Israel declares War - Destruction of Gaza / Growing conflict in Middle East

[DLF]

Dey all da same.

 

[gry60]

I think you're reading a bit too much into this particular op-ed.

I can see how it could come across that way and I agree that the comparisons don't make much sense, but the same guy wrote all the op-eds below, essentially warning against the BIbi administration and their desire to annex the WB/Gaza.

Alas, though, this is not the version that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is trying to sell us. So, I want to appeal directly to President Biden and the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman: Do not let Netanyahu make you his useful idiots. You cannot have normalization with an Israeli government that is not normal. It will never be a stable U.S. ally or Saudi partner. And right now, Israel’s government is not normal.

Consider just two data points: A former head of the Mossad, Tamir Pardo, recently warned that this Israeli coalition, no doubt assembled by Netanyahu to keep himself out of jail on corruption charges, includes “horrible racist parties.” How racist? “Someone took the Ku Klux Klan and brought it into the government,” Pardo said.
And then there’s this: Last week Netanyahu’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, reportedly instructed Israel’s ambassador to Romania, Reuven Azar, and a key settler leader, Yossi Dagan, to meet with the leader of a Romanian far-right party in Bucharest — a party Israel had long boycotted because of its history of antisemitic and Holocaust-denying statements.
Why? As the newspaper Haaretz explained, it’s part of an effort that Dagan is behind “to promote ties between Israel and far-right European parties in order to convince them to support Israeli settlements in the West Bank.” Yes, Netanyahu and his allies are trying to build an alternative to the diplomatic support of America with xenophobic and extremist parties in Europe, who don’t care about settlements.

Opinion | You Can’t Normalize Relations With a Government That Isn’t Normal (Published 2023)

In the quest for a peace and security deal, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia cannot let Netanyahu turn them into useful idiots.

www.nytimes.com

This is the shortest column I’ve ever written — because it doesn’t take long to get things in focus:

President Biden, you are meeting Wednesday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, for the first time since he returned to office in December. He’s formed the most extreme government in Israel’s history and yet your administration is considering forging a complex partnership with his coalition and Saudi Arabia. There are enormous potential benefits and risks for the United States. I hope you won’t proceed without getting satisfactory answers from Netanyahu on three key questions — so we know just what Israel, and just which Bibi, we’re dealing with:

1. Prime Minister Netanyahu, your government’s coalition agreement is the first in Israel’s history to define the annexation of the West Bank as one of its goals — or, as it says, applying Israeli “sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.” But you earlier supported the Trump Middle East peace plan that proposed dividing the West Bank, with Israel controlling roughly 30 percent and the Palestinian state getting roughly 70 percent, albeit with tight security guarantees and no contiguity. Do you intend to annex the West Bank, or will you negotiate its future disposition with the Palestinians? Yes or no? We need to know. Because if you intend to annex, all your normalization agreements with Arab states will collapse, and we will not be able to defend you in the United Nations from charges of building an apartheid state.

2. Bibi, you told your first cabinet meeting last December that your top priorities include stopping Iran’s nuclear program, as well as expanding Israel’s growing relations with the Arab world. But we saw you decide instead to prioritize a judicial coup to strip the Israeli Supreme Court of its ability to hold your government accountable. That, in turn, distracted your military leadership, fractured your air force and elite fighting units, bitterly divided your society and weakened your diplomatic alliances from Washington to Europe. Iran, meanwhile, moved in with a diplomatic offensive, patching up its ties with all your Arab neighbors and eating your lunch. Why should we make confronting Iran’s nuclear program our priority when you haven’t?

3. Prime Minister, the Saudis are ready to do something hard — normalize relations with Israel. We are doing something hard to help facilitate that — forging a mutual defense treaty with Saudi Arabia. What hard things are you ready to do vis-à-vis the Palestinians to complete the deal? It feels to us that you don’t want to take any political risks — that you want everyone to do something hard except you.

Bibi, you’re out of focus for the American people. We need to know: Who are you now?

Opinion | This Is My Shortest Column Ever: What Biden Should Ask Netanyahu (Published 2023)

Three questions Biden should ask Netanyahu at Wednesday’s meeting.

www.nytimes.com

I believe that if Israel rushes headlong into Gaza now to destroy Hamas — and does so without expressing a clear commitment to seek a two-state solution with the Palestinian Authority and end Jewish settlements deep in the West Bank — it will be making a grave mistake that will be devastating for Israeli interests and American interests.

If Israel goes into Gaza and takes months to kill or capture every Hamas leader and soldier but does so while expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank — thereby making any two-state solution there with the more moderate Palestinian Authority impossible — there will be no legitimate Palestinian or Arab League or European or U.N. or NATO coalition that will ever be prepared to go into Gaza and take it off Israel’s hands.

There will be no one to extract Israel and no one to help Israel pay the cost of caring for more than two million Gazans — not if Israel is run by a government that thinks, and acts, as if it can justifiably exact its revenge on Hamas while unjustifiably building an apartheidlike society run by Jewish supremacists in the West Bank. That is a completely incoherent policy.

Alas, though, a senior U.S. official told me that the Biden team left Jerusalem feeling that while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel understands that overreach in Gaza could set the whole neighborhood ablaze, his right-wing coalition partners are eager to fan the flames in the West Bank. Settlers there have killed at least seven Palestinian civilians in acts of revenge in just the past week.


Meanwhile, U.S. officials told me, the representatives of those settlers in the cabinet are withholding tax money owed the Palestinian Authority, making it harder for it to keep the West Bank as under control as it has been since the start of the Hamas war.

Opinion | Israel Is About to Make a Terrible Mistake (Published 2023)

Both Israelis and Palestinians must behave in ways that we can support. No more blank checks.

www.nytimes.com

 

[flyeed]

I think you're reading a bit too much into this particular op-ed.

I can see how it could come across that way and I agree that the comparisons don't make much sense, but the same guy wrote all the op-eds below, essentially warning against the BIbi administration and their desire to annex the WB/Gaza.

Opinion | You Can’t Normalize Relations With a Government That Isn’t Normal (Published 2023)

In the quest for a peace and security deal, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia cannot let Netanyahu turn them into useful idiots.

www.nytimes.com

Opinion | This Is My Shortest Column Ever: What Biden Should Ask Netanyahu (Published 2023)

Three questions Biden should ask Netanyahu at Wednesday’s meeting.

www.nytimes.com

Opinion | Israel Is About to Make a Terrible Mistake (Published 2023)

Both Israelis and Palestinians must behave in ways that we can support. No more blank checks.

www.nytimes.com

I think you're reading a bit too much into this particular op-ed.

I can see how it could come across that way and I agree that the comparisons don't make much sense, but the same guy wrote all the op-eds below, essentially warning against the BIbi administration and their desire to annex the WB/Gaza.

Opinion | You Can’t Normalize Relations With a Government That Isn’t Normal (Published 2023)

In the quest for a peace and security deal, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia cannot let Netanyahu turn them into useful idiots.

www.nytimes.com

Opinion | This Is My Shortest Column Ever: What Biden Should Ask Netanyahu (Published 2023)

Three questions Biden should ask Netanyahu at Wednesday’s meeting.

www.nytimes.com

Opinion | Israel Is About to Make a Terrible Mistake (Published 2023)

Both Israelis and Palestinians must behave in ways that we can support. No more blank checks.

www.nytimes.com

Is there another way to read into, “we have no counterstrategy that safely and efficiently kills the wasp without setting fire to the whole jungle.” ?

 

[gry60]

Is there another way to read into, “we have no counterstrategy that safely and efficiently kills the wasp without setting fire to the whole jungle.” ?

Again, I said the comparisons in that op-ed don't make much sense.

Most of the nations involved are taking steps to keep the situation from getting hotter by keeping diplomatic talks going and by coming up with a plan that would satisfy all concerned parties to a reasonable extent, so Friedman is clearly wrong with that analogy. I just don't read the ill intent the tweet is getting out of that opinion piece, especially considering all the other articles Friedman's written about the need for a grand compromise and his opposition to unconditional US aid to Israel/Bibi.

 

[rexanglorum]

Unfathomably based

Caitlin Johnstone: The War on Disobedience

U.S. foreign policy amounts to bombing, regime changing, starving and destabilizing any population anywhere on Earth who dares to insist on its own sovereignty. By Caitlin Johnstone CaitlinJohnstone.com.au Listen to Tim Foley reading this article. So it turns out the IDF has been running

consortiumnews.com

 

[rexanglorum]

 

[me love nutella]

 

[ahat]

 

[flyeed]

An objective of “completely eliminating Khamaas” is inherently one of ethnic cleansing/genocide as we’re seeing.

How do you completely eliminate the militia of an impoverished blockaded nation through a bombing campaign exactly? They’re killing at best 9 civilians for each Khamaas militant. And starving/brutalizing a population with no mercy. Obviously this in turn creates a positive feedback loop of more militants. And by admission of the IOF objective, more bombing, more death, and therefore more militant recruits. So the cycle continues. And the depraved cheer it on as if a genocide is a Hollywood revenge flick. And the fake enlightened centrists try to give their takes on justifying this like chat gpt robots devoid of any humanity.

But really this isn’t an ends justifies the means of eliminating Hamaas. The means is the “ends.” The brutality and ethnic cleansing by fanatical insatiable sadistic colonists of the indigenous is the point. And this is their final solution.

 

[rexanglorum]

Don’t let these ghouls have a minute of peace

 

[mplsdunk]

She’s such a scumbag. Her saying the fbi should investigate their finances is backfiring I see. blame Russian and china when you go against your base and they are pissed… ok

 

[DLF]

She’s such a scumbag. Her saying the fbi should investigate their finances is backfiring I see. blame Russian and china when you go against your base and they are pissed… ok

Nah man

Remember she’s a democrat. She can do no wrong.

 

[mplsdunk]

She said the fbi needs to investigate people protesting her. Shes so out of touch with such a huge ego she can’t fathom herself being unpopular.

threatening protesters was supposed to be a conservative thing until it’s you they’re protesting I guess. Her time has passed she should resign.

 

[Belgium]

An objective of “completely eliminating Khamaas” is inherently one of ethnic cleansing/genocide as we’re seeing.

How do you completely eliminate the militia of an impoverished blockaded nation through a bombing campaign exactly? They’re killing at best 9 civilians for each Khamaas militant. And starving/brutalizing a population with no mercy. Obviously this in turn creates a positive feedback loop of more militants. And by admission of the IOF objective, more bombing, more death, and therefore more militant recruits. So the cycle continues. And the depraved cheer it on as if a genocide is a Hollywood revenge flick. And the fake enlightened centrists try to give their takes on justifying this like chat gpt robots devoid of any humanity.

But really this isn’t an ends justifies the means of eliminating Hamaas. The means is the “ends.” The brutality and ethnic cleansing by fanatical insatiable sadistic colonists of the indigenous is the point. And this is their final solution.

Yeah “ending Hamas” is a goal that inherently requires wiping Gaza, and by extension the Palestinians, off the map. Even then, Hamas leadership is living a luxury life in Qatar.

Unsurprisingly, Hamas has increasingly broad support from the Palestinians there according to local Palestinian polling. Israel turned Gaza into a breeding ground for terrorists (Hamas), and this genocide will only make recruitment easier.

 

[rexanglorum]

This implies the existence of a second island where people, deemed too sick for the first island, go.

 

[rexanglorum]

 

[DripNick]

Bless these women's hearts, they got more balls than +80% of the NBA


Def copping a jersey

 

[mplsdunk]

they know what it's like to have bad neighbors

 

[Quincy McCall]

PR on this is crazy

 

[rexanglorum]

We gotta take the Ws wherever we can get them

 

[John Wick]

 

[DLF]

Not to sound like a downer but only 1.8% of Israeli population thinks “too much force” is being used in Gaza. About half think MORE force should be used.

These protestors are a tiny tiny part of their society.

 

[flyeed]

It’s unsurprising that the colonist genocide apologists who pretended to care about the welfare of all civilians including Palestinian civilians have gone ghost when they realized their lies and spins couldn’t keep up with all the raw footage that the world is seeing and the unprecedented statistics of this ethnic cleansing.

I’d be ashamed too if I spent time trying to rationalize this to myself and convince others that mass murder is ok.

 

[moderndarwin]

Is this still going on? haven’t heard much about it these days

 

[John Wick]

Not to sound like a downer but only 1.8% of Israeli population thinks “too much force” is being used in Gaza. About half think MORE force should be used.

These protestors are a tiny tiny part of their society.

Yea that’s sad because i was thinking BN was loud and vocal what he intended to do to the Palestinians. Now that hamas has captured some of their people now they want to protest like the war started oct 7.

Is this still going on? haven’t heard much about it these days

Man u must live under a rock.

Well heres a good update for you