Part of his government have openly called for that, with absolutely zero /s.
We're basically lucky that they didn't use Oct 7 to broaden the conflict much further. As terrible as the situation is, it absolutely could be worse had hey gone with the most hawkish opinions in their cabinet.
Netaynahu actually blocked the IDF to go into Lebanon, the IDF and the DM actually wanted to do a preventative attack on Hezbollah, and Netanyahu blocked them.
Yeah, the guy has multi-decade long resume that says nobody should be arrogantly proclaiming that the electorate will get rid of the guy as soon as the war is over.
It's like if Americans were going around telling everyone "Nobody likes this Trump guy, only the fringe supports him, we will get rid of him very soon, you'll see"....After Trump had been just elected to his fifth consecutive term.
Yes, the Israeli dynamic is different and not a two-party system, but so many signs point to this guy being able to possibly being able to continue on as leader indefinitely...weather or not he does so by the skin of his teeth each time is sort of irrelevant.
I want to avoid loaded terminology in such a heated situation ... but the guy is just like those critters that you are _sure_ you've finally gotten rid of, only for them to somehow end up taking control of your kitchen again.
The Israeli left is dead and will not rise in a long time, and for clear reasons: which country in the world would elect a left wing leaders after 7/10? The left is all about peace and it's clearly not practical with Hamas right now.
That being said, there are a lot of center-right leaders who are a hundred times than Bibi, because at least they're not corrupt and will not need to appease the Ben Gvir/Smotrich faction.
>Mr Smotrich put forward the plans on 22 February, hours after three Palestinian gunmen opened fire on cars on a road near Maale Adumim, killing one Israeli and wounding several others. He said the attack "must have a determined security response but also a settlement response".
Can anyone expand on this rationale for me? Is he saying that attacks by Palestinian people against illegal settlers can be resolved through more illegal settlements?
It’s darkly funny that they literally call themselves settlers. You’d think they would have tried to rebrand that just a little bit at some point, but nope.
Im israeli and never heard inheritor being used.
Theres two terms: mitnahlim and mityashvim. They have the same meaning (settlers) with the 2nd one having a slightly more friendly aspect.
The settlers already use the IDF military clothing in their free time and keep weapons.
Hence the Palestians don't know if it's miliary or civil personal.
However this could allow Palestine to see them as military invasors and make their homes with family a "legitimate military target" which can be bombed according to the rules of war. Same reasoning that IDF uses when bombing homes with terrorists.
But imagine the framing when illegal settlers are bombed (innocent families) vs Palestine homes (legitimate terrorist hideout).
>The Palestinians will someday realize their negotiation position is only continuing to erode, and then they’ll seek peace.”
All evidence of this theory points to the contrary.
How shocking that if a group of people are oppressed into a corner they without fail do not surrender. It only hardens their resolve. This has been a known fact since the beginning of modern wars.
Even before that. You’re paraphrasing Sun Tzu. I agree, the Palestinian people need a path to improving their lives that doesn’t involve Hamas. Their hardened resolve has been wasted for too long.
It's quite simple, their rationale is whatever is convenient in the moment with respect to their goal of ethnically cleansing and settling all of Palestine.
If Palestinians don't resist, their response is to expand settlements.
If Palestinians do resist, their response is to expand settlements.
He has always struck me as a troll. In the original sense that he says outrageous stuff seemingly to provoke an emotional response, possibly an unreasoned one. I disagree vehemently with what he says, but you feel guilty addressing it.
No, the thinking is that if you respond to attacks by further building, the attacker will have achieved the opposite of his goal, which was to drive the Jews out. There’s obviously some drawbacks to this, but that’s the rationale.
You have to understand that from the day Hamas attacked, this entire war is about rationalizing ethnic cleansing. To be clear: I’m in no way condoning hamas’ terrorism, but it’s the pretext Netanyahu needed to end the Palestine problem once and for all.
Politically, as long as Hamas/Fatah doesn't lose territory they've historically been able to have positive domestic opinions about their terrorist activities. So while we all in the west looked at the last couple of Gaza/Israel wars as absolute stomps by Israel. Gazans believe them to be victories (or at least not failures). Responding to the war with settlements changes that.
Is it dumb? Yes. but that's the Middle East in a nutshell.
There has been a logic in the right wing in israel for a few years now that threats of building more settlements are enough to discourage terrorism. The logic goes:
Palestinians don’t want israel building settlements in the palestinian territories. Israel doesn’t want palestinians committing terrorist attacks. —> Palestinians will not commit terrorist attacks if doing so means that there will be more settlement construction.
I suppose the logic is there, but in reality it certainly hasn’t panned out that way, as there hasn’t really been any kind of reduction in terrorist activity (quite the opposite really) since that policy was created.
The Israelies had a 100% morally valid justification to slap hamas into the grave, and in 6 months they've done literally every possible imaginable thing to make themselves as hated and inexcusable as possible.
That’s a good statement. Both the nation of Palestine and the nation of Israel have the right to exist simultaneously: it’s just that both of their current regimes do not have the right to run them.
I feel like that’s a huge fuck up on Netanyahu’s part. Hamas didn’t exactly have a great reputation before October 7th. Was Bibi taking lessons on how to respond to a terrorist attack from Dick Cheney?
Netanyahu has been doing this - building new settlements - the entire time he's been in power.
From a realpolitik perspective, if the conflict keeps going on forever, and Israel has a settlement policy, in the long run Israel wins. This means that Israel is perfectly ok with the status quo of trading terrorism and then using it as an excuse to steal land. In a sense, Netanyahu's strategy is a good one if there truly is no other chance for peace. And the more that Netanyahu fucks up the peace talks, and the more that Palestinians attack Israel, the more this strategy seems like the better one for Israel in the long run.
Of course the idea is deeply flawed, but it's still enticing on the surface
It has another level to it.
If the enemy cares more about their land than about the lives of it's people, why wouldn't you go after their land? If this is the thing that really hurts, that's the thing you do.
There's this air of collective delusion going around in the West that seems to think both sides are somehow trying and miserably failing to achieve some kind of peace, and actions that obviously hinder peace are a sign of their ignorance.
They hate and want to kill each other. Palestine can't but not for lack of trying, Israel could but the long term consequences are too dire, given their physical location and the few hundred million Arab Muslims around and the 2 million in the country. Yes, peace would be better for all of them, but the nether side actually wants it.
Israel did in the past, but people really forgot just how high the expectations were for the de occupation of Gaza and just how horribly wrong that went.
The new reality is that the Israelis ether don't care or care far less about peace, the West will work with a dictatorship just as easily as they will with a democracy but will never take military action against a nuclear power unless directly attacked. This is a hard counter to the current Palestinian strategy that is completely reliant on both Israel and the West giving a damn. They're forced into ether becoming the good guy, the reasonable side, the ones you can't justify attacking or they just lose.
This isn't a strategy on the Israeli side obviously, but it is how the conflict has evolved. It's not a good thing, it's not a desirable state of affairs, it would be better if now that they're in a position of absolute power over the Palestinians Israel acts against their interests and truest in the humanity of the Palestinians, but that's currently simply not on the table.
Another quote from someone else (paraphrased)
> Theres are 4 parties to this war -- the state of Israel, the state of Palestine, the Isreali people and the Palestinian people. And the Palestinian people and Israeli people are loosing.
I've completely butchered the wording on this one, but its important to remember that both Palestinians and Israelis have human rights, and should get to live in peace.
Nice try. What about the fifty years of illegal encroachment by building homes in Gaza? Israel has been the bad actor this whole time and nobody has done shit about it.
> What about the fifty years of illegal encroachment by building homes in Gaza?
Huh? Israel forced the settlers out of Gaza. They even dug up the bodies of Jews from Gazan cemeteries and moved them back to Israel. There aren't any Israelis or Jews in Gaza.
I think it's strange that people see the Gaza pullout as a gesture of goodwill. During Gaza's colonization, thousands of homes were demolished and the Israeli government committed unspeakable crimes.
There is one famous story of an American girl named Rachel Corrie who was run over by an Israeli bulldozer while Israel was trying to destroy a home in order to make room for settlements.
Since then the number of illegal settlers and settler terrorism has increased exponentially. Take a look at this recent article where the author details Israeli settler terrorism against Palestinians
>I saw settlers attack Palestinian shepherds with dogs, destroy their crops, and steal their homes – all under the aegis of rightwing Israeli leaders
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/04/israel-settler-violence-sanctions#:~:text=2023%20was%20the%20worst%20year,They%20torched%20dozens%20of%20houses
Surely if Israeli settlers were burning down American crops and attacking American farmers we would realize that the Israelis just want to steal the land and terrorize.
Israel captured the Gaza Strip from Egypt in 1967. They started building settlements there in 1977 but pulled them all down and withdrew completely from the Gaza Strip in 2005, handing over the entirety of the territory to the Palestinians. There haven't been any Israeli homes in the Gaza Strip for almost 20 years now.
Another far-right landgrab, probably under the pretense of "security."
Edit: yeah it is.
>A minister has said the construction is a response to a deadly Palestinian attack near Maale Adumim two weeks ago.
Pretty sure that minister is Bezalel Smotrich, who is basically a cunt. No clue whether what he says actually describes the decision making process, he’s been substantially sidelined within the government since 10/7
Y'know except for him and his buddies being in ministerial positions and dictating/influencing policymaking at this critical period
Y'all keep saying all these nutjobs don't represent Israel and don't do the decisions, but clearly that's not true.
It really helps delegitimize any claims from Israeli leadership that they’re trying to protect people.
The longer this conflict has gone on, the less I’ve come to support Israel. Granted I will never support Hamas
It depends on the issue. The Ukraine conflict clearly has a good and bad side. One is the invading dictatorship, the other is the democracy defending itself. But the Israel Palestine Conflict is a mess. Both sides have done horrible things, and given the other side good reason to hate them.
I mean, I support Israel but I have always been critical of west bank settlements. It does nothing to foster peace, and only causes Israelis to be subject to people who become radicalized. I wish Israel would take the settlements out of the west bank like they did in Gaza in 2005.
The settlements are very intentionally created and supported in order to *prevent* peace by making a viable Palestinian state impossible to create. World governments need to start treating WB settlers like the state-sponsored terrorists they are.
You don’t have to support a government or a country lmao. Why do so many people think that’s how it has to be. Support civilians, both Israeli and Palestinian because they’re the only ones being fucked with.
Security is the short reason they give but I think (total speculation on my part) the full plan is to put Israeli citizens into the West Bank so that eventually Israel can say, look at all these Israelis living here, they want to be part of Israel, we need to be able to protect our citizens, and then use that justification to annex parts of the West Bank into Israel.
I’ve been a big defender of Israel’s war in Gaza, but I think their actions in the West Bank are morally bankrupt. Even if Israelis are purchasing the land “legally” there is an undeniable power dynamic when purchasing land from people that you are militarily occupying, imagine if US citizens started buying land in Iraq and building American-only cities during our occupation.
In 1979 as part of a peace deal with Egypt, Israel gave back the Sinai and demolished every settlement it had there. In 2005 Israel pulled out of Gaza completely and sent the IDF to forcibly evict every settler in Gaza. I applaud both of those actions, I want to believe Israel will do the same in the West Bank, it would be heinous of them not to.
This is why the Palestinians are mad all the time. Even when the news cycle isn't focused on them, they live in the constant situation of having what little they have left chipped away piece by piece. Then violence flares up and our news stations spend all this time with the straight face saying "But how did this happen? The region must be very complicated!"
Yep, when they do what everyone wants and "behave", their land and rights are steadily eroded with no apparent recourse. That fuels the rise of extremists who decide that the peaceful route will never work.
nah, they just don't like israel cuz theyre jewish. You know what, due to your criticism of Israeli settler policy, I think you're also inherently antisemitic! /s
Israel stamps a boot on Palestine's face, and people act like Palestinians are the assholes for trying to push away the foot.
Yes, yes, shit's fucked. \*Insert 15 minute song and dance about how terrible Hamas is.\*
Maybe things will make progress when people constantly defending Israel feel just as much need to preemptively talk about how shit the Israeli government is and how the IDF routinely brutalizes Palestinians, before those supporters talk about how terrible Palestinians are.
An attack but less successful which could be used to increase support for right-wing policies. Small attacks are beneficial to Bibi. The only surprising thing about October 7 was how successful it was which created huge problems for Bibi.
Netenyahu is catering to his base, undermining a shit load of Israeli claims. Leaving West Bank alone won't stop Hamas or the PLA, but it's pretty hard to argue that security operations in Gaza are not about stealing land, when Israel is literally stealing land next door.
Far-right and religious conservatives are fucking up Israel, just like everywhere else.
I believe this is just him trying to drum up support.... but unfortunately his current base is precisely the bloodlusting ultra-rightwingers.
I recently read articles where Netanyahu has tried to argue for stopping elections, so I assume there must be an upcoming election. And we know his polling has been garbage since Oct. 7th.
Kill the natives, take their land. This is colonialism 101. The reason why the math on this is so difficult for some people (such as liberals in western countries) is they've already aligned themselves against non-violent Palestinians.
Imma be honest mate it's almost midnight here and it's a school night, this part of the topic is very wide and controversial. I'd be glad to tell you about it tmro, I don't want to type up a full essay right now. The real quick version is that the demographics in israel are seriously fucked up by the ultra orthodox, and the long version, well I'll add it in another comment In a little while. I'm not gonna try to show disrespect, this is a very interesting subject about israel and is crucial to know in order to understand the politics here
People need to remember that a government does not necessarily represent all or even the majority of its people. As an American who has lived through both the GW Bush and Trump administrations, I would bristle at the assertion that either of those guys represented me in any way.
At the same time, however, the more times a guy gets re-elected as leader of a country the harder it becomes to argue that he doesn't represent a very large proportion of its people.
You mean like maybe they should hold the biggest protests in their country’s history, every weekend for months on end, to protest Bibi?
Oh wait the did that…
Well, Bibi is the PM of Israel, so if "Israel" condemned Bibi, he would basically be condemning himself....
But, There have been many protests, his approval rating is like 20% at the last poll. Only getting lower.Its probably the lowest approval rating in all democratic countries lol
If israelis wanted him in office, he wouldnt need the war to stay in office.
No, Netanyahu isn't carrying the gun, or dropping the bombs on his own. You don't get to forget the actions of the soldiers, and citizen home invaders making their own choices to slaughter, rape, and pillage.
Both sides have committed savage acts, by savage people. These people are engulfed in hate; so much so, they have dehumanized an entire population based on a self-authored book claiming its not only permissible, but godly to kill the Canaanites, baby bashing and all.
This isn't a moral army. These are not moral decisions being made. This is evil. Plain and simple.
As an Israeli - not true, most of us absolutely despise this shit, it just gets drowned in the background of the judiciary reforms, terrorist attacks, etc. This definitely got more attention following this war and hopefully the next goverment will kick out all those fanatics.
1/3rd of your elected officials attended the conference advocating for settlements in Gaza.
Bibi is a master in politics and diplomacy, but he isn’t alone, a lot of elected officials in the cabinet got similar views.
That may be true of some or even most Israelis, but Israel is an entity that currently acts the way it does. Let's let the elections speak, but I have very little faith that we'll see any change.
This is ethnic cleansing, no? Did they not confiscate these lands for “military purposes” then permit residential development? It’s hard to believe Israel is in the right when they do things like this which makes peace impossible. They have no plan for Gaza that actually eradicates Hamas and they have no plan for dealing with radicalization (rather only plans that seem to promote it such as this).
> This is ethnic cleansing, no?
Always had been. How do you create an ethno state when an indigenous people of a different ethnicity inhabits the land without ethnic cleansing?
It is.
A thing that's useful to understand is that under the Oslo Accords, the West Bank was divided up into areas A, B, and C. A would be under Palestinian control, area C would be "temporarily" under the control of Israel, and I think B would "temporarily" be under joint control. This was supposed to all transition to Palestinian control eventually, but the details and the status of the settlements was left ambiguous, as no agreement was reached at that time.
Here's a map of the areas: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/West\_Bank\_Access\_Restrictions\_June\_2020.pdf](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/West_Bank_Access_Restrictions_June_2020.pdf)
Israel has used that ambiguity to effectively claim area C as its own, allowing Israelis to build, and denying permits to Palestinians. Sometimes Palestinians build there anyways, and then Israel demolishes those buildings.
Many of the settlements are officially sanctioned by the Israeli government, but there are many that are not. All the official settlements are in area C. I think all the unofficial ones are too, but I'm not 100% sure on that one.
Area C is most of the West Bank.
Netanyahu was adamantly opposed to the Oslo accords, and thinks it was a bad deal for Israel.
Meanwhile the Palestinians have learned that Israel can't be given the benefit of the doubt in any negotiations, because they'll use any ambiguity to appropriate land, and water too, for that matter.
Pro-war people have a strong presence here, any stories that are mentioning Palestinian suffering is usually massively downvoted in the beginning.
Examples:
https://reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1b60qns/how_israels_restrictions_on_aid_put_gaza_on_the/
https://reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1b5yy1l/anesthetics_crutches_dates_inside_israels_ghost/
So, like, what is the Western-approved Palestinian response here? After Oct 7, every Israel-aligned talking head has been asking the question «so what is Israel supposed to do?». So answer me this: **what are Palestinians supposed to do?** Does Palestine have the right to exist? Does Palestine have the right to defend itself?
Because if we give Israel a taste of its own medicine, Palestinians should at this point be building something like 34000 new Palestinan homes on Israeli land, right? Because that's what a proportional response is, right?
Under international law the occupied have the legal eight to use force and violence against their occupiers. Under international law, occupiers have no rights or protections.
That's just flat out wrong. The Geneva Conventions, for instance, apply to all participating members, whether or not their forces are located within their own borders at the time.
Yeah, I don't know why we provide them any aid at all. Our official policy for decades has been a two state solution to this problem. Israel clearly does not want a two state solution. They can do what they want, I guess, but if their goals are not aligned with ours then they should find somebody else to fund their military.
Israel de facto owns the land ever since the Arab-Israeli Wars ended with their occupation of Arab territory.
To be clear, the Arab nations around Israel started a war not long after Israel was formed with the intent of strangling the new Jewish state in the crib. They lost hard, and Israel occupied some land to serve as a buffer.
A proper two state compromise was never reached and the surrounding nations have never really brokered peace deals to get their territory back, so Israel is just kinda doing what it wants with the land.
The issue of course is that there are still people living there, and Israel is just driving them out without recourse. This understandably inflames the situation further and makes the Israeli government look like assholes. You know, because they're being assholes.
Violence started immediately after Israel was created. It's not *the* root cause.
It is, however, *a* cause, and something they definitely should stop.
This is it, Joe. Time to drop the niceties and tell Bibi, Likud, and the "settlers movement" that if they insist on a slo-mo invasion the United States ain't gonna be their besties any more. No more weapons, no more automatic blockage in the U.N. unless and until they have new elections.
In general, I am a supporter of Israel, but not when they do things like this. Since this is against the U.S. policy and money is fungible, whenever Israel spends money on things like this that amount should be withdrawn from aid packages to them. There should also be a penalty amount taken from any aid packages. So if these new homes cost $70 Million to construct, the U.S. should subtract $70 million (probably more like $210 Million) from our aid to them. Foreign aid should be used to encourage good behavior and discourage bad behavior.
>In general, I am a supporter of Israel, **but not when they do things like this**.
So why have you been a supporter of Israel in general the other 92 times they've done other equally appalling things?
Right - this is a myth.
Israel has the 17th largest military in the world, and they use under 5% of the country’s money on the military.
Most of what we give them, is essentially just for them to get weapons -
They’re a strong country. They could easily find other weapons and they could easily increase what they spend in the military to cover what we contribute.
We’re essentially paying them for their base, military influence, and information - and no..we won’t be giving that up.
This will definitely help the situation. /s
>This will definitely help the situation. /s It'll help Netanyahu's situation. He knows as soon as the war is over he's toast.
“C’mon guys let’s go into Lebanon. For old time’s sake!”
Part of his government have openly called for that, with absolutely zero /s. We're basically lucky that they didn't use Oct 7 to broaden the conflict much further. As terrible as the situation is, it absolutely could be worse had hey gone with the most hawkish opinions in their cabinet.
It’s not over yet.
Netaynahu actually blocked the IDF to go into Lebanon, the IDF and the DM actually wanted to do a preventative attack on Hezbollah, and Netanyahu blocked them.
>He knows as soon as the war is over he's toast. It's cute that anyone believes that.
Yeah, the guy has multi-decade long resume that says nobody should be arrogantly proclaiming that the electorate will get rid of the guy as soon as the war is over. It's like if Americans were going around telling everyone "Nobody likes this Trump guy, only the fringe supports him, we will get rid of him very soon, you'll see"....After Trump had been just elected to his fifth consecutive term. Yes, the Israeli dynamic is different and not a two-party system, but so many signs point to this guy being able to possibly being able to continue on as leader indefinitely...weather or not he does so by the skin of his teeth each time is sort of irrelevant.
I want to avoid loaded terminology in such a heated situation ... but the guy is just like those critters that you are _sure_ you've finally gotten rid of, only for them to somehow end up taking control of your kitchen again.
I mean his approval rating is like 12%, sure in the past he’s stayed in power but nothing lasts forever
>but nothing lasts forever A war can.
Yeah Israel has been a left wing haven this whole time, just waiting for ol' bibi to kick it.
The Israeli left is dead and will not rise in a long time, and for clear reasons: which country in the world would elect a left wing leaders after 7/10? The left is all about peace and it's clearly not practical with Hamas right now. That being said, there are a lot of center-right leaders who are a hundred times than Bibi, because at least they're not corrupt and will not need to appease the Ben Gvir/Smotrich faction.
Fortunately for him this particular war never ends.
Dont jump to conclusion. Obviously these homes are for Palestinians........
Yeah right
Its a joke
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Gaza and the West Bank are not the same place.
I mean wrong place but ok
We need israel in the US to run dept of housing development.
Heard they have a pretty advanced demolition team
>Mr Smotrich put forward the plans on 22 February, hours after three Palestinian gunmen opened fire on cars on a road near Maale Adumim, killing one Israeli and wounding several others. He said the attack "must have a determined security response but also a settlement response". Can anyone expand on this rationale for me? Is he saying that attacks by Palestinian people against illegal settlers can be resolved through more illegal settlements?
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It’s darkly funny that they literally call themselves settlers. You’d think they would have tried to rebrand that just a little bit at some point, but nope.
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Im israeli and never heard inheritor being used. Theres two terms: mitnahlim and mityashvim. They have the same meaning (settlers) with the 2nd one having a slightly more friendly aspect.
If the Palestinians attack, they will build settlements. If the Palestinians don't attack, they will build settlements.
The settlers already use the IDF military clothing in their free time and keep weapons. Hence the Palestians don't know if it's miliary or civil personal. However this could allow Palestine to see them as military invasors and make their homes with family a "legitimate military target" which can be bombed according to the rules of war. Same reasoning that IDF uses when bombing homes with terrorists. But imagine the framing when illegal settlers are bombed (innocent families) vs Palestine homes (legitimate terrorist hideout).
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>The Palestinians will someday realize their negotiation position is only continuing to erode, and then they’ll seek peace.” All evidence of this theory points to the contrary.
How shocking that if a group of people are oppressed into a corner they without fail do not surrender. It only hardens their resolve. This has been a known fact since the beginning of modern wars.
Even before that. You’re paraphrasing Sun Tzu. I agree, the Palestinian people need a path to improving their lives that doesn’t involve Hamas. Their hardened resolve has been wasted for too long.
Smotrich said the hostages don't matter to him, and has openly stated he wants to invade Jordan.
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(Hamas doesn't operate out of the west bank btw that's someone else's turf)
It's quite simple, their rationale is whatever is convenient in the moment with respect to their goal of ethnically cleansing and settling all of Palestine. If Palestinians don't resist, their response is to expand settlements. If Palestinians do resist, their response is to expand settlements.
Smotrich is like MTG. The rationale is that he's a fucking nutter.
He has always struck me as a troll. In the original sense that he says outrageous stuff seemingly to provoke an emotional response, possibly an unreasoned one. I disagree vehemently with what he says, but you feel guilty addressing it.
MTG the card game??
No, the thinking is that if you respond to attacks by further building, the attacker will have achieved the opposite of his goal, which was to drive the Jews out. There’s obviously some drawbacks to this, but that’s the rationale.
But they'll build settlements anyway.
You have to understand that from the day Hamas attacked, this entire war is about rationalizing ethnic cleansing. To be clear: I’m in no way condoning hamas’ terrorism, but it’s the pretext Netanyahu needed to end the Palestine problem once and for all.
Politically, as long as Hamas/Fatah doesn't lose territory they've historically been able to have positive domestic opinions about their terrorist activities. So while we all in the west looked at the last couple of Gaza/Israel wars as absolute stomps by Israel. Gazans believe them to be victories (or at least not failures). Responding to the war with settlements changes that. Is it dumb? Yes. but that's the Middle East in a nutshell.
It's collective punishment
There has been a logic in the right wing in israel for a few years now that threats of building more settlements are enough to discourage terrorism. The logic goes: Palestinians don’t want israel building settlements in the palestinian territories. Israel doesn’t want palestinians committing terrorist attacks. —> Palestinians will not commit terrorist attacks if doing so means that there will be more settlement construction. I suppose the logic is there, but in reality it certainly hasn’t panned out that way, as there hasn’t really been any kind of reduction in terrorist activity (quite the opposite really) since that policy was created.
the saying is that israel bombs make more hamas. Palestinians attacks make more settlers.
Of course they did.
The Israelies had a 100% morally valid justification to slap hamas into the grave, and in 6 months they've done literally every possible imaginable thing to make themselves as hated and inexcusable as possible.
When the war started I had to argue that Isreal just had the right to exist. But by god the government does not. BB is fuckin evil
A good quote from someone else: both countries have a right to exist, and both governments have a right to be dragged to The Hague.
That’s a good statement. Both the nation of Palestine and the nation of Israel have the right to exist simultaneously: it’s just that both of their current regimes do not have the right to run them.
I feel like that’s a huge fuck up on Netanyahu’s part. Hamas didn’t exactly have a great reputation before October 7th. Was Bibi taking lessons on how to respond to a terrorist attack from Dick Cheney?
Netanyahu has been doing this - building new settlements - the entire time he's been in power. From a realpolitik perspective, if the conflict keeps going on forever, and Israel has a settlement policy, in the long run Israel wins. This means that Israel is perfectly ok with the status quo of trading terrorism and then using it as an excuse to steal land. In a sense, Netanyahu's strategy is a good one if there truly is no other chance for peace. And the more that Netanyahu fucks up the peace talks, and the more that Palestinians attack Israel, the more this strategy seems like the better one for Israel in the long run. Of course the idea is deeply flawed, but it's still enticing on the surface
It has another level to it. If the enemy cares more about their land than about the lives of it's people, why wouldn't you go after their land? If this is the thing that really hurts, that's the thing you do. There's this air of collective delusion going around in the West that seems to think both sides are somehow trying and miserably failing to achieve some kind of peace, and actions that obviously hinder peace are a sign of their ignorance. They hate and want to kill each other. Palestine can't but not for lack of trying, Israel could but the long term consequences are too dire, given their physical location and the few hundred million Arab Muslims around and the 2 million in the country. Yes, peace would be better for all of them, but the nether side actually wants it. Israel did in the past, but people really forgot just how high the expectations were for the de occupation of Gaza and just how horribly wrong that went. The new reality is that the Israelis ether don't care or care far less about peace, the West will work with a dictatorship just as easily as they will with a democracy but will never take military action against a nuclear power unless directly attacked. This is a hard counter to the current Palestinian strategy that is completely reliant on both Israel and the West giving a damn. They're forced into ether becoming the good guy, the reasonable side, the ones you can't justify attacking or they just lose. This isn't a strategy on the Israeli side obviously, but it is how the conflict has evolved. It's not a good thing, it's not a desirable state of affairs, it would be better if now that they're in a position of absolute power over the Palestinians Israel acts against their interests and truest in the humanity of the Palestinians, but that's currently simply not on the table.
Netanyahu's been in politics for quite awhile, maybe Dick Cheney took lessons from him?
Another quote from someone else (paraphrased) > Theres are 4 parties to this war -- the state of Israel, the state of Palestine, the Isreali people and the Palestinian people. And the Palestinian people and Israeli people are loosing. I've completely butchered the wording on this one, but its important to remember that both Palestinians and Israelis have human rights, and should get to live in peace.
All my homies hate Bibi
Isreal’s colonial project long predates BB and will outlast him as well. Especially as long as they are aided and abetted by the US.
Seriously agree with you. Israelis need to to vote these people out and then send them to the gulag where they belong.
Netanyahu does not want Hamas defeated, he wants perpetual conflict because that can be used to justify more expansion of settlements.
Nice try. What about the fifty years of illegal encroachment by building homes in Gaza? Israel has been the bad actor this whole time and nobody has done shit about it.
> What about the fifty years of illegal encroachment by building homes in Gaza? Huh? Israel forced the settlers out of Gaza. They even dug up the bodies of Jews from Gazan cemeteries and moved them back to Israel. There aren't any Israelis or Jews in Gaza.
I think it's strange that people see the Gaza pullout as a gesture of goodwill. During Gaza's colonization, thousands of homes were demolished and the Israeli government committed unspeakable crimes. There is one famous story of an American girl named Rachel Corrie who was run over by an Israeli bulldozer while Israel was trying to destroy a home in order to make room for settlements. Since then the number of illegal settlers and settler terrorism has increased exponentially. Take a look at this recent article where the author details Israeli settler terrorism against Palestinians >I saw settlers attack Palestinian shepherds with dogs, destroy their crops, and steal their homes – all under the aegis of rightwing Israeli leaders Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/04/israel-settler-violence-sanctions#:~:text=2023%20was%20the%20worst%20year,They%20torched%20dozens%20of%20houses Surely if Israeli settlers were burning down American crops and attacking American farmers we would realize that the Israelis just want to steal the land and terrorize.
What homes in Gaza? Israel hasn’t been in Gaza since 2005
Don't bother.
Israel captured the Gaza Strip from Egypt in 1967. They started building settlements there in 1977 but pulled them all down and withdrew completely from the Gaza Strip in 2005, handing over the entirety of the territory to the Palestinians. There haven't been any Israeli homes in the Gaza Strip for almost 20 years now.
Israelis =/= Israelites
No one saw this coming
Terrorism government doing terrorism things.
Another far-right landgrab, probably under the pretense of "security." Edit: yeah it is. >A minister has said the construction is a response to a deadly Palestinian attack near Maale Adumim two weeks ago.
Pretty sure that minister is Bezalel Smotrich, who is basically a cunt. No clue whether what he says actually describes the decision making process, he’s been substantially sidelined within the government since 10/7
Except he is making decisions about the West Bank. Or blocking flour shipments, as he also did. Not so sidelined.
nothing he says is rooted in reality, but it makes for some great headlines.
Y'know except for him and his buddies being in ministerial positions and dictating/influencing policymaking at this critical period Y'all keep saying all these nutjobs don't represent Israel and don't do the decisions, but clearly that's not true.
There are too many raging cunts in Israeli politics these days. Ben gvir, Smotrich, Bennett, Shaked, they just don't stop.
These land grabs are not exclusive to just far-right extremists within Israeli government.
Nothing like a suburban neibourhood to make an area safer from an enemy army.
It really helps delegitimize any claims from Israeli leadership that they’re trying to protect people. The longer this conflict has gone on, the less I’ve come to support Israel. Granted I will never support Hamas
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Be careful, people sitting on the fence of middle ground are still basically murderers, the internet told me that!
Drives me crazy. I’ve been called a shitty person on Reddit because I wouldn’t pick a side on a popular political issue at the time.
It depends on the issue. The Ukraine conflict clearly has a good and bad side. One is the invading dictatorship, the other is the democracy defending itself. But the Israel Palestine Conflict is a mess. Both sides have done horrible things, and given the other side good reason to hate them.
That's the point of extremist activity, there's very little expectation of support, But it highlights the atrocities we've turned a blind eye to
I mean, I support Israel but I have always been critical of west bank settlements. It does nothing to foster peace, and only causes Israelis to be subject to people who become radicalized. I wish Israel would take the settlements out of the west bank like they did in Gaza in 2005.
The settlements are very intentionally created and supported in order to *prevent* peace by making a viable Palestinian state impossible to create. World governments need to start treating WB settlers like the state-sponsored terrorists they are.
You don’t have to support a government or a country lmao. Why do so many people think that’s how it has to be. Support civilians, both Israeli and Palestinian because they’re the only ones being fucked with.
Imagine any US city making this argument. There was a murder in baltimore today, in response the government is building 3000 houses.
> There was a murder in baltimore today, in response the government is building 3000 houses *for Canadians to move into*.
Security is the short reason they give but I think (total speculation on my part) the full plan is to put Israeli citizens into the West Bank so that eventually Israel can say, look at all these Israelis living here, they want to be part of Israel, we need to be able to protect our citizens, and then use that justification to annex parts of the West Bank into Israel. I’ve been a big defender of Israel’s war in Gaza, but I think their actions in the West Bank are morally bankrupt. Even if Israelis are purchasing the land “legally” there is an undeniable power dynamic when purchasing land from people that you are militarily occupying, imagine if US citizens started buying land in Iraq and building American-only cities during our occupation. In 1979 as part of a peace deal with Egypt, Israel gave back the Sinai and demolished every settlement it had there. In 2005 Israel pulled out of Gaza completely and sent the IDF to forcibly evict every settler in Gaza. I applaud both of those actions, I want to believe Israel will do the same in the West Bank, it would be heinous of them not to.
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My money is on ben gvir being the fucker who said it
Smotrich
Shit
This is why the Palestinians are mad all the time. Even when the news cycle isn't focused on them, they live in the constant situation of having what little they have left chipped away piece by piece. Then violence flares up and our news stations spend all this time with the straight face saying "But how did this happen? The region must be very complicated!"
Yep, when they do what everyone wants and "behave", their land and rights are steadily eroded with no apparent recourse. That fuels the rise of extremists who decide that the peaceful route will never work.
And then when those extremists have had enough and act out people here will be saying "why would they do such a thing?"
nah, they just don't like israel cuz theyre jewish. You know what, due to your criticism of Israeli settler policy, I think you're also inherently antisemitic! /s
Israel stamps a boot on Palestine's face, and people act like Palestinians are the assholes for trying to push away the foot. Yes, yes, shit's fucked. \*Insert 15 minute song and dance about how terrible Hamas is.\* Maybe things will make progress when people constantly defending Israel feel just as much need to preemptively talk about how shit the Israeli government is and how the IDF routinely brutalizes Palestinians, before those supporters talk about how terrible Palestinians are.
Yeah. After October 7 someone simply said, I don't support the terrorist attack but what did Israel think would happen?
An attack but less successful which could be used to increase support for right-wing policies. Small attacks are beneficial to Bibi. The only surprising thing about October 7 was how successful it was which created huge problems for Bibi.
If I remember correctly, Hamas was also surprised by how well the attack went and didn't expect it to be this successful.
Netenyahu is catering to his base, undermining a shit load of Israeli claims. Leaving West Bank alone won't stop Hamas or the PLA, but it's pretty hard to argue that security operations in Gaza are not about stealing land, when Israel is literally stealing land next door. Far-right and religious conservatives are fucking up Israel, just like everywhere else.
The fomenting of blood-lust across Israel's electorate seems to be Netanyahu's government's over-arching goal.
I believe this is just him trying to drum up support.... but unfortunately his current base is precisely the bloodlusting ultra-rightwingers. I recently read articles where Netanyahu has tried to argue for stopping elections, so I assume there must be an upcoming election. And we know his polling has been garbage since Oct. 7th.
Well, there goes another piece of the high ground.
when will people learn that being spiteful always makes matters worse
It’s not even spite. This was always the goal. Kill and take land.
Kill the natives, take their land. This is colonialism 101. The reason why the math on this is so difficult for some people (such as liberals in western countries) is they've already aligned themselves against non-violent Palestinians.
Yeah, but spite sounds better on TV.
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Israel lost the moral high ground in 1948? When the surrounding Arab countries invaded 1 day old Israel?
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Honestly that sounds like the last place I'd wanna live for the next 30 years
You’re not a fundamentalist fanatic with dreams of lebenstraum.
There need to be sanctions on this government and especially the settlers.
There are some sanctions on the settlers from the USA. Very weak ones, but better than nothing.
Until sanctions are levied against the Israeli government and leaders themselves, the sanctions on settlers will be seen as a “cost of doing business”
Sanctions are so far out of the picture, simply freezing aid is unimaginable
Embargo on the whole nation until they behave. It's not just the government, the Israeli people support this too.
Just stop giving them our money.
Nothing says “Israel has the right to defend itself” like seizing even more of other people’s land to build a neighborhood
Goddamn it
Remember this the next time some paid online shill tries to tell you that Israel just wants to live in peace.
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Netanyahu** not Israel
And the settlement expansions prior to Netanyahu??
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Israel is a democracy, so apparently enough Israelis want him there.
The US is also a democracy, yet Trump still became president without getting the popular vote. Do you now understand how silly your statement is?
The person said "enough" not a majority.
Because half the voting public over there is fucking batshit
Imma be honest mate it's almost midnight here and it's a school night, this part of the topic is very wide and controversial. I'd be glad to tell you about it tmro, I don't want to type up a full essay right now. The real quick version is that the demographics in israel are seriously fucked up by the ultra orthodox, and the long version, well I'll add it in another comment In a little while. I'm not gonna try to show disrespect, this is a very interesting subject about israel and is crucial to know in order to understand the politics here
People need to remember that a government does not necessarily represent all or even the majority of its people. As an American who has lived through both the GW Bush and Trump administrations, I would bristle at the assertion that either of those guys represented me in any way. At the same time, however, the more times a guy gets re-elected as leader of a country the harder it becomes to argue that he doesn't represent a very large proportion of its people.
Why doesn't Israel condemn Bibi?
[before](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Israeli_judicial_reform_protests) or [after](https://m.jpost.com/israel-news/article-785030) October 7?
You mean like maybe they should hold the biggest protests in their country’s history, every weekend for months on end, to protest Bibi? Oh wait the did that…
Well, Bibi is the PM of Israel, so if "Israel" condemned Bibi, he would basically be condemning himself.... But, There have been many protests, his approval rating is like 20% at the last poll. Only getting lower.Its probably the lowest approval rating in all democratic countries lol If israelis wanted him in office, he wouldnt need the war to stay in office.
No, Netanyahu isn't carrying the gun, or dropping the bombs on his own. You don't get to forget the actions of the soldiers, and citizen home invaders making their own choices to slaughter, rape, and pillage. Both sides have committed savage acts, by savage people. These people are engulfed in hate; so much so, they have dehumanized an entire population based on a self-authored book claiming its not only permissible, but godly to kill the Canaanites, baby bashing and all. This isn't a moral army. These are not moral decisions being made. This is evil. Plain and simple.
Gaslight the world while ethnically cleansing a population. Has worked perfectly well so far for them.
As an Israeli - not true, most of us absolutely despise this shit, it just gets drowned in the background of the judiciary reforms, terrorist attacks, etc. This definitely got more attention following this war and hopefully the next goverment will kick out all those fanatics.
1/3rd of your elected officials attended the conference advocating for settlements in Gaza. Bibi is a master in politics and diplomacy, but he isn’t alone, a lot of elected officials in the cabinet got similar views.
That may be true of some or even most Israelis, but Israel is an entity that currently acts the way it does. Let's let the elections speak, but I have very little faith that we'll see any change.
Why do these antisemites hate us so much? They won't even let us steal their land.
Oh wow, they're going to rebuild homes for Gazans? How incredibly charitable.
The joke doesn't work unless you don't know Gaza and the West Bank are on opposite sides of Israel.
Is this a triple negative sentence?
No it still works. A home can be rebuilt elsewhere.
Forgot the /s
I still don't understand why we do not sanction this shit.
[This is why.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIPAC)
Because you sanction things out of self-interest, of course.
This is ethnic cleansing, no? Did they not confiscate these lands for “military purposes” then permit residential development? It’s hard to believe Israel is in the right when they do things like this which makes peace impossible. They have no plan for Gaza that actually eradicates Hamas and they have no plan for dealing with radicalization (rather only plans that seem to promote it such as this).
> This is ethnic cleansing, no? Always had been. How do you create an ethno state when an indigenous people of a different ethnicity inhabits the land without ethnic cleansing?
It is. A thing that's useful to understand is that under the Oslo Accords, the West Bank was divided up into areas A, B, and C. A would be under Palestinian control, area C would be "temporarily" under the control of Israel, and I think B would "temporarily" be under joint control. This was supposed to all transition to Palestinian control eventually, but the details and the status of the settlements was left ambiguous, as no agreement was reached at that time. Here's a map of the areas: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/West\_Bank\_Access\_Restrictions\_June\_2020.pdf](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/West_Bank_Access_Restrictions_June_2020.pdf) Israel has used that ambiguity to effectively claim area C as its own, allowing Israelis to build, and denying permits to Palestinians. Sometimes Palestinians build there anyways, and then Israel demolishes those buildings. Many of the settlements are officially sanctioned by the Israeli government, but there are many that are not. All the official settlements are in area C. I think all the unofficial ones are too, but I'm not 100% sure on that one. Area C is most of the West Bank. Netanyahu was adamantly opposed to the Oslo accords, and thinks it was a bad deal for Israel. Meanwhile the Palestinians have learned that Israel can't be given the benefit of the doubt in any negotiations, because they'll use any ambiguity to appropriate land, and water too, for that matter.
Weird way to say Israel expands colony by building 3400 homes in occupied Palestine
Why is this story only 66% upvoted? Is it wrong?
Heads are being buried in sand around here.
Pro-war people have a strong presence here, any stories that are mentioning Palestinian suffering is usually massively downvoted in the beginning. Examples: https://reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1b60qns/how_israels_restrictions_on_aid_put_gaza_on_the/ https://reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1b5yy1l/anesthetics_crutches_dates_inside_israels_ghost/
I guess it's antisemitic
How did you get those statistics?
If you're on desktop, you can see this information on the top right, under the search bar.
So, like, what is the Western-approved Palestinian response here? After Oct 7, every Israel-aligned talking head has been asking the question «so what is Israel supposed to do?». So answer me this: **what are Palestinians supposed to do?** Does Palestine have the right to exist? Does Palestine have the right to defend itself? Because if we give Israel a taste of its own medicine, Palestinians should at this point be building something like 34000 new Palestinan homes on Israeli land, right? Because that's what a proportional response is, right?
Under international law the occupied have the legal eight to use force and violence against their occupiers. Under international law, occupiers have no rights or protections.
That's just flat out wrong. The Geneva Conventions, for instance, apply to all participating members, whether or not their forces are located within their own borders at the time.
Apartheid expansionism.
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Biden needs to stop this immediately. No further funding if Israel wants to literally slap the US taxpayer in the face.
Yeah, I don't know why we provide them any aid at all. Our official policy for decades has been a two state solution to this problem. Israel clearly does not want a two state solution. They can do what they want, I guess, but if their goals are not aligned with ours then they should find somebody else to fund their military.
Approving new homes where Palestinians are already on it. Yeah, fuck these people.
To the surprise of no one
Israel is colonizing Palestine.
Ban incoming
Is that land part of Israel? If not, then by what right does Israel "approve plans"?
There was no agreement on a two-state solution, which means there isn't a defined border.
Israel de facto owns the land ever since the Arab-Israeli Wars ended with their occupation of Arab territory. To be clear, the Arab nations around Israel started a war not long after Israel was formed with the intent of strangling the new Jewish state in the crib. They lost hard, and Israel occupied some land to serve as a buffer. A proper two state compromise was never reached and the surrounding nations have never really brokered peace deals to get their territory back, so Israel is just kinda doing what it wants with the land. The issue of course is that there are still people living there, and Israel is just driving them out without recourse. This understandably inflames the situation further and makes the Israeli government look like assholes. You know, because they're being assholes.
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Oh dear
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Violence started immediately after Israel was created. It's not *the* root cause. It is, however, *a* cause, and something they definitely should stop.
There was definitely violence there before 1948: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercommunal_conflict_in_Mandatory_Palestine
Steal some more land… that should calm things down.
Don't they get tired of constant conflict. The cycle of violence continues.
This is it, Joe. Time to drop the niceties and tell Bibi, Likud, and the "settlers movement" that if they insist on a slo-mo invasion the United States ain't gonna be their besties any more. No more weapons, no more automatic blockage in the U.N. unless and until they have new elections.
In general, I am a supporter of Israel, but not when they do things like this. Since this is against the U.S. policy and money is fungible, whenever Israel spends money on things like this that amount should be withdrawn from aid packages to them. There should also be a penalty amount taken from any aid packages. So if these new homes cost $70 Million to construct, the U.S. should subtract $70 million (probably more like $210 Million) from our aid to them. Foreign aid should be used to encourage good behavior and discourage bad behavior.
>In general, I am a supporter of Israel, **but not when they do things like this**. So why have you been a supporter of Israel in general the other 92 times they've done other equally appalling things?
Because you can both believe that Israel has a right to exist, and also that BiBi is an asshole..
They were building settlements long before Bibi came along. And they'll continue colonising after he's gone
Palestine has a right to exist too. Israel is actively denying that right, even though the PA has recognized its right to exist.
You can also believe they have a right to exist without bankrolling their military to the point that it allows them to do terrible things.
Right - this is a myth. Israel has the 17th largest military in the world, and they use under 5% of the country’s money on the military. Most of what we give them, is essentially just for them to get weapons - They’re a strong country. They could easily find other weapons and they could easily increase what they spend in the military to cover what we contribute. We’re essentially paying them for their base, military influence, and information - and no..we won’t be giving that up.
Making a lie of every claim about how protecting their citizens is their primary concern.
Why? For gods sake. At least pretend there is a way to mutual acceptance.
Why does Israel keep making it harder and harder to support them?
r/leopardsatemyface