2 quick points: the problems Noah Rothman outlines are only "our" problems to the extent that we have a 2-party system and one of the parties and its supporters embrace fatuousness.
And in terms of younger people and Israel, I am an older American jew and I have despised the corrupt authoritarian Netanyahu and his extremist supporters for…
2 quick points: the problems Noah Rothman outlines are only "our" problems to the extent that we have a 2-party system and one of the parties and its supporters embrace fatuousness.
And in terms of younger people and Israel, I am an older American jew and I have despised the corrupt authoritarian Netanyahu and his extremist supporters for years. The fact that Hamas has now behaved despicable in no way exonerates Netanyahu, and we can only imagine how that polling data would look if Israel had political leadership worthy of its founding aspirations.
I agree with your assesmment of the President of Israel, he should listen to the people and not to the RIGHT-WING buddies he has chosen , these people parrot his feelings without any thought on their part. they must think about what they parrot and think for themselves for a change and not for their wallets. money is not everything and their hope for a good job from the President sounds like they have been taking lessons from the A---hole d. j. "trump" the HUMP! and the World knows how greedy ,selfish, MOB wannabe that person is.
This right here is correct. Younger Americans see what Israel's democracy is and criticize it. That's not criticizing the existence of Israel but the problem with a theocratic state, any legitimate criticism of the government's policies can be immediately dismissed as anti-Semitism.
If Israel is a liberal democracy (and I don't believe it is any longer, no more than Turkey or Hungary are or, even the United States which is heading in the illiberal democracy direction) it needs to embrace those ideals. Having Palestinians be an oppressed minority in Israel is no more sustainable in liberal democracy than Jim Crowe or apartheid were.
That being said, we MUST separate the Palestinian people from Hamas. Hamas and Hezbollah are part and parcel with ISIS, the Taliban and other anti-liberal, theocratic authoritarians. These types need to be resisted and confronted without remorse wherever they are found. If that means the UN must take over control of Gaza, then so be it but Hamas MUST go.
I agree with Howard, well put, but even more, morally put. Terrorist don’t plan on winning wars with military strength, they are practicing a guerrilla war, staging attacks and counting on stronger opponents to retaliate in such a way that further alienating a populace. Any guesses on the outcome here?
My position hasn't actually changed since the attack. I support the people of Israel, I empathize with the people of Palestine, I'm appalled by Hamas (and expect it to get fully obliterated), and my raging disgust for Benjamin Netanyahu continues apace. Netanyahu's party actually accused the leader of the Israeli domestic intelligence of being a member of the 'deep state' when he warned that the deadly attacks on Palestinians were eroding national security.
This was published today by Haaretz about a speech Netanyahu gave in 2019. It is hard to see why one can't be pro-Palestinian and anti-Hamas. It certainly seems that some in Israel are anti-Palestinian and PRO Hamas.
"“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” he told a meeting of his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”
Only 44% of the residents of Gaza voted for Hamas in 2006, they won the ballot on a plurality of the vote. Since then there have been no more elections and the residents of Gaza have existed in an open air prison. It's extremely doubtful Hamas has anything resembling the level of support you claim.
And found this. The Palestinians - across BOTH Gaza and the West Bank - show much greater support for Hamas than Fatah.
But sure...nothing like the level of support "I claim."
"If new presidential elections were held today and only two were nominated, Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh, only 46% would participate and from among those, Abbas would receive 36% and Haniyeh 52% of the votes"
Really? Sure...It's just 20,000 Hamas fighters out of 2.2 million people that are the baddies. The rest are just peace loving innocents.
I guess you also believe that the people that lived in the towns outside German concentration camps were completely innocent because they weren't actively killing people.
FFS.
Try reading...
"The bloody events of last weekend, including the massacre of over 250 revelers at a rave party, have been condemned by people around the world as a terrorist outrage. In Gaza, however, they are widely seen as a breach in the Israeli-built wall that has trapped residents for 16 years and condemned them to victimhood.
“The situation is very devastating, and we couldn’t take it anymore,” says local journalist Hind Khoudary, describing deteriorating living conditions in Gaza. “It may not be aligned with international law, but, for the first time, Palestinians here in Gaza do not feel helpless.”"
A poll in Jan of 1940 (early polling days) found that 88% of American polled were against declaring war on the Axis Powers. Looking at that I think we sat out that war.
A poll--not that I trust polls-- states that 68% of Palestinians "support" Hamas. That is a majority but not particularly vast. I don't know when the poll was taken. I can understand, but not condone, why they would. The Israeli government treatment of Palestinians has been going on for a long time.
Had Israel not started bombing Gaza civilians and cutting off water, electricity, food, and such in response, one has to wonder whether that 68 % would have gone down, since I refuse to believe that just because you are Palestinian you cannot be appalled by the actions last weekend. As it is, the percentage is likely to go up. People have a way of digging in when such things happen. I applaud the Israelis who, despite the horrors, look to their leaders for some of the problem.
And yes, I would have been concerned for the truly innocent Germans during WWII. Not everyone there supported Hitler, as is obvious from the number of dissidents he killed or sent to camps, not to mention those who survived and condemned.
Pretty sure they didn’t poll the children. Nor does that figure suggest how strong the support of any individual is. A hellava lot of people who generally supported the GOP despite things like the the Muslim Ban or withdrawing from the Iran agreement but who changed their mind after 1/6. People do have a line they won’t cross
So whee, some Palestinian celebrated an atrocity. Probably some Muslims celebrate 9/11. (Though not where trump said he saw them) Do we believe that every damn Muslim is thus a terrorist? .tRump preached that it did with his Musl8m ban--the first one.
There are supporters of Palestinians who are celebrating Hamas. They are just as wrong as the “shock and awe”--or maybe more “starve and freeze”--response of Israel.
I actually would like to see a UN peacekeeping force deal with rooting out Hamas as they did in tamping down the extremists in the Balkans. But the UN is much weakened.
UNHCR and its leadership have massive responsibility for the current situation in both Gaza and the West Bank. Their demonization of Israel and support for the 'right of return' of millions of people who have never lived in Israel has been a huge incentive to Palestinian intransigence.
Because when you take the position that Israel is always wrong and that the Palestinians have a "right of return" - aka, overwhelm the Israelites, what is that saying exactly?
Answer: Israel shouldn't exist and the we, the UN, support that position.
Guess what the position of virtually every Arab state, and the Palestinians - and Hamas - has been? Israel needs to cease to exist and be "driven into the sea."
(The recent Abraham accords (along with the Camp David peace agreement) means that most of the Arab states DO recognize the right of Israel to exist. Israel was working on a peace agreement with Saudi Arabia, which it is widely believed that was the reason Iran gave Hamas the green light. )
Ah, I thought you were talking about the Israeli "right of return" that lets any Jew immigrate. My Israeli friend is very proud of that, though when I pressed him about where such an influx would LIVE he did balk at taking over Palestinian homes and territory.
I certainly agree that is the position of Hamas. As you point out the "drive into the sea" bit hasn't been the position of Arab STATES for a very long time, though I am sure there are extremists in each country who still go with that. Of course, there are extremists in Israel who want exactly the same thing to happen to the Palestinians. Judging what a COUNTRY officially thinks depends on whether the government supports the extremists. The recent protests in Israel suggest the government was leaning towards the extremists there.
A comparison would be the US government supporting the America is a Christian Nation bit of the evangelical nationalists. Our government is not doing that, though our supreme court in its decisions is eating away at the idea of separation of church and state. So far it is applying "religious liberty" as a defense to anti-discrimination laws mostly to the LGBTQ community but I have had discussions with godawful "victim Christians" who would extend this "right of discrimination" to Muslims, Jews, etc.
Extremism is anti-democratic in any society. It's a problem here, AND in Israel, and frankly in way too many countries that have been considered "the West."
I don't know that Hamas needed a "green light" from anyone, though Iran does seem to have its fingers in the whole thing, if only as supplier. But I agree that the timing suggests a motive to upset peace talks with Saudi Arabia or any other Arab nation.
Yeah, I just read it. The part that stood out was that it was a total surprise. Which means that the average citizen wasn't actually involved in the attack itself.
No! Really? You mean not every Japanese citizen was directly involved in the attack on Pearl Harbor too? Good grief.
So unless they were directly involved in the attacks, they are completely innocent? FFS...
I must have missed in the article where it said that the people in Gaza they interviewed were horrified by the wanton killing of civilians and where they said it was wrong.
Who's calling for a genocide? Not me. Not Israel...
Hint: It's the group of people who are calling for driving the Israeli's into the sea... "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" - Hamas Convenant
Charlie has called this Israel’s 911. We retaliated causing millions of death, 20 years of war(s), 2 trillion in cost and loss to the US of 7,074 troops killed in action and another 53,303 wounded. A further 1.8 million post-9/11 veterans have reported service-connected disabilities to the Department of Veterans Affairs. As Mark Antony (in Julius Caesar) said, “Raging for revenge, with Ate by his side come hot from hell, shall in these confines with a Monarch's voice cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war."
if it is your opinion that the arab response to israel from the start has been genocidal, i agree.
if it is your opinion that israel therefore has totally clean hands and has never conducted itself in ways in which its good faith could even be called into question, then not only do you and i disagree but so do a substantial number of israelis.
"“None of us believed the videos we saw on Saturday morning. Hamas fighters inside Israeli territory and fighting with all their might,” Maha, a 34-year-old woman from Gaza City said in a call with Haaretz. “Who would have thought this would happen?” She called October 7 “a historic day for the Palestinian people.”
Maha is not alone in defining the Hamas invasion of Israeli territory as a historic day. Most Palestinians from Gaza who spoke to Haaretz described the first hours as the beginning of the “liberation of Palestine.”
“We were ecstatic. It’s like a dream that is hard to wake up from,” Maha adds. “But as the picture became clearer, and I saw that there were Israeli prisoners, I realized that we were in a nightmare, in hell.”
“I didn’t think for a moment that the attack was planned. But when we learned about the number of fatalities on the Israeli side, we understood that it was a planned operation, and then Hamas issued an official announcement about the ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’ war,” said Maher, a 48-year-old resident of Gaza City. “For the Palestinians in Gaza the events and the abduction of Israelis were a big surprise,” he said."
I can't help but think that it DOES benefit Likud to equate Hamas with all Palestinians... if the goal is to wipe out Palestinians. I'm really terrified about that, tbh.
I know they are on the left in Israel. Is there any reason to think they are lying about what N. said? Zack Beauchamp on Vox says this about the quote:
"These exact comments have not yet been confirmed by other sources. But the Times of Israel’s Tal Schneider wrote on Sunday that Netanyahu’s reported words “are in line with the policy that he implemented,” which did little to challenge and in some ways bolstered Hamas’s control over the Gaza Strip. Moreover, Schneider notes, “the same messaging was repeated by right-wing commentators, who may have received briefings on the matter or talked to Likud higher-ups and understood the message.” Some Netanyahu confidants have said the same thing, as have outside experts."
My limited understanding is that Haaretz is the equivalent of the guardian, and there is no reason to doubt their general reliability although of course any individual story might have errors.
2 quick points: the problems Noah Rothman outlines are only "our" problems to the extent that we have a 2-party system and one of the parties and its supporters embrace fatuousness.
And in terms of younger people and Israel, I am an older American jew and I have despised the corrupt authoritarian Netanyahu and his extremist supporters for years. The fact that Hamas has now behaved despicable in no way exonerates Netanyahu, and we can only imagine how that polling data would look if Israel had political leadership worthy of its founding aspirations.
I agree with your assesmment of the President of Israel, he should listen to the people and not to the RIGHT-WING buddies he has chosen , these people parrot his feelings without any thought on their part. they must think about what they parrot and think for themselves for a change and not for their wallets. money is not everything and their hope for a good job from the President sounds like they have been taking lessons from the A---hole d. j. "trump" the HUMP! and the World knows how greedy ,selfish, MOB wannabe that person is.
This right here is correct. Younger Americans see what Israel's democracy is and criticize it. That's not criticizing the existence of Israel but the problem with a theocratic state, any legitimate criticism of the government's policies can be immediately dismissed as anti-Semitism.
If Israel is a liberal democracy (and I don't believe it is any longer, no more than Turkey or Hungary are or, even the United States which is heading in the illiberal democracy direction) it needs to embrace those ideals. Having Palestinians be an oppressed minority in Israel is no more sustainable in liberal democracy than Jim Crowe or apartheid were.
That being said, we MUST separate the Palestinian people from Hamas. Hamas and Hezbollah are part and parcel with ISIS, the Taliban and other anti-liberal, theocratic authoritarians. These types need to be resisted and confronted without remorse wherever they are found. If that means the UN must take over control of Gaza, then so be it but Hamas MUST go.
I agree with Howard, well put, but even more, morally put. Terrorist don’t plan on winning wars with military strength, they are practicing a guerrilla war, staging attacks and counting on stronger opponents to retaliate in such a way that further alienating a populace. Any guesses on the outcome here?
well put.
My position hasn't actually changed since the attack. I support the people of Israel, I empathize with the people of Palestine, I'm appalled by Hamas (and expect it to get fully obliterated), and my raging disgust for Benjamin Netanyahu continues apace. Netanyahu's party actually accused the leader of the Israeli domestic intelligence of being a member of the 'deep state' when he warned that the deadly attacks on Palestinians were eroding national security.
This was published today by Haaretz about a speech Netanyahu gave in 2019. It is hard to see why one can't be pro-Palestinian and anti-Hamas. It certainly seems that some in Israel are anti-Palestinian and PRO Hamas.
"“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” he told a meeting of his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”
Because the people of Palestine/Gaza SUPPORTS Hamas.
It's that simple. Maybe not every last one, but definitely a vast majority.
I'm sure you would have been very concerned about the "innocent" Germans during WW2.
Only 44% of the residents of Gaza voted for Hamas in 2006, they won the ballot on a plurality of the vote. Since then there have been no more elections and the residents of Gaza have existed in an open air prison. It's extremely doubtful Hamas has anything resembling the level of support you claim.
And found this. The Palestinians - across BOTH Gaza and the West Bank - show much greater support for Hamas than Fatah.
But sure...nothing like the level of support "I claim."
"If new presidential elections were held today and only two were nominated, Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh, only 46% would participate and from among those, Abbas would receive 36% and Haniyeh 52% of the votes"
https://pcpsr.org/en/node/938
Really? Sure...It's just 20,000 Hamas fighters out of 2.2 million people that are the baddies. The rest are just peace loving innocents.
I guess you also believe that the people that lived in the towns outside German concentration camps were completely innocent because they weren't actively killing people.
FFS.
Try reading...
"The bloody events of last weekend, including the massacre of over 250 revelers at a rave party, have been condemned by people around the world as a terrorist outrage. In Gaza, however, they are widely seen as a breach in the Israeli-built wall that has trapped residents for 16 years and condemned them to victimhood.
“The situation is very devastating, and we couldn’t take it anymore,” says local journalist Hind Khoudary, describing deteriorating living conditions in Gaza. “It may not be aligned with international law, but, for the first time, Palestinians here in Gaza do not feel helpless.”"
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2023/1010/In-Gaza-a-different-view-of-the-Hamas-raid-on-Israel
A poll in Jan of 1940 (early polling days) found that 88% of American polled were against declaring war on the Axis Powers. Looking at that I think we sat out that war.
A poll--not that I trust polls-- states that 68% of Palestinians "support" Hamas. That is a majority but not particularly vast. I don't know when the poll was taken. I can understand, but not condone, why they would. The Israeli government treatment of Palestinians has been going on for a long time.
Had Israel not started bombing Gaza civilians and cutting off water, electricity, food, and such in response, one has to wonder whether that 68 % would have gone down, since I refuse to believe that just because you are Palestinian you cannot be appalled by the actions last weekend. As it is, the percentage is likely to go up. People have a way of digging in when such things happen. I applaud the Israelis who, despite the horrors, look to their leaders for some of the problem.
And yes, I would have been concerned for the truly innocent Germans during WWII. Not everyone there supported Hitler, as is obvious from the number of dissidents he killed or sent to camps, not to mention those who survived and condemned.
68% is a huge majority.
Try this. From over a year ago:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinians-celebrate-jerusalem-synagogue-massacre-with-fireworks-sweets/
Washington Post in December 2021 only 33% of Republicans believed that January 6th was an attempt by Trump to overthrow Democracy and retain power.
Pretty sure they didn’t poll the children. Nor does that figure suggest how strong the support of any individual is. A hellava lot of people who generally supported the GOP despite things like the the Muslim Ban or withdrawing from the Iran agreement but who changed their mind after 1/6. People do have a line they won’t cross
So whee, some Palestinian celebrated an atrocity. Probably some Muslims celebrate 9/11. (Though not where trump said he saw them) Do we believe that every damn Muslim is thus a terrorist? .tRump preached that it did with his Musl8m ban--the first one.
There are supporters of Palestinians who are celebrating Hamas. They are just as wrong as the “shock and awe”--or maybe more “starve and freeze”--response of Israel.
I actually would like to see a UN peacekeeping force deal with rooting out Hamas as they did in tamping down the extremists in the Balkans. But the UN is much weakened.
UNHCR and its leadership have massive responsibility for the current situation in both Gaza and the West Bank. Their demonization of Israel and support for the 'right of return' of millions of people who have never lived in Israel has been a huge incentive to Palestinian intransigence.
They've lived in Israel since its creation.
I’m not very familiar with them. How can they both demonize Israel and support return of refugees to it?
Because when you take the position that Israel is always wrong and that the Palestinians have a "right of return" - aka, overwhelm the Israelites, what is that saying exactly?
Answer: Israel shouldn't exist and the we, the UN, support that position.
Guess what the position of virtually every Arab state, and the Palestinians - and Hamas - has been? Israel needs to cease to exist and be "driven into the sea."
(The recent Abraham accords (along with the Camp David peace agreement) means that most of the Arab states DO recognize the right of Israel to exist. Israel was working on a peace agreement with Saudi Arabia, which it is widely believed that was the reason Iran gave Hamas the green light. )
Ah, I thought you were talking about the Israeli "right of return" that lets any Jew immigrate. My Israeli friend is very proud of that, though when I pressed him about where such an influx would LIVE he did balk at taking over Palestinian homes and territory.
I certainly agree that is the position of Hamas. As you point out the "drive into the sea" bit hasn't been the position of Arab STATES for a very long time, though I am sure there are extremists in each country who still go with that. Of course, there are extremists in Israel who want exactly the same thing to happen to the Palestinians. Judging what a COUNTRY officially thinks depends on whether the government supports the extremists. The recent protests in Israel suggest the government was leaning towards the extremists there.
A comparison would be the US government supporting the America is a Christian Nation bit of the evangelical nationalists. Our government is not doing that, though our supreme court in its decisions is eating away at the idea of separation of church and state. So far it is applying "religious liberty" as a defense to anti-discrimination laws mostly to the LGBTQ community but I have had discussions with godawful "victim Christians" who would extend this "right of discrimination" to Muslims, Jews, etc.
Extremism is anti-democratic in any society. It's a problem here, AND in Israel, and frankly in way too many countries that have been considered "the West."
I don't know that Hamas needed a "green light" from anyone, though Iran does seem to have its fingers in the whole thing, if only as supplier. But I agree that the timing suggests a motive to upset peace talks with Saudi Arabia or any other Arab nation.
Try reading this about the "innocent people" of Gaza. Not too much concern about the women raped and the children killed. But yeah...
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-10/ty-article/.premium/at-first-we-were-ecstatic-gazans-respond-to-hamas-attack-calling-it-a-historic-day/0000018b-183f-df31-a99f-7dff4de70000?v=1696952685897
Yeah, I just read it. The part that stood out was that it was a total surprise. Which means that the average citizen wasn't actually involved in the attack itself.
No! Really? You mean not every Japanese citizen was directly involved in the attack on Pearl Harbor too? Good grief.
So unless they were directly involved in the attacks, they are completely innocent? FFS...
I must have missed in the article where it said that the people in Gaza they interviewed were horrified by the wanton killing of civilians and where they said it was wrong.
Uhhh, so you're pro-genocide?
Who's calling for a genocide? Not me. Not Israel...
Hint: It's the group of people who are calling for driving the Israeli's into the sea... "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" - Hamas Convenant
Charlie has called this Israel’s 911. We retaliated causing millions of death, 20 years of war(s), 2 trillion in cost and loss to the US of 7,074 troops killed in action and another 53,303 wounded. A further 1.8 million post-9/11 veterans have reported service-connected disabilities to the Department of Veterans Affairs. As Mark Antony (in Julius Caesar) said, “Raging for revenge, with Ate by his side come hot from hell, shall in these confines with a Monarch's voice cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war."
Thank you for the reminder. This will not end well for anyone.
"Young men die in old men's wars"
Requiem for a Soldier
https://youtu.be/9xMh_WOt5XU?si=o4GlGbeBxTfMDDuG
if it is your opinion that the arab response to israel from the start has been genocidal, i agree.
if it is your opinion that israel therefore has totally clean hands and has never conducted itself in ways in which its good faith could even be called into question, then not only do you and i disagree but so do a substantial number of israelis.
Where did I ever say anything like the second paragraph?
sorry, paywall
you can get in by entering an email address.
But, the first few paragraphs:
"“None of us believed the videos we saw on Saturday morning. Hamas fighters inside Israeli territory and fighting with all their might,” Maha, a 34-year-old woman from Gaza City said in a call with Haaretz. “Who would have thought this would happen?” She called October 7 “a historic day for the Palestinian people.”
Maha is not alone in defining the Hamas invasion of Israeli territory as a historic day. Most Palestinians from Gaza who spoke to Haaretz described the first hours as the beginning of the “liberation of Palestine.”
“We were ecstatic. It’s like a dream that is hard to wake up from,” Maha adds. “But as the picture became clearer, and I saw that there were Israeli prisoners, I realized that we were in a nightmare, in hell.”
“I didn’t think for a moment that the attack was planned. But when we learned about the number of fatalities on the Israeli side, we understood that it was a planned operation, and then Hamas issued an official announcement about the ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’ war,” said Maher, a 48-year-old resident of Gaza City. “For the Palestinians in Gaza the events and the abduction of Israelis were a big surprise,” he said."
I don’t need any more email. If they just wanted to know who I was, ok. But signing in needs agreement to get emails
I can't help but think that it DOES benefit Likud to equate Hamas with all Palestinians... if the goal is to wipe out Palestinians. I'm really terrified about that, tbh.
Haaretz has been on fire.
I know they are on the left in Israel. Is there any reason to think they are lying about what N. said? Zack Beauchamp on Vox says this about the quote:
"These exact comments have not yet been confirmed by other sources. But the Times of Israel’s Tal Schneider wrote on Sunday that Netanyahu’s reported words “are in line with the policy that he implemented,” which did little to challenge and in some ways bolstered Hamas’s control over the Gaza Strip. Moreover, Schneider notes, “the same messaging was repeated by right-wing commentators, who may have received briefings on the matter or talked to Likud higher-ups and understood the message.” Some Netanyahu confidants have said the same thing, as have outside experts."
My limited understanding is that Haaretz is the equivalent of the guardian, and there is no reason to doubt their general reliability although of course any individual story might have errors.
It's just a pity that the Israeli diaspora can't ever accept that Israel could do any wrong.
Fortunately there is a lot of healthy debate within Israel itself about the destructiveness of the political right in the country.
For example, the movie Waltz with Bashir (documents the Sabra and Shatila massacre of 1982) could NEVER be made outside of Israel.
Zactly!
This.