Israeli–Palestinian conflict

[David]

[Magpietothemax]

I thought it was pretty spot on, particularly the bit about Hammas not giving a shit about the people of Gaza

^well done to you for actually pointing out perhaps the most disgusting, nauseating part of the entire statement, and thinking that it was "spot on".

You obviously are the type who would blame the slaves for rebelling rather than the slave owner who massacred them. If only the slaves had not rebelled, if only they had just meekly accepted their fate at the hands of their tormentors, then they wouldn't have been massacred!
If only the Palestinians did not rise up against the Israeli occupiers,if only they just quietly accepted their total dispossession, ongoing systematic murder by Israeli settlers, the denial of their most fundamental human rights for 75 years by the super militarised Israeli state, then we wouldn't have a problem in the Middle East!!

We all know what kind of criminal John Howard is. He willingly helped to promote the Bush administration's campaign of lies about non-existent weapons of mass destruction, used as a pretext to destroy Iraqi society. Now this war criminal signs a document, suprise, surprise, in which he seeks to blame the Palestinian people for their own genocide.

The Israeli citizens who died at the hands of Hamas suffered tragic deaths. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time, through no fault of their own. But this tragedy was the inevitable result of the decades of brutal suffering, mass murder, dispossession that the apartheid Israeli regime has imposed on the Palestinian population since 1948. The history of colonialism is filled with countless accounts of the slaves, the "natives", the oppressed rising up against their oppressors, against all odds. The colonialists end up massacring them in a ratio of ten or a hundred to one, and then slandering them as "evil incarnate", "devils", "savages" or as Netahanyu called the Palestinians, "animals".
The ex PMs clearly take the side of the oppressors. Do you agree with them?

[Magpietothemax]

[David]

[slangman]

I find it humorous that you two cherry pick your information to suit your ideology which has not yet referenced the 2000+ years of Jewish persecution by all and sundry on the land that is now Israel.
The region as a whole is complicated and is beyond any meaningful and long term resolution. Picking who is the oppressor or who is the oppressed in this situation is foolhardy and is usually by those whose opinion is immovable under any and all circumstances.

[David]

[pietillidie]

^As I always say, the greatest and perhaps only lesson of modern history is this: we're all potentially Nazis.

[pietillidie]

Shudder. I just heard the grotesque Nutteryahoo's speech, covered in the slime of his being and infused with religious dingbattery.

No one can listen to that and think that Hamas are the only crackpots in this equation. I feel sorry for sane Israelis surrounded by crazies within and without.

As always, the far right has a two-minute attention span, and no ability or desire to learn and improve. The dimwit could be any number of Bush neocons after 9/11, planning to harness anger to the tune of billions of dollars for nothing but piles of dead bodies, wreckage, debt and loss of reputation.

Even if one puts the ideology and moral finger pointing aside, and focuses solely on pro-Israeli outcomes and security, reactionary extremism is only guaranteed to make Israel less liked, less safe and more existentially vulnerable.

Rock ape. As I say, a vote for a far-right nutcase is a guaranteed investment in recklessness, cost and carnage. And you never have to way too long, as there are always new pretexts.

[slangman]

^ how should Israel have responded to the events of October 7th??

[David]

People seem to neglect the fact that the vast majority of militants involved in that incursion (around 1500 in total) were killed by the IDF, and all territory they captured was reclaimed. Was that not enough?

Those who masterminded the plot no doubt would have been hunted down and assassinated. Israel’s security agencies are good at things like that.

The hostages would most likely have been returned through negotiations and a prisoner swap, and that may yet be what ends up happening anyway.

If you want to find the point where it should have stopped, that’s it. And then, of course, the occupation should have been brought to an end and the ground laid for this two-state solution everyone keeps talking about, not as a response to this massacre but because it should have been done long ago anyway.

I’m quite aware, however, that none of the above fully satisfies the hunger for vengeance. A few of their children need to be killed too, to send a message. And even then, even if we were to consider that a legitimate response, there’s still the choice of whether to kill a little or a lot. Netanyahu chose a lot. Because the IDF have already killed so many children in the past, they’ve set a precedent, and needed to send an even stronger message this time around. (Step back and think about that for a minute: that a mainstream position held by many in the West right now is that it is morally right to kill children in response to another atrocity.)

That’s the bleak logic at play here, and that’s how vengeance works. It doesn’t have regard for rational or proportionate response, and pays little heed to the further cycles of revenge that it feeds.

So did Israel have any other choices? Damn right they did, and even now they still do. Hopefully it’s not too late for them to follow a different path.

[roar]

^ how should Israel have responded to the events of October 7th??

How should the Palestinians have responded to the decades of abuse from the Israelis?

[slangman]

^ how should Israel have responded to the events of October 7th??

How should the Palestinians have responded to the decades of abuse from the Israelis?

If you want to go back beyond October 7th that’s ok but then you will have to acknowledge the persecution of the Jewish people in that region going back millennia.

[David]

[Culprit]

Israel clearly sees genocide as the solution to their problem/occupation. Amazingly all these religions that preach peace and love of their fellow man, are hell-bent on wiping each other out as they can't agree on which fairytale to believe in.

The killing of innocent people in retaliation for the killing of the innocent people is just an ultra level of irony.

[slangman]

History isn't about drawing arbitrary lines and declaring that it began somewhere or other. It's not for you to offer either 7 October or 3000 years ago as the two options. But some events are far more proximate and directly linked to current events than others.

Whether you go back 3000 years or 1948 the question I asked still remains….how should Israel have responded to the events of October 7th??