Easy to blame BiBi but somehow you are not considering the pressure on Israel, not least from Biden and Obama’s administrations and especially their state departments to play nice with the “poor “ Palestinians. The UN, the EU have all made sure the world sees Israel as the regional bully to be held in check. Israel could have bombed Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza back to the Stone Age after the first and second intifadas but were constrained by world opinion - the same world that did nothing to help Jews during the Nazi era. I hope Israel takes this latest horror as a sign that pleasing the world doesn’t mean as much when you people are at desperate risk of death - or worse. The image of the little boy captive in Gaza being harassed by Palestinian children will stay with me - they can’t even leave innocent children alone.
Their land was taken? In 1948? In 1967? And that justifies the slaughter of civilians today by people who were not even alive at that time? There are no words and no logic to deal with that excuse.
In 1948 Israel declared independence from British colonial rule. Israel did not take anyone’s land. In 1967 Israel kicked Egypt and Jordan out of Jewish land that Egypt and Jordan were occupying.
OP's point about the pressures of the West dominates the reality here.
People just don't get it, but the big picture is a lot easier than people think. Israel won multiple wars. In the name of compassion and humanitarianism and with an important voice as an ally that helped them achieve the victory, the West then kept Israel from taking the steps a victor normally would take, in order to balance Arab concerns.
That's what leads to 70+ years of ongoing conflict. The fact that the original conflict was never resolved in the way it typically would be if there weren't a larger ally pushing solutions with their interests in mind instead of the warring parties being left alone, and the victorious party doing some quite bad things right away. Instead the bad things happen over a long timeline, with lots of violent pushback.
Do you think it came completely out of the blue? Good Lord
It was horrible, but even more horrible is to judge some people as simply evil and having no motivation via previous events that led to their terrible behavior.
It doesn't matter where it came from. Only where it goes from here. These dumbass permavictims have sorely misjudged what this will cost them. It's gonna be a lot
Little known fact outside of Israel, modestly well-known fact little talked about within Israel: Hamas both exists and thrives because the Israeli right wants it to. Want to know why, or can you guess?
That's right, atrocities don't come out of a void. The Nazis committed atrocities agains Jews but we must look at what came before that led to the anger and loss that could lead to Nazi atrocities. The Jews, you see, controlled the banks and with their hook noses they were poisoning the pure Aryan bloodlines in Germany. So what did you expect the Nazis to do?
See what I'm doing here, Maggie? There is good and there is evil. The Nazis were evil. Hamas is evil. Period. End of story.
Ok, since you keep insisting, let’s look beyond the immediate to what came before this, such as senior Hamas political leader Fathi Hammad’s 2019 speech : “We must attack every Jew on the face of the earth. To slaughter and kill them, with the help of Allah.” Or the more recent video proclamation of Hamas senior official Mahmoud al-Zahar in 2022: “The entire 510 million square kilometers of Planet Earth will come under [a system] where there is no injustice, no oppression, no Zionism, no treacherous Christianity...”
Why haven't the Palestinians built a functioning nation-state for their children that could compete with Israel? Why are they still in refugee camps after 75 years? Why do they not strive to be a functioning nation instead of a giant terrorist group? My family came from Wales, we were conquered by the English time after time over the last 900 years, my grandmother was beaten by her English schoolmaster and yet the Welsh aren't terrorists. India was conquered by the British. India was changed and yet today the Indians are the world's largest democracy, why haven't the Palestinians started to function as a nation? Why must they continue to terrorize Israelis? Does anyone know?
I'm not talking about the leadership alone, the Palestinians don't move forward as a culture. One can only assume they have a culture of death rather than life since they are so willing to send out suicide bombers and attack defenseless people.
Exactly the question. Despite being surrounded as a nation the size of New Jersey, the Israelis have flourished economically and culturally. And the Palestinians remain in their own squalor. Not hard to see the simple human inferiority playing out here, along with religious extremism.
Dude, read more. They are blockaded from most trade by Egypt and Israel. Terrible policy and it causes terrible harm. And then there are sanctions from the West.
Second, they receive UN and NGO payouts that keep them in welfare state dependency. This isn’t a talking point; it’s a reality and it ruins a people.
So they’re sh*t leaders become entrenched and they keep most of their wealth, and adopt socialism to sustain a low grade life for the population.
Israel unilaterally withdrew completely from Gaza in 2005, leaving behind expensive greenhouses, among other gifts. What did the Palestinians do with this unique opportunity for independence? They elected Hamas, who turned Gaza into a terrorist hellhole instead of building a future for their people.
The blockades came AFTER years of terrorism from Gaza, imposed by both Israel AND Egypt.
Really your are right, their leaders keep them in dependence and they live large. However, they are still living with a culture of death that also hurts them.
"why haven't the Palestinians started to function as a nation? Why must they continue to terrorize Israelis? Does anyone know?"
They're an occupied territory. Hamas won an election there in 2006; per the NY Times:
JERUSALEM, Feb. 13, 2006 - The United States and Israel are discussing ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again, according to Israeli officials and Western diplomats.
Yeah and they've beed living in camps in Jordan and Lebanon for 75 years. They've been in Gaza for over 20 years. They had time to move forward and they did elect Hamas. They are choosing a culture of death rather than life. Unless of course it suits their leaders to keep them in camps.
That is a point worth noting. The Jordanians and Lebanese keep them in camps too. The Egyptians also have blockades. The Palestinians are isolated by their peers. They are true outcasts. This situation is never going to end.
Half the Jewish population of Israel comes from the Muslim world. In the wake of Israel's establishment, they were stripped of citizenship and their homes, businesses, and community property were stolen. They were harassed into exile. Mind you, in some of those countries Jewish communities predated the Muslim invasions by centuries. Of course, you say and probably know nothing about this. These Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews have never been compensated for their losses, which have been calculated as significantly greater than what was lost by the Palestinians. Those Palestinian children should have been resettled by their Arab cousins decades ago, just as Israel resettled the Sephardis and Mizrahis. Instead they've been kept in refugee camps and brought up to hate.
True. Every time in the last 100 years there was a meaningful chance at compromise something less egregious but similar to this happened. It is like that old L&M cigarette commercial - somebody would rather fight than switch.
Nor had there ever been a United States until a sufficiently large coalition of British colonists make common cause to declare their independence and sovereignty.
Jordan took half of Palestine when it was created. Why are Palestinians not abducting, torturing, and murdering innocent Jordanian citizens to “liberate” their “homeland”?
There were indeed, and still are, Native American nations. You are very ill-informed and ill-advised. Born in the USSR gave a pretty good summary. Read that. Or look it up. The information is readily available. I find your defense of today's savagery chilling.
Their land wasn’t taken. They were driven out after a war they started to kill all the Jews. Sorry. That’s how the world works. In any other era, they’d have all been slaughtered and it’s only thanks to the humanity and ethics of the Jews as a people that the Palestinians exist at all.
There are children in Palestine along with old women and the Hamas terrorist have always failed to consider them. There is a reason why the terrorists gather in hospitals and similar places to use their families, friends, and neighbors as shields. There is something particularly monsterous about people who disregard the lives of all for their own brutal purposes.
The West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula are not Palestinian Territories. The WB belonged to Jordan, Gaza and Sinai to Egypt, Golan to Syria. The terms “settlements” and “occupation” are used to vilify and slander Israel by those who don’t know history. And AI is written by programmers who have political preferences.
Probably a mistake, but “West Bank” didn’t belong to Jordan - they illegally occupied it for 19 years, while getting the world to ignore the actual name of the area: Judea and Samaria. Palestinian Arabs in J &S never declared their own nation, thus the territory is legally “disputed.”
JP, quite simply the Jews never left Palestine but became a minority with the influx of Arabs and others. Other Jews sought safety in Palestine to escape genocide but had to buy back their ancestral land. So, when Israel was declared, it was on land legally owned by Jews. Arabs who left because their brethren were out to destroy the nascent state lament that they left (many returned and are now Israeli) but they have no legal right to land lost in a war they started. Despite that, Israel has bent over backwards to make peace while continuing to supply them with water and electricity because the money Hamas and PA get to provide that goes toward the arms used in today’s attacks. There is absolutely no justification for Hamas’s barbarism. They have been free to govern their people for 18 years but have chosen terror instead. The Palestinians have proven again and again that they can’t be trusted, so yes, security is a huge factor when it comes to holding on to Judea and Samaria.
And what? Do you have a solution other than something like 2 states that can live in relative peace? Because -- regardless of the past -- that's the only practical end game. And Hamas will never accept anything that heads in that direction. Hamas have no interest in fixing the problem that keeps them in power.
Really? Whose land was it exactly? Please enlighten us when there last was an independent state of Palestine.
And just fyi the land surrounding Gaza is not considered part of the "Occupied Palestinian Territory". Of course all of Israel is "occupied" for these monsters.
Hamas takes full advantage of useful idiots to justify their Nazi brutality.
The separation of India and Pakistan just a little earlier created more refugees than at any time before or after in the history of humanity. Both countries settled the people coming in. Both countries were poorer than Arab states.
The people indulging in whataboutery at this point are irrelevant humans like this Maggie4. Tell them they're irrelevant and move on.
You make a claim that some land was taken from Palestinian children. I'm asking which land exactly you are referring to and when it was taken. And this is your response? You don't even know which land you are talking about? Are you talking about Israel proper? The west Bank? Gaza? Anything else? Private land of specific people?
Are you familiar with the concept of land titles? Those who could prove ownership were allowed to stay in Israel - that's why there are so many Israeli Arabs. The squatters were first bought off, and those who still refused to leave were evicted.
Because the Turkish empire collapsed under their own corruption, leaving a feudal political culture in the care of the empires that they had played great power games with for centuries. Because that's how the world was at the time.
Their land was not taken. The land comprised of Judah Samaria etc has been home to Jews since well forever. Read up on Palestine history. Was controlled by British until end of WWII. Jew and Arab lived there. Then was divided so Jews and Palestinians would have a home. The Arabs said no. We just want to run the Jews off. With that multiple Arab countries attacked brand new Israel. Trying to in effect kill the infant in the womb. Miraculously the Israelis emerged victorious. And so it has gone for 80 years. Nothing new here. They relinquished Gaza to further try to seek peace w Palestinians. All Israelis were moved out. Nope. Not good enough. The battle cry is to find a Jew where ever they are hiding, behind a rock behind a tree. No, this is not a property dispute, it’s yet another attempt at genocide. Hamas knows that Israel will counter attack, buildings will be leveled and innocent lives lost. They don’t care.
I've been reading accounts of this attack all day and not one mention of John Kerry and his ilk loving up Iran. He deserves to be dragged into this discussion.
The Israeli's have been screwed big time. This is madness on the part of Hamas and will visit more death and destruction on their own people. WTF is wrong with these people. It get's to the point where the Israeli's would be fully justified in removing this threat- ROOT AND BRANCH. This is obviously a huge intelligence failure and I have to imagine that it was also an inside job- there had to be internal actors. It's going to be bloody and difficult to stay out of. How do we help the Israeli's when we already sent all our weapon's to Ukraine? Fortunately we are lead by that master of stategery Uncle Joey. We are screwed too...perfect time for the Chinese to take Taiwan.
For decades the big lie about the Mideast was that the key to peace was to settle the Palestinian issue. This was reiterated forcefully by John Kerry only a few years ago to undermine Trump's successes in the region. This absurd idea empowered and enriched Arafat and his ilk. It's been blatantly obvious for decades that there has never been a good-faith effort on the part of the Palestinians to reach a peace. They are committed only to the exploitation of the cynicism, naivete and cowardly anti-Semitism of many Western leaders to further their sadistic criminality.
And what's up with the term "refugee camps" when most of the people living in them were not even alive 40 years ago? The "Right Of Return" is a fairytale told by cynical politicians and ruthless oppressors in Gaza.
Nope and no one is reporting the simple elegance of Jared Kushner bringing sane Arab countries and Israel together over the common interest of fear of Iran, the current global leader in terrorism. Iran needs to sow dissent between Arabs and Israel, that’s what maintains their power.
So, how many here in the US are now willing to vote against the party that always takes a knee to Hamas and Iran? NY? FL? Los Angeles? How will you all vote?
You KNOW how they will vote! This latest atrocity will be spun as the poor oppressed Palestinians fighting for their freedom. This kind of bullshit is eaten up by those in this country who believe that they are also oppressed.
People are stupid and usually vote against their own self-interests because it feels good!
Sadly, I think you are correct. I can only hope enough people are disgusted by this that we can keep growing the side of common sense and the willingness to stand up for what is right, whether it feels good or not.
Left wing anti-Semitism is appalling and pervasive. And the majority of Democrats are strongly pro Israel. There is plenty of right-wing anti-Semitism, as well, and it’s generally pretty horrific. Please don’t pretend that Republicans are the magical saviors. The convenient Republican isolationism in the face of Russian aggression can turn against Israel, too - all Israel’s leaders need to do annoy Trump and suddenly there will be Republican calls to abandon Israel. This false equivalency stuff has to stop.
One thing about Trump; he is pro-Israel. His withdrawal from UN was in protest of the UN’s MANY resolution’s against and hostility toward Israel. He kept us out of war and kept our country safe. My Jewish friends who claim they are pro-Israel keep drifting further to the left, riding the fence in controversy. Their ideals get in the way of reality. We need a strict “dad” in the WH.
A non-Trump GOP nominee and, with that, all of the republican executive branch aides and advisors, and a conservative cabinet
>>>
A brain-dead Biden who has no clue what is happening around him, with all of the radical left wing Marxist/communists aides, advisors, and cabinet members
>>>
Trump, and all of the republican executive branch aides and advisors, and a conservative cabinet.
What if they DID know? Seems more likely than not. And a really important topic to explore. Who benefits? And how? What steps can now be justified that could not before? Politics is all about manipulation and appearances to achieve goals not for the benefit of the people of a country, but their so-called leaders. I hope someone in the know writes about this.
1) Israel and her allies fell down on the job. They missed the signs that something was going to happen, or didn't believe it would be something significant.
2) Hamas has learned. Either to avoid internet chatter and easily surveilled electronic , communication, and somehow managed to still launch this coordinated strike. OR it is has learned how to use modern communication in a way that evades or deceives our surveillance techniques.
Neither option is good, and I am always open to other possibilities.
This is a raid from medieval times. Barbarians raiding villages, killing women and children and taking captives back as hostages. The response should the IDF going in and taking over the strip. Eliminating the Hamas leadership as a first step.
Equally barbaric is my feeling that Gaza should be scraped clean as a dinner plate, with the refuse pushed into the sea. After all, isn't that what Hamas has been saying they want to do to Israel?
This is exactly what Iran hopes for: an Israeli response that forces the Saudis to back iff from talks, and perhaps ends the dialogue with other gulf states. I trust Bibi will be smarter than that.
"There also needs to be an accounting here in America of our role in setting the table for this disaster. Today should mark the end of the Biden administration’s dishonorable effort to reenter the Iran nuclear deal and its string of disgraceful and one-sided concessions to Hamas’s biggest backer. " Indeed.
Bari -- You totally hit it with your analysis and predictions on propaganda outlet treatment of this. I am not Jewish, but I spent my first twelve years of school in a predominately Jewish school, run out of residential homes in SoCal. I *love* both Christian and Jewish culture and morals. Enough about me.
"Within two or three days, the media narrative will change, as it does every time, and the grisly invasion that started the war quickly will be minimized into a half sentence of euphemistic dishonesty in press accounts (“an incursion by Gaza-based militants”) so that the focus can turn to prosecuting Israel."
Yes. But over the years, since my childhood, and especially after I matured in my twenties, I have been mystified by observations of my Jewish friends and acquaintances who seemingly blindly go for leftist concepts. These people help fuel the media narrative by seemingly blind belief. Aren't a good fraction of the people at higher levels in the media Jewish? What the hell?
Many of my childhood friends were children of refugees from Eastern Europe, Soviet Russia, and Nazi Germany. I heard plenty of stories from the elders. Yet, incongruously, people whom I otherwise respect seem to blindly go with the leftist narratives. It's a disconnect. Jewish boys are groomed and pushed by their mothers and Rabbis to excel on all fronts. And it works. The "Men from Mars" out of Eastern Europe took physics to a new level ... yet they, and a few Europeans and Scandinavians like Lise Meitner and Niels Bohr, just kept on with "One World, a world without war". Fairy tale, contrary to basic humen instinct.
All day, I've been trying to imagine what this would feel like if it happened to me in America. All I can find is incandescent rage. I've been to war. I've seen friends killed by complete pieces of shit. In my darkest moment, I wouldn't have imagined harming defenseless women and children. I cannot understand or reason with someone who thinks that rape, deliberate murder of unarmed innocents, and taking children hostage are legitimate tactics in the pursuit of any cause.
Those things write you out of the human race. I suspect Hamas has sown the wind on behalf of Palestinians. I wish the IDF good hunting.
Nope. And pure evil is simply that. Imperial Japan was very similar, see Rape of Nanking and countless other examples. Throughout mankind this kind of evil has emerged and the only answer is a swift, violent response. No need to complicate. When you see someone say “this is complicated” you have found an anti semite.
I'm not a middle eastern expert, but I noticed that both Obama and Biden's executive branches are more pro-Iran and anti-Israel. And as a result, their mouthpieces such as NYT are also pro-Iran and anti-Israel. This attitude is also prevalent among the more liberal wing of Jewish folks in the US. I never understood why. Is there something deeper culturally going on, or is this simply part of the progressive movement (but why are they connected anyway)?
It’s what Obama planned all along. As things unfold, things become more clear. What I suspected, but was too afraid to ask, is now being exposed. Calling for a ceasefire by the “squad” gives thought to how they managed to secure those positions in our government in the first place. They seem to hate America, as they hate Israel. This goes so much deeper than I can fathom. I pray for Israel. I pray I’m wrong.
God, make me the prime minister of Israel for one day. That's all I ask: one goddamned day. I'll make the firebombings of Tokyo and Dresden look like a Sunday picnic.
This goes back to Haj-amin el Hussieni, the British should have strung him up but instead made him Mufti of Jerusalem even though he came in 4th or 5th in the election (1921?).
He looked good standing beside Hitler.
There were plenty of Palestinians who wanted to work with the Jews but the Islamists then were no different than the ones now.
They insist on all or nothing so they will continue to get nothing.
The Jewish community in America should disabuse themselves from thinking that Biden can do anything right. Sending money to Iran expecting it to buy food and medicine and play nice with the infidels is Biden at the zenith of his ubiquitous stupidity. He finally reversed his position on the border wall. Will he reverse his stance on Israel? Or Ukraine?
Easy to blame BiBi but somehow you are not considering the pressure on Israel, not least from Biden and Obama’s administrations and especially their state departments to play nice with the “poor “ Palestinians. The UN, the EU have all made sure the world sees Israel as the regional bully to be held in check. Israel could have bombed Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza back to the Stone Age after the first and second intifadas but were constrained by world opinion - the same world that did nothing to help Jews during the Nazi era. I hope Israel takes this latest horror as a sign that pleasing the world doesn’t mean as much when you people are at desperate risk of death - or worse. The image of the little boy captive in Gaza being harassed by Palestinian children will stay with me - they can’t even leave innocent children alone.
There are children in Palestine as well. Their land was taken. And?
Their land was taken? In 1948? In 1967? And that justifies the slaughter of civilians today by people who were not even alive at that time? There are no words and no logic to deal with that excuse.
In 1948 Israel declared independence from British colonial rule. Israel did not take anyone’s land. In 1967 Israel kicked Egypt and Jordan out of Jewish land that Egypt and Jordan were occupying.
Correct.
Judaea & Samaria as well as the desert.
OP's point about the pressures of the West dominates the reality here.
People just don't get it, but the big picture is a lot easier than people think. Israel won multiple wars. In the name of compassion and humanitarianism and with an important voice as an ally that helped them achieve the victory, the West then kept Israel from taking the steps a victor normally would take, in order to balance Arab concerns.
That's what leads to 70+ years of ongoing conflict. The fact that the original conflict was never resolved in the way it typically would be if there weren't a larger ally pushing solutions with their interests in mind instead of the warring parties being left alone, and the victorious party doing some quite bad things right away. Instead the bad things happen over a long timeline, with lots of violent pushback.
They seceded from another state, yes. I’m just making a related note that secession is a legitimate and lawful act and not stealing land.
So, anyone who thinks Texas or another state can’t secede the US because “We FoUgHt a WaR oVeR tHaT” can pound sand and face their own hypocrisy.
Their land was not taken. Arab countries attacked Israel first (every time). Read your history.
Referring to a specific slice of time is the argument of pure ignorance and is only used to propagate a narrative.
You are actually trying to justify this??! Good Lord.
Do you think it came completely out of the blue? Good Lord
It was horrible, but even more horrible is to judge some people as simply evil and having no motivation via previous events that led to their terrible behavior.
It doesn't matter where it came from. Only where it goes from here. These dumbass permavictims have sorely misjudged what this will cost them. It's gonna be a lot
There is no “but”. These atrocities are pure evil. No motivation matters because none could justify it
No these people are evil. Open your eyes and stop auditioning for a job at MSNBC
Their motivation is to completely annihilate Israel and wipe the Jews off the planet. Do you also justify the Holocaust?
You just stated its more horrible to judge some people than it is to violently murder people? Are you listening to yourself???????
Little known fact outside of Israel, modestly well-known fact little talked about within Israel: Hamas both exists and thrives because the Israeli right wants it to. Want to know why, or can you guess?
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/07/30/how-israel-helped-create-hamas/
https://lawliberty.org/israels-darkest-day/
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/2020-02-24/ty-article/.premium/netanyahu-israel-mossad-chief-doha-qatar-continue-hamas-gaza-money-transfer/0000017f-ded8-d856-a37f-ffd88a960000
That's right, atrocities don't come out of a void. The Nazis committed atrocities agains Jews but we must look at what came before that led to the anger and loss that could lead to Nazi atrocities. The Jews, you see, controlled the banks and with their hook noses they were poisoning the pure Aryan bloodlines in Germany. So what did you expect the Nazis to do?
See what I'm doing here, Maggie? There is good and there is evil. The Nazis were evil. Hamas is evil. Period. End of story.
Good (Israel) must defeat evil (Hamas).
They do. They have.
Please don't waste your time, Lynne.
Thanks for the advice. But I am chilled to the core by anyone who offers a defense of today's horrific events.
Ok, since you keep insisting, let’s look beyond the immediate to what came before this, such as senior Hamas political leader Fathi Hammad’s 2019 speech : “We must attack every Jew on the face of the earth. To slaughter and kill them, with the help of Allah.” Or the more recent video proclamation of Hamas senior official Mahmoud al-Zahar in 2022: “The entire 510 million square kilometers of Planet Earth will come under [a system] where there is no injustice, no oppression, no Zionism, no treacherous Christianity...”
You live in the US? Picture your children kidnapped and mutilated by bands of murderous thugs whose land you actually stole.
Why haven't the Palestinians built a functioning nation-state for their children that could compete with Israel? Why are they still in refugee camps after 75 years? Why do they not strive to be a functioning nation instead of a giant terrorist group? My family came from Wales, we were conquered by the English time after time over the last 900 years, my grandmother was beaten by her English schoolmaster and yet the Welsh aren't terrorists. India was conquered by the British. India was changed and yet today the Indians are the world's largest democracy, why haven't the Palestinians started to function as a nation? Why must they continue to terrorize Israelis? Does anyone know?
because the UN monthly payments keeps them in learned helplessness.
Their entire recently-developed culture is built on the values of murdering Jews. It's as simple as that.
Because any Pal leader who makes a deal with Israel will not see the next day.
I'm not talking about the leadership alone, the Palestinians don't move forward as a culture. One can only assume they have a culture of death rather than life since they are so willing to send out suicide bombers and attack defenseless people.
Exactly the question. Despite being surrounded as a nation the size of New Jersey, the Israelis have flourished economically and culturally. And the Palestinians remain in their own squalor. Not hard to see the simple human inferiority playing out here, along with religious extremism.
Dude, read more. They are blockaded from most trade by Egypt and Israel. Terrible policy and it causes terrible harm. And then there are sanctions from the West.
Second, they receive UN and NGO payouts that keep them in welfare state dependency. This isn’t a talking point; it’s a reality and it ruins a people.
So they’re sh*t leaders become entrenched and they keep most of their wealth, and adopt socialism to sustain a low grade life for the population.
Dude, read more facts.
Israel unilaterally withdrew completely from Gaza in 2005, leaving behind expensive greenhouses, among other gifts. What did the Palestinians do with this unique opportunity for independence? They elected Hamas, who turned Gaza into a terrorist hellhole instead of building a future for their people.
The blockades came AFTER years of terrorism from Gaza, imposed by both Israel AND Egypt.
My friend, legal restrictions on trade and movement with Gaza began in 1991. 1991! They were intensified after 2005.
Really your are right, their leaders keep them in dependence and they live large. However, they are still living with a culture of death that also hurts them.
"why haven't the Palestinians started to function as a nation? Why must they continue to terrorize Israelis? Does anyone know?"
They're an occupied territory. Hamas won an election there in 2006; per the NY Times:
JERUSALEM, Feb. 13, 2006 - The United States and Israel are discussing ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again, according to Israeli officials and Western diplomats.
Yeah and they've beed living in camps in Jordan and Lebanon for 75 years. They've been in Gaza for over 20 years. They had time to move forward and they did elect Hamas. They are choosing a culture of death rather than life. Unless of course it suits their leaders to keep them in camps.
That is a point worth noting. The Jordanians and Lebanese keep them in camps too. The Egyptians also have blockades. The Palestinians are isolated by their peers. They are true outcasts. This situation is never going to end.
Half the Jewish population of Israel comes from the Muslim world. In the wake of Israel's establishment, they were stripped of citizenship and their homes, businesses, and community property were stolen. They were harassed into exile. Mind you, in some of those countries Jewish communities predated the Muslim invasions by centuries. Of course, you say and probably know nothing about this. These Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews have never been compensated for their losses, which have been calculated as significantly greater than what was lost by the Palestinians. Those Palestinian children should have been resettled by their Arab cousins decades ago, just as Israel resettled the Sephardis and Mizrahis. Instead they've been kept in refugee camps and brought up to hate.
There has never been a Palestinian state.
Because they haven’t accepted it. Too much responsibility.
True. Every time in the last 100 years there was a meaningful chance at compromise something less egregious but similar to this happened. It is like that old L&M cigarette commercial - somebody would rather fight than switch.
"There has never been a Palestinian state."
Nor had there ever been a United States until a sufficiently large coalition of British colonists make common cause to declare their independence and sovereignty.
So. Are you suggesting that today's events are synonymous with the American Revolution?
No, Lynne, I'm just saying that your comment is rather a non sequiter.
Roddy - it's spelled non sequitur. It's Latin. You're not as smart as you think you are.
🤣
You’re forgetting the part where the American colonists committed themselves to the extermination of every British subject.
What are you even talking about?
Jordan took half of Palestine when it was created. Why are Palestinians not abducting, torturing, and murdering innocent Jordanian citizens to “liberate” their “homeland”?
There were indeed, and still are, Native American nations. You are very ill-informed and ill-advised. Born in the USSR gave a pretty good summary. Read that. Or look it up. The information is readily available. I find your defense of today's savagery chilling.
Then don't be offended by what comes next
Really? Israelis have stropped Palestinian women and debased their corpses? Israelis have engaged in hostage taking?
Look it up. So easy to to say, so without substance.
Their "homeland" was whereever they claimed it was. Pretty awesome arrangement, actually.
Their land wasn’t taken. They were driven out after a war they started to kill all the Jews. Sorry. That’s how the world works. In any other era, they’d have all been slaughtered and it’s only thanks to the humanity and ethics of the Jews as a people that the Palestinians exist at all.
There are children in Palestine along with old women and the Hamas terrorist have always failed to consider them. There is a reason why the terrorists gather in hospitals and similar places to use their families, friends, and neighbors as shields. There is something particularly monsterous about people who disregard the lives of all for their own brutal purposes.
Their land was not taken. That is a lie. When was it “taken”?
Evidently JP can't answer any of these questions because JP always responds with another question
The West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula are not Palestinian Territories. The WB belonged to Jordan, Gaza and Sinai to Egypt, Golan to Syria. The terms “settlements” and “occupation” are used to vilify and slander Israel by those who don’t know history. And AI is written by programmers who have political preferences.
Probably a mistake, but “West Bank” didn’t belong to Jordan - they illegally occupied it for 19 years, while getting the world to ignore the actual name of the area: Judea and Samaria. Palestinian Arabs in J &S never declared their own nation, thus the territory is legally “disputed.”
Correct.
JP, quite simply the Jews never left Palestine but became a minority with the influx of Arabs and others. Other Jews sought safety in Palestine to escape genocide but had to buy back their ancestral land. So, when Israel was declared, it was on land legally owned by Jews. Arabs who left because their brethren were out to destroy the nascent state lament that they left (many returned and are now Israeli) but they have no legal right to land lost in a war they started. Despite that, Israel has bent over backwards to make peace while continuing to supply them with water and electricity because the money Hamas and PA get to provide that goes toward the arms used in today’s attacks. There is absolutely no justification for Hamas’s barbarism. They have been free to govern their people for 18 years but have chosen terror instead. The Palestinians have proven again and again that they can’t be trusted, so yes, security is a huge factor when it comes to holding on to Judea and Samaria.
If you hate what happened, why bring up any of the past? How does it matter?
If you are going to make an accusation, please explain it. Who stole land from whom? And when did it happen?
Which land exactly. Name the city and the year when it was stolen. From Palestinian children no less
And what? Do you have a solution other than something like 2 states that can live in relative peace? Because -- regardless of the past -- that's the only practical end game. And Hamas will never accept anything that heads in that direction. Hamas have no interest in fixing the problem that keeps them in power.
Really? Whose land was it exactly? Please enlighten us when there last was an independent state of Palestine.
And just fyi the land surrounding Gaza is not considered part of the "Occupied Palestinian Territory". Of course all of Israel is "occupied" for these monsters.
Hamas takes full advantage of useful idiots to justify their Nazi brutality.
The separation of India and Pakistan just a little earlier created more refugees than at any time before or after in the history of humanity. Both countries settled the people coming in. Both countries were poorer than Arab states.
The people indulging in whataboutery at this point are irrelevant humans like this Maggie4. Tell them they're irrelevant and move on.
Can you be more specific, which land exactly was taken from which Palestinian children, and when?
You make a claim that some land was taken from Palestinian children. I'm asking which land exactly you are referring to and when it was taken. And this is your response? You don't even know which land you are talking about? Are you talking about Israel proper? The west Bank? Gaza? Anything else? Private land of specific people?
Please explain why British colonists or "Israel" had a right to land over those who were
who living on it. And please don't tell me to "look it up." I really want to know how the readers here know it/understand it.
Can you answer a simple question, which land exactly you are referring to as stolen from Palestinian children, and when exactly it was stolen?
Why start there? Why not go back a bit further? Rome?
Are you familiar with the concept of land titles? Those who could prove ownership were allowed to stay in Israel - that's why there are so many Israeli Arabs. The squatters were first bought off, and those who still refused to leave were evicted.
Because the Turkish empire collapsed under their own corruption, leaving a feudal political culture in the care of the empires that they had played great power games with for centuries. Because that's how the world was at the time.
Spare us.
Your disgusting and barbarous moral equivalency exposes you and your cozy friends as the same humans who justified the Shoah.
Their land was not taken. The land comprised of Judah Samaria etc has been home to Jews since well forever. Read up on Palestine history. Was controlled by British until end of WWII. Jew and Arab lived there. Then was divided so Jews and Palestinians would have a home. The Arabs said no. We just want to run the Jews off. With that multiple Arab countries attacked brand new Israel. Trying to in effect kill the infant in the womb. Miraculously the Israelis emerged victorious. And so it has gone for 80 years. Nothing new here. They relinquished Gaza to further try to seek peace w Palestinians. All Israelis were moved out. Nope. Not good enough. The battle cry is to find a Jew where ever they are hiding, behind a rock behind a tree. No, this is not a property dispute, it’s yet another attempt at genocide. Hamas knows that Israel will counter attack, buildings will be leveled and innocent lives lost. They don’t care.
Given the historical record, my advice to Israel would be, "Don't let your guard down for a second, and don't rely on anybody but yourselves."
Terrible. It's like Nakba, Deir Yassin, Lydda and Tantura all rolled into one.
I've been reading accounts of this attack all day and not one mention of John Kerry and his ilk loving up Iran. He deserves to be dragged into this discussion.
dragged is not enough, hanged is closer to what should happen
Bingo
That's not exactly where I would drag him.
Well, if not the conversation, at least dragged.
Well President Biden just gave Iran $6 billion. Bet that paid for some guns and ammo.
The Israeli's have been screwed big time. This is madness on the part of Hamas and will visit more death and destruction on their own people. WTF is wrong with these people. It get's to the point where the Israeli's would be fully justified in removing this threat- ROOT AND BRANCH. This is obviously a huge intelligence failure and I have to imagine that it was also an inside job- there had to be internal actors. It's going to be bloody and difficult to stay out of. How do we help the Israeli's when we already sent all our weapon's to Ukraine? Fortunately we are lead by that master of stategery Uncle Joey. We are screwed too...perfect time for the Chinese to take Taiwan.
Your analysis terrifies me. That indicates to me you are probably right.
For decades the big lie about the Mideast was that the key to peace was to settle the Palestinian issue. This was reiterated forcefully by John Kerry only a few years ago to undermine Trump's successes in the region. This absurd idea empowered and enriched Arafat and his ilk. It's been blatantly obvious for decades that there has never been a good-faith effort on the part of the Palestinians to reach a peace. They are committed only to the exploitation of the cynicism, naivete and cowardly anti-Semitism of many Western leaders to further their sadistic criminality.
The late Abba Eban once said of the Palestinians, "They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity."
They don't "miss" opportunities for peace, they sabotage them then play the victim. And the liberal West agrees and gives them more weapons.
And what's up with the term "refugee camps" when most of the people living in them were not even alive 40 years ago? The "Right Of Return" is a fairytale told by cynical politicians and ruthless oppressors in Gaza.
Nope and no one is reporting the simple elegance of Jared Kushner bringing sane Arab countries and Israel together over the common interest of fear of Iran, the current global leader in terrorism. Iran needs to sow dissent between Arabs and Israel, that’s what maintains their power.
So, how many here in the US are now willing to vote against the party that always takes a knee to Hamas and Iran? NY? FL? Los Angeles? How will you all vote?
You KNOW how they will vote! This latest atrocity will be spun as the poor oppressed Palestinians fighting for their freedom. This kind of bullshit is eaten up by those in this country who believe that they are also oppressed.
People are stupid and usually vote against their own self-interests because it feels good!
Sadly, I think you are correct. I can only hope enough people are disgusted by this that we can keep growing the side of common sense and the willingness to stand up for what is right, whether it feels good or not.
Well don’t tune in CNN et al. You will be quite discouraged
Like how Palestine voted in Hamas in 2006. Their fate was sealed that day.
Left wing anti-Semitism is appalling and pervasive. And the majority of Democrats are strongly pro Israel. There is plenty of right-wing anti-Semitism, as well, and it’s generally pretty horrific. Please don’t pretend that Republicans are the magical saviors. The convenient Republican isolationism in the face of Russian aggression can turn against Israel, too - all Israel’s leaders need to do annoy Trump and suddenly there will be Republican calls to abandon Israel. This false equivalency stuff has to stop.
Right wing anti-semitism is fringe and reviled by the party.
Left wing anti-semitism is endemic and celebrated by the party.
Big difference.
Dems own this, were a big supporter and funder of it. They had plenty of opportunity to marginalize those pushing it, but didn’t.
Don’t treat TFP readers like we’re stupid and try to equivocate. It’s not a good look.
Statement by Rashida Tlaib. Will the Democrats condemn her? Nope.
https://x.com/nannburke/status/1711063866459685286?s=12
What nonsense. What occupation?
Nope. The enemy within.
One thing about Trump; he is pro-Israel. His withdrawal from UN was in protest of the UN’s MANY resolution’s against and hostility toward Israel. He kept us out of war and kept our country safe. My Jewish friends who claim they are pro-Israel keep drifting further to the left, riding the fence in controversy. Their ideals get in the way of reality. We need a strict “dad” in the WH.
If Trump if not the nominee, then GOP, else DEM.
So your preferences are:
A non-Trump GOP nominee and, with that, all of the republican executive branch aides and advisors, and a conservative cabinet
>>>
A brain-dead Biden who has no clue what is happening around him, with all of the radical left wing Marxist/communists aides, advisors, and cabinet members
>>>
Trump, and all of the republican executive branch aides and advisors, and a conservative cabinet.
Incredibly dumb.
Wow! Such a strong "argument"! Well reasoned points, instead of integrated assertions.
I'm convinced now.
That Israel didn’t have an inkling is bad. That all her allies ALSO didn’t know is very hard to believe. That’s the question we should be asking.
What if they DID know? Seems more likely than not. And a really important topic to explore. Who benefits? And how? What steps can now be justified that could not before? Politics is all about manipulation and appearances to achieve goals not for the benefit of the people of a country, but their so-called leaders. I hope someone in the know writes about this.
I am asking
The two answers I keep coming to:
1) Israel and her allies fell down on the job. They missed the signs that something was going to happen, or didn't believe it would be something significant.
2) Hamas has learned. Either to avoid internet chatter and easily surveilled electronic , communication, and somehow managed to still launch this coordinated strike. OR it is has learned how to use modern communication in a way that evades or deceives our surveillance techniques.
Neither option is good, and I am always open to other possibilities.
This is a raid from medieval times. Barbarians raiding villages, killing women and children and taking captives back as hostages. The response should the IDF going in and taking over the strip. Eliminating the Hamas leadership as a first step.
Equally barbaric is my feeling that Gaza should be scraped clean as a dinner plate, with the refuse pushed into the sea. After all, isn't that what Hamas has been saying they want to do to Israel?
Not pushed into the Mediterranean -- that would be pollution. Scraped up and delivered to Tehran instead, who orchestrated this latest atrocity.
I just wish we had a President. Or any leadership at all.
This is exactly what Iran hopes for: an Israeli response that forces the Saudis to back iff from talks, and perhaps ends the dialogue with other gulf states. I trust Bibi will be smarter than that.
There is a lot of what is going on that is biblical
"There also needs to be an accounting here in America of our role in setting the table for this disaster. Today should mark the end of the Biden administration’s dishonorable effort to reenter the Iran nuclear deal and its string of disgraceful and one-sided concessions to Hamas’s biggest backer. " Indeed.
Um yes. Presidents on the take don’t make public interest decisions
Bari -- You totally hit it with your analysis and predictions on propaganda outlet treatment of this. I am not Jewish, but I spent my first twelve years of school in a predominately Jewish school, run out of residential homes in SoCal. I *love* both Christian and Jewish culture and morals. Enough about me.
"Within two or three days, the media narrative will change, as it does every time, and the grisly invasion that started the war quickly will be minimized into a half sentence of euphemistic dishonesty in press accounts (“an incursion by Gaza-based militants”) so that the focus can turn to prosecuting Israel."
Yes. But over the years, since my childhood, and especially after I matured in my twenties, I have been mystified by observations of my Jewish friends and acquaintances who seemingly blindly go for leftist concepts. These people help fuel the media narrative by seemingly blind belief. Aren't a good fraction of the people at higher levels in the media Jewish? What the hell?
Many of my childhood friends were children of refugees from Eastern Europe, Soviet Russia, and Nazi Germany. I heard plenty of stories from the elders. Yet, incongruously, people whom I otherwise respect seem to blindly go with the leftist narratives. It's a disconnect. Jewish boys are groomed and pushed by their mothers and Rabbis to excel on all fronts. And it works. The "Men from Mars" out of Eastern Europe took physics to a new level ... yet they, and a few Europeans and Scandinavians like Lise Meitner and Niels Bohr, just kept on with "One World, a world without war". Fairy tale, contrary to basic humen instinct.
Yours confused....
My sentiments, perfectly stated.
It’s a mystery that so many Jews go w the left while the Right sticks by Israel. Humans.
Yes!! I’ve been saying that for years to my Jewish friends.
The Palestinian point of view is that Israel must be destroyed and all of the Jews must be murdered. Why would you want to listen to that?
Or compromise with it.
My heart goes out to these people.
All day, I've been trying to imagine what this would feel like if it happened to me in America. All I can find is incandescent rage. I've been to war. I've seen friends killed by complete pieces of shit. In my darkest moment, I wouldn't have imagined harming defenseless women and children. I cannot understand or reason with someone who thinks that rape, deliberate murder of unarmed innocents, and taking children hostage are legitimate tactics in the pursuit of any cause.
Those things write you out of the human race. I suspect Hamas has sown the wind on behalf of Palestinians. I wish the IDF good hunting.
Nope. And pure evil is simply that. Imperial Japan was very similar, see Rape of Nanking and countless other examples. Throughout mankind this kind of evil has emerged and the only answer is a swift, violent response. No need to complicate. When you see someone say “this is complicated” you have found an anti semite.
I'm not a middle eastern expert, but I noticed that both Obama and Biden's executive branches are more pro-Iran and anti-Israel. And as a result, their mouthpieces such as NYT are also pro-Iran and anti-Israel. This attitude is also prevalent among the more liberal wing of Jewish folks in the US. I never understood why. Is there something deeper culturally going on, or is this simply part of the progressive movement (but why are they connected anyway)?
It’s what Obama planned all along. As things unfold, things become more clear. What I suspected, but was too afraid to ask, is now being exposed. Calling for a ceasefire by the “squad” gives thought to how they managed to secure those positions in our government in the first place. They seem to hate America, as they hate Israel. This goes so much deeper than I can fathom. I pray for Israel. I pray I’m wrong.
We live in a time when we should examine conspiracy theories and trust our imagination.
God, make me the prime minister of Israel for one day. That's all I ask: one goddamned day. I'll make the firebombings of Tokyo and Dresden look like a Sunday picnic.
This goes back to Haj-amin el Hussieni, the British should have strung him up but instead made him Mufti of Jerusalem even though he came in 4th or 5th in the election (1921?).
He looked good standing beside Hitler.
There were plenty of Palestinians who wanted to work with the Jews but the Islamists then were no different than the ones now.
They insist on all or nothing so they will continue to get nothing.
Hopefully the gloves come fully off this time.
The Jewish community in America should disabuse themselves from thinking that Biden can do anything right. Sending money to Iran expecting it to buy food and medicine and play nice with the infidels is Biden at the zenith of his ubiquitous stupidity. He finally reversed his position on the border wall. Will he reverse his stance on Israel? Or Ukraine?