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Author Topic: Non-EU europe thread (with Russia, Israel and Australia included)  (Read 273950 times)

Starver

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Re: Non-EU europe thread (with Russia, Israel and Australia included)
« Reply #2520 on: July 28, 2024, 05:45:54 pm »

Syria should be partitioned.

Hmmm... Drawing arbitrary lines on the map is what got the likes of Syria, and all that kind of jazz, in the first place.
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Strongpoint

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Re: Non-EU europe thread (with Russia, Israel and Australia included)
« Reply #2521 on: July 28, 2024, 05:58:48 pm »

I agree that Syria is not a safe country now, but it is not a good excuse to legitimize occupation.

Also, it is interesting you are bothered by Israelis being forced to flee if it is returned and not for the Arabs who fled from the occupation being able to return to their homes. What you think about the Russians who went to Donbass  and will probably flee if Ukraine gain this land back?

If after 50 years you didn't settle and start a new life as a refugee and need a "right to return", something is very, very wrong with you.

As for Russians... You are comparing different situations. Let's start with the most obvious difference - ethnic cleansing was mutual. Arabs expelled hundreds of thousands of Jews from their countries. Should Jews also return to their homes in Arab countries kicking new occupants out?

Another obvious difference is time. If Soviet block collapsed in 1965, it would have sense for Ukrainians to go to Poles and be "hey, you know, those Ukrainians you deported should return home". Doing it in 1991 would be... rather idiotic. Time legitimizes occupation. It is just how it works. One of the many reasons why 'ceasefire' will be a defeat for Ukraine. Few decades and those lands will be as returnable as Kuban or Bilhorod are now.

Also, Israel doesn't kidnap Arab children, doesn't burn Arab books, doesn't force conscript Arabs to fight other Arabs... They merely respond to resistance where it is present. Different type of occupation means different types of consequences when\if it ends and the necessity of ending the occupation is also different.

Finally, Russians (and Arabs) have a lot of land to live on. Israeli... not really.


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Hmmm... Drawing arbitrary lines on the map is what got the likes of Syria, and all that kind of jazz, in the first place.

Then draw non-arbitary ones. Look at what people live where and draw accordingly.
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Maximum Spin

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Re: Non-EU europe thread (with Russia, Israel and Australia included)
« Reply #2522 on: July 28, 2024, 07:55:15 pm »

Syria should be partitioned.

Hmmm... Drawing arbitrary lines on the map is what got the likes of Syria, and all that kind of jazz, in the first place.
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Hmmm... Drawing arbitrary lines on the map is what got the likes of Syria, and all that kind of jazz, in the first place.

Then draw non-arbitary ones. Look at what people live where and draw accordingly.
Right, I'd want to draw actual lines that make sense. There's simply no rational argument that Syria is a unitary territory.

That said, I do think the main part of Syria would be better off under the administration of Lebanon or something along those lines.
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Starver

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Re: Non-EU europe thread (with Russia, Israel and Australia included)
« Reply #2523 on: July 29, 2024, 05:12:32 am »

Quote
Hmmm... Drawing arbitrary lines on the map is what got the likes of Syria, and all that kind of jazz, in the first place.

Then draw non-arbitary ones. Look at what people live where and draw accordingly.

Right, I'd want to draw actual lines that make sense. There's simply no rational argument that Syria is a unitary territory.

The point, from my perspective, which goes against both your perspectives (agreeing and disagreeing) is that what is arbitrary can also be considered arbitrary. "Our people have always[1] lived here, you must formalise this as part of our territory." "Our people always[1] did live here, you should not now formalise it as part of their territory, just because they got away with an expulsion, last year/ten years ago/a generation ago/following WW2(/WW1/Napoleon/Alexander The Great/The rise of the Chin Dynasty)."

Populations have long been ragged round the edges and blended (prior to actual fences/walls/deathstrips applied to more or less arbitrary territorial limits). That stretch of fertile land might definitely be Nation A's because Nation A has (on balance) more historic and contemporary claim to it, but then the river changed its course/relative distribution of flow slightly and Nation B has good standing of their own to insist upon the modern body sticking to the thalweg (never mind the logistical issues where it now needs a new river crossing just to let Farmer A reach his historic family orchards that are (by choosing river-boundary definitions, but adding on such documented ownership rights as they are) exclaves that now would seem to have better access from Farmer B's homestead in the neighbouring territory.

Actual mountainous watersheds are probably fairly firm (give or take a tussle about where upon the flattened saddle of a pass to set down the palings, concrete posts and/or barbed wire), if each side of a different people. Ignoring those times when (by marriage or conflict) posession was unified and basic trade led to social union prior to a later split (by uprising or divided-inheritance at the ruling class level) which kept the waters just a bit too much muddy to satisfy everybody.


Though it doesn't primarily redefine Syria itself (above prior and more recent territorial redrawings), one can imagine that Sykes-Picot could be either utterly dismissed, in favour of the concerns that Sykes and Picot were effectively disenfranchising with their scribbled lines, else that SP should be taken as a more legitimate delineation than various subsequent changes (is at least a fall-back option) or yet otherwise go with later changes (Mandate/post-Mandate revisions of claims) or even practical considerations from now (sprawling multigenerational refugee camps must now officially belong to whatever group(s) find themselves born and living within them, in a partially similar and partially flipled copy of the Gazan internally-displaced communities).


All decisions, and even the intent to make such decisions, are going to be contentious. I've not been giving much attention to the shifting tides in Syria, but the typical pattern of 'government' control, official opposition/revolutionary control, splinter/cross-border factions, whatever IS claims to control/etc makes pretty much any partitioning exercise fairly problematic. Traditional cultural, geographic and de-facto (i.e. consistent military/force-of-arms) control boundary lines don't easily overlay each other, and even the best compromise will create a gerrymandered/Escheresque tiling of territory that would be (proportional to population) far more disruptive than India's partioning, harder to police than Cyprus's or Korea's dissections, certainly more than comparable to Sudan's experience and possibly even put the non-Syrian territorial changes around Israel in an almost trivial light. There'll always be people left in the 'wrong' places, or perhaps convinced (beyond reason) that they are in what should be the right place.

It would almost be easier to just extract everybody, draw some actually arbitrary lines and then reintroduce everybody into areas chosen so that they are equally misplaced (all who previously claimed the land that anyone now is upon are on are now busy setting themselves up on land that only totally different people previously had a regional interest in; fresh start for all, in what's basically one mass and universal house-swap).


[1] FCVO "always", both provable and unprovable.
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martinuzz

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Re: Non-EU europe thread (with Russia, Israel and Australia included)
« Reply #2524 on: July 29, 2024, 12:07:44 pm »

In Siberia, prison camps are shutting down. It is estimated that Russia has now sent 200000 convicts to the front. There are not enough prisoners left to keep all prison camps open.
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martinuzz

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Re: Non-EU europe thread (with Russia, Israel and Australia included)
« Reply #2525 on: July 31, 2024, 03:34:22 am »

Good job, Israel!
They managed to kill the highest leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, with a drone strike on him in Teheran.
The fucker lived in Qatar, thinking himself safe, while his people suffer.
But then he visited Iran for the inauguration of it's new president, and Israel tracked him down.

Iran has sworn revenge for the drone strike on it's capital.
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Friendly and polite reminder for optimists: Hope is a finite resource

We can ­disagree and still love each other, ­unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist - James Baldwin

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=73719.msg1830479#msg1830479

Rockeater

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Re: Non-EU europe thread (with Russia, Israel and Australia included)
« Reply #2526 on: July 31, 2024, 09:22:37 am »

I wouldn't celebrate much, he wasn't crucial for Hamas war effort and his assassaination just harm the little peace process there is even more, the main two things achived from this is the fact that Netanyahu doesn't want peace, so it's good for him, and the propaganda vicotry which gives Netayahu and the army the appeance of achiving something, in a couple of years a new Hamas leader will rise up and will again be Isreal biggest problem
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Great Order

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Re: Non-EU europe thread (with Russia, Israel and Australia included)
« Reply #2527 on: August 01, 2024, 06:21:45 am »

We'll see. I can only imagine the effect's going to boil down to someone else replacing him, better they get taken in and interrogated with the hopes of compromising future Hamas operations, but failing that it's a decent second place even if it's distasteful (Before someone jumps on me, it's that death in general is distasteful to me not that someone from Hamas dying is distasteful).

Iran's also upset but I can't see them actually doing something militarily. There's been crazier stuff done without war breaking out.

Did anyone else die in the strike or did they manage to just get him?
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Strongpoint

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Re: Non-EU europe thread (with Russia, Israel and Australia included)
« Reply #2528 on: August 01, 2024, 01:43:35 pm »

, in a couple of years a new Hamas leader will rise up and will again be Isreal biggest problem

Israel is quite thorough in destroying the leaders of HAMAS eliminating one after another.

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Rockeater

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Re: Non-EU europe thread (with Russia, Israel and Australia included)
« Reply #2529 on: August 01, 2024, 03:38:47 pm »

Ooh, fancy graphics, do you have one for the past HAMAS assasinations, or the one for Hizballa during the wars in Lebanon, or the ones during the two Intifadas? the leadership you kill doesn't neceserly translate to reduced organisations.

And even if this killing will break HAMAS, tgere are still plenty of Palastinians hating Isreal, for a good reason, and many of which could be radicalized by the next organization to fight Israel, and considering that organization is probably gonna be more radical and theocratic, and yes, those exists.
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Damnit people, this is why I said to keep the truce. Because now everyone's ganging up on the cats.
Also, don't forget to contact your local Eldritch Being(s), so that they can help with our mission to destroy the universe.

feelotraveller

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Re: Non-EU europe thread (with Russia, Israel and Australia included)
« Reply #2530 on: August 02, 2024, 03:25:35 am »

Far from limited only to Hamas leaders.


I think the upcoming generation of Palestinian journalists are going to have quite an axe to grind.
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Strongpoint

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Re: Non-EU europe thread (with Russia, Israel and Australia included)
« Reply #2531 on: August 02, 2024, 08:51:40 am »

Not everyone labeled a journalist is actually a journalist. Also, nothing will change. Anti-Israeli Jew-hating genocidal propaganda in Palestine can't become worse than it already is.
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anewaname

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Re: Non-EU europe thread (with Russia, Israel and Australia included)
« Reply #2532 on: August 02, 2024, 12:12:18 pm »

Yeah, that anti-Israel sentiment cannot get worse, but the USA/west view of Israel is diminished.

Israel had a global image of "someone protecting themselves from a threatening gang of bullies", and they lost much of that. They are now also seen as provoking this conflict to justify ethno-cleansing and land-grabbing.
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There is something to be said about, if the stakes are as high, maybe reconsider your certitudes. One has to be aggressively allistic to feel entitled to be able to trust. But it won't happen to me, my bit doesn't count etc etc... Just saying, after my recent experiences I couldn't trust the public if I wanted to. People got their risk assessment neurons rotten and replaced with game theory. Folks walk around like fat turkeys taunting the world to slaughter them.

Strongpoint

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Re: Non-EU europe thread (with Russia, Israel and Australia included)
« Reply #2533 on: August 02, 2024, 02:43:54 pm »

Israel had a global image of "someone protecting themselves from a threatening gang of bullies", and they lost much of that. They are now also seen as provoking this conflict to justify ethno-cleansing and land-grabbing.

Well, condemnation is better than condolences.

Sure, worsening relations with allies is a hefty price. But eliminating individuals like Ismail Haniyeh does stop future wars. Do you really think he was a martyr and patriot, not someone profiting from the war and terror who expected to live a very long life in luxyru and safety? The message is sent - those who wage war against Israel have an increased chance to die even in very 'safe' places. It is how you de-escalate, how you make people think twice before attacking you. Showing strength is not escalation, showing weakness is. 

Next greedy and selfish leaders of Hamas (or an equivalent organization) will think twice before doing something like October 7. After all, Hamas had quite a comfortable life for almost two decades, Israel almost ignored all hostile actions against itself. Hamas mistook reluctance to go to a big war for weakness and this emboldened them enough to launch the October 7 attack. Now Israel acts kinda strong for a change. Kinda, because they do tolerate months of acts of war from Lebanon doing nearly nothing (compared to their military potential) in response.
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hector13

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Re: Non-EU europe thread (with Russia, Israel and Australia included)
« Reply #2534 on: August 02, 2024, 05:14:28 pm »

Not everyone labeled a journalist is actually a journalist.

Not everyone labeled a terrorist is a terrorist.

What’s your point?
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