Israel (now broader Mid East discussion) (3 Viewers)

[NewOrleansFan]

Is "X" a news outlet?

I see the blue check mark. So yay, it is legit.

 

[BigFrosty]

You can see the Merkava smoke system in use. Much better than the RU tanks.

 

[Heathen Saint]

Every single headline has to read “Israel ya da ya da next phase, as fears of humanitarian crisis deepen”

We get it, it is horrible. But Israel didn’t start it. Are they to send the message that all you have to do to win a war is use human shields? i don’t feel there is any choice in it.

...So we're just going to ignore decades of Israel's racism, mistreatment, illegal occupation etc in all of this? Maybe 'who started it' is more complex than something that happened 20 days ago.

I don't have a 'side' in all of this. I condemn the massacre by Hamas like any other reasonable person. But I feel like anyone questioning Israel is labeled 'Pro Hamas' by the throngs.

I just posit that ignoring basically all other historical context here leading up to the attacks would be quite head-in-sand.

 

[Zack Lee]

...So we're just going to ignore decades of Israel's racism, mistreatment, illegal occupation etc in all of this? Maybe 'who started it' is more complex than something that happened 20 days ago.

I don't have a 'side' in all of this. I condemn the massacre by Hamas like any other reasonable person. But I feel like anyone questioning Israel is labeled 'Pro Hamas' by the throngs.

I just posit that ignoring basically all other historical context here leading up to the attacks would be quite head-in-sand.

Who started it in the way you speak is much more complicated and I don’t take a position (although if I did I would say we there West probably started it). But when they slaughtered all those people, they knew Israel would have no choice so they willingly killed innocents on both sides of the lines. It’s happening


we started it with the events that led to 911 if you take your position. we certainly didn’t retaliate correctly, but are you suggesting we should not have retaliated at all?

 

[DaveXA]

...So we're just going to ignore decades of Israel's racism, mistreatment, illegal occupation etc in all of this? Maybe 'who started it' is more complex than something that happened 20 days ago.

I don't have a 'side' in all of this. I condemn the massacre by Hamas like any other reasonable person. But I feel like anyone questioning Israel is labeled 'Pro Hamas' by the throngs.

I just posit that ignoring basically all other historical context here leading up to the attacks would be quite head-in-sand.

I wouldn't say head in sand (while sure, there's some of that) but rather I'd argue that everything pre-10/7 is a complicated and convoluted mess, and no real good way to determine what's what.

What's clear is 10/7 crossed a red line and that changed the calculus for everything from that point.

Certainly it can be argued that Israel's response has been too heavy-handed or not done in the right way, but considering how the US responded to 9/11, we don't exactly have much moral authority here. If what we did is any indication, Israel is barely getting started in their response.

I think they've used up their goodwill at this point, but clearly understand why others might not think that.

 

[bclemms]

...So we're just going to ignore decades of Israel's racism, mistreatment, illegal occupation etc in all of this? Maybe 'who started it' is more complex than something that happened 20 days ago.

I don't have a 'side' in all of this. I condemn the massacre by Hamas like any other reasonable person. But I feel like anyone questioning Israel is labeled 'Pro Hamas' by the throngs.

I just posit that ignoring basically all other historical context here leading up to the attacks would be quite head-in-sand.

I agree but when does your timeline start?

 

[Goatman Saint]

Well, my guess is somewhere around 6000 years ago in that area of the world

 

[boutte]

Two posts that need to be put next to each other in order to get a complete picture of the situation.

Truth matters? I'll have whatever that guy's having.

 

[baarbogast]

 

[baarbogast]

 

[DaveXA]

It's intentional. 2 reasons imo. 1) they probably think the refugees will not be allowed to return and 2) some like Jordan have already dealt a lot with refugees in the past and don't want any more.

Egypt needs to open the crossing and allow the Palestinians to stay in camps temporarily until hostilities come to an end in Gaza.

It could also be argued that Arab nations want those in Gaza to stay and let them suffer attacks from Israel so they can blame Israel.

 

[Heathen Saint]

Who started it in the way you speak is much more complicated and I don’t take a position (although if I did I would say we there West probably started it). But when they slaughtered all those people, they knew Israel would have no choice so they willingly killed innocents on both sides of the lines. It’s happening

Please re-read what I typed. I specifically stated that there are more complexities simply than the 'who started' argument the poster mentioned earlier.

we started it with the events that led to 911 if you take your position.

Partially, yeah. I think that's a factual statement. It doesn't mean that I or anyone else believes those attacks to be any way justifiable or any less heinous.

we certainly didn’t retaliate correctly, but are you suggesting we should not have retaliated at all?

No, I definitely do not believe that. Those that plot and carry out terror should always be held responsible, in any situation, and despite how organized (big gov't) or disorganized (small militia, etc) they be.

I do think that the retaliation caused more harm than good, and I question the US government and their aversion to probing the Saudis as 15/19 of those terrorists were citizens of that nation. But, it is a complex subject.

 

[Heathen Saint]

I agree but when does your timeline start?

I think you could argue the bulk of the issues started with the Balfour declaration, but the popular answer if we're just talking about would be since British withdrawal and Israeli occupation of land beyond UN's partition plan around 1948.

 

[SamAndreas]

 

[Saintman2884]

I think you could argue the bulk of the issues started with the Balfour declaration, but the popular answer if we're just talking about would be since British withdrawal and Israeli occupation of land beyond UN's partition plan around 1948.

The Balfour Declaration, although it did leave in protections supposedly for indigenious Palestinian population then-living in Ottoman-controlled Palestine is likely the origin point for where the state of Isreal eventually comes into existence, because British and European Zionists later could point to an actual, written document clearly stating that one day, yes Jews worldwide would get a homeland of their own. Many British historians have tried taking a more nuanced view of the Balfour Declaration and its ramifications, arguing it was a policy prop used to attract Jewish support for WWI by a desperate, gambling war-torn British government led by David Lord George, willing to make cynical deals they had no real intentions of ever keeping, long-term. Many Jewish groups then and even now, understandably, viewed it differently and didnt exactly let inter-war British coalition governments forget it, either. The events of 1948 don't occur without European/American Zionists or groups pointedly reminding them about that policy statement articulated clearly in the Balfour Declaration. The Evian Conference regarding potential German/Austrian Jewish immigration from persecution, bigotry isn't a shining example of humanitarian tolerance, understanding, and acceptance from other European countries and the USA/Canada during that time period.


The British and French made a lot of secret, underhanded agreements during and even after WWI like Sykes-Picot, and its likely that even post-WWI British policymakers, some of them, didnt really believe or think the Balfour Declaration was a legally-binding agreement, but a half-hearted promise they gave lip service, too, at times. Also, UK halted and stopped European Jewish immigration to Palestine during the 1930's that wouldve helped countless German, Austrian Jews being disenfranchised, attacked, abandoned and targeted by racist Nazi ultranationalist policies and laws.


Then there's the Holocaust. That horrendous, genocidal human catastrophe which led to 6 million Jews, hundreds of thousands of Slavs, Poles, Russian POW's, homosexuals, political opponents of Nazism, trade union leaders, Gypsies, Allied POW's being murdered in the gas chambers, overwork, exposure to extreme cold, Einzsangruppen shooting squads or the concentration camp system of Dachua, Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Sachsenhausen, Ravensbruck, Malthausen, Colditz. There was a overriding sense among some Jews worldwide, in USA, Europe, ME after the Holocaust that Western, non-Jewish nations would never truly treat them as equals, they'd always be at the potential risk of discrimination, hatred, bigotry or racial violence whenever some ultranationalist idealogue or group popped up at different intervals, claiming they were solely responsible for their nation's problems.