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I’d have big billboards in prominent spots on either side of the wall(s), broadcasting the awkward answers of those in the chain of command of the relevant authorities gave when questioned as to why they hadn’t arrested the extremists who were inflaming the conflict.
If the murderous armed militants who deliberately breached your peace deal just laugh at your billboards, what will you do then?
If billboards are the best answer you have to breaches of your peace deal, nobody on either side is going to trust you. A treaty needs an enforcement mechanism, a billboard isn't going to satisfy Israelis or Palestinians.
Don't knock it until you've tried it; in time it would force the authorities to act, or risk widespread civil disobedience.
I'm pretty sure that the Israeli/Palestinian peace talks have made more progress in the last 24 hours than this thread.
I’m pretty sure that the Israeli/Palestinian peace talks have made more progress in the last 24 hours than this thread.
Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it; in time it would force the authorities to
actignore it, or risk widespreadcivil disobedienceexecutions of apostates.
FTFY.
Do you seriously believe that some billboards will solve a violent conflict that has been raging for over 70 years?
That's a question, by the way. An answer would show that you are serious about improving the lives of Palestinians.
Well, on the bright side, the OP's question has been answered. Ukraine and Palestine are not the same. The Palestinian conflict can be solved by sending some billboards, the Ukrainian conflict cannot.
Well, on the bright side, the OP’s question has been answered. Ukraine and Palestine are not the same. The Palestinian conflict can be solved by sending some billboards, the Ukrainian conflict cannot.
This hilarious comment conceals a truth that the OP's question has been answered with what we all knew anyway - it is in the (perceived) strategic interests of the US, and of the US Jewish lobby, to continue to support Israel while it does the same thing that the Russians do in aggressively occupying a neighbour's land. Bad luck for the Palestinians.
Lest we become too abstract, let's remind ourselves of what that bad luck looked ljke for 16 children:
https://www.dci-palestine.org/16_palestinian_children_in_gaza_dead_after_israeli_military_offensive
Bad luck for the Palestinians.
So, you don't think that billboards will solve the problem?
What sort of peace treaty do you think will convince moderate Israelis and Palestinians to disarm the extremists and establish a Palestinian state that can coexist with an Israeli one?
That's not the subject of this thread; if you want to discuss that question start another topic. But as a general comment I'd say you can't get there from where you are starting. You can't get to justice while pretending that there's an equivalence between the aggressor and the victim.
That’s not the subject of this thread; if you want to discuss that question start another topic. But as a general comment I’d say you can’t get there from where you are starting. You can’t get to justice while pretending that there’s an equivalence between the aggressor and the victim.
Fair enough. The subject of the thread was whether Palestine and Ukraine were similar situations. We've seen a proposal that the Palestinian situation can be resolved by posting images on billboards. I doubt that, but it would be useful if you explained how you think the Palestinian conflict can be resolved. If you think the same solutions apply to the Ukrainian conflict, that would also be great to hear.
Arming and supporting an apartheid colonizing power is A-OK, as long as they serve the interests of those that fund them
War Crimes are bad when the other side does them
Natives are only allowed primitive weapons; when those weapons fail to hit military targets (and in the vast majority are intercepted by the Colony’s superior weapons systems), they can immediately be accused of attacking the Colony’s civilian population
The Colony’s civilian population are allowed to attack Natives, Natives are not allowed to fight back
Stop posting rubbish.
To be fair I'm struggling to spot much "rubbish" in jhj's post thois - which bits are you disputing?
Going through it......United States governments obviously support an apartheid regime (and it is obviously apartheid, ie, separate development based on ethnicity) because it serves their interests to do so.
You would have to be naive and gullible to believe that the US is motivated by concern or a sense of moral obligation. US governments don't give a monkeys about their own citizens, as their callous disregard for those who can't afford medical care or their jack shit response to hurricane Katrina proves, so they certainly aren't going to worry about people living thousands of miles away.
And they are indeed perfectly ready to back, even install, brutal bloody regimes if they feel it serves their interests.
Further more throughout the 1950s the US was actually quite hostile towards Israel and rather pro-arab. During this period France was Israel's closest ally and main arms supplier. Things, for various reasons, none of them to do with morality, started to change under President Kennedy untill we reached the point where we are today where for mostly geopolitical reasons the US props up Israel to a staggering level.
Don't expect that to necessarily continue, if, or more likely when, the Middle East ceases to be a region of special interest to the US. The United States spent over $2 trillion in 20 years in Afghanistan, such was their commitment to it - look how quickly they abandoned and left it.
jhj war crimes comment also appears perfectly valid to me. Or are seriously going to argue that Israel is regularly condemned by Western governments for its war crimes?
On jhj's point that Palestinians are only allowed to have primitive weapons to fight against the illegal occupation of their lands and are then criticised for their inaccuracy, you yourself have made precisely that point, repeatedly in fact.
And jhj's final point concerning how armed Israeli civilians are able to attack Palestinians with relative impunity, whilst Palestinians fighting back are swiftly dealt with, also appears perfectly valid.
Blimey, there's a lot been happening here in my absence!
Last page added a couple more...
So, thus far we’ve established:
Arming and supporting an apartheid colonizing power is A-OK, as long as they serve the interests of those that fund them
War Crimes are bad when the other side does them
Israel is not party to:
The Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)
Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR)
Biological & Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC)
Intl Criminal Court (ICC)
Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM)
Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)
Israeli Arms companies profit from using Gaza and the West bank to test weapons systems
Palestinians are only allowed primitive weapons; when those weapons fail to hit military targets (and in the vast majority are intercepted by Israel’s superior weapons systems), they can immediately be accused of attacking Israel’s civilian population
Israel’s civilian population are allowed to attack Palestinians, Palestinians are not allowed to fight back
Ukraine has every right to defend itself from invasion
Anything else?
I don’t have the answers. That’s why I’m asking you what you believe the answers are. But you just keep being evasive.
Thats because he doesnt have the answers either, none of us do. So maybe can you accept that and not wait for the unanswerable question. All it would ever be is speculative.
But what you want is for him to give you some sort of answer, even a possible, unworkable or not, but something that you then will want to criticize, but not offer any sort of a solution yourself, because to be critical, you place yourself in a superior position, but if you cant answer or propose a solution yourself, then thats kind of a pointless position for you to place yourself in.
So I'll ask you. What solution would you speculate on. if you cant provide one, then how do you know billboards wouldnt work ?
So I’ll ask you. What solution would you speculate on.
I've said multiple times before on this thread that any peace deal would have to involve Israel returning annexed lands in exchange for Palestinian recognition of Israel as a sovereign state. That means that any groups that call for the destruction of Israel have to be excluded from the process and that attacks on Israeli civilians must be acknowledged as terrorism.
Without those conditions, moderates on both sides will not support any deal. Problem is that extremists on both sides do not want a peace deal like that. Those extremists have to be isolated and excluded from the process. Making excuses for Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians just makes it easier for Israeli right-wingers to keep opposing any sort of peace deal.
Palestinians are only allowed primitive weapons; when those weapons fail to hit military targets (and in the vast majority are intercepted by Israel’s superior weapons systems), they can immediately be accused of attacking Israel’s civilian population
Palestinians aren't "allowed" weapons, they are covertly supplied, often by Iran.
If Palestinians fire rockets at Israeli cities, they are attacking civilians. That's the problem. Trying to rationalize it as not being terrorism is the best propaganda that Israeli right-wingers can wish for. Just call it what it is, "terrorism", and accept that it has to stop before Israel will accept any peace deal.
Or, do you have a suggestion for a peace deal that Israelis will accept that doesn't involve disarming Palestinian groups that vow the destruction of Israel. I'd love to hear your ideas.
thols2 has offered what he feels is required as a long term pragmatic solution several times.
I'm not a fan of baiting people for an answer just so you can argue about it, but he's put his view out there and had it criticised.
I say let's disarm the Ukrainians and ask the Russians nicely to not invade any more - that oughta work, right?
More seriously, if you mis-diagnose the problem you will get the wrong solution. The Israelis invaded, and continue to invade, Palestinian land, not vice versa. That's not some "right wing extremists", that's the democratically elected government of Israel.
The situation will not change unless the Israelis are forced to by the US (not likely) or the Palestinians are eliminated by force (current policy). Maybe if/when the US loses interest and power and China/Russia becomes #1 superpower it will be different, but neither the Chinese nor the Russians have much of a track record of helping people from the goodness of their hearts, so I doubt it.
The situation won't change until most Israelis believe that they can live in peace alongside a functioning Palestinian state. That will be a very difficult thing to achieve, I'm pessimistic about the prospects in our lifetimes. One of the very first things that has to happen if that is to be a possibility is for Palestinians to drop the call for the destruction of Israel and to stop indiscriminate attacks on Israeli civilians. No Israeli is going to trust Palestinian leaders unless that happens. Westerners who make excuses for attacks on Israeli civilians are not helping Palestinians, they are just prolonging the violence.
If you look back at the 1990s, when a peace settlement seemed possible, the major event there was that Yasser Arafat and the PLO accepted the existence of Israel and that they needed to stop terrorist attacks. The PLO and associated groups were responsible for brutal attacks on Israeli civilians, the Munich Olympic attack is probably the most famous but there were many others. Once the PLO renounced terrorism, peace talks became possible. The problem is that other Palestinian groups refused to renounce violence so we ended up with multiple armed groups in the Palestinian territories competing with each other. No peace settlement is possible while that is happening because any agreement that Israel makes with one group will be undermined by others.
The Israelis invaded, and continue to invade, Palestinian land
...Because?
This is the partly the problem isn't it, at what point do you start the belligerence? at who's feet do you place the fault? The British for allowing unlimited Jewish immigration to the region? The Europeans for their continued anti-Semitism that encouraged it? The Palestinian Muslims for throwing away UN 242? the Egyptians and Syrians for Yom Kippur war in 1967? Israeli refusal to negotiate return of gained land and settlement building? The first Intifada? The second Intifada and the excessive Israeli reaction to it? At every turn everyone has acted with sadly predictable parochial short sightedness.
The only way that I can see peace ever happening; is Palestinians paramilitary organisations unilaterally stopping killing Israeli citizens and allow properly constituted Palestinian political control. No country would ever allow terrorists who's stated aim is the destruction of that country to remain a viable threat, and that includes Israel. There is nothing special in the region in that regard.
That alone removes the right wing Israeli raison-d'etre of continuing bellicosity and forces all Israelis to confront what they are doing themselves in the region. Pretty much most of Israel can get somewhat behind "we're defending ourselves" line even though most of them know it to be a lie, no-one wants their kids to be rocketed on their way to school, but in the face of peace from the Palestinians, you force Israeli citizens to confront the right wing who have a hold on politics since the late 70's The saddest statistic is the support that right wing parties in Israel have of those in their late teens and twenties, and that isn't going to change without continued and settled non-aggression.
nickc is exactly right.
Edit: except for the date of the Yom Kippur war, but that's immaterial.
…Because?
Lebensraum? Why exactly do the Israelis need to evict Palestians from places like East Jerusalem?
Again you're suggesting that the victims should be punished. There's zero evidence to suggest that the Israelis would abide by any peace agreement, so unilaterally blaming the Palestinians for daring to be unhappy is breathtaking double standard.
Having said all that, nothing happens inside Gaza without the Iranians either allowing it or encouraging it. So, at some point if you want peace; You have to confront and stop the Cold/Getting hotter war between Iran (and Syria) and Israel
unilaterally blaming the Palestinians for daring to be unhappy is breathtaking double standard.
Nobody's blaming them for being unhappy, of course they're unhappy, anybody would be. The problem is that attacking Israeli citizens makes things worse, not better. Stopping that would remove one huge obstacle to peace. There are other obstacles, but that's one of the big ones.
There’s zero evidence to suggest that the Israelis would abide by any peace agreement
Likewise, the same can be said for the states that encourage and support Hezbollah and Hamas that surround Israel. But it has to start somewhere, and pragmatically, if you remove the reason for Israeli continued aggression in Gaza, you remove the immediate flash point for violence. In the space that creates, everyone backs off a bit.
The British for allowing unlimited Jewish immigration to the region?
My history is a little fuzzy here.
But the white paper of 1939 might be worth reading.
Stories like that of SS Exodus too.
Again you’re suggesting that the victims should be punished.
One of the reasons that the Israeli moderate, or even pragmatic right have such limited support is because of the rocket attacks. While they understand why it's happening, no Israeli wants to be the victims of them. You want there to be a greater voice for peace from moderate Israelis within Israel? Maybe stop killing them might work?
And maybe if the Israelis stopped settlements and evictions, allowed Palestinian building in occupied territories, stopped stealing Palestine's water, stopped preventing workers from getting to their lands and a thousand other manifestations of occupation, then Hamas and friends would not feel the frustration that leads to violence. But no - all you can do is load the burden of responsibility ontoy the Palestinians.
And when they do stop firing, what then? More provocation, snipers on the fence killing unarmed civilians, deliberately keeping the kettle boiling to to provide a pretext for more invasion. Disgusting, and shameful that people seek to justify it.
But no – all you can do is load the burden of responsibility ontoy the Palestinians.
I haven't seen anybody do that. The responsibility for attacks on Israeli civilians is on Palestinians (and probably Iran too). Those attacks do not achieve any purpose except make things worse for Palestinians. Stopping those would be one important step towards improving things. Having Westerners denounce them would also be a small step in assuring Israeli moderates that the world does care about attacks on Jews.
But no
I agree with everything in your list, Israel are no innocents in this.
Edit: When I wrote "everyone has acted..." up thread I include the Israelis.
Unfortunately history shows that the Palestinians stoppoing attacks does not lead to reciprocal action from Israel. For example, following the 2008 ceasefire agreement Israel repeatedly violated the agreement
In 2021, a similar story, a ceasefire ending when a violent racist march was allowed in East Jerusalem
https://twitter.com/MiddleEastEye/status/1404740132373155840?s=20&t=Jg_fqZGyAETzrDMkRkwXgw
There has been no halt to settlement, no end to Israeli demands to control the West Bank, the Palestinians have nothing to hope for in Israeli justice, so the struggle continues with the only weapon they have - martyrdom and a hope for justice in another life.
So what is the conclusion...... that if your land is attacked, invaded, and occupied, you shouldn't fight back - your moral superiority should defeat the invaders/aggressors.
Is this a tactic that the Ukrainians should be considering?
Is this a tactic that the Ukrainians should be considering?
No, apparently Ukraine is "different" in some unspecified but important way.
No, apparently Ukraine is “different” in some unspecified but important way
I think Palestine has every right to defend itself, as does Israel. What it - nor Israel don't have the right to do is commit war crimes, and Hezbollah are committing war crimes by launching un-aimed rockets at civilian targets. Israeli soldiers commit war crimes by shooting and killing unarmed Palestinians, by occupying their land and so on. If Ukrainian forces commit war crimes they to will be no doubt be condemned
If you want what I think is a way out to create a peace that can be sustained, then I think personally it's for Palestinian rockets to stop, it's not helping, and actively making things worse for themselves (by justifying occupation). In that space the Israeli left and moderate right wing can start to have a voice that may overtake that of the belligerent right who see the destruction of Arab Palestine as the only way to resolve it.
If Ukrainian forces commit war crimes they to will be no doubt be condemned
That did happen in the early days. Some Ukrainian soldiers captured some Russians and tortured and (I think) murdered them, then posted videos on social media. President Zelenskyy had them arrested and charged, he made it very clear to the Ukrainian military that he would not tolerate war crimes. I'm sure that individual Ukrainian soldiers secretly ignore that, the bitterness there must be unfathomable, but the Ukrainian doctrine is that their soldiers must not commit war crimes and will be punished if they are caught.
Many Palestinian groups have the opposite strategy. They target Israeli civilians deliberately in order to terrorize the population. This provides legal cover for the Israeli military to respond - they are not committing war crimes if they are fighting armed opponents who have attacked civilians. Not saying they should be doing it, but Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians are what Israel uses as legal justification.
Hezbollah are committing war crimes by launching un-aimed rockets at civilian targets.
Well it is news to me that Hezbollah are now part of the Palestinian resistance, have you got any links to back this claim up?
Hezbollah are a Lebanese resistant movement formed specifically to fight and defeat Israel's illegal and brutal occupation of Lebanese territory, something which they successfully achieved. They are Shia Muslims.
In contrast Palestinians which are Muslim are almost entirely Sunni Muslims, they would not expect a specifically Shia Lebanese resistant movement to fight on their behalf. Nor was I aware until your post that it was being suggested that they were.
In recent times due to the fact that both Hezbollah and Hamas share a common brutal expansionist enemy, plus that there are hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees currently in Lebanon, there has been a certain amount of rapprochement between the two, but I was unaware that this has led to Hezbollah fighting to liberate Palestine.
If this is actually the case it would suggest quite a problem for Israel - Hezbollah has already defeated Israel in South Lebanon, it is extremely well armed, and by far the most powerful irregular army in the world. It is more powerful than the Lebanese army, it defeated ISIS in Lebanon and has helped to defeat it in Syria.
You admit that Israel commits war crimes, and you will also, I imagine, concede that their crimes have innumerably more victims than those of the Palestinians , and yet ...
then I think personally it’s for Palestinian rockets to stop
They tried that. Didn't work (as per my links above).
Next? Any chance that Israel might be called upon to do something?
what Israel uses as legal justification.
Sure they say that, but we don't need to accept it and continue sending arms, do we?
both Hezbollah and Hamas share a common brutal expansionist enemy
A thousand times this. If not for Israeli aggression I doubt that Muslim extremists like ISIS and Al Qaeda would get volunteers to lick envelopes, never mind take up arms.
Sure they say that, but we don’t need to accept it and continue sending arms, do we?
It's not a war crime if they are targeting armed combatants. If Palestinians use civilians as human shields, that is a war crime. Nobody in the Middle East wants to see war crimes trials, you'd end up with Israeli soldiers acquitted if they could show they were fighting armed opponents, and Arab fighters and leaders convicted for deliberately targeting civilians. Do you think the Syrian and Iranian governments are going to agree to war crimes trials?
The problem in the Middle East is that there are numerous groups fighting each other, the Israeli-Palestinian thing is just piece of it. You can't fix a complex situation like that with a single action, you have to think what the larger consequences will be. Sure, the U.S. could stop supplying weapons to Israel. That won't change Israeli policy, it will just mean that the U.S. no longer has any leverage. Israel would turn to someone else for support. Israel has a very advanced military technology sector and nuclear weapons, so countries like India, Russia, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Brazil, etc. would love to get access to Israeli technology.
If the U.S. lost any leverage over Israel, Israel would probably decide that they might as well destroy Iranian ability to threaten Israel. Iran is run by holocaust deniers who have vowed to destroy Israel, so the Israeli's see a nuclear armed Iran as an existential threat. The Iranians know this too, so the U.S. cutting off Israel would mean that Iran would institute a crash program for a nuclear bomb, or maybe try to buy some from North Korea or ****stan. They'd be crazy not to because they know Israel has nuclear weapons.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other countries in the region know this too and they would immediately start nuclear weapons programs because they are afraid of a nuclear armed Iran.
So, nobody in the region wants the U.S. to cut off arms shipments to Israel because that would utterly destabilize the region and launch a nuclear arms race.
The situation in the region is extremely complex, full of extremely dangerous people. The Palestinians are pawns in all this, but the other countries in the region much prefer the current situation to a nuclear arms race. That's why the U.S. is not going to cut Israel off.
If Palestinians use civilians as human shields, that is a war crime.
But Ukrainians not. Right. Cos that's different. Got it.
That Amnesty report has been almost universally criticized. Ukraine is not using human shields, they have made every effort to move civilians out of combat areas. Russia has deliberately targeted those civilians.
Maybe instead of twisting yourself into mental pretzels trying to explain why there's no problem with Palestinians targeting Israeli civilians, you could just say that civilians shouldn't be targeted, but that doesn't mean that Palestinians aren't victims of horrible injustices. It would actually be a much stronger argument to make. (And yes, Israeli right-wingers shouldn't murder Palestinian civilians either, no argument there from me.)
That Amnesty report has been almost universally criticized.
By? Oh yes, the allies of Ukraine.
Ukraine is not using human shields, they have made every effort to move civilians out of combat areas.
And you know that because .... ?
Russia has deliberately targeted those civilians.
I don't doubt it. Same as Israel targets civilians.
Maybe instead of twisting yourself into mental pretzels
One of is twisting themseleves into pretzels but I'm not sure it's me. I haven't ever said that it is OK to target civilians so maybe you should check your reading comprehension. Not so long ago you falsely claimed I advocated sending HIMARS to Palestine, so I detect a pattern emerging. On the other hand, you're the one who keeps insisting that Palestine is different from Ukraine but somehow never quite manages to explain how. Maybe less typing and more thinking would be beneficial.
Not so long ago you falsely claimed I advocated sending HIMARS to Palestine,
I haven’t ever said that it is OK to target civilians
You did raise the possibility of sending HIMARS. It's difficult not to see your observation that Palestinian attacks mostly fail as an attempt to justify those attacks. What would really help here is if you explained what this means, it's a very strange thing to say if you don't support sending weapons and don't condemn attacks on civilians.
DrJ
Free Member
Maybe if the US supplied Palestine with tanks and HIMARS the Palestinians would not be reduced to attacking civilians. Note also that the attacks on civilians produce far fewer casualties than “surgical” attacks on Palestinians.