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[Strongpoint]

...Most of these students felt that Israel does not have a right to exist ... express positive views of Hamas or its actions.

One word - hypocrites. There is no other way to unmake Israel (and it is necessary if they have no right to exist) but Hamas way - A military victory over Israel accompanied\followed by genocide.

Does that also mean the politicians in Israel who say Palestine has no right to exist also want to exterminate all the Palestinians, or will we just agree that violence isn’t the only option when it comes to things like this?

Well... Yes. There is no practical way to remove Palestine from the political map of the world without some extreme violence and somehow removing those people who learned to self-identify as Palestinians. Conquest always leaves 3 options: Genocide, inducing migration, and assimilation (forced or soft).  Later two may also count as genocide depending on how it is done...
Inducing migration is impossible because neither Jordan nor Egypt will accept refugees. Assimilation is not something Israelis are interested in.

Similarly, there is no practical way to remove Jews from Israel without genocide or war so devastating that it is as deadly as genocide. They will resist. With nukes if necessary.

[wobbly]

Look to be honest Strongpoint, you have never posted anything that actually justifies the government of Israel's opening disgusting behavior, and it is disgusting, which is a nice way of expressing, actual people's deaths. You seem very keen to justify those deaths for some reason?

Edit: I'd argue you need to stop talking like a nationalist for a foreign country, and actually start taking a closer look at the situation.

[hector13]

...Most of these students felt that Israel does not have a right to exist ... express positive views of Hamas or its actions.

One word - hypocrites. There is no other way to unmake Israel (and it is necessary if they have no right to exist) but Hamas way - A military victory over Israel accompanied\followed by genocide.

Does that also mean the politicians in Israel who say Palestine has no right to exist also want to exterminate all the Palestinians, or will we just agree that violence isn’t the only option when it comes to things like this?

Well... Yes. There is no practical way to remove Palestine from the political map of the world without some extreme violence and somehow removing those people who learned to self-identify as Palestinians. Conquest always leaves 3 options: Genocide, inducing migration, and assimilation (forced or soft).  Later two may also count as genocide depending on how it is done...
Inducing migration is impossible because neither Jordan nor Egypt will accept refugees. Assimilation is not something Israelis are interested in.

Similarly, there is no practical way to remove Jews from Israel without genocide or war so devastating that it is as deadly as genocide. They will resist. With nukes if necessary.

The problem I have isn’t so much that you think violence is an option for either side, you seem to think it’s the only option available to them.

I will concede that it’s the easiest option - “these guys are trying to kill us so we need to get them first” - and a political/diplomatic solution is going to be difficult, but it’s certainly not impossible or unrealistic for an alternative to violence to win out.

The first hurdle would, of course, be for both sides to engage with such a process in good faith, and I don’t think either side can do that just now.

[Frumple]

The first hurdle would, of course, be for both sides to engage with such a process in good faith, and I don’t think either side can do that just now.

Considering hamas is what happened to the last folks that leaned that way, and israel helped them do it, well... it's a pretty big hurdle, yeah.

IDF'd probably have to plant bibi's head on a pike or somethin' to get over that one. There'd have to be some pretty damn serious changes in leadership, ha.

[Strongpoint]

The problem I have isn’t so much that you think violence is an option for either side, you seem to think it’s the only option available to them.

I will concede that it’s the easiest option - “these guys are trying to kill us so we need to get them first” - and a political/diplomatic solution is going to be difficult, but it’s certainly not impossible or unrealistic for an alternative to violence to win out.

The first hurdle would, of course, be for both sides to engage with such a process in good faith, and I don’t think either side can do that just now.

Palestinians won't engage in such a process in good faith. It is incompatible with their current mentality, culture, and values. Also, a powerful worldwide propaganda machine works hard to keep them this way.

Israel... well, trauma of October 7th needs to heal first. October 7th is the direct result of leaving Gaza in a good faith. It is understandable that seeking negotiations after that is very unlikely... and silly. The difference between what Nazi did to Jews and what Hamas did to Jews is only in scale and ability. Also, it will be a stupid thing to do. Just as stupid as if in 1944 Allies would decide - hey let's negotiate with Germans in good faith!

[anewaname]

Israel lost too many of its founding "democratic" principles. It started as a "mostly good" authoritarian government due to its initial circumstances, and it mitigated attacks by its extremists on its non-Jewish population, but once Israel achieved hegemonic dominance, they switched from "leaders who seek to lead the entire group", to "leaders who seek to profit even at the expense of some of the group". Their extremists are attacking its Jewish population for non-conformity and are supported by their government.

It will get worse before it gets better.

[Frumple]

October 7th is the direct result of leaving Gaza in a good faith.

It... is extremely not, though. Like holy shit is it not, the only reason hamas got away with 10/7 was because the IDF was off running cover for israeli settlers committing atrocities over on the west bank. There was nothing good faith about what let that one through, ha.

Hamas being in power at all was significantly due to israel preferring them over folks in gaza that might actually function in good faith. There's nothing about the leadup from hamas gaining power to begin with to today that was an example of leaving gaza in good faith.

[Starver]

@Strongpoint: I'm still very troubled by the skew on the Israel/Palestinian Territories situation by someone who is so obviously on the other side of the potentially comparable Russia/Ukraine one. Not that I subscribe to that other POV (as I've tried to say before), but it positively glimmers with its all too obvious similarities.

I imagine that there'll now even be people taking Moscow's line in treating the Kursk offensive in exactly the same way as 7th/Oct was to Tel Aviv's perspective. I would consider those people to be deluded, or willingly aligned Useful Idiots, but it doesn't help to substantiate the strong pro-Israeli opinion above that uncomfortably echoes the same swathe of "those people don't deserve nationhood, their 'nationality' is a lie, destroy their illegitimate leadership!" viewpoints that surely one can try to see from the opposite perspective (especially if one already does, transplanted closer to home).


But I've said this kind of thing before. SFAICT, it didn't even make a dent in the relevent opinions the last couple (or more) times. Maybe I'm wrong to even try to make the equivalence, but it seems that it's only ever been ignored as irrelevent, without even any of the arguments against the comparison that I might so readily hedge myself if I wanted to make a whole essay of it...

[Maximum Spin]

@Strongpoint: I'm still very troubled by the skew on the Israel/Palestinian Territories situation by someone who is so obviously on the other side of the potentially comparable Russia/Ukraine one. Not that I subscribe to that other POV (as I've tried to say before), but it positively glimmers with its all too obvious similarities.

I understand it completely because Palestine is a lot more like the "LPR" and "DPR" in a wide variety of ways.

[Strongpoint]

@Strongpoint: I'm still very troubled by the skew on the Israel/Palestinian Territories situation by someone who is so obviously on the other side of the potentially comparable Russia/Ukraine one. Not that I subscribe to that other POV (as I've tried to say before), but it positively glimmers with its all too obvious similarities.

I understand it completely because Palestine is a lot more like the "LPR" and "DPR" in a wide variety of ways.

Yes and no. West Bank + Gaza Strip were exactly like "LPR" and "DPR" in 1968. The Palestinian nation was as real as those back then. A political trick because it was useful to pretend that they were different from other Arabs.  Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood member Yasser Arafat executed a neat trick with the Soviet and Arab world's support...

The problem is that the Palestinian nation exists now (just like something would form if LPR and DPR charade would continue for decades), and no matter how young the nation is, they deserve a piece of land to live on if it is what they wish for. Of course, first, they should renounce claims on their neighbor and stop constant attempts of war crimes (which usually fail because of the Iron Dome and other aspects of Israel's strength)



And yes it is weird to think that in the Arab\Israel conflict Arabs=Ukrainians and Israelis=Russians. It is the other way around. A huge mass of people, remains of colonial empire(s), are pissed that Israel\Ukraine exists under the claim that all of it is their land and Jews\Ukrainians should just disappear as a political nation... and as people.  The difference is mainly in the fact that Israel is far more successful in beating Arabs than we are in beating Russians and the world likes underdogs.

[Starver]

And yes it is weird to think that in the Arab\Israel conflict Arabs=Ukrainians and Israelis=Russians. It is the other way around.

...that's if you go another layer out in the whole Middle-Eastern perspective. And treating 'Arabs' (in the very broadest term) as (ex-)Soviets, knowing that Arab v. Arab is all too common, as with various other ex-Soviet vs ex-Soviet.  You then line up the layered oppressivenesses as Gaza<-Israel<-('Arab' region, perhaps primarily Iran) as per, say, Donetsk<-Ukraine<-('Soviet' region, primarily Russia). But you probably don't want to go down that path due to the dissimilarities I think you'd rightly point out at the more local end of both chains.

(Do we even equate Ukraine's Euromaidan with Israel's post-Mandate establishment? Clearly not, as only one involved a clear demographic shift, the other merely an internal political change. Unless you think that demographics were being changed before Russia went in heavy-handed, which in the current situation more resembles the West Bank 'settlers' situation anyway.)


Like I said, the analogy always breaks down when prodded at enough, but certain superficial comparisons should not be ignored. And you seemed to be painfully blind to them, and polarised to only ever subscribe to the equally superficial counter-examples. (The kind of polarisation that has the Russian media confidently portraying troublesome Ukraine as the 'N'-word (the German one, that is), ironically the same as Israel's detractors are doing for Israel.)

[wobbly]

I don't believe the reasons/motives behind the wars are similar, what I do believe is similar is the attitude to civilian casualties.

[Strongpoint]

And treating 'Arabs' (in the very broadest term) as (ex-)Soviets, knowing that Arab v. Arab is all too common, as with various other ex-Soviet vs ex-Soviet.

It is a very weird comparison. You could try Slavs or something but you choose people who had nothing in common. Azerbaijani and Estonian are WAY more different than any two Arabic cultures may be.


Sure, Arabs aren't one homogenous blob. Never were. There were serious regional differences. Algeria and Saudi Arabia aren't the same culture. But Arabs living in Gaza weren't that different from Arabs living in Egypt and Arabs living in West Bank weren't that different from Arabs living in Jordan. In fact, many came from Egypt and Jordan, either during the economic boom caused by Zionists in early 20th century or between 1948 and 1967.

[Starver]

Gaza is like Egypt because of Egypt's pan-arabist policies, yes.

There are also Bedouin there. Ceetainly were, until recently, but probably still are. The Turkish Gazans have tried to flee to Turkey, as possible, in the current climate, but not sure there's as easy an 'out' for the others like the Bedouin (especially as even the progeny of the "Egyptian diaspora" of officially encouraged post-Palestine policy isn't welcome to Egypt, etc).

The West Bank has Turkish Palestinians, Kurdish Palestinians (I don't know if they get on together better than Turkish Turks and Turkish Kurds and Syrian Kurds who have gone to Turkey) and Assyrian Palestinians and even (apparently) Russian[/] Palestinians, amongst other not-actually-Arab groups.

The strange part is (except, of course, that it stems from extreme Realpolitik) that Iran, overwhelmingly Shia, is the main nation supporting Gaza, overwhelmingly Sunni. Generally you'd expect extreme dislike between the two groups, at the very least at a national level, but "My enemy's enemy..." is probably the clincher.

But there's a lot of difficulty even equating 'Arab' with 'Arabic world', the linguistically 'Arabic' or even ethnically 'Arab' (especially not 'of the Arabic Peninsula') in the clear sense. Iranians would likely wish to identify as Persian, the Kurds as Kurds (probably above being Iraqi, Syrian or Turkish, e.g. for above-noted reasons of conflict and other not-so-old reasons we could mention) and the Azerbaijanis are yet another separation within the "Middle East And North African" mish-mash of multi-continental "Arab states" (not sure if they were ever Arab League, from the days of Pan-Arabism, given their time subsumed within the other post-war bloc involved). Ok, so they're maybe more homogenous than the "BRICS" group (from the original five, India is notably lacking significant Muslims, due to the events of Partition... but Brazil has a good proportion, surprisingly), but the best that can be said is there might have been fewer internal wars for this "ethnic" mini-League Of Nations (apart from Iran-Iraq, Iraq-Kuwait, whoever-vs-Yemen, Sudan-vs-Sudan, the whole multi-way Syria thing, the continuing post-Gaddafi Libya split, etc).

The best that can be said about any particular lumping-together of 'Arabs' is that it makes their interactions with 'non-Arab nations' more defined. Not that I'm saying that there's particularly more turmoil in the Arabic world, witness what "Europeans" have internally disagreed with each other about over even just the last century or so, and even back when they had a shared Lingua Franca (whether Latin or, in certain circumstances possibly due to the not-actually-that-short guy with the hat, French), at least at government/diplomatic levels, and when nominally "the Vicar Of Rome" had the most wide-spread power over even most Kings/etc.

The ethnic differences across 'Russia' (ex-USSR, or 'just' Russian Empire) was always inevitable by the sheer breadth of territory hoovered up (from pre-Revolution to post-WW2), encompassing various peoples who might otherwise have had steppes and mountains and deserts and possibly even seas between them in their histories (especially at the time when Russia nominally held Alaska, and its natives along with Russian incomers). Not piddling things like whether you were Polish or Austrian or (East) German at heart but found yourself moved across one or more borders despite never having physically shifted. China is a similar 'pocket mash-up' (but with greater density), striving more for the national-fiction that "there are only Chinese" across the 'Kingdom, Old and New'. If "The Arab World" seems more homogenous, it's only because it's been more designed to apparent ethnic homogeneity (the British Empire went the other way and just did not care about that at all), but still leaves many cultural differences (the B.E. at least supercicially tried to get 'members of the Empire' to consider themselves Culturally British (if not English!), even if the Brits(/English) back home might have (and various descendents still) thought otherwise).


All I actually know is that one cannot broad-stroke social identity without compromises. If I've apparently labeled or mislabeled any actually individuals, in any of the above, it's totally unintentional to have tied you down at all, whether you think I was right or wrong, and I've just thrown out loads of wide-ranging options to cover pretty much any continent except Antarctica (not even by design, but I... oh wait, I didn't mention anything covering Aus/NZ, either... and now I realise that but it would be gilding the lilly to (e.g.) go back up and insert anything about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander 'meta-nation', or hedge the other side by grouping the Polynesian peoples and lands).

Maybe "Arab" is a useful term, if qualified. But it's also an easy pejorative that can be (often wrongly) applied to non-Jewish Semitic but also far afield. Not as bad as "Asian", which tends to mean anything perhaps east of Arabia (but can stretch into the Middle East, or "African Asian" diaspora) that isn't actually Oriental (and "East-Asian"), in British terms (inclusive of India, wherher that's considered geologically right or wrong), but has a different footprint from a US perspective (as I understand it), and for most of us wouldn't include Siberians/similar (hi Max The Fox, if you're reading this, are you on the Asian side of the Eurasian divide, or am I misremembering what little I know of you?) who geologically are firmly Asian. But in anglophonic (and certainly British colloquial terms), there are of course more insulting terms ("Sand <N-Word>s", etc) yet it has a(n inter)national-stereotype potential that can be innocent and accurrate in the mouth of one speaker but nasty and slanderous in the mouth of another. In the context of "all Arabs are..."-type speech, it's probably not going to be taken/intended as the former.

[bloop_bleep]

Questions about whether Palestine is for your tastes adequately distinct from other Arab nations seems irrelevant when the grievances mainly stem from material events that can exist even independently of any nation-state identification, starting from the mass dispossession of Arab residents in 1948. In fact, one can say Israel helped reinforce the Palestinian identity through those people's shared experiences at their hands.