Israel ordered people out of swathes of the main southern city in the Gaza Strip on Monday (December 4) as it pressed its ground campaign deep into the south, sending desperate residents fleeing even as it dropped bombs on areas where it told them to go. Lucy Fielder has more.
Afghanistan is the best modern example of people who won against impossible odds.
Israel is literally fighting for its existence and has nowhere to retreat to should they lose. Afghanistan, like Vietnam, was not an existential threat to the US. It’s not really comparable because of this.
Since you mentioned “realpolitik”, and while you may have heard of it before, you could have heard it again recently with John Mearsheimer and others during the war in Ukraine, it is linked to Afghanistan in that, if all ukrainians were (traitors )like those in eastern Galicia, i doubt that Russia could have kept these territories : they would have had to face constant “terrorism” by more numerous inhabitants.
Ukraine is also fighting for its existence.
Realpolitik just means acknowledging the political realities of their situation. Political realism.
Guerilla warfare can sometimes be effective, however I do not believe this approach will lead to victory against Israel. They have been dealing with terrorism/intifada relatively effectively for the past 70 years and have built a sophisticated system that insulates them from Palestinian belligerents. While it failed spectacularly on Oct7, I don’t suspect that will happen again. The only domain where Palestinians seem to be able to gain territory is in the court of public opinion.
In the same spirit, wars for decolonization could also count as other examples of successful fights against overwhelming odds.
Even without that, they can win(, i.d.k. if they will,) if the ummah was united.
Wasn’t that what happened in '48 and '67? It didn’t work out well for other nations who went to war on their behalf. Israel is much stronger now than it was then.
If it wasn’t enough of a weight(, i doubt it), they would certainly change the scale by uniting with Africa, the rest of Asia, Russia, and also South America. That’d mean even more coups by the west in order to keep control, and then by the rest, we(sterners) are lucky that they’re still closer to us.
Interesting
I believe you are overestimating both international support for Palestine and the military capabilities of most African and South American nations.
Palestinian resistance groups are getting support from Iran, who is using them as a proxy, but most of their Arabic neighbors recognize that making an ally of the United States and the EU is far more strategically valuable than backing this group that wants endless war and seeking unreasonable demands. Hamas launched this attack because Saudi Arabia was about to recognize Israel, after all, and SA is dependent upon the US for security. If they alienate the US they have Iran to contend with.
Russia has its own issues right now and cannot afford another front, and there are many Russian Jews in Israel. Given their behaviors in Chechnya, they do not seem to be sympathetic to Muslims.
If ‘fairness is excluded’/‘might makes right’/‘the only factor is strength’, then they’re not weak.
It is not the only factor but it is the most relevant one in this conflict, because it’s so very asymmetrical.
Only God would know how to solve this situation in the most perfect manner
If such creatures exist, they haven’t weighed in, which is curious given that Allah/Yahweh supposedly care so much about their followers and who controls their holy cities. Funny how gods are always concerned with the same things that their followers and the men who claim to speak for them are, rather than what I’d expect from omnipotent creatures beyond our understanding. It would be like humans trying to control ant societies in our backyards, why would we care?
freely join and leave communities with their own rules and paradise would come unto Earth
I hope we get there one day, albeit through secular means.
Afghanistan, like Vietnam, was not an existential threat to the US. It’s not really comparable because of this.
It’s not comparable because the disparition of Israel would be an existential threat to the u.s. ?
Realpolitik just means acknowledging the political realities of their situation. Political realism.
Without discussing what should be, only how to do it(, and usually without considering the morality of the path taken, only its assumed effectiveness, there’re reasons to believe that Machiavel wrote The Prince as a criticism and not a support b.t.w.).
If i remember correctly J.Mearsheimer liked realism for its predictive power.
Guerilla warfare can sometimes be effective, however I do not believe this approach will lead to victory against Israel
Only because Israel’s territory isn’t populated by palestinians, which is why i mentionned Ukraine, whose annexed/liberated territories aren’t anti-russians like in eastern Galicia, perhaps because they believe that Russia is large enough to become a.n ‘future continent’/‘original culture’ by itself, and want to believe in this idea, and/or perhaps for other reasons. But w/e.
For Israel this isn’t a fight to colonize, it’s a fight to exist. There are many Arab nations that could take in Palestinians, not so for Jews.
They can go in “the first&free world” if that’s your argument.
And they’re colonizing more territories because it’s a fight to exist ?
As this comment pointed out : palestinians are at most a threat in the future, but aren’t strong enough currently to be deemed a serious threat, a fight for survival implies an enemy strong enough to kill you, and as you previously recognised, if we’re only talking about palestinians, then they’re not there( yet).
Israelis were relatively safe all these decades(, compared to their neighbours), and i could only imagine that Palestine’s destruction would enhance their security if arabs/muslims accept it and refuse to stand for palestinians, and if israelis stop there, because they would still have to invade/coup such countries as Iran or political movements such as Hezbollah, and would continue as long as they’re not accepted.
If you presented Israel’s survival as ‘a moral argument’/‘what should be’, which would probably not be “realist” to do so, then i could return the same argument for palestinians, and ask you why you don’t support the intifada on these same moral grounds, but you more likely said that to explain their motivation and give an estimation of their strength/resolve.
I believe you are overestimating both international support for Palestine and the military capabilities of most African and South American nations
As you saw afterwards, i wasn’t talking of a military fight, but of a.n economic&diplomatic one(, even if coups generally imply a military role, sometimes bloodless but very often not).
most of their Arabic neighbors recognize that making an ally of the United States and the EU is far more strategically valuable than backing this group that wants endless war and seeking unreasonable demands.
Unreasonable because they won’t ever win ? Well, who knows ?
I don’t see them supporting Israel and abandoning palestinians(, only Morocco’s gains would be significant, yet they’re still seemingly hesitant), i’ll agree that they still have a margin of retaliation/pressure towards the west though, perhaps are they forced to wait for a more opportune time to act or, as you said, have accepted such unconditional loss, not sure that we would have if the roles were reversed. As previously mentioned, they wouldn’t win anything by complying, and i don’t see clearly the extent of what they’d lose by resisting(, some could include their honor or other immaterial examples).
Hamas launched this attack because Saudi Arabia was about to recognize Israel, after all, and SA is dependent upon the US for security. If they alienate the US they have Iran to contend with.
In my opinion Saudi Arabia has more reasons to be afraid of the u.s.a.&co than of Iran, since, except for the Gulf monarchies, every single one of their neighbours ‘has been’/‘is being’ destroyed : the color revolutions, Mohamed Morsi, Lybia, Sudan, Eritrea, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and even Lebanon is in an economic crisis(, and kinda Türkiye as well), you just have to open a map and list every country. If we’re going a bit further then we have Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nagorno-Karabakh, almost all countries destroyed by the west, and i haven’t counted kurd separatists or the islamic state, it’s not a stretch to think that they desire stability, but what a f*cking world, we don’t understand that, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Congo, Chad, Niger, central asian republics, Georgia, …, these countries seems far away, if the realist choice is just to always follow the strongest regardless of what’s right/fair, then i don’t want to be a realist.
Russia has its own issues right now and cannot afford another front
Is there a single non-western country more active than them around the world currently ?
Given their behaviors in Chechnya, they do not seem to be sympathetic to Muslims.
As if they didn’t lose enough historical territory in 1991, V.Putin’s party isn’t called United Russia for nothing, of course we(sterners) supported the separatists terrorists(, but hated them when these “orks” fought on the side of Russia&‘south-eastern ukrainians’ recently).
The first hostage released by Hamas was an israeli who also had a russian nationality, and there were other gestures if this kind of things matter, the timing of the l.g.b.t. ban may perhaps also be linked in some way, i.d.k.(, they also have their own muslim republics in the russian federation, Chechnya is apparently very homophobic, and it’s not only inside their borders or in the Middle-East, but in Africa as well), just to say that i wouldn’t count on their islamophobia.
If such creatures exist, they haven’t weighed in
The (uncaused )Cause is the only being which isn’t a creature(, and the only to be the Being), i don’t think a direct visible interference would be that desirable, everything would just be solved and there wouldn’t be anything else to do, i prefer to feel free, but in any case there’s always determinism and God as the Cause for this kind of interrogation.
It would be like humans trying to control ant societies in our backyards, why would we care?
Not sure that despite our imperfection we wouldn’t be a part of the All/One, and there’s always the law of karma among other laws of our reality, parts of the All do care, and if we look/seek the Greatest we/ants do care.
I hope we get there one day, albeit through secular means.
You didn’t wrote that to imply that we should only get there through secular means(, by fighting other paths), but i find interesting that we fight communism and islamism : apart from these two, and royalism, do you know of a single large ideology that survived the colonization and isn’t the western one of a constitutional capitalist secular republic ?
I wrote about these communities with their own rules because i feel that we’re unfortunately looking for unity at the expense of diversity, instead of looking for a permanent peace in harmony, ensuring both our unity and our diversity, we’re not looking towards this direction, and there’s even this selfish nationalism saying that it’s not our role to help each other, i can’t like it, we should aim to live together.
Israel is literally fighting for its existence and has nowhere to retreat to should they lose. Afghanistan, like Vietnam, was not an existential threat to the US. It’s not really comparable because of this.
Really? ? A bunch of half starved poorly armed guerrillas are an “existential threat” to Israel?
Get the fuck outta here with that bullshit.
Come on, if you are gonna try to be the one calling for rational discourse you have got to at least try not to be so intellectually dishonest.
A bunch of half starved poorly armed guerrillas are an “existential threat” to Israel?
They are unlikely to win but if they did, yes, the consequences would be existential. It wasn’t long ago that Israel was the underdog in this conflict.
One of the most modern and well funded militaries in the world backed by the world superpower VS guys with ak-47s of vietnam era vintage.
You cannot be serious.
If you really think this is true that Israel would be defeated by hamas you are beyond rational discussion and of in some fantasy world of victimhood.
Spare me your insults.
How bout you spare me your inane fictions and we can talk.
If you cannot manage that then just piss off.
Because they don’t have the means to fight back and win. Because if they insist on intifada they will end up with nothing. --DarkGamer
They are unlikely to win but if they did, yes, the consequences would be existential. It wasn’t long ago that Israel was the underdog in this conflict. --DarkGamer
So they are both weak and strong. Hrm right out of the fascists handbook.
Keep telling us who you are when you get back from your goose-stepping practice.
I noticed the zionists seem to like saying that gaza isn’t being carpet bombed and such so how do you explain :
“Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne — some of the world’s heaviest-ever bombings are remembered by their place names,” said Robert Pape, a US military historian and author of Bombing to Win, a landmark survey of 20th century bombing campaigns. “Gaza will also go down as a place name denoting one of history’s heaviest conventional bombing campaigns.” from the financial times (non paywalled no excuses link https://archive.ph/DSZ1b/ )
They even have pretty graphs showing how it is worse.
Oh and since you seem to think TIME is an issue for me tell me how fast was WW2 vs everything since Oct 7??
Nevermind I’ll just tell you since your propaganda addled brain (yea that’s an insult you dipshit) will try to block it out. “By contrast, over the space of two years, between 1943 and 1945, the Allied bombing of 61 major German cities razed an estimated 50 per cent of their urban areas, according to Pape.”
Odd how these things seem bad even in the light of history, maybe Israel can get all the way to # 1 on the charts!!!
Hi,
I was thinking about what you said.
In a word, you were saying that if Israel’s enemies take every necessary step to ensure Israel’s safety in a permanent manner, then a two-states solution(, including giving back the “illegal” settlements,) could be envisioned, that’s a unilateral loss enabled by the law of the strongest. An inversed unilateral loss, in favor of the pro-palestinians, would see them taking back the holy lands. And a balanced exchange would have those who take(, western countries,) give something back(, of equal value,) in exchange.
At least expressed like that the first unilateral loss doesn’t seem more moral than the second one, but it is true that this loss can be more or less important(, e.g., disparition of Palestine, or a two-state solution, or only a jewish territory in a small part of the current israeli territory). Yet the second choice could(should?) also be seen as the most moral of the three, when it takes the year 1900 as a baseline for saying that Israel’s destruction is a neutral gain/loss for both sides(, instead of a unilateral gain/loss for one of them if we take the year 1960 as a baseline).
I’m in favor of making a trade by giving something worthwhile in exchange of the holy lands, but as you pointed out this is unrealistic, so let the strongest prevail i guess.
“I do agree that palestinians could get back the new settlements of the last decades and end any future palestinian persecution if they&‘their allies’ recognise Israel” is what i wanted to add, not sure that we would have followed the path of least resistance if the roles were reversed, but as you said giving them something of equal value in exchange is out of question
It’s just an addition, please don’t feel any obligation to answer, and thanks for the chat
Israel is literally fighting for its existence and has nowhere to retreat to should they lose. Afghanistan, like Vietnam, was not an existential threat to the US. It’s not really comparable because of this.
For Israel this isn’t a fight to colonize, it’s a fight to exist. There are many Arab nations that could take in Palestinians, not so for Jews who have already been expelled from the Muslim world, and are facing enemies who quite explicitly want to genocide them.
Wasn’t that what happened in '48 and '67? It didn’t work out well for other nations who went to war on their behalf. Israel is much stronger now than it was then.
Interesting
It is not the only factor but it is the most relevant one in this conflict, because it’s so very asymmetrical.
If such creatures exist, they haven’t weighed in, which is curious given that Allah/Yahweh supposedly care so much about their followers and who controls their holy cities. Funny how gods are always concerned with the same things that their followers and the men who claim to speak for them are, rather than what I’d expect from omnipotent creatures beyond our understanding. It would be like humans trying to control ant societies in our backyards, why would we care?
I hope we get there one day, albeit through secular means.
It’s not comparable because the disparition of Israel would be an existential threat to the u.s. ?
Without discussing what should be, only how to do it(, and usually without considering the morality of the path taken, only its assumed effectiveness, there’re reasons to believe that Machiavel wrote The Prince as a criticism and not a support b.t.w.).
If i remember correctly J.Mearsheimer liked realism for its predictive power.
Only because Israel’s territory isn’t populated by palestinians, which is why i mentionned Ukraine, whose annexed/liberated territories aren’t anti-russians like in eastern Galicia, perhaps because they believe that Russia is large enough to become a.n ‘future continent’/‘original culture’ by itself, and want to believe in this idea, and/or perhaps for other reasons. But w/e.
They can go in “the first&free world” if that’s your argument.
And they’re colonizing more territories because it’s a fight to exist ?
As this comment pointed out : palestinians are at most a threat in the future, but aren’t strong enough currently to be deemed a serious threat, a fight for survival implies an enemy strong enough to kill you, and as you previously recognised, if we’re only talking about palestinians, then they’re not there( yet).
Israelis were relatively safe all these decades(, compared to their neighbours), and i could only imagine that Palestine’s destruction would enhance their security if arabs/muslims accept it and refuse to stand for palestinians, and if israelis stop there, because they would still have to invade/coup such countries as Iran or political movements such as Hezbollah, and would continue as long as they’re not accepted.
If you presented Israel’s survival as ‘a moral argument’/‘what should be’, which would probably not be “realist” to do so, then i could return the same argument for palestinians, and ask you why you don’t support the intifada on these same moral grounds, but you more likely said that to explain their motivation and give an estimation of their strength/resolve.
As you saw afterwards, i wasn’t talking of a military fight, but of a.n economic&diplomatic one(, even if coups generally imply a military role, sometimes bloodless but very often not).
Unreasonable because they won’t ever win ? Well, who knows ?
I don’t see them supporting Israel and abandoning palestinians(, only Morocco’s gains would be significant, yet they’re still seemingly hesitant), i’ll agree that they still have a margin of retaliation/pressure towards the west though, perhaps are they forced to wait for a more opportune time to act or, as you said, have accepted such unconditional loss, not sure that we would have if the roles were reversed. As previously mentioned, they wouldn’t win anything by complying, and i don’t see clearly the extent of what they’d lose by resisting(, some could include their honor or other immaterial examples).
In my opinion Saudi Arabia has more reasons to be afraid of the u.s.a.&co than of Iran, since, except for the Gulf monarchies, every single one of their neighbours ‘has been’/‘is being’ destroyed : the color revolutions, Mohamed Morsi, Lybia, Sudan, Eritrea, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and even Lebanon is in an economic crisis(, and kinda Türkiye as well), you just have to open a map and list every country. If we’re going a bit further then we have Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nagorno-Karabakh, almost all countries destroyed by the west, and i haven’t counted kurd separatists or the islamic state, it’s not a stretch to think that they desire stability, but what a f*cking world, we don’t understand that, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Congo, Chad, Niger, central asian republics, Georgia, …, these countries seems far away, if the realist choice is just to always follow the strongest regardless of what’s right/fair, then i don’t want to be a realist.
Is there a single non-western country more active than them around the world currently ?
As if they didn’t lose enough historical territory in 1991, V.Putin’s party isn’t called United Russia for nothing, of course we(sterners) supported the separatists terrorists(, but hated them when these “orks” fought on the side of Russia&‘south-eastern ukrainians’ recently).
The first hostage released by Hamas was an israeli who also had a russian nationality, and there were other gestures if this kind of things matter, the timing of the l.g.b.t. ban may perhaps also be linked in some way, i.d.k.(, they also have their own muslim republics in the russian federation, Chechnya is apparently very homophobic, and it’s not only inside their borders or in the Middle-East, but in Africa as well), just to say that i wouldn’t count on their islamophobia.
The (uncaused )Cause is the only being which isn’t a creature(, and the only to be the Being), i don’t think a direct visible interference would be that desirable, everything would just be solved and there wouldn’t be anything else to do, i prefer to feel free, but in any case there’s always determinism and God as the Cause for this kind of interrogation.
Not sure that despite our imperfection we wouldn’t be a part of the All/One, and there’s always the law of karma among other laws of our reality, parts of the All do care, and if we look/seek the Greatest we/ants do care.
You didn’t wrote that to imply that we should only get there through secular means(, by fighting other paths), but i find interesting that we fight communism and islamism : apart from these two, and royalism, do you know of a single large ideology that survived the colonization and isn’t the western one of a constitutional capitalist secular republic ?
I wrote about these communities with their own rules because i feel that we’re unfortunately looking for unity at the expense of diversity, instead of looking for a permanent peace in harmony, ensuring both our unity and our diversity, we’re not looking towards this direction, and there’s even this selfish nationalism saying that it’s not our role to help each other, i can’t like it, we should aim to live together.
Really? ? A bunch of half starved poorly armed guerrillas are an “existential threat” to Israel? Get the fuck outta here with that bullshit.
Come on, if you are gonna try to be the one calling for rational discourse you have got to at least try not to be so intellectually dishonest.
Spare me your insults.
They are unlikely to win but if they did, yes, the consequences would be existential. It wasn’t long ago that Israel was the underdog in this conflict.
One of the most modern and well funded militaries in the world backed by the world superpower VS guys with ak-47s of vietnam era vintage. You cannot be serious.
If you really think this is true that Israel would be defeated by hamas you are beyond rational discussion and of in some fantasy world of victimhood.
How bout you spare me your inane fictions and we can talk. If you cannot manage that then just piss off.
So they are both weak and strong. Hrm right out of the fascists handbook.
Keep telling us who you are when you get back from your goose-stepping practice.
Clearly you have difficulties with the concept of time. They were weak they are strong. But any excuse to call those who disagree fascist, I guess.
LOL you are amazing at justifying your bullshit.
I noticed the zionists seem to like saying that gaza isn’t being carpet bombed and such so how do you explain :
“Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne — some of the world’s heaviest-ever bombings are remembered by their place names,” said Robert Pape, a US military historian and author of Bombing to Win, a landmark survey of 20th century bombing campaigns. “Gaza will also go down as a place name denoting one of history’s heaviest conventional bombing campaigns.” from the financial times (non paywalled no excuses link https://archive.ph/DSZ1b/ )
They even have pretty graphs showing how it is worse.
Oh and since you seem to think TIME is an issue for me tell me how fast was WW2 vs everything since Oct 7?? Nevermind I’ll just tell you since your propaganda addled brain (yea that’s an insult you dipshit) will try to block it out. “By contrast, over the space of two years, between 1943 and 1945, the Allied bombing of 61 major German cities razed an estimated 50 per cent of their urban areas, according to Pape.”
Odd how these things seem bad even in the light of history, maybe Israel can get all the way to # 1 on the charts!!!
deleted by creator
Hi,
I was thinking about what you said.
In a word, you were saying that if Israel’s enemies take every necessary step to ensure Israel’s safety in a permanent manner, then a two-states solution(, including giving back the “illegal” settlements,) could be envisioned, that’s a unilateral loss enabled by the law of the strongest. An inversed unilateral loss, in favor of the pro-palestinians, would see them taking back the holy lands. And a balanced exchange would have those who take(, western countries,) give something back(, of equal value,) in exchange.
At least expressed like that the first unilateral loss doesn’t seem more moral than the second one, but it is true that this loss can be more or less important(, e.g., disparition of Palestine, or a two-state solution, or only a jewish territory in a small part of the current israeli territory). Yet the second choice could(should?) also be seen as the most moral of the three, when it takes the year 1900 as a baseline for saying that Israel’s destruction is a neutral gain/loss for both sides(, instead of a unilateral gain/loss for one of them if we take the year 1960 as a baseline).
I’m in favor of making a trade by giving something worthwhile in exchange of the holy lands, but as you pointed out this is unrealistic, so let the strongest prevail i guess.
“I do agree that palestinians could get back the new settlements of the last decades and end any future palestinian persecution if they&‘their allies’ recognise Israel” is what i wanted to add, not sure that we would have followed the path of least resistance if the roles were reversed, but as you said giving them something of equal value in exchange is out of question
It’s just an addition, please don’t feel any obligation to answer, and thanks for the chat