Israel/Palestine

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Israel/Palestine

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

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

Main Paineframe posted:

When asked whether they were Jewish or Israeli first,

When Israeli Jews asked what things they personally considered essential to Jewish identity,

Were there analogous questions for Israeli Arabs?

# ¿ Mar 9, 2016 19:38

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 20:26

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

Gumball Gumption posted:

Yes. They were. It's pretty understandable why you wouldn't want to live in a ISIS ruled caliphate but if you're discussing who they are and what they do it made more sense to acknowledge the full picture and not view anyone explaining that to you as going to bat for international terrorists.

"All terrorist orgs are actually complicated political organizations running multiple programs and trying to build a state" is not really a gotcha, it's my point.

As has been WELL established, explaining something is, in fact, equivalent to condoning it.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2023 19:45

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

mannerup posted:

normally like Axios, but this is lovely journalism

I personally make sure to carry an unencrypted digital record of my many secret evil plans every time I go on a raid. It's just common sense, WAY more useful than an extra magazine.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2023 23:15

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

Irony Be My Shield posted:

I mean the obvious explanation would be that Hamas hid that evidence. And they would have little reason to hide evidence of Israeli involvement.

Given the general reaction to evidence Palestinians do provide, which is to dismiss it as Hamas propaganda, it's hard for me to imagine this making much difference. "How do we know this fragment of bomb wasn't planted or tampered with?"

All of which is still beside the point: the Israeli military holds all the cards in this scenario, as they have for decades.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2023 03:23

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

Pvt. Parts posted:

In some parts of southern Europe they kiss on both cheeks to greet each other. Some just the right, or just the left, or right and then left and then right again. Some literally touch lips to cheek, some only just cheek-to-cheek. Some go across genders, some don't. These seemingly compatible traditions are effectively non-interoperable when it comes to "on the ground" mixing of different styles; where and how do you kiss? Would it be ludicrous to entertain that ancient tribal feuds could be just as arbitrary?

I think there's a lot of merit here: It's now clear to me that the fist bump vs. handshake divide is the historical cause of racial violence in the US. How could I have overlooked it?

# ¿ Oct 23, 2023 18:14

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

Crosby B. Alfred posted:

That said, do you really think war or any kind of violent conflict by either the West Bank or the Gaza Strip is going to get them any closer to their own state or Israeli citizenship?

This hinges on the word "closer". How close or far are they? What other actions are available and would they do a better or worse job? As far as I can tell, there are two general possibilities for the people of Palestine.

Option one is lie down and succumb to slow genocide at the hands of the Israeli government via arbitrary bombing and displacement. This seems certain to happen eventually, as the broader world has indicated that it doesn't care about (or actively approves of) those actions. It might take decades, but a long history of bad-faith agreements and broken treaties demonstrate that it's the overall goal of Israeli government policy. 100% chance of destruction, one day.

The other option available is direct conflict, which might spark the Israelis to kill and displace the people of Palestine faster than they would otherwise, but does also have some chance of sparking neighbors to take action, or making the general Israeli citizenry (and/or American citizenry) uncomfortable enough at the active, accelerated genocide that they grow a conscience and try to sway their governments.

Given the choice between a 100% chance of your culture being destroyed slowly, or a 99% of chance of faster destruction but a 1% chance of finding a way out, I can see why the latter option might be more appealing.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2023 20:35

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

Raenir Salazar posted:

Germany literally still exists today this doesn't make any sense. If not for the cold war and opposed geopolitical interests Germany wouldve been back to being a single state in the 1950s.

I don't understand the definition you're using here.

The country called Germany today is not the same state or political body as the one called Germany in, say, 1938.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2023 22:02

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

Crazy Joe Wilson posted:

The U.N. voted to partition the territory, which up to that point had never been independent into two separate states, based on the two dominant ethnic/religious groups in the area, Jews and Arabs. Claiming all of Israel is stolen land from the Palestinians, when there have been Jewish people living there since pre-Roman times, is propagandistic.

Counterpoint: according to the UN,

The UN posted:

In November 1947, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution partitioning Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, with Jerusalem under a UN administration. The Arab world rejected the plan, arguing that it was unfair and violated the UN Charter. Jewish militias launched attacks against Palestinian villages, forcing thousands to flee. The situation escalated into a full-blown war in 1948, with the end of the British Mandate and the departure of British forces, the declaration of independence of the State of Israel and the entry of neighbouring Arab armies. The newly established Israeli forces launched a major offensive. The result of the war was the permanent displacement of more than half of the Palestinian population.

# ¿ Oct 25, 2023 01:35

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

Crazy Joe Wilson posted:

Yes, no one is denying that atrocities and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs by Zionists (and vice versa) happened during the war, just as ethnic cleansing of Jews following the war (First from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, later from most of the Muslim world) happened. Would those atrocities have happened had the original partition plan been accepted and no war resulted? Counterfactuals are hard to prove.

But those atrocities don't make illegitimate the original plan to create two states for two ethnic groups that during British rule and a huge wave of Jewish migration became increasingly antagonistic toward each other.

In your prior post you claimed that the land currently controlled by the Israeli government could not be said to have been stolen from Palestinians. I was refuting that claim: half of Palestinians had their homes stolen in the immediate conception of Israel.

# ¿ Oct 25, 2023 02:53

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

Mid-Life Crisis posted:

I take flack for arguing that the doctors should tell people to evacuate a hospital the IDF has repeatedly said they are going to bomb otherwise they�re effectively supporting Hamas. Calling them martyred instead of massacred is effectively proving that point correct.

This is the least offensive thing about your POV, but I thiink it'# important to note that the doctors did, in fact, tell people to leave time and again. This was well established in the early coverage. But many couldn't, and they didn't abandon their critical-care patients. Many others didn't, or left and then returned, as it became clear that the rest of Gaza was no safer.

The proper metaphor for those doctors is not cowards using human shields, but captains bravely choosing not to abandon ship.

# ¿ Oct 25, 2023 19:07

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

HonorableTB posted:

Increasingly it feels like there is nowhere left for nuance on this issue in any public discussion forum. On Reddit (yes yes yes I know) the worldnews sub is 100% in the bag for Israel. Here, SA looks to be 100% in the bag for Hamas/Palestine. There's nowhere left for nuance, in that both Hamas and the IDF loving suck and are filled with the worst people you know.

This thread has plenty of pro-Israel sentiment, and plenty of nuanced conversation about Hamas. No idea how you could come to the conclusion that every poster here is "100% in the bag for Hamas." See, for instance, the post immediately above this one.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2023 04:39

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

Neurolimal posted:

On the other side of the wall, and still related to Oct 7, Middle East Eye claims to have talked to a couple of Hamas sources, some of the more interesting details:

Opinion on MEE is unnecessary; if they're a biased outlet with Hamas/Palestinian ties, then that only makes it more likely that these are Hamas' stances. So to summarize them:

- They still stand by their defense that other groups besides Hamas escaped at the same time, and caused chaos.
- They are using that defense to inform the hostage situation; hostages obtained are spread between multiple sects and groups, hostage deal would take some time to implement, if one ever surfaces.
- Two deals on the table: All for All, or Women/Children/Foreigners for X Palestinians

- Allege that the vast majority of the Hamas forces it sent into Israel returned alive. Possibly bullshit, though worth noting that at least one instance of the IDF stripping a group of 'Hamas operatives' nude and then executing them turned out to be regular Palestinian workers, so it's hard to judge how many of their trophy tweets and instagrams and etc were actually Hamas soldiers.
- They expected 20-30 hostages.
- They expected IDF forces to show up much sooner; they had a list of military targets to hit before retreating, but they burnt through all their military targets and were still in fighting shape, and then groups started targeting anything else nearby.
- Mohammed Deif allegedly said not to target women/children/elderly, that only uniformed irregulars were Hamas.

- Israel and the USA are apparently still in panic mode behind the scenes, pushing Qatar to disown Hamas contacts despite the fact that these contacts are only beneficial to Israel and the USA.
- Israel took a swing at Qatar, then immediately backtracked when they threatened the hostage negotiations.

This was a while ago, but, thanks for posting this. Reminiscent of the Sy Hersh post a while ago in The Other Thread.

I'm surprised (well, not surprised, but you know) that there's so little comment on the details of 10/7 vs. the endless circling about who blew up the hospital refugee camp, especially given the number of times that the "Hamas massacre" comes up.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2023 14:45

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

Brucolac posted:

I don't understand, where is the material from the English-speaking wing of Al Quaeda? Probably the Hamas guys took that with them.

They carry that on their bodies at all time, in case one of the IDF soldiers is the player character and wants to take on a side quest.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2023 03:07

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

HootTheOwl posted:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_keyboard

Looks like they use the same numbers as the West?
It makes sense as a computer toucher why you'd want numeral glyphs to be culture independent.

That keyboard clearly has the Arabic numerals in the bottom right of each number key.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2023 14:59

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

BrutalistMcDonalds posted:

That's in the active voice, right? Passive voice would be, like, "Many Casualties in Dense Neighborhood Were Caused by Airstrike, Gazans Say." I'm awed in a horrified way at how the NYT will dodge attributing responsibility while remaining in the active.

Yeah there's no necessary connection between active/passive voice and attribution. "Many killed by Israeli airstrike" is passive, but "Explosion kills many" is active. It's just a matter of word order, the words themselves can be anything. NO idea what could cause a massive explosion in an area actively being bombed by a first-world military :iiam:

Honestly it's progress enough to see 'Gazans' as the source, instead of, you know, 'Hamas spokesman' or whatever.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2023 20:16

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

VideoGameVet posted:

This is a surprise.

https://x.com/SimonWDC/status/1724173821597360618?s=20

The thing is, Biden's approach to the war so far has essentially been "do nothing," and the poll does nothing to distinguish whether folks are dissatisfied with that because they want him to do more to stop Israel, or do more to attack Hamas. Something tells me that all those disapproving Republicans aren't disapproving because of their sympathies for Palestine.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2023 15:10

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

Civilized Fishbot posted:

It's strange to focus on what would be "called terrorism" and not what is/isn't terrorism.

The March of Return, BDS,.and attacks on Israeli military targets all obviously aren't terrorism, even if cynics, bigots, and idiots say otherwise.

Strapping on a GoPro and killing loads of civilians obviously is terrorism, because it functions only to humiliate and terrify the target while satisfying the terrorist's need to display strength and mercilessness.

And of course this helps us understand what the Israeli state Is doing - recovering from the political.damage dealt by terrorism by itself enacting terrorism across Gaza and the West Bank.

Terrorism is a useful idea, it identifies a particular style of military/militia operation, it shouldn't be dismissed just because stupid people use it to mean "anything that disgusts me if it's done by someone from the global south."

If you meant "Palestinian state" as in "the state exists in Palestine," without reference to the actual Palestinian people, that makes sense. It's a little useless but it's logically sound. In this sense Israel is already a Palestinian state because it's in Palestine. And if Mandatory Palestine was a state, in this sense it was a Palestinian state. So, not that helpful, but not incorrect.

I don't really share your concern with the name of the state, I think that's subordinate to questions about how you maintain civil rights and decent public services when you're trying to integrate two nations that loathe and fear each other into one state.

The extent and villainy of violence here is well beyond anything that ever happened in Ireland or South Africa. I don't know that any Truth and Reconciliation Commission can give Palestinians satisfaction that their lives aren't in danger when they share a military with IDF veterans, share a police force with West Bank settlers, share a legislature with voters who elected Netanyahu over and over again. At this point I think it has to be two separate states with,.at best, a long-term inclination toward unification.

What do you mean by "helpful" here? What does that accurate definition not "help"? It seems to make perfect sense in the context of the original sentence you were quibbling with.

WhiskeyWhiskers posted:

The only solution is a single Palestinian state with protections and equality for all.

As WW is saying, there is not currently a single Palestinian state, the most powerful state in the region of Palestine does not have protections and equality for all, and both of these things should change. What's confusing about this?

# ¿ Nov 17, 2023 18:04

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

Civilized Fishbot posted:

If "Palestinian state" just means "a state located in Palestine" then there is currently a single Palestinian state, it's the apartheid state of Israel.

My dude. I get it that you are trying as hard as you can to ignore the "protections and equality for all" part of the original statement, and fair, if I was trying to defend the positions you are, I'd be ignoring it too. But there literally are two states in the Palestine region, one of which is called the State of Palestine and is recognized by the UN.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2023 21:06

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

Irony Be My Shield posted:

If there is an innocent explanation for this it's well past time for Hamas to provide it. Because the new video very, very much looks like a Hamas tunnel and trying to claim Israel was building tunnels in exactly the same style 40 years ago is unhinged.

Yeah, what innocent explanation could there be for a KITCHEN of all things? Only terrorist command centers have kitchens!

# ¿ Nov 23, 2023 14:26

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

Party In My Diapee posted:

It's not even Hamas who is accused of launching the rocket so i don't understand why it would hurt them specifically, as opposed to the palestinian cause as a whole.

Many people, including many posters in this thread, cannot remember that PIJ exists because they have the memories of a goldfish.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2023 16:23

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

Irony Be My Shield posted:

I think the only piece of evidence pointing to PIJ over Hamas is the allegedly intercepted audio log presented by Israel, which is 1) heavily challenged in terms of authenticity and 2) pure hearsay even if we accept it as genuine - the speakers were just discussing a rumour rather than claiming any direct knowledge. Both groups were firing missiles over the hospital shortly before the explosion happened. I am more inclined to think it's Hamas due to the fact that they're the ones concealing evidence, but it is also possible they're covering for another Palestinian group.

Weirdly, the existing evidence does seem to be enough to have convinced literally every source that doesn't blame Israel, including the Israeli military. No one (except internet forums posters) has ever claimed that it was a Hamas rocket.

I guess in a way this is evidence of the pervasive effecticeness of Israeli military propaganda: even when they explicitly blame another group, many instinctively default to blaming Hamas.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2023 16:33

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

socialsecurity posted:

Seems very odd to not want to know or want others to know the motives of your enemies.

Yes, for the record, explaining the process of an unjust system can be seen as tacit support for that injustice.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2023 18:22

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

No. 6 posted:

That was the point. There are better voices to promote who have the same message.

This is the Israel/Palestine thread, the Policing Which Pundits Are OK To Quote Tweet thread is [gestures elsewhere]

# ¿ Dec 5, 2023 15:45

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

Main Paineframe posted:

That would be stupid and quickly seen through.

To be fair, though, this does seem to be the IDF's MO when it comes to propaganda.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2023 03:23

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

Kalit posted:

How is it effective action? If

is true, then it sounds like an ineffective escalation. Unless you think the Houthis can effectively defend against said battleships. Which, assuming said countries are serious about their battleships, they can’t.

Yeah, why would anyone believe that the Houthis could effectively hold out against the US and its proxies?

# ¿ Dec 20, 2023 02:32

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

Nameless_Steve posted:

Reminder that Houthis are not Yemen and Hezbollah are not Lebanon.

Seems like saying "the Democratic Party isn't the United States." Technically true but weirdly pedantic.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2024 05:05

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

Jaxyon posted:

"Gazans are Hamas"

Setting aside that this genocidal intent predates and caused Hamas...

"Americans are Democrats" or "Israelis are Likud" would be equally untrue. It results in obviously dumb constructions like "the Hamas health ministry."

It's like "oligarch" or "terrorist," a word (or in this case a general approach) that is only used to other and delegitimize their subjects.

Muscle Tracer fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Jan 4, 2024

# ¿ Jan 4, 2024 14:15

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

There is functionally no difference between "we have no policy punishing this behavior" and "we have a policy encouraging this behavior." If no penalty is specified or applied, then the behavior is de facto permitted and encouraged, just with plausible deniability. If soldiers are doing it, and being recorded doing it, and not being punished or prevented from doing it again, and are in fact given more bombs and bullets, then does a lack of explicitly admitted intent really give you doubt as to the military's intentions?

# ¿ Apr 9, 2024 15:21

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 20:26

Muscle Tracer: Feb 23, 2007; Medals only weigh one down.

Charliegrs posted:

Israel's targe in the consulate bombing was military. The target was the high ranking Quds force officials that were inside the consulate. Of course it was incredibly dumb to kill them there, but the target wasn't the consulate itself.

target [ tahr-git ] 3. Anything fired at

# ¿ Apr 15, 2024 01:49

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