My own view is that the Israelis restyle their state into a joint Israeli-Palestinian state, citizens having a choice of one of three passports, Palestinian, Israeli, or joint Israeli-Palestinian, full rights as citizens for all, and all Palestinians citizens. Obviously a lot of details to work out. — tim wood

Not a terrible idea. In my opinion a "one-state solution" with equal rights is probably the only real solution to the Israel-Palestine problem, though it's equally unlikely to happen given the huge amount of animosity and unwillingness on both sides. Also it would require Israel to stop being a principally Jewish state, which will probably not happen for various reasons either.

Maybe if Netanyahu gets ousted and a more reasonable political elite takes over. They might come to the conclusion that it is the only way to lasting peace and that there are simply no feasible alternatives.

Because the framing is apt, and still is even after these counter-arguments. — schopenhauer1

Everything in reality is the opposite of the way you framed it but the framing is apt to you? We're at a dead end here. Thanks for the conversation.

A fantastical depiction of Palestinian and Jews in one sentence. Well done. — Benkei

Except if the Palestinian people became pro-democracy and anti-Islamic terrorist, Israel would work with them. If Israel became pacifistic, and embraced right-to-return and a two-state solution, Hamas would still try to kill as many Jews as possible.

Hamas are tiny and weak compared to Israel. They can never do it any significant harm. — Baden

Oct. 7th wasn't "significant harm"?

Everything in reality is the opposite of the way you framed it but the framing is apt to you? We're at a dead end here. Thanks for the conversation. — Baden

As I said way earlier in the thread, Germany was also a weakened entity by 1945. It was in no position to win. Should the US have stopped and went home? It was the underdog by that point, no? Should Chamberlain have sued for peace or should he have struck Germany hard at the beginning and ended it there? Germany wasn't yet in a position to be so decisive in their military pursuits that they were definitely signaling they were going to do.

To the innocent victims, yes, and their suffering should never be downplayed. But to Israel as a country, in military and infrastructural terms which is my context, no. It continued to be able to function normally. It's military wasn't in any way degraded. Territory was retaken almost immediately etc. Contrast that with Gaza where the majority of the population has been displaced and 50% of the homes destroyed. That's significant harm on a nationwide scale.

Crystal ball bullshit. Historically, IDF has broken more cease fires than Hamas. So if it's a matter of trust, I'd sooner deal with Hamas than Likud or the IDF. In that respect it's always fun to see the spectacle of media parrotting IDF narratives without confirmation of the facts through alternative sources.

Even so, what Israel should do is independent of what Hamas would do. Nobody is calling for it to be pacifist, but for it to stop taking land from Palestinians and undermining peaceful solutions. And yes, I think people who were expelled from the land that they lived and the houses they lived in, should have a right to return there. So weird!

The analogy is utterly stupid, not to mention a malicious attempt to excuse war crimes against innocent Gazans who are not Nazis or anything close but the victims of a brutal occupation. Give it up. No one in their right mind would accept such a ridiculous framing as the basis for rational argument.

Stop wasting your time.

The analogy is utterly stupid. Give it up. No one in their right mind would accept such a ridiculous framing as the basis for rational argument. — Baden

You didn't answer my question. This is handwaving and stalling. Because you know the answers to those are not something you want to hear. That is okay though. If you want to handwave one more time and dismiss the analogy go ahead, but I think the case is indeed apt.

Stop wasting your time. — Benkei

Again, poisoning the well. Great tactic :ok:

So if it's a matter of trust, I'd sooner deal with Hamas than Likud or the IDF. — Benkei

This kind of reality-denialism only shows up on the pro-Palestinian side of the debate.

I'll explain one last time. Suppose I say to you: The Israelis are like the Nazis and the Gazans are like the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto therefore surely the attack by Hamas on its oppressors is as justified as Jews fighting to get out of the Warsaw ghetto? Would you accept that framing.? Because I could offer far more justification for it (even though I don't accept it myself) than you can for yours.

And if you don't accept it and tell me why the Jews shouldn't have been justified in breaking out of the Warsaw ghetto, I'll accuse you of handwaving and stalling.

You see what propaganda does to an argument now... ?

The Israelis are like the Nazis and the Gazans are like the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto — Baden

Where do you guys come up with this stuff? German Jews were not hellbent on destroying Germany. They didn't massacre German civilians, behead German babies, and rape German women to death.

Deliberate quote out of context. I'm giving an example of contrary propaganda that I explicitly made clear I don't agree with.

I don't accept it — Baden

I'll explain one last time. Suppose I say to you: The Israelis are like the Nazis and the Gazans are like the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto therefore surely the attack by Hamas on its oppressors is as justified as Jews fighting to get out of the Warsaw ghetto? Would you accept that framing.? Because I could offer far more justification for it (even though I don't accept it myself) than you can for yours. — Baden

Go ahead, how is it a good framing?
Hamas had billions of dollars that they WASTED on weapons and enriching their leaders. Little to no actual development for the people.... The Jews in Warsaw were imprisoned there before being shipped off to death camps.

The people of Gaza did not try to get rid of Hamas if they disagreed with them. Unless you want to make an analogy that Hamas are making their own population the Warsaw Ghetto, it's not the same as a population being ruled by Nazis (sympathizers) that are eventually keeping them there before they send them to work/death camps.

The people of Gaza did not try to get rid of Hamas — schopenhauer1

To some extent, it seems Hamas has terrorised their population into compliance. At the same time, it's not infeasible that a sizable portion of the population would agree with Hamas anyway. The truth of the matter seems... impossible to get to the bottom of. Some people say the truth of that question doesn't matter anyway, but I think it matters.

I don't want to argue for it because I don't accept it. It's an example of mirroring propaganda. It frames the conversation in a way that presumes the conclusion in favour of the framer as you have done. Understand?

I made this clear from the start, so your confusion is again 100% yours.

Except of course I actually know what I'm talking about: https://imeu.org/article/self-defense-or-provocation-israels-history-of-breaking-ceasefires

In the period 2013-2014 Israel violated the ceasefire 190+ times and Hamas about 75 times. So I'm significantly more likely to agree to something with Hamas than Likud/IDF.



But please continue

I don't want to argue for it because I don't accept it. It's an example of mirroring propaganda. It frames the conversation in a way that presumes the conclusion in favour of the framer as you have done. Understand? — Baden

I understand what you are saying, but unlike the Warsaw Ghetto, the WW2 analogy is apt. Should Chamberlain have hurt Germany early on when they were still an "underdog" (at least not militarily capable yet of doing what they were signaling very much what they wanted to do)? On the other side of the war, should the US have pulled out of Germany in 1945, because by that time Germany was an underdog and their military pushed back and degraded enough to just leave?

So you don't have to argue along those lines fine, but we are in a debate forum and I am making a case. It's not rhetorical either, but using some historical precedent for what a full-scale war looks like when fighting a certain kind of evil enemy. And yeah, I'll say Hamas and Nazis are indeed evil in their means and ends.

To some extent, it seems Hamas has terrorised their population into compliance. — flannel jesus

"Palestinians in Gaza, West Bank strongly support Hamas, October 7 attack
A total of 75% of respondents agreed with the October 7 attack and 74.7% agreed that they support a single Palestinian state “from the river to the sea.”"
https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/article-773791

We all agree Nazis = bad so when we copy paste "Nazi" onto the party we want to call bad (Israel or Palestine) we make it impossible for the interlocutor we are arguing with to both accept our framing and yet still argue for their point of view because they also (most likely) agree Nazis = bad. The irony is I'm happy to call Hamas as bad / evil as Nazis but I'm not happy with the conflation of Nazi Germany with Gaza as that only serves as a rhetorical ploy to excuse killing Gazan civilians and if that's your game (note I said "if") then you're also as morally evil as the Nazis (but that again doesn't mean you are Nazi Germany, see...?). So, it's irrelevant that Hamas are as evil as Nazis in particular. You might as well say they're as evil as Charles Manson or any other individual or group that is destructive to human life, but so what? That should be obvious from their actions, but does not in any way whatsoever make Gaza Nazi Germany. The fact that the Gazan leadership are very bad people is a separate issue to what Gaza is in its contextual relationship to Israel, which is the absolutely dominated, weaker, and more vulnerable party, just the opposite of the Nazi relationship to Jews.

Anyway, here's your fallacy

And yeah, I'll say Hamas and Nazis are indeed evil in their means and ends. — schopenhauer1

There's the crux of the issue: Hamas is evil, Israel isn't. Israel can be trusted with power, Hamas can't. A world under Israeli rule would be tolerable, a world under Hamas rule would be a horrorshow.

I used to think liberals sided with Hamas because of a reflexive sympathy for the underdog, but the pro-Palestinian arguments advanced here by normally sober-minded progressives are so divorced from reality, the logic is so tortured, I'm thinking some latent antisemitism is at play.

Who has sided with Hamas here? Quote them. Call them out. Or drop the accusation.

There's the crux of the issue: Hamas is evil, Israel isn't. Israel can be trusted with power, Hamas can't — RogueAI

Your world is a cartoon. What's evil is decided by actions not labels. The blatant disregard for human life, particularly vulnerable civilian life on both sides, is evil. Hamas have done that and the IDF have done that. They are both "evil".

People do seem a little too obsessed in the horror in far away lands. — I like sushi

Ever since Daguerre invented photography, we've served up pictures of horrors. The gory details of the American Civil War were captured on film (so to speak; they were using glass plates) and displayed in cities far away from the battlegrounds. People were shocked. Now the transmissions from Gaza City or Kiev are live. Obsessing has become easier.

I cannot say I actually care much about this whole nonsense. — I like sushi

What! Your haven't made arrangements to leave your home and fight on the side of Justice? @Baden hasn't either; you both must be trolling. Maybe we are all trolling.

I find the Middle East an ethical can of worms--more so than some other places, and not just in the context of the current military action. "People are dying! Palestinians are being killed and driven out of their homes. They are starving! Little children and women! Etc." Yes, true. We disapprove; we don't like it; we find it unfortunate, unethical, or unbearably cruel. But that's what happens when war is waged. Hamas may be destroyed, but there won't be much left in Gaza for anybody to govern at the rate Israel is plowing up the place.

I don't know how this is going to turn out in the end; nobody else does either. The end justifies the means? What is the end, here?

If we could rewind history and do it over -- better -- how far back would we have to go? Moses? Jesus? Mohammed? The Crusades? The Ottomans? The British and French mandates? 1948? October 7?

You don't get brownie points for not caring about stuff. I'm sure there is stuff you do care about. No idea what that is but I wouldn't get any brownie points for not caring about what you care about either. I would probably just steer clear of that thread. Anyway, thanks for not caring and good luck to you.

The same people who will get angry when their favourite brand of ice cream is out of stock will come and criticize you for being concerned about Israeli or Palestinian civilians being butchered. How very dare you! Well, sorry, but bugger off back to your ice cream or whatever else gets your heart pumping. No one is forcing you to be here.