Israeli-Palestinian conflict

[princeofcarthage]

There are only victors. No one else. If Arabs with 90% of majority in region couldn't defend their homeland they lived in for centuries years idk.

[Dolan]

Well, their problem was that there was no such thing as an Arab nation. So those Arabs living in Palestine were mostly alone against the bigger Western powers who, influenced by the Jewish lobby, made certain decisions that favoured Jewish settlement.
There was some degree of involvement by other Arab groups in the region, but nothing comparable to the Western involvement, because the West controlled the League of Nations, the first version of what today is the UN.
The Arabs were in no position to have much leverage in that area, since the British and other Western powers called the shots in the Middle East, after the Ottoman empire was terminated.
So it was kind of an unequal match and it still is. If they were left to their own devices, Israelis could not have kept that state until now.
The only thing that made Israel survive was the US getting heavily involved in the Middle East, in order to make sure Israel's security is guaranteed.

[Dolan]

I mean, look at this screenshot. A US Senator admitted that the reason why the US got involved in Syria was related to Israel:



If you think that's an exaggeration, check out this article from the Jerusalem Post, in which a US general says:


https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Junip ... cks-544598

Basically he's saying American troops should be ready to die for Israel's security, since every conflict involves casualties.

Then you wonder why Palestinians were driven out of their lands, which means they were the "losers".
Of course this happened, since they didn't have any big military power willing to provide the same level of support as the US provided to Israel.

[scarm]

Doesn't immigration imply that the destination is a country? You don't immigrate to a territory that has no clear statehood.

Well you kinda just pulled that out of your ass. We understand immigration in term of national states because its the modern context, but in general migration just means changing the place you live in (just like Birds, or the tribes at the end of the roman empire) and the prefix im signifies a migration into sth. That sth could literally be anything - a region, a state, a city, a part of the world etc. Plus at the beginning of jewish immigration the relevant entity was the ottoman empire so there you have your country if you insist.

So those Arabs living in Palestine were mostly alone against the bigger Western powers who, influenced by the Jewish lobby, made certain decisions that favoured Jewish settlement.
There was some degree of involvement by other Arab groups in the region

Yes except the 2 times when Israel was nearly exterminated because they almost lost a war against half of the muslim world allying against them. If you call the Arab league "some degree of involvement" then i guess Germany was "to some degree involved" in WW1.

Seriously read up on the 1948 war or on the Jom Kippur War. You guys are portraying those as the Israelis roflestomping some poor Arabs with the help of all of the western world, when it was an all out war with almost no western involvement that brought Israel to its knees by a knifes edge, and with enemies that had multiple times the manpower and were eager to completely annihilate, in the most literal sense of the word, anything and anyone that was jewish.

[Dolan]

Doesn't immigration imply that the destination is a country? You don't immigrate to a territory that has no clear statehood.

Well you kinda just pulled that out of your ass. We understand immigration in term of national states because its the modern context, but in general migration just means changing the place you live in (just like Birds, or the tribes at the end of the roman empire) and the prefix im signifies a migration into sth. That sth could literally be anything - a region, a state, a city, a part of the world etc. Plus at the beginning of jewish immigration the relevant entity was the ottoman empire so there you have your country if you insist.

Immigration is not the same thing as migration. I was referring specifically to immigration because that's the term used in that previous post.

Yes except the 2 times when Israel was nearly exterminated because they almost lost a war against half of the muslim world allying against them. If you call the Arab league "some degree of involvement" then i guess Germany was "to some degree involved" in WW1.

Seriously read up on the 1948 war or on the Jom Kippur War. You guys are portraying those as the Israelis roflestomping some poor Arabs with the help of all of the western world, when it was an all out war with almost no western involvement that brought Israel to its knees by a knifes edge, and with enemies that had multiple times the manpower and were eager to completely annihilate, in the most literal sense of the word, anything and anyone that was jewish.

And what was the outcome of that Arab league involvement. Where is the state of Israel now and what condition are Palestinians in?

[scarm]

That's a purely semantical argument then and not really relevant.

My argument is that you grossly misrepresented the power relations in 1948. Your counterargument is that because of the result nowadays back in the day the power relations couldn't have been stacked against Israel. That is like saying the Nazis were no danger because where are the nazis now? Everything could have gone differently, very very easily, and i you ask an israeli about their states' most deciding moments or their biggest traumas they will probably either tell you Jom Kippur or the Indepence war.

[Dolan]

Israel was alone in the 40s?

On 14 May 1948, the day before the expiration of the British Mandate, David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel. Both superpower leaders, U.S. President Harry S. Truman and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, immediately recognised the new state, while the Arab League refused to accept the UN partition plan

Both superpowers accepted a UN plan that Israel agreed with and the Arabs rejected. Which side had more international support, based on the outcome of this UN decision?

The Arabs would have obviously rejected any plan that included a Jewish state. They lived there for centuries and there was no Jewish state. How could anyone expect them to accept such a plan.
And the "international community" headed by the two Cold War superpowers supported the plan that Israel agreed with, since it recognised its statehood.

Again, how was Israel alone against the big bad Arab wolf here. The whole international community asked Palestinians to accept an Israeli state in a land where, three decades ago, there was a 90% non-Jewish population. And now somehow, they were supposed to go 50/50 on a territory in which just a few decades ago they were a majority.

[princeofcarthage]

Israel almost lost a war? In what universe!

[scarm]

I am talking about the actual military events. Sure international support was there, AND the US supported Israel with crucial deliveries, plus the forced ceasefires were essential as well. Doesn't change the fact that international support is well and nice but kinda worthless when you are being invaded by a handful of arab states, that are out to exterminate you.

[princeofcarthage]

When did Israel almost lost a war

[scarm]

Both 1948 and Jom Kippur were almost lost. The first because Israel didn't have a proper army or state yet and was at a significant disadvantage militarily and the second because of significant failures of the military and politics, resulting in the egyptians and syrians launching a surprise assault on israel on the highest jewish holiday of Jom Kippur and cutting deep into Israeli territory, while the IDF had to be mobilized. This resulted in a major shift in Israeli politics and security policy afterwards, because it was such a shock.

[princeofcarthage]

Still waiting for proof of how they "almost lost the war". The Israelis were never in serious danger of losing to the Egyptians, unless just losing the Suez Canal line in Sinai is considered a loss. They repelled the attacks in mere 3 days. Northern front was bit more serious but never in any way close to a defeat. You know who almost lost the war? Allies in WW2 and 1

[Dolan]

What could have happened if Israelis lost that war but the whole international community supported an outcome that ran against Arab interests?
Do you think the USA and the USSR, plus the UN that they controlled, would have just resigned themselves to this new outcome and just accepted it?

Because the way you're describing that situation seems to imply that there was a real danger Israelis would have been driven out of Palestine again and the whole international community would have just sat by and watched.

[Horsemen]

the arab-israeli situation is fucked but gotta admit that iron dome is pretty damn cool

[princeofcarthage]

Well, it would moe little sense to undo what happened 70 years ago but the best course for peace now is that Israel annexes all the remaining/disputed territory and end the war once and for all.

[Dolan]

And what do you think would happen after that. Peace? lol

[princeofcarthage]

If there are no reasons for war, the opposing party is crushed, the cause of dispute is over, the enemy is scattered, I don't see why peace can't be there. Ofc war can never be over, cuz countries like US, Israel always need enemies and will always have enemies but at least one chapter dragging on for decades will be over.

[Dolan]

That's a very simplistic take on how conflicts evolve. A cultural/political conflict never simply gets extinguished like that.
Palestinians are not some isolated ethnic group that could just get crushed and everyone would forget about them in a few decades.
They're basically Arabs who lived there for centuries and who also happen to be Muslim. So these are two areas of identity that intersect with interests shared by other Arab peoples in the region and other Muslim people in the region.
You'd be naive to think Iran or even Arabic peoples in the region would be OK with such an outcome.

LE. https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/05/12/a ... s-deepens/

[lejend]

It's also not what I said at all. You think immigration is the extent of what has been going on there in the past century?

I was responding to duckzilla's ridiculous assertion that the Zionist project inherently involves colonialism and ethnic cleansing. Anyway, like you, I don't really have the time or the interest to discuss this topic in any depth.

[Horsemen]

shoulda picked Madagascar for the Israeli state

[princeofcarthage]

But the thing is Iranian conflict with Israel isn't really linked to Palestine, atleast not nowadays. Truth be told regardless of Palestine Iran would continue to engage. This makes it another conflict.

[Dolan]

Iran has a direct interest that Hamas doesn't lose in Israel. If their common enemy wins a position, then their common enemy gets strengthened.

[Dolan]

@mods Maybe this part of the thread that deals only with the Israel situation should be branched off into another, new thread.

[Goodspeed]

Classic proxywar stuff

[Horsemen]

What? There is no Iranian involvement in Palestine. The Gaza Strip is economically self-sufficient and fully capable of building its own proprietary stockpile of missiles.