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  • But you're still ok with using artillery against a city if the city has an army in it?

    • What? Why? Where did I say that? What the fuck are you talking about?

      • What? Why? Where did I say that? What the fuck are you talking about?

        I asked how this conflict was different and you started talking about a completely different topic like stategic bombing. But Israel isn't using strategic bombing, they're using artillery and missiles. Just like how the allies did against Berlin and other German cities when fighting the Germans. So how is this different?

        • The difference is that Israel has been colonising the west bank for over 70 years. They are the aggressors. They are more analogous to the Nazis in WWII for that reason anyway.

          And yes, just like there were bad actors on the allied side in WWII, Hamas is also a bad actor.

          This isn't... COMPLICATED.

          • This isn’t… COMPLICATED.

            Honestly that's a pretty strange thing to say about one of history's most complicated and oldest conflicts. If it was as simple as random dudes online think it is, don't you think this issue would have been somehow resolved by now?

            Both the Israelis and the Palestinians have tribal roots in the region dating back thousands of years.

            The region also has religions significance to all three of the big western religions.

            And to make it even more complicated, the region has been under the control of multiple empires over the last 3000 years: waring tribes, Egyptians, Assyrians, Romans, Byzantines, the second Muslim caliphate, the Ottomans, the British, and I'm sure I'm skipping more. Israel and Palestine as nations where effectively created at around the same time post WW1 (see the Mandate for Palestine and the Balfour Declaration).

            So sure.. It's possible that you're so much smarter than everyone else that one of the world's oldest conflicts is trivial to you, OR, just maybe it's a little bit more complicated than you and some other people let on...

            • This is why it's happening: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4962369/user-clip-joe-biden-israel-usa-invent-israel-protect-interest-region

              "Were there not an Israel the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interest in the region."

              Biden has reiterated this sentiment since this situation has started. His stance is completely unchanged. He admits openly that it is a power play, so any posturing about a "sacred bond" or whatever is bullshit.

              It is power politics. The US is propping up Israel as a projection of power, and with that Israel has become ever more fascist without any accountability, and they have perpetrated a genocide because they have the power to, just like any state would in those circumstances, because they are all sociopathic institutions. That's it. There's nothing special about the Jewish nature of the state, it's got nothing to do with religion, that's just an excuse that gets laid over the top of what is simple exploitation.

              It's a land grab and a genocide, and Hamas was propped up by Israel to serve their interests at the time. In fact you could say they're still serving Israel's interests, because Israel the state has no real interest in protecting their own civilians, they only want their land grab.

              The "it's complicated" bullshit is just there to muddy the waters. It's a lazy handwave to cover the fact that you can't excuse genocide.

              • The Balfour Declaration, which put the creation of Israel into play, was created by the British during WW1, at a time when the entire region was under the control of the Ottoman Empire.:

                His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

                It's obvious that Israel is the strongest and most strategically important ally that America has in the region today, nobody can deny that. Just like nobody can deny that Hamas, the ruling entity of Gaza for almost 15 years, is allied with and strategically important to Iran, Russia, and many of Israel and America's other big geological adversaries. Iran supported Hamas' recent terrorist attack on Israel because they understood that they, an Islamic theocracy, would benefit from the chaos of what appears to some as a religious war. Similarly, Russia wants chaos in the region in a desperate attempt to divert western military resources away from supporting Ukraine.

                To me, none of that makes the situation simpler.

                As for the clip you've linked, the first Arab-Israeli war was more than 20 years prior to that. And, taken in context, Biden was arguing against the Reagan administration's plans to arm Saudi Arabia, and to that point I'm not really convinced that he was wrong...

                As for claims of genocide, I'm afraid that cuts both ways:

                The original Charter identified Hamas as the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine and declares its members to be Muslims who "fear God and raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors". The charter states that "our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious" and calls for the eventual creation of an Islamic state in Palestine, in place of Israel and the Palestinian Territories,[3] and the obliteration or dissolution of Israel.

                The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, 'O Muslim, O servant of God, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.' Only the Gharkad tree would not do that, because it is one of the trees of the Jews.

                1988 Charter of Hamas

                So yeah, if you think the modern world's oldest geopolitical conflict is simple, then you're either way smarter than everyone else or you're mentally reducing the problem until it confirms your existing biases. Personally I think it's more complicated than you're making it out to be, which is why it hasn't been settled by 100 years of diplomacy and war.

                • You tried to bury this in details, but your entire explanation boils down to "US sponsors their puppet and the US's enemies sponsor the enemies of the US's puppet". It's a proxy war. That's really about it.

                  You literally just admitted that it is power politics but you tried to pretend like that complicates the situation in any way.

                  Yes, there are more details, there are lots of things being said by different actors who all have their own idiosyncratic beliefs and ideas, many of which are fueled by ongoing conflict, but the reason the conflicts in this part of the world are so intractable doesn't come down to those details. It comes down to the fact that the middle east has reserves of oil that are strategically significant. They are in the middle of a geopolitical tug of war.

                  Messy doesn't mean complicated.

                  And none of this excuses the wholesale slaughter of civilians. That part in particular is not at all complicated.

          • Israel pulled out of Palestine in 2005 and Palestine elected their own government, at that point they're an independent nation.

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