A reader comments on generational views of Israel:
I see three generational views. My parents, who see Israel as it was in the 1960s and 1970s: constantly at risk of annihilation. Then there's my generation, that sees Israel as a strong democratic island in a sea of totalitarian neighbors. And the younger generation, that sees Israel as an oppressor.
This is probably more accurate than my young-old division.
What makes the Israel-Palestinian conflict so intractable is that both sides view themselves as besieged minorities fighting for their lives against implacable foes. And they're both right. Israel has fought since its beginning against the entire Arab world, which surrounds them and is massively larger. But in the specific fight of Palestinians against Israel, it's the Palestinians who are overwhelmed by a larger and far more powerful enemy.
Even in theory, I'm no longer able to conceive of a plausible resolution. The West Bank is now too carved up to support a Palestinian state, which means a two-state solution is effectively impossible. And a one-state solution is intolerable to both sides. The status quo is abhorrent—one of the few things everyone agrees on—but it's all we have.
"a strong democratic island in a sea of totalitarian neighbors"
But a democracy where the right wing reserves the right to assasinate any PM that is too moderate.
... and a democracy where half the residents aren't allowed to vote.
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hmm. I just googled and based on various sources, Arabs are about 20% of the population of Israel and are allowed to vote. This does not include Gaza or West Bank. but they elected Hamas and PLO, respectively. There are also Arabs elected to the Knesset.
1) Israel exercises power over millions of Palestinians that do not have a vote. It's not quite half, but close. They refuse to allow those Palestinians to obtain citizenship, while also preventing them from forming their own state to be citizens of.
2) Israeli Arabs do get to vote, and there are Arab members of the Knesset, but this doesn't amount to democracy. A critical aspect of democracy, and why having the vote matters, is that it provides everyone the possibility of exercising power. It gives them an opportunity to govern.
But, Israeli Arabs do not have this opportunity. There has been a consensus among Israeli Jews that the Arab parties must be excluded from government. If a government relied upon the Arab members for its majority, it would be viewed as illegitimate.
This is what happened in the only 18 month period in which this consensus didn't hold. There were a lot of reasons why the Lapid/Bennett coalition was unstable and imploded after a year and a half. One of those reasons is that there were those, even within the coalition, that objected to Arab participation. They just also objected to having an indicted prime minister, and narrowly preferred to rule with Arabs than with a criminal.
Until such time as the Arabs are considered to be full participants in the political process, and are a part of governing coalitions, Israel isn't much of a democracy.
Oh brother. This does not include Gaza or West Bank.
In similar news, the Belgians didn't allow the Congolese to vote, either.
How does someone become as stupid as you. Om he israeli case, it's the foreigners allowed to vote while the locals aren't permitted to vote.
"There are also Arabs elected to the Knesset." But not allowed to participate in the governing coalition, i.e. can have precisely zero power.
... and a democracy where half the residents aren't allowed to vote.
About 1/3rd per my calculus. But your point stands. Israel is no longer a democracy as that point is usually understood in Western countries.
It would appear you are including the arab population (officially residents of israel, but will never be citizens) in your voting population when they don't get to vote.
Hmm, imposition of power by force increases in costs overtime, At some. point, Israel will be unable to support the military required to maintain its position by force.
And what will happen then?
I suggest that one can get the best deal by bargaining when one has a position of strength. But it must be true bargaining resulting in an acceptable, if not optimum, outcome for the weaker party.
This suggests that Israel's window of opportunity is closing over time.
Will they be enlightened enough to act, or will they let the opportunities pass and face a bargain being imposed on them?
It will making for an interesting historical narrative.
"Israel will be unable to support the military required to maintain its position by force"
Interesting question as to whether or not this has already happened--Israel depends a lot on US defense spending and security gaurantees, after all.
Israel's reliance on the US is decreasing with time.
There is only one issue in this: Hamas committed an atrocity at an Israeli music concert which no international intervention responded to. Ipso facto, Israel had to respond: there was no other alternative. You don't have the right to criticize their response, nobody does. Either international authorities have to eliminate Hamas or let the Israeli's do it. The Palestinians in Gaza have endorsed the atrocity by continuing to support Hamas.
This doesn't make any sense, in several ways. It sounds like you're saying that if some kind of UN rapid-reaction force (which doesn't exist) had leapt in and counter-attacked Hamas, the Israeli government would have been all "Super, thanks guys, whatever you do is fine with us"??? Nobody criticized the initial response in October, it was after the civilian death toll reached 5 figures that it started to become clear that a "criticism of the response" was not only warranted, but morally necessary.
I mean, I could come up with a better argument for your case than this.
No, Zonie is clearly right. If a country affronts you in some way, and the UN doesn't address it (to your satisfaction?) with the (nonexistant) UN Special Missions Force/Avengers/GI Joe/Something, you are able to do whatever you want in retaliation and nobody can criticize it (and in fact maybe also have to financially support you).
That's just basic international law, as Zonie of course knows.
They can do whatever they want in retaliation? And I'm not allowed to criticize it? Really? Is that what you're going with?
Can they torture civilians?
Dismember children?
Deliberately starve people, including children?
The last one they are actually doing.
Wow, ok. I thought I was pretty obviously being sarcastic and making fun of Zonie for his moronic post (in particuarly, thought that the reference to the Avengers and GI Joe was a dead giveaway), but, I guess I was too subtle.
To be clear: no, I do not think that "retaliation" rights entail doing whatever you want.
In specific, I guess I think that there aren't especially clear answers here (the situation is the result of decades of bad decisions and wrongs, and thus will probably take decades to set right), but that, fwiw, whatever that list of "answers" may be, bombing a poor stateless people, killing tens of thousands directly and starving countless more isn't on that list.
I criticized the initial Israeli response, because it was plainly evident that they had no strategy. From the evening of Oct 7th, it was obvious that they had no plan for how to convert bombing and invasion into anything of lasting value. The clearly intended to kill tens of thousands of Palestinians in order to accomplish absolutely nothing.
Nothing that has happened in the ensuing six months has provided any counterevidence.
Netanyahu implicitly supported Hamas running Gaza as a way to weaken the PLO. When is Netanyahu going to pay for this mistake?
Israeli settlers routinely commit atrocities in Palestinian villages. Look up "Hawara pogorm" and "Al-Mughayyir" for recent examples, though there are many more. No international intervention responded to those, either.
So, by the logic you use here, what right do you have to criticize the Palestinians' response? Either international authorities have to eliminate Otzma Yehudit, or let the Palestinians do it. The Israelis have endorsed these atrocities by electing a half century's worth of governments that steal Palestinian land.
Add Baruch Goldstein to the list of settlers who committed atrocities. He did pay with his life, and very much deserved that fate.
No, everyone has the right to criticize Israel's response.
It's called freedom of expression.
On the other hand, you do not have the right to dictate to people what they can and cannot do.
Also, your facts are crap. Israel never requested international intervention, in fact they have refused to allow it whenever the Palestinians have called for international observers and peacekeepers in the Occupied Territories.
Sit down, shut up.
What about all ot the atrocities committed by Israel leading out to Oct 7th?
While outrage over the mass killing and humanitarian crisis in Gaza is understandable, one thing the anti-Israeli left gets wrong in this whole conflict is to view it through the lens of an anti-colonialist/anti-imperialist movement. They've convinced themselves to see the Israelis and Zionism as just another iteration of the French in Algeria or the British in South Asia (or Americans in Afghanistan) and figure by bringing enough pressure to bear, both politically and and through violent resistance, they can make the price for holding on to the colony too high and force the Jews to leave and go back to...?
Well that part's not exactly clear. It's the wrong playbook, which is why 70 odd years of trying to displace the Israelis by force hasn't worked. You essentially have two peoples claiming the same territory as their sacred, native soil and I don't know if anyone's ever figured out how to cut that knot.
You're telling us what the wrong lens is, but not telling us what the right lens is, aside from throwing up your hands and saying it's an impossible situation, I hope you understand that's not exactly a satisfying approach.
I think the vast majority of pro-palestinian supporters today would accept if "the Jews" would "leave and go back to...?" ...the 1967 borders.
Most of the anti-colonial rhetoric is in regards to occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerulsalem.
That might be what “the vast majority of pro-palestinian supporters today would accept” but it’s not what the Palestinians would accept. And I think they would resent others making deals for them.
After the six-day war the Israilis allowed a generation of Arab West Bank mayors to be assassinated, then they complained there was no Palestinian leadership for them to negotiate with.
The British killed or exiled much of the Palestinian leadership in the 30s, which is one reason Israel won the 1948 war.
Yes, this is why the Palestinians accepted the 1967 borders and Israel's existence back in 1993.
I wish people would stop using the phrase "1967 borders" as it is ambiguous. It would be clearer to say "pre-1967 borders." Otherwise one has to ask if you mean the borders as of May 1967 or July 1967.
Without the COLONIAL sponsorship of Great Britain, there would be no Israel.
You just don't know what you're talking about.
You essentially have two peoples claiming the same territory as their sacred, native soil and I don't know if anyone's ever figured out how to cut that knot.
Gibberish.
The way to "untangle the knot" is to obey international law. Full stop.
The colonialist understanding is not exact, but there are probably more similarities than differences. You are pointing to the important difference, most Jewish settlers in Israel came from places to which they can't in any serious sense go back. And so the protesters who shout things like Israelis go home are being foolish. The Jews who went to the British Mandate were overwhelmingly people pursuing persecution. (To give some sense, they were being treated the way Palestinians are in the West Bank which is pretty awful). And it is hard to get people to leave when there is nowhere for them to go. No doubt Israel has discovered this as their abuse of the Palestinians has not led to an exodus of Palestinians, which is not surprising when Palestinians are still stuck in refugee camps from earlier rounds of ethnically cleansing by Israel.
That said, in most other ways it is classic colonialism. A European population was moved into a European controlled, non-European territory. This was done under the delusion that it would not create problems since the newcomers were bringing civilization with them. The resistance by the native population was taken to show that the natives were uncivilized while the means used to control the natives had the advantage of being civilized. We still see that with the weird idea that killing 1200 Israelis was barbaric, while killing 35,000 Palestinians and causing a famine that threatens up to 2 million people is not. The reason is, of course, that the Israelis are doing their slaughtering in civilized ways. That was also true of how the British kept India under control.
There are even still people who seem to think that the Palestinians secretly are glad that the Israelis are there because they have brought them jobs, if only the Palestinian leaders would stop getting in the way.
People need to remember that the laws of war have always been intended, in part, to make it impossible for the weak to fight back against the strong. In ancient Greece, one of the laws of war was that it was impermissible to enter combat without a breastplate, greaves, and a shield, thus ensuring that the poor, who couldn't afford armor, automatically became criminals when they resisted the rich.
I do think that many (though not all) of the contemporary laws of war are both valuable and necessary. They should be enforced. But spare me the moral dudgeon as to how those who do not obey them are necessarily and always moral monsters. We've outlawed the only ways in which they can strike back in any way other than a futile suicide mission.
The French resistance to the Nazis violated the laws of war in almost every way that Hamas does.
Another good example is that during the American Revolution the Hessians were horrified that common American soldiers were shooting at British officers. Officers are officers.
In Israel we have the backwards idea that the Gazans can be treated as combatants because they tolerate Hamas, while the Israelis cannot because they elected their leadership. One would think that democracy would create more responsibility for the actions of leadership. But Democracy is civilized so Israelis get the rights of civilized people and Gaza does not.
You're ignoring the fact that the Israeli's are colonists. In 1880, there was less than 2% of the population of Palestine Jewish. And the majority of them spoke a dialect of spanish, while a big chink of the remainder spoke a dialect of german.
I think the Syrian civil war is a good example of what the future holds. A frozen conflict with no solution in sight… except exhaustion.
“The war whose brutality once dominated headlines has settled into an uncomfortable stalemate. Hopes for regime change have largely died out, peace talks have been fruitless, and some regional governments are reconsidering their opposition to engaging with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. The government has regained control of most of the country, and Assad's hold on power seems secure.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war
Total killed 580,000–617,910
Civilians killed 219,223–306,887
Displaced 6.7 million internally and 6.6 million externally (refugees)
See… it could be worse. All these years later, no one really gives a damn.
In some ways, the revolt was triggered by climate change. Drought forced farmers off their land and into cities looking for jobs. The fight between Israel and Palestine is about water and much as land.
:I think the Syrian civil war is a good example of what the future holds. A frozen conflict with no solution in sight…" You do realize the quote following this completely demolishes this claim. There is not a stalemate in Syria. The Kurds have won autonomy and Assad has achieved complete victory everywhere else.
I agree with Kevin: two states and one are not viable, and the status quo unacceptable (and far too likely to lead to a dual Holocaust if a global conflict breaks out, and far too likely to be the trigger for such a conflict).
So what’s left? Removing the Palestinians won’t work as Muslims would never forget a second Nakba, not for a thousand thousand years.
So it’s time to move the Overton window and examine what has long been unspeakable as a solution: seven million green cards.
But who would get them, the Jews or the Palestinians? Despite the fact that defenders of Israel argue that Jews have nowhere else to go, I bet it would be easier to get those green cards for the Jews than the Palestinians. And, of course, to solve that problem for the Palestinians we would really have to empty the refugee camps throughout the region. After all, we know that it is really the Palestinians who have nowhere else to go. This argument for Israel's need to have its own state is yet another one from people who don't think of the Palestinians as being of equal value to Jews.
It would have to be Jews that were evacuated. It’s within the realm of politically possible here because conservatives have tied their hands with respect to such a plan, and our Jewish population is flourishing and non-controversial to the vast majority of Americans.
Evacuating Palestinians wouldn’t work. It’s not politically possible here and I don’t think it would solve the second Nakba problem.
Conservatives would never accept this. Keep in mind that a significant proportion of them are pro-Israel not so much because they are pro-Israeli as that their theology requires that the Jews be in the Holy Land in order to trigger Armageddon and the Kingdom of God.
At that point, they think that all of the Jews that don't convert are going to hell.
I am quite aware that conservatives only “like” Jews who are far away killing brown people and helping White Jesus to return.
That is the interesting question. Do Evangelicals think it is more important to have Jews there or to not have more Palestinians here. I don't know what side the Palestinians would have. And note what the Evangelicals want is for Jews to be there to spark the end times. Jews living peacefully in Israel doesn't actually do much for them, other than modelling a religiously defined state.
"who would get them" The obvious answer is the Jews as they are the foreign occupiers and america would welcome them (With the possible exception of the ultra orthodox who refuse to do a lick of work. But their fellow Jews can continue to support the parasites. rather than tax dollars.) Now obviously evangelicals won't go for that because there can't be a 2nd coming without a Russian genocide of Israel. But with a little creativity they can be convinced that the relevant passage in The Apocalypse of Saint john was referring to the US relocation of the Jews.
"So what’s left? Removing the Palestinians won’t work as Muslims would never forget a second Nakba, not for a thousand thousand years."
Eh. There's forgetting and there's forgetting. The descendants of the survivors of the Turkish genocide of the Armenians haven't forgotten that crime. The Vietnamese on the losing side of their civil war who've fled to America haven't forgotten. So, no, nobody would entirely forget if the Israelis somehow managed to complete the ethnic cleansing they're pretty clearly attempting.
But also? It's those refugee camps on Israel's border that keeps the issue hot. Without that? With the survivors off in other countries building new lives? In a generation or two it'll be a mostly-forgotten bit of family lore that gets discussed on special occasions. In another generation or two, only the history nerds will remember, and many descendants of the survivors won't even know that that's what they are.
And everyone's pretty clear on this. This is, after all, a big part of why those refugee camps exist. Everyone understands that if they didn't, Israel would get away with it.
I know many people who fled Vietnam in the 70s. That calamity shaped their lives and those of their children. But it's not the central fact of their existence, and hasn't been for decades. Their grandchildren learn about the war as a distant historical event, no more relevant to their lives than the Gemini program or the Cuban Missile Crisis. Not one of them dreams of going back to wreak vengeance on the descendants of the people who stole their grandparents land and drove them into the sea.
It was fifty years ago. That's ancient history, unless you go to extreme lengths to somehow keep it current.
Why do you assume that Israel completing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians would lead to the closing of refugee camps anywhere? The countries that have spent the last 75 years not allowing Palestinian refugees, or their descendants, to become citizens aren't likely to change their minds just because the Israelis have kicked all of them out.
" ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians would lead to the closing of refugee camps anywhere? " Because the refugee camps are in fact primarily in Gaza and the west bank and obviously if you expel all the palestinians from the west bank and gaza those refugee camps will cease to exist. That reduces the problem by between 75% to 80% and it wouldn't be hard to close the rest. But short of actually killing the palestinians of the west bank and gaza.. Israel is never going to be able to achieve it's goals of ethnic cleansing.
Speaking of the "Cuban Missile Crisis", even after 4 generations, Florida Cubans are still strongly in the GOP camp, because of Kennedy not delivering in the Bay of Pigs. Just sayin' ...
Yep. And the American Vietnamese lean pretty heavily GOP as well, because that party seems to be the more anti-communist and that anti-communist sentiment lingers.
Which isn't great? But at the same time, it's pretty awesome that these people and their descendants are here in the US living their lives in peace and prosperity. Those old grudges inform their voting and...that's about it. The Cuban-Americans who are still big mad about Kennedy aren't sneaking into Cuba to slaughter civilians. This is how it should be--those old grudges are things to talk about at the rec center or the golf course. They aren't a dumpster fire to throw your children into.
No, the descendants of Castro's refugees are in the republican camp because they and the republicans share a common characteristic, being pure evil.
Former Prime MInister Ehud Olmert disagrees and I think he knows more about what might be possible than either you or Kevin. There was an excellent interview with him recently on Alistair Campbell’s and Rory Stuart’s Leading podcast. Olmert certainly doesn’t a solution will be easy but he hasn’t given up an a two state solution either.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/10/16/ehud-olmert-q-a-00121787
I remember well when many people thought there would never be a solution to the Northern Ireland conflict either.
I can't tell if that was a pitch for status quo, but all it takes is a little spine to imagine better relations and futures, and as long as Israel gets free arms from us, it will be hard to change them from being the bullies they've become, and not have to really fight and sacrifice, this isn't any shining light of democracy or self-defeat, Israel is burying itself.
"... And a one-state solution is intolerable to both sides. The status quo is abhorrent—one of the few things everyone agrees on—but it's all we have."
The status quo is one state. Israel has ruled the West Bank and the Gaza Strip since 1967. Pretending otherwise just allow Israel to escape responsibility for the terrible job they have done as the ruling power.
This bears repeating constantly. There is but one state now, Greater Israel.
> a one-state solution is intolerable to both sides
Get over it and grow up. We've got people here in the usa that think diversity is intolerable. Should we start catering to them? "Oh, yes, it's okay to be racist. Indulge yourself."
However, given the reality that the Israelis have consistently brutalized Arab Palestinians for the past 80 years, a Reparations solution seems to be the only way out. Israel should be ostracized by the world community until they repay Arab Palestinians for lost property, etc. Additionally, the world community should accept Arab Palestinian refugees as Israel pays them reparations.
The European colonizers had, and knew they had, a superior ideology of dominance the far less developed Palestinians did not possess, giving them an advantage against the alleged majority of Arabs in East Asia. The Arabs are not a united homogenous population comprising a nation which can summon the power to overcome European ideology, arms, wealth. Israel may have had a precarious start, but after the US began to subsidize Israel's aggression its power grew immensely and so did the oppression and breakup of Palestine. Framing Israel as a besieged democratic island in the sea of a hostile environment is a subject's reflexive response to the power of public relations. So too is the idea the 'reservations' which have been used to diminish Palestine cannot be reunited and a return to 1967 borders. A Palestine that resembles the original UN plan as closely as possible is the best pathway to peace and providing the most meager of reparations to the wronged Palestinians.
"a superior ideology of dominance" What the heck does that even mean?
"the far less developed Palestinians" Seems kinda racist or something, but also, what does this mean? "Less developed" in what way? Economic? Political power? Some kind of "less developed ideology of dominance"??? That just gets more confusing to me.
The domination of Palestine is a symbol of the imperialism practiced by the Global North against the Global South since before the 1800's. This history is not confusing.
21 May 2023
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli lawmakers on Tuesday repealed a 2005 act that saw four Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank dismantled at the same time as Israeli forces withdrew from the Gaza Strip. The development could pave the way for an official return to the abandoned West Bank areas in another setback to Palestinian hopes for statehood.
It was the latest move by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, which is dominated by settler leaders and allies, to promote settlement activity in the territory.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I think there's still time (a decade) to reverse the settlements/carve-ups. What's needed though is a completely different government, one that's not far-right. But can that happen? I am concerned that the demographic transformation (mostly due to immigrants from MENA & Russia) has taken Israel far away from the founder's Western European political and cultural orientation.
As much as I loathe Netanyahu and the rest of his coalition, all they have really done is to make explicit what has been the policy of ever Israeli government, left, right, and center, since 1967. There is no reason to think that a completely different Israeli government would be any more likely to make peace than Bibi is.
You do realize Israeli founders invented modern terrorism? That groups like fatah and the Palestinian liberation front were just copying the tactics that the founders used to drive out the british.
Through my work I've read many books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The conflict seems intractable, since both Israel and Palestinian leadership don't want a solution that can be negotiated. Netanyahu is horrible, as is the Israeli right wing, but they are more powerful than the more dovish Israeli left. Hamas is a murderous organization, the Arab leaders are mostly autocrats who maintain power through oppressive measures. I continue to believe that when a solution is found it will be a two-state solution, but that may never happen. This is a long stalemate that could go on for several lifetimes.
I usually back peace protests, but this one framed as pro-Palestinian I don't feel too much empathy for. I strongly support the peace demos in Israel, but I find many of the protesters here are anti-Zionist. I feel that the state of Israel needs to be maintained for the safety of Jews worldwide.
How in the world do you imagine that the existence of Israel keeps Jews around the world safe -- ?
If anything -- as we have seen -- Israel's bad actions make the situation of Jews around the world more precarious.
Like! Ever wonder why "antisemitism" increases whenever Israel goes on a rampage against its Palestinian population? And why the American Left, including the majority of lefty Jews in the US, deplore Israel's actions?
The idea that the solution to more than a millennia of mistreatment of Jews by Europeans is to give them a piece of Asia without regards to the wishes of the people living their is pure unadulterated racism.
There is something depressing about Drum saying "The West Bank is now too carved up to support a Palestinian state, which means a two-state solution is effectively impossible." as if this is something that just happened and was not the result of deliberate Israeli government policy for the last 50 years, including when Israel was supposedly a strong bastion of democratic government.
The problem is intractable because Israel has what it wants under the circumstances, and other than Hamas, nobody is inclined to change that fact. What the US should say is that our bedrock principle is that everybody deserves to be a citizen in the state in which they live. In the case of the territory Israel now controls this could be done by making the Palestinians citizens of Israel, or by allowing the Palestinians to have a viable state along side (well two sides) of Israel. Israel can choose which one they prefer. But if in two years the Palestinians are still being kept stateless (that is the Palestinian individuals, I don't care about the Palestinians as a group) then Israel will be treated as a pariah nation.
That won't happen because old people, and possibly people in the middle, still subscribe to this kindergarten version of the situation in which Israel is a victim because they have not been allowed to control the territory they want while disregarding the majority of the people who live there because they aren't Jewish. But if we were consistent in our belief in liberal values that is what we would do. And we would not have to tell Israel whether to prefer a one or two state solution. But what we would not do, as Drum does above, is reward Israel for intentionally preventing the possibility of peace.
The 2-state solution will always be the only answer that has the least deaths.
...both sides view themselves as besieged minorities fighting for their lives against implacable foes. And they're both right.
They're not both right in 2024. Israel is a rich, technologically advanced, nuclear-armed imperialist power with a per capita GDP exceeding Europe's. And at this point it has exactly one major foe, Iran, which it could turn into parking lot if the Ayatollah were ever crazy enough to actually act on his rhetoric.
Neither Kevin nor any of his readers retain a scrap of credibility on Israel/Gaza unless and until they can acknowledge what is glaringly obvious to the vast majority of Americans who are not vacuum sealed in an ideologically toxic echo chamber: the Far Left has embraced antisemitism.
In response to the inevitable (and stupid) complaints: I do not think every Lefty is antisemitic.
But I do think it has become incumbent upon every Lefty to acknowledge the antisemitic nature of the ongoing campus protests.
It is especially important to call out the most sickening and unforgivable offenses: from the professor who was “exhilarated” by the 10/7 Hamas murder spree to the BLM morons who tweeted images of hand gliders (and thereby valorized inhuman terrorists) to the student who posted his own video online in which he reminds us how lucky we are that he’s not out there murdering Jews.
Kevin’s stupid generational theory is insulting in its tone deaf ineptitude. And this is no better:
“I see three generational views. My parents, who see Israel as it was in the 1960s and 1970s: constantly at risk of annihilation. Then there's my generation, that sees Israel as a strong democratic island in a sea of totalitarian neighbors. And the younger generation, that sees Israel as an oppressor.”
Who the F*#k cares if students see Israel as an oppressor? Boo f*#king hoo. The world is full of oppressors. Cut the “oppressor” crap; it’s beyond old and stale.
And you can legitimately fault Israel from here to eternity but it still would not excuse the revolting behavior of a.) the genuinely antisemitic Leftists, b.) the spectacularly stupid Leftists who just go along with an antisemitic movement in a manner almost exactly approximating the MAGA zombies supporting Trump, or c.) the utterly shameless and discredited Leftists (such as Kevin and almost everyone who comments on his blog) who refrain from acknowledging and explicitly condemning groups “a” and “b.”
If you can’t condemn the Left’s current turn into the heart of darkness, you have no business condemning Trump, MAGA, or the 1/6 insurrection. You’re worse than hypocrites, you’re informed and educated hypocrites. You have no excuse other than moral cowardice, intellectual evasion, and an utter lack of even the most common sense level of basic human decency.
You seem to care a heck of a lot more about insulting "lefties" than anyone involved in the conflict over there or even antisemitism. I mean, you somehow managed to even shoehorn in a BLM insult while you were at it. =)
From my post above:
“If you can’t condemn the Left’s current turn into the heart of darkness, you have no business condemning Trump, MAGA, or the 1/6 insurrection. You’re worse than hypocrites, you’re informed and educated hypocrites. You have no excuse other than moral cowardice, intellectual evasion, and an utter lack of even the most common sense level of basic human decency.”
Also: F*#k you.
Leo is a racist P O S that likes to pretend he is a long time Democrat who voted for Biden but is now so concerned because the those "lefty" crazies are too woke and ignore the plight of the poor oppressed whites before he goes on his tiresome routine against the left and in particular DEI, BLM, or any policy designed to combat racism.
Impressive in a world of questionable comments you managed to write the absolute stupidest one so far. I can imagine saying "It is incumbent upon everybody to say that keeping people stateless for decades is unacceptable" or "It is incumbent upon everybody to acknowledge that creating a famine among a trapped population of 2 million people is a moral abomination." Those things have some appeal. But you managed to make the claim everybody should accept be that everybody should admit that the protests against these moral abominations must be bigoted at their core.
You are right that some people have gone too far in criticizing these moral abominations. But the idea that people were exhilarated to see Hamas fight back after more than a decade of keeping Gaza an an open air prison, with the period slaughter of Palestinians to pacify them was done because the people in question hates Jews is to either not understand what Israel has done to the Palestinians, or simply not caring about Palestinians. Maybe what everybody should admit is that the people who want everybody to admit that the protests are anti-Semitic are anti-Palestinian bigots who believe that it is not possible to care enough about Palestinians to protest without having some hatred of Jews as the real motivation.
Your writing is sloppy and borderline indecipherable, but if you’re trying to defend the Professor who explicitly exclaimed his exhilaration (on a recording) at seeing Hamas rape and behead innocents then you are an abomination.
You belong in group “a” described above: the most vile of inhuman Leftist bigots.
And the most important job for people like me is to put as much distance between you and the Dem party as possible.
Also: F*#k you.
Reading comprehension is, apparently, beyond you.
You are right that that was one of my sloppier comments. Oops. That you need to misquote the professor for effect was more revealing. Unfortunately if you have not grown up with the racist understanding of the situation in which Israelis matter and Palestinians don't it is easy to not understand where that professor was coming from.
In the real world for more than a decade before 10/7 the situation in Israel was that the Israeli abused the Palestinians, while the Palestinians did very little in return. To really spell this out would take too long, but that is the essential. Worse, Israel justified its abuse of the Palestinians, to the degree anybody cared enough to want a justification, on the grounds that the abuse was keeping Israel safe. In reality it was strategic decisions by the Palestinians that kept Israel safe (as 10/7 showed). Abbas provided security cooperation in the West Bank, so Israel sped up its colonization of the West Bank and turned to pograms to empty additional Palestinians villages. Hamas made its attacks do minimal damage to the point that Netanyahu took for granted they would never do anything else, and Israel kept Gaza on limited caloric intake.
It was obvious to anybody paying attention who actually thought of the Palestinians as people that this couldn't last. Eventually the fact that Israel was taking advantage of Palestinian restraint to abuse the Palestinians would lead to violence. My guess was that it would happen after Abbas died, so the timing was surprising. But the fact of it was not.
So the situation behind that professor's comment was that it was clear that Palestinians would suffer under Israeli brutality while Israel thrived until there was some kind of act of violence to break the status quo. The professor, who apparently unlike you, cares about the suffering of Palestinians, took this to be something that would break the disgusting status quo.
It is certainly true that exhilaration in the face of so much death is hard to stomach. But exhilaration that the Palestinians were finally fighting back is not at all hard to understand, unless one cares only about the Israelis and not the Palestinians, which sadly too many people do.
I do not mind being cursed by such bigots who were unbothered by the periodic slaughter of thousands of Palestinians, but find it unbearable that there are people who are not bothered by the slaughter of a thousand Israelis.
Hamas did not behead innocents, that story has been thoroughly debunked. However, I recall the Palestinian teenager who lost her legs in an airstrike, bravely spoke of how she hoped to become a nurse anyway, and was decapitated by a tank shell fired through the hospital window.
Also Hind Rajab, six years old, terrified in a car full of killed relatives as the medics sent to get her were killed by the IDF despite having followed its instructions. Imagine the horror of her death, a scared child all alone among corpses while Israel prevented help from reaching her.
14,000 dead kids in Gaza and that's just the identified ones and not counting those from hunger or preventable disease.
Eff you too.
Wow, you truly are the most bigoted, evil and racist piece of garbage on the planet. There is no moral difference in any way shape or form of people like you who falsely claim others are antiemetic and anyone who proudly endorses the protocols of the elders of zion.
Whoa. I think somebody needs a hug...
My proposal for a solution is for Israel and its supporters to raise about $1 trillion in order individually to pay every Palestinian man, woman, and child about $100,000 to relinquish their claim to Palestine.
But I think Israel and its supporters are more willing to see tens of thousands of violent deaths than to raise $1 trillion for this purpose.
So what I expect instead to happen is a second Holocaust of the Jews, this time at the hands of Arabs and Muslims around the world.
And then the support for Israel fades enough that it falls.
There's your cheery thought for the day. :-/
That’s the right idea, but the bill is closer to six trillion than one trillion. A single trillion would be enough to cover the land dispute but wouldn’t be enough to cover the decades of interest and death, injuries property damage and humiliation of apartheid .
I generally agree with what you write in a legal and moral sense, but that is not what matters.
What matters is getting an agreement. If the surviving Palestinians will very broadly drop their legitimate claims in exchange for some compensation, that's the end of the story.
Did America ever compensate the Native Americans for all the wrongs we did them? The formerly enslaved people and their descendants? We barely even pretended to. I think we should make compensation in some way for our crimes, and certainly we should admit them. But -- whether through honorable means or not (it's "not") -- we at least have general peace with surviving Native Americans and descendants of victims of slavery.
I think probably a more important matter with Palestinians is that the legitimacy of their claims be recognized. As it is, the attitude of Israel and most of the West is that the Palestinians essentially do not exist, so they have no claims and they were never done any wrong. How can you make peace with people who don't even recognize you as a person?
Your 100,000 is much too small to enable the palestinians to emigrate to someplace other than palestine. You'd need to triple your figures. And so it woud be still much more than what the US pissed away Iraq.
In most of the world, US$100,000 is a lot of money. And that's per person: a young, single person with $100,000 could do an awful lot; a family of five would have half a million.
Bastion of democracy to pariah state in one generation. Quite an achievement.
Anyone think religious beliefs had anything to do with it? Yeah I know religion gives a feeling of community. But looking past the unlikely benefits, i.e. heaven and hell etc etc etc, in history and today it seems to me to be a major source of hatred, and atrocity. Kind of sad.
I think in much of the world, Israel has always been a pariah state.
We in the West -- and especially in America -- see an extremely sanitized and polished up portrayal of Israel that the rest of the world knows is nonsense.
"I'm no longer able to conceive of a plausible resolution"
No resolution will come until the rest of the world comes to grips with the fact that Israel is no different from Russia in their monstrous actions to take over land they feel entitled to by divine right.
Israel is happy with the status quo because no matter how barbaric their actions the world largely still sees them as poor and defenseless victims who deserve support to more easily kill everyone they want. They have zero incentive to solve the issue when they are in effect getting paid by the US for killing Palestinians and taking more of their land by any means necessary.
Until the world is ready to give Israel the pariah treatment, long term change won't be possible.
Yes, the S. African model, sanctions and opprobrium sustained over decades, is the best result I can imagine.
And I can barely imagine it.
I don't see a status quo but a turning point. Israel lost the world and most especially the young. It also lost a large part of its deterrence. The settler movement went too far in its hysteric demands and both Israelis in Israel proper and the United States will turn on the freeloaders. Moderate Jews with dual passports will want to offer their kids normal childhoods and that means going back to Europe or the US. Palestinians will leave too if they can and a lot of those who can't will be killed. Everyone will lose in this "one state solution".
The only two-state solution possible, I think, is if Netanyahu, Hamas and the PLO are all sidelined. Who in Israel can negotiate peace without being killed like Rabin was I don't know. On the Palestinian side only Marwan Barghouti could do it.
Years ago a Jewish friend told me this:
"God in His wisdom foreknew that his people the Jews would need a land where they could live in peace and manage their own affairs. And that is why He created Long Island."