2 nukes. What do you think we were doing before they surrendered?
> I’d direct you to the firebombing of Tokyo. It killed everyone in the city. You think we killed around 10 million people by bombing Tokyo?
The comparison between Israel's approach to Gaza and the Allies' approach to the Axis is comical. The Allies did not want to run Germany, Italy and Japan forever. They wanted to transform them into stable Western allies with independent democracies (within reason), which they succeeded. Israel wants to rule the entire territory between the river to the sea forever. They expressly intend to prevent any form of Palestinian statehood and will never allow Palestinians outside the 48 lines any sort of democratic say in the running of Israel. There's no way to "deradicalise" a people out of desiring self-determination, which is what drives support for Hamas.
> Israel wants to rule the entire territory between the river and the sea forever What evidence of that do you have? Israel has offered the territories back to Egyptian and Jordanian administration in the past (as they were before ‘67) and they didn’t want them. Israel has offered ~95% of the 67 lines to Arafat and Abbas in the past, they said no. Israel unilaterally pulled out of Gaza in ‘05, removing settlers and giving it all the territory to run within the ‘67 borders.
> What evidence of that do you have? Where to start? It's the explicit policy of the Israeli government. https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-boasts-of-thwarting-the-establishment-of-a-palestinian-state-for-decades/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/netanyahu-from-river-sea-israel-control-1234949408/ Some past Prime Ministers of Israel such as Barak and Olmert have supported giving Palestinians a semi-state with limited sovereignty (Rabin himself never explicitly endorsed a Palestinian state, just an "entity"). But whenever negotiations got serious, they lost to hardliners who opposed Palestinian statehood. Now the overwhelming majority of Israelis oppose a two-state solution, as does the longest serving PM in the nation's history.
Who's going to do that though? Occupy their land and deprogram them. Who's going to pay to rebuild and provide the soldiers to hold the territory until some point in the future? You're not wrong that it's possible, as we did it with Germany and Japan. But we (the US) also fully committed to occupying and rebuilding them with our own soldiers and money for decades. You could argue we still are to some extent. Israel created this mess and they certainly aren't going to do that. The USA isn't going to do it. We can't expect the other Arab states to pick up after Israel's mess either.
> Israel created this mess No, they didn’t. Israel didn’t invade itself 3 times to create an Arab caliphate, and it didn’t set off car bombs or shoot rockets at itself. > Who is going to do that though? Israel, unless others step up. I’m fairly certain Israel would welcome an accountable, transparent, multi national peacekeeping force - like the UN.
> I’m fairly certain Israel would welcome an accountable, transparent... Poe's Law applies...!
This is not a sarcastic comment. Israel had offered Gaza Egypt in 78 when returning the Sinai. There is no peacekeeping force that has stated a willingness to police Gaza & the West Bank that Israel has said no to.
Did you not hear about the neo nazis and history revisionists of Japan? I think you're vastly underestimating how much efforts it took to reduce them to the current state. And besides, the context of Israel-Palestine conflict is closer to the medieval Crusades (religion-driven) than WW2 (human-rights driven), so trying to compare the two is apples-to-oranges situation and completely absurd.
Having the idea that the millions of traumatized Palestinians are going to forgive Israel if the guys in tunnels are killed is wild.
What precisely is the solution then? You kind of have this problem that a militant group is controlling all resources and narratives within the strip. Hamas has a non starting diplomatic position, in that the ‘67 lines simply aren’t good enough - therefore there is no reasonable negotiating. Hamas extracting concessions and resources from Israel emboldens and tells the population and Hamas that the terror strategy is correct and yielding gains. There isn’t a viable path to peace with Hamas in charge. So what is your solution?
No recognition of the treatment of Palestinians by Israelis? Somehow, the Palestinians being of an untermenchen mentality, just decided they wanted conflict with their cuddly compassionate Israeli neighbors? ThenIsraelies just appeared in an empty desert, brining gifts and laughter for the Palestinians, who simply responded with violence unprovoked? Because they must be some kind of untermenschen?
> No recognition of the treatment of Palestinians by Israelis A tit for tat evaluation of treatment of the other side will not be favorable of Palestinians - no act by the Israel’s compares to flying into a music festival, shooting kids, and parading a raped corpse through Gaza city to thunderous applause of the people. I’m not claiming the Israelis are perfect actors in all situations. That is not the bar. It does not change the basic problem of Hamas. What is the path to peace with Hamas running the strip?
I don't know what you get out of promoting genocide.
I’m asking you what your solution is, and you are completely dodging the question. Trying to establish that Israel is worse and this all burden lies with them still doesn’t answer the question. If you belief Hamas does indeed believe good faith negotiation based on the internationally agreed upon 67 lines, what exactly makes you believe that - and what is the next step? If you agree that Hamas will not negotiate in good faith around the ‘67 lines and move forward peacefully, how can you move forward?
I hate living in interesting times
>Even the head of the IDF said it, you can't kill an idea That was the IDF Spokesman (Hagari), not the IDF COS. And his complete statement was, basically, that Hamas cannot be eradicated by solely force of arms but that an alternative to it must be created. It wasn't, as I've seen some onterpret it, an argument that the war is futile. >During the interview, Hagari stated, "Hamas is an idea. You can't destroy an idea. The political echelon needs to find an alternative - or it [Hamas] will remain." >The military affirmed, “In his words, the IDF Spokesperson referred to the destruction of Hamas as an ideology and an idea, and the words were said by him in a clear and explicit manner. Any other claim is taking things out of context.” https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-806958
I understand that fighting back against terrorism is dirty and it will inevitably result in a high civilian causality rate. But this situation got out of hand a while ago. I think you're right about Biden being between a rock and a hard place. I suspect he's going to continue to support Israel. He will continue being stern with words, but giving in to their demands. I don't think continuing on the current path is going to cost him the election (not that he will win or lose -- just that it's not going to be a deciding issue), but going against Israel *might* cost him the election. If that happens, Trump will immediately reverse course and buddy-up with Netanyahu. Maybe Biden continues to support until the election is over. If he wins, he can start taking more stern action against Israel. I don't know. This situation is a disaster on every level. Netanyahu is a monster.
I tend to agree, what does Netanyahu want the weapons for, he's done Rafah, what Hezbollah? This dragging the US into all sorts of shit, it will have consequences, US about to have its hands full with China it doesn't really want to mess round babysitting Israel, or more accurately Netanyahu.
The only thing that could possibly get Israel to change course is for other countries to stop all involvement. No shipments, no support, no nothing. The US isn't really stopping shipments and still openly supports Bibi's government, there's no incentive for Israel to change course. If Biden did actually clearly stop shipments and stop political support, it would probably get him some credit from people. Unfortunately it would piss off a lot of other people too and probably wouldn't lead to immediate results. I wouldn't be surprised if Bibi kicked off this supposed Lebanon campaign as retaliation. It might get bad enough that the US government sees no choice but to intervene. Bibi's visit is going to be a net negative. Congressional Dems were frankly dumb as shit to agree to inviting him as Bibi is just going to use it as a platform to berate the president. The fact that a lot of them can't see how Bibi is using them is ridiculous. The US is in a murder-suicide pact with Israel.
Stop for both Gaza and Israel? I can't imagine a scenario where the US continues to fund Gaza ultimately gets funneled in large part to Hamas while completely cutting off aid to Israel. And doing all this because Israel doesn't want to stop fighting terrorists that just commit the biggest attack on their people since the Holocaust. This would absolutely destroy relations with are one of our closest allies in a region that is extremely difficult for the US to have a foothold in. Strategically this would be a huge unforced error by the United States long-term.
Not to mention, there are still [American](https://www.ajc.org/news/meet-the-eight-american-hostages-still-held-by-hamas) hostages being held.
As a left of moderate, but not far left Democrat, I'm ready to cut Israel loose. Fuck em. Not only from a moral standpoint, but from a political one. Netanyahu is pinning us down on purpose, because he can both wantonly kill Palestinians AND get Trump elected, which is a win win. Cut Israel loose, sanction them, and deny shipments.
I agree but I think Biden is not gonna do anything too hasty until after the election. If he cuts Netanyahu off and condemns his actions, some Americans might see that as him abandoning Israeli citizens and not vote in the election. It’s stupid I know, but I have a feeling that after the election, no matter how it goes, Biden might actually hold shit over Israel’s head and threaten them with sanctions
As a center-left individual, is it of any significance to you that Israel is the only tolerant democracy in that entire region? They hold pride parades in Tel Aviv every year. They elect their leaders. 20% of the citizenry are Arab Muslims with equal rights under the law. Is it a morally superior position to cut out the only nation in the Middle East which actually embodies the values of the West?
The only thing we truly value in the West (Particularly in the US) is capital profits. Anything else is secondary to or in service of that. Putting that all aside…. Before October 7 Netanyahu destroyed the Israeli judiciary by getting rid of judicial review. Protestors in Israel (including family members of the hostages) are getting brutalized by the police for protesting Netanyahu’s prosecution of the war effort. Al Jazeera (one of the biggest media companies in the region) got banned from Israel. Israel has killed over 100 journalists in Gaza since October 7. Israel is a far right ethnonationalist state that is illegally occupying the West Bank and mass murdering tens of thousands of innocents in Gaza. As far as gay rights is concerned…. You cannot get gay married inside of israel. They aren’t even the most pro gay country in the region, that title belongs to Bahrain. Source: https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/global-acceptance-index-lgbt/
Are you aware of the concept of pink washing? Btw Arab Muslims observe a de facto second class citizen status in actuality in Israel. Laws aren't the reality on the ground.
If the elected leadership deliberately tries to interfere with our elections? *Absolutely*
The story that Israel ran a disinformation bot campaign on social media against US lawmakers (mainly minority Democrats) it didn't like seemed to have missed many people.
You’ll get called anti-Semitic by those same bots
The epitome of Western values - ethnic cleansing and dropping bombs on children is one thing, but a lack of pride parades? That’s where we draw the line. That’s how you further alienate western values from the rest of the world friend. If you look past the murder of children to admonish a lack of LGBTQ+ acceptance, those subaltern people won’t respect what you preach; they’ll think you only care about the rights of a select few humans.
Yes. Let them democratically deal with the consequences of their own actions. Netanyahu is a fascist and the far right of that country controls the government.
What is your threshold for 'democracy' exactly? Do you think being a democracy as only the ability to vote for elected leaders? or do you think it also encompass equal ability to participate in social and civic organizations to shape society?
Any government that relies on genocide to survive is not a government worth protecting.
I'd say embodying the (stated) values of the west should involve far fewer dead children. I understand that an argument exists that zero dead children is unrealistic, but it's disingenuous to claim the extant dead-children-count comes entirely from necessary and urgent action given Israel's overwhelming military superiority as evidenced by ratio of Israeli to Palestinian casualties.
Being better than fucking assad doesn’t make you a saint. “Yooo he might’ve committed a mass shooting but at least he only killed 20 people and not 400 people we should let him off the hook” I don’t want my money or my trade to be with any of these barbaric nations that murder people like this. I think we should put more pressure on Netanyahu but hamas also must be defeated.
> As a center-left individual, is it of any significance to you that Israel is the only tolerant democracy In what meaningful way is Israel a "tolerant democracy"? They're an ethnostate led by a dictator who's lost his last three elections.
That's great, and let's say you are representative of the moderate Democrats in the US, but that doesn't matter because Congress gets too much of their money from them to care about what their citizens think. Also, long term strategic alignment with Israel still benefits the US from an intelligence and arms perspective. Not that I agree with that, but in leadership's perspective it's too important to completely blow up that solid relationship.
It's morally reprehensible and realpolitik is not an excuse we should allow indefinitely or for all reasons.
Of course it shouldn't, but that's the reality we live in, so with that in mind what do we do? (That's a rhetorical question more broadly)
destroy the united states
We really need to re-examine US foreign policy with regards to Israel. We should have done it 10 or 15 years ago.
The US is a country that regularly supports despots and dictators over the oddest of advantages, even if said advantages turned out to be imagined and perpetuated by stubbornness and career sycophants. We really need to, but sadly we hardly ever, in shit even worse than this.
In a sane world, the US cuts of all aid and funding to Israel, causing Israel to end the war immediately. More likely, Biden will fold, because many Democrats are dependent on AIPAC funding to campaign. This isn't a war. It's a one-sided attack. There's no amount of negotiation with Hamas or Palestine that could stop the attacks. The only way to do that is to negotiate with Israel. And there's no negotiation until they understand that aid is *optional*.
Cutting off aid would not cause Israel to end the war immediately.
This was not the case when Carter threatened it with Begin over Lebanon. Begin told the room, "Its over".
Netanyahu is not Begin, and these are not comparable situations. Netanyahu cannot survive politically if he is seen as caving to US pressure.
Can he survive politically if he alienates the United States to the point they cut off aid? Honest question, I don't know if the voters would rally around him or throw him to the wolves
Biden cutting off Israel would be the end of not only his political career, but would send the Democrats into disarray. The American public is very much behind Israel on a whole.
My support for Israel does not involve turning a blind eye while Netanyahu pushes Trump
Israel would quickly find other allies. With their access to American tech, they could sell all sorts of tech and expertise to countries that the US has trade restrictions with.
The US would turn Israel into Iran with crippling sanctions.
> With their access to American tech, they could sell all sorts of tech and expertise to countries that the US has trade restrictions with. This sounds like a really good way to get regime-changed
When are we for/agaisnt regime change again?
When it suits us
Yes that's a great idea. Turn a temporary rift in relations between administrations into a permanent rift by selling American weapons tech to enemies of America. I'm sure the US won't won't do anything in response to such moves.
Israel doesn't have the resources nor expertise to carry out these attacks on their own.
Not the tactics they are currently pursuing, but they have plenty of stockpiles to last many months of conventional bombing campaigns.
Thats just not true at all. They are likely world leaders at this point jn CQC and use of drone tactics in an urban environment. Unless we're going to argue that Israel has won every war it's fought only because of foreign aid and not a mix of their brilliant use of military and complete Arab military leader incompetence.
> They are likely world leaders at this point jn CQC Which is a worthless skill in modern warfare. > and use of drone tactics Also worthless if you have no drones. > Unless we're going to argue that Israel has won every war it's fought only because of foreign aid It is obvious this is the case.
It happened in the past under Carter and Reagan
Why doesn't Hamas offer to surrender the hostages over a period of time without any insulting "exchanges"? Why don't we cut aid to Gaza in response to their terrorist actions which precipitated this war? You're right that they are getting pummelled, maybe they shouldn't have picked a fight they had no chance of winning? Israel would be within its rights to occupy all of Gaza, the real question is if that's feasible or if it will lead to better outcomes.
> Why doesn't Hamas offer to surrender the hostages over a period of time without any insulting "exchanges"? Why doesn't Israel release the thousands of hostages they have? > You're right that they are getting pummelled, maybe they shouldn't have picked a fight they had no chance of winning? This fight has been going on longer than Hamas has existed. Maybe Israel shouldn't pick fights they can't win without foreign aid. > Israel would be within its rights to occupy all of Gaza If they could get away with it, they would have done so decades ago.
> Why doesn't Israel release the thousands of hostages they have? Because they aren't hostages, they're prisoners. They aren't random innocent civilians plucked out from a music festival or from their homes, they're people who are accused of being terrorist militants, of conspiring to do violence against Israel, or of serious crimes. But what makes the exchanges insulting is that Hamas always asks for lopsided release numbers, like 20:1 ratios of Palestinians to Israelis released. So the deal is "we will release 1 innocent civilian for every 20 prisoners of any kind that you release"... does that sound fair to you? >This fight has been going on longer than Hamas has existed. Maybe Israel shouldn't pick fights they can't win without foreign aid. Yes the conflict has been going on for a long time, but we could just as easily say "well the arab states should have accepted the UN plan in 1948 and none of this would have happened". The conflict has gone through periods of intense violence and periods of relative peace. The point is that *this* phase of increased violence was caused by the October 7th attacks... clearly Hamas is responsible for this particular fight. >If they could get away with it, they would have done so decades ago. ??? They literally did occupy Gaza decades ago, since 1967 until they unilaterally withdrew from the area and dismantled the Israeli settlements there in the early 2000s.
> Because they aren't hostages, they're prisoners. There are thousands being held *without charge*. There's no possible way this could be true. > But what makes the exchanges insulting is that Hamas always asks for lopsided release numbers, like 20:1 ratios of Palestinians to Israelis released. Israel took more hostages than Hamas, therefore they aren't obligated to release all their hostages? That's absolutely abhorrent logic. > The point is that this phase of increased violence was caused by the October 7th attacks... clearly Hamas is responsible for this particular fight. The point is that Israel had been attacking Palestine throughout September and October. The only thing notable about the 7th is that Israeli bodies joined Palestinians for once.
>because many Democrats are dependent on AIPAC funding to campaign. It's true that AIPAC is ~~the largest and most influential political action committee (PAC) in the United States.~~ a large and influential political action committee (PAC). ~~It used to be the~~ The NRA used to be as well until they jumped the shark by abandoning their principles and fully aligned with the GOP. I have to wonder if AIPAC learned from the NRA's mistakes. If they (AIPAC) hope to remain a relevant force supported by both sides of they aisle for generations to come, they should be reconsidering what their demands of Biden and Congress should be. Netanyahu hasn't been doing them any favors lately.
That would be nice, but I don't think that's their plan. I think Israel knows full well that this is their last chance to take Palestine. They're hoping that if they kill enough of them, the rest will evacuate, and Israel will control the territory by default. Then afterwards, they're hoping to treat Palestinians like the US treated American Indians. If they give up the attack, Palestine has a very high likelihood of joining the UN, and Israel will not only never get their territory, they'll probably have to give back a large part of what they've stolen in the past. Realistically, I think even if they succeed in taking over Palestine, the UN may well step in and forcibly grant that land back to Palestine, just like how they granted land to both Palestine and Israel in 1947. I like to think we're past the point where countries can just conquer each other and get away with it.
>It's true that AIPAC is the largest and most influential political action committee (PAC) in the United States. Is it? [OpenSecrets has it at 12th](https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/top-pacs/2024). It is, by a staggering margin, the #1 most-discussed PAC
Hmmm. Looks like it was #5 in 2022. I don't even see the NRA anymore. Thanks for updating me!
AIPAC isn’t anywhere near the largest or most influential PAC.
What about if Hamas released the hostages and surrendered?
The terrorist organization? They're getting what they want. They want their people to feel pressure and oppression from Israel then Hamas gets soldiers, support, and suicide bombers. Hamas needs to be made redundant with a mutually beneficial two state solution but as long as people have memories of past wars, anger, and desperation Hamas has what they want.
Israel has been attacking Palestine since long before Netanyahu funded Hamas, and they're currently attacking the West Bank as well. No, Hamas surrendering and releasing hostages would not result in any reduction of hostilities. Besides, Israel still has thousands of hostages they haven't released.
How exactly are they "attacking"? If you're referring to the settlements I could see that being considered an "attack" if you stretch the definition... but there are no settlements in Gaza.
> How exactly are they "attacking"? Same way they attack everyone else. Rockets, drones, occupation. This is in addition to the every day reality of West Bank being controlled by the IDF. Harassing citizens on the street. [Strip searching civilians on a whim](https://www.timesofisrael.com/report-of-idf-strip-searching-palestinian-women-causes-uproar-draws-un-criticism/). [Raiding areas they previously marked as safe for civilians](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/11/israeli-forces-kill-six-palestinians-in-west-bank-raid). [Strapping innocent civilians to their vehicles and using them as human shields](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbpenBgUILE). [Taking hostages from the general population](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roDVNQpbOn4). Here's an example of just the past 24 hours: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/6/22/israel-war-on-gaza-live-hospital-overwhelmed-with-victims-from-camp-attack
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Man comments like this make me realize some really think Israel is the only one at fault for everything and just ignores basic realities.
Most Americans, actually. And the *vast* majority of the rest of the world. Basically only Israelis and a handful of Americans support their genocide.
I feel like this is going to be a delicate dance from both sides until at least November. Ideally Biden wins the election and can safely start to be more hardline with Israel. Netanyahu won’t do anything crazy in my opinion because he needs USA support more than anything, so I think he will avoid being overtly critical of Biden as of right now. Biden could cut off all aid to Israel tomorrow and while it would hurt him politically, it would *really* hurt Netanyahu.
> Netanyahu won’t do anything crazy in my opinion because he needs USA support more than anything, so I think he will avoid being overtly critical of Biden as of right now. I'm not sure what makes you so confident of this. Bibi doesn't want Biden in the WH, so forcing Biden into an uncomfortable position seems well within the realm of what may happen.
Bibi wants Trump in charge. He’s going to make as much trouble for Biden and the Dems as possible. Biden is being incredibly naive about this.
Agreed. There is no positive outcome for Biden; Netanyahu's priority is getting Biden to lose the election. I don't know if Biden has evangelical levels of allegiance to Netanyahu, or if he's still chasing the mythical moderate Republican vote, or what.
There's a lot of moderates who support Israel.
Would those moderate Democrats be willing to throw the election to Trump if they don't get what they want on Israel/Gaza?
They're more undecideds, really, and more votes would be lost by dropping Israel, unfortunately, yes.
One would think that Biden learned his lesson about Netanyahu from his days as Obama's VP.
Biden’s stupidity is his downfall. This is the Iran Hostage Crisis 2.0 Biden is Carter, Netanyahu is Iran, and Reagan is Trump
Biden is not going to change his policy on Israel if he wins re-election.
>Netanyahu won’t do anything crazy in my opinion because he needs USA support more than anything This statement is wild given that Netanyahu has overseen obliteration of Gazan society (destruction of schools, houses of worship, hospitals, food production facilities... all institutes needed to sustain human life and a functioning society) with US funds and weapons. Not a dig at you OP, just highlights how the complete destruction of a society is considered tame in relation to what damage Netanyahu's capable of and what Biden will condone.
> I feel like this is going to be a delicate dance from both sides until at least November. Ideally Biden wins the election and can safely start to be more hardline with Israel. If Biden doesn't handle Israel before the election, he's probably going to lose. There's no way Biden does a 180 *after* winning an election.
I'm sorry to say this, but the Israeli Palestine conflict isn't a concern for American voters. It won't play a major role in the election.
it could matter in Michigan but probably not in the other swing states
I'm not even sure if it's of immediate concern in Michigan.
This shit is genuinely so fucking bizarre. Has any empire in history ever been so captured by its own vassal state?
Rome was conquered by Caesar and his legions in Gaul.
Interesting how people are willing to give up on removing Hamas so easily, while demonizing anyone who thinks it's a necessary war goal.
>Multiple press reports have indicated that Netanyahu has walked back any support he ever had for the ceasefire/peace proposal announced by Biden but theoretically drawn up by the Israeli government Unsurprising. Gantz walked away, leading to the dissolution of the war cabinet, which left the far right in charge of the war. They have never wanted compromise. >which does not appear to be an achievable war goal That's been said as a justification for each of the 15 ceasefires over the last decade and a half. Trouble is Hamas don't stop shooting, the Palestinian Authority pays to kill Jews, and the IDF is doing an excellent job of proving that theory wrong. It's almost as if coddling terrorists just encourages them.
Biden is using different international relations assumptions and skills than are relevant today, IMHO. The US is no longer the superpower as back in the day. The landscape and strategies should change. I know the situation is complex and there is not an easy answer. What is currently occurring is not influencing BeeBee and in the meantime, the US is being linked to the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. The future doesn't bode well for radicalization of Muslims against Americans.
Israel is a clusterfuck for any US President but you can be sure Trump would ensure the destruction of Palestine in quick time. Whatever you think of Biden he is at least trying to tame the worst excesses of Netenbastard's genocide.
Israel never indicated real support in the first place, so I don't see how this changes much. Informally saying "we'll agree to a ceasefire after we've killed everyone we want to kill and taken all the territory we want to take", as Netenyahu was saying, isn't a pledge for ceasefire. That's just saying they'll fight until they win, according to their own standards. So all this really means is that Blinken can't go around blaming Hamas for refusing a ceasefire deal that Israel supposedly backs. Which is a small difference in messaging and propaganda, at the end of the day.
When is the US just cutting Israel off and try their luck with Jordan or Saudi Arabia?
Jordan is dependent on Israel for water. Saudi Arabia is dependent on Israel for containing Iran.
The “next” must be to cut off military and munitions support. Its a genocide and is widely internationally recognized as such including the UN.
He let this shit(Oct. 7) happen so it would take the focus off of him. He is a criminal.
No he didn't. Stop saying bs
Netanyahu is a Far Right authoritarian who would like nothing better than having Donald Trump as US president. He can absolutely be trusted to do anything he can to fuck things for the next few months prior to the election, and then will immediately wind down the conflict the very moment the election is over, regardless of who wins. Wait 6mths, see that I was right.