Hard to not feel like we are the baddies on this one.
The same coalition could push for a peaceful solution in Israel and Palestine, which would also eliminate Iranian influence in the region, but instead they let the far-right in Israel create a mess and we get pulled along for a big conflict with Iran.
But a peaceful solution seems like a pipe dream. It would need a profound change in Israeli politics to push for a two-state solution now, and the West has only limited leverage. It doesn't help that Netanyahu has a personal interest in the war, it's basically his Hail Mary to save his career.
In any case, the West should pull its support from Israel, though.
I agree about Netanyahu, sadly. But regarding a peaceful solution, one has to take into account the mentality and stated position of the two sides.
Whatever one thinks about land and settlements, it's worth noting that the Israelis are fighting against an opponent who targets their civilian population with the standard terror tactics along with systematic rape and torture [1], and who maintains that they will never stop as long as Israel exists (not borders, not land, nothing short of Israel's destruction).
The people advocating for a ceasefire generally aren't proposing a solution to the Israeli and international hostages held by Hamas, and who could be returned to Israel if Hamas truly wanted a ceasefire.
> it's worth noting that the Israelis are fighting against an opponent who targets their civilian population with the standard terror tactics along with systematic rape and torture [1].
The footage of terrorists laughing as they torture and cut people up is deeply disturbing and shouldn't be dismissed. Sometimes, evil is simply evil. :(
On the one hand, Hamas terrorizes the Israeli population.
On the other hand, Israel has a decades-long genocidal plan against the West Bank. The fact that it's done quietly doesn't change its intent.
The intractability of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is: neither side is good, because both see the conflict as a fight for survival, and therefore justifying terrible means.
No, that's just if they were obvious about it. Which is why one of the definitions of genocide is deliberately keeping a population fragmented, with the goal of eventual eradication.
If you define everything as genocide, than of course genocide is everything. 'Keeping a population fragmented' is so vague it's almost everything, except genocide which requires killing people.
> But a peaceful solution seems like a pipe dream. It would need a profound change in Israeli politics to push for a two-state solution now, and the West has only limited leverage.
We need to use the same recipe used in South Africa, isolating the apartheid regime until it is forced to negotiate in good faith.
Here is something I don't understand. Of all the factions in Israeli politics, why is the US supporting the most far-right one? Because support for US amongst Israelis is high either way, and the usefulness of Israel for the US is arguably higher if it had more moderate politics.
Some of these questions are not explainable by Realpolitik. Same with the Palestinian question. If you were concerned about Iran you'd want a peaceful long lasting solution that defangs Iran grip in the region. It just doesn't make sense.
Isn’t it because that’s the group in power in Israel?
I’m not sure it’s a good idea to support particular parties within sovereign nations. Although the US and others do this very frequently.
I figured it was the same way countries worked with the US during 2017-2021. It didn’t mean they supported a far right position, just that they wanted to work with the US and interacted with the group in charge.
If Netanyahu was treated with the same ridicule and disdain that Trump was during his four years as POTUS, that would be a huge step in the right direction. But he is not.
On German TV, they said, part of the reason they don't treat Netanyahu with more open hostility is because they fear he would lash out even more aggressively. I'm not sure if that is a good justification.
I think showing “disdain” for democratically elected leaders is pretty counterproductive.
If countries start treating leaders of other countries they don’t like with “open hostility” won’t that just result in fewer interactions and less work among countries?
The US isn't supporting a specific faction, it's supporting Israel in general, and that faction is (very sadly) in charge.
The US has reportedly made quiet overtures to the other parties, and certainly Obama and Biden haven't exactly been fans of Netanyahu, but he is in charge at the moment.
> It would need a profound change in Israeli politics to push for a two-state solution now, and the West has only limited leverage.
Hamas, Fatah and the Palestinian Authority have repeatedly rejected any two-state solution proposals. Hamas in particular has always resorted to terrorism. The appetite for a "two-state solution" seems much higher in Israel, even in the conservative communities, than it ever has been in the so-called Palestinian population.
> The appetite for a "two-state solution" seems much higher in Israel, even in the conservative communities, than it ever has been in the so-called Palestinian population.
Interesting you bring Rabin up, because it's a good point of comparison.
How has Israel treated Yigal Amir? How has Hamas treated the 10/7 terrorists? How many Israelis support what Amir did? How many Gazans support the 10/7 terrorists?
Probably about what you'd expect, given one country has a functioning economy and the other doesn't. [0]
There are whackos on both the Israeli and Palestinian side. The difference is that Gaza has 25-45% unemployment. [1]
At the end of the day as James Carville reduced it: 'it's the economy, stupid.' [2]
People with economic prospects are happy and stable. People without are willing to take insane risks. And at the end of the day, most people just want to live their life (there will always be crazies, but they'll be outnumbered).
> Hamas, Fatah and the Palestinian Authority have repeatedly rejected any two-state solution proposals.
There were an only couple of negotiations. We don't even know the details, but in general the rough outline was that the Palestinian state wouldn't be sovereign - it would be more like a protectorate, with no self-defense capabilities etc.
But there simply is no alternative. Israel, international community needs to persistently push for a real two-state solution. Not like once in a decade (the last attempt was 2008) some weak offer with basically no real political support (part of the reason they were dismissed by Palestinians, there was no credibility to them).
I mean, what are the other options? Forever apartheid and occupation? War crimes like ethnic cleansing?
> I mean, what are the other options? Forever apartheid and occupation? War crimes like ethnic cleansing?
I reject just about all of the assertions in this post, but these straw-man questions are the most egregious.
How can anyone reasonably call the Israeli political situation "apartheid?" There are Arab parties in the Knesset, and Arab Israelis have full rights under the law. Apartheid South Africa rather famously did not allow the black population any representation at all in government. Perhaps by "apartheid," you mean that there is some sort of barrier between the Israeli side and the Gaza side. But having a border is not "apartheid," anymore than the US having a border with Mexico, or the UK having a border with the Republic of Ireland. In fact, since 2005, the Israelis have largely been absent from Gaza, only intervening to stop things like rocket attacks aimed at Israeli civilians. Or maybe you mean that Israel's blockade of Gaza constitutes "apartheid," though this is really torturing the definition beyond recognition.
I am astonished you bring up ethnic cleansing, when all of the evidence points the opposite way: that Jewish people are victims of ethnic cleansing across the Islamic world, whereas the populations within Gaza and the Judea & Samaria area have grown extensively and currently have high growth rates. If you pick any country in the Islamic Middle East & North Africa, the Jewish population is currently near zero, down from tens- to hundreds-of-thousands a few decades ago. (It's almost as bad for Christians.) Asserting that "ethnic cleansing" at the hands of Israel is happening today (or ever!) is preposterous when literally all evidence contradicts it.
I actually think the "other options" are simple, though quite difficult in practice: Hamas & Fatah could put down their weapons, accept that the State of Israel has a right to exist and agree to control the radical elements within their populations. If that happened, you'd have a two-state solution in no time. The difficulty is that there is little political appetite for this in the Judea & Samaria area, and none in Gaza, so we're stuck in a stalemate.
> How can anyone reasonably call the Israeli political situation "apartheid?" There are Arab parties in the Knesset, and Arab Israelis have full rights under the law.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty international have a different assessment:
And that is part of the proclaimed calculus, such as:
> "If we act strategically correctly, there will be immigration and we will live in the Gaza Strip. We will not allow a situation where 2 million people live there. If there are 100-200 thousand Arabs in Gaza, all the talk about the day after will be different. They want to leave, they have been living in the ghetto for 75 years and are in need."
> I am astonished you bring up ethnic cleansing, when all of the evidence points the opposite way: that Jewish people are victims of ethnic cleansing across the Islamic world
That is not the opposite of "is Israel calling for / committing ethnic cleansing". The opposite would be "it is not doing that".
And it's not dichotomy, a hot potato that only one party can ever possess. The history of persecution against Jews has exactly zero bearing on the question whether what Israel is doing right now are war crimes, ethnic cleansing or genocide. One crime doesn't prevent or legitimize the other.
> I actually think the "other options" are simple, though quite difficult in practice: Hamas & Fatah could put down their weapons
An alternative to the current actions of Israel isn't "what someone else could do differently", that's an alternative to the actions of those other parties. And things like blowing up the Supreme Court building after posing for selfies in it (= no fighters), attacking refugee camps and disrupting their water supply in the West Bank, and so on, cannot be remotely excused with Hamas.
> The Genocide Convention requires Israel, as a State party, to suppress “direct and public incitement to commit genocide,” regardless of whether genocide has actually transpired.
[..]
> Still, it does appear to us that Israel has failed – so far – to criminally investigate some specific public calls which seem to border on genocidal in their language. While Israel’s political leadership distanced itself from potentially genocidal language, it has also failed to apply meaningful political sanctions against the politicians making these comments (such as firing instead of merely suspending the junior minister responsible for the Atomic Bomb comment or launching any effort to remove the deputy chair of the Knesset after making the “burn Gaza” comment). Although there might be some mitigating circumstances, given the many challenges the country now faces, the slow and feeble response from Israel’s legal and political leadership to such extremely problematic statements, may not be compatible with its obligations under the Genocide Convention.
^ something the Israel Foreign Ministry retweeted, apparently before reading it carefully
> “The explicit calls to commit atrocities against millions of people have become, for the first time that we can recall, a legitimate and ordinary part of the Israeli dialogue,”
The Houthis are very much independent of the I-P mess, and same for all Iranian influence which is based on local Shiite militia - with their own reasons for existing, like 'spreading the revolution'.
The same coalition could push for a peaceful solution in Israel and Palestine, which would also eliminate Iranian influence in the region, but instead they let the far-right in Israel create a mess and we get pulled along for a big conflict with Iran.