IDF completes road across width of Gaza, satellite images show - BBC News
IDF completes road across width of Gaza, satellite images show - BBC News
The IDF says it is to facilitate troop movements but experts fear it could be used as a barrier.
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I've only point out what the IDF had said was their plan. Some Orthodox zionist have been calling for all the territory of West bank and Gaza to be theirs, but they are a tiny minority.
Did you see the article? Something like half of the Prime Minister's cabinet was at a rally celebrating that they're doing this.
Here's the thing: I can recognize that where people stand on this sort of thing is very hard to accurately gauge in the moment. It's as likely that I'm overestimating the support for this plan as it is that you're underestimating it
With that said, I have a strong motivation to rationalize that these people do not represent the center of public opinion. I really want that to be true. But as someone who has followed Israeli news and politics from before October 7th, and has been following it even more closely since, from the most on-the-ground sources I can find, I heard a phrase from a Lebanese Palestinian podcaster that has struck with me for months. He said,
"What we are witnessing is the Smotrich-ization of the Israeli public."
That's in reference to Israeli Finance minister and self-described fascist Bezalel Smotrich. I think it's true. To my horror, the Israeli center and even left are far more amenable to the full ethnic cleansing of Israel-Palestine than any time in my lifetime. I could be wrong. But I think you should ask yourself what you think you should be doing if I'm not.
Then: do that.
I heard a reporter sometime ago about speaking to an Israeli that lived in one of the raided kibbutzes. He was part of the peace movement and he and some other guys in the kibbutz were taking turns bringing kids from Gaza to Israeli hospitals. And now he didn't know how he had to feel anymore: several of his neighbors killed with their families, some kidnapped, ...
Ongoing violence (from both sides) can only result in the 'normies' radicalising.
It’s as likely that I’m overestimating the support for this plan as it is that you’re underestimating it
Indeed. It's hard to make a clear assumption on how Israel's geopolitical agenda plays out, and your assumption maybe more correct than mine.
To my horror, the Israeli center and even left are far more amenable to the full ethnic cleansing of Israel-Palestine than any time in my lifetime.
The origin of the Palestinian - Israel conflict is of statehood and governmental control, not ethnicities. Arabs who have never called themselves Palestinians but have lived in the state of Israel since it's founding have as much claim to the region as Palestinians themselves and are of the same ethnicity. In other words even if Israel remove all Palestinians from the regions they want, it will never be considered ethnic cleansing by the rest of the world, because Palestinians isn't an ethnical identity, it's a political identity.
I think the last part of what you said -- about them not being an ethnicity -- is unhelpful.
I don't agree with the take, but I don't want to get into a debate over semantics. I just want to try and get people thinking -- from many different perspectives -- about what is happening and what each of us need to do to stop it.
Millions of people are at risk of dying of deliberate starvation. Millions are being pushed off their land. The region is being destabilized, Jews and Muslims worldwide are facing increasing antisemitism due to a complex set of reasons, Israelis are facing a rapid erosion in civil liberties... and we need to say NO. We need to interrupt all of these.
We need to demand peace, we need to force from power leaders who pursue agendas designed to escalate conflicts because its in their interests, we need to halt the logistics operations that allow for people to be caged and starved and blown up and tortured...
I think you and I may disagree about a whole bunch of terms to apply, but I just want to find the common ground. Particularly among liberal zionists, because it's breaking my heart to see so many liberal zionists freezing up at a moment of crisis and allowing the religious zionist movement to take charge. It doesn't have to be that way, we all just need to find courage and act.
I'm not looking to cast blame or pick fights. As long as you and anyone else isn't actively supporting population transfers or a single Jewish state displacing Palestinians from river to sea, I just want to find where we agree -- stop the war, stop the march of global fascism in Israel, America, and every where else -- and get to work.
Millions of people are at risk of dying of deliberate starvation. Millions are being pushed off their land. The region is being destabilized, Jews and Muslims worldwide are facing increasing antisemitism due to a complex set of reasons, Israelis are facing a rapid erosion in civil liberties… and we need to say NO. We need to interrupt all of these.
Indeed. I agree globally the world need to find a way to end this impending genocide of the Palestinian people.
We need to demand peace, we need to force from power leaders who pursue agendas designed to escalate conflicts because its in their interests, we need to halt the logistics operations that allow for people to be caged and starved and blown up and tortured…
The problem is for us to demand peace, we need to have a solution that most people would agree with, including the majority of Israel and Palestinians. What would that solution be at this point in the conflict?
I have two answers for this.
First, I challenge the assumption that I have to provide a credible peace plan in order to demand an end to violence. The right-wing of the Zionist movement has made dismantling any infrastructure to work towards peace a key project, and they've been very successful. It was because of their deliberate actions that we have no good options, so I will not accept a lack of good options as a reason to delay. Those guys spent years fucking this situation up, and I demand they get to work unfucking it.
Second, I think the honest answer is that we design a peace process and we start on it, even if it's a long one. Carl Sagan famously observed "To make an apple pie from scratch, first you must create the universe." We don't have a partner for peace? Well then get to work creating partners for peace. The Palestinians have been facing tightening restrictions for years intended to cut off the development of internal political thought and leaders. Stop doing that. Demand that they get the right to say and think and debate things that Israel doesn't like. Build infrascturucture to make a peace plan possible and set a roadmap: first meeting this year, with goals to develop the boundaries of the first stage of the peace process, with an understanding that the first step is not going to be the creation of a new state or anything similar in scope. Increase the complexity of negotiations and their goals each year on a ten-year timeline toward imposing a plan meant to last for ten more years, with a plan to reassess after that period and decide whether to continue on the same plan or make major changes. Something like this.
We don’t have a partner for peace? Well then get to work creating partners for peace.
The US has been trying for years with the Saudi's, Egyptians, etc... to support and encourage a peace treaty between the Palestinians and Israeli. And when the Saudi's shifted, the Palestinians immediately went to Iran for support. Many other middle eastern countries nearby either hates the US, like Syria, or unable due to a crisis themselves, like Lebanon. So this policy isn't possible.
First, I challenge the assumption that I have to provide a credible peace plan in order to demand an end to violence.
The reason for this war is because neither Hamas or Israeli wants to back down, and unfortunately thousands of Palestinians are caught in the cross-fire. At this point in the conflict, it doesn't seem either Hamas or Israeli cares what happens to the civilians of Gaza, they just want to win this war. So unless you offer them a viable solution to peacefully end this conflict, they will not accept a cease fire.
Yeah just like when they said they were going to starve and terror bomb everyone in Gaza and then did exactly that.