It is incredibly important at this moment not to inflame things even more. The story about the decapitated babies was begun by an Israeli amateur journalist who claimed to hear it from a soldier. The Israeli army has already said they can’t confirm it. I’m sure that means it isn’t true.
Beyond that, by midday today it was reported that over 350 children in Gaza had already been killed. Cutting off water, food and electricity and bombing whole apartment towers will mean that tens of thousands of more civilians will be killed. These are people who have committed no war crimes and are simply civilians unlucky enough to be trapped in Gaza.
Yes, Israeli should not invade Gaza. And the US should press for a ceasefire. Enough innocent people on both sides have died.
You're sure it means it isn't true, really? That's good enough for me!
But what will you say if the Israeli army eventually states, that, yes, children have been slaughtered and some decapitated - not for the first time - in a terrorist attack?
Not sure if it makes much difference morally or according to the law of war, to intentionally target civilians including children already is a war crime, and risks decapitating the victims with munitions.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine wouldn't shrink from decapitation as a terror tactic, to show there's no going back, "martyrdom here we come!"
After all, they are willing to use their own civilians in the Gaza Strip as human shields - siting missile and mortar platforms in school, hospitals, apartment buildings and private homes, so why not kill some of the enemy's kids in spectacular fashion? To them, it's a feature of their style, not a bug, not something completely barbaric.
I see--when Israel demolishes whole apartment buildings, hospitals and schools, that’s because Hamas is using people as “human shields,” according to Israel. And when they cut off water and electricity for 2.3 million people whom their defense minister calls “animals,” I guess that’s not intentionally killing civilians.
The difference between us is that I unequivocally denounce Hamas’s attacks on civilians and you excuse Israel’s attacks on civilians. I care about every human life, not just those of my fellow Jews.
I "excused" exactly nothing, nowhere, at any point did I attempt to dictate Israel war tactics, I just accurately described what Hamas does in their role of an unelected terrorist state that doesn't value their own citizens' lives at all: they routinely sit missile and mortar platforms in schools, hospitals, apartment blocks, and private homes.
When they launch missiles or drones from those sites, and their victims fight back by targeting the launch pads, who is morally responsible for urging the civilians to leave? Who is responsible UNDER THE LAWS OF ARMED CONFLICT, for not siting military installations there in the first place?
The difference between us is that I am on the side of the victims no matter who they are, including their right to self-defense and defense of others.
The citizens of Gaza have the right to defend themselves from the people who are engineering their death en masse, only you and I disagree about who that is, so I will just have
have to forge on, despite your severe disapproval, one way or another.
Your "unequivocal denunciation of Hamas's attacks on civilians" simply fails to be comprehensive enough, that's all.
Since I did nothing of the sort - as I don't know or much care what the "Israeli government talking points" are, it's a happy accident if they are applying universal human rights laws consistently and agree with me!
The rules you are proposing are incoherent and self contradictory, I can see that even on my first cup of coffee on a fine crisp morning here in Mipples, but let's make you the hypothetical leader of a terrorist state that has seized control of (checks map)
Other terrorists flock to your newly liberated territory. You refuse to allow free elections - in fact, you imprison and frequently execute your fiendish, infidel opposition - how dare they challenge the sacred and holy supreme cause of THUGB? - dragging their bodies through the streets behind motorbikes as hoots and jeers resound, encouraging the youth to emulate you in every way in your prime goal: to seize power in the illegitimate settler nation of Canada, just across Lake Erie.
We can work out the various spurious rationales and some patriarchal sky God's eternally just and immutable decrees and promises (Eternity in Paradise with dancing angel houris on pins of light, plus bonus eternal martyrdom points for fallen fighters sounds about right) on behalf of your goals later, this hypothetical aims to capture and highlight some of the many fatal flaws in the position you've staked out vis-a-vis deploying civilian human shields to render deadly attacks on enemies beyond the reach of lawful retaliation. Which is the kind of license every kidnapping gangster dreams of as well, does that give you pause?
You can question the relevant point-to-point analogical correspondence with HAMAS/GAZA (THUGB/BUFFALO and STATE OF ISRAEL/CANADA) I maintain is valid, and I will endeavor to refute your refutation, maybe we will both learn something!
OK I have a long day ahead Kathryn, so let's cut to the chase: how many missile and mortar platforms can you, should you, legally, morally, ethically, however you want to slice it, be able to site, and how many victims can those platforms slaughter at long range, from locations inside Shea's Performing Arts Center, on the Canisius College campus inside residence halls, and inside these buildings:
"Buffalo's architecture is diverse, with a collection of 19th- and 20th-century buildings.[68] Downtown Buffalo landmarks include Louis Sullivan's Guaranty Building, an early skyscraper;[69][70] the Ellicott Square Building, once one of the largest of its kind in the world;[71] the Art Deco Buffalo City Hall and the McKinley Monument, and the Electric Tower. Beyond downtown, the Buffalo Central Terminal was built in the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood in 1929; the Richardson Olmsted Complex, built in 1881, was an insane asylum[72] until its closure in the 1970s.[73] Urban renewal from the 1950s to the 1970s spawned the Brutalist-style Buffalo City Court Building and Seneca One Tower, the city's tallest building.[74] In the city's Parkside neighborhood, the Darwin D. Martin House was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in his Prairie School style.[75] Since 2016, Washington DC real estate developer Douglas Jemal has been acquiring, and redeveloping iconic properties throughout the city.[76]" [Wikipedia]
Just think: you are able to hit downtown Toronto from these sites, you're counting in the rep burnished over the years Buffalo as "The City of Good Neighbors" to help out only at first, since unfortunately you've had well over a decade in power systematically diverting international aid monies from the civilian population of Buffalo's desperate needs, to arm and train your terrorist fighters. And purchase guns, lots and lots of guns.
How long before Canada or the city authorities in Toronto, in concert with Canadian and international allies, are legally allowed to target the missile and mortar platforms? If your answer is "never," because innocent civilians' right to life trumps absolutely all other human rights, what's to stop the The Holy Unafraid Government of Buffalo - "THUGB," for short - from mobilizing this shield motif more ambitiously, and organizing an armada to sail up Lake Erie for an amphibious landing operation, to liberate Toronto in the sacred cause of (Insert sacred cause here)?
My move? It’s not a chess game, and since I fundamentally disagree with a number of premises behind your long post, I will not engage with you. Also, your first sentence says all too much about your worldview. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the notion that the neo-fascists who make up Netanyahu’s egregious coalition apply “universal human rights laws consistently.” If you have any liberal friends in Israel, ask them what they think of that statement. I will not reply to you after this.
It's just an expression, and since you cannot even be bothered to take this seriously enough to explain one single " fundamental disagreement with a number of premises behind your long post" you're not even arguing in good faith! That's likely because you CANNOT explain why the Hamas terrorists (or any other group anywhere, at any time, for any purpose - none of this has anything to do with Hamas, Israel, Netanyahu, Neo-Fascism per se, whether on the part of Hamas, which would be much too charitable a description, and I AGREE THAT NETANYAHU IS HORRENDOUS, BACKWARDS, A TERRIBLE LEADER, but so what?
This is all about different conceptions of UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS, not personalities! AT NO JUNCTURE in this did it ever become my duty to agree with what policies Netanyahu follows, and if you go back and read what I wrote more closely you will see why - moreover I have been thinking and researching this and connected topics since the early 1970s at Macalester, and especially since my Theories of Justice course and work in graduate school at the U. of Minnesota -Twin Cities, and then in law school, have my own views based on those readings and reflections, and am also familiar with the general position you are taking BECAUSE I USED TO BELIEVE IT WAS CORRECT!
"Also, your first sentence says all too much about your worldview."
??????? You cannot be seriously arguing from that kind of egregiously smug and condescending position, can you? Because we deeply disagree about allowing terrorists to be granted carte blanche immunity from as direct a retaliation as possible - maybe it should be emphasized that it would require taking all steps to AVOID killing civilians, thus it might well involve a lengthy campaign of gathering intelligence to insert commandos who would speak fluent Arabic and be able to bluff out a very short-term mission as Gazans, ok, it will be difficult to say the least, but I didn't commit myself to any "mass area bombings," that may be your assumption but that's all it is - it's supposed to ME who is the "bad guy" here?
No, we just sincerely disagree, but it would reflect better on you if you respected someone who disagreed with you, without implying they are so gullible they trust Netanyahu, or are some kind of "crypto-fascist" because they want to be able to retaliate legally and as carefully as possible (after those massive leaflet drops, after soliciting Hamas to release the kidnap victims and unilaterally surrender since they are the genocidal aggressors IN THIS INSTANCE, after exploring all other reasonable means of military engagement that could possibly help kill Hamas leadership, arrest them for war crimes trials if possible, etc.)
So there you have it: you need to either defend your wildly implausible claims or admit you can't consistently apply them - without leading to something bordering on complete surrender by legal authorities all over the planet, to whichever gang or cult or terrorist group or narco-state or drug cartel or ad hoc rebel group, as in my THUGB hypothetical, seizes hostages amongst a civilian population and starts murdering people from behind their human shields.
It's OBVIOUSLY not a "game," except in the sense that all reasoned debates allow disagreeing parties to take turns, and so on. I am playing fair and will defend my views, you seem to want to engage more in smear tactics and unilateral declarations of "moral superiority," so that ends it.
I will be sure to occasionally feature exactly this kind of discussion / debate, on exactly this kind of highly controversial topic on my Substack column - forthcoming, so thanks for at least providing useful data points for further analysis, Kathryn, and we can both cordially ignore each other henceforth, right?
Marlene, while I too am all for accurate reporting, I also know shooting a one year old and her family in their bedrooms is not a hell of a lot different than beheading them when all is said and done. Both are barberic acts of inhumanity deserving of retribution. The pictures od the two hundred or so young Israelis at the music festival tell me all I need to know.
Hamas did horrible things that violated international law. Israel is doing horrible things that are violating international law. But it is essential that we not be guided by propaganda. Remember the elusive "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq? Please read this excellent piece of reporting from one of the best outlets covering this story, The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2023/10/11/israel-hamas-disinformation/
I'm on the same page as you Lucian. I heard Mika on Morning Joe ask one of the most asinine questions I have heard her utter to date, she was talking with one of the guests and asked him where the hostages were being kept, as if they were in a pen somewhere, and I thought Joe was clueless. Those hostages are spread out all over Gaza, finding one will be no guarantee they will be able to find any of the others, especially alive. I can see it taking years for each negotiated swap. What happened was unspeakably horrific, but the dead are dead now and beyond suffering, the captives are alive and that is now the most important problem the Israelis face. Those people are still alive, and the most important thing their government can do is secure their release. Yes they can level Gaza, they have been working on that 24-7 since Sunday, if they do that they will turn the world against them, because the number of innocent Palestinian dead will far exceed those of the Israelis. Netanyahu knows this, and is caught on the tip of his own spear, the right wants revenge, the rest of the nation wants to know “why did this happen”, he can try the former to hide from the latter, but not for long. WHY is going to be a very big question, I think he's toast. As a Green Beret I was trained in insurgency, how to conduct it as well as how to fight it. I think Hamas is in a checkmate position. If the Israelis invade, they will do so at a huge cost in lives including their own, or they can sit on the border like they are now, nasching their teeth knowing that Hamas got away with a lot of it, and that they will get the hostages back in trickles, but alive. I have no doubt that Hamas is evil incarnate, and that there will be hell to pay, but that will probably take a while to play out as it has in the past. Surely there are people in our government and Israel's who can think this through just like I did, and see that it makes sense, all of this is predicated on Hezbollah standing down and not turning Lebanon into a sea of fire. I hate the thought of relying on them doing anything sane, but maybe they are not suicidal.
Nice try, no matter what you and I and Lucian agree are the "wisest moves" here to avoid the impending Checkmate by Hamas, Israel is going to be viewing this as an existential threat they have to eliminate - possibly after a massive leaflet dropping campaign akin to the US prequel to dropping the atomic bombs, warning Hamas and alerting the entire world to intervene to help the effectively, de facto, "kidnapped" civilians of Gaza (or those who agree it is a worthy goal) those citizens who are coerced, forced under compulsion by Hamas to aid and abet a terrorist army, citizens of Gaza currently being deployed as human shields, in other words.
This is an unholy mess! There ARE no "good outcomes," only least worst resolutions.
Edit: There's a phrase from Anglo-American law that's applicable to Hamas's fiendish willingness to
refuse to release their kidnapped hostages, preferring to submit their own civilians to a blockade and cut-off of electricity, water, food:
"Punishments for contempt include imprisonment and fines. However, according to the Supreme Court, civil contempt penalties are conditional. One who is punished for civil contempt can avoid the punishment by doing as the court ordered and is therefore described as "carrying the keys of their prison in their own pocket." Punishments for criminal contempt, however, are generally unconditional and definite."
[Last updated in July of 2022 by the Wex Definitions Team]
Hamas has the jailhouse keys in their pockets all right, but why should suddenly care at all
about the universal human rights, freedom and dignity, duty of care, duty of protection of citizens
by any state's leadership?
They are...the scum of the earth. Expecting these people to evolve a moral conscience is to expect
an immediate regime run by talking unicorns and enlightened alien beings from Zeta Reticuli B:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
ζ Reticuli
Location of ζ Reticuli (circled)
Observation data *******
Zeta Reticuli, Latinized from ζ Reticuli, is a wide binary star system in the southern constellation of Reticulum. From the southern hemisphere the pair can be seen with the naked eye as a double star in very dark skies. Based upon parallax measurements, this system is located at a distance of about 39.3 light-years (12 parsecs) from Earth. Both stars are solar analogs that have characteristics similar to those of the Sun. They belong to the Zeta Herculis Moving Group of stars that share a common origin.
******* See also:
Bob Lazar, Barney and Betty Hill, and Project Serpo fall into the subject of UFO conspiracy theories and alien abduction reports related to Zeta Reticuli
Tom Friedman in the NYT has a column worth reading. His view is that Hamas was deliberately barbaric in its tactics to bait the Israelis into an overreaction of retribution. A brutal invasion of Gaza, he suggests, would inflame the whole ME, destroy the pending Saudi deal, maybe even the Abraham Accords, and spread the war even to Iran. The number of dead Palestinians won’t bother Hamas, he says, that’s part of the plan. But it will bother Arabs everywhere. Yahoo would be walking into a trap. That’s certainly plausible, but the pressure from Israelis for a frontal attack on Hamas might be overwhelming. Israelis are usually good thinkers, and would likely see the trap, but this is an incredibly emotional moment, and rational thinking doesn’t often coincide with raw anger. Who benefits most from a spreading ME war: Putin. And Ukraine becomes collateral damage.
I really like Friedman and I follow his way of thinking. Like Lucian pointed out, those in Hamas, live amongst the Palestinians. They have shed their clothing and put on traditional clothes worn by the Palestinian people. only DNA from their burnt or discarded clothing, etc., would link them to the attack. I truly think the lengthy conversation Biden had with Bibi was one of caution. That they can show force on the outside perimeters of Gaza but be very careful strategically in smoking these murderers out. Hamas was trained by the Iranians who were trained by members of Isis and the Taliban. But remember when our Navy seals were able to locate Bin Laden? We and Mossad have spy capabilities that perhaps no one else has. At least, this is my hope.
I called the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco today to see if they can locate my cousins. I never got through to anyone, not one real person. I imagine they are overwhelmed. I will call again tomorrow and if nothing, I will contact my congressman.
My thoughts and hopes for a safe outcome are with you, Marlene, as well as with all those whose families are in harms way. It angers me that this kind of brutality keeps continuing over the centuries.
Joseph's half-brothers were jealous of him; (Genesis 37:18–20) wherefore, in Dothan, most of them plotted to kill him, with the exception of Reuben,[13][14] who suggested to have Joseph thrown into an empty cistern, intending to rescue Joseph himself. Unaware of this secondary intention, the others obeyed him first.[c] Upon imprisoning Joseph, the brothers saw a camel caravan carrying spices and perfumes to Egypt, and sold Joseph to these merchants.[d] Thereafter the guilty brothers painted goat's blood on Joseph's coat and showed it to Jacob, who therefore believed Joseph had died (Genesis 37:12–35).
Wait, I was the one who posted "Your move," Kathryn replied "It's not a chess game," as if the vernacular phrase in this context was "turning it into some kind of (trivial) game," that said sure, "less snark"! I am not engaging with her or vice-versa.
Black September (Arabic: أيلول الأسود Aylūl al-ʾAswad), also known as the Jordanian Civil War,[9] was an armed conflict between Jordan, led by King Hussein, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), led by chairman Yasser Arafat. The main phase of the fighting took place between 16 and 27 September 1970, though certain aspects of the conflict continued until 17 July 1971.
During the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel militarily occupied what had been the Jordanian-annexed West Bank. Following this development, the Palestinian fedayeen relocated to Jordan and stepped up their attacks on Israel and the newly Israeli-occupied territories. Tensions began when an Israeli reprisal operation took place in Jordan in 1968, developing into the full-scale Battle of Karameh. Within the Arab world, the perceived joint victory of Jordan and the Palestinians against Israeli troops led to a surge in support for the fedayeen in Jordan. Drawing in both new recruits and financial aid, the PLO's strength in Jordan grew rapidly, and by the beginning of 1970, groups within the PLO had begun calling for the overthrow of Jordan's Hashemite monarchy.
Acting as a state within a state, the fedayeen openly disregarded Jordanian laws and regulations. On two occasions, they attempted to assassinate Hussein, leading to violent confrontations with the Jordanian Armed Forces by June 1970. Hussein wanted to oust them from the country by force, but had been hesitant to strike; he feared that his enemies would leverage such an offensive by equating the Palestinian fighters with civilians. Continued PLO activities in Jordan culminated in the Dawson's Field hijackings of 6 September 1970, when the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) seized three civilian passenger flights and forced their landing in the Jordanian city of Zarqa, where they took foreign nationals as hostages and later blew up the planes in front of journalists from around the world. Hussein saw this as the last straw, and ordered the Jordanian Army to take action.[10] *******
Twice promised land via the Balfour Declaration in 1917... the horrors perpetrated by Hamas militants are inexcusable, but the retaliation by Israel against the entire Gaza community seems equally over the top. I have picked up a book on Gaza and have ordered three more so I am limiting my comments tonight. But I have lived long enough to know that an endless cycle of revenge and retribution never works and always serves as a breeding ground for a new generation who seeks revenge.
I have a lovely three year old granddaughter, and I thought of her as descriptions of beheaded children in Israel emerged....and I saw a frantic father with a little girl in his arms running toward an ambulance in Gaza after an Israeli air strike ... and I thought of her again.
There are enough voices clamoring for revenge, retribution, claiming the others are animals... we need to reexamine how this all came to be possible... hence the books...
read earlier that Gaza has in effect been blockaded in Hamas took control in 2007...Egypt and Israel cooperating.... also with support from Saudi Arabia as a counter to Iranian influence with Hamas
I wonder what the blockade was intended to do and did it achieve that objective? 16 years and I read that unemployment in Gaza was 46% as a result... so much to learn
Hamas clearly wants Israel replaced by a Muslim state, and Netanyehu and his defense minister vow to eliminate Hamas once and for all. Both sides seek extinction of the other.
We need people who want to shed light, not heat. This is a problem demanding disciplined minds, not gross ones.
Netanyahu IS the problem as well as hardliners in the Likud Party. They are the reason for the unrest Israel experienced months before this horrific attack. Hamas took advantage of this and their timing was ripe, unfortunately. As I understand it, the wall built around Gaza is fortified by concrete way way way underground. Many cameras and surveillance equipment was set up on the wall so that if Israel was attacked, Mossad and the IDF would know. Netanyahu was so busy not taking care of Israelis or Palestinians, but lining his pockets, he helped get people killed. As you can see, I have much disdain for him. He and the Likuds deserve removal from office.
Analogies are inexact, but to this observer Israel's "struggle" with the Palestinians since 1948 -- not just over the last 50 or so years -- has less in common with U.S. involvement in Vietnam than with the U.S. "struggle" against the Native tribes on this continent. The differences are major, of course. In the 19th century North America was both vast and underpopulated; the Levant in the mid-20th century was both small and crowded. In the 19th century, the U.S. didn't face much foreign interference as it pursued its "manifest destiny."
By contrast, as the Ottoman Empire broke up in the early 20th century, Britain and France had their claws in what used to be known as Greater Syria, and oil was discovered in the Persian Gulf area and elsewhere. In mid-century the Holocaust dwarfed the anti-Jewish pogroms that in previous decades had been frequent in Russia and eastern Europe, then along came the Cold War, with Russia and the U.S. choosing up sides in the Middle East and elsewhere. The stateless Palestinians served as a casus belli for several Arab states, most of which weren't especially interested in actually *solving* "the Palestinian question." Neither was anyone else. Hamas is undeniably despicable, but it didn't come out of nowhere either.
I think of the Zen saying: "There is no solution. Seek it lovingly." I don't believe this particular blood feud will ever be settled. What is clear is that Israel's neighbors know that they place a high value on individual lives - viz previously trading 1000+ Palestinian fighters for one Israeli soldier.
When you read that Brandeis (!) and Harvard have many Palestinian sympathizers, it is obvious the game/public perception has changed. However ... Hamas is not "the Palestinians," and we, the United States may wind up in *two* wars. Then the question will be: who goes nuclear first? Only rational people eschew nukes.
Starving civilians, denying electricity, bombing hospitals, schools, targeting children and the elderly are not going to win Israel atta-boy points. There is no condoning the horrific violence perpetrated by Hamas, but Netanyahu and previous governments never had any intention of negotiating a two state agreement or accepting Palestinians into Israel. Palestinians have been caged, marginalized and denigrated for decades. Our own history with the indigenous peoples is atrocious. The first world has cossetted Israel's treatment of the Palestinians instead of insisting on a peaceful and equal settlement, relieving both sides of violence and war.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - John F. Kennedy
LOL, nice selective prosecution of the evil Israelis, too bad it's as tendentious a summary as you'll find outside of the Palestinian Solidarity Committee meetings.
It's as if the Jewish Diaspora had no roots at all in the region, never legally acquired lands - including swamps and desert they reclaimed as a productive food source - and instigated all the violence without any provocation.
The Palestinian Authority’s new textbooks for first to fourth grades demonize Israel and glorify “martyrdom,” a report published Sunday claims, citing an “alarming deterioration” since a previous study.
The report, by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), says that the 2016-2017 elementary school curriculum in the PA “teaches students to be martyrs, demonizes and denies the existence of Israel, and focuses on a ‘return’ to an exclusively Palestinian homeland.”
The report by the Jerusalem-based group comes as Israeli officials continue to call on Palestinian officials to halt what they see as the demonization of Israel in textbooks and other materials aimed at children. They say the textbooks are a key source of incitement that drives terror attacks.
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Among the textbook materials cited in the report are maps that don’t show Israel and passages that appear to glorify attackers.
Image from the April, 2017 IMPACT-se report on Palestinian elementary schools textbooks. (Screenshot)
Image from the April, 2017 IMPACT-se report on Palestinian elementary schools textbooks. (Screenshot)
The report notes that in addition to Israel not appearing on maps, Israeli cities such as Haifa and Jaffa are described as Palestinian, a frequently documented phenomenon in PA teaching materials.
Note: The original PLO charter from 1964 is identical to the 1968 charter except for article 24. The 1964 charter defined the Palestine as the territory of the State of Israel and specifically excluded the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The 1968 version of the charter included both Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip as the Palestinian homeland to be liberated.
The “Palestinian People” were originally poor people who sought handouts for aid from international organizations, and then got caught between Cold War era, proxy wars. There never were “Palestinian”people--mostly, they were Jordanians. Arafat exploited both sides and profited from the disinformation. Read Samuel Katz’s book, “Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine.”
On the other hand, Netanyahu and tRump PROVOKED the “Palestinians” by moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem AND GUNNING DOWN UNARMED PROTESTORS. It goes to show you how “one issue” voting--in this case, by US, Conservative, Jewish supporters of tRump-- can backfire spectacularly.
There is absolutely no good reason for a decent person to throw in with the EVIL that is P1135809.
Surely the Hamas leadership will realize they should protect their citizens from needless suffering, and seek for a peace treaty with Israel, after an immediate ceasefire.
Oh wait, the entire raison d'etre of Hamas is to refuse to recognize the State of Israel has any legitimate right to exist, so I guess that's out.
Maybe the Gazans will organize a revolt and install a representative government?
They can't have forgotten how to cast a vote in an election, that was only sixteen or seventeen years ago that Hamas won and ended elections!
Start with the seizure of the territories in the Levant by the Ottoman Empire, that's the background that sets up the Balfour Declaration.
And pay attention to the waves of immigrants into what is now the State of Israel and the West Bank and Gaza from the collapsing Ottoman Empire, not only the returning Jewish Diaspora, but refugees from what is now Iraq, Syria, and further off.
Of course there was a continuous Jewish presence in what became the Palestine mandate going back to ancient times, so there's that. It can be much trickier that you might think to figure out who had legal title to the lands Zionist immigrants bought and settled, the Ottoman Empire's record keeping has serious gaps.
In any event, claiming that Jews and only Jews had and have no right to a national homeland in the Palestine Mandate, is often met with the rejoinder that since the Palestine Mandate divided up the land with some 83% going to the predominantly Arab populations, and 17% to Jews and minorities like Orthodox Christians, Druze, Roman Catholics, and others in what is now Israel and parts of Lebanon and Syria, there is already a Palestinian state - it's called "Jordan."
There are absolutely no uncontested points in any narrative about who has clear and fair legal title to most of the land, and it's a monumental conceptual blunder to start off with a rather Manichean division between the "deserving indigenous peoples" and the "undeserving settlers," again, in part because so many "Native Palestinians" arrived in the region in the early 20th century, as the Ottoman Empire fell apart - one of the defeated warring nations in World War 1.
Probably doesn't help the Palestinians any that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem helped recruit for Hitler, even had their recruitment for a Waffen SS division:
His opposition to the British peaked during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. In 1937, evading an arrest warrant, he fled Palestine and took refuge successively in the French Mandate of Lebanon and the Kingdom of Iraq, until he established himself in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. During World War II he collaborated with both Italy and Germany by making propagandistic radio broadcasts and by helping the Nazis recruit Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen-SS (on the grounds that they shared four principles: family, order, the leader and faith).[15] On meeting Adolf Hitler he requested backing for Arab independence and support in opposing the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish national home. Upon the end of the war he came under French protection, and then sought refuge in Cairo to avoid prosecution for war crimes.
The seizure of territories in the Levant by the Ottoman Empire was the background for the Balfour Declaration?? Since the Ottomans conquered the Levant in the early 16th century and the Balfour Declaration was made about 400 years later, that seems a stretch. I also seem to recall that a major impetus behind the Balfour Declaration was antisemitism in Europe and especially pogroms in eastern Europe and Russia.
It is time to think hard about the response the world will give to Israel now that it is leaving Gaza without electric power in addition to starving the civilians. Israel's retaliation must be measured. I can see leaving the people of Gaza in a dire situation to get the hostages out but beyond that the civilians cannot be subject to slaughter. There must be negotiations by Hamas and Israel at the urging of the US since Hamas has American hostages. The world loves to hate Jews and most of the world is waiting for the day they can bomb Israel back to the stone age. Killing Jews has been in vogue for over 2000 years and there is little but the US and Israel to prevent the anti-Semites from an all-out killing of Jews.
Some of the people “love to hate Jews,” but that is no moral ground to justify anything you concluded. No one I know wants to bomb anyone back to the Stone Age. You know Brad, as my sister once said to me, you need to hang out with better people. Your post has no moral center whatsoever.
"No one I know" wants to vote for Trump again, either - I guess that justifies some conclusion or other, unless it's just a fallacious mode of reasoning...
An indiscriminate bloodbath in Gaza will not save Israel. Hamas (and Putin, I’m convinced) may even be counting on it. We are largely a fickle world and as much as the media covers the atrocities in Israel, they’ll be on the job doing it in Gaza. The Hamas participants in Saturdays slaughter certainly have no compunction over the deaths of children. The more the Israelis kill, for them and their demented religious leaders, the better.
As cathartic as vengeance is, it has a price. A steep one.
Surely the mothers of dead Israeli soldiers in the coming battles would suffer as much as Palestinian mothers over their dead sons.
A mediator of stature should intervene now before the frenzy of death begins.
There are dozens and dozens of examples of the phenomenon listed here, it seems to be something out of the Dark Ages - except from a certain point of view, establishing a society entirely based on the Koran and Haditha is a worthy goal, the supreme good as it pleases Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
After all, we have no problem recognizing ultra-orthodox evangelicals who beat their children citing the Bible as being very dangerous and backwards, why not this brand of Islam?
Sacrifice for others - yes. But proactively seeking martrydom as an end in itself when it means murdering innocents is anathema. It morphs into a frenzy of homicidal suicide. Against life’s imperative - to thrive. It’s blasphemy.
I’ve never read such a litany of self delusional insanity-level bullshit. It’s not limited to Islamic extremists, it’s heard in hyper-religious Jews and ecclesiastical Christian extremist baloney. Any God who directs us to kill one another is as far from holy as his opposite, the Enemy of Man. The leaders of these sect shouldn’t be allowed anywhere but in well hidden monastic retreats where they can flagellate themselves and other like-minded masochists.
It’s not sacrifice, it’s not even suicide, it’s self-hate.
There is no doubt that civilians are going to be killed when Israel goes into Gaza. What you ignore is that Hamas is counting on that, and counting on their misery to move public opinion to pressure Israel to retreat, and allow Hamas to continue its reign of terror. Hamas does not govern. The basic services are provided by outsiders. Hamas exists to create chaos through terror. Its charter, which is available in English by the way, states that Israel must be eradicated -- along with all other infidels. That includes Europe and America, and in case you think that you are too far away, remember 9/11.
Do you suggest that Israel allows 150 children and adults who were forcibly grabbed to sit in Gaza for years while Hamas plays with them, or worse, executes them publicly?
As for Israel, there will certainly be a reckoning as to how the Army and the intelligence services were asleep for two years. That will come, because Israel will survive. It has no other choice. As Golda Meir famously said, "We have no place else to go."
The quick solution to the Palestinian problem is for Egypt to create a Palestinian State in the Sinai. All Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank would be helped by the various Arab countries to move there. Saudi Arabia, the largest exporter of muslim terrorism, could compensate Egypt for the value of approximately 66,000 acres of desert and hills. The Arab counties could provide a salary to each Palestinian male over 18 years old to sit around. They could also provide troops on a rotating basis to patrol the borders of the new Palestinian State to prevent bad guys from getting out or bad guys getting in. Israel would provide an annual amount to build high rises in the Palestinian State. They would also fund malls for the Palestinian males to send the women to shop. America would provide motorcycles for the males to ride around on the desert.
Sort of like what the U.S. did with the Native tribes, forcing them onto reservations whose land no one else wanted (until oil or other valuable resources were discovered, of course)?
No one wanted Gaza either. I agree with one aspect of your disingenuous comment: Guarantee that the Palestinian State will get to keep 50% of any oil profits from oil discoveries in the Sinai. The other 50% would go to compensate all the other countries operating expenses guard the New Palestinian State of Sinai.
Your argument for resisting an attack upon Gaza is convincing.
Should we just write off the kidnapped and missing civilians who have been taken as hostages and human shields? How can we route out terrorism by ignoring it?
How can we negotiate with those whose “good faith” has no value?
What actions can Israel take to protect its borders: North and South? How can we divert and reduce invasions by standing on one foot and waiting for the next incursion?
They’re killing children and young people. 65% of the Gaza Strip is 24 or younger. To what end? Genocide? The hatred of human against human is soul crushing.
Typo: It's ONE MILLION, NINE HUNDRED AND NINETY EIGHT THOUSAND or so...
(Not nine million, etc...) Sorry. H/T Margo Howard, John Salvati.
It is incredibly important at this moment not to inflame things even more. The story about the decapitated babies was begun by an Israeli amateur journalist who claimed to hear it from a soldier. The Israeli army has already said they can’t confirm it. I’m sure that means it isn’t true.
Beyond that, by midday today it was reported that over 350 children in Gaza had already been killed. Cutting off water, food and electricity and bombing whole apartment towers will mean that tens of thousands of more civilians will be killed. These are people who have committed no war crimes and are simply civilians unlucky enough to be trapped in Gaza.
Yes, Israeli should not invade Gaza. And the US should press for a ceasefire. Enough innocent people on both sides have died.
You're sure it means it isn't true, really? That's good enough for me!
But what will you say if the Israeli army eventually states, that, yes, children have been slaughtered and some decapitated - not for the first time - in a terrorist attack?
Not sure if it makes much difference morally or according to the law of war, to intentionally target civilians including children already is a war crime, and risks decapitating the victims with munitions.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine wouldn't shrink from decapitation as a terror tactic, to show there's no going back, "martyrdom here we come!"
After all, they are willing to use their own civilians in the Gaza Strip as human shields - siting missile and mortar platforms in school, hospitals, apartment buildings and private homes, so why not kill some of the enemy's kids in spectacular fashion? To them, it's a feature of their style, not a bug, not something completely barbaric.
I see--when Israel demolishes whole apartment buildings, hospitals and schools, that’s because Hamas is using people as “human shields,” according to Israel. And when they cut off water and electricity for 2.3 million people whom their defense minister calls “animals,” I guess that’s not intentionally killing civilians.
The difference between us is that I unequivocally denounce Hamas’s attacks on civilians and you excuse Israel’s attacks on civilians. I care about every human life, not just those of my fellow Jews.
I "excused" exactly nothing, nowhere, at any point did I attempt to dictate Israel war tactics, I just accurately described what Hamas does in their role of an unelected terrorist state that doesn't value their own citizens' lives at all: they routinely sit missile and mortar platforms in schools, hospitals, apartment blocks, and private homes.
When they launch missiles or drones from those sites, and their victims fight back by targeting the launch pads, who is morally responsible for urging the civilians to leave? Who is responsible UNDER THE LAWS OF ARMED CONFLICT, for not siting military installations there in the first place?
The difference between us is that I am on the side of the victims no matter who they are, including their right to self-defense and defense of others.
The citizens of Gaza have the right to defend themselves from the people who are engineering their death en masse, only you and I disagree about who that is, so I will just have
have to forge on, despite your severe disapproval, one way or another.
Your "unequivocal denunciation of Hamas's attacks on civilians" simply fails to be comprehensive enough, that's all.
Do you see now?
A little less snark would be helpful.
Yes, a little less snark but Richard states his point well .
Thank you Kathryn
Since you just reiterated the Israeli government talking points, as you have in several other comments here, yes, I see now, as I did before.
Agreed.
Since I did nothing of the sort - as I don't know or much care what the "Israeli government talking points" are, it's a happy accident if they are applying universal human rights laws consistently and agree with me!
The rules you are proposing are incoherent and self contradictory, I can see that even on my first cup of coffee on a fine crisp morning here in Mipples, but let's make you the hypothetical leader of a terrorist state that has seized control of (checks map)
https://www.visitbuffaloniagara.com/ Buffalo New York
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo,_New_York
Other terrorists flock to your newly liberated territory. You refuse to allow free elections - in fact, you imprison and frequently execute your fiendish, infidel opposition - how dare they challenge the sacred and holy supreme cause of THUGB? - dragging their bodies through the streets behind motorbikes as hoots and jeers resound, encouraging the youth to emulate you in every way in your prime goal: to seize power in the illegitimate settler nation of Canada, just across Lake Erie.
We can work out the various spurious rationales and some patriarchal sky God's eternally just and immutable decrees and promises (Eternity in Paradise with dancing angel houris on pins of light, plus bonus eternal martyrdom points for fallen fighters sounds about right) on behalf of your goals later, this hypothetical aims to capture and highlight some of the many fatal flaws in the position you've staked out vis-a-vis deploying civilian human shields to render deadly attacks on enemies beyond the reach of lawful retaliation. Which is the kind of license every kidnapping gangster dreams of as well, does that give you pause?
You can question the relevant point-to-point analogical correspondence with HAMAS/GAZA (THUGB/BUFFALO and STATE OF ISRAEL/CANADA) I maintain is valid, and I will endeavor to refute your refutation, maybe we will both learn something!
OK I have a long day ahead Kathryn, so let's cut to the chase: how many missile and mortar platforms can you, should you, legally, morally, ethically, however you want to slice it, be able to site, and how many victims can those platforms slaughter at long range, from locations inside Shea's Performing Arts Center, on the Canisius College campus inside residence halls, and inside these buildings:
"Buffalo's architecture is diverse, with a collection of 19th- and 20th-century buildings.[68] Downtown Buffalo landmarks include Louis Sullivan's Guaranty Building, an early skyscraper;[69][70] the Ellicott Square Building, once one of the largest of its kind in the world;[71] the Art Deco Buffalo City Hall and the McKinley Monument, and the Electric Tower. Beyond downtown, the Buffalo Central Terminal was built in the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood in 1929; the Richardson Olmsted Complex, built in 1881, was an insane asylum[72] until its closure in the 1970s.[73] Urban renewal from the 1950s to the 1970s spawned the Brutalist-style Buffalo City Court Building and Seneca One Tower, the city's tallest building.[74] In the city's Parkside neighborhood, the Darwin D. Martin House was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in his Prairie School style.[75] Since 2016, Washington DC real estate developer Douglas Jemal has been acquiring, and redeveloping iconic properties throughout the city.[76]" [Wikipedia]
Just think: you are able to hit downtown Toronto from these sites, you're counting in the rep burnished over the years Buffalo as "The City of Good Neighbors" to help out only at first, since unfortunately you've had well over a decade in power systematically diverting international aid monies from the civilian population of Buffalo's desperate needs, to arm and train your terrorist fighters. And purchase guns, lots and lots of guns.
How long before Canada or the city authorities in Toronto, in concert with Canadian and international allies, are legally allowed to target the missile and mortar platforms? If your answer is "never," because innocent civilians' right to life trumps absolutely all other human rights, what's to stop the The Holy Unafraid Government of Buffalo - "THUGB," for short - from mobilizing this shield motif more ambitiously, and organizing an armada to sail up Lake Erie for an amphibious landing operation, to liberate Toronto in the sacred cause of (Insert sacred cause here)?
Your move.
My move? It’s not a chess game, and since I fundamentally disagree with a number of premises behind your long post, I will not engage with you. Also, your first sentence says all too much about your worldview. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the notion that the neo-fascists who make up Netanyahu’s egregious coalition apply “universal human rights laws consistently.” If you have any liberal friends in Israel, ask them what they think of that statement. I will not reply to you after this.
It's just an expression, and since you cannot even be bothered to take this seriously enough to explain one single " fundamental disagreement with a number of premises behind your long post" you're not even arguing in good faith! That's likely because you CANNOT explain why the Hamas terrorists (or any other group anywhere, at any time, for any purpose - none of this has anything to do with Hamas, Israel, Netanyahu, Neo-Fascism per se, whether on the part of Hamas, which would be much too charitable a description, and I AGREE THAT NETANYAHU IS HORRENDOUS, BACKWARDS, A TERRIBLE LEADER, but so what?
This is all about different conceptions of UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS, not personalities! AT NO JUNCTURE in this did it ever become my duty to agree with what policies Netanyahu follows, and if you go back and read what I wrote more closely you will see why - moreover I have been thinking and researching this and connected topics since the early 1970s at Macalester, and especially since my Theories of Justice course and work in graduate school at the U. of Minnesota -Twin Cities, and then in law school, have my own views based on those readings and reflections, and am also familiar with the general position you are taking BECAUSE I USED TO BELIEVE IT WAS CORRECT!
"Also, your first sentence says all too much about your worldview."
??????? You cannot be seriously arguing from that kind of egregiously smug and condescending position, can you? Because we deeply disagree about allowing terrorists to be granted carte blanche immunity from as direct a retaliation as possible - maybe it should be emphasized that it would require taking all steps to AVOID killing civilians, thus it might well involve a lengthy campaign of gathering intelligence to insert commandos who would speak fluent Arabic and be able to bluff out a very short-term mission as Gazans, ok, it will be difficult to say the least, but I didn't commit myself to any "mass area bombings," that may be your assumption but that's all it is - it's supposed to ME who is the "bad guy" here?
No, we just sincerely disagree, but it would reflect better on you if you respected someone who disagreed with you, without implying they are so gullible they trust Netanyahu, or are some kind of "crypto-fascist" because they want to be able to retaliate legally and as carefully as possible (after those massive leaflet drops, after soliciting Hamas to release the kidnap victims and unilaterally surrender since they are the genocidal aggressors IN THIS INSTANCE, after exploring all other reasonable means of military engagement that could possibly help kill Hamas leadership, arrest them for war crimes trials if possible, etc.)
So there you have it: you need to either defend your wildly implausible claims or admit you can't consistently apply them - without leading to something bordering on complete surrender by legal authorities all over the planet, to whichever gang or cult or terrorist group or narco-state or drug cartel or ad hoc rebel group, as in my THUGB hypothetical, seizes hostages amongst a civilian population and starts murdering people from behind their human shields.
It's OBVIOUSLY not a "game," except in the sense that all reasoned debates allow disagreeing parties to take turns, and so on. I am playing fair and will defend my views, you seem to want to engage more in smear tactics and unilateral declarations of "moral superiority," so that ends it.
I will be sure to occasionally feature exactly this kind of discussion / debate, on exactly this kind of highly controversial topic on my Substack column - forthcoming, so thanks for at least providing useful data points for further analysis, Kathryn, and we can both cordially ignore each other henceforth, right?
Shoshana Bryen on closely connected issues:
https://www.sdjewishworld.com/2009/12/28/security-for-israel-by-israel/
A little less snark would be helpful.
is there a way to turn off the comments?
great comment. Exactly right. If Israel bombed an apartment building Hamas was hiding there.
Marlene, while I too am all for accurate reporting, I also know shooting a one year old and her family in their bedrooms is not a hell of a lot different than beheading them when all is said and done. Both are barberic acts of inhumanity deserving of retribution. The pictures od the two hundred or so young Israelis at the music festival tell me all I need to know.
It's confirmed and also confirmed Hamas burned people alive
No, sorry. The decapitation story has been walked back by several people. A CNN anchor actually had to apologize for repeating the story.
Hamas did horrible things that violated international law. Israel is doing horrible things that are violating international law. But it is essential that we not be guided by propaganda. Remember the elusive "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq? Please read this excellent piece of reporting from one of the best outlets covering this story, The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2023/10/11/israel-hamas-disinformation/
I'm on the same page as you Lucian. I heard Mika on Morning Joe ask one of the most asinine questions I have heard her utter to date, she was talking with one of the guests and asked him where the hostages were being kept, as if they were in a pen somewhere, and I thought Joe was clueless. Those hostages are spread out all over Gaza, finding one will be no guarantee they will be able to find any of the others, especially alive. I can see it taking years for each negotiated swap. What happened was unspeakably horrific, but the dead are dead now and beyond suffering, the captives are alive and that is now the most important problem the Israelis face. Those people are still alive, and the most important thing their government can do is secure their release. Yes they can level Gaza, they have been working on that 24-7 since Sunday, if they do that they will turn the world against them, because the number of innocent Palestinian dead will far exceed those of the Israelis. Netanyahu knows this, and is caught on the tip of his own spear, the right wants revenge, the rest of the nation wants to know “why did this happen”, he can try the former to hide from the latter, but not for long. WHY is going to be a very big question, I think he's toast. As a Green Beret I was trained in insurgency, how to conduct it as well as how to fight it. I think Hamas is in a checkmate position. If the Israelis invade, they will do so at a huge cost in lives including their own, or they can sit on the border like they are now, nasching their teeth knowing that Hamas got away with a lot of it, and that they will get the hostages back in trickles, but alive. I have no doubt that Hamas is evil incarnate, and that there will be hell to pay, but that will probably take a while to play out as it has in the past. Surely there are people in our government and Israel's who can think this through just like I did, and see that it makes sense, all of this is predicated on Hezbollah standing down and not turning Lebanon into a sea of fire. I hate the thought of relying on them doing anything sane, but maybe they are not suicidal.
Nice try, no matter what you and I and Lucian agree are the "wisest moves" here to avoid the impending Checkmate by Hamas, Israel is going to be viewing this as an existential threat they have to eliminate - possibly after a massive leaflet dropping campaign akin to the US prequel to dropping the atomic bombs, warning Hamas and alerting the entire world to intervene to help the effectively, de facto, "kidnapped" civilians of Gaza (or those who agree it is a worthy goal) those citizens who are coerced, forced under compulsion by Hamas to aid and abet a terrorist army, citizens of Gaza currently being deployed as human shields, in other words.
This is an unholy mess! There ARE no "good outcomes," only least worst resolutions.
Edit: There's a phrase from Anglo-American law that's applicable to Hamas's fiendish willingness to
refuse to release their kidnapped hostages, preferring to submit their own civilians to a blockade and cut-off of electricity, water, food:
"Punishments for contempt include imprisonment and fines. However, according to the Supreme Court, civil contempt penalties are conditional. One who is punished for civil contempt can avoid the punishment by doing as the court ordered and is therefore described as "carrying the keys of their prison in their own pocket." Punishments for criminal contempt, however, are generally unconditional and definite."
[Last updated in July of 2022 by the Wex Definitions Team]
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/contempt_of_court
Hamas has the jailhouse keys in their pockets all right, but why should suddenly care at all
about the universal human rights, freedom and dignity, duty of care, duty of protection of citizens
by any state's leadership?
They are...the scum of the earth. Expecting these people to evolve a moral conscience is to expect
an immediate regime run by talking unicorns and enlightened alien beings from Zeta Reticuli B:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
ζ Reticuli
Location of ζ Reticuli (circled)
Observation data *******
Zeta Reticuli, Latinized from ζ Reticuli, is a wide binary star system in the southern constellation of Reticulum. From the southern hemisphere the pair can be seen with the naked eye as a double star in very dark skies. Based upon parallax measurements, this system is located at a distance of about 39.3 light-years (12 parsecs) from Earth. Both stars are solar analogs that have characteristics similar to those of the Sun. They belong to the Zeta Herculis Moving Group of stars that share a common origin.
******* See also:
Bob Lazar, Barney and Betty Hill, and Project Serpo fall into the subject of UFO conspiracy theories and alien abduction reports related to Zeta Reticuli
Zeta Reticuli in fiction
Tom Friedman in the NYT has a column worth reading. His view is that Hamas was deliberately barbaric in its tactics to bait the Israelis into an overreaction of retribution. A brutal invasion of Gaza, he suggests, would inflame the whole ME, destroy the pending Saudi deal, maybe even the Abraham Accords, and spread the war even to Iran. The number of dead Palestinians won’t bother Hamas, he says, that’s part of the plan. But it will bother Arabs everywhere. Yahoo would be walking into a trap. That’s certainly plausible, but the pressure from Israelis for a frontal attack on Hamas might be overwhelming. Israelis are usually good thinkers, and would likely see the trap, but this is an incredibly emotional moment, and rational thinking doesn’t often coincide with raw anger. Who benefits most from a spreading ME war: Putin. And Ukraine becomes collateral damage.
I really like Friedman and I follow his way of thinking. Like Lucian pointed out, those in Hamas, live amongst the Palestinians. They have shed their clothing and put on traditional clothes worn by the Palestinian people. only DNA from their burnt or discarded clothing, etc., would link them to the attack. I truly think the lengthy conversation Biden had with Bibi was one of caution. That they can show force on the outside perimeters of Gaza but be very careful strategically in smoking these murderers out. Hamas was trained by the Iranians who were trained by members of Isis and the Taliban. But remember when our Navy seals were able to locate Bin Laden? We and Mossad have spy capabilities that perhaps no one else has. At least, this is my hope.
I called the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco today to see if they can locate my cousins. I never got through to anyone, not one real person. I imagine they are overwhelmed. I will call again tomorrow and if nothing, I will contact my congressman.
My thoughts and hopes for a safe outcome are with you, Marlene, as well as with all those whose families are in harms way. It angers me that this kind of brutality keeps continuing over the centuries.
Thank you, Celeste.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEmI_FT4YHU
Bob Dylan
1.27M subscribers
2,370,566 views Mar 11, 2019 #BobDylan #SingerSongwriter #Folk
“Masters of War" by Bob Dylan
Listen to Bob Dylan: https://bobdylan.lnk.to/listenYD
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Follow Bob Dylan:
Facebook: https://bobdylan.lnk.to/followFI
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Lyrics:
Come you masters of war
You that build the big guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks
You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly
Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain
You fasten all the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you sit back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
While the young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud
You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins
How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
That even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good?
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could?
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul
And I hope that you die
And your death will come soon
I'll follow your casket
By the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand over your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead
#BobDylan #Folk #SingerSongwriter
I don't understand why the neighboring Muslim countries won't take in Palestinians.
They don’t want refugees. They are having a hard time with their own inhabitants, or so they say. Would be a burden to them.
I wish people would remember that we are our brothers keepers.
Selective Bible wisdom, can I play?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_(Genesis) EXCERPT:
Joseph's half-brothers were jealous of him; (Genesis 37:18–20) wherefore, in Dothan, most of them plotted to kill him, with the exception of Reuben,[13][14] who suggested to have Joseph thrown into an empty cistern, intending to rescue Joseph himself. Unaware of this secondary intention, the others obeyed him first.[c] Upon imprisoning Joseph, the brothers saw a camel caravan carrying spices and perfumes to Egypt, and sold Joseph to these merchants.[d] Thereafter the guilty brothers painted goat's blood on Joseph's coat and showed it to Jacob, who therefore believed Joseph had died (Genesis 37:12–35).
Anyone in the comments section can "play" as you put it snarkily. Less snark please.
Wait, I was the one who posted "Your move," Kathryn replied "It's not a chess game," as if the vernacular phrase in this context was "turning it into some kind of (trivial) game," that said sure, "less snark"! I am not engaging with her or vice-versa.
??? NOT AFTER THIS LEARNING OPPORTUNITY!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September EXCERPT:
Black September (Arabic: أيلول الأسود Aylūl al-ʾAswad), also known as the Jordanian Civil War,[9] was an armed conflict between Jordan, led by King Hussein, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), led by chairman Yasser Arafat. The main phase of the fighting took place between 16 and 27 September 1970, though certain aspects of the conflict continued until 17 July 1971.
During the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel militarily occupied what had been the Jordanian-annexed West Bank. Following this development, the Palestinian fedayeen relocated to Jordan and stepped up their attacks on Israel and the newly Israeli-occupied territories. Tensions began when an Israeli reprisal operation took place in Jordan in 1968, developing into the full-scale Battle of Karameh. Within the Arab world, the perceived joint victory of Jordan and the Palestinians against Israeli troops led to a surge in support for the fedayeen in Jordan. Drawing in both new recruits and financial aid, the PLO's strength in Jordan grew rapidly, and by the beginning of 1970, groups within the PLO had begun calling for the overthrow of Jordan's Hashemite monarchy.
Acting as a state within a state, the fedayeen openly disregarded Jordanian laws and regulations. On two occasions, they attempted to assassinate Hussein, leading to violent confrontations with the Jordanian Armed Forces by June 1970. Hussein wanted to oust them from the country by force, but had been hesitant to strike; he feared that his enemies would leverage such an offensive by equating the Palestinian fighters with civilians. Continued PLO activities in Jordan culminated in the Dawson's Field hijackings of 6 September 1970, when the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) seized three civilian passenger flights and forced their landing in the Jordanian city of Zarqa, where they took foreign nationals as hostages and later blew up the planes in front of journalists from around the world. Hussein saw this as the last straw, and ordered the Jordanian Army to take action.[10] *******
The past isn't gone, it isn't even past.
Thank you for this post. If I had to research this, I wouldn't even know where to begin.
They should make a trade: Netanyahu for the hostages and move the US Embassy back out of Jerusalem.
What a total Cluster F!
Twice promised land via the Balfour Declaration in 1917... the horrors perpetrated by Hamas militants are inexcusable, but the retaliation by Israel against the entire Gaza community seems equally over the top. I have picked up a book on Gaza and have ordered three more so I am limiting my comments tonight. But I have lived long enough to know that an endless cycle of revenge and retribution never works and always serves as a breeding ground for a new generation who seeks revenge.
I have a lovely three year old granddaughter, and I thought of her as descriptions of beheaded children in Israel emerged....and I saw a frantic father with a little girl in his arms running toward an ambulance in Gaza after an Israeli air strike ... and I thought of her again.
There are enough voices clamoring for revenge, retribution, claiming the others are animals... we need to reexamine how this all came to be possible... hence the books...
read earlier that Gaza has in effect been blockaded in Hamas took control in 2007...Egypt and Israel cooperating.... also with support from Saudi Arabia as a counter to Iranian influence with Hamas
I wonder what the blockade was intended to do and did it achieve that objective? 16 years and I read that unemployment in Gaza was 46% as a result... so much to learn
Hamas clearly wants Israel replaced by a Muslim state, and Netanyehu and his defense minister vow to eliminate Hamas once and for all. Both sides seek extinction of the other.
We need people who want to shed light, not heat. This is a problem demanding disciplined minds, not gross ones.
To the books... I have said enough for now.
Netanyahu IS the problem as well as hardliners in the Likud Party. They are the reason for the unrest Israel experienced months before this horrific attack. Hamas took advantage of this and their timing was ripe, unfortunately. As I understand it, the wall built around Gaza is fortified by concrete way way way underground. Many cameras and surveillance equipment was set up on the wall so that if Israel was attacked, Mossad and the IDF would know. Netanyahu was so busy not taking care of Israelis or Palestinians, but lining his pockets, he helped get people killed. As you can see, I have much disdain for him. He and the Likuds deserve removal from office.
Excellent article, Lucian! It’s a total, disastrous CF!
Analogies are inexact, but to this observer Israel's "struggle" with the Palestinians since 1948 -- not just over the last 50 or so years -- has less in common with U.S. involvement in Vietnam than with the U.S. "struggle" against the Native tribes on this continent. The differences are major, of course. In the 19th century North America was both vast and underpopulated; the Levant in the mid-20th century was both small and crowded. In the 19th century, the U.S. didn't face much foreign interference as it pursued its "manifest destiny."
By contrast, as the Ottoman Empire broke up in the early 20th century, Britain and France had their claws in what used to be known as Greater Syria, and oil was discovered in the Persian Gulf area and elsewhere. In mid-century the Holocaust dwarfed the anti-Jewish pogroms that in previous decades had been frequent in Russia and eastern Europe, then along came the Cold War, with Russia and the U.S. choosing up sides in the Middle East and elsewhere. The stateless Palestinians served as a casus belli for several Arab states, most of which weren't especially interested in actually *solving* "the Palestinian question." Neither was anyone else. Hamas is undeniably despicable, but it didn't come out of nowhere either.
I think of the Zen saying: "There is no solution. Seek it lovingly." I don't believe this particular blood feud will ever be settled. What is clear is that Israel's neighbors know that they place a high value on individual lives - viz previously trading 1000+ Palestinian fighters for one Israeli soldier.
When you read that Brandeis (!) and Harvard have many Palestinian sympathizers, it is obvious the game/public perception has changed. However ... Hamas is not "the Palestinians," and we, the United States may wind up in *two* wars. Then the question will be: who goes nuclear first? Only rational people eschew nukes.
Frightfully so, Margo.
Way to early to ruminate, but later on we need to review how this deadly relationship between Israel and her Arab neighbors began.
settler colonialism...land annexation...apartheid...open-air prisons
Starving civilians, denying electricity, bombing hospitals, schools, targeting children and the elderly are not going to win Israel atta-boy points. There is no condoning the horrific violence perpetrated by Hamas, but Netanyahu and previous governments never had any intention of negotiating a two state agreement or accepting Palestinians into Israel. Palestinians have been caged, marginalized and denigrated for decades. Our own history with the indigenous peoples is atrocious. The first world has cossetted Israel's treatment of the Palestinians instead of insisting on a peaceful and equal settlement, relieving both sides of violence and war.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - John F. Kennedy
LOL, nice selective prosecution of the evil Israelis, too bad it's as tendentious a summary as you'll find outside of the Palestinian Solidarity Committee meetings.
It's as if the Jewish Diaspora had no roots at all in the region, never legally acquired lands - including swamps and desert they reclaimed as a productive food source - and instigated all the violence without any provocation.
Kind of a PA cartoon version of history, in fact.
https://palwatch.org/Storage/Special-Reports/Teaching-Terror-to-Tots-digital.pdf
*****
The Palestinian Authority’s new textbooks for first to fourth grades demonize Israel and glorify “martyrdom,” a report published Sunday claims, citing an “alarming deterioration” since a previous study.
The report, by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), says that the 2016-2017 elementary school curriculum in the PA “teaches students to be martyrs, demonizes and denies the existence of Israel, and focuses on a ‘return’ to an exclusively Palestinian homeland.”
The report by the Jerusalem-based group comes as Israeli officials continue to call on Palestinian officials to halt what they see as the demonization of Israel in textbooks and other materials aimed at children. They say the textbooks are a key source of incitement that drives terror attacks.
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Among the textbook materials cited in the report are maps that don’t show Israel and passages that appear to glorify attackers.
Image from the April, 2017 IMPACT-se report on Palestinian elementary schools textbooks. (Screenshot)
Image from the April, 2017 IMPACT-se report on Palestinian elementary schools textbooks. (Screenshot)
The report notes that in addition to Israel not appearing on maps, Israeli cities such as Haifa and Jaffa are described as Palestinian, a frequently documented phenomenon in PA teaching materials.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/new-palestinian-textbooks-teach-students-to-be-martyrs/
https://palwatch.org/page/1
EXCERPT:
Note: The original PLO charter from 1964 is identical to the 1968 charter except for article 24. The 1964 charter defined the Palestine as the territory of the State of Israel and specifically excluded the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The 1968 version of the charter included both Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip as the Palestinian homeland to be liberated.
The “Palestinian People” were originally poor people who sought handouts for aid from international organizations, and then got caught between Cold War era, proxy wars. There never were “Palestinian”people--mostly, they were Jordanians. Arafat exploited both sides and profited from the disinformation. Read Samuel Katz’s book, “Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine.”
On the other hand, Netanyahu and tRump PROVOKED the “Palestinians” by moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem AND GUNNING DOWN UNARMED PROTESTORS. It goes to show you how “one issue” voting--in this case, by US, Conservative, Jewish supporters of tRump-- can backfire spectacularly.
There is absolutely no good reason for a decent person to throw in with the EVIL that is P1135809.
HS Hammas made peaceful resolution possible?
Surely the Hamas leadership will realize they should protect their citizens from needless suffering, and seek for a peace treaty with Israel, after an immediate ceasefire.
Oh wait, the entire raison d'etre of Hamas is to refuse to recognize the State of Israel has any legitimate right to exist, so I guess that's out.
Maybe the Gazans will organize a revolt and install a representative government?
They can't have forgotten how to cast a vote in an election, that was only sixteen or seventeen years ago that Hamas won and ended elections!
Good idea. Shall we start with the Balfour Declaration (1917)?
Start with the seizure of the territories in the Levant by the Ottoman Empire, that's the background that sets up the Balfour Declaration.
And pay attention to the waves of immigrants into what is now the State of Israel and the West Bank and Gaza from the collapsing Ottoman Empire, not only the returning Jewish Diaspora, but refugees from what is now Iraq, Syria, and further off.
Of course there was a continuous Jewish presence in what became the Palestine mandate going back to ancient times, so there's that. It can be much trickier that you might think to figure out who had legal title to the lands Zionist immigrants bought and settled, the Ottoman Empire's record keeping has serious gaps.
In any event, claiming that Jews and only Jews had and have no right to a national homeland in the Palestine Mandate, is often met with the rejoinder that since the Palestine Mandate divided up the land with some 83% going to the predominantly Arab populations, and 17% to Jews and minorities like Orthodox Christians, Druze, Roman Catholics, and others in what is now Israel and parts of Lebanon and Syria, there is already a Palestinian state - it's called "Jordan."
There are absolutely no uncontested points in any narrative about who has clear and fair legal title to most of the land, and it's a monumental conceptual blunder to start off with a rather Manichean division between the "deserving indigenous peoples" and the "undeserving settlers," again, in part because so many "Native Palestinians" arrived in the region in the early 20th century, as the Ottoman Empire fell apart - one of the defeated warring nations in World War 1.
Probably doesn't help the Palestinians any that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem helped recruit for Hitler, even had their recruitment for a Waffen SS division:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amin_al-Husseini
EXCERPT:
His opposition to the British peaked during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. In 1937, evading an arrest warrant, he fled Palestine and took refuge successively in the French Mandate of Lebanon and the Kingdom of Iraq, until he established himself in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. During World War II he collaborated with both Italy and Germany by making propagandistic radio broadcasts and by helping the Nazis recruit Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen-SS (on the grounds that they shared four principles: family, order, the leader and faith).[15] On meeting Adolf Hitler he requested backing for Arab independence and support in opposing the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish national home. Upon the end of the war he came under French protection, and then sought refuge in Cairo to avoid prosecution for war crimes.
The seizure of territories in the Levant by the Ottoman Empire was the background for the Balfour Declaration?? Since the Ottomans conquered the Levant in the early 16th century and the Balfour Declaration was made about 400 years later, that seems a stretch. I also seem to recall that a major impetus behind the Balfour Declaration was antisemitism in Europe and especially pogroms in eastern Europe and Russia.
Some people have already figured this out. They are called scholars.
It is time to think hard about the response the world will give to Israel now that it is leaving Gaza without electric power in addition to starving the civilians. Israel's retaliation must be measured. I can see leaving the people of Gaza in a dire situation to get the hostages out but beyond that the civilians cannot be subject to slaughter. There must be negotiations by Hamas and Israel at the urging of the US since Hamas has American hostages. The world loves to hate Jews and most of the world is waiting for the day they can bomb Israel back to the stone age. Killing Jews has been in vogue for over 2000 years and there is little but the US and Israel to prevent the anti-Semites from an all-out killing of Jews.
Some of the people “love to hate Jews,” but that is no moral ground to justify anything you concluded. No one I know wants to bomb anyone back to the Stone Age. You know Brad, as my sister once said to me, you need to hang out with better people. Your post has no moral center whatsoever.
"No one I know" wants to vote for Trump again, either - I guess that justifies some conclusion or other, unless it's just a fallacious mode of reasoning...
Likely outcome. Sadly.
An indiscriminate bloodbath in Gaza will not save Israel. Hamas (and Putin, I’m convinced) may even be counting on it. We are largely a fickle world and as much as the media covers the atrocities in Israel, they’ll be on the job doing it in Gaza. The Hamas participants in Saturdays slaughter certainly have no compunction over the deaths of children. The more the Israelis kill, for them and their demented religious leaders, the better.
As cathartic as vengeance is, it has a price. A steep one.
Surely the mothers of dead Israeli soldiers in the coming battles would suffer as much as Palestinian mothers over their dead sons.
A mediator of stature should intervene now before the frenzy of death begins.
Who that can be is the question.
There is this whole " martyrdom complex" thing complicating the analysis, however :
https://palwatch.org/database/224
There are dozens and dozens of examples of the phenomenon listed here, it seems to be something out of the Dark Ages - except from a certain point of view, establishing a society entirely based on the Koran and Haditha is a worthy goal, the supreme good as it pleases Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
After all, we have no problem recognizing ultra-orthodox evangelicals who beat their children citing the Bible as being very dangerous and backwards, why not this brand of Islam?
Sacrifice for others - yes. But proactively seeking martrydom as an end in itself when it means murdering innocents is anathema. It morphs into a frenzy of homicidal suicide. Against life’s imperative - to thrive. It’s blasphemy.
I’ve never read such a litany of self delusional insanity-level bullshit. It’s not limited to Islamic extremists, it’s heard in hyper-religious Jews and ecclesiastical Christian extremist baloney. Any God who directs us to kill one another is as far from holy as his opposite, the Enemy of Man. The leaders of these sect shouldn’t be allowed anywhere but in well hidden monastic retreats where they can flagellate themselves and other like-minded masochists.
It’s not sacrifice, it’s not even suicide, it’s self-hate.
Since when does Hammas negotiate?
I was going to ask the same thing, Susan!
Sad but true.
There is no doubt that civilians are going to be killed when Israel goes into Gaza. What you ignore is that Hamas is counting on that, and counting on their misery to move public opinion to pressure Israel to retreat, and allow Hamas to continue its reign of terror. Hamas does not govern. The basic services are provided by outsiders. Hamas exists to create chaos through terror. Its charter, which is available in English by the way, states that Israel must be eradicated -- along with all other infidels. That includes Europe and America, and in case you think that you are too far away, remember 9/11.
Do you suggest that Israel allows 150 children and adults who were forcibly grabbed to sit in Gaza for years while Hamas plays with them, or worse, executes them publicly?
As for Israel, there will certainly be a reckoning as to how the Army and the intelligence services were asleep for two years. That will come, because Israel will survive. It has no other choice. As Golda Meir famously said, "We have no place else to go."
The quick solution to the Palestinian problem is for Egypt to create a Palestinian State in the Sinai. All Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank would be helped by the various Arab countries to move there. Saudi Arabia, the largest exporter of muslim terrorism, could compensate Egypt for the value of approximately 66,000 acres of desert and hills. The Arab counties could provide a salary to each Palestinian male over 18 years old to sit around. They could also provide troops on a rotating basis to patrol the borders of the new Palestinian State to prevent bad guys from getting out or bad guys getting in. Israel would provide an annual amount to build high rises in the Palestinian State. They would also fund malls for the Palestinian males to send the women to shop. America would provide motorcycles for the males to ride around on the desert.
Then they could make a movie about it and call it Laurence of Arabia.
Maybe Larry of Arabia
Ha ha
Sort of like what the U.S. did with the Native tribes, forcing them onto reservations whose land no one else wanted (until oil or other valuable resources were discovered, of course)?
No one wanted Gaza either. I agree with one aspect of your disingenuous comment: Guarantee that the Palestinian State will get to keep 50% of any oil profits from oil discoveries in the Sinai. The other 50% would go to compensate all the other countries operating expenses guard the New Palestinian State of Sinai.
I can't tell if your posts are meant to be satire or if they're just silly.
Some funds could be allocated for therapy sessions...
YES!!!
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t
Your argument for resisting an attack upon Gaza is convincing.
Should we just write off the kidnapped and missing civilians who have been taken as hostages and human shields? How can we route out terrorism by ignoring it?
How can we negotiate with those whose “good faith” has no value?
What actions can Israel take to protect its borders: North and South? How can we divert and reduce invasions by standing on one foot and waiting for the next incursion?
They’re killing children and young people. 65% of the Gaza Strip is 24 or younger. To what end? Genocide? The hatred of human against human is soul crushing.