What does it even mean 'to want nothing more than to end the conflict'? As far as I can tell it doesn't mean anything. Everybody wants the conflict to end, including the Israelis and the Palestinians. They just want it to end differently, of course.
In theory, we want to end it through the Two-State Solution (though even what this means is vague - certainty not the borders of 1967 that Palestinians and Arabs are demanding)
But yeah, in practice, we seem to want it to end with full Israeli dominance, and the Palestinians either emigrating to Egypt and Jordan or vanishing into thin air, I suppose.
> But yeah, in practice, we seem to want it to end with full Israeli dominance, and the Palestinians either emigrating to Egypt and Jordan or vanishing into thin air, I suppose.
No, the majority of the West strongly wants a two-state solution (on the 1967 border, roughly). So did many Israelis, who voted people into office intent on achieving that goal many times.
The problem is, Israel and Palestine never managed to sign an agreement leading to a two-state solution. And in parallel to the peace process, some Palestinians launched the second intifada, a terror campaign which killed many hundreds of Israelis. This eventually lead most Israelis to think that a two-state solution is impossible.
1. You call it "The Israeli PM who pushed for a two state solution" (referring to Rabin), but actually there were other PMs who were negotiating a two state solution with the Palestinians and were elected after - Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert (Ehud Olmert was ten years after the assasination of Rabin).
2. The PM the succeeded Rabin, Ariel Sharon, a long-time right-wing hawk, didn't negotiate with the Palestinians, but did shift Israeli policy to simply leaving the territory without a negotiated settlement. He's the one who pulled Israel out of Gaza, and by all counts, he was poised to do the same and leave the West Bank before he had a stroke.
Olmert, also a historic right-wing hawk, succeeded Sharon, and campaigned openly on the idea of starting to pull settlements out of the West Bank. And he won, with this campaign.
Olmert, btw, to this day is a big peace-advocate, working together with Palestinian partners on trying to bring about a two-state solution. He's also a big critic of the current Israeli government (and famously wrote a piece saying that Israel was committing war crimes in Gaza).
3. Funny enough, another way in which you're technically wrong is that Rabin himself didn't directly advocate for a two-state solution, at least not officially. That was probably his direction, but both Barak and Olmert went much further than him in what they were offering the Palestinian leadership in terms of a deal.
Bonus 4th point: Worth mentioning that calling the person who assassinated Rabin a "right wing Israeli" is pretty wrong too. He was a member of a very extremist right-wing group that did not and does not have any broad support in Israel, as opposed to standard "right wing" positions which do have broad support.
What exactly ARE the goals / demands of every side. Both what they say in public, and what's generally accepted as the rational real goals each side requests / demands / etc via peace talks as well as through violence.
The breakdown could even focus on factions within the nebulous term of 'sides'. An average citizen is likely to have looser criteria than a government / terrorist.
Hum... when I look at pictures of the very thorough destruction in Gaza (hospitals, civilians etc) it would seem that the israelis think "Remove Hamas" actually means kill everyone one in Gaza.
If not a genocide, at the very least an ethnocide.
It’s absolutely the case that Hamas hasn’t sued for peace with unconditional surrender. (Or recognised that the hostages confer leverage on Israel, not themselves.) Both Hamas and Israel remain belligerents in this conflict until one of them withdraws or surrenders, that’s just how war works.
There are a lot of atrocities being committed in this conflict. But bombing a school that was used as a missile launch site really isn’t one of them.
Mostly Israel due to a firepower disadvantage. But Hamas seems to be about as into committing war crimes as Netanyahu.
In terms of indifference to suffering, the people dying are in Gaza. Not Israel. Hamas should be suing for peace, not posturing because some fucks in Doha would prefer to punt the question. (Palestine unilaterally turning over its hostages would rob Israel of a tremendous amount of leverage.)
Dresden made the Germans surrender? We're really going with that now? Not the Soviets taking Berlin and Hitler blowing his brains out lest they capture him?
Also, the Germans sent untrained 15 year olds to fight Soviet tanks. That's as close to total battlefield defeat as has ever happened in history.
For the record, the firebombing of Dresden was indefensible.
I say this as someone whose family endured 6 years of Nazi German and Soviet crimes, including genocide, violence, rape, large scale looting and destruction of cultural heritage, and mass destruction of cities (85% of Warsaw alone was reduced to rubble, intentionally and systematically).
Why do I mention that? I mention that to underscore that just war is not utilitarian. You cannot justify Dresden or Hiroshima or Nagasaki. It doesn't mean you can't take strong measures, or that circumstances don't make a difference, only that the circumstances did not morally justify these acts. And it seems that the behavior of the Allies in Dresden and Hiroshima serve as precedent that is used to justify crimes like the leveling of Gaza and treating its civilians like cattle.
We stopped dropping bombs on Germany after they surrendered. If you are militarily defeated, then surrender typically results in the bombs stop dropping... unless your catchphrase is "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be Arab" -- I probably wouldn't surrender to those guys or Russians.
Hamas goal with the hostages was exchange has Israel has tens of thousands Palestinian prisoners. Turns out Israel doesn't care anymore and will even sacrifice their own to further right wing Zionist goals.
Unfortunately this Israeli government has consisently refused to articulate any sort of positive goal. Netanyahu is only publicly against things. He is adamant about preventing a Palestinian state and crippling Iran, but seems to have no plan for what should happen in Palestine, hence the seemingly endless horrible situation there.
Hamas wants to destroy Israel, they are pretty open about it. They are also not really holding back about their antisemitism. The mass murdering on 7th October pretty much demonstrates what Hamas is about in general.
They also murdered the Gazan opposition after they were voted into power and have not really allowed voting since. They are pretty much not interested in increasing the situation for the people in Gaza. That's also why they are a terror organization.
Hamas' explicit goal is "from the river to the sea". If there is an alternative that they are willing to settle for, nobody knows what it is.
The individual Gazans almost certainly have one in mind, likely some variant of the two state solution. But Hamas is in charge, and there is nobody else to talk to about it. Ordinary Gazans don't much like Hamas but they are the only thing standing between them and Israel, who as you know is attacking with impunity.
Israel's nominal goal is to remove Hamas and engage such a negotiation, though there is significant doubt that this tactic is going to lead there. And they know that.
Israelis are roughly equally divided on what they want. About half want to wipe out Gaza and have control of (but not responsibility for) the West Bank. They are the ones in government.
The other half is much more amenable to a two state solution, but they are extremely skeptical of finding it. Long before the October 7 attacks, Israelis routinely have to shelter from rocket attacks. We hear little about them because they are largely ineffective, but it does not give Israelis a lot of confidence in any kind of negotiated settlement. That side is also happy to have Gaza walled off.
And all of these sides are backed by powerful outside forces for whom the conflict itself is their goal.
That is an extremely high level breakdown, as neutral as I can be.
The problem with enunciating real positions to domestic audiences are that the extremists on both sides will literally murder anyone who compromises.
Let's not forget Israel's domestic orthodox/right-wing Jewish terrorism and Yitzhak Rabin's assassination.
Ergo, there's even more incentive for leaders to continually espouse positions they know will never happen, but which play well at home.
As a violence in poli sci professor of mine once quipped, this is a 'the only solution is killing the grandmothers' conflict. Because generational narratives of victimization are so ingrained in large parts of both societies that there is no room for compromise.
Silence extremist voices forcefully, wait a generation, and then there might be a path to peace. :(
Who will provide the force to silence these extremist voices?
Maybe there are some parallels in this situation and late 1800’s-mid 1900’s Western Europe. The civil war on the European continent between Germanic states on one hand and French/British ended when two powerful outsiders (US and Soviet Russia) invaded and split the continent. During this occupation west Europeans nations learned how to live with themselves and to atone for their mistakes and to not repeat these mistakes. But they only learned this because they were under military occupation.
This scenario will most likely not happen in the Middle East and so I think there will not be peace there for generations.
The greatest chance for this was probably the US-Arab world, but the Shia/Sunni sectarian-political feudalism made that a non-starter, especially in the context of the Cold War.
As a colleague from Bahrain once quipped, 'the countries of the Arab world love to use Palestinians as propaganda for domestic purposes, but none of them actually give enough of a shit to make hard choices to solve the problem.'
In precisely the same way that the Nazis wanted their conflict to end with Jews emigrating to Africa (Madagascar according to their original plan) or vanishing into thin air.
At this point, I think the Two-State Solution has proven to be incredibly naive.
As long as there are outside forces, such as Iran, willing to embed & fund militants among the Gazan population, the -only- practical solution towards peace is assimilation: have Gazans broken up & spread out through Israel until law enforcement can be practically achieved.
Now assimilation sucks & will likely result in all sorts of social injustice, but I consider it a better alternative to the current ethnic cleansing.
EDIT: @casspipe suggested the option of subsidized resettlement and I agree that is another option that should be explored.
Even assimilation seems hard at this point. If I were a gazan I'd ask the international community to have Israel buy me decent housing somewhere safe in an arab speaking country. Like, I get it you are stronger and don't want me here but give me.somewhere decent to go. I often wonder what are the options for Palestinians and especially gazans who do want to get out of there.
There are not necessarily Arab countries that want to take on millions of Palestinian refugees. There is a broader issue that what you suggest is not considered good for the Palestinian cause. I'll give an example. UNRWA uses a specific definition for Palestinian refugees that differs from the general refugee definition used by UNHCR. They define Palestinian refugees as "persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict". This status also extends to their descendants. This means children and grandchildren of the original 1948 refugees maintain refugee status even if born outside Palestine. When you think about it, this is kind of the opposite of what you suggested. It creates a massive class of legal Palestinians who live in and are citizens of other countries (particularly Jordan), but are ostensibly waiting for their opportunity to return (or receive some other "durable solution" such as compensation).
In general, Arab states and Palestinian leadership argue that naturalizing refugees would undermine their right to return to their original homes. You can interpret this cynically: because many Arab states are not too friendly with Israel, having a massive class of refugees putting political pressure on them could be advantageous, and is probably one of the only ways to "defeat" Israel as a jewish state (because if all of those refugees had the right to live in Israel, jews might become a minority.) But it is true that removing refugee status without a just solution would erase Palestinian claims and rights under international law.
It's interesting to compare that treatment to the Mizrahi Jews who fled persecution in Arab states after 1948 and many settled in Israel. They're not refugees anymore. The Arab states stole tons of property from Mizrahi Jews (adding up to multiple times the size of Israel) but nobody is demanding that the Arab states pay reparations to Mizrahi Jews as a condition for peace. Meanwhile those same Arab states radicalize their populace against Israel by calling Israelis "land thieves" - the hypocrisy is quite amazing considering many of those Israelis literally had their grandparents' land stolen by those same Arab states.
A general bias that Jews are supposed to "forgive and forget" losing 3rd of population in a genocide, losing land multiple times the size of Israel etc.
While much smaller tragedies are used to justify forever war by Hamas against Israel.
That's not quite fair. The Mizrahi Jews the GP is referring to were kicked out of the country they were born in, and had nowhere else to go but Israel, the land for which was already "stolen" when the Mizrahi Jews got there. (Obviously settlements are ongoing so you can say that land theft is continuing to happen. If that's what you meant, ignore me.)
I've done the math, and if the US had given every Palestinian $100,000 to move elsewhere (surely enough to relocate) they could have forcefully relocated every single Palestinian without killing them all. And they would have spent less money than they have on bombs and stuff for Israel.
Still a dick move, but much less so than wiping out an entire group of people.
It's up to them and Israeli to decide, I guess. Not wanting to help is not the same as killing. If some stranger comes to your home, you're not obliged to let him in and it won't be kill, even if he died afterwards. World is cruel and nobody obliged to nobody, especially at population levels. It's much easier to help single person, of course, but accommodating millions is another matter.
> If some stranger comes to your home, you're not obliged to let him in
Sure.
But if you go over to where a stranger lives and build a wall around them. You are responsible if they then starve to death.
If another stranger is delivering food to a different stranger and you kill the food deliverer. You are responsible for that mans death.
These analogies are much more relevant to the discussion. Isreal is disallowing people from delivering food and has even killed people that do (leading to organizations like word food kitchen to leave).
> If I were a gazan I'd ask the international community to have Israel buy me decent housing somewhere safe in an arab speaking country.
The Arab states seized properties from Mizrahi Jews fleeing to Israel decades ago, land that adds up to multiple times the size of Israel. They have plenty of space to resettle refugees without asking Israel to "buy" their own stolen land back!
When Hamas uses hospitals for military purposes (or any purpose "harmful to their enemy" [other than solely medical care of injured Hamas combatants]), those hospitals lose their protected status otherwise provided by the Geneva Convention.
I don't like the prospect of hospitals being attacked, but if Hamas houses combatants or arms inside a hospital, attacking Hamas therein does not appear to be a war crime, provided Israel has issued a warning and allowed a reasonable time for Hamas to vacate the hospital.
The Geneva Convention does not provide "One Weird Trick to Avoid Combatants Being Attacked"
The Geneva Convention does not provide carveouts to particularly angry personnel. You can try to define fake conditions to justify it but the hearing hasn't happened so you're just speculating.
And you know what? You can document the torture, sexual assault and murder of innocent prisoners without getting a proper investigation from the ICC. Many US citizens will remember that from Abu Ghraib! Lord only knows how much the CIA is shielding Israel from the fallout of SAVAK. You might as well drop the moralizing pretenses and admit that you don't think a fair trial would be desirable.
I'm reminded of an episode of Saga of Tanya the Evil where a 'guerilla military unit' had 'taken over a captured city'. The progag's military unit had to go 'clear the city'. Their military commanders had given clear orders that all hostile forces were enemy soldiers who must be killed. They started by issuing a demand to release the hostages and allow them to exit the war zone. One of the few who didn't want to fight was shot while trying to escape. From that point it predictably went in a very bad direction.
As far as I'm aware, the citizens of Israel are free to leave that country* (free to enter another country is another issue, but they're also free to move about). It's terrorism and illegal military action to knowingly fire upon civilians. I agree with that for all sides of a conflict. The issue with the other side(s) in this conflict is that they do not present as a clearly identified military force. IMO the most proper solution is the same as evaporatively purifying water. Issue sufficient (<< heavy lifting here) warnings for civilians to leave an area, with an area for them to move to. Then any who remain in the military action area are combatants. Probably just like in the anime episode that showcases this circumstance. (war is hell, that's one of the hells.)
The very existence of guidance change on civilian casualties should constitute a war crime, because to put it another way, the IDF decided that Palestinian civilian lives were worth less after the terror attacks.
In other metrics, the October attacks killed 1,200 Israelis, plus 1,700 killed in the war. Versus 50,000+ Palestinian fatalities.
So we're at ~1:17 Israeli: Palestinian killed.
I feel like any human can agree there should be an ethical ceiling to that number. Maybe it's lower or higher than the current number, but it being unlimited is genocide.
The Gulf War had a more extreme casualty ratio of ~1:1,000+. Would you consider that an extremely unethical war? Should the US have done something differently to even out the ratio?
When one military force blends in with the civilian populace, actual civilian casualties will fall somewhere inbetween extremes (100% of those killed and 0%).
Ergo, excessive casualty ratios indicate that either (a) the enemy military force is larger, (b) the IDF is exceedingly good at killing only enemy combatants without taking casualties, or (c) a large number of civilians are being killed.
I don't think anyone would argue that Hamas has as many fighters as the IDF?
I don't think anyone would argue against the fact that the Geneva Conventions require combatants to distinguish themselves from the civilian population.
When Hamas fighters repeatedly, strategically, and intentionally fail to do so, I think they bear significant (and even the majority) responsibility for the resulting increase in what you call "actual civilian casualties".
> The very existence of guidance change on civilian casualties should constitute a war crime
Surely a change in tactics by Hamas could lead to a legitimate reason to change the proportion of civilian risks.
Imagine if Hamas were scrupulously avoiding all civilians and civilian structures by 200 meters before date X and changed tactics on date X to freely intermingle with civilians and occupy civilian structures with military units and arms.
I'd expect before date X for Israel to have minimal civilian casualties be considered acceptable and proportional, but after that change in tactics I would see justification for a change in the math to justify a higher figure as being the lowest reasonable amount of civilian risk.
And indeed, Israel has made token efforts to say this is happening, but I'm not aware of any proof. Which, coupled with the fact that the IDF is explicitly prohibiting reporting, isn't a good look.
Furthermore, even if Israel has a justification for large numbers of civilian casualties, there are other portions of the Geneva Convention it's obviously breaching:
>> ART. 53. — Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or
personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or co-operative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.
>> ART. 55. — To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate.
>> ART. 56. — To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring and maintaining, with the co-operation of national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory, with particular reference to the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics. Medical personnel of all categories shall be allowed to carry out their duties.
I would say that more than one view exists of whether Israel is an Occupying Power in Gaza.
One is that Hamas governs Gaza and Israel is not occupying Gaza via a sustained and continuous military control of the territory and population, but rather has intermittent military operations and is otherwise more akin to an embargo. (The US was not "occupying Cuba" at the height of the Cuban embargo, for example.)
The other is that Israel is occupying Gaza, notwithstanding Hamas' claim to be independently governing the territory and the lack of continuous occupying military forces holding territory on the ground.
Whether Israel or Hamas has effective control over the territory and its population does not appear to me to have a bright-line/clear-cut answer. I don't think either side has less than 10% control, but I don't think they have more than 90% control either.
Iff they are an Occupying Power, then they have those obligations. Many of those obligations presume an effective control by an on-the-ground occupying force.
> It’d be convenient if Jews just stopped existing so the Arabs could take their homeland again
This argument betrays your bias: that the land is yours (Jewish I mean), and "Arabs" stole it and want to steal it again.
Of course, the other side sees it differently. They see a half a century of immigration to their land culminating in a partition that was imposed from the outside in Western colonialist fashion without the consent of the people living there. They saw massacres and expulsions and ethnic cleansing. That is the root of the conflict.
Of course now 80 years and many complications have passed; both sides have legitimate complaints about the other and many people have been born in both territories making them natives and not part of either colonisation or expulsion. It's difficult.
> All of the death toll coming out of Gaza are from Hamas and they revised the numbers back in April to show 72% of the deaths are military aged males.
This betrays it even more. Not only do you cite a non-credible source going against the consensus, but your argument is literally "Palestinian males between 16 and 45 are fair game for extermination". Not sure what to reply to that.
If you are from US/Australia/... chances are you also think the land is yours and occasionally you celebrate what is for locals an "invasion day"
in this sense Jews are in a much better position because their presence in specifically that area many hundreds of years before Muslim conquest is archeologically documented. Unlike presence of Europeans in Americas or Australia.
What I say does not justify war atrocities. Just that "you are wrong to call it your land" is not a good working logic
I'm unsure what your point is, because that example supports my argument. There is no documented European presence but there is Native presence for millenia in those lands. Yet nobody would seriously argue that non-native Americans/Australians should be kicked out so the land is returned to their "original owners" as defined by "the vague descendents of the earliest known occupiers as defined in a muddy ethnoreligious way"... Yet when talking about this group in particular that claim holds?!
> Yet nobody would seriously argue that non-native Americans/Australians should be kicked out so the land is returned to their "original owners"
Maybe somebody would if they could? Or how about not kicked out but just made subordinate to government by native original owners, how would you like that?
I guess somebody else can say but Americans developed land, built infrastructure and democracy and did good more. But then the same can be said about Israel. And unlike Americans Jews did not invade somewhere new because they were there in BC era
I don't defend bad stuff done by Israel gov but I suggest condemning specifically bad stuff instead of suggesting "bias" that you did. It's a bit more complicated.
I find it exemplified in the disagreements even in the beginning of the conflict. I feel, pro-Israeli commenters either prefer to start with 1948 (The state somehow appeared like some sort of divine creation and was immediately declared war by all surrounding countries) or in biblical times.
Pro-Palestinian commenters usually start with the Balfour Declaration or Theodor Herzl's books, I believe.
I found 1881/1882 a good starting point, because this was the first time there was organized immigration that explicitly followed Zionist plans and ideology - I.e. people were not abstractly thinking about "returning to Jerusalem" and they weren't immigrating into the Ottoman empire for other reasons, but they were deliberately immigrating with the intention of (re-)establishing a "Jewish homeland" in the biblical Land of Israel.
Not to mention, the claim that because you’re a boy in your late teens you’re a valid target… it’s just so incredibly…
Do I call it sexist? Stereotyping? What? It entirely denies the existence of males as anything other than enemies, and these are still children we’re talking about.
