Israel/Palestine

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(Thread IKs: Main Paineframe, Irony Be My Shield, punishedkissinger)

Jakabite: Jul 31, 2010

Main Paineframe posted:

That "likely" is missing something very important: literally any evidence at all! Your "the IDF doesn't care [about hostages]" is also missing something important: again, literally any evidence at all! You're just making wild, sweeping claims that go well beyond anything we have any actual backing for.

Yes, the IDF has launched very few hostage rescues. The reason for this is pretty well-known, as Israeli authorities have complained about it pretty much constantly since the start of the war: Israeli intelligence does not actually know where most of the hostages are! And that's certainly a credible claim. After all, in the first few weeks of the war, the hostages were often hidden so well and dispersed so widely that even Hamas claimed that they didn't know where all of the hostages were. Presumably, the IDF assumed that as they occupied more of Gaza City and explored Hamas' underground infrastructure, they would be able to discover some of the hostages' prisons - and, even more importantly, Hamas command centers that could contain key information such as tunnel system maps or lists of hostage locations.

As things have actively developed, it's starting to look like those assumptions were overly optimistic. It appears that Israeli intelligence knew even less about the Hamas tunnel systems than they thought they did, and Israeli hopes of capturing Hamas command infrastructure appear to have been mostly disappointed. Moreover, IDF doctrine and organization on the ground have proven to be not up to the standards necessary for such complex operations as ad-hoc discovery and rescue of hostages on the spot, and they certainly have not been capable of doing so with sufficient speed and surprise to catch Hamas jailers before they can react (an absolutely necessary factor in any hostage rescue). But it is one hell of a jump to go directly from that to "The IDF is likely directly responsible for the majority of hostage deaths in Gaza".

What we can say with any degree of certainty is that the Israeli government shares substantial responsibility for the hostage deaths in Gaza. After all, military rescue of hostages is known to be a risky course with a substantial probability of failure at the best of times, and the particular set of circumstances in Gaza are especially unfavorable toward hostage rescue operations. By being so reluctant to engage in negotiations and placing their hopes on a military solution instead, the Israeli government has bet the lives of many of the hostages on long-shots, and bears some responsibility not only for the hostages they accidentally kill but also for the hostages Hamas intentionally kills, since they knew full well that there was a substantial risk that Hamas would kill the hostages this way but pursued this course anyway.

Although Mandela was originally committed to nonviolence, he eventually grew to believe that it wasn't accomplishing anything, so he renounced non-violence and worked to found an armed branch of the ANC to engage in paramilitary activities. While the government had temporarily imprisoned him before solely for his non-violent activities, his eventual conviction and life sentence was on the basis of his links to the ANC's armed wing, something which he freely admitted at his own trial. As he himself said in a speech during trial, "we felt that without violence there would be no way open to the African people to succeed in their struggle against the principle of white supremacy" and that "it would be unrealistic and wrong for African leaders to continue preaching peace and non-violence at a time when the government met our peaceful demands with force".

His portrayal in Western media is heavily influenced by the priorities of Western media itself, which as a fundamentally non-revolutionary institution dependent on the system and with ties to the socially and economically powerful, tends to de-emphasize and discourage revolutionary violence in modern contexts. Though in this case, it's helped by the fact that Mandela was caught very early in the history of the ANC's armed wing, and therefore had relatively little direct involvement in its activities.

Whether you or IBMS personally think it's possible isn't really relevant to the question. What's important is whether the Israeli government thinks it's possible. And it's quite credible that it does. Even today, there's still plenty of people who honestly believe that it's possible to destroy an insurgency via military force if you just bomb them hard enough, or bomb them fast enough, or bomb the right places, or pair it with the right repressive measures. And plenty of those people are in Western politics and military, or at least vote for politicians in Western countries.

And honestly, it's not completely wrong. There have actually been historical cases of militaries crushing insurgencies with sufficient levels of military force and repressive policy. Of course, it requires considerable brutality and extremely harsh measures against civilians - concentration camps were first invented as anti-insurgency measures, after all - and it also depends on certain circumstances that aren't present anywhere.

Personally, I don't think that high-ranking IDF officers don't particularly believe it's possible to destroy Hamas with military force alone (at least not within the current political and physical constraints of the I/P conflict). However, they're stuck taking orders from a set of Israeli politicians who very much need it to be possible if they're to have any hope at all at saving their jobs and preserving their power. And Israeli governance, for all its many faults, still maintains effective civilian control of the military.

I suppose this is where we disagree. I don�t think anyone in Israel�s command structure thinks or, more importantly cares about whether pounding the poo poo out of Gaza is going to destroy Hamas. The destruction of Hamas isn�t their goal. Their goal is the wholesale destruction of the Palestinian people, or at least those in Gaza. �We�re fighting terrorists� is just how they�re selling it to the west and a lot of people ITT are buying it.

# ? Dec 27, 2023 16:27

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# ? May 11, 2024 12:22

Neurolimal: Nov 3, 2012

radmonger posted:

UMkhonto we Sizwe killed less than 40 white civilians over 30 years of armed struggle, mostly as collateral damage to attacks on military and economic targets. Had they killed many more, Mandela would hardly have come to power via the consent of an all-white electorate.

I'd argue that the polarization in Israel is such that there does not exist a palatable nonviolent solution. Palestinian Authority has basically given up on resisting Israel violently and they've not only achieved nothing & haven't had their agreements honored, they're actively being annexed.

If you bring this up in Israel-sympathetic circles, you get a variety of excuses on how PA doesn't count, they're just as bad as Hamas, they're not a real nonviolent example, etcetera, which gives away how impossibly high the standards tend to be for a nonviolent movement with no threat of force.

Hamas has honored just about every major ceasefire they've agreed to, barring red lines (such as "don't raid Al-Aqsa") and Israel still regularly instigates operations to murder Palestinians (see: Cast Lead, Protective Edge), to some degree the white settlers in South Africa saw Africans as human beings, even if they weren't seen as deserving of equal rights. They were propagandized to, the regime funded comics specifically targeted at them:

That's not existent here. There is no concentrated effort to subsume Palestinians. They explicitly want Palestinians to disappear. The last Israeli leader to agree to giving Palestinians bantustans was assassinated for being too soft on Palestinians. When propaganda is directed towards Palestinians, it amounts to either "we are bombing your house. Have a nice day." Or "We will destroy you. Abandon Hamas or we will crush your pissant shithole." This isn't a productive environment for Palestinians to win hearts and minds.

South African politicians have visted the West Bank a number of times, and typically their reaction is that it's worse than Apartheid.

No, Mandela's forces didn't kill as many Afrikaners. Afrikaners weren't shooting up a refugee camp and then running a literal bulldozer over the bedridden. There's a level of humanity absent here that is necessary for the oppressors to feel shame.

Neurolimal fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Dec 27, 2023

# ? Dec 27, 2023 16:30

Alchenar: Apr 9, 2008

Main Paineframe posted:

Whether you or IBMS personally think it's possible isn't really relevant to the question. What's important is whether the Israeli government thinks it's possible. And it's quite credible that it does. Even today, there's still plenty of people who honestly believe that it's possible to destroy an insurgency via military force if you just bomb them hard enough, or bomb them fast enough, or bomb the right places, or pair it with the right repressive measures. And plenty of those people are in Western politics and military, or at least vote for politicians in Western countries.

And honestly, it's not completely wrong. There have actually been historical cases of militaries crushing insurgencies with sufficient levels of military force and repressive policy. Of course, it requires considerable brutality and extremely harsh measures against civilians - concentration camps were first invented as anti-insurgency measures, after all - and it also depends on certain circumstances that aren't present anywhere.

Personally, I don't think that high-ranking IDF officers don't particularly believe it's possible to destroy Hamas with military force alone (at least not within the current political and physical constraints of the I/P conflict). However, they're stuck taking orders from a set of Israeli politicians who very much need it to be possible if they're to have any hope at all at saving their jobs and preserving their power. And Israeli governance, for all its many faults, still maintains effective civilian control of the military.

I think it's a continuous error both Palestinian organisations and others make in characterising the conflict as an insurgency or an anti-colonial struggle. That's fundamentally not the conflict Israel thinks it is fighting.

# ? Dec 27, 2023 16:31

kiminewt: Feb 1, 2022

Not a serious proposal or anything, but what happens if all the Palestinians in the West Bank / Gaza just start demanding Israeli citizenship? Israel obviously won't give it to them, but wouldn't that further reduce Israel's position because they'll be seen as just blatently denying rights to people who deserve it?

I guess it's the same now but maybe just simplifying the situation a bit.

# ? Dec 27, 2023 16:48

Civilized Fishbot: Apr 3, 2011

Alchenar posted:

I think it's a continuous error both Palestinian organisations and others make in characterising the conflict as an insurgency or an anti-colonial struggle. That's fundamentally not the conflict Israel thinks it is fighting.

It is an anti-colonial struggle in reality, whether Israel (who? The Israeli state? Broad Israeli culture?) understands this or not. Israel is a settler-colonial project. And Palestinian resistance has often taken the form of an insurgency - an irregular fighting force making unpredictable attacks, blending into the civilian population, and forcing the state into an asymmetric war where all its technological and numerical advantages are made much less effective.

I think a more specific and much more accurate version of your point is that Palestinians and their allies, including in this thread, often think of the decolonial struggle as one comparable to Algeria, where the colonists can be made to retreat to the m�tropole if they're made sufficiently unwelcome. There's a fantasy that one day all the Israeli Jews will give up and say "the indomitable will of the Palestinian people can't be conquered, it's time for us to go back to our REAL homes." But most Israeli Jews were born in Israel, identify with Israel as their only home, and have only refugee status as an alternative to life in the colony. A massive Israeli Jewish population in Palestine is a fixed reality for the indefinite future, unlike kicking the French/English/etc. out of a colony and sending them back to France/England/etc.

Edward Said posted:

We must give up, once and for all, the idea that we shall have a Middle East that is as if Zionism had never happened. The Israeli Jew is there in the Middle East, and we cannot, I might even say that we must not, pretend that he will not be there tomorrow, after the struggle is over.

Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Dec 27, 2023

# ? Dec 27, 2023 16:49

Neurolimal: Nov 3, 2012

Genuine question for those more learned WRT Apartheid South Africa; did any Afrikaner general devise a military doctrine around commiting so many atrocities against the undesirable population that you cause a buffer overflow that makes undesirables surrender to you instead of hate you? And was he decorated for this stunning innovation?

Civilized Fishbot posted:

It is an anti-colonial struggle in reality, whether Israel (who? The Israeli state? Broad Israeli culture?) understands this or not. Israel is a settler-colonial project. And Palestinian resistance has often taken the form of an insurgency - an irregular fighting force making unpredictable attacks, blending into the civilian population, and forcing the state into an asymmetric war where all its technological and numerical advantages are made much less effective.

To the point, here's a NYT article from 1976 describing Afrikaners:

quote:

The Afrikaners know, from their not so distant past, what it is to go down to superior force; total national tragedy is not beyond their imagination. They do not presume to be a nation of heroes, but they have in their makeup some of the stuff that heroes are made of. They have stood up stubbornly to what they regard as false ideals and systems of human unity with arrogant pretensions to uni‐versality. By way of reaction, they have tended to overstress diversity, ethnicity and differentiation by separation and exclusion.
Their greatest need now seems to be to define the common aims of all the peoples sharing their land with them. The most obvious of these aims must surely be the defense of a common civili‐zation that, with all its defects, has raised the average quality of life of the black peoples of South Africa far above that found in most parts of the less‐developed continents. Even now, prospects are opening up of enhanced human dignity and self‐realization undreamed of a decade or two ago. “There are no inferior people in South Africa,” Prime Minister John Vorster has said, voicing prospect rather than the reality — but a sincere one, w:th untold liberating potentialities.

...

The mainstream of Afrikan‐er tradition has thus never been colonialist in the sense in which the term is applied in our time. The Cape Dutch were anticolonialist in their behavior toward Dutch au dimity; and after that British imperi‐alism became the most feared and resented evil in their political demon‐ology, outranking by far their sporadic and sometimes extremely bloody troubles with southward‐moving Afri‐can tribes. An Israeli diplomat said recently to a leading Afrikaner, “Your people, very much like mine, seem to be fated to get in the way of move‐ments With link eii.;11 prilensi(ne.i.”[/

It's never really been a stipulation that the colonialists see themselves as colonialists to be considered colonialists.

Amusingly, in the second paragraph a very overt comparison is made:

quote:

Making allowances for quite important tlifferences, they see themselves as a sort of Israel in Africa, with a sense of God‐guided destiny that it would be as perilous to discount as in the case of the original model.

Neurolimal fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Dec 27, 2023

# ? Dec 27, 2023 16:50

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Jakabite posted:

The destruction of Hamas isn�t their goal. Their goal is the wholesale destruction of the Palestinian people, or at least those in Gaza. �We�re fighting terrorists� is just how they�re selling it to the west and a lot of people ITT are buying it.

Yeah, when looking at Israeli policy and actions this to me sees pretty clear. Like since from Camp David talks at latest, Israel has been undermining all possibility of two state solution. And their policy of blockading Gaza and making it inhabitable, and the continuing expansion of settlements in West Bank and neutering of Palestinian Authority means that finally two sate solution has become impossible. Israel's d�tente with Arab nations and shoring up the support with US guarantees their safety from outside threats. And now when two state solution is impossible and one state solution has no chance of happening thanks to Israeli fortress mentality, what is left? What has been Israel's goal through this process because their actions have shown that they weren't interested in either of those other options? Ethnic cleansing and continuing annexation of West Bank with the remnant Palestinian population there being neutered under total subjugation. Israeli establishment hasn't been winging this, I think all of their actions are consistent if that has been their long term goal. October 7th gave them a casus belli to destroy Gaza and they whole heartedly seized the opportunity because it was coming up either way.

# ? Dec 27, 2023 17:11

Alchenar: Apr 9, 2008

Civilized Fishbot posted:

It is an anti-colonial struggle in reality, whether Israel (who? The Israeli state? Broad Israeli culture?) understands this or not. Israel is a settler-colonial project. And Palestinian resistance has often taken the form of an insurgency - an irregular fighting force making unpredictable attacks, blending into the civilian population, and forcing the state into an asymmetric war where all its technological and numerical advantages are made much less effective.

I think a more specific and much more accurate version of your point is that Palestinians and their allies, including in this thread, often think of the decolonial struggle as one comparable to Algeria, where the colonists can be made to retreat to the m�tropole if they're made sufficiently unwelcome. There's a fantasy that one day all the Israeli Jews will give up and say "the indomitable will of the Palestinian people can't be conquered, it's time for us to go back to our REAL homes." But most Israeli Jews were born in Israel, identify with Israel as their only home, and have only refugee status as an alternative to life in the colony. A massive Israeli Jewish population in Palestine is a fixed reality for the indefinite future, unlike kicking the French/English/etc. out of a colony and sending them back to France/England/etc.

So you are right on the more specific version, but I think there's fundamental truth in the wider version. It's not an insurgency. Hamas blends into the Palestinian population, not the Israeli one, and Israel does not care whether the Palestinians like it nor does it accept any responsibility for building a better world for the Palestinians. From the Israeli perspective the conflict is perfectly conceptualizable as a defensive war against an external enemy and on that basis they can (pretty successfully given the last 75 years) keep hurting the Palestinians until they decide they don't want to be hurt anymore.

# ? Dec 27, 2023 17:17

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Civilized Fishbot posted:

I think a more specific and much more accurate version of your point is that Palestinians and their allies, including in this thread, often think of the decolonial struggle as one comparable to Algeria, where the colonists can be made to retreat to the m�tropole if they're made sufficiently unwelcome. There's a fantasy that one day all the Israeli Jews will give up and say "the indomitable will of the Palestinian people can't be conquered, it's time for us to go back to our REAL homes." But most Israeli Jews were born in Israel, identify with Israel as their only home, and have only refugee status as an alternative to life in the colony. A massive Israeli Jewish population in Palestine is a fixed reality for the indefinite future, unlike kicking the French/English/etc. out of a colony and sending them back to France/England/etc.

But isn't Israeli m�tropole in this context within the pre 1967 borders? It's what Palestinian Authority been aiming for, removal of Israeli settlements. All modern peace talks have taken for granted Israel's existence. They haven't been about destroying Israel. They have been about making two state solution possible. And that means the destruction of Israeli colonial project in West Bank. And that is something that Israel clearly doesn't want, they'd rather choose conflict and destruction of all hope of peaceful co-existence than stop their colonial project.

# ? Dec 27, 2023 17:22

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Alchenar posted:

From the Israeli perspective the conflict is perfectly conceptualizable as a defensive war against an external enemy and on that basis they can (pretty successfully given the last 75 years) keep hurting the Palestinians until they decide they don't want to be hurt anymore.

Is it really? Surely even the most jingoistic Israeli sees that building and expanding settlement on Palestinian lands can't be characterized as defensive in anyway? It would be one thing if they were just military bases meant to protect Israel proper. But the point of those settlements is to move civilians to West Bank, and only then to ensure their security in turn to expand the military presence and increase the oppression of Palestinians.

Israeli policy makes only sense as a expansionistic colonial project, because everyone has to realize that it isn't a sound policy to defend your civilians by making them live amongst their enemies.

# ? Dec 27, 2023 17:33

Tankbuster: Oct 1, 2021

PT6A posted:

I'd also add that there's an obvious vested interested on the part of the oppressors to claim that it was totally the non-violent parts of the resistance, exclusively, that accomplished the desired goal. Also, probably an interest on the parts of the non-violent elements of the resistance to claim that they alone were responsible and violence accomplished nothing.

At the same time, you see a figure like Mandela, who was imprisoned, and refused to denounce violence as a condition of a potential release -- and yet, is considered one of the great peacemakers of our time (correctly, in my opinion). He spoke about the need to find peaceful solutions, and certainly assumed a position where he was willing to forgive and facilitate forgiveness, and yet at the cost of his own freedom he did not categorically denounce violence. This makes him, in my mind, a far stronger figure, a superior moral philosopher, and a better person than Gandhi or MLK Jr.

I mean in the case of gandhi his negotiations with the raj was always undercut by "I won't do anything but more violent revolutionaries might."

# ? Dec 27, 2023 18:12

Civilized Fishbot: Apr 3, 2011

Glah posted:

But isn't Israeli m�tropole in this context within the pre 1967 borders? It's what Palestinian Authority been aiming for, removal of Israeli settlements. All modern peace talks have taken for granted Israel's existence. They haven't been about destroying Israel. They have been about making two state solution possible. And that means the destruction of Israeli colonial project in West Bank. And that is something that Israel clearly doesn't want, they'd rather choose conflict and destruction of all hope of peaceful co-existence than stop their colonial project.

Sure, "within the green line is the m�tropole and beyond that are the colonies" seems like a decent framework for understanding Israel. It doesn't capture the history very well - Israel within the green line was established as a colony less than a lifetime ago. But it sounds basically true for the present-day situation.

It's not the framework I was trying to criticize, the one Said is correcting. That framework is "all of Israel is a settler colony, we can and will make the vast majority of the settler-colonists leave just like in Algeria. Then we will reverse the Nakba, establish Palestinian sovereignty from the river to the sea, and the Palestinian people can return to our stolen land and homes." The one issue here is the idea that the vast majority of Israeli Jews can be made to "return" elsewhere - they mostly have nowhere to leave to, and they virtually all identify with Israel as their only home, in a way that's totally different from the situation of French colonists in Algeria.

It's more comparable to White South Africans - a significant fraction emigrated out, but the vast majority didn't, they had to be included in a post-apartheid state and society as legally equal citizens. And even White South Africans were not as religiously and ideologically committed to the idea that they can only live safe and meaningful lives on that land. The vast majority of Israeli Jews will have to be integrated into at least one state in the region after the demise of Israeli apartheid, a process that will cause strife for generations because Palestinians will not forget that the vast majority of Israeli Jews were supporters of the ongoing genocide and Israeli Jews will resent Palestinians for both actually terrorizing violence like 10/7 and more generally ruining the Zionist project by stubbornly surviving.

Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Dec 27, 2023

# ? Dec 27, 2023 18:35

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

Jakabite posted:

I suppose this is where we disagree. I don�t think anyone in Israel�s command structure thinks or, more importantly cares about whether pounding the poo poo out of Gaza is going to destroy Hamas. The destruction of Hamas isn�t their goal. Their goal is the wholesale destruction of the Palestinian people, or at least those in Gaza. �We�re fighting terrorists� is just how they�re selling it to the west and a lot of people ITT are buying it.

Israel has been fighting Hamas for several decades, using a number of different strategies, so I'm sure that career IDF leadership has thought quite a bit about what will and will not work to destroy Hamas. That's especially the case since 2006, as the IDF has tried a number of different military strategies against Hamas (with varying degrees of input from political leaders) and failed to make meaningful progress within the political constraints placed upon them.

Glah posted:

Yeah, when looking at Israeli policy and actions this to me sees pretty clear. Like since from Camp David talks at latest, Israel has been undermining all possibility of two state solution. And their policy of blockading Gaza and making it inhabitable, and the continuing expansion of settlements in West Bank and neutering of Palestinian Authority means that finally two sate solution has become impossible. Israel's d�tente with Arab nations and shoring up the support with US guarantees their safety from outside threats. And now when two state solution is impossible and one state solution has no chance of happening thanks to Israeli fortress mentality, what is left? What has been Israel's goal through this process because their actions have shown that they weren't interested in either of those other options? Ethnic cleansing and continuing annexation of West Bank with the remnant Palestinian population there being neutered under total subjugation. Israeli establishment hasn't been winging this, I think all of their actions are consistent if that has been their long term goal. October 7th gave them a casus belli to destroy Gaza and they whole heartedly seized the opportunity because it was coming up either way.

What's left is what I call the 1.5 state solution: Israel gets all the territory they want, and the Palestinians are all pushed into a bunch of small enclaves that will be officially treated as a nominally independent Palestinian state (with heavy restrictions on its sovereignty), and then most of the world loudly pretends it's a two-state solution regardless of the actual status of the Palestinian territories.

Something that could be called a two-state solution isn't impossible, even now. An actual viable independent Palestinian state isn't really possible anymore under current conditions, but I suspect that many pro-Israel backers of the two-state solution don't really care whether the two-state solution leads to a viable, independent Palestinian state.

Ultimately, neither America nor Europe is really willing to seriously go to bat for Palestinian interests, and Israel is well aware of that. Even if the Israeli "two-state" solution is so unfair as to practically be a joke, American negotiators will insist that the Palestinians should take the deal, and pretty much everyone (except Palestinians and the most extreme fringe Israelis) would be happy with the Palestinians accepting such a deal.

As for the destruction of Gaza, that's been part of a fairly traditional carrot/stick deal in Western great-power diplomacy: promising relative economic prosperity in return for peace and obedience, while inflicting economic devastation as punishment for resistance. It's something that's more typically associated with neo-colonialism and general economic imperialism than it is with traditional colonialism, so you don't usually see it in circumstances like these, but there's been general indications that this was the course Israel was honestly trying to follow in Gaza in the past few years. Although of course, it's not been particularly successful, as Israel has leaned far too heavily on the stick and seems to be rather deluded about how much carrot they can get away with offering: one of the reasons Israel was caught so off-guard by Oct 7th was that Israel honestly thought that this was working and that slight improvement in Gaza's economic situation had been enough to render Hamas unwilling to engage in violence.

Here's an example of where Israeli thinking stood last year:
https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/israels-work-permits-for-gazans-help-deter-war-with-hamas-for-now-11653649530

quote:

Israel�s Work Permits for Gazans Help Deter War With Hamas for Now
Israeli nationalist march through Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem on Sunday could put Israel�s strategy of work permits for peace to the test

GAZA CITY�For months, Ahmed Hussein has left his house before dawn in this impoverished and crowded Palestinian enclave to work in Israel making around $90 a day. His biggest fear is a new outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Hamas that would close the border and cost him his job.

�We don�t need or want any more escalations because that means no more work,� said the janitor, whose earnings have been the main source of income for his family of 11 sons and two daughters.

Israel has steadily increased the number of work permits it grants to Palestinians in Gaza since its 11-day war with Hamas last May, hoping to preserve the fragile truce by easing the economic blockade it has maintained around the strip of land since 2007, when the militant group seized power.

A year after Gaza endured Israeli airstrikes that toppled buildings and targeted Hamas�s leadership, the strategy assumes that Hamas will be less likely to engage in large-scale violence, with many Gazans now depending on income from jobs in Israel and the West Bank and pressing their political leaders to keep the peace.

�Israel has seen some of the quietest months with Gaza and this has allowed us to focus on prosperity and improving the quality of life for the people of Gaza,� Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in a statement Thursday.

The permits are contingent on the quiet remaining. �In Gaza, there are over 12,000 Palestinian workers. If quiet is kept there, we�ll be able to expand this�but there is also the possibility that we�ll go backward,� said Israel�s Defense Minister Benny Gantz at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in mid-April.

That calculation will be tested on Sunday, when hundreds of Israelis are planning to mark Jerusalem Day�which commemorates Israel�s capture of East Jerusalem in 1967�with a flag-waving march through the Old City that supporters see as a show of sovereignty but many Palestinians view as a provocation.

There are signs that Hamas is divided over how to respond this year, with the group�s leaders outside Gaza pushing for attacks against Israel if the march goes ahead as originally planned, and some inside its borders favoring a more cautious response, at least for now.

�There is no hesitation,� said Ismail Haniyeh, the chief of Hamas�s political wing, in a speech last Sunday outside Gaza. �We will fight back with everything possible� against �thuggery in the streets of Jerusalem,� he said. Hamas later posted a clip of Mr. Haniyeh�s remarks on its website that included pictures of militants handling rockets and mortars.

Gaza has remained calm in recent months amid a series of terrorist attacks inside Israel that have left 19 Israelis dead, a string of violent eruptions between Israeli police and Muslim worshipers at the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and regular Israeli raids into the West Bank�one of which left a Palestinian-American journalist dead. Some 43 Palestinians have been killed in violence since March, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Aside from the economic gains, Hamas has other reasons to be cautious about a direct confrontation with Israel. The militant group�s arsenal is depleted after it fired thousands of rockets at Israel in last year�s standoff. Authorities in Gaza are still rebuilding after Israeli counterstrikes devastated vital infrastructure in the Palestinian enclave. It also needs foreign aid for the reconstruction, and governments with which the group holds close contacts, including Egypt and Qatar, are pressuring Hamas to dial down the tension.

�We are not interested every year in confrontation because people are tired,� said Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas�s political committee in Gaza. �Maybe some people think that the only way is to fire missiles and rockets at Israel. That is not the only way.�

Mr. Hussein, the janitor, and his younger brother, Ashraf Hussein, a father of seven who also received an Israeli work permit last year, took a taxi every Sunday from their homes in Rafah, near the Gaza border with Egypt, to the Erez Crossing into Israel, where they worked for 10 days or more before returning to Gaza to see their families.

The elder Hussein�s cleaning and maintenance job was with the municipal government in the Israeli town of Beit Dagan, while his brother went to the city of Lod, doing construction, cleaning and farm work. They earned between $75 and $90 a day, they said, slightly more than Israel�s minimum wage.

Their permits expired last month, leaving the brothers once again unemployed while they await action on their applications for renewal.

Around two million people live in Gaza, where unemployment is estimated at nearly half the population and at 75% for college graduates under 30, according to a survey released this month by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. Employment improved by 1 percentage point in the first three months of this year, largely because of an increase in Palestinians employed in Israel, the bureau said.

Around 80% of Gazans rely on international aid and nearly half live off food assistance from the United Nations, according to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency. Many of Gaza�s residents live in eight refugee camps with among the highest population densities in the world, according to the agency.

Israel has increased the number of work permits to Gaza residents to 12,000 from 5,000 since last May, according to Israel. The permits are issued on a rolling basis and expire after six months. Because of that system, more than 12,000 individuals have received permits in the past year, said Shani Sasson, a spokeswoman for the Israeli office that oversees the permits. The number may increase to 20,000, Israeli officials have said.

The majority of the new permits have gone to Palestinians who find construction jobs or other temporary work in Israel, though some go to �traders,� who leave Gaza to buy and sell goods in Israel and the West Bank, Ms. Sasson said.

Even with the increase in permits, the number of Gazans authorized to work in Israel is still far below where it was before Hamas�s takeover, when more than 100,000 residents held permits, said Omar Shaaban, an economic analyst and director of PalThink for Strategic Studies, an independent think tank in Gaza. Mr. Shaaban has advocated for a nonpolitical approach to helping improve economic conditions for Palestinians.

�It�s still very little,� Mr. Shaaban said of the economic impact of the additional permits. �It�s an incentive to maintain stability but if you want to achieve real stability, it has to be much larger.�

To qualify for a permit, Palestinian officials require applicants to be at least 26 and married, have had a Covid-19 vaccine and clean criminal record from Palestinian authorities. Palestinian Authority officials handle the permit application process. Israel doesn�t disclose many details about how it approves or denies applications.

In the crowded Al Bureij refugee camp, 30-year-old Moaz Salhai has been seeking an Israeli permit since 2020, without success. An unemployed high-school graduate, he lives with his wife and two young sons down a narrow alley in a two-room apartment whose front door latch he wiggles open with a knife.

They get by, he says, with U.N. food donations and $100 a month that the government of Qatar provides to the needy in Gaza. His refrigerator on a recent day was empty except for a single egg.

After Israel announced additional permits for Gaza last year, Mr. Salhai said he began fantasizing about a new life. He filed an application after scraping together $180 from relatives and friends to pay the Ministry of Justice fee for a letter attesting he had no criminal record. He checks daily on the Hamas-run Ministry of Labor website but has heard nothing on his permit.

�I have these thoughts that I want to end my life, to end the misery,� he says. �But every time I see my children in front of me, I know they need me for the future.�

On Al-Wahda Street in Gaza City, a neighborhood of apartment buildings and shops that was heavily bombed by Israeli warplanes last May, the rubble has been hauled away. Israel said the strikes were aimed at underground tunnels used by Hamas. Bomb craters have been filled. A year after the 11-day war ended, laborers are still at work repaving the street and installing sidewalk curbs.

Residents who lived through the bombing say they have still not recovered. �I still feel that I have lost parts of my soul forever,� said Zainab Al-Kolak, a 22-year-old student, who said she was buried for more than 14 hours after the building where she lived with her family collapsed. Her mother, sister and two brothers were killed, along with 18 other relatives, she said.

Analysts said the toll of the conflict on Palestinian civilians might not deter Hamas from another battle with Israel, even if it means Israel closes the border once again to workers from Gaza.

Abdel Latif al-Qanou, a Hamas spokesman, said the group had informed international mediators that if Israel permits the flags march to continue into Arab neighborhoods and allows visits by Jewish worshipers to the Al Aqsa Mosque�known to Jews as the Temple Mount�in Jerusalem to proceed, it could lead to �an explosion.� Hamas is prepared to make economic sacrifices, he said.

�When the matter is related Palestinian national principles, the protection of Jerusalem and legitimate rights, all economic considerations fall,� Mr. al-Qanou said.

To some extent, it was on the right track - reducing the hardships intentionally inflicted on the Gazan civilian population in hopes that it would reduce support for violent action - but the actual measures taken were far too small to cause any notable change. Israeli leadership deluded themselves into thinking that cutting a couple of percent off a ~50% unemployment rate would be enough to pacify Hamas into peaceful collaborators.

# ? Dec 27, 2023 18:36

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Main Paineframe posted:

What's left is what I call the 1.5 state solution: Israel gets all the territory they want, and the Palestinians are all pushed into a bunch of small enclaves that will be officially treated as a nominally independent Palestinian state (with heavy restrictions on its sovereignty), and then most of the world loudly pretends it's a two-state solution regardless of the actual status of the Palestinian territories.

That kind of situation is actually what I meant with "continuing annexation of West Bank with the remnant Palestinian population there being neutered under total subjugation." Israeli establishment doesn't want a viable Palestinian state, because it conflicts with their colonial ambitions. And that explains much of Israel's actions in last couple of decades.

And while situation in West Bank is going well for Israeli strategy, that really leaves Gaza as a thing to be dealt with for Israeli long term goals to succeed.

quote:

To some extent, it was on the right track - reducing the hardships intentionally inflicted on the Gazan civilian population in hopes that it would reduce support for violent action - but the actual measures taken were far too small to cause any notable change. Israeli leadership deluded themselves into thinking that cutting a couple of percent off a ~50% unemployment rate would be enough to pacify Hamas into peaceful collaborators.

I think you have a too low opinion about the intelligence of Israeli strategy makers. I think that they knew perfectly well that there can't be a peace in Gaza while they kept them under blockade. That fine tuning the narrow life line between total destitution and barely survivable is basically just for the benefit of international community. Those leaked strategy papers for example clearly stated that the only long term solution (from the point of view IDF) is the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. And their current actions show that they very much intend to make Gaza unlivable accordingly.

Or it could be that I have too high of an opinion about Israeli establishment's ability to accurately asses the situation and they really thought that Gaza could be pacified using those methods.

Glah fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Dec 27, 2023

# ? Dec 27, 2023 19:17

Ms Adequate: Oct 30, 2011; Baby even when I'm dead and gone
You will always be my only one, my only one
When the night is calling
No matter who I become
You will always be my only one, my only one, my only one
When the night is calling

Main Paineframe posted:

Whether you or IBMS personally think it's possible isn't really relevant to the question. What's important is whether the Israeli government thinks it's possible. And it's quite credible that it does. Even today, there's still plenty of people who honestly believe that it's possible to destroy an insurgency via military force if you just bomb them hard enough, or bomb them fast enough, or bomb the right places, or pair it with the right repressive measures. And plenty of those people are in Western politics and military, or at least vote for politicians in Western countries.

And honestly, it's not completely wrong. There have actually been historical cases of militaries crushing insurgencies with sufficient levels of military force and repressive policy. Of course, it requires considerable brutality and extremely harsh measures against civilians - concentration camps were first invented as anti-insurgency measures, after all - and it also depends on certain circumstances that aren't present anywhere.

I just want to touch on this: One of my professors on my Strategic Studies Master's course was of the rock-solid belief that the way to stop terrorism or insurgency was very simply to kill all those engaged in it. If it sparked further resistance, you kill all those people as well. So there are definitely people directly involved with suggesting strategies, and even planning them, who are exactly as you say.

I'm not sure he's ultimately wrong in the absolute sense but you have to be willing to inflict a Roman peace, and that means you have to be willing and able to absorb all of the negative consequences of it, both from the desperate people you're killing in great numbers, domestic opposition, international sanctions etc, and anything else that comes your way as a result.

To say nothing of the cost to your soul.

# ? Dec 27, 2023 19:22

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

They believed that they had the Gaza situation under control prior to 10/7 and that they could have an easily managed occupation. Look at how Hamas was able to disable a lot of the automated defenses on the border between Gaza and Israel proper.

Hamas proved that was no longer a possibility and now we are 3 months into the �just murder the prisoners� phase of occupations.

# ? Dec 27, 2023 19:23

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

Glah posted:

That kind of situation is actually what I meant with "continuing annexation of West Bank with the remnant Palestinian population there being neutered under total subjugation." Israeli establishment doesn't want a viable Palestinian state, because it conflicts with their colonial ambitions. And that explains much of Israel's actions in last couple of decades.

And while situation in West Bank is going well for Israeli strategy, that really leaves Gaza as a thing to be dealt with for Israeli long term goals to succeed.

I think you have a too low opinion about the intelligence of Israeli strategy makers. I think that they knew perfectly well that there can't be a peace in Gaza while they kept them under blockade. That fine tuning the narrow life line between total destitution and barely survivable is basically just for the benefit of international community. Those leaked strategy papers for example clearly stated that the only long term solution (from the point of view IDF) is the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. And their current actions show that they very much intend to make Gaza unlivable accordingly.

Or it could be that I have too high of an opinion about Israeli establishment's ability to accurately asses the situation and they really thought that Gaza could be pacified using those methods.

For Israeli strategy-makers, the idea was that the blockade would bring peace, in that Israel was promising "if you oust your anti-Israel rulers and bring in a peaceful government friendly toward Israel, we'll lift the blockade".

It's a pretty standard strategy from the Western neo-colonialist playbook. Fundamentally, it's not too much different from America's "Iranians, if you oust your anti-Israel leaders and bring in a government willing to be friendly with the US, we'll lift all these extensive sanctions and embargoes".

Of course, it's a strategy that hasn't had an especially impressive success rate in the post-WWII world, and can go a very long time without any apparent progress. But it's a cheap and easy way to look tough and exert pressure without taking on the domestic political costs and risks of actual military action. As long as the target can be contained militarily, it's a strategy that can be left in place for decades without significant political cost. In the political incentive structures involved in modern neo-colonialism, where the empire's weak point is often its own lack of political will to pour significant resources or effort into pacifying the subject, the political cost of the strategy can often matter more than whether it's actually effective.

# ? Dec 27, 2023 20:48

Civilized Fishbot: Apr 3, 2011

An article on the website of Chabad.org, the website for the world's by-far largest and most secular-friendly Hasidic movement, points to a training issue faced by only one side in the conflict: the IDF is recruiting diaspora Jews who lack fluency in modern Hebrew but sign up anyway because they're so hooked on Religious-Zionist dogma.

The author was practicing with an M-16 at a shooting range and couldn't understand a safety instruction, so his commander chewed him out. The author admits that in any other military he'd be a horrible liability, but insists it'll work for the IDF because Jews are special.

If I Don�t Know Hebrew, Why Am I in the IDF? posted:

Visibly frustrated, the commander replied in Hebrew: �אם אתה לא מדבר עברית, למה אתה פה?� which translates to: �If you don�t speak Hebrew, why are you here?�

I have been thinking about this question a lot, as his premise is correct. If I don�t fluently speak the language of my commanders, especially when it comes to safety, what good am I for the army?

Imagine someone being part of a crucial platoon in the Korean, Brazilian, or Indian army without properly speaking their language. It just wouldn�t work.

If I were in Gaza right now and misunderstood vital instructions from my commander, people could die. So, he is right, I don�t belong in the Israeli army.

But what he failed to understand is that he was asking the question on a very individual level. And while yes, on that individual level I don�t belong, I am not an individual; I am a member of a platoon.

...

Our platoon is a reflection of the Jewish people. Every Jew has his or her strengths or weaknesses, but together we create something greater than ourselves: We are Am Yisrael, the �Nation of Israel,� chosen by G‑d to bring Him and His message to the world.

I'm sure Hamas also has to deal with plenty of nutjobs who are religious to the point of delusion, but I'm also sure those guys at least speak Palestinian Arabic as a first language.

Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Dec 27, 2023

# ? Dec 27, 2023 21:07

Miftan: Mar 31, 2012; Terry knows what he can do with his bloody chocolate orange...

Civilized Fishbot posted:

An article on the website of Chabad.org, the website for the world's by-far largest and most secular-friendly Hasidic movement, points to a training issue faced by only one side in the conflict: the IDF is recruiting diaspora Jews who lack fluency in modern Hebrew but sign up anyway because they're so hooked on Religious-Zionist dogma.

The author was practicing with an M-16 at a shooting range and couldn't understand a safety instruction, so his commander chewed him out. The author admits that in any other military he'd be a horrible liability, but insists it'll work for the IDF because Jews are special.

I'm sure Hamas also has to deal with plenty of nutjobs who are religious to the point of delusion, but I'm also sure those guys at least speak Palestinian Arabic as a first language.

Nobody speaking the same language and having a hodge podge of equipment and people but still beating Every Other Arab Army is a large part of the Israeli national mythos regarding the Israeli war of independence, so this line of thinking is really not that surprising from someone who drank enough kool-aid to go participate in an ethnic cleansing halfway across the world.

# ? Dec 27, 2023 21:31

Staluigi: Jun 22, 2021

quote:

Visibly frustrated, the commander replied in Hebrew: �אם אתה לא מדבר עברית, למה אתה פה?� which translates to: �If you don�t speak Hebrew, why are you here?�

people pouring in because they're desperate to anchor their identity in violent ethnonationalism. what a lot to think about there

# ? Dec 28, 2023 07:59

Glah: Jun 21, 2005

Main Paineframe posted:

For Israeli strategy-makers, the idea was that the blockade would bring peace, in that Israel was promising "if you oust your anti-Israel rulers and bring in a peaceful government friendly toward Israel, we'll lift the blockade".

It's a pretty standard strategy from the Western neo-colonialist playbook. Fundamentally, it's not too much different from America's "Iranians, if you oust your anti-Israel leaders and bring in a government willing to be friendly with the US, we'll lift all these extensive sanctions and embargoes".

Of course, it's a strategy that hasn't had an especially impressive success rate in the post-WWII world, and can go a very long time without any apparent progress. But it's a cheap and easy way to look tough and exert pressure without taking on the domestic political costs and risks of actual military action. As long as the target can be contained militarily, it's a strategy that can be left in place for decades without significant political cost. In the political incentive structures involved in modern neo-colonialism, where the empire's weak point is often its own lack of political will to pour significant resources or effort into pacifying the subject, the political cost of the strategy can often matter more than whether it's actually effective.

I don't believe that Israeli strategy makers thought that blockading Gaza would bring peace, instead of containing the threat. They know the same history books about the success rates of post WW2 embargoes and I doubt they thought it would work now if they just added more cruelty into the mix. You are absolutely right that it is an easy and cheap thing to keep up. But I believe Israeli establishment absolutely knew from the beginning that the blockade will not bring peace and will not be a long term solution.

When Sharon withdrew the settlements from Gaza and declared it a gratuitous gesture of peace, the withdrawal coincided with even greater expansion of settlements in West Bank. I think that shows clearly that Israeli strategy hasn't been about peace in past decades, it has been about furthering their strategy of annexing West Bank and containing Gaza to be dealt with later. October 7th gave Israel justification to tackle the Gaza question head on, and they didn't hesitate. Now Israeli policy makers are gambling that the outpouring of sympathy and support from October 7th will be enough that the world will just look away when they enact destruction of Gaza.

Glah fucked around with this message at 08:05 on Dec 28, 2023

# ? Dec 28, 2023 08:03

Hong XiuQuan: Feb 19, 2008; "Without justice for the Palestinians there will be no peace in the Middle East."

Civilized Fishbot posted:

An article on the website of Chabad.org, the website for the world's by-far largest and most secular-friendly Hasidic movement, points to a training issue faced by only one side in the conflict: the IDF is recruiting diaspora Jews who lack fluency in modern Hebrew but sign up anyway because they're so hooked on Religious-Zionist dogma.

The author was practicing with an M-16 at a shooting range and couldn't understand a safety instruction, so his commander chewed him out. The author admits that in any other military he'd be a horrible liability, but insists it'll work for the IDF because Jews are special.

I'm sure Hamas also has to deal with plenty of nutjobs who are religious to the point of delusion, but I'm also sure those guys at least speak Palestinian Arabic as a first language.

Armies throughout history have dealt with this primarily by grouping people who speak the same/similar languages and ensuring one or more leaders in the groups can also speak the lingua franca. You can see this in pretty much every imperial army organisation (from the Romans to the Mongols to the Qing to the Nazis) as well as various guerrilla groups (see various Communist collabs and ISIS).

Think this is also how 48er Israel worked so think either the Army simply doesn't get that it needs to do this (in which case, lol) or the recruits are so few that it doesn't make sense to have distinct units or that they speak enough Hebrew to pass some basic tests but don't know technical terms, you see this a lot in eg Palestinian diaspora where someone can fluently hold conversations about music, movies and holidays in a social context but if if they were being shouted various technical terms in eg a medical emergency their entire language faculty breaks down. There's also fluency in a home and hearth or formal contexts and then suddenly being dropped into a melange of people from various parts of a country without having the same media and cultural exposure. Eg a Palestinian from a village near Hebron will speak differently to someone from Gaza city but understand each other perfectly well but if you drop a Khalili diaspora person into Gaza city there are going to be a hundred discombobulating differences.

# ? Dec 28, 2023 09:17

gurragadon: Jul 28, 2006

I was curious after reading that story because you would think that Israel would be pretty good at teaching foreign recruits Hebrew, considering that recruits come from many places and Hebrew isn't widely spoken. It seems like they have several programs people can go through to join the IDF and most of them teach Hebrew. The ones that don't are short-term and are in logistical roles. The IDF gives a Hebrew test before a person enlists as well.

Mahal and Garin Tzabar both teach Hebrew before they send the recruit to the IDF. Sar-El is a program volunteering for the IDF to do logistical things.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahal_(Israel)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garin_Tzabar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sar-El

I'm pretty sure that commander was just asking why that guy was in a combat unit without knowing enough Hebrew, not what he was doing volunteering in Israel. Reading the story the guy seems like a weak link in the group and the commander is trying to motivate him to improve his skills, but he is misunderstanding it.

quote:

As one of the commanders said during my training, we are similar to a human body. Every organ is vital, and when one part doesn�t work effectively, the other senses have to up their game. But if too many organs fail, the body dies.

This line stuck out to me because he dosen't realize that him not learning Hebrew makes him an ineffective part of the group, but instead of improving he says that he can "contribute his weakness." Whatever that means.

Does anyone have any current information on IDF volunteer programs. Are they pushing people through or skipping language training now because of October 7th? They called up something like 300,000 of there reservists.

# ? Dec 28, 2023 16:09

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

Glah posted:

I don't believe that Israeli strategy makers thought that blockading Gaza would bring peace, instead of containing the threat. They know the same history books about the success rates of post WW2 embargoes and I doubt they thought it would work now if they just added more cruelty into the mix. You are absolutely right that it is an easy and cheap thing to keep up. But I believe Israeli establishment absolutely knew from the beginning that the blockade will not bring peace and will not be a long term solution.

When Sharon withdrew the settlements from Gaza and declared it a gratuitous gesture of peace, the withdrawal coincided with even greater expansion of settlements in West Bank. I think that shows clearly that Israeli strategy hasn't been about peace in past decades, it has been about furthering their strategy of annexing West Bank and containing Gaza to be dealt with later. October 7th gave Israel justification to tackle the Gaza question head on, and they didn't hesitate. Now Israeli policy makers are gambling that the outpouring of sympathy and support from October 7th will be enough that the world will just look away when they enact destruction of Gaza.

Israeli decision-makers aren't really expecting the Gaza blockade to bring peace in the sense of "no Palestinians are engaging in any sort of violent resistance and the I/P conflict is solved forever". They're hoping it'll bring peace in the sense of "Gaza falls back under the control of a friendly collaborationist government that actively assists Israel in policing and controlling Palestinian violence", similar to the West Bank. That means that Israel doesn't necessarily need to win over the Gazan population - they just have to erode support for Hamas. As long as effective Hamas governance over Gaza breaks down, Israel would be able to sponsor its favored factions to win control of the resulting power vacuum. That's why, for example, Israel hasn't made allowances for Hamas' need to suppress Islamic Jihad. If Islamic Jihad kicks off a full-on rebellion against Hamas, that presents an opportunity for Israel to help Fatah butt into Gaza and seize control for themselves.

While other post-WWII embargoes and blockades have generally had a poor success rate, Israel's close physical proximity to Gaza has allowed a much more thorough blockade than the US has ever been able to implement, as well as allowing for substantially greater economic incentives in the case of cooperation (for example, work permits). Though it's clearly failed now, it absolutely wasn't obvious from the beginning that it would fail.

The Gaza withdrawal coincided with further expansion of West Bank settlements because Israel wanted the West Bank far more than it wanted Gaza, to the point where even Ariel Sharon was willing to loosen Israel's hold on Gaza in exchange for further establishing itself in the West Bank. The West Bank (or Judea and Samaria, as Israeli right-wingers prefer to call it) is the area that religious settlers believe was bequeathed to them by God as an inalienable and essential part of Greater Israel, and contains numerous religious sites of significant importance. While there's plenty of Israeli ethnonationalists who're happy to take any opportunity to expand Israeli settlement southwards as well, the West Bank is of special importance to a significantly wider portion of Israel's political arena. Aside from the West Bank, the other conquests and occupations from 1967 and later were originally mostly for military strategic reasons, securing tactically-useful territory and creating buffer zones to push hostile borders further away from the Israeli urban core.

Sharon and his government were pretty clear about that even at the time. The disengagement was not a gift to the Palestinians, but rather a measure to reduce Israel's own difficulties. By cutting loose areas that Israeli authorities had less interest in and focusing military and diplomatic resources on territory they were absolutely intent on keeping permanently, Sharon hoped to solidify the Israeli presence in the major West Bank settlements while substantially reducing Israel's exposure to Gazan militant violence. For Israeli right-wingers, that's what peace is: annexing the West Bank, and containing the remaining Palestinian territories to the point where they no longer pose a meaningful threat.

# ? Dec 28, 2023 20:37

Nebalebadingdong: Jun 30, 2005; i made a video game.
why not give it a try!?

I didn't think Israel wants Fatah to control the West Bank AND Gaza? They boosted Hamas initially to create division right? Or am I misremembering?

(they already said they will not allow Fatah to run Gaza after military operations, if that ever even happens)

# ? Dec 28, 2023 22:29

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

Nebalebadingdong posted:

I didn't think Israel wants Fatah to control the West Bank AND Gaza? They boosted Hamas initially to create division right? Or am I misremembering?

(they already said they will not allow Fatah to run Gaza after military operations, if that ever even happens)

The history of the Israeli relationship with Fatah and Hamas is complicated and has shifted a number of times since Fatah was first founded in 1959. The short-and-simple version is that Israel has always sought to undermine whichever faction was engaging in the most militancy at the time, boosting that faction's rivals even if those rivals were more ideologically extreme.

In the 70s and 80s, the Fatah-dominated PLO with its ideology of secular nationalism was at the forefront of armed struggle against Israel, and Israel backed Islamist factions that opposed Fatah, regardless of how those factions felt about Israel.

In the 90s, the PLO shifted toward peaceful negotiation with the Oslo Accords, while Hamas was rising as a powerful new force in anti-Israel militancy, so Israel shifted its policy toward opposing Hamas while attempting to protect and prop up the collaborationist Fatah-dominated government created by the Oslo Accords. The Second Intifada shook this up a fair bit, but once Arafat died, Abbas badly needed on Israeli support to retain power and

The Israeli government definitely did not have any intention of allowing Hamas to take control of the Gaza Strip in 2006. Neither Fatah nor Israel was enthusiastic about even holding those elections or letting Hamas run, but the Bush administration pressured them to go forward with relatively free and fair elections, as Bush was apparently convinced that militancy and terrorism would surely evaporate when exposed to the light of freedom and democracy. Well, we all know how that went. The US and Israel sponsoring a Fatah coup attempt only made things worse by pushing Hamas into seizing full control of Gaza, and a number of increasingly intense Israeli military assaults against Gaza failed to unseat Hamas.

Only after that did Netanyahu return to being Prime Minister, and many of the accusations of him supporting Hamas post-2009 are rather shaky. There's lots of stuff like "Netanyahu purposely kneecapped the military to prevent them from destroying Hamas" and "Netanyahu preventing Hamas from allying with the PA was a big favor to Hamas", which don't really make all that much sense.

As for the current situation, where Israeli politicians are declaring that they won't hand Gaza over to Fatah after the war, it's not quite as simple as it seems. Generally, what a lot of them are saying is that they won't hand Gaza over to the PA immediately after the war, while largely avoiding to commit to any specific long-term plan for Gaza. There's some sense to it: the PA has previously been unable to reestablish any meaningful foothold in Gaza even with considerable Israeli and international support, and might not be able to effectively govern it right now even if it was handed to them on a silver platter. Even American officials, who are openly insisting that Gaza be placed under PA control after the war, usually admit in the fine print that the PA would not be able to take control immediately after the conflict and that some sort of "transition period" would be needed, along with a lot of preparation both for Gaza and for the PA. I think Israeli politicians and American officials might very well be pretty much on the same page about post-Gaza governance, it's just that they're emphasizing different parts of the page for various political purposes. American officials, who want a return to a normal, stable status quo, are downplaying the period of Israeli control and placing a strong focus on an eventual return to Palestinian control. Israeli politicians, who want to mark this as a time of great change, emphasize the period of Israeli control and talk about all the things they might do to establish real change, while minimizing the amount they say about a return to Palestinian control.

# ? Dec 28, 2023 23:40

Stringent: Dec 22, 2004; image text goes here

Main Paineframe posted:

Israeli decision-makers aren't really expecting the Gaza blockade to bring peace in the sense of "no Palestinians are engaging in any sort of violent resistance and the I/P conflict is solved forever". They're hoping it'll bring peace in the sense of "Gaza falls back under the control of a friendly collaborationist government that actively assists Israel in policing and controlling Palestinian violence", similar to the West Bank. That means that Israel doesn't necessarily need to win over the Gazan population - they just have to erode support for Hamas. As long as effective Hamas governance over Gaza breaks down, Israel would be able to sponsor its favored factions to win control of the resulting power vacuum. That's why, for example, Israel hasn't made allowances for Hamas' need to suppress Islamic Jihad. If Islamic Jihad kicks off a full-on rebellion against Hamas, that presents an opportunity for Israel to help Fatah butt into Gaza and seize control for themselves.

While other post-WWII embargoes and blockades have generally had a poor success rate, Israel's close physical proximity to Gaza has allowed a much more thorough blockade than the US has ever been able to implement, as well as allowing for substantially greater economic incentives in the case of cooperation (for example, work permits). Though it's clearly failed now, it absolutely wasn't obvious from the beginning that it would fail.

The Gaza withdrawal coincided with further expansion of West Bank settlements because Israel wanted the West Bank far more than it wanted Gaza, to the point where even Ariel Sharon was willing to loosen Israel's hold on Gaza in exchange for further establishing itself in the West Bank. The West Bank (or Judea and Samaria, as Israeli right-wingers prefer to call it) is the area that religious settlers believe was bequeathed to them by God as an inalienable and essential part of Greater Israel, and contains numerous religious sites of significant importance. While there's plenty of Israeli ethnonationalists who're happy to take any opportunity to expand Israeli settlement southwards as well, the West Bank is of special importance to a significantly wider portion of Israel's political arena. Aside from the West Bank, the other conquests and occupations from 1967 and later were originally mostly for military strategic reasons, securing tactically-useful territory and creating buffer zones to push hostile borders further away from the Israeli urban core.

Sharon and his government were pretty clear about that even at the time. The disengagement was not a gift to the Palestinians, but rather a measure to reduce Israel's own difficulties. By cutting loose areas that Israeli authorities had less interest in and focusing military and diplomatic resources on territory they were absolutely intent on keeping permanently, Sharon hoped to solidify the Israeli presence in the major West Bank settlements while substantially reducing Israel's exposure to Gazan militant violence. For Israeli right-wingers, that's what peace is: annexing the West Bank, and containing the remaining Palestinian territories to the point where they no longer pose a meaningful threat.

What do you think the odds are that the settlements alongside what's happening in Gaza is finally going to convince the Palestinians in the West Bank of the need of their own equivalent of Al Quassam? Also, how likely is it that this mess in Gaza sets off another Intifada, specifically suicide bombings?

# ? Dec 29, 2023 06:08

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

Stringent posted:

What do you think the odds are that the settlements alongside what's happening in Gaza is finally going to convince the Palestinians in the West Bank of the need of their own equivalent of Al Quassam? Also, how likely is it that this mess in Gaza sets off another Intifada, specifically suicide bombings?

Depends on who ends up in control of the PA after Abbas dies, and how smooth the transition is.

Abbas is committed to peaceful collaboration with Israel and actively cooperates with IDF security forces to suppress any potential violent movements in the West Bank, so any serious militant movement in the West Bank under his administration is unlikely, unless Netanyahu drops his pants on live TV in front of the Dome of the Rock and takes a big steaming poo poo on its doorstep. And suicide bombings as a Palestinian tactic were pioneered by Hamas, who have a limited presence in the West Bank.

But Abbas is also 87 years old, doesn't have a clear successor, has made a mess of Palestinian political rules and legitimacy, and pretty much all the likely successor candidates have deep flaws and don't get along very well. There's really no telling what would happen in a PA succession struggle, but there's still plenty of ex-militants in Fatah calling for a return to a more aggressive policy, and a drawn-out factional struggle would disrupt Farah's ability to keep the militants (both inside and outside the party) under control.

# ? Dec 29, 2023 08:34

Olga Gurlukovich: Nov 13, 2016

kiminewt posted:

Not a serious proposal or anything, but what happens if all the Palestinians in the West Bank / Gaza just start demanding Israeli citizenship? Israel obviously won't give it to them, but wouldn't that further reduce Israel's position because they'll be seen as just blatently denying rights to people who deserve it?

I guess it's the same now but maybe just simplifying the situation a bit.

lmao

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Dec 29, 2023 09:12

Hong XiuQuan: Feb 19, 2008; "Without justice for the Palestinians there will be no peace in the Middle East."

Nebalebadingdong posted:

I didn't think Israel wants Fatah to control the West Bank AND Gaza? They boosted Hamas initially to create division right? Or am I misremembering?

(they already said they will not allow Fatah to run Gaza after military operations, if that ever even happens)

You've got to start thinking of the West Bank and Gaza as a series of Bantustans. The West Bank is not a coherent and contiguous geographical unit under any kind of limited Palestinian control. It's a set of partially autonomous city-based reservations that aren't allowed to grow and have limited contact with each-other.

Gaza after 2005 was essentially a boxed-in Ciskei with the occupying power destroying any possibility of letting the economy work.

Israel's treatment of Gaza as a separate territory does, yes, further weaken the ability of Palestinians in West Bank Bantustans maintain cohesion.

Israel is hoping that in time this arrangement will maintain itself; population growth will be subdued by geographic and economic stricture (or through ever-increasing "transfer"). Elements in the Gaza Bantustan have been uppity so Israel has decided to erase it and however many people are killed along the way it doesn't matter because a Bantustan that can strike back is an existential crisis.

Oct 7th doesn't matter for the number of people killed. It could have been 3,000. It could have been 100. It matters because it showed that the system wasn't working. It showed the inherent weakness of the state relying on apartheid. The only solution to that from the apartheid state's view has to be a final solution. Or else the state itself is at risk.

# ? Dec 29, 2023 09:39

TLM3101: Sep 8, 2010

Main Paineframe posted:

Depends on who ends up in control of the PA after Abbas dies, and how smooth the transition is.

Abbas is committed to peaceful collaboration with Israel and actively cooperates with IDF security forces to suppress any potential violent movements in the West Bank, so any serious militant movement in the West Bank under his administration is unlikely, unless Netanyahu drops his pants on live TV in front of the Dome of the Rock and takes a big steaming poo poo on its doorstep. And suicide bombings as a Palestinian tactic were pioneered by Hamas, who have a limited presence in the West Bank.

But Abbas is also 87 years old, doesn't have a clear successor, has made a mess of Palestinian political rules and legitimacy, and pretty much all the likely successor candidates have deep flaws and don't get along very well. There's really no telling what would happen in a PA succession struggle, but there's still plenty of ex-militants in Fatah calling for a return to a more aggressive policy, and a drawn-out factional struggle would disrupt Farah's ability to keep the militants (both inside and outside the party) under control.

There's also the problem that the current Fatah 'government' - at least to some extent - is seen as... I'm not going to say Quisling-regime, but Abbas's policy of collaboration has emphatically not tamped down on support for Hamas in the aftermath of the October 7th attacks, nor does it have any real prospect of protecting its own citizens in the West Bank communities that the Palestinians have been allowed to maintain thus far. With Ben Gvir deciding that arming settlers is a good idea, and the resulting surge in attacks on civilians in the West Bank, it's not clear to me that the PA will be in any shape to take over anything, even if the US can make that stick.

Which I don't think they can. Thanks to domestic political concerns, the US now has precisely zero leverage to use against Israel, and the Israeli government knows it.

# ? Dec 29, 2023 18:04

youcallthatatwist: Sep 22, 2013

https://twitter.com/NimerSultany/status/1740777209709940848?t=qgAZOMpHfG1-suqUB8hsyw&s=19

Can someone who knows more than me about international law explain whether this is something that will likely have any kind of effect? Or is it a "the US will just veto everything" situation?

# ? Dec 29, 2023 23:30

Nucleic Acids: Apr 10, 2007

youcallthatatwist posted:

https://twitter.com/NimerSultany/status/1740777209709940848?t=qgAZOMpHfG1-suqUB8hsyw&s=19

Can someone who knows more than me about international law explain whether this is something that will likely have any kind of effect? Or is it a "the US will just veto everything" situation?

We�re going to get yet another hilarious example of how meaningless concepts like �the rules based international order� and �international law� actually are.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Dec 30, 2023 02:13

Sephyr: Aug 28, 2012

I wonder which POC in the US delegation to the UN will get to raise their hand to veto it this time. Do you think they take turns or just draw straws?

# ? Dec 30, 2023 02:17

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

If the ICJ decides that it has jurisdiction and delivers a verdict uncharacteristically quickly then I imagine it will have exactly the same effect as its March 2022 demand for Russia to stop its campaign in Ukraine.

# ? Dec 30, 2023 02:40

rscott: Dec 10, 2009

Irony Be My Shield posted:

If the ICJ decides that it has jurisdiction and delivers a verdict uncharacteristically quickly then I imagine it will have exactly the same effect as its March 2022 demand for Russia to stop its campaign in Ukraine.

Might make it a bit harder for Netanyahu to campaign for republicans next year?

# ? Dec 30, 2023 16:59

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

rscott posted:

Might make it a bit harder for Netanyahu to campaign for republicans next year?

You say that like 'charged by the ICJ with genocide' isn't going to be a selling point for Republicans.

# ? Dec 30, 2023 17:23

KillHour: Oct 28, 2007

Darth Walrus posted:

You say that like 'charged by the ICJ with genocide' isn't going to be a selling point for Republicans.

I think it's more that he doesn't want to get arrested in an international airport somewhere. But the US doesn't cooperate with the ICC AFAIK, so that's still probably not a huge deal. He probably would want to stay away from Europe though.

Edit: I'm also not sure that the ICJ can instruct the ICC to arrest an individual anyways.

# ? Dec 31, 2023 09:14

Nenonen: Oct 22, 2009; Mulla on aina kolkyt donaa taskussa

Vladimir Putin and his children's rights commissioner are wanted by ICC specifically for kidnapping Ukrainian children, not for waging an illegal war or bombing civilians or something that nebulous. I suppose something like that could be cooked against Netanyahu, but I don't know what it would be. Normally leaders are smart enough that when they bomb civilians, they depict it as a mishap or human shields or anything else than them personally giving illegal orders.

# ? Dec 31, 2023 12:54

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# ? May 11, 2024 12:22

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Nenonen posted:

Vladimir Putin and his children's rights commissioner are wanted by ICC specifically for kidnapping Ukrainian children, not for waging an illegal war or bombing civilians or something that nebulous. I suppose something like that could be cooked against Netanyahu, but I don't know what it would be. Normally leaders are smart enough that when they bomb civilians, they depict it as a mishap or human shields or anything else than them personally giving illegal orders.

South Africa's case that the government of Israel has demonstrated genocidal intent seems pretty inarguable, at least:

https://x.com/macaesbruno/status/1740920262147899561?s=46&t=ARI_L-v32Oind1-d9B3a3Q

# ? Jan 1, 2024 15:26

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