Hong XiuQuan posted:

There was no meaningful part of early 20th C Zionism that sought a state *and* rejected the idea of "population transfers", voluntary or not.

Raenir Salazar posted:

I believe the onus is on you to provide specific evidence in support of your claim and not to gesture vaguely at some book whose credibility might very well be on the same level of Jung Chang. An example of a credible source might be a quote from an officially passed resolution by the World Zionist Congress for instance.

e to add, a quick google confirms my suspicions that Pappe is probably not a very good source.

quote:

"There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide - the annihilation of your people - I prefer ethnic cleansing." [source]

Adenoid Dan posted:

Fact checked by Reddit! Lol

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Raenir Salazar posted:

Is it against international law to purchase land? The UN definition very specifically says "contrary to international law".

Buying land legally and moving there is not ethnic cleansing so there we go. Is it ethnic cleansing for Chinese immigrants to displace the original inhabitants of the places they end up congregating to and giving preferential treatment to other immigrants coming later?

i fly airplanes posted:

I mean the ongoing trilemma is Israel must pick two of three: Jewish state, liberal democracy, or two-state solution. There's really no way around this.

Neurolimal posted:

Without any intention of being rude: No, not at all. Put into more words: 'islamic terrorism' is completely benign in nature compared to other guerilla groups seeking to affect change. The Serbian nationalist who shot the archduke and the hijackers who flew a plane into the WTC largely share the same formula in their strife; a large state agitating them to the point that they adopt an ideology that directs them to enact violent change. The proliferation of 'islamic terrorists' is purely a result of our multi-decade long adventures in the region fostering multiple groups with an invested disdain for the West. If we were to have spent the last four decades assaulting Europe in the same way that we have the Middle East, we'd be talking about 'catholic terrorists' right now.

In fact, I'd argue that we had an incredibly blunt hand in shaping our adversaries, considering the kind of leaders we deposed. We're simply less open to bragging about it than Netanyahu.

With all due respect, I hope you can appreciate the irony in second-guessing a historian's credentials while deferring to u/ghostofherzi, a poster on r/AskHistorians who is currently arguing that the Nakba was a pre-state crime by a disbanded group and therefore bearing no shame on Israel.

Giggs posted:

Jesus Christ. Morris isn't a historian, he's a journalist. Pappe holds a PhD in history. Morris is frequently criticized for ignoring arab sources and solely using cherry-picked Israeli sources. Morris has whitewashed genocide (see below). Morris has been explicitly called a racist by Pappe. Your reddit expert (named ghostofherzl lmao) frames Pappe as some sort of subjective, history-as-fiction writer, when in reality that whole issue stems from Morris claiming Pappe is letting his politics interfere with his interpretation of history since he disagrees with Morris' insane racist nonsense.

Here's a sample of what Morris has to say, and whose fans you, without the slightest of critical thinking, have taken as gospel so you can feel comfortable in your ignorance:

Willo567 posted:

https://twitter.com/SecBlinken/status/1714074816272089510
https://twitter.com/SecBlinken/status/1714076759963136319
I'll believe them giving humanitarian aid when I see it

mannerup posted:

just wanted to thank you two for providing additional context, its not my particular research subfield so I was unaware of the extent of their disagreements

Typo posted:

AccountSupervisor posted:

Would anybody be able to point to me some good reading regarding the earliest recorded instances of Zionist-settler/Palestinian friction pre-1917?

I see a lot of references to certain instances in some of my researching(IE various references to Jewish guards being killed around 1903) but cant find much deeper than that and am trying to be keenly aware of bias regarding early history.

Something Im trying to get a better of understanding of is sort of where these things initially started to tip very early in regards to attitudes around settlers/Zionists starting to purchase land.

Willo567 posted:

https://twitter.com/SecBlinken/status/1714074816272089510
https://twitter.com/SecBlinken/status/1714076759963136319
I'll believe them giving humanitarian aid when I see it

quote:

While everybody has been focusing their attention on the violent uprising in the West Bank, the situation in the Gaza Strip has been glossed over and its residents forgotten. However, the constant shortage of electric power continues, with intermittent outages occurring throughout most of the day. Water supply is also sporadic, and what flows through the pipes is mostly not potable. Most water wells in the Gaza Strip have become either saline or contaminated. Private companies, which purify water and sell and distribute it in large containers to households, are making a bundle.

Additionally, there is a serious shortage of medical equipment and drugs in hospitals. Unemployment is rampant, with some saying it stands at a whopping 45%. Human rights organizations contend that joblessness has reached 50% or even higher. Yet, accurate figures are not needed: Most young people in Gaza who are not employed in one of Hamas’ governmental institutions are out of a job and feel despair.

But the most acute problem is the housing shortage. As a result of Israel’s policy on cement imports, the closure of the Rafah crossing, the destruction of the smuggling tunnels by the Egyptians and the heavy damage inflicted to buildings and infrastructures in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, prices for apartments have skyrocketed. Israel has imposed severe restrictions on the introduction of building materials into the Gaza Strip for fear that Hamas would seize them in order to build tunnels. The restrictions on the transfer of raw materials — mainly cement and iron (rebar) — first began when the blockade was imposed in 2007. However, they were ratcheted up when Hamas’ tunnel enterprise came to light. Israel’s concerns are therefore not unfounded. Hamas’ military wing — the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades — has taken steps to rebuild the tunnels destroyed by Egypt and Israel. So once again, it is the residents who are paying the price for those stringent restrictions. Officials from human rights organizations in the Gaza Strip told Al-Monitor that there are between 150,000 and 200,000 young adults between the ages of 20 and 35 who have chosen not to get married because of the housing shortage. There is no way one can get married and start a family without having a place to live, especially when the young people's parents are also grappling with the same problem.

“I want my son to marry,” said an old friend of mine from Gaza who did not want his name used. “But without my building him a housing unit, there’s no way he can get married. And it doesn’t seem there’s going to be any change for the better in the foreseeable future.”

My Gazan friend told me about the long process that every person in the Gaza Strip has to go through when contemplating building a house, adding a room or building an annex for a family member. That is assuming that they have the money to do it.

Paradoxically, the oversight of the import of raw materials from Israel, especially cement, occurs through indirect cooperation between Hamas, the Palestinian Authority (PA), the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and Israel.

This is how it works: First, one has to go to Hamas’ Ministry of Economics and inform the authorities that the applicant intends to build or renovate a house. That person has to declare that he needs building materials from Israel — mainly rebar and cement. At the time of the application, a fee of 100 Israeli shekels ($26) has to be paid to Hamas’ Ministry of Economics. At the next stage, a municipal inspection team visits the site where the house is to be built or expanded. It does all the land surveying to determine the required quantity of cement that is needed for only one stage of the planned construction. A GPS device is used to determine the exact coordinates of the construction site. The GPS information is then handed over to the Israel Defense Forces liaison unit for review, providing Israel with a tool for supervising future work at the construction site. Thanks to this oversight mechanism, which was developed and perfected ever since the blockade on Gaza was imposed and especially after the unearthing of the tunnels, Israel has accurate information on just about every ounce of cement from the moment it passes through the Kerem Shalom crossing until its arrival at the designated construction site. Additionally, Israel oversees the quantity of cement and rebar that is required for a reasonable quality of construction.

Collecting a handling charge of 300 shekels, a Gaza municipal team should then transfer the application as well as the recommended quantity for delivery to PA representatives, headed by a Fatah official, Nasser al-Sarraj. Those representatives are staying in Gaza, coordinating the supply of cement with Israel and UNRWA.

Even if approved, the request for the supply of raw materials is good for only the first stage of the construction process. First, a request for laying the foundations has to be submitted. Then, for each additional stage — framing the house, plastering it and doing the finishing work — the entire process must be gone through again — all told about five or six times. Each construction stage may last from several weeks to up to several months and the resident is required to wait after each stage.

It is no wonder that prices have shot up. An average rental apartment in an average location in the Gaza Strip starts at $250, whereas the monthly median income — for those who are lucky enough to have a job — is about $500 or less.

Much has been said and written lately about the despair of young people in the West Bank who have launched an intifada. Yet compared with them, the situation of their counterparts in the Gaza Strip is much more serious. The Israeli defense establishment is well aware of their predicament, realizing that in the end it will exact a bloody price.

How long can the “Gaza powder keg” remain unprimed? Apparently not for much longer. Israel is not the only one to blame. In playing with the lives of the residents of Gaza, all political parties associated with the Gaza Strip are to blame: Hamas, Israel and the PA.

Meanwhile, as noted, the distress of some 1.8 million residents in the Gaza Strip is of interest to almost no one. And therein lies the great danger. Abu Ali Shahin (aka Abdul-Aziz Sahin), who died about two years ago but long was the patron of Palestinian prisoners, once vividly described to me the characteristics of the Gaza Strip. “Gaza,” he said, “is like a pot of milk on the stove. The milk looks white, pure and quiet — almost serene — and then, in a split second, it boils over.”

quote:

GAZA CITY — When the sunlight hits the right angle, the clouds of dust turn golden, swirling in gentle eddies around the concrete crusher before wafting toward the fence separating Gaza from Israel.
Another war between Hamas and Israel has fizzled out, halted by a May 21 cease-fire. As the last weeks of May stretched into June, Gazans took stock, surveying which families survived and what was destroyed in the latest conflagration.

Not so Mahmoud Abu Jubbah. For the 31-year-old, who along with his brother and other members of the family runs a concrete-crushing operation in the east Gaza neighborhood of Shujaiyyah, it is time to work.

Over the 11 days of armed conflict, Israeli strikes demolished 1,800 housing units and partially damaged a further 14,315 in Gaza, according to the Ministry of Public Works. Striating the enclave’s neighborhoods are multistory towers-turned-maws and mountains of wrecked homes and offices, hollowed-out buildings and perennially pockmarked roads further churned up by the violence. Some 8,500 people are still displaced, the United Nations says.

All that has left people desperate to rebuild, more than doubling Gaza’s demand for cement from about 4,000 tons a day to 10,000, according to the local Chamber of Commerce, even as construction materials are restricted from entering by an Israeli and Egyptian blockade. Gaza is starved for cement, and there isn’t enough of it.

But there is plenty of rubble. That’s where Abu Jubbah comes in.

From this dust-filled corner of Shujaiyyah, just a mile away from the orderly fields of Israel’s Nahal Oz kibbutz, he and others like him can process up to four truckloads of debris — more than 80 tons — every day. It’s a task he’s had to do often, he says.

Too often.

“I’ve been at this since 2008. Since then, I’ve also dealt with the destruction of 2012, 2014, 2019 and now 2021,” he says matter-of-factly, rattling off the years of past confrontations between Israel and Hamas. So far, he’s already collected more than 30 truckloads from the most recent conflict.

He scans his surroundings and points to a squat pile of wreckage nearby.

“See this one here? This is the last of the 2014 batch. We were finishing it up only a few days before the war this time.”

The process is simple: Once Abu Jubbah’s brother negotiates a price for the wreckage with municipal authorities, it’s loaded onto trucks and dumped here in Shujaiyyah. It’s then fed into a crusher, which pulverizes the rubble. What pours out the other end is sorted into three different sizes, which Abu Jubbah labels, in ascending order, “sand,” “sesame” and “lentils.”

He’ll find a buyer for each, but only the sesame-sized granules, which by weight usually account for 60% of a load, can be used to make concrete blocks. Whereas a block made with fresh cement from Israel or Egypt can cost about 75 cents, one produced here costs a bit above 50 cents.

It’s the tragic availability of Abu Jubbah’s stock, rather than its price, that is the main draw.

Gazans procure cement either from Israeli or Egyptian firms, but deliveries are handled via the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism, a set of regulations meant to keep tabs on constructions materials that could qualify as dual use, meaning items that could be used for civilian as well as military purposes. Cement, which Israel says is commandeered by Hamas to build its bunkers and underground tunnel system, stands at the top of the list.

To bring a bag of cement into Gaza, developers have to submit their plans to Israel and the Palestinian Authority and then wait more than 15 days for approval, says Maher Tabaa, the head of public relations for Gaza’s Chamber of Commerce. If approved, bags entering Gaza are then put into a warehouse under international oversight, with security cameras that the Israelis can use to monitor all movements.

“It’s not just difficult. It’s bone-breaking,” Tabaa says of the process.

“If cement were freely available, you could have thousands of people working. The electrician, the painter, the one who lays down tiles, the plumber — it all relies on cement. It’s a chain.”

With the border crossing with Israel still closed to construction materials since the hostilities began in May, despite the truce, operations like Abu Jubbah’s are essential. But he has many — often grim — steps to go through before he can sell anything.

Standing on top of a plateau of rubble, Abu Jubbah looks down and says, “This here is what’s left of the Abu Al-Ouf building, the one where 40 people were killed.” He’s referring to the tower where the Abu Al-Ouf family lived, which, along with other parts of a compound on Gaza City’s Wahda Street, was leveled by Israeli missiles May 16. The blasts killed 42 people, more than half of them from the Kolak family and 15 from the Abu Al-Ouf family.

“I keep it off to the side because it needs to air out; it smells extra bad.”

He stares at a truck rumbling down the dirt road bisecting Shujaiyyah’s outskirts before stopping near him. He moves to the side before the truck turns around, lifts its bed and pours more contents onto the pile of debris.

To begin with, Abu Jubbah’s is a scavenger’s job. Even before the dust settles on the load, he and others clamber over the wreckage, on the lookout for the flash of an aluminum pot, a dented appliance, a piece of furniture — anything that can be repaired and reused.

Catching a bit of color in the gray, he leans close: It’s an English-language exercise book belonging to 7-year-old Maram Abu Al-Ouf. “Where is the ball? It’s under the table” is scrawled on one of its pages. She survived the airstrike.

At times, former residents of bombed-out buildings come to Abu Jubbah, hoping he’ll have salvaged something of their past life. He remembers a woman who came looking for the gold jewelry she and her husband had hidden in a cubbyhole in the wall of their apartment, which was destroyed in the 2014 war. Abu Jubbah’s workers found a portion of the gold and returned it to her, which he says saved her marriage.

He keeps any personal items of potential value for two days to give loved ones of the dead a chance to get them back before he gives them away or consigns them to the landfill.

Rather than seek them out, he lets family members approach him, having learned it’s better not to take the initiative to return something that could remind them of the person they lost.

“Why would I give something to someone? To make them grieve again?” he says.

“Besides, there’s usually nothing. Even the poorest people in Gaza won’t touch most of this stuff.”

Once a load is picked over, Abu Jubbah’s team of six workers breaks up the bigger pieces of rubble with sledgehammers. It’s hot, seemingly never-ending work, with the dust of the crusher turning damp on the sweaty foreheads of the crew. Near them, a 10-year-old boy, a member of the family who declines to give his name, recovers rusted snakes of rebar and chops them into 4-inch strips with a bolt cutter attached to a stand.

“We sell that to Israel, and companies won’t take it unless it’s that small,” Abu Jubbah says. “This pile here? It’ll get 10 shekels. That’s barely enough for a good meal.”

He stops for a moment, looks at the boy and becomes uncharacteristically annoyed.

“We’re kidding ourselves. We say we’ll hit Tel Aviv, and this is what we get,” he says of Hamas’ boasts of inflicting major damage on Israel.

“You think it’s OK three people sit here and do this work? That a 10-year-old is sitting here cutting a strip of metal?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer. A bulldozer drives near him, scoops up some broken-up rubble and dumps it in the crusher, whose incessant chugging kicks into high gear.

The dust starts up again.

Typo posted:

Main Paineframe posted:

Humanitarian aid is standard, but how that humanitarian aid actually makes it to people is a question, as it's often quite difficult to deliver aid in an active warzone where seemingly random buildings are getting airstriked on short to no notice, particularly when Israel is able to place strict conditions on it and often demands extensive checks and monitoring with the excuse that it's to prevent Hamas from siphoning it off. Just look at how much bureaucracy goes into importing construction materials into Gaza, via a deal brokered by the UN and US between Israel, Hamas, and Fatah:

https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2015/12/israel-gaza-cement-housing-shortage-youngsters-tunnels.html

That's Al-Monitor, which tends to lean toward the pro-Palestinian side of things, but I've found corroborating bits from less opinionated sites as well. For example, it's mentioned by this LA Times article about the rubble scavengers and recyclers of Gaza:

BadOptics posted:

Wow, $368 million almost a decade ago (I imagine that number is lower now post-Trump and the current Biden administration) while we're gearing up to send $10 billion in military aid to Israel. How magnanimous of the US.

Tias posted:

Local media (in Scandinavia) said IDF reports "preparations for a land operation". What does this mean in practice? Are they actually closing up shop and killing the rest of Palestines population, or are we looking at something else?

Triskelli posted:

NBC Nightly News reported that Hamas was willing to release foreign captives without demands, “if conditions allowed”. Is there any idea what those conditions might be beyond “stop dropping bombs”?

Tias posted:

Local media (in Scandinavia) said IDF reports "preparations for a land operation". What does this mean in practice? Are they actually closing up shop and killing the rest of Palestines population, or are we looking at something else?

Discendo Vox posted:

$343 million in 2022, 50% higher than Germany in second place with $202.

Comstar posted:

Israel is putting in the troops for a surface attack. It's taking them a long time to do it, presumably because

a- They had put most of their units elsewhere.
b- They are going to use conscripts/reservists , which take a long time to re-train.
c- They had no actual plan to do it this big.


Why yes, this DOES sound like a 3 Days to Kyiv scenario, though time they have air supremacy. But they are going into destroyed city ruins, which is the best terrain imaginable for light infantry defence.

Comstar posted:

Israel is putting in the troops for a surface attack. It's taking them a long time to do it, presumably because

a- They had put most of their units elsewhere.
b- They are going to use conscripts/reservists , which take a long time to re-train.
c- They had no actual plan to do it this big.

Irony Be My Shield posted:

I'd be wary of automatically assuming this will go the same way as the Ukraine conflict. Asides from air supremacy as mentioned there's also a lot of other advantages Israel enjoys that Russia doesn't. Consider Russia spending months and millions of dollars worth of cruise missiles to cause some power outages in Kyiv vs Israel flipping a switch and plunging Gaza into permanent darkness (with no water to boot) within a couple of days. Gaza is heavily dependent on its enemy in a way you really don't want to be during a war.

quote:

...
In more stark language, a senior Egyptian official told a European counterpart: “You want us to take 1mn people? Well, I am going to send them to Europe. You care about human rights so much — well you take them.”
...
“The Egyptians say: ‘We’d be prepared under certain circumstances to let humanitarian aid into Gaza, but under no circumstances will we let any people without dual citizenship from Gaza into Egypt’,” said a western diplomat.

“The Israelis say exactly the opposite: they say they’re prepared to let out people from Gaza, and a lot of them, but they’re not prepared to allow humanitarian aid in. And we’re stuck now because of this.”

i fly airplanes posted:

From a Western perspective these things don't feel important but religion's role being intertwined with demography and history in the Middle East goes back millennia.

VitalSigns posted:

I love how sourcing to a respected journalist got punished because a mod couldn't be bothered to Google but sourcing a reddit nobody as a rebuttal to an academic in the field is a-ok.

Owling Howl posted:

Financial Times quotes current diplomatic efforts

quote:

“The Israelis say exactly the opposite: they say they’re prepared to let out people from Gaza, and a lot of them, but they’re not prepared to allow humanitarian aid in. And we’re stuck now because of this.”

Tias posted:

Local media (in Scandinavia) said IDF reports "preparations for a land operation". What does this mean in practice? Are they actually closing up shop and killing the rest of Palestines population, or are we looking at something else?

break-up breakdown posted:

In what way can this be interpreted other than “The Israelis want to do an ethnic cleansing"?

Main Paineframe posted:

Typically it means a full-scale ground invasion goes in and occupies the areas near the border, sends some raids deeper into Gaza to capture or kill some militants, destroys a bunch of infrastructure they claim was being used by Hamas, maybe wipes out a neighborhood or two just for the hell of it, and then unilaterally declares victory and pulls out before they take too many casualties. The whole thing usually lasts about two weeks.

break-up breakdown posted:

In what way can this be interpreted other than “The Israelis want to do an ethnic cleansing"?

Paladinus posted:

Presumably, they are going to let them back in once they are done with HAMAS.

Paladinus posted:

Presumably, they are going to let them back in once they are done with HAMAS. But you would be right not to presume. Although Biden signals that complete annexation of Gaza by Israel is not what America would want to see, I don't think Israel has committed to anything beyond 'destroy HAMAS'.