The Middle East Thread

@WeeJoe

Indeed.

huh?

Strange world how the fact where babies were murdered is being fudged by whether they were beheaded or not beheaded. Almost like, they were mercifully murdered, yessiree, no beheadings or any other bad things.

Fuck me.

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Israel’s position is now absolute over their piece of land. It absolutely does no help to anyone to bring up the legality of how they got there.

the two state theory is dead on arrival. Israel doesn’t want a single state because of demographic changes. Israel doesn’t want them. No other country wants the Palestinians.

Beheading is a crime of hatred. Collateral damages are one thing but to behead a person implies a level of radicalization , hatred etc which makes it difficult to digest for other countries and only serves to harden perspectives against them.

There’s little to no evidence yet as to whether it did or didn’t happen though.

But I’ve read reports of a German woman (forgot the name) paraded naked by Hamas

These crimes deserve to be highlighted as well.

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You don’t think babies are being killed in the wanton bombing of Gaza?

There is a difference between collateral deaths and premeditated acts of barbarism in most people’s minds.

Tales of baby decapitation and similar horrors often follow invasions. I remember similar stories after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait for example. These stories are used to rile up the population and justify retribution.

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Needless to say , disinformation is being spread on both sides.

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It is. I still struggle to see why any party has to be painted worse than the other. Both parties can be equally bad, violent, terrible and brutal. It’s always as if some of us are trying to overturn the saying ’ 2 wrongs don’t make one right’. And I say this to people on both sides. It is possible to acknowledge the motivation on both sides and still say that both are wrong in their application.

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theres a disconnect here, though, for the layman…are the Palestinians that threatening? and i dont mean that in a nonchalant way, i refer to more to them having no real political pull or wealth…

also…

Hamas are obviously getting their arms from somewhere (assume Iran?) , and into their country from somewhere.

Hamas do have links with Hezbollah which is a Iranian front.

The most depressing fact is that disinformation is being spread for entirely unrelated purposes: smearing Biden or whatever.

The radicalization that has taken root there especially in Gaza where Hamas rules isn’t to be underestimated.

Even if a mere 2% of Gaza populace is a heavy radical , it still means a lot of foot soldiers there. And I’ll venture to say that the percentage is a lot higher than 2%

Biden walked right into this though. He opened the literal can of worms.

Are we doing whataboutism here? Hamas did something horrific, beheading is just a semantic. I don’t feel the need for people to sugarcoat it.

In my opinion, a few things:

  1. Israel has lost itself along the way. I’ve said this before. The oppressed became the oppressor when they had to chance to be a light of inclusion.

  2. It’s possible that this hardening of their stance was caused by the wars they have had to fight for their very existence. For this, the Arab nations surrounding them must take some responsibility for.

  3. Israel could still have chosen not to be the oppressor. In that, an endless cycle of guerilla and terrorist warfare against them has cemented itself as the the status quo.

  4. Hamas is a Palestinian organization and it’s members are drawn from the community. There is no way around this. It’s not mutually exclusive to say you have Hamas and then you have Gaza as separate entities. As much as this is an inconvenient fact to digest, it is nonetheless true. Not all Palestinians support Hamas, many do and many join and get involved in the endless cycle of violence and oppression.

  5. The diaspora and supporters of Palestine around the world by and large seemingly do not differentiate between the two either. Some of the footage of these demonstrations are disturbing; people mocking the dead, holding up images to people holding a vigil mocking them, saying that’s your brother or sister etc. So who are these people doing that? Refugees, immigrants who are now ‘safe’ but celebrating the orgy of violence and depredation that was unleashed. Doesn’t seem to me to be any sort of introspection at all, just a celebration in many aspects. So the very people from there are demonstrating and celebrating en masse about what has happened while onlookers are bending over backwards to say, 'it’s not Palestinians, it’s not the people of Gaza, it’s not Palestinians, it’s Hamas. All very weird to me. It’s like Hamas isn’t made up of Palestinians thus giving Palestinians a weird quasi - religious virtue.

  6. What happened over the weekend was barbaric and inhumane. There should be no celebration of that by anyone, yet people are. There should be no condoning of it, but people go ‘what about’ anyway.

Now I can hold all of these opinions and think that Israel has been in the wrong for decades without deifying Palestinians and think that they are intertwined with Hamas for better or for worse. But that’s not good enough for anyone; it simply has to be one or the other.

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No.

I’m saying that terrible as it is, babies get killed in wars. Even the most benign of armies will cause the deaths of infants. That is not the same as deliberately and cold bloodedly torturing and mutilating children.

I agree to some extent. But the main reason that people have to say ‘they aren’t all Hamas’ is that they aren’t allowed to make a point about Palestinian suffering without first denouncing Hamas.

Even in your lengthy post there is no indication that Palestinians are equal human beings. They aren’t allowed a state. They aren’t allowed their own army to defend themselves. They are caged, and starved of hope, and bombed every few years. What the fuck do you think is going to happen?

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Is that not exactly what happened over the weekend? Everyone is getting all in a huff over beheaded babies and whether it happened or not and people getting huffed about propoganda now rather than the fact that babies and kids were deliberately and brutally murdered and in some cases might have been burned alive.

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Hard to disagree with most of the things you’ve mentioned.

Even if a minority of Palestinians do support Hamas (are radical) , that still means a sizable army at their disposal and one which isn’t far removed from the principles of ISIS.

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