Middle East Politics

Chairman Woodie said:
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I opened the story to read and was greeted by this in the sidebar
Hours after announcing it, Netanyahu suspends deal to let 16,000 migrants stay
Buckling under criticism, PM says he hears 'residents of south Tel Aviv,' will only reexamine agreement after consultations with them and interior minister
:lol:

Edit - the twitter comments were very interesting as well. Is that specific to the paper's audience or a more general feeling?
 
2cents said:
Yeah, for demographic and geographic reasons the political culture there tends not to be as volatile as, say, Syria or Iraq, but it's the most important Arab state and in many ways the trend-setter for the region.



Nice of you to say that, I definitely have my own biases though which need keeping in check, I lived in Israel for a couple of years and have a lot of fondness for it in many respects, and also come from a typical secular-type Western background which maybe makes me a bit overly critical at times of the role of Islam (or what Islamists have made of it) in the politics of the region.
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No worries!

That is true of course, we all have our biases and it is almost impossible to disregard them completely and yet you somehow manage to do so far better than most of us, on topics which tend to be particularly emotive and without any real shades of grey.

Like I said (and I don't mean to pick people out, I'm just using a few examples), it is quite clear after a few posts what the rough backgrounds of posters like Raoul, Fearless, Danny, Kaos etc are (not saying any one of them is right or wrong, just that their outlook on life is clear). You approach things with a much more objective view.
 
2cents said:
Yeah, for demographic and geographic reasons the political culture there tends not to be as volatile as, say, Syria or Iraq, but it's the most important Arab state and in many ways the trend-setter for the region.



Nice of you to say that, I definitely have my own biases though which need keeping in check, I lived in Israel for a couple of years and have a lot of fondness for it in many respects, and also come from a typical secular-type Western background which maybe makes me a bit overly critical at times of the role of Islam (or what Islamists have made of it) in the politics of the region.
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You are a very interesting person! You have a lot of knowledge about Asia Minor and the middle east. You seem to have travelled about quite a bit. Are you a secular muslim or christian? Is that why you are critical of religion and the way it has shaped geopolitics in the region (in a very negative way)? I'd love to travel and interact with people from cultures that I haven't had the chance to interact with before. Gives you a lot of perspective.

I've met quite a few people in various places who are very vain, self centred and lack critical thinking. Unsurprisingly these are the people who are not well travelled and are not interested in other cultures.
 
Nikhil said:
You are a very interesting person! You have a lot of knowledge about Asia Minor and the middle east. You seem to have travelled about quite a bit. Are you a secular muslim or christian? Is that why you are critical of religion and the way it has shaped geopolitics in the region (in a very negative way)? I'd love to travel and interact with people from cultures that I haven't had the chance to interact with before. Gives you a lot of perspective.

I've met quite a few people in various places who are very vain, self centred and lack critical thinking. Unsurprisingly these are the people who are not well travelled and are not interested in other cultures.
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He's an Irish fella who's read a book or two thousand
 
Nikhil said:
You are a very interesting person! You have a lot of knowledge about Asia Minor and the middle east. You seem to have travelled about quite a bit. Are you a secular muslim or christian? Is that why you are critical of religion and the way it has shaped geopolitics in the region (in a very negative way)? I'd love to travel and interact with people from cultures that I haven't had the chance to interact with before. Gives you a lot of perspective.

I've met quite a few people in various places who are very vain, self centred and lack critical thinking. Unsurprisingly these are the people who are not well travelled and are not interested in other cultures.
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:lol:
 
Chairman Woodie said:
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International law sets out the four criteria for statehood:

"The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states."

If Israel has really never defined its borders, does this mean that it is not, and has never been, a state?
 
Mozza said:
Just like Israel does for its citizens hurt in the conflict
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Sponsoring self-harm and death proves these are desperate times for the Palestinian jihad of removing Israel. US funds dwindling, the Force Taylor Act, Jerusalem back where it belongs, the Arab States discarding it, other wars stealing it's limelight.
 
Fearless said:
Sponsoring self-harm and death proves these are desperate times for the Palestinian jihad of removing Israel. US funds dwindling, the Force Taylor Act, Jerusalem back where it belongs, the Arab States discarding it, other wars stealing it's limelight.
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You obviously have a hard time reading, the young man said no one went to the border for the money

Israel is desperate, 6 million Palestinians yet only a 1/3rd have the vote, the apartheid parallel grows more obvious every day. You'll lose international support and the support of the diaspora.
 
Mozza said:
You obviously have a hard time reading, the young man said no one went to the border for the money

Israel is desperate, 6 million Palestinians yet only a 1/3rd have the vote, the apartheid parallel grows more obvious every day. You'll lose international support and the support of the diaspora.
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Sorry, which 1/3 have the vote?
 
Fearless said:
Sponsoring self-harm and death proves these are desperate times for the Palestinian jihad of removing Israel. US funds dwindling, the Force Taylor Act, Jerusalem back where it belongs, the Arab States discarding it, other wars stealing it's limelight.
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$500. Would you get yourself shot for $500? How about $5000?
 
Fearless said:
72 virgins and you've got a deal.
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Sorry, nope. You’ve blown it. As anthropologist Scott Atran has said, “every leader of a jihadi group I interviewed told me, namely, that anyone seeking to become a martyr in order to obtain virgins in paradise would be rejected outright.”
 
Super Hans said:
Sorry, nope. You’ve blown it. As anthropologist Scott Atran has said, “every leader of a jihadi group I interviewed told me, namely, that anyone seeking to become a martyr in order to obtain virgins in paradise would be rejected outright.”
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Probably because the virgins would find them hideously disfigured.
 
Adisa said:
Might be wrong but I understand Israel does the same thing.
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I think Hamas pay compensation as an incentive to encourage acts of violence and win support. The PA do the same.

Mozza said:
Just like Israel does for its citizens hurt in the conflict
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Israel doesn't knowingly risk the welfare of it's civilians by organising events where violence is foreseeable.

The people of Gaza were warned:

(Tweet trans.)"To the residents of the Gaza Strip: The Hamas leadership is risking your lives. Anyone who approaches the wall is endangering his life. I advise you to continue your normal and natural life and not to engage in provocation." - A. Liberman

 
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Chairman Woodie said:
I think Hamas pay compensation as an incentive to encourage acts of violence and win support. The PA do the same.



Israel doesn't knowingly risk the welfare of it's civilians by organising events where violence is foreseeable.

The people of Gaza were warned:

(Tweet trans.)"To the residents of the Gaza Strip: The Hamas leadership is risking your lives. Anyone who approaches the wall is endangering his life. I advise you to continue your normal and natural life and not to engage in provocation." - A. Liberman

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It's nice that Israel has pushed its borders even further inside the wall. I'm still waiting for the internal wall to protect the border one, and then a few more rings.
 
Chairman Woodie said:
I think Hamas pay compensation as an incentive to encourage acts of violence and win support. The PA do the same.



Israel doesn't knowingly risk the welfare of it's civilians by organising events where violence is foreseeable.
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I have more problems with this actually.

Israel pays and subsidises civilian settlers into newly claimed territory in the West Bank. That is acceptable, but compensating your own citizens when they're shot by another country is not?
 
Chairman Woodie said:
I think Hamas pay compensation as an incentive to encourage acts of violence and win support. The PA do the same.



Israel doesn't knowingly risk the welfare of it's civilians by organising events where violence is foreseeable.

The people of Gaza were warned:

(Tweet trans.)"To the residents of the Gaza Strip: The Hamas leadership is risking your lives. Anyone who approaches the wall is endangering his life. I advise you to continue your normal and natural life and not to engage in provocation." - A. Liberman

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I thought Israel had left Gaza? What gives it the right to dictate what the Palestinians do in their own land? Israel is admitting the withdrawal is a sham and Gaza is a prison
 
berbatrick said:
I have more problems with this actually.

Israel pays and subsidises civilian settlers into newly claimed territory in the West Bank. That is acceptable, but compensating your own citizens when they're shot by another country is not?
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It's acceptable according to who? To me? No. I think the settlements give the PA the perfect excuse not to negotiate with Israel.

As I posted above, I think Hamas pays compensation as an incentive to encourage acts of violence and win support. The PA do the same. Hamas are using Gazans as a weapon.
 
Chairman Woodie said:
It's acceptable according to who? To me? No. I think the settlements give the PA the perfect excuse not to negotiate with Israel.

As I posted above, I think Hamas pays compensation as an incentive to encourage acts of violence and win support. The PA do the same. Hamas are using Gazans as a weapon.
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Walking in your own land is an act of violence?
 
Chairman Woodie said:
Israel doesn't knowingly risk the welfare of it's civilians by organising events where violence is foreseeable.

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When the world says with remarkable unanimity that the settlements are illegal and a violation of Geneva IV (a war crime), but Israel moves hundreds of thousands of settlers into hostile territory anyway at the expense of the Arab population, it really is like painting a big red target on their backs. It would seem Israel can tolerate a certain level of civilian casualties as an acceptable price of maintaining the occupation and the land grab.
 
https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/04/03/israel-gaza-killings-unlawful-calculated

Israel: Gaza Killings Unlawful, Calculated
Officials Green-Light Shooting of Unarmed Demonstrators

Senior Israeli officials who unlawfully called for use of live ammunition against Palestinian demonstrations who posed no imminent threat to life bear responsibility for the killings of 14 demonstrators in Gaza and the injuring of hundreds on March 30, 2018, Human Rights Watch said today.
 
No Israeli soldiers even injured, dozens Palestinians killed and hundreds shot. Among the killed are (unarmed) children, and now a clearly marked journalist (with more injured). Israel is surely in no easy position, but it sure as hell hasn't made things any easier on themselves. There exists a world where Israel hadn't turned the international opinion against them and in favour of the Palestinians, but they're clearly not interested in it.
 
niMic said:
No Israeli soldiers even injured, dozens Palestinians killed and hundreds shot. Among the killed are (unarmed) children, and now a clearly marked journalist (with more injured). Israel is surely in no easy position, but it sure as hell hasn't made things any easier on themselves. There exists a world where Israel hadn't turned the international opinion against them and in favour of the Palestinians, but they're clearly not interested in it.
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This seems the most reasonable criticism so far, as you acknowledge that the situation is difficult in the first place. My take on all this:

First of all, the Palestinians' actions aren't really "protests", also not primarily aimed at targeting Israeli soldiers, the target is the border fence. Here's what Yahya Sinwar has said about Hamas' aims: https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas...a-protests-will-continue-until-border-erased/

Second, it's obvious that the present handling of the situation on the Israeli side has lead to actions that can't be justified with protecting the border as such. Either because of the current rules for protecting the border itself, or because of tolerated overstepping of existing rules (probably both). But bar those clear incidents, I also find it far from easy to draw the line conclusively for this situation.

In general, my view is that Hamas has succeeded in putting Israel in a catch-22 position there: If they allow masses of Palestinians to approach the border fence, it will be taken down. This would continue until the Israeli forces stop them. If they want to stop them, it will lead to bloodshed in a highly asymmetric situation. This obviously doesn't justify some of the violence that was reported, but even if that would be prevented, the basic problem would remain.

The result of a no-fire policy would be that thousands of activists were able to approach the border fence (riot dispersal methods can be overcome), and overrun or destroy it where they can. The first victories would lead to a massive morale boost on the Palestinian side, and the result would be further escalation (the designated climax is mid-May, on Nakba Day). Stopping this would need a lot more violence than we've seen so far, and the result of a once-again protected border would be pretty much the current status quo.

I may be misinformed or wrong on some of this, but that's my understanding of the situation so far.
 
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