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So I’ll ask you. What solution would you speculate on.
I've said multiple times before on this thread that any peace deal would have to involve Israel returning annexed lands in exchange for Palestinian recognition of Israel as a sovereign state. That means that any groups that call for the destruction of Israel have to be excluded from the process and that attacks on Israeli civilians must be acknowledged as terrorism.
Without those conditions, moderates on both sides will not support any deal. Problem is that extremists on both sides do not want a peace deal like that. Those extremists have to be isolated and excluded from the process. Making excuses for Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians just makes it easier for Israeli right-wingers to keep opposing any sort of peace deal.
Palestinians are only allowed primitive weapons; when those weapons fail to hit military targets (and in the vast majority are intercepted by Israel’s superior weapons systems), they can immediately be accused of attacking Israel’s civilian population
Palestinians aren't "allowed" weapons, they are covertly supplied, often by Iran.
If Palestinians fire rockets at Israeli cities, they are attacking civilians. That's the problem. Trying to rationalize it as not being terrorism is the best propaganda that Israeli right-wingers can wish for. Just call it what it is, "terrorism", and accept that it has to stop before Israel will accept any peace deal.
Or, do you have a suggestion for a peace deal that Israelis will accept that doesn't involve disarming Palestinian groups that vow the destruction of Israel. I'd love to hear your ideas.
thols2 has offered what he feels is required as a long term pragmatic solution several times.
I'm not a fan of baiting people for an answer just so you can argue about it, but he's put his view out there and had it criticised.
I say let's disarm the Ukrainians and ask the Russians nicely to not invade any more - that oughta work, right?
More seriously, if you mis-diagnose the problem you will get the wrong solution. The Israelis invaded, and continue to invade, Palestinian land, not vice versa. That's not some "right wing extremists", that's the democratically elected government of Israel.
The situation will not change unless the Israelis are forced to by the US (not likely) or the Palestinians are eliminated by force (current policy). Maybe if/when the US loses interest and power and China/Russia becomes #1 superpower it will be different, but neither the Chinese nor the Russians have much of a track record of helping people from the goodness of their hearts, so I doubt it.
The situation won't change until most Israelis believe that they can live in peace alongside a functioning Palestinian state. That will be a very difficult thing to achieve, I'm pessimistic about the prospects in our lifetimes. One of the very first things that has to happen if that is to be a possibility is for Palestinians to drop the call for the destruction of Israel and to stop indiscriminate attacks on Israeli civilians. No Israeli is going to trust Palestinian leaders unless that happens. Westerners who make excuses for attacks on Israeli civilians are not helping Palestinians, they are just prolonging the violence.
If you look back at the 1990s, when a peace settlement seemed possible, the major event there was that Yasser Arafat and the PLO accepted the existence of Israel and that they needed to stop terrorist attacks. The PLO and associated groups were responsible for brutal attacks on Israeli civilians, the Munich Olympic attack is probably the most famous but there were many others. Once the PLO renounced terrorism, peace talks became possible. The problem is that other Palestinian groups refused to renounce violence so we ended up with multiple armed groups in the Palestinian territories competing with each other. No peace settlement is possible while that is happening because any agreement that Israel makes with one group will be undermined by others.
The Israelis invaded, and continue to invade, Palestinian land
...Because?
This is the partly the problem isn't it, at what point do you start the belligerence? at who's feet do you place the fault? The British for allowing unlimited Jewish immigration to the region? The Europeans for their continued anti-Semitism that encouraged it? The Palestinian Muslims for throwing away UN 242? the Egyptians and Syrians for Yom Kippur war in 1967? Israeli refusal to negotiate return of gained land and settlement building? The first Intifada? The second Intifada and the excessive Israeli reaction to it? At every turn everyone has acted with sadly predictable parochial short sightedness.
The only way that I can see peace ever happening; is Palestinians paramilitary organisations unilaterally stopping killing Israeli citizens and allow properly constituted Palestinian political control. No country would ever allow terrorists who's stated aim is the destruction of that country to remain a viable threat, and that includes Israel. There is nothing special in the region in that regard.
That alone removes the right wing Israeli raison-d'etre of continuing bellicosity and forces all Israelis to confront what they are doing themselves in the region. Pretty much most of Israel can get somewhat behind "we're defending ourselves" line even though most of them know it to be a lie, no-one wants their kids to be rocketed on their way to school, but in the face of peace from the Palestinians, you force Israeli citizens to confront the right wing who have a hold on politics since the late 70's The saddest statistic is the support that right wing parties in Israel have of those in their late teens and twenties, and that isn't going to change without continued and settled non-aggression.
nickc is exactly right.
Edit: except for the date of the Yom Kippur war, but that's immaterial.
…Because?
Lebensraum? Why exactly do the Israelis need to evict Palestians from places like East Jerusalem?
Again you're suggesting that the victims should be punished. There's zero evidence to suggest that the Israelis would abide by any peace agreement, so unilaterally blaming the Palestinians for daring to be unhappy is breathtaking double standard.
Having said all that, nothing happens inside Gaza without the Iranians either allowing it or encouraging it. So, at some point if you want peace; You have to confront and stop the Cold/Getting hotter war between Iran (and Syria) and Israel
unilaterally blaming the Palestinians for daring to be unhappy is breathtaking double standard.
Nobody's blaming them for being unhappy, of course they're unhappy, anybody would be. The problem is that attacking Israeli citizens makes things worse, not better. Stopping that would remove one huge obstacle to peace. There are other obstacles, but that's one of the big ones.
There’s zero evidence to suggest that the Israelis would abide by any peace agreement
Likewise, the same can be said for the states that encourage and support Hezbollah and Hamas that surround Israel. But it has to start somewhere, and pragmatically, if you remove the reason for Israeli continued aggression in Gaza, you remove the immediate flash point for violence. In the space that creates, everyone backs off a bit.
The British for allowing unlimited Jewish immigration to the region?
My history is a little fuzzy here.
But the white paper of 1939 might be worth reading.
Stories like that of SS Exodus too.
Again you’re suggesting that the victims should be punished.
One of the reasons that the Israeli moderate, or even pragmatic right have such limited support is because of the rocket attacks. While they understand why it's happening, no Israeli wants to be the victims of them. You want there to be a greater voice for peace from moderate Israelis within Israel? Maybe stop killing them might work?
And maybe if the Israelis stopped settlements and evictions, allowed Palestinian building in occupied territories, stopped stealing Palestine's water, stopped preventing workers from getting to their lands and a thousand other manifestations of occupation, then Hamas and friends would not feel the frustration that leads to violence. But no - all you can do is load the burden of responsibility ontoy the Palestinians.
And when they do stop firing, what then? More provocation, snipers on the fence killing unarmed civilians, deliberately keeping the kettle boiling to to provide a pretext for more invasion. Disgusting, and shameful that people seek to justify it.
But no – all you can do is load the burden of responsibility ontoy the Palestinians.
I haven't seen anybody do that. The responsibility for attacks on Israeli civilians is on Palestinians (and probably Iran too). Those attacks do not achieve any purpose except make things worse for Palestinians. Stopping those would be one important step towards improving things. Having Westerners denounce them would also be a small step in assuring Israeli moderates that the world does care about attacks on Jews.
But no
I agree with everything in your list, Israel are no innocents in this.
Edit: When I wrote "everyone has acted..." up thread I include the Israelis.
Unfortunately history shows that the Palestinians stoppoing attacks does not lead to reciprocal action from Israel. For example, following the 2008 ceasefire agreement Israel repeatedly violated the agreement
In 2021, a similar story, a ceasefire ending when a violent racist march was allowed in East Jerusalem
https://twitter.com/MiddleEastEye/status/1404740132373155840?s=20&t=Jg_fqZGyAETzrDMkRkwXgw
There has been no halt to settlement, no end to Israeli demands to control the West Bank, the Palestinians have nothing to hope for in Israeli justice, so the struggle continues with the only weapon they have - martyrdom and a hope for justice in another life.
So what is the conclusion...... that if your land is attacked, invaded, and occupied, you shouldn't fight back - your moral superiority should defeat the invaders/aggressors.
Is this a tactic that the Ukrainians should be considering?
Is this a tactic that the Ukrainians should be considering?
No, apparently Ukraine is "different" in some unspecified but important way.
No, apparently Ukraine is “different” in some unspecified but important way
I think Palestine has every right to defend itself, as does Israel. What it - nor Israel don't have the right to do is commit war crimes, and Hezbollah are committing war crimes by launching un-aimed rockets at civilian targets. Israeli soldiers commit war crimes by shooting and killing unarmed Palestinians, by occupying their land and so on. If Ukrainian forces commit war crimes they to will be no doubt be condemned
If you want what I think is a way out to create a peace that can be sustained, then I think personally it's for Palestinian rockets to stop, it's not helping, and actively making things worse for themselves (by justifying occupation). In that space the Israeli left and moderate right wing can start to have a voice that may overtake that of the belligerent right who see the destruction of Arab Palestine as the only way to resolve it.
If Ukrainian forces commit war crimes they to will be no doubt be condemned
That did happen in the early days. Some Ukrainian soldiers captured some Russians and tortured and (I think) murdered them, then posted videos on social media. President Zelenskyy had them arrested and charged, he made it very clear to the Ukrainian military that he would not tolerate war crimes. I'm sure that individual Ukrainian soldiers secretly ignore that, the bitterness there must be unfathomable, but the Ukrainian doctrine is that their soldiers must not commit war crimes and will be punished if they are caught.
Many Palestinian groups have the opposite strategy. They target Israeli civilians deliberately in order to terrorize the population. This provides legal cover for the Israeli military to respond - they are not committing war crimes if they are fighting armed opponents who have attacked civilians. Not saying they should be doing it, but Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians are what Israel uses as legal justification.
Hezbollah are committing war crimes by launching un-aimed rockets at civilian targets.
Well it is news to me that Hezbollah are now part of the Palestinian resistance, have you got any links to back this claim up?
Hezbollah are a Lebanese resistant movement formed specifically to fight and defeat Israel's illegal and brutal occupation of Lebanese territory, something which they successfully achieved. They are Shia Muslims.
In contrast Palestinians which are Muslim are almost entirely Sunni Muslims, they would not expect a specifically Shia Lebanese resistant movement to fight on their behalf. Nor was I aware until your post that it was being suggested that they were.
In recent times due to the fact that both Hezbollah and Hamas share a common brutal expansionist enemy, plus that there are hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees currently in Lebanon, there has been a certain amount of rapprochement between the two, but I was unaware that this has led to Hezbollah fighting to liberate Palestine.
If this is actually the case it would suggest quite a problem for Israel - Hezbollah has already defeated Israel in South Lebanon, it is extremely well armed, and by far the most powerful irregular army in the world. It is more powerful than the Lebanese army, it defeated ISIS in Lebanon and has helped to defeat it in Syria.
You admit that Israel commits war crimes, and you will also, I imagine, concede that their crimes have innumerably more victims than those of the Palestinians , and yet ...
then I think personally it’s for Palestinian rockets to stop
They tried that. Didn't work (as per my links above).
Next? Any chance that Israel might be called upon to do something?
what Israel uses as legal justification.
Sure they say that, but we don't need to accept it and continue sending arms, do we?
both Hezbollah and Hamas share a common brutal expansionist enemy
A thousand times this. If not for Israeli aggression I doubt that Muslim extremists like ISIS and Al Qaeda would get volunteers to lick envelopes, never mind take up arms.
Sure they say that, but we don’t need to accept it and continue sending arms, do we?
It's not a war crime if they are targeting armed combatants. If Palestinians use civilians as human shields, that is a war crime. Nobody in the Middle East wants to see war crimes trials, you'd end up with Israeli soldiers acquitted if they could show they were fighting armed opponents, and Arab fighters and leaders convicted for deliberately targeting civilians. Do you think the Syrian and Iranian governments are going to agree to war crimes trials?
The problem in the Middle East is that there are numerous groups fighting each other, the Israeli-Palestinian thing is just piece of it. You can't fix a complex situation like that with a single action, you have to think what the larger consequences will be. Sure, the U.S. could stop supplying weapons to Israel. That won't change Israeli policy, it will just mean that the U.S. no longer has any leverage. Israel would turn to someone else for support. Israel has a very advanced military technology sector and nuclear weapons, so countries like India, Russia, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Brazil, etc. would love to get access to Israeli technology.
If the U.S. lost any leverage over Israel, Israel would probably decide that they might as well destroy Iranian ability to threaten Israel. Iran is run by holocaust deniers who have vowed to destroy Israel, so the Israeli's see a nuclear armed Iran as an existential threat. The Iranians know this too, so the U.S. cutting off Israel would mean that Iran would institute a crash program for a nuclear bomb, or maybe try to buy some from North Korea or ****stan. They'd be crazy not to because they know Israel has nuclear weapons.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other countries in the region know this too and they would immediately start nuclear weapons programs because they are afraid of a nuclear armed Iran.
So, nobody in the region wants the U.S. to cut off arms shipments to Israel because that would utterly destabilize the region and launch a nuclear arms race.
The situation in the region is extremely complex, full of extremely dangerous people. The Palestinians are pawns in all this, but the other countries in the region much prefer the current situation to a nuclear arms race. That's why the U.S. is not going to cut Israel off.
If Palestinians use civilians as human shields, that is a war crime.
But Ukrainians not. Right. Cos that's different. Got it.
That Amnesty report has been almost universally criticized. Ukraine is not using human shields, they have made every effort to move civilians out of combat areas. Russia has deliberately targeted those civilians.
Maybe instead of twisting yourself into mental pretzels trying to explain why there's no problem with Palestinians targeting Israeli civilians, you could just say that civilians shouldn't be targeted, but that doesn't mean that Palestinians aren't victims of horrible injustices. It would actually be a much stronger argument to make. (And yes, Israeli right-wingers shouldn't murder Palestinian civilians either, no argument there from me.)
That Amnesty report has been almost universally criticized.
By? Oh yes, the allies of Ukraine.
Ukraine is not using human shields, they have made every effort to move civilians out of combat areas.
And you know that because .... ?
Russia has deliberately targeted those civilians.
I don't doubt it. Same as Israel targets civilians.
Maybe instead of twisting yourself into mental pretzels
One of is twisting themseleves into pretzels but I'm not sure it's me. I haven't ever said that it is OK to target civilians so maybe you should check your reading comprehension. Not so long ago you falsely claimed I advocated sending HIMARS to Palestine, so I detect a pattern emerging. On the other hand, you're the one who keeps insisting that Palestine is different from Ukraine but somehow never quite manages to explain how. Maybe less typing and more thinking would be beneficial.
Not so long ago you falsely claimed I advocated sending HIMARS to Palestine,
I haven’t ever said that it is OK to target civilians
You did raise the possibility of sending HIMARS. It's difficult not to see your observation that Palestinian attacks mostly fail as an attempt to justify those attacks. What would really help here is if you explained what this means, it's a very strange thing to say if you don't support sending weapons and don't condemn attacks on civilians.
DrJ
Free Member
Maybe if the US supplied Palestine with tanks and HIMARS the Palestinians would not be reduced to attacking civilians. Note also that the attacks on civilians produce far fewer casualties than “surgical” attacks on Palestinians.
Not sure how I can help you thols. You've cut and pasted that quote twice now, but you still don't seeem to have read it. Writing "if X happens then Y might happen" is not in any way a suggestion that X ought to happen. I was saying that the Palestinians have (in effect) attacked civilians because they had no choice of target. Supplying them with HIMARS would give them a choice of target, but that's absolutely not the same as saying that this should happen (the US has much more direct and effective ways to rein in the Israelis, if it wished to do so).
I hope you've managed to understand now. You've wasted dozens of electrons on this ridiculous straw man, and I'm not going to conspire in such a waste of resources by commenting on it further.
I was saying that the Palestinians have (in effect) attacked civilians because they had no choice of target.
That's a war crime.
May well be. So?
War crimes are considered to be bad. Good guys don't commit war crimes. If Palestinians are deliberately committing war crimes, it makes it difficult for Western countries to support them. If you believe that committing war crimes is fine, you are not on the side of the good guys.
So, do you really think that committing war crimes is ok?
If Palestinians are deliberately committing war crimes, it makes it difficult for Western countries to support them
But it's OK to support the Ukrainians and Israelis, despite both of them committing war crimes. The Israelis bomb a school and we shrug our shoulders, right?
So, do you really think that committing war crimes is ok?
There you go again, claiming I said things I didn't. This is getting tiresome.
By? Oh yes, the allies of Ukraine.
FWIW, Amnesty Int has been criticised internally too, most notably by Amnesty itself in Ukraine who allegedly, were sidelined in writing the report and the head of strongly criticised said report.
How much you 'think' into that is your call.
Think about how this sounds.
DrJ
Free Member
That’s a war crimeMay well be. So?
Think about how this sounds.
To whom? To a mother of a child who was blown to bits by the Israelis only to hear that this bombing was not, legally speaking, ipso facto, by a party of the second part, sub judice, a war crime, your honour ? Whether something is a "war crime" or not is of little interest to to the victims.
DrJ
Free Member
Think about how this sounds.To whom?
To someone who thinks that war crimes are bad.
FWIW, Amnesty Int has been criticised internally too
I'm sure, but my point was that if we go looking for something to call a "war crime" we will usually find it, so labelling one side as "war criminals" is not a very good way to sort the bad from the good.
To someone who thinks that war crimes are bad.
Dear god 🙁
OK, in the absence of forum functionality, I will engage my wet-wear-based killfile. I will not be responding to you further, thols.
if we go looking for something to call a “war crime” we will usually find it, so labelling one side as “war criminals” is not a very good way to sort the bad from the good.
This is intended as good advice, I know you may not take it that way. I share your concern for Palestinians, I think everyone who has contributed to this thread does. There have been some boilovers and the mods stepped in from time to time to clean things up, but those were just people who cared about the world and got emotional. That is easy to understand, I bear no hard feelings about that.
However, dismissing war crimes with, "So" is quite a different thing. You really should think about what you are saying, it does not reflect well on you.
I've asked the moderators to close this thread. I believe that responding to war crimes with "So?" is not a healthy thing. I don't know whether the mods will close it or not, but I'm not going to waste time with people who think war crimes don't matter.
Bye.
If Palestinians use civilians as human shields, that is a war crime.
And what about when Israelis use Palestinians as human shields, is that a war crime too?
The IDF has been using Palestinian civilians, often young children, as human shields for years.
In fact they have freely admitted doing so claiming that it is justified as the Palestinian resistance will not attack if civilians are placed close to IDF forces, and is therefore effective.
Obviously Israelis themselves don't worry about attacking and killing civilians so it would be pointless the Palestinians doing the same.
Among the many problems for the Palestinian resistance is that Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas on earth.
That’s a war crime
May well be. So?
That rather exposes the hypocrisy in your argument. You might not like what tools and a couple of others have said, but they understand and have denounced the war crimes on all sides. And have a proper understanding of what using human shields means and why it's a war crime.
And have a proper understanding of what using human shields means and why it’s a war crime.
The IDF doesn't seem to care that human shields are a war crime:
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-use-human-shields-rising
And the IDF openly admits in court to having used Palestinians as human shields on 1,200 occasions in defiance of international law :
The claim that the Palestinian resistance themselves also use Palestinians civilians as human shields is an Israeli myth.
The very fact that the IDF openly admits to using Palestinian civilians as human shields because according to them it stops Palestinian resistant fighters from attacking, proves that the Palestinian resistant will not unnecessarily risk the lives of Palestinian civilians.
Everyone knows that the Israelis don't care if they kill innocent civilians, they do it all the time. In contrast the IDF claims that Palestinian fighters will not risk killing innocent Palestinian civilians, they even made that point in the supreme court.
The Palestinian resistance has to launch attacks from civilian areas because that is all that they have. They do not have air bases hundreds of miles away.
That rather exposes the hypocrisy
Indeed.
That rather exposes the hypocrisy in your argument.
No hypocrisy at all (thanks). I don’t need something to be labelled a “war crime” by some lawyer to know if it’s right or wrong. Maybe your morality is poorly developed and you rely on those sort of things.
And just to emphasise how shamelessly absurd IDF claims can be:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/07/israel
It said the military's claim to have amended the procedure to allow civilians to "volunteer" to work with the army was still unacceptable because it was unlikely anyone would freely do so.
Yes that's right, the IDF have claimed that Palestinians have "volunteered" to be human shields for them.
Edit : btw that Guardian link is from 2005, my previous link concerning the IDF using human shields is from a couple of months ago, proving that the IDF ignores all laws concerning war crimes, international and national.