talkpolitics | Entries tagged with palestine

It seems Israel and Hamas have now agreed to a deal that will pause fighting in Gaza and lead to the phased release of hostages and Palestinian prisoners:

https://wtop.com/israel-hamas-war/2025/01/gaza-ceasefire-negotiations-hit-last-minute-snag-delaying-anticipated-deal-to-pause-war/

This deal was brokered by Qatar, so credit should go there (before anyone mentions Trump).

Anyway. Implementation is likely to start this Sunday. Hamas is expected to release 33 hostages during the 1st phase of an the deal. Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners will also bv\e released from Israeli jails at the same time.

The release of the hostages would be the first phase of the deal being finalized. Negotiations to reach the 2nd phase (intended to end the war) would begin on the 16th day of the implementation of the deal.

More will come in the next few days.

tcpip

After a year of warfare between Israel and Hamas, with casualties at around fifty thousand, both sides have been accused of "terrorism". In order to make any sense of these claims, a definition is required by which the claims can be evaluated, whether the terrorist actions have any justification, and what the international community can do about the loss of civilian life, especially in an environment of partisan realism.

There is no universal definition of "terrorism". However, a synthesis of various statements found in international law, the United Nations, academic experts etc, can be made as follows: Terrorism is the systematic use of intimidating violence against civilian non-combatants for the purpose of inducing political change. By "systematic" what is meant is that the terrorist actions are a planned, organised, deliberate, and strategic decision. By "intimidating violence" it is noted the purpose of terrorism is to intimidate the population and to create a climate of fear. By "non-combatants", the target is identified.

( Step inside the massacre zone )

Politicians in wealthy Western countries are generally conservative creatures. They depend on re-election and typically prefer it if there is not much disruption to their social system. Public opinion in this context matters; as early as January this year, Israel suffered a widespread loss of support around the globe because of its response. Bringing awareness through conversation, lobbying MPs, demonstrations, supporting the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, and ultimately action by trade unions are among effective actions that those in the most developed countries in the world can offer solidarity to those who are being subject to State-sponsored terrorism in Gaza. As the Israeli state lurches onwards in a terrorist war with no clear end-game, just constant violence, future generations will justly ask, just as they did after WWII; "what did you do when genocide was being committed?"

fridi

See, I've got a very squicky theory about Graham: Was McCain the only one tell him to take his meds? :p

Lindsey Graham suggests Israel should nuke Gaza and claims Hiroshima bomb was ‘the right thing’

In all seriousness, there are some times that it seems like not a lot of anything is going on in his brain these days. From my understanding, Hiroshima was the first bomb dropped, so that was needed to coerce Japan into surrendering, or else risk the loss of life of too many soldiers. If I remember correctly, Japan was basically in the middle of surrendering when the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, and that was not the one that was needed, at least not so soon to Hiroshima. Memory of this history lesson is fuzzy, however.

But back to Graham. Even if he didn't mean it, it's psycho to even talk about nuking a country as a talking point. The second anyone drops a nuke on anyone, we will be in WWIII because all the radicals in the Mid-East will go no holds barred.

Like... don't even joke. We do not want to see those horrors. Pardon my language but these total fucking privileged, bougie idiots in Washington know nothing about the horrors of war. And if war happens, they will be the most comfortable and protected while the rest of the world deals with it. They need to visit the Hiroshima museum and maybe Auschwitz too while they're at it and get a goddamn reality check.

mahnmut

Hamas willing to dissolve military wing if Palestinian state is established on 1967 borders: Turkish FM

If the Arabs had accepted Israel's right to exist in the 40s, things might be quite different. Now they are left scrabbling to pull together enough landmass to actually call a country and the US is most definitely not pushing Israel in any serious way to look at a 2-state solution.

I tend to think so as well in the current environment anyway. Palestinian leadership hasn't done a very good job at building trust, though at the same time the same could be said of Israeli leadership; especially over the past few years as the West Bank has become less viable because of the continued growth of Jewish settlers. Trying to get to a two state solution is now a far more complicated process because it would mean having to remove a certain percentage of Jewish settlers, and with Gaza as an example of what can go wrong, it's going to be a tough sell even for moderate Israelis interested in peace.

Palestinians have equal amounts of distrust given the current government's undermining of the PA through the support of Hamas. Continually keeping that wedge will make it hard to accept the idea Israel is a willing partner in Palestinian sovereignty, and since the hardliners do not want that, selling the idea that they'll once again live under Israeli control isn't a very good pitch. I don't see this going forward right now; the bigger task is an end to the fighting and rebuilding of Gaza. Obviously new leadership has to be selected, but it's not clear who that will be. As we've seen in many Middle Eastern countries, the installation of puppet regimes isn't going to last.

oportet

Most American political disagreements may fall into the boring old left vs. right, but Israel vs Palestine is one of the exceptions. We're still divided - it's just more diagonal than vertical.

If you're an optimist, you could say we're united differently; On one side you have 'I miss Reagan' Republicans and 'I believe in Science!' Democrats cheering on the Jews, on the other side Bernie bros and Gadsden flag wavers are sympathizing with Palestinians.

Either way this is a tough line for Joe to walk - sending piles of weapons to Israel but condemning the use of them just enough to keep the Team Palestine block content.

Can he do it? If we're at 100,000 dead Palestinians come November, can he wag the finger at Netanyahu enough or give away enough free shit here at home(loan forgiveness!) to hold on to the votes of people that think of him as 'Genocide Joe'? Michigan and Pennsylvania both have more Muslims than the number of votes he won by there last time - is a resolution to this war sooner than later necessary for him to keep them?

fridi

Hamas has shocked the world in early October with the mass murder of hundreds of Israelis. Despite its brutal terrorist attack, however, the radical Islamist Palestinian movement can count on influential supporters and lucrative investments in the Middle East. Hamas has been declared a terrorist organization by the US, EU, Israel, the UK, Canada and a ton of other countries.

When "Hamas" attacked Israel on October 7, even a part of Germany rejoiced. Enthusiastic Muslims distributed candy in the streets of Berlin. And in Hamburg, people rejoiced in the killing of hundreds of women, children and entire families, as could be seen from TV reports.

So it's no surprise that Hamas can still rely on donations from Muslims around the world to finance its terrorist activities, including in other Western countries: for example the largest Islamic charity in the US, the Holy Land Foundation, had been transferring millions of dollars into the Palestinian Territories from the 80s until it was banned in 2001. The money was supposedly intended to support social institutions in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, but it was under the control of Hamas. Because of this, money often ended up in the families of suicide bombers as a perfidious form of bereavement.

( Read more... )

fridi

The situation in Israel right now is really bad, as Hamas terrorists have infiltrated the South-West of Israel and killed several hundreds of civilians in a surprise 9/11 or Pearl Harbor style terror attack and launched 5000 rockets into Israel.

LINK

The videos on social media were really bad. They showed hundreds of Muslim terrorists from Gaza breaking border barriers and killing Israeli soldiers, ripping them out of their patrol cars and tanks, slitting their throats and beating their dead bodies and dragging them through Gaza.

The same with civilians in Israel: numerous Muslim terror squads have infiltrated Israeli cities and they were hunting down Israelis in their houses, shooting them dead and slitting their throats.

Israel is now officially at war. This is going to get bloody, and fast.

mahnmut

Now that we've been assured by Dear Leader that the State of the Union has never been more awesome, let's look at Dear Leader's foreign policy - his Middle East policies, to be precise.

See, Dear Leader's Middle East policy, or his approach to the Palestine peace process in particular, is determined by three main principles.

( Read more... )

mahnmut.livejournal.com

Israel is going to have more of the same for the next 4 yaers, it seems: from deep freezing of the peace negotiations with the Palestinians, to a hard stance on the ongoing tedious negotiations about Iran's nuclear program, to additional tensions with Obama's administration and the EU.

Rather than turning a new page (as most forecasts suggested), the Israeli voters handed another victory to Likud, the center-right (and now, right-wing-leaning) party of Bibi Netan-yahoo. That came as a surprise to most analysts, given the polls which seemed to suggest a stalemate with the main opposition party, the center-left Zionist Union. In the days before the vote, Likud was trailing on #2 in the polls. But Bibi sharply hardened his tone in the final week, and managed to mobilize the votes of the ultranationalist far-right. And now his supporters will be expecting him to fulfill his categorical election promises.

The snap election was called at the end of last year, because Netanyahu wanted to form a more stable government after some tensions with some key partners in the center-right coalition had emerged. Now the final results give 30 out of 120 seats to Likud, and 24 to the ZU. On the 3rd place (14 seats) comes a morass of parties dominated by the Israeli Arabs, who are united for the first time. All of this gives Netanyahu a mandate to form a center-right coalition government, but first he'll have to collect 61 seats to form a majority. He's about to chair a cabinet for the 4th time, and become the longest-serving Israeli PM.

( Things are not looking good over there )

airiefairie.livejournal.com

Palestinians present ICC membership request to UN

The old bluff, it turns out, was no bluff at all. On the last day of last year, the Palestinian autonomy officially requested membership at the International Criminal Court, and the UN Secretary General Ban Kim Moon announced that they would be joining that institution in April. Looks like a risky move, because it will inevitably increase the tensions with Israel, since that status would allow the Palestinians to sue Israeli citizens for war crimes.

Still, the Palestinians must be tired at this point, and devoid of other options. They have already requested an investigation of all purported Israeli crimes since last June, which includes the Israeli military campaign against Gaza from last summer. But that also potentially makes them vulnerable to the same charges. The US, in turn, are expectedly critical of these steps of the autonomy. And the analysts are debating whether this course of action would ultimately increase or undermine the success of the Palestinian cause, the creation of an independent sovereign state.

( Read more... )

luzribeiro.livejournal.com

Seems like Cuba is pulling the brakes on the recently heralded warming up of its relations with the US. The historic breakthrough may've prompted many in Havana to sound the alarm: what would happen if Obama's new approach to Cuba puts all achievements of the revolution in question? Cuba is afraid it could remain without its sworn enemy. And for a reason. After all, the US has been one of the main foundations that the Castro regime has long been using to legitimize its grip on power.

Without its crusade against American imperialism, the regime would find it hard to explain to its people how come there's still a one-party state there. If the US embargo is lifted, there'll be no more excuse for the ailing economy and the finacial failures. Which is why the hardliners in Havana don't really seem to want a normalization of the relations with the US. Since the very beginning of the negotiations, a speaker of the Cuban foreign ministry pointed out that establishing normal diplomatic relations shouldn't necessarily mean normalization of the political relations.

After half a century of socialism, Cuba cannot and does not want to abandon its ideological principles - not without putting the very existence of its system in jeopardy. The Castro regime is doing their best to protect their power, while the US is mostly pursuing economic and geopolitical interests. So the normalization of the diplomatic relations has its merits for both sides, but for different reasons.

( Read more... )

underlankers.livejournal.com

http://www.wsj.com/articles/israeli-palestinian-leaders-to-show-gesture-of-solidarity-to-france-1420977133

So, fifty world leaders gathered together to march in opposition to the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine. Among them were none other than Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu (let's just keep in mind here that Abu Mazzen was the architect of the Munich terrorist attack, which illustrates how bizarre this is). So once again, as with Hezbollah, there are some truly bizarre instances of people objecting to a terrorist attack on free speech, even when one would expect both people in question to not really care that much. After all, Netanyahu's busy trying to turn Israel into a classic nationalist Volkstaat, where again, Abbas was the man behind a terrorist attack on Olympics atheletes.

One thing's for sure, this incident certainy leads to a great many headlines that would be otherwise difficult to believe. One wonders if Netanyahu's opponents in the upcoming Israeli election will holds this against him.

johnny9fingers.livejournal.com

Saw these:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/24/isis-women-girls-fgm-mosul-un

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28466434

Wherein is described ISIS's issuing of a Fatwa that all women between the ages of 11 and 46 have to have FGM. (Female genital mutilation.)

My own opinion is that the men ordering this to happen should be castrated. But I accept that for some people my position is a trifle extreme. However, just as I have little tolerance for the Israeli actions in Gaza and the West Bank, I have absolutely no tolerance for this sort of behaviour. In fact I'm seething with so much anger that if Israel started shelling these ISIS arseholes, I'd be standing back and applauding the Israelis. And if the US and the EU started arming Assad's Syrian regime properly, I'd be happy for them to. And even if the US and EU carpet bombed the "Caliphate", I'd raise a toast to the US and EU forces, and wish them well.

I guess that sometimes my enemy's enemy is, if not my friend, then at least someone I'm prepared to buy a beer for and not comment too much or too often on the fact he beats his kids...with a hammer...in public. And in comparison to ISIS and the extremist Fundamentalist Muslims Israel seems like a beacon of hope. And yet I really hate what Israel is doing to it's Palestinian population.

So, I'm conflicted, as the argot has it. Cognitive dissonance is paralysing me. I know the two situations (ISIS and Israel/Gaza) are distinct and separate, nevertheless I can't help but link them together because of proximity and religion.

Do you feel the way I do? And should we just bomb all the evil bastards back to the stone-age? Or just drone-strike all the religious leaders and politicians who contribute to this clusterfuck of evil? (For that matter, have we enough drones?)

Someone please tell me this is actually the 21st century, not some mediæval theme park with modern weaponry. Aargh!

tcpip.livejournal.com

Pretty, isn't she? But as someone once said, "better watch out for the skin deep".

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/07/08/israeli-lawmaker-calls-for-genocide-of-palestinians-gets-5000-facebook-likes/

Somewhere, in an attic, is an incredibly ugly portrait...

Isn't rather just a little ironic of a person of this background to be effectively calling for genocide and collective punishment?

What is it that lets people place their nationality, ethnicity, religion as being more important that what is common between all people?

The UK Conservative MP Sir Robin John Maxwell-Hyslop, recalled his visit to the Knesset.

'After lunch, the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee spoke with great intemperance about the Arabs. When he drew a breath, I was constrained to say, 'Dr Hacohen, I am profoundly shocked that you should preach of other human beings in terms similar to those in which (Nazi) Julius Streicher spoke of the Jews. Have you learned nothing?' I shall remember his reply to my dying day. He smote the table with both hands and said, 'But they are not human beings, they are not people, they are Arabs.' (Hansard, Commons, 18 October 1973)

johnny9fingers.livejournal.com

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27883685

Now, I wonder, in the light of this small story, how the US Christian supporters of Israel react to the occupation of land held by generations of folk being forcibly removed from them?

And, for example, does that fact that these particular Palestinians are Christians, rather than Muslims, change your opinion about their entitlement to keep land upon which they have farmed for generations?

Hath not a Palestinian eyes? Hath not a Palestinian hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as an Israeli is?

You see, it is my opinion that a family who has lived on their land for a generation or three may have to put up with paying for grazing rights on public land, but to have the military come in and appropriate your family's land, your housing, and your livelihood (because land is a farmer's livelihood) wouldn't be something that certain small-government types could happily support: but I may be wrong about that. After all, some of these Palestinian types are almost brown, you know.

luzribeiro.livejournal.com

http://www.nimn.org/articles/whats_new/000637.php

What the UN rapporteur has concluded has been no secret for quite a while, but some particular factors in the West (especially the US) have remained rather reluctant to name things with their true names - the reasons for which I'm leaving to the audience to analyze for themselves. The point is, even a brief look at the situation in the West Bank calls some stunning memories about the apartheid era, especially in someone who has actually seen it first-hand, even if for a brief period in her early life (thankfully). And, though the statement now comes directly from a UN official, I'm not surprised that I won't be seeing anyone holding their breath about any change in the situation coming any time soon.

( And the situation has been unbearable for quite a while )

underlankers.livejournal.com

In the 1921 election for Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the guy who's now infamous as one of Hitler's propaganda bosses came in fourth. This scenario would be if the Nahashibis, the alternative to the Husseinis, had managed to be the ones to build the prototypical Palestinian leadership. Relative to the Husseinis the Nahashibis were more in tune with geopolitical pragmatism, and if a Palestinian leadership had arisen that did show an interest in a partition of Palestine in order to force the Zionists to recognize that at least something of an Arab presence in Palestine had always been there, what would have happened? Herbert Samuels chose Al-Husseini for the reason that an incompetent leader would be worse for the Palestinians than one who might be competent, so since he was free to disregard the will of the Muslims in Palestine historically, this scenario relies on him adhering to it.

To me I think that a more rational Palestinian leadership would have had a number of impacts that would have been to the good of Palestinians. Imposing the likes of Husseini and Shuqeri on them ensured that an incompetent thug like Arafat, the only guy who bothered to be obviously not beholden to someone else or with a power base that amounted to that, was to assume power in the 1960s. I'm not saying that this would necessarily prevent the rise of *an* Israel of some sort. David Ben Gurion and his like had a lot going for them. It would be extremely unlikely that a change within the Mandate of Palestine butterflies away either Hitler or Stalin, though it would be more interesting if it did (though the conceptual leaps here escape me). But in this context, ironically, the British would have for once done something in tune with the will of the Arabs in a region and thus less likely to backfire on them and on the post-colonial order in the region in the long term.

What do you guys think? Do you think that if Palestinian history had begun with a Mufti named Nahashibi instead of Husseini that the sad history of Israel and the Palestinians would have been different in a bbetter way, a worse way, or about the same?

nairiporter.livejournal.com

"At long last, the international community has signed the act that paves the way to a Palestinian state - and long overdue". This is how Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas commented on the UN vote from last month, where the Palestinian autonomy was upgraded to "observer" status. Still not a full member, but definitely a progress. Israel, of course, was quick to retaliate, followed by vast international condemnation.

The point is, this UN move indirectly acknowledges that the Palestinians are in control of a certain territory. And it is not the UN itself that is recognising the emerging of a new future country - it is all the separate states. The vote has a deep symbolic meaning too. And in the Middle East, symbolism is important.

( What does Palestine gain and what does it lose )

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Talk politics.

A place to discuss politics without egomaniacal mods.

Entries tagged with palestine

Good!

Terrorism and the Israel-Hamas War

This guy is insane

Sorry, I think the horse has bolted

Biden's Uphill Battle?

Where do Hamas' millions come from?

This is bad

Bibi gets all the Trump cards

Hawk rising

An offensive with many risks

Cuba needs its old foe

Irony level: Turtledove

Two posts in a week...'strewth

Israeli lawmaker calls for genocide of the Palestinians people

A different perspective on how to be Christian.

The new apartheid

Another Alternate History Scenario: Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Raghib Al-Nahashibi:

A new country emerging

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June 2025

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