Wayward DP
Well-known member
do I have this right... we're witnessing the greatest surge in antisemitism in our lifetimes and since the Holocaust and you are... concerned about efforts to combat antisemitism online?
OT: World Politics
- Thread starter zeke
- Start date
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou
I will get banned again soon, worry not.
Anyone who thinks that Bibi is anything less than a fascist is the one living in an alternate reality. When will people get it through their heads that he is the problem that is fixable? Hamas is a problem that isn't easily solved but Bibi? Just toss his criminal ass in prison and let someone, anyone, committed to actual democracy govern Israel. In order to have support for opposing Hamas you need to have a level of moral authority that, coming from Netanyahu, is laughable. He has no moral authority anymore. He needs to go and he needs to go now. Nothing good is going to happen as long as he remains in power. So Step #1 in any plan has to be his removal. Nothing else happens until this happens.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
That's a pretty bold claim. I mean, if we're playing in this alternate reality for a moment it's probably easier to imagine Bibi never accruing the political power he did without a terrorist group turned quasi political party being a useful boogeyman for him. Chicken and the egg.
A two state solution has always polled very well in Israel fwiw, usually in the 70% range. That's not particularly fertile ground for Bibi to plow without a foil and inventing one takes generations, not a couple of months. It's pretty important to remember in all of this that the Palestinians have turned down deals far better than one they would be offered today that would have resulted in a functioning Palestinian state.
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WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou
I will get banned again soon, worry not.
If it's being combatted with lies and self-serving Netanyahu talking points then it's not helping. You fight lies with truth, not with other, different lies. Again this is why I say that nothing is going to be accomplished as long as Netanyahu has power. He is morally, ethically, and politically bankrupt and he needs to be sent to prison before Israel can reclaim the moral high ground in this fight against Hamas. I don't care that Bibi "isn't quite as bad" as Hamas. He's not good enough. Not nearly good enough. He doesn't have the moral authority to govern and everything he does is suspect because his first thought before he does anything is "How will this keep my ass out of prison?"
Wayward DP
Well-known member
I am clearly on record strongly opposing Bibi without any of the added hyperbolic nonsense you insist upon adding.
His actual transgressions are more than enough to get worked up and upset about.
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou
I will get banned again soon, worry not.
Well clearly that 70% is being ignored because Bibi and his hardliner quasi-fascist allies in government don't want it. Pro-Israeli types are quick to reference that "From the river to the sea" quote but what exactly is Bibi's mission statement? Because to this outside observer it seems pretty much "river to sea" also.
Political extremism should be rejected on both sides but in a democracy like Israel it doesn't need to be tolerated. It can be got rid of. And when the extremist running the show is a criminal who should be in court right now, not directing attacks in Gaza, well that's a situation that a democracy needs to deal with before doing anything else. If Israel wants the support of the West it first needs to deal with its Netanyahu problem.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
I've already told you why. Hamas exists, it sprung up organically as the brainchild of muslim brotherhood terrorists who thought the PLO was too soft. It's easy to get people who otherwise want a peaceful solution and are willing to make concessions to see one (the ~70%) to support the guys willing to do whatever to keep you safe when there are actual terrorists at the gate.
The 70% didn't have to be ignored for Bibi to accrue power, they were down with the program because the program was "I'm going to keep you safe" from an actual, very real threat.
Serious question though....when you have an adversary that is calling for your extermination, what do you do? The Israeli's offered them a palestinian state and were turned down....what's your next step? I'm even cool with having a conversation regarding what's reasonable in this situation ignoring the cultural history of the jews and everything that happened in the region before 1980.
Has there always been a hard right wing in Israel willing to do to the Palestinians what the Palestinians have always shown the willingness to do to the Israeli's? Yes, there definitely is. Again we're into chicken and egg here though.
That's the problem inherent with democracy though, it has rules and shit. Things have to be done according to the rules, which take time. Israel has a Bibi problem similar to the US having a Trump problem. Neither system was designed to deal with that type of brazen corruption and autocracy.
zeke
Well-known member
zeke
Well-known member
leafman101
Well-known member
Yep. Unfortunately the inmates run the asylum. A small percentage of maniacs have been ruining it for everyone for a long time. The second intifada (which led to Bibi) was to derail the peace process in the 2000 Camp David accords. Which was 20 years after the first Camp David accords, when Muslim Brotherhood assassinated Sadat for getting too close to peace. And in between radical jews kills Rabin after the Oslo accords.
Most Isreali's and Palestinians want peace. But they don't live in the reality where peace is attainable.
Bibi isn't some evil mastermind. He's a product of that world.
And the truth is Hamas needs Bibi as much as he needs them. He was on his way out, and barely clinging to power prior to October 7. Now there are bigger problems in Israel.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Important point. Bibi is a criminal and a wannabe autocrat today, but his early adulthood was spent in the IDF at war with arab countries trying to throw Israel into the sea. His brother died in the 70's trying to rescue hostages from a PLO airline hijacking. He wasn't hatched in a lab at 50 years old as a scumbag. He's sincere in his worldview and the world he grew up in made him that way. His life was shaped by violence against Israel, and he became a product of it.
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou
I will get banned again soon, worry not.
A 2 state solution is the only one that has any chance of working. I don't know how we get there but a good starting point is to have an Israeli leader who's committed to working toward that end or at least one who isn't a criminal.
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou
I will get banned again soon, worry not.
True but Bibi is far from the only Israeli who suffered personal loss. They don't all become fascist criminals like him.
KiwiCanuck
Active member
Not just Bibi
“Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation,” Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official who worked in Gaza for more than two decades, toldthe Wall Street Journal in 2009. Back in the mid-1980s, Cohen even wrote an official report to his superiors warning them not to play divide-and-rule in the Occupied Territories, by backing Palestinian Islamists against Palestinian secularists. “I … suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face,” he wrote.
They didn’t listen to him. And Hamas, as I explain in the fifth installment of my short film series for The Intercept on blowback, was the result. To be clear: First, the Israelis helped build up a militant strain of Palestinian political Islam, in the form of Hamas and its Muslim Brotherhood precursors; then, the Israelis switched tack and tried to bomb, besiege, and blockade it out of existence.
In the past decade alone, Israel has gone to war with Hamas three times — in 2009, 2012, and 2014 — killing around 2,500 Palestinian civilians in Gaza in the process. Meanwhile, Hamas has killed far more Israeli civilians than any secular Palestinian militant group. This is the human cost of blowback.
“When I look back at the chain of events, I think we made a mistake,” David Hacham, a former Arab affairs expert in the Israeli military who was based in Gaza in the 1980s, later remarked. “But at the time, nobody thought about the possible results.”
https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/
“Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation,” Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official who worked in Gaza for more than two decades, toldthe Wall Street Journal in 2009. Back in the mid-1980s, Cohen even wrote an official report to his superiors warning them not to play divide-and-rule in the Occupied Territories, by backing Palestinian Islamists against Palestinian secularists. “I … suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face,” he wrote.
They didn’t listen to him. And Hamas, as I explain in the fifth installment of my short film series for The Intercept on blowback, was the result. To be clear: First, the Israelis helped build up a militant strain of Palestinian political Islam, in the form of Hamas and its Muslim Brotherhood precursors; then, the Israelis switched tack and tried to bomb, besiege, and blockade it out of existence.
In the past decade alone, Israel has gone to war with Hamas three times — in 2009, 2012, and 2014 — killing around 2,500 Palestinian civilians in Gaza in the process. Meanwhile, Hamas has killed far more Israeli civilians than any secular Palestinian militant group. This is the human cost of blowback.
“When I look back at the chain of events, I think we made a mistake,” David Hacham, a former Arab affairs expert in the Israeli military who was based in Gaza in the 1980s, later remarked. “But at the time, nobody thought about the possible results.”
https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Agreed, but it's only popular in one of the two population groups.
You keep shifting responsibility onto Bibi alone and that's just kind of weird. Even if Bibi woke up tomorrow a completely different person and offered the Oslo terms, Hamas would turn then down.
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou
I will get banned again soon, worry not.
Bibi isn't solely to blame nor solely responsible for fixing things. But he is the only one over which people have any sway. Hamas is a dictatorship unless or until it is deposed. But Israel isn't stuck with Bibi. That's why I say that he is the problem that's easily fixable. You just get rid of him. Hamas is a more difficult problem but I'd rather take my chances with someone other than Netanyahu and his merry band of wannabe authoritarians formulating a plan.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Okay...but say that Israel does just that and "gets rid of him". What then? Offer a two state solution, Hamas tells them to fuck off and we find a new way to blame it on Israel?
Bibi is definitely an impedement to Israel offering a two state solution, but there's a bigger problem regarding one being accepted. Neither Hamas, nor the Palestinian people are interested in a two state solution.
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou
I will get banned again soon, worry not.
We don't know what the Palestinian people would be interested in because they have no actual voice. They live in an impossible situation. Terrorized by Hamas and the Israelis.
LeafGm
Well-known member
This is complete BS. Reminds me of all the pleas of “don’t blame the Russian people, this is all Putin’s fault” at the outset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
When the reality is that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians & Russians support their dogshit governments and the atrocities they commit. And any who don’t are too apathetic to do anything.
