But yeah, in practice, we seem to want it to end with full Israeli dominance, and the Palestinians either emigrating to Egypt and Jordan or vanishing into thin air, I suppose.
As long as there are outside forces, such as Iran, willing to embed & fund militants among the Gazan population, the -only- practical solution towards peace is assimilation: have Gazans broken up & spread out through Israel until law enforcement can be practically achieved.
Now assimilation sucks & will likely result in all sorts of social injustice, but I consider it a better alternative to the current ethnic cleansing.
EDIT: @casspipe suggested the option of subsidized resettlement and I agree that is another option that should be explored.
In general, Arab states and Palestinian leadership argue that naturalizing refugees would undermine their right to return to their original homes. You can interpret this cynically: because many Arab states are not too friendly with Israel, having a massive class of refugees putting political pressure on them could be advantageous, and is probably one of the only ways to "defeat" Israel as a jewish state (because if all of those refugees had the right to live in Israel, jews might become a minority.) But it is true that removing refugee status without a just solution would erase Palestinian claims and rights under international law.
Seriously though, if you look back far enough, all land is stolen. I think it's more prudent to focus on the present day.
Why not?
While much smaller tragedies are used to justify forever war by Hamas against Israel.
Sure.
But if you go over to where a stranger lives and build a wall around them. You are responsible if they then starve to death.
If another stranger is delivering food to a different stranger and you kill the food deliverer. You are responsible for that mans death.
These analogies are much more relevant to the discussion. Isreal is disallowing people from delivering food and has even killed people that do (leading to organizations like word food kitchen to leave).
You do realize that a significant fraction of Israel's military budget comes from the US?
The Arab states seized properties from Mizrahi Jews fleeing to Israel decades ago, land that adds up to multiple times the size of Israel. They have plenty of space to resettle refugees without asking Israel to "buy" their own stolen land back!
The degree to which France and the UK have dodged the question of reparations in this debate is frankly surprising to me.
I agree that subsidized resettlement should be another option explored by middle east nations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_insurgency_in_Sout...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinai_insurgency#Gaza_Strip_sp...
Still a dick move, but much less so than wiping out an entire group of people.
What exactly ARE the goals / demands of every side. Both what they say in public, and what's generally accepted as the rational real goals each side requests / demands / etc via peace talks as well as through violence.
The breakdown could even focus on factions within the nebulous term of 'sides'. An average citizen is likely to have looser criteria than a government / terrorist.
Israel stated goals of war:
1. Return the hostages
2. Remove Hamas regime from Gaza
3. (arguably done) bring north-Israel communities safely back home
Unstated goals:
1. Open Egypt-Gaza border. This had failed.
2. Create safe zone on the Gaza-Israeli border. This is mostly done in practice. This goal cannot be stated (though it'll save many lives)
Hamas goals:
Read Hamas chapter, or see interviews with captured Hamas militants post 7/10 attack (if you believe it's not scripted)
Gazan who are not part of Hamas regime goals: survive
If not a genocide, at the very least an ethnocide.
Next step: Riviera Gaza!
All those jew death camps in Gaza must be closed down, for sure.
All those Gaza tanks and those Gaza fighter jets must be taken down.
And don't forget the Gaza navy patrolling the sea, preventing the israelis from fishing for their subsistence.
Totally agree with you.
Now... back to reality...
There are a lot of atrocities being committed in this conflict. But bombing a school that was used as a missile launch site really isn’t one of them.
Mostly Israel due to a firepower disadvantage. But Hamas seems to be about as into committing war crimes as Netanyahu.
In terms of indifference to suffering, the people dying are in Gaza. Not Israel. Hamas should be suing for peace, not posturing because some fucks in Doha would prefer to punt the question. (Palestine unilaterally turning over its hostages would rob Israel of a tremendous amount of leverage.)
Also, the Germans sent untrained 15 year olds to fight Soviet tanks. That's as close to total battlefield defeat as has ever happened in history.
And no British person was pubished as war criminal for the war crime of attacking Dresden. :-(
I say this as someone whose family endured 6 years of Nazi German and Soviet crimes, including genocide, violence, rape, large scale looting and destruction of cultural heritage, and mass destruction of cities (85% of Warsaw alone was reduced to rubble, intentionally and systematically).
Why do I mention that? I mention that to underscore that just war is not utilitarian. You cannot justify Dresden or Hiroshima or Nagasaki. It doesn't mean you can't take strong measures, or that circumstances don't make a difference, only that the circumstances did not morally justify these acts. And it seems that the behavior of the Allies in Dresden and Hiroshima serve as precedent that is used to justify crimes like the leveling of Gaza and treating its civilians like cattle.
Half the cabinet of the current Israeli government has made public statements to the effect of wanting to starve everyone or kill all the kids.
We've seen the videos and, with !gt, we can read the translations.
There's a database tracking those: https://law4palestine.org/law-for-palestine-releases-databas...
It found that 82% of Israelis want to expel Gazans, and 47% of support killing all Palestinians in Gaza.
Article was featured in Haaretz - linked to here:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/poll-82-of-israelis-wan...
Let's not forget Israel's domestic orthodox/right-wing Jewish terrorism and Yitzhak Rabin's assassination.
Ergo, there's even more incentive for leaders to continually espouse positions they know will never happen, but which play well at home.
As a violence in poli sci professor of mine once quipped, this is a 'the only solution is killing the grandmothers' conflict. Because generational narratives of victimization are so ingrained in large parts of both societies that there is no room for compromise.
Silence extremist voices forcefully, wait a generation, and then there might be a path to peace. :(
Maybe there are some parallels in this situation and late 1800’s-mid 1900’s Western Europe. The civil war on the European continent between Germanic states on one hand and French/British ended when two powerful outsiders (US and Soviet Russia) invaded and split the continent. During this occupation west Europeans nations learned how to live with themselves and to atone for their mistakes and to not repeat these mistakes. But they only learned this because they were under military occupation.
This scenario will most likely not happen in the Middle East and so I think there will not be peace there for generations.
As a colleague from Bahrain once quipped, 'the countries of the Arab world love to use Palestinians as propaganda for domestic purposes, but none of them actually give enough of a shit to make hard choices to solve the problem.'
The individual Gazans almost certainly have one in mind, likely some variant of the two state solution. But Hamas is in charge, and there is nobody else to talk to about it. Ordinary Gazans don't much like Hamas but they are the only thing standing between them and Israel, who as you know is attacking with impunity.
Israel's nominal goal is to remove Hamas and engage such a negotiation, though there is significant doubt that this tactic is going to lead there. And they know that.
Israelis are roughly equally divided on what they want. About half want to wipe out Gaza and have control of (but not responsibility for) the West Bank. They are the ones in government.
The other half is much more amenable to a two state solution, but they are extremely skeptical of finding it. Long before the October 7 attacks, Israelis routinely have to shelter from rocket attacks. We hear little about them because they are largely ineffective, but it does not give Israelis a lot of confidence in any kind of negotiated settlement. That side is also happy to have Gaza walled off.
And all of these sides are backed by powerful outside forces for whom the conflict itself is their goal.
That is an extremely high level breakdown, as neutral as I can be.
They also murdered the Gazan opposition after they were voted into power and have not really allowed voting since. They are pretty much not interested in increasing the situation for the people in Gaza. That's also why they are a terror organization.
No, the majority of the West strongly wants a two-state solution (on the 1967 border, roughly). So did many Israelis, who voted people into office intent on achieving that goal many times.
The problem is, Israel and Palestine never managed to sign an agreement leading to a two-state solution. And in parallel to the peace process, some Palestinians launched the second intifada, a terror campaign which killed many hundreds of Israelis. This eventually lead most Israelis to think that a two-state solution is impossible.
1. You call it "The Israeli PM who pushed for a two state solution" (referring to Rabin), but actually there were other PMs who were negotiating a two state solution with the Palestinians and were elected after - Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert (Ehud Olmert was ten years after the assasination of Rabin).
2. The PM the succeeded Rabin, Ariel Sharon, a long-time right-wing hawk, didn't negotiate with the Palestinians, but did shift Israeli policy to simply leaving the territory without a negotiated settlement. He's the one who pulled Israel out of Gaza, and by all counts, he was poised to do the same and leave the West Bank before he had a stroke.
Olmert, also a historic right-wing hawk, succeeded Sharon, and campaigned openly on the idea of starting to pull settlements out of the West Bank. And he won, with this campaign.
Olmert, btw, to this day is a big peace-advocate, working together with Palestinian partners on trying to bring about a two-state solution. He's also a big critic of the current Israeli government (and famously wrote a piece saying that Israel was committing war crimes in Gaza).
3. Funny enough, another way in which you're technically wrong is that Rabin himself didn't directly advocate for a two-state solution, at least not officially. That was probably his direction, but both Barak and Olmert went much further than him in what they were offering the Palestinian leadership in terms of a deal.
Bonus 4th point: Worth mentioning that calling the person who assassinated Rabin a "right wing Israeli" is pretty wrong too. He was a member of a very extremist right-wing group that did not and does not have any broad support in Israel, as opposed to standard "right wing" positions which do have broad support.
I don't like the prospect of hospitals being attacked, but if Hamas houses combatants or arms inside a hospital, attacking Hamas therein does not appear to be a war crime, provided Israel has issued a warning and allowed a reasonable time for Hamas to vacate the hospital.
And you know what? You can document the torture, sexual assault and murder of innocent prisoners without getting a proper investigation from the ICC. Many US citizens will remember that from Abu Ghraib! Lord only knows how much the CIA is shielding Israel from the fallout of SAVAK. You might as well drop the moralizing pretenses and admit that you don't think a fair trial would be desirable.
Let's say in order to return the hostages (considered popular amongst the Zionists).
Now what is the practical way to execute the war without the abovementioned consequences?
However, war crimes are not a solution.
As far as I'm aware, the citizens of Israel are free to leave that country* (free to enter another country is another issue, but they're also free to move about). It's terrorism and illegal military action to knowingly fire upon civilians. I agree with that for all sides of a conflict. The issue with the other side(s) in this conflict is that they do not present as a clearly identified military force. IMO the most proper solution is the same as evaporatively purifying water. Issue sufficient (<< heavy lifting here) warnings for civilians to leave an area, with an area for them to move to. Then any who remain in the military action area are combatants. Probably just like in the anime episode that showcases this circumstance. (war is hell, that's one of the hells.)
>> In each strike, the order said, officers had the authority to risk killing up to 20 civilians. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/world/middleeast/israel-h...
The very existence of guidance change on civilian casualties should constitute a war crime, because to put it another way, the IDF decided that Palestinian civilian lives were worth less after the terror attacks.
In other metrics, the October attacks killed 1,200 Israelis, plus 1,700 killed in the war. Versus 50,000+ Palestinian fatalities.
So we're at ~1:17 Israeli: Palestinian killed.
I feel like any human can agree there should be an ethical ceiling to that number. Maybe it's lower or higher than the current number, but it being unlimited is genocide.
Surely a change in tactics by Hamas could lead to a legitimate reason to change the proportion of civilian risks.
Imagine if Hamas were scrupulously avoiding all civilians and civilian structures by 200 meters before date X and changed tactics on date X to freely intermingle with civilians and occupy civilian structures with military units and arms.
I'd expect before date X for Israel to have minimal civilian casualties be considered acceptable and proportional, but after that change in tactics I would see justification for a change in the math to justify a higher figure as being the lowest reasonable amount of civilian risk.
Furthermore, even if Israel has a justification for large numbers of civilian casualties, there are other portions of the Geneva Convention it's obviously breaching:
>> ART. 53. — Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or co-operative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.
>> ART. 55. — To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate.
>> ART. 56. — To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring and maintaining, with the co-operation of national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory, with particular reference to the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics. Medical personnel of all categories shall be allowed to carry out their duties.
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-...
One is that Hamas governs Gaza and Israel is not occupying Gaza via a sustained and continuous military control of the territory and population, but rather has intermittent military operations and is otherwise more akin to an embargo. (The US was not "occupying Cuba" at the height of the Cuban embargo, for example.)
The other is that Israel is occupying Gaza, notwithstanding Hamas' claim to be independently governing the territory and the lack of continuous occupying military forces holding territory on the ground.
Whether Israel or Hamas has effective control over the territory and its population does not appear to me to have a bright-line/clear-cut answer. I don't think either side has less than 10% control, but I don't think they have more than 90% control either.
Iff they are an Occupying Power, then they have those obligations. Many of those obligations presume an effective control by an on-the-ground occupying force.
Israel certainly has the military capability to control aid, ergo they have the responsibility to facilitate it.
Ergo, the majority of those casualties could be attributed to military:military.
Given the nature of the Gaza conflict, trying to sub-classify casualties leads inevitably to the 'military aged male' problem.
Civilian casualty ratios are more relevant to ethics, but we don't know that number since Hamas doesn't report their losses.
When one military force blends in with the civilian populace, actual civilian casualties will fall somewhere inbetween extremes (100% of those killed and 0%).
Ergo, excessive casualty ratios indicate that either (a) the enemy military force is larger, (b) the IDF is exceedingly good at killing only enemy combatants without taking casualties, or (c) a large number of civilians are being killed.
I don't think anyone would argue that Hamas has as many fighters as the IDF?
When Hamas fighters repeatedly, strategically, and intentionally fail to do so, I think they bear significant (and even the majority) responsibility for the resulting increase in what you call "actual civilian casualties".
Just because the enemy is harder to find doesn't give blanket license to level apartment blocks because it's easier.
You've earned it.
And also, killing mostly "military aged males" is not a clean tactic as you think it is not to mention that it doesn't justify killing a lot of women and children as collateral.
Do I call it sexist? Stereotyping? What? It entirely denies the existence of males as anything other than enemies, and these are still children we’re talking about.
This argument betrays your bias: that the land is yours (Jewish I mean), and "Arabs" stole it and want to steal it again.
Of course, the other side sees it differently. They see a half a century of immigration to their land culminating in a partition that was imposed from the outside in Western colonialist fashion without the consent of the people living there. They saw massacres and expulsions and ethnic cleansing. That is the root of the conflict.
Of course now 80 years and many complications have passed; both sides have legitimate complaints about the other and many people have been born in both territories making them natives and not part of either colonisation or expulsion. It's difficult.
> All of the death toll coming out of Gaza are from Hamas and they revised the numbers back in April to show 72% of the deaths are military aged males.
This betrays it even more. Not only do you cite a non-credible source going against the consensus, but your argument is literally "Palestinian males between 16 and 45 are fair game for extermination". Not sure what to reply to that.
Pro-Palestinian commenters usually start with the Balfour Declaration or Theodor Herzl's books, I believe.
I found 1881/1882 a good starting point, because this was the first time there was organized immigration that explicitly followed Zionist plans and ideology - I.e. people were not abstractly thinking about "returning to Jerusalem" and they weren't immigrating into the Ottoman empire for other reasons, but they were deliberately immigrating with the intention of (re-)establishing a "Jewish homeland" in the biblical Land of Israel.
in this sense Jews are in a much better position because their presence in specifically that area many hundreds of years before Muslim conquest is archeologically documented. Unlike presence of Europeans in Americas or Australia.
What I say does not justify war atrocities. Just that "you are wrong to call it your land" is not a good working logic
Maybe somebody would if they could? Or how about not kicked out but just made subordinate to government by native original owners, how would you like that?
I guess somebody else can say but Americans developed land, built infrastructure and democracy and did good more. But then the same can be said about Israel. And unlike Americans Jews did not invade somewhere new because they were there in BC era
I don't defend bad stuff done by Israel gov but I suggest condemning specifically bad stuff instead of suggesting "bias" that you did. It's a bit more complicated.