I don't know who Dennis Ross is, but anyone who thinks that they can militarily get rid of Hamas from within Gaza is delusional. So he's kinda getting off on the wrong foot with me.
Lindsay Graham knows how to do it (click the link to hear Lindsay's wisdom):
For my whole life, Israel has been in conflict with the Muslim countries. My thinking is that Muslim countries like Iran are simply using the Palestinians as pawns in this Middle East power chess game.
I do have a question: If I am a Palestinian, can I immigrate to another Muslim country such as Iran? I think that if I was a Palestinian, I would immigrate to another country as soon as I could. Constant wars are why many people immigrated to the US.
I agree that what is known -- invasion, killing civilians, taking hostages -- has justifiably incited Israelis and others to support a strong response. But I think that cutting off food, water, electricity and fuel, in addition to massive attacks on residential areas, have raised basic humanitarian concerns among Israelis and others -- beyond their concern for the hostages -- that Netanyahu is seeking to silence with stories of unimaginable atrocities.
I think the first step on the long journey to a peaceful outcome is a cease-fire, which should be called for now.
In one of your earlier posts the issue of war crimes is discussed. I'm always struck by phrases such as rules of engagement. It seems contradictory to the whole concept of war. We appear to hang onto the idea that there are rules and laws that govern war. Looking at the actions of the terrorists it seems like a quaint notion.
Is this response by Israel considered proportional response according to the military?
I'm about to read Proportionality of Response, what it really means. In The Times of Israel.
It is impossible for me to imagine Israel not responding in a show of force. Israel is surrounded by neighbors who want nothing more than to see her destroyed.
As for a cease fire, logically speaking a cease fire should facilitate hostage negotiations but is the behavior of Hamas logical. They held Gilad Shalit for 5 years and got over 1000 prisoners in an exchange for his release.
Maybe for cease fires to work both sides have to be weary of fighting. I don't feel Hamas fits that definition.
My earlier post referred to Congressman Gregory Meeks Democrat of New York, on the Foreign Affairs Committee. He shared the information about the babies. I wanted to share the highest ranking official that I had heard it from. Again, it will be welcome news if this is not accurate.
I saw that interview on CNN and my understanding was that Meeks learned about the allegation of beheading from "the news" after he emerged from the classified briefing, which -- if true -- suggests that he was not told of that in the briefing itself. Perhaps a video of Meek's interview will appear or we will be able to find the transcript tomorrow.
It appears that Pres Biden did what I thought Rep. Meeks did earlier -- make statements based on news reports rather than on information confirmed by the US.
A senior U.S. official told me that in his comments the President was referring to Israeli public reports https://t.co/C0w3iTPUry
I agree that what is known -- invasion, killing civilians, taking hostages -- has justifiably incited Israelis and others to support a strong response. But I think that cutting off food, water, electricity and fuel, in addition to massive attacks on residential areas, have raised basic humanitarian concerns among Israelis and others -- beyond their concern for the hostages -- that Netanyahu is seeking to silence with stories of unimaginable atrocities.
I think the first step on the long journey to a peaceful outcome is a cease-fire, which should be called for now.
In one of your earlier posts the issue of war crimes is discussed. I'm always struck by phrases such as rules of engagement. It seems contradictory to the whole concept of war. We appear to hang onto the idea that there are rules and laws that govern war. Looking at the actions of the terrorists it seems like a quaint notion.
Is this response by Israel considered proportional response according to the military?
I'm about to read Proportionality of Response, what it really means. In The Times of Israel.
It is impossible for me to imagine Israel not responding in a show of force. Israel is surrounded by neighbors who want nothing more than to see her destroyed.
As for a cease fire, logically speaking a cease fire should facilitate hostage negotiations but is the behavior of Hamas logical. They held Gilad Shalit for 5 years and got over 1000 prisoners in an exchange for his release.
Maybe for cease fires to work both sides have to be weary of fighting. I don't feel Hamas fits that definition.
Israel has the right to defend itself and to respond with force. But the scale and power of the force Israel is applying is so much beyond what Hamas has done/is doing, combined with Israel's cutoff of food, water and electricity, the issue of proportionality is kind of moot, IMO.
Saudi Arabia, instead of establishing relations with Israel, is holding talks with Iran on a common approach to the war.
If Israel agrees to a cease-fire it can negotiate as the aggrieved victim and put Hamas on the defensive. If Israel tries to destroy Gaza, it will lose that advantage and in the process put the hostages at risk.
There have been many cease-fires with Hamas before, but instead of committing to ending the occupation and helping to create a Palestinian state, Israel built more settlements taking more Palestinian land, strengthening Hamas in the process. If that dynamic is reversed, a cease-fire can hold and create opportunities for a real peace.
For my whole life, Israel has been in conflict with the Muslim countries. My thinking is that Muslim countries like Iran are simply using the Palestinians as pawns in this Middle East power chess game.
I do have a question: If I am a Palestinian, can I immigrate to another Muslim country such as Iran? I think that if I was a Palestinian, I would immigrate to another country as soon as I could. Constant wars are why many people immigrated to the US.
There are 150,000 - 300,000 Christian Palestinians in Gaza who would not want to live in Iran.
"The counsel we Americans should offer Israel is threefold and admittedly difficult to follow. First, Israel has right on its side when it goes after its assailants. Second, urban combat has a poor record in achieving its goals — and a considerable history of horrendous casualties. Third, if your moral compass is attuned to the suffering of only one side, your compass is broken, and so is your humanity."
For my whole life, Israel has been in conflict with the Muslim countries. My thinking is that Muslim countries like Iran are simply using the Palestinians as pawns in this Middle East power chess game.
I do have a question: If I am a Palestinian, can I immigrate to another Muslim country such as Iran? I think that if I was a Palestinian, I would immigrate to another country as soon as I could. Constant wars are why many people immigrated to the US.
In general, if you are a {member of a group} who wants to immigrate to {country with more opportunity}, it's a tough road where you'll face unremitting hostility and danger. Maybe you'll drown in the Mediterranean. Maybe you'll get caught on razor wire and drown on the Rio Grande. Probably you won't make it even that far. And all the while the comfortably well off in safe stable countries will scream and cry about invasions and drug mules and who knows what (and, if point out how that's xenophobic and racist, then they really get upset). And if you manage to get past all that, you'll have difficulty finding legal work (and then be blamed for not working legally, or be accused of seeking to mooch off the public dole).
For Gaza in particular, the borders are sealed. It's almost impossible to leave. Even before current events, the borders were tightly controlled, both on the Israeli and Egyptian side. And, as I already noted, if you do leave there's not a bunch of destinations willing to welcome you.
But you're right if you detect something actionable here -- countries like the U.S could do a lot more to make themselves real destinations of refuge, reaping not just the moral benefits, but the economic ones as well -- after all, the kind of person who can go through all that is likely also the kind who can contribute a lot to their new society.
I have no love for Netanyahu. I've been angry with him since the murder of Rabin.
It's possible he may be kicked out of office after this whole affair winds down.
It's possible he may exploit this whole affair to help himself survive.
"Four out of five Jewish Israelis believe the government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are to blame for the mass infiltration of Hamas terrorists and the massacre of Israel's South, a new Dialog Center poll released on Thursday found.
An overwhelming majority of 86% of respondents, including 79% of coalition supporters, said the surprise attack from Gaza is a failure of the country's leadership, while a staggering 92% said the war is causing anxiety.
The survey, which polled 620 Israeli Jews from across the country, also found that a majority of respondents believed Netanyahu should resign following the conclusion of Operation Shields of Iron.
A slim majority of 56% said Netanyahu must resign at the end of the war, with 28% of coalition voters agreeing with this view."
Israeli forces extract dead bodies of residents from a destroyed house in the Kfar Aza community Ilia Yefimovich/picture-alliance/dpa/AP
JerusalemCNN —
The Israeli government has not confirmed the specific claim that Hamas attackers cut off the heads of babies during their shock attack on Saturday, an Israeli official told CNN, contradicting a previous public statement by the Prime Minister’s office.
“There have been cases of Hamas militants carrying out beheadings and other ISIS-style atrocities. However, we cannot confirm if the victims were men or women, soldiers or civilians, adults or children,” the official said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated that people had been beheaded by Hamas in an appearance beside Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday, but did not specify if they were children.
The explosive allegations that children had been decapitated at the kibbutz of Kfar Aza emerged Tuesday in Israeli media. Israel Defense Forces later described the scene as a “massacre” in a statement to CNN. Women, children toddlers and the elderly were “brutally butchered in an ISIS way of action,” the IDF said.
Tal Heinrich, a spokeswoman for Netanyahu, said on Wednesday that babies and toddlers had been found with their “heads decapitated” in Kfar Aza.
US President Joe Biden appeared to confirm that information. In a roundtable with Jewish community leaders on Wednesday, he said: “I have been doing this a long time, I never really thought that I would see… have confirmed pictures of terrorist beheading children.”
A US administration official later clarified Biden’s remarks, telling CNN that neither Biden nor his aides had seen pictures or had received confirmed reports of children or infants having been beheaded by Hamas. The official clarified that Biden was referring to public comments from media outlets and Israeli officials.
An IDF spokesman, Jonathan Conricus, later in the day said terrorists had likely carried out decapitations of babies in the Be’eri kibbutz.
“We got very very disturbing reports that came from the ground that there were babies that had been beheaded… I think we can now say with relative confidence that unfortunately this is what happened in Be’eri,” he said.
Israeli officials initially avoided discussing the specifics of how its citizens were killed. They instead likened Hamas’ brutality to that of ISIS, the Sunni terror group that beheaded captives and burned prisoners alive.
Hamas on Wednesday denied the allegations. Izzat al-Risheq, a senior official and spokesperson for the Islamist militant group, said that the international media had “spread lies about our Palestinian people and the resistance claiming that members of the Palestinian resistance beheaded children and attacked women with no evidence to support such claims and lies.”
If you don't approach with skepticism unconfirmed media reports of atrocities by the other side used to justify war crimes by your side you are doing it wrong.
For my whole life, Israel has been in conflict with the Muslim countries. My thinking is that Muslim countries like Iran are simply using the Palestinians as pawns in this Middle East power chess game.
I do have a question: If I am a Palestinian, can I immigrate to another Muslim country such as Iran? I think that if I was a Palestinian, I would immigrate to another country as soon as I could. Constant wars are why many people immigrated to the US.
There are 150,000 - 300,000 Christian Palestinians in Gaza who would not want to live in Iran.
Here is a good explanation of why Palestinians can't or won't leave.
If you don't approach with skepticism unconfirmed media reports of atrocities by the other side used to justify war crimes by your side you are doing it wrong.
Hamas leaders seen as living in luxury while Gazans suffer
"GAZA--Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh famously pledged to live on “zeit wa zaatar”— olive oil and dried herbs — after he led the Islamic militant group to victory on a message of armed struggle and austerity during 2006 Palestinian elections.
But he has since left the impoverished Gaza Strip and, along with some other Hamas leaders, is living in luxury as he splits his time between Turkey and Qatar. With new elections planned this spring, Hamas will struggle to campaign as a scrappy underdog that is above trading its principles for material comforts.
Haniyeh, who became Palestinian prime minister after the 2006 election and is now the overall leader of Hamas, left Gaza in 2019 for what Hamas said was a temporary foreign tour. He has yet to return.
A recent video that surfaced on social media showed Haniyeh playing soccer on a well-groomed field beneath the glass skyscrapers of gas-rich Qatar — worlds away from the Beach Refugee Camp in Gaza City, where he was born and still maintains a family home. Another video from Monday showed him in a tailored suit surrounded by bodyguards and being welcomed by Qatari dignitaries at a red-carpet event."
Musk, by the way, made Tesla charging stations free in Israel, after the Hamas attack:
"Tesla declared that all 22 of its Supercharger stations in Israel will be available for free, reported electrek. Tesla in the past offered free Supercharging in regions where Tesla owners may need to quickly evacuate dangerous areas. This includes areas facing natural disasters like hurricanes in Florida and California wildfires, as well as conflict zones such as during the Russian invasion of Ukraine."
How can peaceful co-existence be achieved in the region? The current trajectory leads only to the peace of the grave. Given the evolution of weaponry, that leads to almost everybody being dead or one side being utterly "victorious", I suppose, but no longer able to recognize the kind of people they have become.
How can peaceful co-existence be achieved in the region? The current trajectory leads only to the peace of the grave. Given the evolution of weaponry, that leads to almost everybody being dead or one side being utterly "victorious", I suppose, but no longer able to recognize the kind of people they have become.
Israel has the right to defend itself and to respond with force. But the scale and power of the force Israel is applying is so much beyond what Hamas has done/is doing, combined with Israel's cutoff of food, water and electricity, the issue of proportionality is kind of moot, IMO.
Saudi Arabia, instead of establishing relations with Israel, is holding talks with Iran on a common approach to the war.
If Israel agrees to a cease-fire it can negotiate as the aggrieved victim and put Hamas on the defensive. If Israel tries to destroy Gaza, it will lose that advantage and in the process put the hostages at risk.
There have been many cease-fires with Hamas before, but instead of committing to ending the occupation and helping to create a Palestinian state, Israel built more settlements taking more Palestinian land, strengthening Hamas in the process. If that dynamic is reversed, a cease-fire can hold and create opportunities for a real peace.
I'm impressed with your optimism! Not being snarky, I love optimism but forgive me if I'm all out for the moment.
By the way I just saw an interview of Noura Erakat on MSNBC. If you see it let me know what you think of her framing of the argument. It was the conclusion, her demands, that really threw me. I'm curious to see what your interpretation of it is. Mine led me to consider throwing my flip flop at the screen.
"Tesla declared that all 22 of its Supercharger stations in Israel will be available for free, reported electrek. Tesla in the past offered free Supercharging in regions where Tesla owners may need to quickly evacuate dangerous areas. This includes areas facing natural disasters like hurricanes in Florida and California wildfires, as well as conflict zones such as during the Russian invasion of Ukraine."
How can peaceful co-existence be achieved in the region? The current trajectory leads only to the peace of the grave. Given the evolution of weaponry, that leads to almost everybody being dead or one side being utterly "victorious", I suppose, but no longer able to recognize the kind of people they have become.
- Destroy Hamas.
-Have free elections in Gaza.
-No more settlements in the West Bank.
-Get rid of Netanyahu.
-Get rid of Abbas.
It's a start.
the "no more settlements" ship sailed long ago. Look at any map of settlement expansion and you'll see why the current map can never be acceptable to Palestinians. And forget about the notion of removing settlements. If they try to remove even a remote unoccupied settlement outpost with a rusty trailer and a couple goats, settlers take up arms against the government and it's a big brouhaha.
Mearsheimer @2:39: "The really did get caught with their pants down." Can't argue with that, although it seems that Netanyahu was obviously ignoring Gaza to focus on his own troubles and on the settlements in the West Bank.
Mearsheimer @17:07: "Everybody understands if we pull the plug on the Ukrainians they're doomed they don't have the weaponry they don't have the financial resources to continue this fight and the Russians will roll over them."
Also, something about Putin wanting the United Nations resolutions and Palestinian sovereignty respected in Israel.
I’m wondering how long it will take Mearsheimer to figure out that Iran is the culprit behind this attack on Israel? I don’t see how Israel can have any security unless Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian IRGC have been neutralized. The IRGC has been running operations in Syria and Lebanon also for years, the Israeli military knows more about these barbarians than we do sitting in our recliners. It’s no coincidence that Israel is destroying the airstrips in Syria now, next up is Lebanon, that’s why they’re telling the Palestinian people to evacuate the north. I’m afraid this is going to be a very dangerous long term war. But it had to happen eventually. Full scale war, to the last man standing.
How can peaceful co-existence be achieved in the region? The current trajectory leads only to the peace of the grave. Given the evolution of weaponry, that leads to almost everybody being dead or one side being utterly "victorious", I suppose, but no longer able to recognize the kind of people they have become.
- Destroy Hamas.
-Have free elections in Gaza.
-No more settlements in the West Bank.
-Get rid of Netanyahu.
-Get rid of Abbas.
It's a start.
the "no more settlements" ship sailed long ago. Look at any map of settlement expansion and you'll see why the current map can never be acceptable to Palestinians. And forget about the notion of removing settlements. If they try to remove even a remote unoccupied settlement outpost with a rusty trailer and a couple goats, settlers take up arms against the government and it's a big brouhaha.
The map can accommodate a Palestinian state if the settlements are opened up to Palestinians.
Lindsay Graham knows how to do it (click the link to hear Lindsay's wisdom):