Also the Wiener Holocaust Library condemning this.
https://twitter.com/wienerlibrary/status/1737074338015199305?t=r7cOWMXdO743JU46FVu8TQ&s=19
4 Likes
The media should be all over this and amplify these calls as much as possible. Maybe then the thick and sleepy Western politicians who support Israelās misdoings will then wake up and smell the coffee.
Especially Biden should receive a right slap on his face in order to help him finally wake up.
4 Likes
The US was negotiating with several other countries at the UN yesterday over the wording of a ceasefire resolution they would be prepared to support - the sticking point was ācessationā versus āsuspensionā. Angels on the head of a pin at one level, but were the US to support any such resolution, it would represent a major inflection point in US-Israeli relations.
Would the possibility of Hamas disbanding be one of the topics being discussed for the cease fire ?
It makes little sense of any potential ceasation of fighting doesnāt involve Hamas laying down their arms. It would be simply going back to the precious status quo.
I think that is why the word ācessationā is a sticking point. A termination of hostilities means Hamas continues to exist, and fundamentally Israel has set the destruction of Hamas as a core war aim. A āsuspensionā does not imply termination, merely a temporary halt. One wonders what steps could then take place that would materially alter the predicament of Gazan civilians in a halt, but if nothing else it would buy time for possible alternatives.
For anyone thinking that the atrocity of Oct 7 might herald a political realignment or resurgence of the left in Israel. Think again.
1 Like
Itās always the way. The national security hawks fail in their approach, more interested in grand standing than doing the dirty work of effective policy, and people respond to that failure with calls for āMOAR SECURITYā
āĆ qui profite le crime?ā (Who takes benefit from the crime?)
I find myself wondering if this is going to mark a cultural shift in Israel, the way I think 9/11 caused a cultural shift in the United States. When I lived in the US in the 90s, it would have been very hard to imagine something like the Department of Homeland Security or the Patriot Act. Americans (well, white ones anyway) now habitually accept infringements on their personal liberty in the name of security that would have been unimaginable just a generation ago. A similar shift feels like it is beginning in Israel, though the issue set is not personal liberty there.
The risk is certainly there, but itās not as if Israel had been a paradise for lefties previously to October 7th. Likoud is in power since I donāt know how much time.
1 Like
and the Americans who are still at odds with these security policies are branded as conspiracy theorists and unpatrioticā¦ Canadians too. Look at whatās happening here now, social media ban on news articles and massive firearms restrictions. Canadian revolted against government policies during covid, they drove their convoy into Ottawa. So the government takes away their visibility off social media outlets, the voice of the community as it is. Make them blind, and make them weak. Force the populus into submission
2 Likes
I was one of those allowing myself to dare to think that an inflection point may have been reached and some blue sky thinking might now have been the order of the day. Yeah well , we all know what thought did.
A recent opinion poll in the West Bank put support for Hamas at nearly double (40%) what it was before Oct 7. This entrenchment in both populations into the arms of the most uncompromising amongst them does not bode well , and weāre not even at the point yet of being able to predict what the post-war scenario might look like.
1 Like
I donāt know if thereās any space left to infringe upon when it comes to the Palestinians or the non-Jewish Israelis. Itās true that dystopian thoughts have no limits and I can imagine about ankle trackers or embedded chips right now.
2 Likes
Thatās what I meant by the issue set in this case not being personal liberties. I was thinking more in terms of a shift in how Israelis in general think about Palestinians, with the āsettlerā mentality now being the dominant one. It hasnāt been, even in Likud circles - it was just that Likud was quite willing to cut a deal with the settlers. Now, even some fairly progressive voices seem to be expressing a very similar logic, in line with some of the themes of that article @peterroberts linked above.
Except that the right gained increasing clout ironically with the reign and the later assassination of Rabin.
Israelis might want to portray this as their 9/11 and say that this is a cultural shift but This isnāt quite similar to (for example) the attitude of India and an increasing amount of Indians (majority I would say) towards Pakistan(the country) changing after the Mumbai terror attacks and the resulting shift to right wing governments as a result. Indians by and large donāt want any talks between the two governments and thatās reflected by the policy being followed by the Indian Govt.
Israel wants to portray this as a 9/11 or a 26/11 and make this seem to be the reason why they shifted to the right. But thatās not true.
The fact that they had already shifted to the right once doesnāt mean it is necessarily not true - particularly if you think of it along the single issue dimension, rather than broader right-left divisions.
Meanwhile, US is haggling in the UN over the wording of a ceasefire resolution.
1 Like
Many news outlets are referencing a WSJ report on the ongoing negotiations between Fatah and Hamas regarding future governance of Palestine.
As if Abbas and Hamas on their own werenāt wreaking enough havoc on the Palestinians.
1 Like