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From: mikedilger at 11/06 17:49

> AS TO FACT DETERMINATION: Where Hamas and Israel agree as to what happened, and where I am not certain as to what happened, I would be keen to know. I would need sources. Best to just PM me if you wanted to go down that route. I don't have any expectations that you do, and that you are making a general point which I take and accept.

In this hypercharged environment I think individual citings are irrelevant. Note how many have been added to this thread by the onlookers. I do not read them because there is far too much FUD to take any particular citing seriously. The determination of FACT must be accomplished by throwing a very wide net and trying (hoping against hope) to weed out reality from the noise.

> AS TO THE STRENGTH OF HAMAS: The belief that survival is at stake, that this is extential, presupposes that Hamas has the ability to execute it's intentions. You suggested in a prior post that Hamas is strong when I called them the "little guy". But I see Hamas as very weak compared to Israel, even with external funding, even with many people in the world wishing them well, even as they have focused the entire economy of Gaza on war, sacrificing even their own people's drinking water distribution for this effort, being starved of imports... in this state they can barely make functional rockets, these rockets have zero targetting ability, very small explosion radii, they have nothing resembling an iron dome to protect them, they have no tanks, they have no airplanes, their airport was destroyed, they have no port on the sea. They live in squalor, having to spend much of their effort just to survive with food and water and a bit of shelter, and having not much left to dedicate to military purposes. Occasionally a small amount of weapons get through. Israel has mostly effectively blockaded them for a long time, but as we have now seen this has not been totally effective. So they are weak, and Israel is not under any real existential threat from them via military force. It is under a threat of terrorism though.

All true. Hamas is weak and Isreal is strong. My only quibble with the above is that I never said that Hamas was militarily strong. The fact that Hamas is weak does not mean that they are not an existential threat. Terrorism is an asymmetric approach. A few terrorists can exact a huge price on a strong nation. Allowed to continue they could utterly disrupt the society they are attacking. A few dozen terrorists brought down the World Trade Center killing thousands, and spurring twenty years of a war of annihilation in which two coutries were blown into the stone age. The stronger side has no choice other than to remove the terrorist threat by applying their greater strength and overwhelming the assymetry. The punches of "the little guy" cannot be absorbed forever. At some point "the little guy" has to be forced to stop.

> AS TO EXISTENTIAL THREATS: Israel is far more an existential threat to Palestine than Palestine is to Israel.

Given that 20% of the citizens of Isreal are Palestinian arabs, I think you might want to reconsider that assertion.

>Palestine is not even a recognized state at this point,

True, which is another reason to reconsider your assertion. You cannot be an existential threat to something that does not exist. There is no state of Palestine. There never has been a state of Palestine. And at this point I think it unlikely that there ever will be a state of Palestine.

>although there are currently a stateless people in exile on land claimed by Israel.

Who is in exile? Again, 20% of the citizens of Isreal are Palestinian arabs. Exactly 0% of the residents of Gaza are Jews. And, indeed, the Jews that used to live in Gaza were exiled from Gaza in 2005 by Israel.

Claimed? No, developed and defended. Israel lives there. This isn't a claim that can be adjudicated by some higher authority.

>The territories of the refugees have shrunk multiple times, each time as the result of actions by the state of Israel.

Not completely true. In fact, mostly untrue. The territories occupied by Palestinians dedicated to the destruction of Israel have shrunk several times in wars that were started by the surrounding Arab nations.

>I find the argument that Israel should defend itself against an existential threat completely ridiculous in the face of the actual history.

Israel does not find this to be ridiculous. Indeed, it's hard to imagine what other options Israel has.

>If that were a good course of action, then Palestinians should also defend themselves against an existential threat, one that has been 90% successful already.

What one "should" do must somehow be correlated with what is possible. I think Hamas misjudged that rather badly.

>But that way just leads to the endless war we currently have. It is in everybody's best interest to seek an alternative.

Should we have sought an alternative against the Third Reich? Or was total obliteration of that regime the only real solution. Sometimes the only solution is absolute victory.

> AS TO ISRAEL WOULD HAVE LET THEM LIVE IN PEACE: The evidence is strong that Israel would never let them live in peace. Claims like they could have been an economic powerhouse alongside Israel are complete fabrications of what Israel made or didn't make possible.

I can understand that factions like Hamas found the existing situation unacceptable. But they they have always found the very existence of Israel unacceptable. So there's not a lot of room for negotiation there. However, the governing power of Gaza did not need to divert their resources to war. They could have used those resources, and all the aid that was given to them, to build and better the lives of their citizens. They chose war instead.

> Look at the Oslo accords. They make legal the Israeli settlement of the West Bank (something the PA should not concede),

This is too far into the weeds to be relevant in this particular situation. Given what happened in Gaza it is not likely that Isreal will ever tolerate an autonomous Palestine.

> Fatah and the PA have tried going down this path of being peaceful. It has not worked....If Israel were just peaceful people respecting property rights and the right to life of Palestinians, maybe Gazan's wouldn't feel the need to defend their brothers in the West Bank.

Hamas killed the PA folks in Gaza when they took over. Threw them out of upper floor windows. That's how much brotherhood means to them. In any case I think the first step in "being peaceful" would have been to recognize the state of Israel and removed the demand for its removal from their charter.

> AS TO WWIII AND HAMAS STRATEGY: I don't think they want WW3, but I do think they want other Arab nations to come help them.

Then they misjudged. And they shouldn't have. Not one of those Arab nations accepted any refugees. The Arab nations have used the Palestinians as political pawns and proxies for decades.

> AS TO THE RIVER AND SEA THING: I don't take a position as to whether Israel should or should not exist, so this section is about what Hamas is looking to achieve, not what I think is reasonable or just. Yes, Hamas wants Israel to no longer exist. All the people, current Israelis and current Gazans and current West Bankers... would all be living in a single secular nation together called Palestine. Nothing about that desire requires killing anybody, or destroying any economic property, buldings, businesses, or otherwise.

All of Europe could be living in a single country called The Third Reich. Yeah, no, it doesn't work that way.

>Nothing about it requires Israelis to leave.

Hmmm. How many Jews live in Gaza? Zero. How many Jews live in Jordan? Zero. Egypt? 3. Iran?... I could go on. If I were a Jew I would not find the idea of living in a Palestinian state particularly appealing.

But again, we are in the weeds. The argument about Zionism is just more weeds at this point. Whether anybody likes it or not the Zionists have won. They are there, they aren't leaving, and they are not going to surrender their government to anyone, especially entities that have sworn their destruction.

> I don't accept claims that Hamas (and most Palestinians) just want to kill all the Jews if they got a chance

I agree with respect to "most Palestinians", or at least I'd be willing to entertain the doubt. As to Hamas, I think they have made their intention quite clear. Kill all the Jews? Maybe, or maybe not; but they certainly seem to want them all to be gone.

CC: #[4]

Mike Dilger ☑️ 2y ago

Some things I believe because of multiple good sources:

1. A high up IDF leader wanted Hamas to win so that he could deal with Gaza militarily rather than diplomatically. That was in a Wikileaks cable. I don't see that as a damning indictment beause he was an IDF leader and would of course prefer his own tools. But cynics see it as a desire to kill all the Palestinians.

2. Israel was dead-set against a Palestinian state well before 2005. By 2005 they unilaterally pulled out of Gaza in order to freeze the peace process. Dov Weissglass said "When you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state." You can look that up. The word "formaldhyde" is part of it so easier to search on.

3. Israel funded Hamas. That is rather damning, but again it was a strategy to scuttle the formation of a Palestinian state. Cynics can say it was so they would have an excuse to kill all the Palestinians. https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up

BTW, the 21% of Israelis who are Arabs were accidents. Israel thought they removed all the non-Jewish Arabs in 1948. But because Jewishness isn't a race but rather a set of lineages among multiple races, some of which are Arab, you can't just look at someone to know if they are Jewish or not. And so many Arabs just claimed that they were Jews so that their land wouldn't be taken from them. They kept this fact hidden for decades, and as they slowly tested the waters it was apparent that Israel was okay with them being there as they had integrated into their society well. A very few of them married in, but those allowances are rare. Now they have come out of the closet and claim to be Palestinian-Israelis.

Now I don't understand your point "Given that 20% of the citizens of Israel are Palestinian arabs, I think you might want to reconsider that assertion." my assertion being "Israel is far more an existential threat to Palestine than Palestine is to Israel." I have reconsidered my statement and I stand by it. Perhaps I should clarify that I am talking about the possible future existence of a legal entity called the State of Palestine. Israel threatens that possibility far more than Palestine (a non-state, but that has representation) threatens the existence of the legal entity called the State of Israel.

I'm again lost by your next statements the two paragraphs starting with "Who is in exile?" The part of my statement you quoted was regarding the undisputed (except maybe by you) fact that there are Palestinians in exile on land called Gaza and the West Bank, who were removed from their homes, those homes being on land outside of Gaza/WestBank of which they are not allowed to go to, some of whom still keep the keys to the front door in hopes that one day they can go home, who are NOT Israeli citizens, who are in fact stateless, and who Israel is dealing with illegally according to international laws. Now, given that extended statement, what was your point?

In the paragraph where you say "In fact, mostly untrue", you don't make a statement that invalidates the veracity of my statement. I agree with your statement though, except that I recognize that in at least one of those wars the question of who started it remains disputed.

As to Hamas misjudging, I entirely agree. Their actions make little strategic sense. I can only assume they are trying to enrage the neighboring Arabs as I stated previously. The UN has recognized the right of Palestinians to fight for their freedom by force if necessary, and as this is their land that was taken from them illegally without recompense, and they are kept in a blockaded region without statehood against international laws, I agree that they have this right. That is because I am a libertarian. I believe in all people's right to liberty and to use violence against an authoritarian agressor that controls many aspects of their lives and denies them their liberty. Yet to my point, it is utterly dumb of them to assert that right because they cannot possibly achieve anything. They are too weak against even Israel alone, and especially against Israel and the USA combined. I urge them to fold.

I still don't understand why you would take the side of the agressor that did this to the Palestinians, with your defense being only that Palestinians really really hate Israel and lash out in violence from time to time, some of it being unjustifiably immoral. Of course they do, they are human beings with human emotions and they hate the people who turned their lives into shit. I take the side of justice. I believe in freedom, of liberty, of equality of all people, equal rights under the law. I agree justice must be had against Hamas' crimes too. But justice must be had against IDF solider's actions, against settlers stealing houses and killing the small children who try to fight back, for bombing indiscriminately and claiming everything is a Hamas stronghold (when the evidence is more and more clear that they are bombing rather indiscriminately based on the statistics of the dead being similar to the overall statisitcs of Gaza), for apparently intentionally targetting journalists, for not recognizing that the one who kills has the responsibliity to not kill innocents in the process (no FBI agent would blow up a builing because a hostage taker took hostages and then say "well he was using them for human shields, what can I do?" They would wait for a clear shot). Justice for all the violations of international law that Israel repeatedly and continually violates with the help of the US veto power, for refusing to give back the land they stole in the West Bank, for stealing more and more of it (do you believe in property rights?). Clearly Israel just wants to eliminate these people who are in it's way and take the entire land that they believe that Jehovah promised them thousands of years ago regardless of what kinds of atrocities they must commit to take it back. And that is entirely unjust and inhuman. And so I'm having this discussion with you to try to understand how you can take their side. And it seems to me so far that it is through a web of fictions that Israel has developed and spread to convince Americans to see the situation in a rather perverse way, but from the only angle where Israel looks like a good actor, as long as you don't dig too deeply.

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unclebobmartin 2y ago

From: mikedilger at 11/07 19:13

> Some things I believe because of multiple good sources:

> 1. A high up IDF leader

...irrelevant...

> 2. Israel was dead-set against a Palestinian state well before 2005.

...irrelevant...and certainly not a universal truth. Israel is a democracy with many factions.

> 3. Israel funded Hamas.

...irrelevant...and I'm sure Hamas was duly grateful.

> BTW, the 21% of Israelis who are Arabs were accidents.

...Whether the "accident" hypothesis is true or not is irrelevant and is demeaning to the Israeli Arabs. The fact remains that one fifth of the Israeli population is Arab.

> Israel threatens the [possible future existence of a legal entity called the State of Palestine] far more than Palestine (a non-state, but that has representation) threatens the existence of the legal entity called the State of Israel.

I think that's true today. It was not always true; but the past is irrelevant.

> I'm again lost by your next statements the two paragraphs starting with "Who is in exile?" [...] what was your point?

My point was that the word "exile" can be applied in many different ways. It is not a boolean. Jews were exiled from Gaza. Jews were exiled from most Arab states and fled to Isreal where they were accepted as citizens. Palestinians were exiled during the wars. They were not accepted as citizens by neighboring Arab states and so were, in a sense, exiled by those states.

> I still don't understand why you would take the side of the agressor that did this to the Palestinians...

I don't accept the premise.

...And it seems to me so far that it is through a web of fictions that Israel has developed and spread to convince Americans to see the situation in a rather perverse way, but from the only angle where Israel looks like a good actor, as long as you don't dig too deeply.

There are a plethora of webs of fictions. Isreal is a self interested nation. Every self interested nation, and every faction with self interest, constructs webs of fictions to make themselves look better than their adversaries. That's the nature of human societies. Has Isreal lied more than Hamas? Doubtful since Israel is an open democracy with many factions and a relatively free press and is under intense international scrutiny; while Hamas is a closed society that controls all information in and out.

But that's not relevant at this point. The only relevant thing at this point is that there was a cease fire that Hamas broke in a manner so heinous that Israel is left with no choice but to destroy them and then to occupy and pacify Gaza for the foreseeable puture.

CC: #[4]

Mike Dilger ☑️ 2y ago

I thought I argued conclusively and very well that the past is relevant because the past determines for example whether a killing should be seen as just or not, whether an attack is a just response or not... if it doesn't matter, than Israel is bombing Gaza right now for no reason, the past of October7 is irrelevant, bygones, water under the bridge, and therefore according to your metric Israel is horribly guilty of crimes against humanity right now. But I suppose you don't see it like that because you DO care about the past (October 7 was in the past). But ONLY when that past matters for a favorable outcome for Israel. You refuse to accept this well made general point that I have made probably three times now. Which leads me to the only conclusion I am left with: that you are arguing in bad faith. And I hate to see that, but I have to call it out. I'd appreciate an explanation.

> Has Israel lied more than Hamas? Doubtful since Israel is an open democracy with many factions and a relatively free press and is under intense international scrutiny;

You imply "if they were lying we would know because they are an open democracy." Well we do know. The U.N. and most countries of the world except for Israel and the United States condemn Israel over and over for repeated and ongoing violations of international law and indiscriminate killing of Palestinians. The UN condemned Israel 17 times in 2020 alone. The balance of opinion about the facts is against Israel. That doesn't mean the UN are always right, but your point is demolished by these facts.

Why does the US side with Israel? Because Zionists sought power in the US, have a very strong AIPAC lobby, far more meddling than Russia's claimed meddling in the election, their people own most media companies, and they use these positions to advance the interests of Israel. They push to pass anti-BDS laws. They push to make protesting in favor of Palestine illegal. They get things cancelled from YouTube, Twitter, etc. The opinions of Americans matter most to Israel because the US is the strongest ally they could have, but they don't have enough manpower to do this to other nations, and hence most other nations see things more plainly and vote against Israel at the UN. That is why I believe most other nations are far more neutral and have a far clearer viewpoint, because they aren't heavily manipulated like the US is.

I reject the premise that Hamas broke the ceasefire. Israel broke the ceasefire. Al-Aqsa flood was in response to Israel's violations of the ceasefire at the Al-Aqsa mosque in April 2021, May 2021, and on 15 April 2022 and 5 April 2023. That is why the operation was named after the mosque.

But I'm sure you'll reject that. You reject everything you don't want to believe. Which isn't a good debating strategy, but you are welcome to continue rejecting everything. It seems to me you have a religious certainty about your beliefs. And so our discussion has become rather pointless in many ways.