2028: Ostensibly Yours

[Michael's Servant]

With Noah Gardenswartz – Israel vs. Palestine – Part 2, including the history of Hamas; growing and selling weed and the law; teaching elementary school in a bad neighborhood

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[J. Canines]

I hope today's poll is: Did the people who voted for Griswold have macular degeneration?

[John Harvey]

Was pleased by how lightly Keith let me off, but also disappointed he didn't read the paragraph about what I think will happen.

I liked Noah though.

[Keith]

Because you said nothing.

What you think will happen? You wrote all the things that CAN happen.

Get an opinion.

[John Harvey]

Originally Posted by Keith

Because you said nothing.

What you think will happen? You wrote all the things that CAN happen.

Get an opinion.

I don't think that Israel will capitulate and I don't think HAMAS will either, so unfortunately I think that Israel will have to keep bombing the Gaza strip until all the terrorists and their families are dead and nobody is going to pick up a rocket again.

The hardest thing to get my head around in all of this is the religious hatred that fuels all of this. Islamic extremism is a background issue all around the world, and the conflict in Israel is one area where it's currently being fought in a literal sense. To our western minds, the level of belief is almost inconceivable. But also hard to get our heads around are their tactics - suicide bombs, blind rockets, human shields, 'terrorism'. In the west our whole idea of warfare is around a medieval European idea of opposing armies that are similarly outfitted, but guerrilla wars are asymmetrical and the western styles of warfare often fail now due to public opinion. The greatest armies in the world vs untrained and poorly armed insurgents mixed among civilians. If you've got a school full of children and one terrorist and you blow up the building and kill everyone in it, is that still winning? Israel will continue shooting through human shields and will be made a pariah of on the international stage because of it. You just can't fight a war like this any more when public opinion is against it.

And I don't think Israel is bloodthirsty or evil, they're just following the rules of war. You get hit, you hit back harder. You get shot at and they miss, you still have to hit back. But it's a bullshit paradigm and you don't have to buy into it quite so hard.

There needs to be a third option but I sure as hell don't know what it is, do you? So like everyone else, I'm going to watch over the next couple of decades as Israel does something horrible by inches and we all watch it on the news. I would be more than happy to be proved wrong though. These people are different from us and strange but I don't think they deserve to die.

[Amravanti]

I'm mostly on Keith's side except I'm also sort of Christian's side.

Hamas is a terrorist organization that quite frankly needs to be wiped out. They obviously are not the same as Palestine because they forced their way into control over Palestine and then refused to leave. Also, Palestine was basically taken from the Arabs by Britain and then given to Israel. Which means the Jews are occupying their country, essentially. And keeping them in the slums and saying hey, don't attack us, we aren't attacking you anymore now that we have everything you ever owned. Stop being terrorists.

To use Keith's bully analogy, it's like if a bully (Israel) was been taking your lunch money for 50 years and then you finally decide to fight back because you can't take it anymore and then all of a sudden the the teacher just happens to come by and sees you and shouts "Palestine, what are you doing to poor, gentle Israel McHatesArabs?" That's an Irish name but, you get my point.

Basically the British promised the Arabs that it would recognize Palestine as a country and ally in return for help during World War I, then later promised the Jews the same thing around World War II, and kicked the Arabs out. Israel has only been around for about 60 years for a reason, and people keep forgetting that. Like Jews have owned Israel forever and these Arabs are just savages who hate them. Granted, Hamas is mostly just savages that hate them, but the geopolitical situation is a lot more complicated than Keith acknowledges.

The Jews basically did to the Arabs what the Arabs are doing to them now. Except the Jews had bigger friends. Palestine has no friends. Not even really other Muslim/Arab nations. So if you want to talk about better PR, the jews definitely have better PR.

So Hamas is scum, but they were not truly democratically elected. They are not Palestine, though they do spread anti-semetic propoganda through Palestine, and brainwash people into believing that Jews are the cause of all their problems. Which isn't entirely wrong, honestly. I mean, not like earthquakes and global warming and stuff, but the crippling poverty and lack on any real functioning infrastructure or economy or society. But the jews aren't more right just because the bad shit they did was a while ago. Granted, the shit they did war more political maneuvering than actual violence, they did kick an entire country out of their country.

But Christian is right that there is no point arguing about who's right. What's more important is figuring out how to stop the war. Obviously Israel should defend itself. That can't be stressed enough. It's just strong enough that it could maybe try other things too. What's best for Israel isn't what's best for stopping the war. And it is a war. And war is as much about military might as it is about geopolitics and worldpolitics. Meaning, yes Israel could wipe out Palestine, but the way that would look to the rest of the world, the reputation they would create and the allies they would lose would cripple them in world politics. And that is the only weapon Palestine has. It's using it well. Well, that and suicide vests.


So how do we stop this? Honestly, assimilate the countries is the "fairest way" and easiest way, and that is nearly impossible. Split Israel in half and give the Palestinians one side. Take Hamas out somehow. They need to go. They are poison. The hatred on both sides is so entrenched now that it would be hard to do, but if we use military strength to enforce a strict split of the area, make it one country politically, with representatives from both sides democratically deciding country policies, or two completely separate countries, eventually (I'm talking decades) the hate could maybe subside.

That's my theory anyway. If they're forced to live next to each other and completely unable (due to external military might) to do anything about it, and if neither side feels completely robbed or deprived or attacked, it could help things. Obviously nobody is going to be happy with that, but at least it's fair. It would require overwhelming military intervention and commitment from the US or Britain (Though neither will do this because we're bros with Israel through thick and thin, and no one is ever going to convince Israel to give up half their land when they could just as easily not. Also it would be really expensive and there would be casualties on all ends for a little while, probably.

But obviously Hamas would have to be eradicated. Like, completely. Or they would just keep the war going. Honestly, even at the cost of innocent Palestinians, Hamas needs to be taken out, because we would save a lot of Palestinian lives once Hamas was gone. The ability to incite and sustain this fanatical hatred has to be excised. It's a big picture thing.

Before all the geopolitical bullshit, Jews and Arabs coexisted perfectly peacefully in the area. We would have to remind them of that. We would have to spread pro-jew/arab propoganda through every speaker in the country(s). The area is super important to both religions, obviously, but it wasn't divided in terms of religious ownership. The population was mostly Arab but there was a significant Jewish population as well, I think. So it's totally doable.

If you think about it, the true villain in the situation is Britain, because it started telling people hey, this country should belong to you, and I'm going to give it to you. The British only think in terms of imperialism and ownership, and it caused the divide. Also religion. Religion is also the true villain because neither of them want to give up this one bit of meaningless land. Otherwise we could just relocate Palestine and give them a real country somewhere or something.

I'm not going to spell/sensecheck this because I am tired.

[Keith]

Originally Posted by John Harvey

I don't think that Israel will capitulate and I don't think HAMAS will either, so unfortunately I think that Israel will have to keep bombing the Gaza strip until all the terrorists and their families are dead and nobody is going to pick up a rocket again.

Ah! An opinion!

Interesting that it sure does seem close to what I'm saying as well, but somehow I'm so off base...

[thirteen]

"Hamas is recognized as a terrorist organization in almost every country" is an argument I don't care about anymore when it comes to terrorists / freedom fighters. Governments all over the place do similar raping, pillaging, and murdering, but other governments think they need to support each other and ignore these horrible acts against humanity.

It's extremely complicated. My parents come from a country where the minority group were illegally kept out of schools and politics, so that they could always have less advantages. They started a "terrorist" group seeing no other way around it, and are recognized as terrorists by nearly every country. But the government is not, even though they fight the same way. Why? It all has to do with money, power, and keeping certain countries in your pocket without a care in the world for crimes against humanity and oppression. Luckily my parents left a long time ago, but the war didn't end until some years ago, no thanks to any government anywhere. They probably hope other countries will wipe out other races and cultures.

[Keith]

Originally Posted by thirteen

"Hamas is recognized as a terrorist organization in almost every country" is an argument I don't care about anymore when it comes to terrorists / freedom fighters. Governments all over the place do similar raping, pillaging, and murdering, but other governments think they need to support each other and ignore these horrible acts against humanity.

I see. So this is happening everywhere. Kind of childish, in fact, to focus on this one conflict.

[J. Canines]

Originally Posted by thirteen

"Hamas is recognized as a terrorist organization in almost every country" is an argument...

HAMAS being a terrorist group in every country is not an argument. It is a fact. Their mission? Kill non-Muslims. Might have to kill a few Muslims to kill an infidel? So be it.

HAMAS is terrifying. This may play a role in their being labeled terror-ists.