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[Frumple]

Israel turbocharges West Bank settlement expansion with largest land grab in decades

And we're talking about almost 5 (five) whole square miles.  Maybe it's an American thing, but that doesn't sound like "a lot".

I mean, for the stateside reference point, it's about .2% of the west bank's total size (~2.2k mi²). If you did that to the US (~3.8 million mi²), it'd be about 7.5k mi².

It'd be about like someone rolling up and taking over new jersey.

So, like. "A lot" is kinda' relative, heh. West bank's only about the size of delaware. Israel + west bank + gaza is like... one Massachusetts or somethin' around that; if they were a combined US state they'd be in the bottom ten in terms of land area. It's not a large region, which can make even "small" violations like that pretty significant.

[Strongpoint]

Who else should Palestinians support in order to protect themselves from what is at best systematic ethnic cleansing by the Israeli regime?

Fatah is an option, getting new leaders is an option, anything but going for pure moral monsters with the most cowardly, dishonorable, disgusting and vile tactics of war that are not only horrendous - they also offer exactly zero chances of winning a war against Israel.

Also, my comment wasn't even about who Palestinians may or may not support.

I am far more worried by Westerners who practice whitewashing or even heroization of Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, etc than by any Palestinians or other Middle Easterns supporting whatever group.

It is morally wrong to "hate" the Israeli Government while "not supporting" Hamas. Hamas is far more evil and deserving of hate. It is far more distant from Western values (both left and right) than Israel ever was. And Hamas also causes the death and suffering of Palestinians, something pro-Palestinians supposedly care about. Normalization of moral monsters as some kind of (anti)heroes or "not so bad guys" IS NOT OK.

[Great Order]

Calm your tits dude, I'm British, I'm naturally given to the understatement.

If you really need me to, I can put my disdain for Hamas in more aggressive ways.

This is what I mean when I complain about both sides when discussing the conflict. You need to put your words really, really carefully or you'll be accused of supporting one side or the other because it seems that the one thing both sides hate is someone sat in the middle.

[Maximum Spin]

That’s not really the point though is it? You’re looking at it the wrong way; they aren’t looking beyond survival here. Even if every Palestinian was a peace-loving love-child of MLK and Gandhi, it doesn’t stop the fact the government in Israel legislates land grabs and supports violent “settlers”.

The choice is to fight back, or lose everything. Today, tomorrow, next week, what does it matter when?

It's not that it matters when. I'm not suggesting that Palestinians should be Gandhis at all. I'm saying that it's not a continuum and whatever support exists for an independence movement has been deftly redirected into a movement to resentfully huddle in Gaza and lob missiles over the border from civilian buildings while Israel continues to do what it wants, instead.

The idea that "the choice is to fight back or lose everything" is the trap which has trapped them into not even fighting back. They aren't just not looking beyond survival, they aren't even looking at survival. They're on another axis completely. The actions of Hamas are directly contrary to Palestinian survival and Gazans either support those actions anyway, knowingly, or have been suckered into supporting them. They aren't "trying, but not succeeding very well" as you seem to be implying, they're doing something completely orthogonal.

And the UN supports the status quo.

[hector13]

Calm your tits dude, I'm British, I'm naturally given to the understatement.

If you really need me to, I can put my disdain for Hamas in more aggressive ways.

This is what I mean when I complain about both sides when discussing the conflict. You need to put your words really, really carefully or you'll be accused of supporting one side or the other because it seems that the one thing both sides hate is someone sat in the middle.

You are too late, you are forever an anti-Semite because you failed to curse them strongly enough one time.

Who else should Palestinians support in order to protect themselves from what is at best systematic ethnic cleansing by the Israeli regime?

Fatah is an option, getting new leaders is an option, anything but going for pure moral monsters with the most cowardly, dishonorable, disgusting and vile tactics of war that are not only horrendous - they also offer exactly zero chances of winning a war against Israel.

Fatah are more palatable, but equally unable to stop Israel from taking Palestinian land and assets.

Where are the new leaders to come from? Hamas isn’t exactly shy about extra-judicial killings for political opponents.

Also, my comment wasn't even about who Palestinians may or may not support.

GO’s comment wasn’t supportive of Hamas either, merely acknowledging why they get it from Palestinians. That didn’t stop you going on a mad rant about Westerners.

I am far more worried by Westerners who practice whitewashing or even heroization of Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, etc than by any Palestinians or other Middle Easterns supporting whatever group.

That’s nice.Again, GO didn’t do that.

Indeed, I’m pretty sure that anyone expressing support for terrorists on the forum gets a visit from the Toad and the banhammer.

It is morally wrong to "hate" the Israeli Government while "not supporting" Hamas. Hamas is far more evil and deserving of hate. It is far more distant from Western values (both left and right) than Israel ever was. And Hamas also causes the death and suffering of Palestinians, something pro-Palestinians supposedly care about. Normalization of moral monsters as some kind of (anti)heroes or "not so bad guys" IS NOT OK.

Nobody said Hamas were “not so bad guys”, nor suggested they were heroic, stop making things up.

Acknowledging the mistreatment of Palestinians as a reason for Hamas’ support is not normalizing them, it’s showing a basic understanding of the human condition.

Morality doesn’t work like that brah. Hamas being Jew-hating terrorists doesn’t make Israel using state power to displace and tacitly support violence against Palestinians any more or less bad, don’t be stupid.

That’s not really the point though is it? You’re looking at it the wrong way; they aren’t looking beyond survival here. Even if every Palestinian was a peace-loving love-child of MLK and Gandhi, it doesn’t stop the fact the government in Israel legislates land grabs and supports violent “settlers”.

The choice is to fight back, or lose everything. Today, tomorrow, next week, what does it matter when?

It's not that it matters when. I'm not suggesting that Palestinians should be Gandhis at all. I'm saying that it's not a continuum and whatever support exists for an independence movement has been deftly redirected into a movement to resentfully huddle in Gaza and lob missiles over the border from civilian buildings while Israel continues to do what it wants, instead.

The idea that "the choice is to fight back or lose everything" is the trap which has trapped them into not even fighting back. They aren't just not looking beyond survival, they aren't even looking at survival. They're on another axis completely. The actions of Hamas are directly contrary to Palestinian survival and Gazans either support those actions anyway, knowingly, or have been suckered into supporting them. They aren't "trying, but not succeeding very well" as you seem to be implying, they're doing something completely orthogonal.

And the UN supports the status quo.

The UN has no power to force either side to do anything so that’s all they can do. Telling someone off doesn’t change their mind about anything.

I’m not saying that supporting Hamas and what they do is in any way a good thing for Palestinians, in Gaza or otherwise, just that support for Hamas is understandable in life-or-death situations, because they are the biggest group fighting back against the entity lobbing bombs back across the border, even though they are usually the ones responsible for those bombs being lobbed over in the first place.

Support for Hamas did increase in the West Bank in the months following the Hamas terrorist attacks, best summarized by the following:

Even his 11-year-old nephew, he said, had little respect for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, but idolises Hamas military spokesman Abu Obeida - "because he protects us".

The current government in Israel doesn’t support a two-state solution, and is more than willing to use their power to try to force out Palestinians from the occupied territories.

It doesn’t matter that fighting back doesn’t achieve anything, because, to the Palestinians, it’s better than rolling over and allowing Israel to take everything.

[Jerick]

It is morally wrong to "hate" the Israeli Government while "not supporting" Hamas. Hamas is far more evil and deserving of hate. It is far more distant from Western values (both left and right) than Israel ever was. And Hamas also causes the death and suffering of Palestinians, something pro-Palestinians supposedly care about. Normalization of moral monsters as some kind of (anti)heroes or "not so bad guys" IS NOT OK.

No, stop that. Deciding one side or the other is more evil is a trap. It's a bad road to go down. Your view of this whole conflict is skewed, everyone's is. It can't be wholely objective none of us have the full picture. Depending on the people you hang out with and the groups you get your info from you're naturally going to hear more about the evils of one side or the other. But deciding one side is more moral allows for, as you put it; the normalization of moral monsters as some kind of (anti)heroes or "not so bad guys". You are right it is absolutely not ok. I've been there, I've fallen into that trap myself.

I grew up just south of the northern Irish border during the troubles and grew up well-fed on stories of Protestant and British cruelty. Never saw much of the troubles or it's direct effects myself I was far too young and safely living in the South but I knew who I supported. I knew the IRA was evil. They were murderers of course they were evil. But I was convinced the people they were killing were worse. It was all revenge killings so they were provoked, right? It was still evil but less evil than straight-up murder, right? It didn't matter that the investigations they did to find the targets for these revenge killings had all the thoroughness of homework scrawled down five minutes before class. Of course, the violence committed by the side I supported was provoked and the violence the other side enacted in turn was unprovoked. It didn't matter that they enacted brutal and arbitrary vigilante justice on their own supporters; The other side was worse so it was all alright. My guys weren't morally perfect but they were better than the other guys, right? Gods I was such a stupid kid. At least it taught me a valuable lesson; not every conflict has a good guy.

I like many others who are critical of Isreal's actions am sick to death of saying "I condemn Hamas". It has become a meme at this point. It should go without saying. They lied in an election about becoming moderate and not implementing a hateful theocracy got elected and then murdered their opposition and started implementing a hateful theocracy. They surveil their citizens closely, and murder political dissidents while their leaders relax in luxury in foreign countries while their people suffer. They stoke the conflict with Israel because the ongoing siege makes revolution basically impossible. They launch attacks that target civilians, they kidnap civilians and use them as hostages. They disgust me. They are parasites that need to be excised from their host so their host can survive. They are moral monsters. But the IDF and the Israeli government are not doing much to actually get rid of Hamas. As stated many of the top leaders don't even live in Gaza, why would they? So as long as there is enough support on the ground they'll just be able rise again and again. As many people have pointed out repeatedly; Israel battering Gaza will only bolster Hamas support.

The IDF and the current Israeli government are moral monsters as well. Comparing which is more evil only serves to give justification to the other moral monster and lets them be the "not so bad guys". I don't care which is more evil, I care which is capable of doing more damage and their willingness to use that capability.

[eerr]

It's a power struggle. It's better not to get involved.

At this point, there is so much bad blood that whoever loses will be oppressed indefinitely.

It's best not to listen to all the news outlets which are clearly pushing government interests.

If the US cuts off support, Israel will have no choice but to cut off supplies and actually make it a famine.

[Strongpoint]

Georgia puts 300 members of the Georgian Legion on the wanted list

Georgia is going into a bad place, a very bad place. I think it is very likely that the country will explode in a major civil  unrest (up to a civil war) after October parliamentary elections

[anewaname]

Maybe Belarus will send troops to Georgia to "protect Russian citizens from persecution", since Russia is busy with the same task in Ukraine. /s

If Ukraine does manage to get back the territories, there will be a lot of purging of "Russians" from those areas.

[Strongpoint]

Russia absolutely can afford to send some troops to Georgia. After all, they keep divisions worth (mostly National Guard) in the North Caucasus just in case of, at this point, very unlikely unrest.

[EuchreJack]

Anyone else think Netanyahu's speech sounded "kinda awful" at addressing the American people?
I mean, if the goal was to impress his citizens back home, I guess it was fine.

[dragdeler]

Wollt ihr den totalen Sieg?

[Strongpoint]

Anyone else think Netanyahu's speech sounded "kinda awful" at addressing the American people?
I mean, if the goal was to impress his citizens back home, I guess it was fine.

Trust me. It didn't. At least not the citizens of Israel I know.

It was very empty. Basic facts about October 7, yada-yada heroes, I thank Biden. I thank Trump. We protect you. We are allies. God bless us.

Spoiler: There also was this part that greatly annoyed me (click to show/hide)

The day after we defeat Hamas, a new Gaza can emerge. My vision for that day is of a demilitarized and deradicalized Gaza. Israel does not seek to resettle Gaza. But for the foreseeable future, we must retain overriding security control there to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.

Gaza should have a civilian administration run by Palestinians who do not seek to destroy Israel. That’s not too much to ask. It’s a fundamental thing that we have a right to demand and to receive.

A new generation of Palestinians must no longer be taught to hate Jews but rather to live in peace with us. Those twin words, demilitarization and deradicalization, those two concepts were applied to Germany and Japan after World War II, and that led to decades of peace, prosperity and security.

Following our victory, with the help of regional partners, the demilitarization and deradicalization of Gaza can also lead to a future of security, prosperity and peace. That’s my vision for Gaza.

Now, here’s my vision for the broader Middle East. It’s also shaped in part by what we saw in the aftermath of World War II. After that war, America forged a security alliance in Europe to counter the growing Soviet threat. Likewise, America and Israel today can forge a security alliance in the Middle East to counter the growing Iranian theat.

Yeah! Sure! Israel is doing just that! Only I fail to see any single step for moving in this direction except declarations. Real plan seems to be to inflict maximum damage to minimize the threat, build a better wall and do absolutely nothing for long-term solution.

I can't wait to see this man kicked out of politics. Nothing good can come for Israel or the region if he stays in power

[Strongpoint]

After months of trying, Hezbollah got a successful strike... that killed 10 Israeli (Druze to be more precise) children with many more wounded and in critical condition

I expect either massive airstrikes or an invasion of the Israeli army in Southern Lebanon within a week or two

[Maximum Spin]

After months of trying, Hezbollah got a successful strike... that killed 10 Israeli (Druze to be more precise) children with many more wounded and in critical condition

I expect either massive airstrikes or an invasion of the Israeli army in Southern Lebanon within a week or two

Yeah, the Druze are one of those subjects nobody really likes talking about - like that, if Israel gave the Golan Heights back, the Druze there would most likely get massacred.