There's been quite a bit of talk about the possibility that Israel intends to purge Gaza, perhaps by driving the population into Egypt -- which says they're prepared "to sacrifice millions" to prevent having to accept the Gazans -- or in some other manner.
I don't know if they're intending that or not, although I notice that they're getting a lot of heat for it compared to the President of Syria, who expelled 14 million citizens who didn't get along with the government. In addition to that, though, there's some missing context: this is very much a two-way street. The Islamic world has been ethnically cleansing itself of Jews since Israel was founded in 1948; some having, prior to that, collaborated with the Nazi movement on the subject.*
One of the harder lessons in life is that there are things you can't fix. Without endorsing ethnic cleansing, I would suggest that the reason this conflict has drug on for more than seventy years is that people keep trying to put it in a bottle. Ceasefires, peace processes, and all that are well-intentioned, but they lead to generations of people living poor in 'refugee camps' that never go away -- surrounded and governed by militants who execute oppression towards them while planning terrorism abroad.
Those Syrian refugees are better off in Germany than they ever were in Syria, and certainly better off than if they'd stayed to fight for ten more years. A happier future doesn't run through diplomacy, but victory: it's time for American officials to take their hands off the wheel, and let this sort itself out. Both sides really want the same thing: they hate each other and want to be separate. What they have to work out is something that can only be worked out one way. Peace will be possible once they've had their fill of war, and not because someone put a lid on the conflict while both sides felt like they could still have won more if only the fight had kept going.
* From that link: "Local militant and nationalistic societies, like the Young Egypt Party and the Society of Muslim Brothers, circulated reports claiming that Jews and the British were destroying holy places in Jerusalem, and other false reports that hundreds of Arab women and children were being killed."
17 comments:
Immigration is worse than military occupation…. Immigration is war.
Look how long the Spanish reconquista took…. 700 years
Greg
We don’t want them
Not our problem
We are bankrupt and there is no room
https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/85527/israeli-parliament-members-demand-us-europe-import-gazan.html
Greg
For all the brouhaha raised against Israel's recent actions in Gaza, the Arab world doesn't have a lot of goodwill towards the Palis. They remember how the Palis outwore their welcome in Jordan, Lebanon, and Kuwait.
That helps explain why the welcome mat isn't out for them.
I doubt that those pro-Hamas people in the US and Europe are aware of the histories of the Palis in those countries.
The genius of The Abraham Accords process was ignoring the Palestinians.
Palestinians are pretty awful and nobody wants them for all the reasons that all the Palestinians have made very clear for the last 80 years.
I was in a séance the other night when Giric made an appearance. I guess he was in a reminiscent mood, as ghostly spirits tend to get, and went on and on about the Viking raids that plaqued all the Kingdoms including Scotland.
Why didn’t you just learn to live with them? I joked to taunt him into talking. He snorted an ethereal chuckle and proceeds to mock me for my “veneer of understanding”, and went on an extended rant about the true horrors of the ninth century.
I bring this up because I am getting weary of the almost absolute conversational equivalency of the terms Jews and Israelis, as if all Jews were Israelis, by definition. By this logic, hatred and violence toward Israelis is isps facto, hatred and violence toward every Jew everywhere. The corollary being either all Jews are innocent or all Jews are guilty. I find it very hard to believe that there is provocative aggression on one side and absolute purity of mind, body and behavior on the other.
Of course, all generalizations are wrong, especially nuanced ones. Mark 78.
I never get invited to good séances.
Still, to the point, you might say that the Anglo-Saxons did learn to live with the Vikings. Professor Matthew Strickland's Anglo-Norman Warfare includes an article about how they built out a system of taxes to support boats, beacons, and the provision of armor for the ship crews. Only the greatest Norse kings could field a ship whose fighting crew were all armored in chain mail, but all the English ships were fully outfitted.
https://www.amazon.com/Anglo-Norman-Warfare-Anglo-Saxon-Military-Organization/dp/0851153283
I think Israel to some degree has tried this approach, 'living with' the rocket attacks with its Iron Dome, and living with the terrorist threat with fences and patrols and a small (too small) number of armed citizens. What Hamas did on October 7 was to prove that wasn't going to continue to work. That's what compelled this fight.
A man (or woman -- you're anonymous, and house rules state that you should choose a pen name to sign so we can keep anonymous commenters apart) séances might appreciate this as a sort of blood magic. The idea was, I think, to use mass human sacrifice conducted in horrible ways in order to compel a final battle. As an act of divine justice, that prayer has been granted.
Timelines are tricky things with so many details; one might say infinite points of view. The timeline in west Asia, as some refer to river to the sea acreage, began before the first cuneiform clay scribbling, so any current event start point is arbitrary and comes with a past.
The question about who through the first punch tends to have lots of varied eye witness accounts, not to mention hearsay, gossip and outright lies.
Sincerely and with warmest best wishes, Mark 78.
I find it very hard to believe that there is provocative aggression on one side and absolute purity of mind, body and behavior on the other.
That has been fairly normal in history, I think. Nothing provoked Alexander, the Romans, the Mongols, etc., into invading all the lands they conquered. No one provoked the Vikings. More relevant to this conflict, no one provoked the Muslims to invade and conquer the Middle East, North Africa, Spain, southeast Europe, etc. They all attacked for their own internal reasons that had little or nothing to do with what their victims had done prior to that.
Of course, you may not believe in the particular case of Hamas & Israel that this would be true. Even so, historically it has been quite common for one side to be the unprovoked aggressor and the other innocent victims.
Come to think of it, individuals work the same way quite a bit. Unless you think murderers, thieves, rapists, etc., have been somehow provoked by their victims and are just retaliating.
If you are committed to both-sides-ism, though, it looks bad when the victims shoot back. The Left hated Rittenhouse, for example, for successfully defending himself against three criminals. To them, Rittenhouse is the menace and the criminals were poor misunderstood souls who had probably suffered from years of oppression and were just acting out their feelings of resistance.
Oh, “Mark 78” was intended as a signature. The first time you used it, I thought you were trying to cite Mark 7:8. My mistake.
"purge" is a diplomatic choice of words.
I prefer the crystal clear choice: GENOCIDE
Greg
It’s clear but wrong, which is why it is not preferable for those who value clarity of thought. The Jews forced out of Iran weren’t killed; most of them are now in Israel (and their descendants). The Jews in Israel, many of whom directly experienced this (or heard it from their parents) aren’t trying to eliminate the Arabs who live in Israel; they just want the ones who won’t reconcile with them to leave.
Ethnic cleansing is the most that can be said of the strategy; still a war crime, but far short of genocide.
Also, didn’t I suggest that you find another place to spend your free time?
The Jews in Israel, many of whom directly experienced this (or heard it from their parents) aren’t trying to eliminate the Arabs who live in Israel; they just want the ones who won’t reconcile with them to leave.
That doesn’t seem to me to be ethnic cleansing. The Israelis aren’t trying to get any Arabs in Israel to leave, but I think they’d find it very acceptable for many of the Palestinians to leave Gaza. In 2018, I worked with a Christian organization that does evangelism through humanitarian relief, and we were working in western Syria, near the Israeli and Turkish borders. The organization actually got involved with an Israeli Army project known as Operation Good Neighbor. The Israelis supplied Syrians with food, fuel, and medical supplies, and we were the feet on the ground, providing medical care. The Israelis accepted our patients who needed surgery, and brought them into Israel for care, and eventually got them back to Syria. This was in the rebel controlled area, of course. The Syrians were profoundly grateful, and acknowledged that their government and other Arab countries hadn’t done anything for them, but the people they’d always known as the enemy were taking great pains to help them. That contrasts remarkably with, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine shall be free.” I would argue that that constitutes a call for ethnic cleansing, or possibly genocide.
I would argue that that constitutes a call for ethnic cleansing, or possibly genocide.
The backdrop against which we can estimate whether they're calling for ethnic cleansing or for genocide includes of couple of things.
This one is recent--during the current war that Hamas has inflicted, and is continuing (even though they seem to be losing, they're the ones continuing it; the Israelis have laid out in clear terms the conditions that would define the war's end; Hamas refuses to discuss them)--a commitment made by Ghazi Hamad, of Hamas' decision-making political bureau:
The al-Aqsa Flood [Hamas' 7 Oct "operation"] is just the first time and there will be a second, a third, a fourth because we have the determination, the resolve and the capabilities to fight. We are called a nation of martyrs and are proud to sacrifice martyrs. Israel is a country that has no place on our land. We must remove that country because it constitutes a security, military and political catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nations, and must be finished.”
The other is an older commitment, and one I've mentioned before, by former Iranian President Ali Akhbar Hashemi Rafsanjani [the first pair of brackets is mine, the second is MEMRI's]:
f one day, he [Rafsanjani] said, the world of Islam comes to possess the weapons currently in Israel's possession [meaning nuclear weapons]—on that day this method of global arrogance would come to a dead end. This, he said, is because the use of a nuclear bomb in Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it will only damage the world of Islam.
The correct interpretation of the calls seems clear to me.
Eric Hines
The Israelis aren’t trying to get any Arabs in Israel to leave...
I did specify those 'who won't reconcile with them.' Whether that properly constitutes an 'ethnicity' is another question. Many Israeli Arabs have reconciled, have voting rights and representation in the legislature. Some, however, have not.
Post a Comment