Hamas Attacks Israel

[Madner Kami]

Specifically point to Israel's LEAERSHIP and their maniacal goals/tactics as the problem? Same with Palestine and Hamas.

Pfsssht, that's the next issue. Since Israel is very definitly a democracy, you can't just absolve the population from what the leadership does. And looking at the political landscape of Israel is nightmare-inducing. Netanyahu and Likud are probably the least extreme and the most "centrist" of all the parties in the current government, despite easily being a far-right extremist group by the measurements of any other western country and they've built a coalition with parties who outright advocate for ethnic cleansing, racial purity, religious extremism and annexing neighbouring countries' territories because they want to establish a "Historic Greater Israel" that never existed in history to begin with and even if it did, wouldn't justify a reestablishment in the first place. And that conglomeration reflects just above half the population in terms of votes (64 seats out of 120)...
At the same time, you can't entirely ignore that Israel's current behaviour is very much caused by what happened to the country since it's birth, where all it's neighbours tried to implement their variation of the "Endlösung der Judenfrage". Repeatedly... And that is before even considering what happened to Jews at large... ever and everywhere...
And then there are the Palestinians themselves. Sure, there weren't any elections held since 2006 and even those were on shaky grounds, given that there was not really a country or national identity tied to it in that sense. But you can't get away from Hamas having been elected into power by the people themselves in elections that were surprisingly legit even by the highest standards.
The flip-side there of course is, that no elections were held since then, Israel doing it's best to give people a reason to radicalize and keep flocking to Hamas, the Arab countries not helping anyways and Hamas being a terrorist organization with the declared goal of killing all Jews.

That whole thing there is such a cluster-fuck, no matter how you want to look at it, because everyone who has any sort of power, has no interest in trying to solve the problem and everyone with an interest in resolving the situation, has no power and gets body-slammed by the extremists in every involved party... And somehow the larger political discourse follows the exact same pattern. If you say something about A, you must be B. If you say something about B, you must be A. If you say something about A and B, you're left without friends and if you just shut your mouth and quietly hope to get by without being gutted by whoever feels fancy this morning, you're getting a knife to your throat and forced to pick a side.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

But you can't get away from Hamas having been elected into power by the people themselves in elections that were surprisingly legit even by the highest standards.
The flip-side there of course is, that no elections were held since then, Israel doing it's best to give people a reason to radicalize and keep flocking to Hamas, the Arab countries not helping anyways and Hamas being a terrorist organization with the declared goal of killing all Jews.

I find this to be a good example, that while fascism isn’t spelled out to be inherently bad, voting for fascist ideals is nonetheless problematic.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

It drives me up the wall that "Killing 10,000+ children is bad" is controversial. Like the degree to which public figures in my country pussy-foot around this and make excuses for war crimes is sickening.

[phantom000]

Oh so you’re going after the leading administration of a state with a national body of settlers descended from a religious group with a history of being persecuted against. Very nice.

I'd argue that that is the entire point of the argument. This is not about being against Jews or Israelis, but the political leadership of the nation. For me, there is no doubt (barring something very drastic) that there will be an Israeli state when the dust settles. But will there be a Palestine when this is all over?

[Madner Kami]

It drives me up the wall that "Killing 10,000+ children is bad" is controversial. Like the degree to which public figures in my country pussy-foot around this and make excuses for war crimes is sickening.

I know, right? And of course somebody is going to come around and say: "But those numbers are coming from Hamas and they have a reason to oversell the death and destruction!", to which I can only answer: So? Israel isn't bothering with counting who or what they kill and anybody else isn't going to go there and count (as neither Hamas nor Israel have an interest in accurate numbers), so Hamas' numbers are the only ones we got to work with. But even if Hamas is overselling it, so what? Either Israel is executing the most deathless ethnic cleansing campaign in human history or they're actively destroying half (at the very least) of one of the most densely populated spots on Earth and are bound to kill a metric arseload of people. Hell, there were two million people living in Gaza and Israel is strategically flattening the half of it, that was by far more densely populated (numbers vary, but generally you can presume that two thirds to three fourth of the Gazan population was living in the northern half), meaning the larger half of 2 million people are being pushed into half the area and that area is much less providing in terms of having a fucking roof over your head in the first place, not to even start considering sanitation and provision. Guessing from that alone, it would be a miracle if Hamas' numbers weren't actually low-balling the real numbers...

Oh so you’re going after the leading administration of a state with a national body of settlers descended from a religious group with a history of being persecuted against. Very nice.

I'd argue that that is the entire point of the argument. This is not about being against Jews or Israelis, but the political leadership of the nation. For me, there is no doubt (barring something very drastic) that there will be an Israeli state when the dust settles. But will there be a Palestine when this is all over?

The answer to that can only be: No. Israel and Palestine can not coexist, as both entities claim domain over the same territory. The solution to that problem is, that both sides ceede territory to the other and let each group of people execute their natural right to govern themselves (which neither side wants). Or both sides agree to create a singular state for both and thus retain their full claim on territorial integrity and souvereignty. The crux in that matter is, however, that Israel while generally being open to non-Jews, is explicitly conceived as a (jewish) state for Jews. This inherently means that one population-group is deemed as more central to the state than all the others, which will almost inevitably lead to discrimination against all the other population-groups in that state. Now critics of this perception keep telling, that Israel is a multi-ethnic state and that there are non-jewish parties and, yes it is and yes there are, but what do you think is going to happen, when the United Arab List, a conservative islamic party actually manages to get a democratically elected majority? Are muslims going to lord over a jewish state for Jews? I don't think so (and neither do most Israelis, for good reason), so a unified state necessitates inherently to drop the "Jewish State for Jews"-credo, because a "Jewish State for Jews" can not also be a state for Muslims. Or Christians or anything non-Jew for that matter, while we're at it. Well, or we're going to proclaim that the Jewish State for Jews is going to be the first ethno-centrist, quasi-religious (if not outright theocratic) state in human history, that is not going to discriminate in any way against non-ethnic religious minorities...

Long story short: You can either divide the country between both or you have to dissolve Israel and re-create a unified state. Good luck getting either going and the only other alternative is bloodshed, cleansing and another thousand years of inherited hatred leading into the next conflict.

Geezus this area of land... Thousands of years of persecution, slaughter, religious and ethnic conflict, rebellions, mass-murder, slavery and hatred and no end in sight. And this is claimed to be the Holy Land by three religions praying to the same god with marginal differences in how each choose to praise their Lord. The Kingdom of Heavens... And people wonder why I am agressively atheist... There are times when I, in all honesty, think we (as in the collective humankind) are best served by just leaving that area for good and cleansing it with nuclear fire, so nobody is encouraged to go there ever again. Leaving Eden may have been a difficult and immediatly detrimental step for us, but it turned out to be for our own good in the long run. Maybe it's time we leave Gethsemane for good as well.

[phantom000]

The answer to that can only be: No. Israel and Palestine can not coexist, as both entities claim domain over the same territory.

This is where the whole 'flirting with fascism' comes from. To me, if that you have no intention of pursuing a peaceful coexistence, joined together or as separate nations, is one small step from 'this is my land because I have the gun and you don't' which is one of the principles fascism, genocide or not.

The crux in that matter is, however, that Israel while generally being open to non-Jews, is explicitly conceived as a (jewish) state for Jews. This inherently means that one population-group is deemed as more central to the state than all the others, which will almost inevitably lead to discrimination against all the other population-groups in that state.

This is something else that makes me question Israel's future. It's not exactly tied to fascism, but trying to build a nation based on religious identity only makes it less stable. You are trying to take two radically different concepts and fit them together and rarely works well, if at all. Iran tried to be an Islamic state and that got them into all kinds of hot water with the rest of the world. The Roman Empire tried imposing their religious identity on the people they conquered and results were very mixed. The Ottoman Empire had its own share problems but managed to dodge the worst of them by embracing a degree of religious tolerance; only Muslims could hold important positions but beyond that there was very little discrimination. Even the USA, which could be argued does not have any religious identity because of the 1st amendment, has argued about religious identity since the beginning.

Basically; if you want to have a nation of Jews and only Jews, it raises too many questions that do not have seem to have any good answers.

[McAvoy]

It drives me up the wall that "Killing 10,000+ children is bad" is controversial. Like the degree to which public figures in my country pussy-foot around this and make excuses for war crimes is sickening.

Its weird to me. You side with Hamas you are considered antisemitic even if you are not. The other side where you side with Israel you have people whose party is followed by true antisemitic people.

Giving the land back to the Jews that haven't held power over if since Roman times is amusing to me. Almost like giving back the land Europeans took from the Native Americans. At least that happened much more recently compared to the Jews. Yeah sure the Jew went through a Holocaust, but so did the Native Americans. It amuses me in a dark humor sort of way.

Honestly, for that party it comes down to which do they hate more Jews or Muslims.

For me the whole thing in general is so complicated. The land by itself holds no value. Sand and rocks, but holds so much to the three Abrahamic religions.

Like I said it is weird to me.

We all know what Israel is trying to do.

[clearspira]

It drives me up the wall that "Killing 10,000+ children is bad" is controversial. Like the degree to which public figures in my country pussy-foot around this and make excuses for war crimes is sickening.

Its weird to me. You side with Hamas you are considered antisemitic even if you are not. The other side where you side with Israel you have people whose party is followed by true antisemitic people.

Giving the land back to the Jews that haven't held power over if since Roman times is amusing to me. Almost like giving back the land Europeans took from the Native Americans. At least that happened much more recently compared to the Jews. Yeah sure the Jew went through a Holocaust, but so did the Native Americans. It amuses me in a dark humor sort of way.

Honestly, for that party it comes down to which do they hate more Jews or Muslims.

For me the whole thing in general is so complicated. The land by itself holds no value. Sand and rocks, but holds so much to the three Abrahamic religions.

Like I said it is weird to me.

We all know what Israel is trying to do.

There are 1.8 billion Muslims which is 24.1% of the global population.
There are 15.2 million Jews which is 0.2% of the global population.

There are 49 Muslim countries.
There is 1 Jewish country.

The Jews are a heavily at risk minority that needs protecting - and I thought we were all about protecting and empowering minorities nowadays? As i've said many times before, I am willing to accept that they are going too far right now, but I can absolutely understand why they feel the need to do what they are doing. And if you lived there, if we were talking about YOUR State, YOUR country, YOUR family, YOUR friends, so would YOU. You were a military man, I know that you believe in fighting for your people.

You very dismissively mentioned the Holocaust. Let me give you another interesting figure: 60% of the worldwide Jewish population was murdered in WW2. That is just under half of all Jews living today. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/es ... l-solution

You say that the land holds no value. I disagree. You say that it is dumb. I disagree. Having their own country is the ONLY way to ensure their survival. If Israel was to vanish and the Jews threw themselves upon the mercy of the world they would die by the millions. Hamas already has multiple cells in Europe waiting to do so.

And BTW you also brought up the Native Americans. Fine, we can all agree that was disgusting. But the United States isn't still actively trying to murder them as we speak. They're safe, the Jews are not.

[clearspira]

Clearspira, what exactly are you trying to do?

What are you asking of me?

Do you mean ''Why am I asking a genuine and innocent question about the US election because I find that sort of thing fascinating? Especially as I can completely understand voting for someone that I believed in who let me down?''

Or

''Why do I defend Israel despite the fact that they have clearly lost the moral high ground?''

Or

''Why do I think that desperate people are not automatically evil when they vote for the Devil?''

I just explained question 1. I just explained question 2 to McAvoy. And I am tired of explaining question 3 as in my opinion this is just common sense so I am not going to do so again.

[phantom000]

And if you lived there, if we were talking about YOUR State, YOUR country, YOUR family, YOUR friends, so would YOU. You were a military man, I know that you believe in fighting for your people.

True, but one could also argue 'all the more reason for a third party to step in to avoid unnecessary lose of life on either side.'

Having their own country is the ONLY way to ensure their survival. If Israel was to vanish and the Jews threw themselves upon the mercy of the world they would die by the millions. Hamas already has multiple cells in Europe waiting to do so.

I don't really see how the Nation of Israel is the only thing stopping a second holocaust. If you want to talk about all those extremist protests that happened under the Trump Administration I will point out that there were just as many counter-protests. In fact a lot of the violence came from clashes between protest groups. Attacks on synagogues do happen but they seem more like isolated incidents, the work of just a few individuals operating on their own. If there was some big organization attacks would be happening all the time.

And I have discussed why I think any nation founded on religion, or even ethnic, identity ultimately does not work. Even if Netanyahu got his wish it might prove to be a hollow victory for Israel because they will have the same issues all those other nations have had.

And BTW you also brought up the Native Americans. Fine, we can all agree that was disgusting. But the United States isn't still actively trying to murder them as we speak. They're safe, the Jews are not.

Sometimes I can't decide which I should be more outraged at. When I was a kid I was taught that what happened to people like the Cherokee and the Souix was the dark chapter of US history; the thing we weren't supposed to do but we did it anyway because there was no one to stop us. And now when we see the same thing happening halfway a crossed the world we are not only allowing it, we're encouraging it?

And if you want to say 'this isn't like the Trail of Tears' I would say 'you're right, the Cherokee had somewhere to go, where are the Palestinians supposed to go?'