Ed General Israel/Palestine discussion thread - Part 3

[Beelzebuddy]

Your conclusion doesn't follow. Muslims are not homogeneous in their religion.

I am assured by JoeMorgue that they are, and that any Muslim nation in the area would be a suitable host to the extent that they should be willing to shoulder the entire burden of resettlement.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Actually, if you even want to make that argument you should list countries by arable land. We are talking about a desert region here after all. If room is all you care about there's plenty of sand within Israel as well.

1. Yes we're talking about a desert region, hence my often repeated retort of them fighting over a 25 mile strip of desert scrubland that here in the US we'd be fighting over who had to take it.

2. The reason Israel is arable is because it spends money on irrigation. That's one of those things that happens when you have a functioning actual country that works and not a wasteland of loosely affiliated tribes. It's also one of the reasons that despite the "My sacred homeland that I can trace back to 4 seconds after the Big Bang that God himself decreed I shall live upon" retcon nobody gave a crap about that area until they decided to put Israel they and an actual country with infrastructure and technology beyond the goat started getting used.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I am assured by JoeMorgue that they are, and that any Muslim nation in the area would be a suitable host to the extent that they should be willing to shoulder the entire burden of resettlement.

*Shrugs* More homogeneous then Jews and Muslims are anyway.

Tell you what. We'll treat "Countries that want Israel wiped off the map" as a homogony if that makes it easer.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Joe, do Israeli have a bigger claim on the land than Palestinians by any other reason than "Might makes Right?"

 

[Beelzebuddy]

nobody gave a crap about that area until they decided to put Israel the[re]

Nobody was asked if they gave a crap about the area. It became pretty immediately obvious that craps were indeed given.

Honestly like 90% of modern-day strife can be traced back to British or French administrators drawing arbitrary borders through peoples' communities.

The reason Israel is arable is because it spends money on irrigation.

Then surely they shouldn't object to irrigating New Palestine. After all they're so very good at it.

 

[Ziggurat]

I am assured by JoeMorgue that they are, and that any Muslim nation in the area would be a suitable host to the extent that they should be willing to shoulder the entire burden of resettlement.

They are better suited to it than western countries. But no, they likely don't want to, and understandably so.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Who has said a country shouldn't react to attacks? This thread of the discussion is about whether Hamas represents an existential threat to Israel or not.

I'm firmly on the not side, Hamas has nothing like the capacity to do more than they have done, and what they've recently done is the worse they will ever be able to do.

They are no more a threat to the existence of Israel than the 9/11 terrorists were to the existence of the USA.




Again who has said you do nothing? That's a complete and utter strawman.

One way of eliminating terrorists is to remove the support from the community they come from, which can be done, it's often been done and it's been done without eliminating that community.

I disagree. I think it's just been demonstrated that Hamas is a threat that Israel should eliminate. What they've done is sufficient justification to end Hamas.

In an ideal world that could be done without incurring other casualties, but this is not an ideal world.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Joe, do Israeli have a bigger claim on the land than Palestinians by any other reason than "Might makes Right?"

Listen, and this is me being real for a minute fair? I don't have an answer, at least a simple one.

1. Like I've said practically all cultures can trace themselves back to that same general area. At certain point if we want to argue a "cultural timeline" everyone owns that area and it becomes absurd. "We don't all get to live where we started" has to be in the discussion somewhere.

2. Israel as a country was created via the international community. That doesn't grant them total, for lack of a better term, validity, but it doesn't mean nothing. At the end of the day what makes you a country is other countries agreeing you are a country. Countries that legit just straight up power grabbed other countries have validity so I'm not, again for lack of a better term, "blaming" Israel for existing (that's worded bad and I can't think of how to put it better, fair?) as others do.

3. "Might makes right" is wrong but again I'm not letting white guilt over colonialism turn it 180 into "the underdog always has to be right" either. And again a lot of the reason for Israel's "might" is because they have been under constant threat of annihilation since they moment it has existed.

4. "Where else, at the moment in time of 1948 when the decision had to be made where else could the Jews displaced by WWII have gone?" is not an idle question and one that we have to let history have answered with the benefit of hindsight it didn't have, and this is being asked by someone who is clear my opinion that literally nobody could have thought putting Israel there wasn't going to create problems.

I do (no snark, no ulterior motive) wish I had a clearer answer. My answer is (gestures broadly to the rest of my post) in there somewhere but I cannot in intellectual honest give you concise yes/no. It's still something I'm struggling exactly to fully verbalize it and despite how heated this discussion has gotten I hope that is at least is understandable.

So that's not the best answer I can give you, but it is the most honest one I can give at this point and I hope that helps somewhat at least.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Listen, and this is me being real for a minute fair? I don't have an answer, at least a simple one.

1. Like I've said practically all cultures can trace themselves back to that same general area. At certain point if we want to argue a "cultural timeline" everyone owns that area and it becomes absurd. "We don't all get to live where we started" has to be in the discussion somewhere.

2. Israel as a country was created via the international community. That doesn't grant them total, for lack of a better term, validity, but it doesn't mean nothing. At the end of the day what makes you a country is other countries agreeing you are a country. Countries that legit just straight up power grabbed other countries have validity so I'm not, again for lack of a better term, "blaming" Israel for existing (that's worded bad and I can't think of how to put it better, fair?) as others do.

3. "Might makes right" is wrong but again I'm not letting white guilt over colonialism turn it 180 into "the underdog always has to be right" either. And again a lot of the reason for Israel's "might" is because they have been under constant threat of annihilation since they moment it has existed.

4. "Where else, at the moment in time of 1948 when the decision had to be made where else could the Jews displaced by WWII have gone?" is not an idle question and one that we have to let history have answered with the benefit of hindsight it didn't have, and this is being asked by someone who is clear my opinion that literally nobody could have thought putting Israel there wasn't going to create problems.

I do (no snark, no ulterior motive) wish I had a clearer answer. My answer is (gestures broadly to the rest of my post) in there somewhere but I cannot in intellectual honest give you concise yes/no. It's still something I'm struggling exactly to fully verbalize it and despite how heated this discussion has gotten I hope that is at least is understandable.

So that's not the best answer I can give you, but it is the most honest one I can give at this point and I hope that helps somewhat at least.

thanks for levelling with me.

But doesn't that mean that Palestinians do deserve compensation for giving up their claim, tenuous or not ?

 

[Planigale]

Err... Actual peace may be good. Sometimes, though, as with Russia (among a number of other states that engage in genocide), a number of versions of "peace" can mean horror, terror, pain, and death, in practice. Russia says Ukrainians are synonymous with Russians and that Ukrainians don't really exist at the same time. Actions speak louder than words, though, especially with vranyo as a notable feature in play, and the ongoing campaign of barely veiled genocide does quite speak to what can be expected from a "peace" on Russian terms, even if one ignores Russian history and the current cultural state of affairs.

As it stands, at last check, even when there is not active fighting, Hamas has visited horror, terror, pain, and death upon the Palestinians of Gaza as they seized power and acted to hold it with an iron fist. Further, they actively work to teach genocidal hate to their children. They are one of the main forces actively working to prevent real peace and prosperity for Gaza's Palestinians.

Israel's sins may be numerous and similar in some ways, but that's not actually a real defense for Hamas or any indication that Hamas has ever had any reliable interest in actual peace in the first place.

Seized power was winning an election. They are at least as reresentative as the PA are in the West Bank.

 

[crescent]

Seized power was winning an election. They are at least as reresentative as the PA are in the West Bank.

No, they're not.

Hamas won an election in 2006 and has blocked all elections since then. The great majority of people in Gaza who are of voting age have never experienced an election in all the time that they have been old enough to vote. Nearly half the population has never experienced an election in their lifetime.

Meanwhile, West Bank had elections in 2012, 2017, and 2021/2022.

 

[JoeMorgue]

But doesn't that mean that Palestinians do deserve compensation for giving up their claim, tenuous or not ?

I think any compensation either side wants, deserves, or otherwise should or could get has already been paid in blood a thousand times over.

 

[Lplus]

Seized power was winning an election. They are at least as reresentative as the PA are in the West Bank.

In 2004 - and have since refused to hold further elections...

For almost a generation.

Ahhh Democracy.

And if the PA haven't held elections recently, they're no better.

 

[theprestige]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong:

(a) Jordan was supposed to be the Palestinian state, corresponding to the Jewish state of Israel, back when the region was originally devolved and partitioned. It's not Israel's fault that some Palestinians refused to accept this arrangement.

(b) The "illegal settlements" are in places that are part of Israel, only some Palestinians have perpetuated a dispute about this. They insist Israelis cannot settle in those parts of Israel, and have chosen violencea against anyone who doesn't play along.

 

[Planigale]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong:

(a) Jordan was supposed to be the Palestinian state, corresponding to the Jewish state of Israel, back when the region was originally devolved and partitioned. It's not Israel's fault that some Palestinians refused to accept this arrangement.

(b) The "illegal settlements" are in places that are part of Israel, only some Palestinians have perpetuated a dispute about this. They insist Israelis cannot settle in those parts of Israel, and have chosen violencea against anyone who doesn't play along.

I think you are incorrect.

United Nations Resolution 181, resolution passed by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 1947 that called for the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, with the city of Jerusalem as a corpus separatum (Latin: “separate entity”) to be governed by a special international regime. The resolution—which was considered by the Jewish community in Palestine to be a legal basis for the establishment of Israel, and which was rejected by the Arab community—was succeeded almost immediately by violence.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/United-Nations-Resolution-181
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine

You can find a map on both sites where the Jewish state mandated by the UN is considerably smaller than it is now; the arab state (West Bank and Gaza) is smaller now than it was then, and has not become as was intended a co-equal state.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Okay so open question. Real world, functional question, answer the question don't talk about the philosophy of the question.

Where SHOULD Israel go?

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Okay so open question. Real world, functional question, answer the question don't talk about the philosophy of the question.

Where SHOULD Israel go?

Back into the UN agreed borders of 1948

 

[crescent]

Okay so open question. Real world, functional question, answer the question don't talk about the philosophy of the question.

Where SHOULD Israel go?

How about: In Israel? But not West Bank and Gaza, because those are not Israel, they are Palestine.

The great majority of the world now recognizes Israel's right to exist, at least within the pre-1967 borders.

The issue at play these days is the disposition of West Bank, Gaza, and Golan.

 

[webfusion]

How about: In Israel? But not West Bank and Gaza, because those are not Israel, they are Palestine.

The great majority of the world now recognizes Israel's right to exist, at least within the pre-1967 borders.

The issue at play these days is the disposition of West Bank, Gaza, and Golan.

Quick remarks on the above:
There is no defined area known as "Palestine" these days. Nor on any prior days. In June1967 there weren't borders between Israel and "Palestine" --please look at the 1949 Rhodes Armistice Agreements (Egypt, Syria/Lebanon and Jordan all took part in their respective cease-fire in-place and military disengagement accords.)

As for the Golan? Here's a conundrum for you. Isn't that ex-Syrian area also Palestine? If not, why not?

 

[p0lka]

Someone needs to tell israel that they are not special when it comes to international law, let's see what happens.