NYT said the Israeli defense minister said no fuel, food, water, or electricity will be allowed into Gaza.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rogar
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NYT said the Israeli defense minister said no fuel, food, water, or electricity will be allowed into Gaza.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rogar
My heart sinks for both the Israelis and the Palestinians with this news. This is the multi-generational response to oppression... the Holocaust and the murder of millions of Jews resulted in important concessions with the creation of the State of Israel, but that involved displacing the Palestinians and causing the slow simmer of anger and resentment on both sides.
I do love Chris Hedges--to me he has a lot of credibility and compassion via his many years as a foreign correspondent in many theaters of war. Here are his initial thoughts on this new war:
https://open.substack.com/pub/chrish...m_medium=email
Disclaimer: I am not "for" either side. I am "for" a real peaceful resolution based on equal distribution of self-determination for both sides and for compassion for all victims of oppression. I guess that's an appropriate sentiment for today: Indigenous People's Day.
I pray that this fight will be short and the leaders will lead wisely.
It’s difficult for me to see what Hamas is trying to accomplish here. They have no reasonable hope of taking and holding ground affecting world opinion in any kind of positive way. Are they serving their Iranian sponsors by trying to derail the Israeli- Saudi talks, or are the just straight-up nihilists?
I think there was great danger that Israel and its neighbors were starting to act like grownups, and this is an attempt to throw a wrench into the works.Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
I might also wonder about any connections to the Russian/Iran axis, the war in Ukraine, and a few other odds-and-ends, like our House being in disarray.
I fear Gaza is about to be reduced to salted earth, with no stone left standing atop another. Sucks all around.
Good.Quote:
Originally Posted by bae
I don't know that there is a right and wrong side of things, but just a matter of wrongness degree, if that's possible. Beyond politics, I suspect an element of religious extremism that has festered due to the bleak life in Gaza. Some of that blame falls on Israel. When it's the word of God vs, the word of Allah, who's to argue who is entitled to the land.
"Hamas Threatens to Kill Hostages". That could be a difficult issue without a good answer.
Well, if you wanted to unite Hamas and all the Islamic faiths with the Jewish people, as well as a large portion of Christianity, just destroy the temple Mound.>8)
It gets complicated, doesn’t it? What interest does Iran have in Russian imperial projects, other than a general hostility to the infidel West? Why support the massacre of infants in Israel other than to encourage Muslim unity in the dream of holy genocide? I think you are right that they are probably eager to prevent a practical ME peace; perhaps to keep the spirit of Jihad alive as a means to keep their own population in line.Quote:
Originally Posted by bae
We did some pretty terrible things when we had taxation without representation, as is the case with the residents of Gaza and the West Bank. We tarred and feathered people. Masses of loyalists fled to Canada. We fought in ways considered uncivilized at the time - not in formations, but in guerrilla warfare we learned from Native Americans, who themselves violated norms of European warfare by taking civilian captives. And in response - King Phillip's War where we sold captives into slavery, massacres at Sand Creek, Wounded Knee, etc. Primarily civilians have died in our drone strikes. Thousands of people have died in the Ukraine conflict because we sabotaged peace efforts by Turkey, not to mention what we did in Vietnam because we didn't like the outcome of a democratic election there. We've got a lot of blood on our hands. A lot.
None of that detracts one iota from the current barbarity we are seeing right now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yppej
When people are desperate for freedom they do desperate things. And we didn't even have the justification of desperation when we waged or funded wars of imperialism, because we weren't threatened. So I just think it's hypocritical to go around bashing the Gazans as if we're so much better as a country.Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
I expect Hamas exerts similar barbaric stuff on their own citizens who would rise up against them, so I would not lump these miscreants in with all “Gazans.”Quote:
Originally Posted by Yppej
Sorry, but calling people who chop the heads off babies champions of the downtrodden doesn’t impress me as much of an argument.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yppej
Has anyone brought up this yet? 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust gives them the right to be where they are.
Aka they can claim “victim hood” a hell of a lot more than the Palestinians.
Nope. The Palestinians didn't commit the Holocaust. We could have taken them into the US but we turned the ships away and let them die. Why couldn't the homeland be here? Or somewhere else?Quote:
Originally Posted by Tradd
Just read on the radio the terrorists killed 40 babies at a kibbutz. Time to go biblical on their asses.
And yet the land taken to create Israel came not from the people who persecuted the holocaust.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tradd
I think if you use your Wayback Machine, you'll find out it goes back a looooong way. I blame Tiglath-Pileser III of AssyriaQuote:
Originally Posted by jp1
Yep, If memory serves the Assyrians began harassing and relocating the Jewish inhabitants of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah about 3000 years ago, give or take a century or two. I'm not certain how many other groups have claimed the area since then but I think when people base their opinions on historical control, they need to actually know the history.Quote:
Originally Posted by bae
How should the US respond if any of the hostages taken turn out to be our citizens? Especially when they start posting videos of executions?
Perhaps instead of dictating that an area long contested belongs to a certain group of people other than the ones currently living there the western decision makers would have done better to come up with a different solution for helping the Jewish people after WWII. In hindsight they baked perpetual strife into the resolution.
I figure we should reckon all of the "hostages" dead at this point.Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
When the French and British divvied up the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, they were more concerned with spheres of influence than the post-colonial ME a hundred years hence. Much the same in the Balkans. Still, I think the current inhabitants of those troubled regions bear responsibility for the depravity of groups like Hamas, which seem to be the expendable tools of Iranian policy.Quote:
Originally Posted by jp1
The problem is we’ve already made concessions to brutal states like Iran and Russia to retrieve our citizens and created the impression that seizure of Americans can be profitable.Quote:
Originally Posted by bae
I don't think the Israelis are quite as generous. They hold some powerful bargaining cards, like water and power to Gaza.Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
I doubt Hamas is terribly concerned about the welfare of ordinary Gazans.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rogar
Didn't they, um, *invent* Old Testament justice?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rogar
Wasn't Hamas elected by a vote of the people in 2006?Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
Yes. The same year my kid was born. He’s a high school senior now.Quote:
Originally Posted by bae
Do people who elect a government like that, and support it decade after decade, bear any culpability in the actions of the government?Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
For reference, here are some photos of Dresden:
https://www.thevintagenews.com/wp-co...-the-north.jpg
https://www.thevintagenews.com/wp-co...he-bombing.jpg
I stand with Israel. Rob
My mother's first memories are of the bombing of Dresden - of running to hide in bomb shelters, of seeing the results of bombs that shrunk people's bodies (one man she remembers was carrying two suitcases - one holding his dead wife and one his dead child), of smelling the horrible stench. She has suffered from anxiety her entire life. She has irritable bowel syndrome, OCD, and other anxiety disorders. Her older sister was for many years an alcoholic. The older sister had it worse because she was old enough to remember her father, who was killed fighting for Germany (and not willingly, he was conscripted). Do the people who elect a government bear any culpability? What if they're too young to vote? What if they're toddlers?
How horrible, Jeppy. This is why I said I feel equally bad for the Israelis and the Palestinians. Both are bound to suffer horribly. The people and the governments are not one and the same.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yppej
On one hand, I don't support bombing a place where 50% of the population are children's. The world should be ashamed for allowing Israel to do such a thing. I don't support bombing anything actually, but, that's how the world works. There's a famous story about the first British that arrived in India. The people living there were doing a famous ritual, called sutte; once the husband died, they'd burn his wife alive in the middle of the village.
The British arrived there, and saw what was about to happen, reached the locals, and they said "You have to respect our traditions", to which the British replied "Well, you're right, we'll respect your tradition". The British gathered the entire armada, and placed it right in front of that village, then they went to the locals and said: "We'll respect your tradition, and you'll respect ours, which is: We'll bomb every single one of you, because where we came from, that's what we do if someone does what you're about to do."
I think the Palestinians deserve their right to self-determination, they've seen their territory taken away, while the entire planet didn't blink and eye. For every bombing Israel does, families they destroy, children's they kill, more boy soldiers join Hamas, which means, more violence incoming, more vengeance. The jews in Israel, I believe much more than 50% agree on a two-state solution, although, their prime minister is a radical. While we're condemning Palestine, this was exactly what he wanted, a reason to bomb and kill every single one of them, and advance to conquer more, and more territory. It'll reach a state, Palestinians will be refugees. I only hope the Emirates stop the deal they're about to make with Israel.
On the other hand, I wouldn't want to see an Islamic world emerging in power, I don't like their traditions, and how they view the world.
In simplistic terms this expresses what I think:
… "If the Arabs put down their weapons, there'd be peace. If the Jews put down their weapons, there'd be no more Jews in the Middle East."
…James Kirchick
Yep. Sounds like a lot of people want the latter. Amazing how acceptable anti-semetism still is among many people. I never got that one.Quote:
Originally Posted by iris lilies
I agree that anti-Semitism is everywhere right now and colors this whole dilemma. My heart breaks for Israel.
A lot of today’s yammering is antisemitism, that’s for sure. But a lot of it is anti-Israeli government, and I don’t buy that as antisemitism, that’s too easy a label.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tybee
I see a second carrier strike group is heading to the eastern Mediterranean. Iran is threatening to intervene if Israel moves into Gaza.
We say we don't want the conflict to widen, yet we send warships.Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL