This is an astonishing revisionist take on the reality on the ground.
Israel unilaterally disengaged from GAZA in 2005 and pulling out generations of Jewish settlement in the process. By 2006 GAZA has zero Jews, and 2007 Gazans elected HAMAS who fired rockets at Israel because they want to free Palestine from the river to the sea, AKA eliminate Israel. October 7 attack is a culmination of that, and between then and now, HAMAS didn't forget to build their military base in the mix of civilians and using civilian targets as shield. So that they can blame Israel for every single Palestinians death, including the death cause by their own firing.
The situation in west Bank is qualitatively the same.
No, protecting your people from terrorist is not apartheid, and Israel has no interest to build iron beam and/or build wall--which the west misinterprete as apartheid-- if the neighbors had no intention to eliminate them.
The issue with that type of reasoning is that if you swapped the parties the sentences would be the same. "Palestine removed generations of settlements from Israel, but was forced to attack because Israel wanted to wipe them out." You need to think in terms of principles that can apply equally to everybody.
Though your comment is phrased ambiguously ( not sure you are referring to the Arabs in Israel, or Arabs in Gaza/west bank), I try to respond to both.
For Arabs in Israel, it is important to note that inside Israel parliament knesset, there are Arab representatives, some who even call for the soft dissolution of the state itself ( rights of return). They are the descendants of the Arabs who didn't leave Israel during the 1947 Israel independent war. So no, Arabs there are by and large not removed at all by anyone. By contrast, there are zero Jews in Gaza or West Bank. Jews enter those places at their own peril, they could be lynched.
The Arabs in GAZA/West Bank are not under Israeli jurisdiction, and by their actions and words they are still declaring war on Israel, despite that they launched the war first every single time, and lost every single time, and play victim every single time. If Israel wanted to wipe them out then there is no need for Israel to accept the 1947 partition, the David peace accords (2000) or the Oslo accords (2008), which Palestinians all rejected wholesale. If Israel really wanted to wipe them out, the GAZA war following October 7 terrorist attack would be over by the next day as Israel dominated absolutely militarily.
Really, the conflict is really that simple. One side, Israel, wants peace, and the other, the Palestinians, who don't ( as captured by their slogan, "from the river to the sea Palestinians will be free", do look up on where is the river and where is the sea if you have doubt).
It is made complicated only because a lot of people try to obscure the reality. But that's the topic for another day.
Its pretty well established in international law and the UN charter that all countries have a right to self-defense. Given this is a purely defensive weapon, i can't imagine what reasonable objection anyone could have to it.
Israel is an occupier. This isn't symmetrical warfare.
Israel won't let food into Gaza in reasonable quantities. It has restricted basic things like tent poles and just about any commodity which humans anywhere else in the world would have the luxury of being able to take for granted.
All in violation of international law - that which has lost all meaning in the last three or so years.
Not really relavent. Occupying powers still have the right to self-defense. Certainly they have the right to take defensive measures to prevent attacks on the civilian population of their primary territory, which is what is being discussed here.
> Israel won't let food into Gaza in reasonable quantities
As far as i understand the food situation in Gaza has now stabilized. However even if Israel was illegally restricting food into gaza, that wouldn't have any bearing on the legality of them setting up air defense systems on their own territory.
> All in violation of international law
Being an occupying power is not in and of itself a violation of international law. (The food thing might be. Israel is allowed to put certain restrictions on aid, but groups like the ICC have argued that the restrictions were beyond what was permissible under international law. Personally, even though it is incredibly unlikeky to happen, i hope the issue goes to trial at the ICC so we get a firm answer. However even if true, it does not mean Israel loses every right it has under international law)
I think Israel has a right to defense qua state and Palestinians have a right to resist qua subjects of unjust rule. These aren’t really contradictory positions, and both are pretty standard from a “this is what the UN says” ground truth[1][2].
(This is distinct from a state’s “right to exist,” which is nonsense. But once a state does exist, it has the right to defend itself by definition.)
If they both have a right to kill each other, does the other really have a right to defense? Making it complicated introduces legalistic flaws and distracts everyone from actually fixing it by doing something simple, like tying sanctions to murders of civillians.
> can the right to kill coexist with the victim's right to defense?
Yes it can, and it's ludicrous to suggest otherwise. Russia believes it has the natural right to reclaim what it considers to be Russian territory. Ukraine believes it has the right to be free. So everyone should just put down their weapons and come to an agreement based on these rights?
The fallacy at the heart of your argument is that there is somehow some greater single truth, and that each side agrees that it is the greater single truth, and that everyone will just peaceably agree to follow the single greater truth because it is the single greater truth. Nothing could be less human. What are we, the Borg? We're supposed to follow some hive mind?
> something simple, like tying sanctions to murders of civilians
Not even remotely simple. Define sanctions, murders, civilians. The US bombing "drug" boats in the Caribbean, are those civilians? International law recognizes that collateral damage can legitimately happen during legitimate military operations. Is the collateral damage "murder"? How far should sanctions go? Sanction enemy banks (layer 1)? Sanction citizens of neutral countries who do business with the enemy country (layer 2)? Sanction citizens of neutral countries who do business with other citizens who do business with the enemy country (layer 3)?
They don’t both have a right to kill each other! Both “defense” and “resistance” (w/r/t the goal of self determination) have precise bounds; not all forms of warfare or violence are considered justifiable under either. Much of what Israel has done in the current conflict goes well beyond a charitable read of its right to defense, but this doesn’t imply that all defense adaptations are illegitimate.
I think everyone (myself included) has a right to actual self-defense, just not the false version we've been seeing.
Here's my peace plan:
Blow up or starve kids on the other side +1 sanctions.
Intercept a drone or rocket +0 sanctions.
Say you're sorry and reduce arms by 10% -1 sanctions.
If the US alone did this they'd stop with all the murders in days to weeks.
Of course the state of affairs where random online commenters can think of better answers than the individuals in charge is only due to a lack of a desire for peace at high levels! There is nothing complicated about it at all.
This is an astonishing revisionist take on the reality on the ground.
Israel unilaterally disengaged from GAZA in 2005 and pulling out generations of Jewish settlement in the process. By 2006 GAZA has zero Jews, and 2007 Gazans elected HAMAS who fired rockets at Israel because they want to free Palestine from the river to the sea, AKA eliminate Israel. October 7 attack is a culmination of that, and between then and now, HAMAS didn't forget to build their military base in the mix of civilians and using civilian targets as shield. So that they can blame Israel for every single Palestinians death, including the death cause by their own firing.
The situation in west Bank is qualitatively the same.
No, protecting your people from terrorist is not apartheid, and Israel has no interest to build iron beam and/or build wall--which the west misinterprete as apartheid-- if the neighbors had no intention to eliminate them.
The issue with that type of reasoning is that if you swapped the parties the sentences would be the same. "Palestine removed generations of settlements from Israel, but was forced to attack because Israel wanted to wipe them out." You need to think in terms of principles that can apply equally to everybody.
There are 2 million muslims living in Israel.
There are zero Jews in Gaza -- not even just living ones, they had to remove the long-buried dead ones too.
1 reply →
Though your comment is phrased ambiguously ( not sure you are referring to the Arabs in Israel, or Arabs in Gaza/west bank), I try to respond to both.
For Arabs in Israel, it is important to note that inside Israel parliament knesset, there are Arab representatives, some who even call for the soft dissolution of the state itself ( rights of return). They are the descendants of the Arabs who didn't leave Israel during the 1947 Israel independent war. So no, Arabs there are by and large not removed at all by anyone. By contrast, there are zero Jews in Gaza or West Bank. Jews enter those places at their own peril, they could be lynched.
The Arabs in GAZA/West Bank are not under Israeli jurisdiction, and by their actions and words they are still declaring war on Israel, despite that they launched the war first every single time, and lost every single time, and play victim every single time. If Israel wanted to wipe them out then there is no need for Israel to accept the 1947 partition, the David peace accords (2000) or the Oslo accords (2008), which Palestinians all rejected wholesale. If Israel really wanted to wipe them out, the GAZA war following October 7 terrorist attack would be over by the next day as Israel dominated absolutely militarily.
Really, the conflict is really that simple. One side, Israel, wants peace, and the other, the Palestinians, who don't ( as captured by their slogan, "from the river to the sea Palestinians will be free", do look up on where is the river and where is the sea if you have doubt).
It is made complicated only because a lot of people try to obscure the reality. But that's the topic for another day.
3 replies →
> Israel unilaterally disengaged from GAZA in 2005
There were over a thousand gazans held without charges by the israeli military on oct 7th. That is not what disengagement looks like.
Israel has military bases in cities.
> No, protecting your people from terrorist is not apartheid
I’m quite sure a white south african could have said this same sentence pre-1994.
Its pretty well established in international law and the UN charter that all countries have a right to self-defense. Given this is a purely defensive weapon, i can't imagine what reasonable objection anyone could have to it.
Israel is an occupier. This isn't symmetrical warfare.
Israel won't let food into Gaza in reasonable quantities. It has restricted basic things like tent poles and just about any commodity which humans anywhere else in the world would have the luxury of being able to take for granted.
All in violation of international law - that which has lost all meaning in the last three or so years.
> Israel is an occupier.
Not really relavent. Occupying powers still have the right to self-defense. Certainly they have the right to take defensive measures to prevent attacks on the civilian population of their primary territory, which is what is being discussed here.
> Israel won't let food into Gaza in reasonable quantities
As far as i understand the food situation in Gaza has now stabilized. However even if Israel was illegally restricting food into gaza, that wouldn't have any bearing on the legality of them setting up air defense systems on their own territory.
> All in violation of international law
Being an occupying power is not in and of itself a violation of international law. (The food thing might be. Israel is allowed to put certain restrictions on aid, but groups like the ICC have argued that the restrictions were beyond what was permissible under international law. Personally, even though it is incredibly unlikeky to happen, i hope the issue goes to trial at the ICC so we get a firm answer. However even if true, it does not mean Israel loses every right it has under international law)
I think Israel has a right to defense qua state and Palestinians have a right to resist qua subjects of unjust rule. These aren’t really contradictory positions, and both are pretty standard from a “this is what the UN says” ground truth[1][2].
(This is distinct from a state’s “right to exist,” which is nonsense. But once a state does exist, it has the right to defend itself by definition.)
[1]: https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-7
[2]: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assemb...
If they both have a right to kill each other, does the other really have a right to defense? Making it complicated introduces legalistic flaws and distracts everyone from actually fixing it by doing something simple, like tying sanctions to murders of civillians.
> can the right to kill coexist with the victim's right to defense?
Yes it can, and it's ludicrous to suggest otherwise. Russia believes it has the natural right to reclaim what it considers to be Russian territory. Ukraine believes it has the right to be free. So everyone should just put down their weapons and come to an agreement based on these rights?
The fallacy at the heart of your argument is that there is somehow some greater single truth, and that each side agrees that it is the greater single truth, and that everyone will just peaceably agree to follow the single greater truth because it is the single greater truth. Nothing could be less human. What are we, the Borg? We're supposed to follow some hive mind?
> something simple, like tying sanctions to murders of civilians
Not even remotely simple. Define sanctions, murders, civilians. The US bombing "drug" boats in the Caribbean, are those civilians? International law recognizes that collateral damage can legitimately happen during legitimate military operations. Is the collateral damage "murder"? How far should sanctions go? Sanction enemy banks (layer 1)? Sanction citizens of neutral countries who do business with the enemy country (layer 2)? Sanction citizens of neutral countries who do business with other citizens who do business with the enemy country (layer 3)?
1 reply →
They don’t both have a right to kill each other! Both “defense” and “resistance” (w/r/t the goal of self determination) have precise bounds; not all forms of warfare or violence are considered justifiable under either. Much of what Israel has done in the current conflict goes well beyond a charitable read of its right to defense, but this doesn’t imply that all defense adaptations are illegitimate.
[flagged]
Zionism is not a race. The conflation police have once again been informed.
Nice dog whistle you got there
I think everyone (myself included) has a right to actual self-defense, just not the false version we've been seeing.
Here's my peace plan: Blow up or starve kids on the other side +1 sanctions. Intercept a drone or rocket +0 sanctions. Say you're sorry and reduce arms by 10% -1 sanctions.
If the US alone did this they'd stop with all the murders in days to weeks.
Of course the state of affairs where random online commenters can think of better answers than the individuals in charge is only due to a lack of a desire for peace at high levels! There is nothing complicated about it at all.