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Thread: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

  1. #121
    Ludicus's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Default Re: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

    Guterres’s speech,
    These horrific events did not arise in isolation. They must be viewed in the context of decades of military occupation, political deadlock, grievances and hopelessness, and a failure to address the core issues at the heart of the conflict.
    During 25 years, the IRA killed nearly 2.800 people, a third of them innocent civilians. Let’s keep in mind that the IRA was a terrorist organization- but in January 1994 Bill Clinton opened diplomatic relations with Gerry Adams, the President of the political arm of the IRA.

    Let’s also keep in mind - according to the Encyclopedia Britannica- that the Irgun Zvai Leumi (1931-1948) already mentioned here - a zionist military organization, committed acts of terrorism and assassination against the British, whom it regarded as illegal occupiers, and it was also violently anti-Arab. Irgun participated in the organization of illegal immigration into Palestine after the publication of the British White Paper on Palestine (1939), which severely limited immigration.
    On July 22, 1946, Irgun blew up a wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Politically, it was the precursor of the Herut (Freedom) Party, one of Israel’s most militant right-wing groups, which later merged with the Liberals into the Gahal Party.
    The Stern Gang (1940-1948),another zionist military organization, extremely anti-British, attacked British personnel in Palestine and even invited aid from the Axis powers. The group’s terrorist activities extended beyond Palestine: two members assassinated Lord Moyne, British minister of state in the Middle East, at Cairo (November 1944).After the creation of the state if Israel (1948) the terrorist group was suppressed, some of its units being incorporated in the Israeli defense forces.

    So eventually, the same thing could happen to the Hamas's military wing;the 2006’s elections resulted in a win for Hamas. The political wing needs to recognize Israel’s right to exist,without ambiguity, and Israel needs to leave the occupied Palestinian territory- the West Bank -including East Jerusalem- and the Gaza Strip. The UN -and the US- views Israel's control over West Bank as “occupation”.
    Meanwhile, Hamas' Internal Elections Pave the Way for Legislative

    But in the end, it’s always the same old story.The N.Y.Times wrote, in 2004, Opinion | Israel's Bloody Status Quo - The New York Times
    The story goes on and on. There is no denouement. Gaza, a small place jammed with 1.8 million people, does not recess to the Stone, Iron, Middle or other Ages. It does not get flattened, as Ariel Sharon’s son once proposed. The death toll is overwhelmingly skewed against Palestinians. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s talk of a ground invasion is empty. The last thing Israel wants, short of a cataclysm, is to go into Gaza and get stuck.

    What Israel wants is the status quo (minus Hamas rockets). Hamas is useful to Israel as long as it is quiescent.
    --

    Edit,
    The Haganah was outlawed by the British Mandatory authorities. According to Israel, as a result of the British government Anti-Zionist policy.
    Noa Baum writes in "A Land Promised Twice", chapter 10, addenda.Her mother and her uncle belonged to the Stern Gang.

    "..after World War II, when British government refused to open Palestine to unlimited Jewish immigration, the Haganah turned to terrorist activities, bombing bridges, rail lines, and ships used to deport "illegal" Jewish immigrants"
    After the United Nation's decision to partition Palestine, the Haganah clashed openly with British forces and successfully overcome the military forces of Palestinian Arabs... By order of the provisional government of Israel( May 31, 1948) the Haganah as a private organization was dissolved and became the national army of the state"
    Last edited by Ludicus; May 24, 2021 at 11:42 AM.
    Il y a quelque chose de pire que d'avoir une âme perverse. C’est d'avoir une âme habituée
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  2. #122

    Default Re: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

    Let's not forget that Israel is supposed to be a modern democratic state, not some kid whose ice cream dropped. We're supposed to hold it accountable to the very standards it claims to represent. Recognition of Palestine's right to exist and non-colonization of Palestinian territories shouldn't be bargaining chips. They are litmus tests for the very ideals Israel claims to possess. One that it fails miserably.
    The Armenian Issue

  3. #123

    Default Re: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

    Quote Originally Posted by Ludicus View Post
    Let’s also keep in mind - according to the Encyclopedia Britannica- that the Irgun Zvai Leumi (1931-1948) already mentioned here - a zionist military organization, committed acts of terrorism and assassination against the British, whom it regarded as illegal occupiers, and it was also violently anti-Arab. Irgun participated in the organization of illegal immigration into Palestine after the publication of the British White Paper on Palestine (1939), which severely limited immigration.On July 22, 1946, Irgun blew up a wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Politically, it was the precursor of the Herut (Freedom) Party, one of Israel’s most militant right-wing groups, which later merged with the Liberals into the Gahal Party. The Stern Gang (1940-1948),another zionist military organization, extremely anti-British, attacked British personnel in Palestine and even invited aid from the Axis powers. The group’s terrorist activities extended beyond Palestine: two members assassinated Lord Moyne, British minister of state in the Middle East, at Cairo (November 1944).After the creation of the state if Israel (1948) the terrorist group was suppressed, some of its units being incorporated in the Israeli defense forces.
    A comparison between Irgun and the PLO is more apt than any comparison to Hamas. Maybe the only significant difference being that unlike the PLO, Irgun never deliberately targeted children. Irgun did target civilians in their retaliatory attacks against Arabs from 1937 to 1939, while most of their attacks against the British involved military and/or law enforcement targets. Although I think the mainstream Zionists were right to condemn the bombing, the King David Hotel was the British military headquarters in the mandate, which would make it a legitimate target according to the modern rules of warfare.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ludicus View Post
    ...after World War II, when British government refused to open Palestine to unlimited Jewish immigration, the Haganah turned to terrorist activities, bombing bridges, rail lines, and ships used to deport "illegal" Jewish immigrants"
    I suppose there are contexts in which it can be, but it seems a stretch to refer to property damage as terrorism. As a form of protest, the Haganah were creating a hassle for the British, but they weren't targeting people. If that were the criteria, a lot BLM protestors would be considered terrorists.

    In my opinion, Lehi and Irgun clearly engaged in terrorism, but the Haganah did not. It was the Haganah that was the mainstream Zionist organization, that put an end to both Lehi and Irgun, and became the IDF.

    All this however is detached from the arguments I've made regarding the reasons it would be foolish for Israel to trust Hamas. I wouldn't make the same arguments about Fatah despite their terrorist past.
    Quote Originally Posted by Enros View Post
    You don't seem to be familiar with how the burden of proof works in when discussing social justice. It's not like science where it lies on the one making the claim. If someone claims to be oppressed, they don't have to prove it.


  4. #124
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    Quote Originally Posted by PointOfViewGun View Post
    Let's not forget that Israel is supposed to be a modern democratic state, not some kid whose ice cream dropped. We're supposed to hold it accountable to the very standards it claims to represent.
    Indeed, and like all states Israel has its faults. I have to say they don't pass unexamined.

    For all its faults it is a functioning participatory state but is regularly described as apartheid, racist, genocidal and colonial. My best guess is only the last epithet is arguably true, Israel represents a militarised relocated population base, intended by imperial powers to extend control in the region.

    Hamas doesn't pass any sort of test as a functioning government, they look like a terror organisation which the local population accepts in the absence of any alternative: Hamas does a lot to prevent alternatives from functioning.

    Quote Originally Posted by PointOfViewGun View Post
    Recognition of Palestine's right to exist and non-colonization of Palestinian territories shouldn't be bargaining chips. They are litmus tests for the very ideals Israel claims to possess. One that it fails miserably.
    I think Israel does recognise the right of the PA to govern the west bank and Gaza, and surrendered those territories. If they can't chip trade things like the settlements what can they trade?

    OTOH many states, and most relevantly Hamas, have denied Israel's right to exist. IIRC Hamas murdered a bunch of PA leaders in part because they acknowledged Israel's right to exist at Oslo. As bargaining chips go that's fairly fundamental.

    That's been a fairly unwavering position of Hamas. You my not like the standard Israel sets but Hamas does not each close to that level.
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  5. #125
    Ludicus's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    There’s also many people who think that the only solution is a single secular,bi-national state with equal rights for all peoples. Edward Said, Hannah Arendt, and others. The One-State Solution - The New York Times

    In my opinion, the one-state solution is completely unrealistic. Historically speaking,the conflict was highly predictable. David Ben-Gurion, recognized the cunundrum in 1944 ''There is no example in history,a people saying we agree to renounce our country, let another people come and settle here and outnumber us.” Edward Said rightly writes, in 1999 “Thus we are the victims of the victims, the refugees of the refugees.
    Israel has already/practically destroyed the possibility of the existence of a Palestinian state, with occupations, expulsions and wars, since a long time ago.

    Essay, Teshuvah: A Jewish Case for Palestinian Refugee Return (Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents -Jewish left)
    .
    ..What the establishment Jewish narrative omits is that the vast majority of Palestinians forced from their homes committed no violence at all. Their presence was intolerable not because they had personally threatened Jews but because they threatened the demography of a Jewish state.
    In focusing on the behavior of Arab leaders, the Jewish establishment tends to distract from what the Nakba meant for ordinary people. Perhaps that is intentional, because the more one confronts the Nakba’s human toll, the harder it becomes to rationalize what happened then, and to oppose justice for Palestinian refugees now. In roughly 18 months, Zionist forces evicted upwards of 700,000 individuals, more than half of Mandatory Palestine’s Arab population. They emptied more than 400 Palestinian villages and depopulated the Palestinian sections of many of Israel-Palestine’s mixed cities and towns. In each of these places, Palestinians endured horrors that haunted them for the rest of their lives.
    Here, you can read in detail about the horrors of the Nakba, the Haganah’s operation Bi’ur Hametz (Passover Cleaning),in Acre, the village of Eilaboun in the Galilee,in al-Dawayima, in the Hebron hills, where Israeli forces reportedly killed between 80 and 100 men, women, and children—and, in one instance, forced an elderly woman into a house and then blew it up; how Israeli troops evicted as many as 70,000 Palestinians from Lydda and Ramle in July, and an Israeli intelligence officer analogized the event to a "pogrom" or the Roman "exile of Israel", and how eviction was generally followed by theft, and how Jewish authorities soon systematized the plunder, when in July 1948, Israel created a “Custodian for Deserted Property” and the “The Law for the Property of Absentees”.Read how the scale of theft was astonishing.
    The Jewish author asks “Why is dreaming of return laudable for Jews but pathological for Palestinians?
    And tweeted, “The reason the American debate over Israel-Palestine could shift dramatically and quickly is that many Democratic politicians don't need to be convinced that what Israel is doing is wrong. They just need to be convinced that they can say so without hurting their careers”.

    This can only be stopped when the US stops financing the current solution. Or when the US social movements manage to impose them.There are no good colonizations. I agree with Amos Oz, one of Israel's greatest authors, a strong supporter of the two-state solution,
    "We are speaking about a very small house — about the size of Denmark. It's the one and only homeland of the Jews, it's also the one and only homeland of the Palestinian Arabs.
    We cannot become one happy family because we are not one, we are not happy, we are not family. We are two unhappy families. We have to divide the house into two smaller next-door apartments. There is no point in even fantasizing that after 100 years of bloodshed and anger and conflict Jews and Arabs will jump into a honeymoon bed and start making love not war.
    As a little boy, I thought that the cause of the Zionist Jews is 100 percent right and anyone who resents or objects or interrupts this cause is an anti-Semite, a racist, a monster. It took me some time to realize that the fulfillment of the dreams of the Jews had a cost. And to a large extent the Palestinian Arabs had to pay this cost. I didn't realize this as a child. I do realize it now"
    A few hours ago, Blinken said Biden committed to two-state solution
    ...ultimately, it is the only way to ensure Israel's future as a Jewish and democratic state and, of course, the only way to give the Palestinians the state to which they're entitled.That's where we have to go.We have to start putting in place the conditions that would allow both sides to engage in a meaningful and positive way toward two states.
    Well, Biden only has a year or two to make the impossible possible.
    Il y a quelque chose de pire que d'avoir une âme perverse. C’est d'avoir une âme habituée
    Charles Péguy

    Every human society must justify its inequalities: reasons must be found because, without them, the whole political and social edifice is in danger of collapsing”.
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  6. #126

    Default Re: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

    Quote Originally Posted by sumskilz View Post
    Israel isn’t making any demands. Hamas has nothing to offer them that they want other than the cessation of hostilities.
    Well then, Israel and Hamas should work well together. I am reliably informed that Hamas loves ceasing hostilities and is open to ceasefires again and again and again whenever Israel responds to Hamas' rocket barrages, balloon bombs, incendiary kites and martyrdom operatio... er I mean whenever Hamas attempts to include Israel in celebratory fireworks displays...
    Last edited by Infidel144; May 24, 2021 at 05:33 PM.

  7. #127
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    Default Re: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

    I recommend the Oscar nominated short-film “The Present” (2020)




    It’s on Netflix in the US. And here Stream and download films and series online
    Festivals & Awards.
    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    2020: Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival | International Competition • Audience Award
    2020: Cleveland International Film Festival • Jury Award for Best Live Action Short
    2020: Brooklyn Film Festival • Audience Award
    2020: Palm Springs International Film Festival • Special Jury Bridging the Borders Award, Audience Pick
    2020: Indy Shorts International Film Festival by Heartland Film • Audience Choice
    2020: Aesthetica Short Film Festival • Best Drama Film Award
    2020: Cordillera International Film Festival • Grand Jury Award Best Short Film
    2020: Bogoshorts
    2020: DC Shorts International Film Festival • Outstanding International Narrative Short Jury Award
    2020: Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia • Audience Award International Category
    2021: Sedicicorto International Film Festival • Jury Award Best Movie
    2020: Santa Fe Independent Film Festival • Jury Award Best International Short
    2020: Brussels Short Film Festival
    2020: Festival Signes de Nuit • Jury Short Film Signes Award
    2020: Boston Palestine Film Festival
    2020: Manhattan Short Film Festival • Gold Medal Best Film
    2020: Rio de Janeiro International Short Film Festival • Jury Award Best Director
    2020: London Film Week • Jury Award Best Short
    2021: Flickerfest International Short Film Festival • Jury Award Best International Live Action Short
    2021: Miami Film Festival

    The film clearly illustrates the indignity/degradation that Palestinians live with under Israeli occupation.It reflects a family’s struggles in daily life and the lengths you have to go through just to live your life.
    The film is the directorial debut of Farah Nabulsi, a British-born Palestinian. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the ultimate inspiration for her story came from a friend living in Hebron.
    “This guy lives on Shuhada Street and has a checkpoint 80 meters from his house,” she says. “So no matter where he wants to go, what he wants to do, who he wants to see or what he wants to get, he has to go through a checkpoint.”
    And this checkpoint, Nabulsi notes, is a particular size, restricting what can be brought through. “If it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t go,” she says. So if her friend wanted a new couch, or, like in The Present, a fridge, it just wouldn’t be possible.
    “In theory, you can ask for permission, but these checkpoints aren’t here to make lives easier,” she says, adding that they exist to “to deliberately frustrate and humiliate” and to “forcefully encourage” the Palestinians to leave.
    Il y a quelque chose de pire que d'avoir une âme perverse. C’est d'avoir une âme habituée
    Charles Péguy

    Every human society must justify its inequalities: reasons must be found because, without them, the whole political and social edifice is in danger of collapsing”.
    Thomas Piketty

  8. #128

    Default Re: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

    Quote Originally Posted by Ludicus View Post
    The film clearly illustrates the indignity/degradation that Palestinians live with under Israeli occupation.It reflects a family’s struggles in daily life and the lengths you have to go through just to live your life.
    It is fiction of course, with the Israeli soldiers being played by Palestinians.

    In this video (which has been posted here before) you can see real footage of everyday life in the West Bank and interviews with Palestinians talking about how much they suffer:



    Don't think it's accurate? I recommend going there (although not for anyone who is a Jew, unless they have a trusted local escort, are able to hide their ethnicity, and are willing to accept the risks).
    Quote Originally Posted by Enros View Post
    You don't seem to be familiar with how the burden of proof works in when discussing social justice. It's not like science where it lies on the one making the claim. If someone claims to be oppressed, they don't have to prove it.


  9. #129

    Default Re: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

    Quote Originally Posted by Cyclops View Post
    People turn to extreme leaders when they are in pain and feel so hopeless there's no other option. The pain of people in Gaza or the West Bank who have been evicted from their old family homes and farms and villages is very real. The outside world hasn't done a lot for them, and if we mock them as well it does nothing to help them or Israel.

    I take this stuff personally because I have family in the Palestinian Arab community, and Jewish relatives (not in Israel though).
    Thank you for sharing that, Cyclops. I appreciate that, and I did not mean to make fun of any plight of the Arabs in Palestine in general. I was only commenting on the Hamas leadership as quoted by Sumskilz.

    The things they apparently say about Jews just make them utterly untrustworthy as participants in negotiation. I wish there was a way out of this mess without Hamas wielding authority over the Arabs.

  10. #130
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    Default Re: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

    Quote Originally Posted by sumskilz View Post
    It is fiction of course, with the Israeli soldiers being played by Palestinians.

    In this video (which has been posted here before) you can see real footage of everyday life in the West Bank and interviews with Palestinians talking about how much they suffer:


    A comment on the video summed things up nicely

    The interviewer reveals an incredible bias by having to "preface" his video. He also has an incredibly shallow understanding of what "suffering" means. Retail life does not equal the quality of life. Just because they have KFC doesn't mean that (1) Palestinians can afford to shop there or (2) that a Palestinian owns the store. How about you talk about a lack of freedom of travel? The random checkpoints? Police interrogation based on your license plate? "Settler-only" roads?" The inability to get a Palestinian passport? The inability to own land in Israel or even in Palestine? Lots of space but access to water is controlled by Israel? The hope for a future? Being stereotyped as terrorists in the media? Knowing the fate your country is entirely in the hands of an Israeli government that doesn't want you there and denies the existence of "Palestine"? Imagine visiting a poor neighborhood in the US and saying "there are lots of retail stores in these ghettos. I don't understand why POC say that they are suffering?" This guy is the worst kind of interviewer.
    So I guess they should be thankful they're allowed to have retail?
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  11. #131

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    Quote Originally Posted by irontaino View Post
    A comment on the video summed things up nicely

    So I guess they should be thankful they're allowed to have retail?
    The interviewed Palestinians' own testimony is shown at length and unedited. The footage shown is typical of daily life there. Whereas the interviewer has spent an extensive amount of time in the West Bank, the commenter has obviously never been there, and is clearly ignorant regarding most of the issues he mentions:

    • The vast majority of Palestinians in the West bank live under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority not the the Israeli Civil Administration.
    • Palestinians can obviously afford to shop at those businesses, otherwise they would be out of business, because it is illegal for Jews to enter PA controlled territories.
    • Palestinians (or at least Arabs) obviously own the stores, because it is illegal for Jews to own anything in PA controlled territories.
    • Palestinians who live in PA controlled territories are free to travel anywhere within those territories and between them.
    • Israel puts no restrictions on Palestinians' international travel.
    • Palestinians can obtain Palestinian passports. Israel has nothing to do with the process.
    • There are no settlers only roads. Palestinians who live in Areas A & B have limited access to some roads in Area C (as per the terms of the Oslo Accords), but the only reason to use such roads would be to enter a settlement or Israel.
    • There is no limitation on Palestinians owning land in PA controlled territories or retaining ownership of land in Area C. They are however restricted from selling land to Jews, as per Palestinian law, which is an offense punishable by death.
    • The police in PA controlled territories are Palestinians.
    • The division of water between Israel and the PA is governed by the terms of the Oslo Accords, signed by both sides.

    The actual issues Palestinians in the West Bank have are those they mention in the video, some of which are mentioned by the commenter, the rest is just him talking out his ass.
    Last edited by sumskilz; May 26, 2021 at 05:07 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Enros View Post
    You don't seem to be familiar with how the burden of proof works in when discussing social justice. It's not like science where it lies on the one making the claim. If someone claims to be oppressed, they don't have to prove it.


  12. #132

    Default Re: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

    Quote Originally Posted by sumskilz View Post
    • Palestinians can obviously afford to shop at those businesses, otherwise they would be out of business, because it is illegal for Jews to enter PA controlled territories.
    • Palestinians (or at least Arabs) obviously own the stores, because it is illegal for Jews to own anything in PA controlled territories.
    • There is no limitation on Palestinians owning land in PA controlled territories or retaining ownership of land in Area C. They are however restricted from selling land to Jews, as per Palestinian law, which is an offense punishable by death.
    If only the dream could become a reality,
    by extending this, from the river to the sea...
    Last edited by Infidel144; May 26, 2021 at 05:40 PM.

  13. #133
    Ludicus's Avatar Comes Limitis
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    Quote Originally Posted by sumskilz View Post
    It is fiction of course
    It's fiction, of course. In this case, fiction reflects reality in a myriad of ways,


    Life Under Occupation: The Misery at the Heart of the Israel - NYTimes
    By David M. Halbfinger and Adam Rasgon.
    May 22, 2021

    An eviction in East Jerusalem lies at the center of a conflict that led to war between Israel and Hamas. But for millions of Palestinians, the routine indignities of occupation are part of daily life.

    JERUSALEM —Muhammad Sandouka built his home in the shadow of the Temple Mount before his second son, now 15, was born.

    They demolished it together, after Israeli authorities decided that razing it would improve views of the Old City for tourists.

    Mr. Sandouka, 42, a countertop installer, had been at work when an inspector confronted his wife with two options: Tear the house down, or the government would not only level it but also bill the Sandoukas $10,000 for its expenses.

    Such is life for Palestinians living under Israel’s occupation: always dreading the knock at the front door.

    The looming removal of six Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem set off a round of protests that helped ignite the latest war between Israel and Gaza. But to the roughly three million Palestinians living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 war and has controlled through decades of failed peace talks, the story was exceptional only because it attracted an international spotlight.

    For the most part, they endure the frights and indignities of the Israeli occupation in obscurity.

    Even in supposedly quiet periods, when the world is not paying attention, Palestinians from all walks of life routinely experience exasperating impossibilities and petty humiliations, bureaucratic controls that force agonizing choices, and the fragility and cruelty of life under military rule, now in its second half-century.

    Underneath that quiet, pressure builds.

    If the eviction dispute in East Jerusalem struck a match, the occupation’s provocations ceaselessly pile up dry kindling. They are a constant and key driver of the conflict, giving Hamas an excuse to fire rockets or lone-wolf attackers grievances to channel into killings by knives or automobiles. And the provocations do not stop when the fighting ends.

    Home on the Edge

    No homeowner welcomes a visit from the code-enforcement officer. But it’s entirely different in East Jerusalem, where Palestinians find it nearly impossible to obtain building permits and most homes were built without them: The penalty is often demolition.

    Mr. Sandouka grew up just downhill from the Old City’s eastern ramparts, in the valley dividing the Temple Mount from the Mount of Olives. At 19, he married and moved into an old addition onto his father’s house, then began expanding it. New stone walls tripled the floor area. He laid tile, hung drywall and furnished a cozy kitchen. He spent around $150,000.

    Children came, six in all. Ramadan brought picnickers to the green valley. The kids played host, delivering cold water or hot soup. His wife prepared feasts of maqluba (chicken and rice) and mansaf (lamb in yogurt sauce). He walked with his sons up to Al Aqsa, one of Islam’s holiest sites.

    In 2016, city workers posted an address marker over Mr. Sandouka’s gate. It felt like legitimation.

    But Israel was drifting steadily rightward. The state parks authority fell under the influence of settlers, who seek to expand Jewish control over the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Citing an old plan for a park encircling the Old City, the authority set about clearing one unpermitted house after another.

    Now it was Mr. Sandouka’s turn.

    Plans showed a corner of the house encroaching on a future tour-bus parking lot.

    Zeev Hacohen, an authority official, said erasing Mr. Sandouka’s neighborhood was necessary to restore views of the Old City “as they were in the days of the Bible.”

    “The personal stories are always painful,” he allowed. But the Palestinian neighborhood, he said, “looks like the Third World.”

    Mr. Sandouka hired a lawyer and prayed. But he was at work a few months ago when someone knocked on his door again. This time, his wife told him, crying, it was a police officer.

    The Night Raid

    The knock at the door is not always just a knock.

    Badr Abu Alia, 50, was awakened around 2 a.m. by the sounds of soldiers breaking into his neighbor’s home in Al Mughrayyir, a village on a ridge in the West Bank.

    When they got to his door, a familiar ritual ensued: His children were rousted from bed. Everyone was herded outside. The soldiers collected IDs, explained
    nothing and ransacked the house. They left two hours later, taking with them a teenager from next door, blindfolded.

    He had taken part in a protest four days earlier, when an Israeli sniper shot and killed a teenager who was wandering among the rock-throwers and spent tear-gas canisters.

    Al Mughrayyir was one of the few villages still mounting regular Friday protests. They began after settlers cut off access to some of the villagers’ farmland. The boy’s death became a new rallying cry.

    The army says it raids Palestinian homes at night because it is safer, and ransacks them to search for weapons, in routine crackdowns aimed at keeping militance in check.

    But the raids also inspire militance.

    Mr. Abu Alia seethed as he described seeing his son outside in the dark, “afraid, crying because of the soldiers, and I can do nothing to protect him.”

    “It makes you want to take revenge, to defend yourself,” he went on. “But we have nothing to defend ourselves with.”

    Stone-throwing must suffice, he said. “We can’t take an M-16 and go kill every settler. All we have are those stones. A bullet can kill you instantly. A little stone won’t do much. But at least I’m sending a message.”

    Settlers send messages, too. They have cut down hundreds of Al Mughrayyir’s olive trees — vital sources of income and ties to the land — torched a mosque, vandalized cars. In 2019, one was accused of fatally shooting a villager in the back. The case remains open.

    A Family Divided

    For Majeda al-Rajaby the pain of occupation never goes away. It slices straight through her family.

    A twice-divorced teacher, Ms. al-Rajaby, 45, is divided from her five children by the different ways Israel treats Palestinians depending on where they are from.

    She grew up in the West Bank, in Hebron. But both her ex-husbands were Jerusalem residents, allowing them to travel anywhere an Israeli citizen may go. The children were entitled to the blue IDs of Jerusalem residents, too. Hers remained West Bank green.

    Both her husbands lived in Shuafat refugee camp, a lawless slum inside the Jerusalem city limits but just outside Israel’s security barrier. West Bankers are not allowed to live there, but the rule is not enforced. She had thought she was marrying up. Instead, she said her husbands “always made me feel inferior.”

    After the second divorce, she was left on her own, with her green ID, to raise all five children with their blue IDs. The distinction could be life-threatening.

    When a daughter accidentally inhaled housecleaning chemicals, Ms. al-Rajaby tried to race her to the closest hospital, in Jerusalem. Soldiers refused to let her in. As a teacher in Shuafat, she had a permit to enter Jerusalem, but only until 7 p.m. It was 8:00.

    Her children are older now, but the distinction is just as keenly felt: Ms. al-Rajaby allows herself to be excluded from joyful moments and rites of passage so her children can enjoy advantages unavailable to her.

    She stays behind on the Palestinian side of the security barrier while they head off to Jaffa or Haifa, or on shortcuts to Hebron through Jerusalem, a route forbidden to her. “West Banker,” they tease her, waving goodbye.

    One daughter is 21 now and engaged and goes on jaunts into Israel with her fiancé’s mother. “I should be with them,” Ms. al-Rajaby said.

    Last summer, Ms. al-Rajaby moved out of Shuafat to a safer neighborhood just outside the Jerusalem city limits, in the West Bank. That means her children could lose their blue IDs if Israel determined that their primary residence was with her.

    “I’m not allowed to live there,” she said of Shuafat, “and my daughters are not allowed to live here.”

    Constrained as she is, Ms. al-Rajaby wants even more for her children than freedom to move about Israel.

    In 2006, her daughter Rana, then 7, was burned in a cooking accident. An Italian charity paid for treatment at a hospital in Padua. Mother and child stayed for three months.

    The experience opened Ms. al-Rajaby’s eyes. She saw green parks, children in nice clothes, women driving cars.

    “It was the moment of my liberation,” she said. “I started thinking: ‘Why do they have this? Why don’t we?’”

    Today, she urges all her children to see the world, and holds out hope that they might emigrate.

    “Why,” she asked, “should someone keep living under the mercy of people who have no mercy?”

    Working for the Occupation

    Try as they might to make their accommodations with Israel, Palestinians often find themselves caught in the occupation’s gears.

    Majed Omar once earned a good living as a construction worker inside Israel. But in 2013, his younger brother was spotted crossing through a gap in Israel’s security barrier. A soldier shot him in the leg.

    Mr. Omar, 45, was collateral damage. Israel revoked his work permit just in case he had ideas about taking revenge — something Israel says happens too often.

    He sat unemployed for 14 months. When Israel reissued his permit, it only allowed him to work in the fast-growing West Bank settlements, where workers are paid half as much, searched each morning and supervised by armed guards all day.

    Which is how he came to be the foreman on a crew that remodels Jewish homes and expands Israeli buildings on land the Palestinians have long demanded as part of their hoped-for state.

    In a small way, it’s like digging his own grave, Mr. Omar said. “But we’re living in a time when everyone sees what’s wrong and still does it.”

    The Checkpoint

    Violence is often sudden and brief. But the nagging dread it instills can be just as debilitating.

    Nael al-Azza, 40, is haunted by the Israeli checkpoint he must pass through while commuting between his home in Bethlehem and his job in Ramallah.

    At home, he lives behind walls and cultivates a lush herb and vegetable garden in the backyard. But nothing protects him on his drive to work, not even his position as a manager in the Palestinian firefighting and ambulance service.

    Recently, he said, a soldier at the checkpoint stopped him, told him to roll down his window, asked if he had a weapon. He said no. She opened his passenger door to take a look, then slammed it shut, hard.

    He wanted to object. But he stopped himself, he said: Too many confrontations with soldiers end with Palestinians being shot.

    “If I want to defend my property and my self-respect, there’s a price for that,” he said.

    His commute is a 14-mile trip as the crow flies, but a 33-mile route, because Palestinians are diverted in a wide loop around Jerusalem along a tortuous two-lane road of steep switchbacks. Even so, it ought to take less an hour — but often takes two or three, because of the checkpoint.

    The Israelis consider the checkpoint essential to search for fleeing attackers or illegal weapons or to cut the West Bank in two in case of unrest. Palestinians call it a choke point that can be shut off on a soldier’s whim.

    It is also a friction point, motorists and soldiers each imagining themselves as the other’s target.Idling and inching along, Mr. al-Azza compared traffic to blood flow. Searching one car can mean an hour’s delay. The soldiers are so young, he said, “They don’t feel the weight of stopping 5,000 cars.”

    He thinks only of those delayed. “When they impede your movement and cause you to fail at your job, you feel like you’ve lost your value and meaning,” he said.

    A few nights each week, delays force him to sleep at work and settle for video calls with his three children.

    On weekend outings, the checkpoint takes a different toll on his family.

    “I try to keep my kids from speaking about the conflict,” he said. “But they see and experience things I have no answer for. When we’re driving, we turn the music on. But when we reach the checkpoint, I turn it off. I don’t know why. I’ll see them in the mirror: All of a sudden, they sit upright and look anxious — until we cross and I turn the music back on.”

    Deadly scenarios constantly play out in Mr. al-Azza’s head: What if a tire blew out or his engine stalled? What if a young soldier, trained to respond instantly, misconstrued it as a threat?

    “It’s not possible to put it out of mind,” he said. “When you’re hungry, you think about food.”

    In the Bubble

    No Palestinian is insulated from the occupation’s reach — not even in the well-to-do, privileged “bubble” of Ramallah, where Israeli soldiers are seldom seen.

    Everyone Sondos Mleitat knows bears the scars of some trauma. Her own: Hiding with her little brother, then 5, when Israeli tanks rolled into Nablus, where she was raised.

    In the dark, she said, he pulled all his eyelashes out, one by one.

    Today, Ms. Mleitat, 30, runs a website connecting Palestinians with psychotherapists.

    Instead of reckoning with their lingering wounds, she said, people seek safety in social conformity, in religion, in the approval gleaned from Facebook and Instagram likes. But all of those, she said, only reinforce the occupation’s suffocating effects.

    “This is all about control,” she said. “People are going through a type of taming or domestication. They just surrender to it and feel they can’t change anything.”

    After her uncle was killed by Israeli soldiers at a protest, she said, his younger brother was pushed into marriage at 18 “to protect him from going down the same path.”

    But a nation of people who reach adulthood thinking only about settling down, she said, is not a nation that will achieve independence.

    “They think they’re getting out of this bubble, but they’re not,” she said

    Homeless

    Mr. Sandouka earns about $1,800 in a good month. He hoped the lawyer could quash the demolition order. “I thought they would just give us a fine,” he said.

    Then he got another panicked call from home: “The police were there, making my family cry.”

    Khalas, he said, enough. He would tear it down himself.

    Early on a Monday, his sons took turns with a borrowed jackhammer. They almost seemed to be having fun, like wrecking a sand castle.

    Finished, their moods darkened. “It’s like we’re lighting ourselves on fire,” said Mousa, 15.

    “They want the land,” said Muataz, 22. “They want all of us to leave Jerusalem.”

    In 2020, 119 Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem were demolished, 79 of them by their owners.

    When all was rubble, Mr. Sandouka lit a cigarette and held it with three beefy fingers as it burned. His pants filthy with the dust of his family’s life together, he climbed atop the debris, sent photos to the police and contemplated his options.

    Moving to the West Bank, and sacrificing Jerusalem residency, was unthinkable. Moving elsewhere in Jerusalem was unaffordable.

    A friend offered a couple of spare rooms as a temporary refuge. Mr. Sandouka’s wife demanded permanency.

    “She told me if I don’t buy her a home, that’s it — everyone can go their separate ways,” he said.

    He turned his eyes uphill toward the Old City.

    “These people work little by little,” he said. “It’s like a lion that eats one, and then another. It eventually eats everything around it.”
    Last edited by Ludicus; May 27, 2021 at 11:07 AM.
    Il y a quelque chose de pire que d'avoir une âme perverse. C’est d'avoir une âme habituée
    Charles Péguy

    Every human society must justify its inequalities: reasons must be found because, without them, the whole political and social edifice is in danger of collapsing”.
    Thomas Piketty

  14. #134

    Default Re: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

    Quote Originally Posted by Ludicus View Post
    It's fiction, of course. In this case, fiction reflects reality in a myriad of ways
    Well, I haven't seen it, just some clips, including menacing Israeli soldiers shouting with heavy Arabic accents. What is misleading about the story, is that there would be no reason that they would have to go through a checkpoint to go shopping in Beitunia. The checkpoint they pass through is Checkpoint 300 which is to enter West Jerusalem, that is to enter Israel. Checkpoint 300 is well known to be the worst, most overcrowded checkpoint in the West Bank, and that's why they picked it no doubt. It was good for the story, but it isn't anything like reality. The only Palestinians who regularly pass through Checkpoint 300 are those with permits to work in Israel. Even if the West Bank wasn't occupied, there would still be a checkpoint to enter Israel.

    They filmed at the real Checkpoint 300, but this is what the process of entry looks like in reality (since 2019 anyway):



    Since the renovations, it is no more of a hassle going through security there than it is to go through security to ride a train in Israel, and as you can see, they never even have to interact with the border police, unless they get caught trying to smuggle a weapon. Also note, there are no soldiers.

    By the way, the checkpoints to enter Israel were what most of the Palestinians in the video I posted were complaining about, on Highway 60 which passes through West Jerusalem. This is perfectly reasonable from their perspective, since they consider West Jerusalem just as occupied as East Jerusalem.
    Quote Originally Posted by Enros View Post
    You don't seem to be familiar with how the burden of proof works in when discussing social justice. It's not like science where it lies on the one making the claim. If someone claims to be oppressed, they don't have to prove it.


  15. #135
    swabian's Avatar igni ferroque
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    Default Re: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

    Just some thoughts strewn in...

    I don't see a swift and direct solution for this smoldering civil war.
    A single state by means of annexation is actually not in the best interest of Israelis, I would speculate. The reason being simply that an integration of the Arabs in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip as citizens with equal rights would threaten the majority of Jews and thus render the whole decade old struggle pointless as it undermines the very purpose of the foundation of Israel: a nation state for the Jews and run by the Jews or a Jewish majority.

    A two-state solution probably is more attractive to most Israelis and Palestinians (the surveys undertaken to determine the public opinion wildly vary, though, depending on when they were done), but that would end the Jewish option to slowly (and probably strategically) encroach the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem with formally illegal settlements. I actually fully side with the Jews regarding Eastern Jerusalem. It's understandable that a divided Jerusalem is not compatible with the Zionist idea. But I wonder why the West Bank is worth the hassle. I suppose it is the rumors about unrealized Palestinian oil and gas resources and this hydrocarbon thing (question)?

    I'm afraid the most rational thing for a determined and patriotic Israeli policy is in fact to go on as they have been and to keep the conflict smoldering slowly, whereas the correct speed of this process is determined by the ability to avoid larger escalations. This way they can ensure that someday the Jewish population will comfortably outweigh the Arab one with a full annexation as the final goal (an understandable goal as well in my opinion). The Arab is not to be trusted for evident reasons.

    Among all the pro-Palestinian emotionalism and propaganda in the media, it is all too easily forgotten that what the Arabs have declaredly envisioned is to drive the Jews into the sea - Meaning to destroy Israel and to decimate or eliminate the Jewish population. They dream about the olden days of the Ottoman Empire, where non-Muslims where merely tolerated as "dhimmi" - second class citizens.
    While the willingness to peacefully coexist is definitely an option for the Jews, I don't think the same applies to the Muslims at all. It is a quintessential part of the Islamic ideology to displace what they see as infidels around them and they have no qualms to opportunistically lie about it, if need be. The latter aspect is comprehensively represented in the wildly volatile public opinion of Palestinian Muslims. They simply cannot be trusted - even if the mainstream civilians genuinely mean it, they will easily be swayed by radicals eventually. As soon as they form a majority of citizens in Israel, it is to be expected that this is also the beginning of the rapid end of Israel.

    For the Palestinians an open conflict against the Jews is of course not possible. Israel is the local superpower in the Middle East, and deservedly so. This is established beyond any hope of a chance for the Arab League to materialize their wet dream to destroy Israel and to subdue or kill all Jews (again: to "drive them into the sea" is the standard rhetoric). It doesn't matter if the USA conditionalizes the support for Israel more tightly, Israel has grown so strong, I doubt that support from the outside is vital anymore. In my opinion, the past Israeli policy has already achieved victory with outside help and now it's "vae victis". What is left for the Palestinians is to accept this reality or to move to Jordan. So no. No end to the conflict. Move on, nothing to see here. There are other, more worthy places in the world for the moralist crowd to impotently bewail.
    Last edited by swabian; May 27, 2021 at 04:12 PM.

  16. #136

    Default Re: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

    https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/po...expires-669478

    Bibi's screwed. Imagine getting ousted by Hamas lol. They are going to make Bibi israel's Trump and have him fall on his sword for the losing the PR war so badly to hamas. Hopefully this means that the usual israeli ritual of slaughtering Palestinians to beef up support for incumbents facing election is going to be dropped as counterproductive. Bibi and the IDF were too incompetent to stop the rocket spam but too scared to do a ground invasion so it looked like they were just killing Palestinian kids as cope for their ineffectiveness. israel is losing the war for attrition and as American boomers die, support for israel dies. And once American support for israel dies, RIP israel.

  17. #137
    Indefinitely Banned
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    Default Re: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

    Quote Originally Posted by Hatsnat View Post
    https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/po...expires-669478

    Bibi's screwed. Imagine getting ousted by Hamas lol. They are going to make Bibi israel's Trump and have him fall on his sword for the losing the PR war so badly to hamas. Hopefully this means that the usual israeli ritual of slaughtering Palestinians to beef up support for incumbents facing election is going to be dropped as counterproductive. Bibi and the IDF were too incompetent to stop the rocket spam but too scared to do a ground invasion so it looked like they were just killing Palestinian kids as cope for their ineffectiveness. israel is losing the war for attrition and as American boomers die, support for israel dies. And once American support for israel dies, RIP israel.
    I doubt I'm the only one who sees you. There are more compelling reasons for the whole kill enough of hamas/in the old day PLA and types so Israel will probably keep that party going. Plus it is a tried and true political tactic there. Like in the US blaming racial minorities as coming for the noble white man messaging is. Israel is too valuable to the sunni, shiites, russia and western powers. Prob stick around for some some some time. Get stronger. Nice to think it might get more right center again.

  18. #138

    Default Re: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

    Last night [Bill Maher] got into it with NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof over Israel’s latest bout with Hamas — politely, but not yielding an inch. This goes on for 10 minutes but it’s worth your time, not because the arguments will be new to you but because it’s rare to see an extended defense of Israel from a host on a network that’s not conservative ideologically. Maher has grown more liberal over time (years ago he identified as libertarian, although he was always more of a libertine) but he does remain commendably politically incorrect in certain matters. This is a major example. Enjoy.
    Starts at 36:48

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    Exarch, Coughdrop addict

  19. #139
    nhytgbvfeco2's Avatar Praefectus
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    Default Re: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

    Quote Originally Posted by Hatsnat View Post
    https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/po...expires-669478

    Bibi's screwed. Imagine getting ousted by Hamas lol.
    Ousted by Hamas? This was just about to happen before Hamas started firing, which almost prevented it. In fact, Bennet still hasn't reached a decision and will only say what he has decided on either Sunday or Monday.
    They are going to make Bibi israel's Trump and have him fall on his sword for the losing the PR war so badly to hamas. Hopefully this means that the usual israeli ritual of slaughtering Palestinians to beef up support for incumbents facing election is going to be dropped as counterproductive.
    It never has been. The first war (from 2008-2009) preceded the removal from office of Ehud Olmert for corruption charges, the second war (2012) saw Likud + Israel Beitenu drop from 42 to 31 seats, and the third (2014) war was more than half a year before an election.
    Literally every time an operation like this ends the Israeli public is frustrated and angry, as at the end of the day nothing is achieved long term and everyone knows it'll happen again in a couple years. What benefit starting an operation brings is quickly gone following its ending.

    Bibi and the IDF were too incompetent to stop the rocket spam but too scared to do a ground invasion so it looked like they were just killing Palestinian kids as cope for their ineffectiveness. israel is losing the war for attrition and as American boomers die, support for israel dies. And once American support for israel dies, RIP israel.
    Hamas has no achievements of note beyond some initial shock factor achieved by the size of the barrage on the centre of the country. It's certainly doing better on PR, but that's largely by having the world ignore the existence of Hamas. No sane government supports Hamas. Even if American support is lost Israel will continue to exist, it's going nowhere.

  20. #140
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    Default Re: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

    It was something like 67 Palestinian children killed and 2 Israeli. Seems the eviler side isn’t hard to identify.

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