Hamas attacks Israel
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G George K referenced this topic on
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Thread pinned - I think we're going to be talking about this for a while.
Meanwhile, Israel has attacked with a vengeance.
Lots of tweets, videos at the link.
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Emphasis mine:
"From the Russian side, via the Foreign Ministry, we received a list of citizens that have dual citizenship," senior Hamas representative Moussa Abu Marzook said, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.
“We are looking for those people... It is hard but we are looking. And when we find them, we will let them go. We are very attentive to this list and will process it carefully because we consider Russia to be a close friend," he said. -
This is one of the better conversations I've heard, mostly for how clear the futility becomes, listening to a pro-Palestinian talk about his side. You can quibble with how he avoids putting any blame on the Islam faith, or on the Hamas oath to exterminate the Jews. Even without that, his more fundamental point remains that the Palestinians feel they were occupied, and they'd rather fight and die than submit to that. Factual arguments about whether they really are occupied or whether this is really their land are irrelevant, if that's how they feel.
People have been taking land from one another by force forever, but western civilization has recently decided it's wrong. Now that the lines are acceptable to the people who make the rules, the people who make the rules have declared those lines to be the morally justified ones. The Palestinians don't feel that's fair, and that's totally understandable, even inevitable. As Hughes notes, anybody born in Palestine would feel justified in their perspective, and anybody born in Israel would feel justified in their perspective. Used to be, the people who weren't satisfied with being colonized, fought and died, or assimilated. There were no higher authorities to appeal to. But now Palestine knows they can appeal to the bleeding heart west, and the appeal works. So Israel tiptoes around the only viable solution, the solution which would have been practiced at all historical times except this one. Dominance through violence, forcing total capitulation of the conquered people.
Link to video -
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"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@Mik said in Hamas attacks Israel:
Our dinner guests last night were all Jewish, so the conversation was pretty spirited this subject. Pretty much all pro-Israel, of course, but spirited still. The question I asked is, since the Gaza folks voted Hamas in, are there any innocent Gazans?
I don’t think a society can shortcut its way to democracy. Groups like Hamas would have no compunction killing political rivals before they can stand for elections.
You have to really value the individual before you can care about elections.
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@George-K said in Hamas attacks Israel:
@Mik said in Hamas attacks Israel:
The question I asked is, since the Gaza folks voted Hamas in, are there any innocent Gazans?
Annnd?
I believe there's a certain culpability that taints them. Which is not to say I approve of Larry's solution which, as Horace said, is the one employed throughout human history. But by the same token, a majority installed Hamas and there they have remained for what, 18 years? That's 18 years of lobbing rockets at the Jewish people and such lethal antics.
My friends said they would have to think about that. They do not hate the Gazans.
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This is not a 21st century problem. This is a 13th century problem.
The problem with that interpretation is that the King of France, Phillip the Fair and Pope Clement V, disbanded and destroyed the Knights Templar in the early 14th Century. I am quite sure you are aware of that fact.
No, it is very much an unresolved problem that started in the 20th century with the Treaty of Paris in 1919. Subsequent events in the region have grown out of the consequences of what that document facilitated.
“Little by little I am learning the art of being quite content by doing very little slowly” ~ Lionel Hardcastle
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Well written piece in the Atlantic.
Discussing the decolonization theory.
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Unfortunately the article is behind a paywall. Montefiore is a very good writer and historian, what he writes is always of strong merit.
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Interesting Proposal:
"Here’s a proposal - for every day Hamas releases at least 20 hostages AND fires zero missiles at Israel, Israel agrees to a one-day ceasefire. That would allow for at least 10 days of a “ceasefire.” Would Hamas agree to this very modest proposal?"
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@Renauda said in Hamas attacks Israel:
This is not a 21st century problem. This is a 13th century problem.
The problem with that interpretation is that the King of France, Phillip the Fair and Pope Clement V, disbanded and destroyed the Knights Templar in the early 14th Century. I am quite sure you are aware of that fact.
No, it is very much an unresolved problem that started in the 20th century with the Treaty of Paris in 1919. Subsequent events in the region have grown out of the consequences of what that document facilitated.
Ok, Israel can go in there, fight a conventional modern war and this problem will come roaring back as it always does.
You could even create a Palestinian state and it would make little to no difference.
Again, applying modern tactics to the 13th century foe.
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@Renauda said in Hamas attacks Israel:
This is not a 21st century problem. This is a 13th century problem.
The problem with that interpretation is that the King of France, Phillip the Fair and Pope Clement V, disbanded and destroyed the Knights Templar in the early 14th Century. I am quite sure you are aware of that fact.
No, it is very much an unresolved problem that started in the 20th century with the Treaty of Paris in 1919. Subsequent events in the region have grown out of the consequences of what that document facilitated.
The problem is at least 2 decades older than the treaty. Go back and look at the population numbers from 1880 through 1910. Both the Jewish and the Islamic population exploded far beyond normal reproductive rates for the region… Both groups began to actively populate the region.
Of course, the truth of 1890-1948 is irrelevant. What matters is that you now have 4 generations on both sides that have embraced perceptions and “feels”.
Me/rry/Christmas
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True enough. However the local Arab Muslims and Christians and the Sephardic Jews who lived there did so in relative peace (and under the Ottoman thumb) until the 1920’s when Palestine fell under the British Mandate. Rather than deal with the rising tensions, the British were preoccupied with keeping the members of the Hashemite dynasty in positions of power throughout greater Syria and Mesopotamia. Tensions and violence between Arabs and Jews increased with the trickle of of European Jews immigrating into Palestine. It reached a boiling point during WWII when the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem went into exile and into the welcoming arms of Hitler and the Nazis.
So while these pre 1948 events may seem irrelevant today, they set the stage for the 4 generations of perceptions and feels you describe between Arab and Israeli that have continued to fester and periodically explode into flames throughout the Cold War and into the present.
