History in the making, Part 2, V.2 - Israel/Palestine - NO RELIGION

In reply to Duke :

In reply to 02Pilot :

Oh, I completely understand that you are not putting any subjective opinions in your posts.  That's one of the reasons that your interpretations are so valuable and constructive.

I was referring to the number of posters, especially earlier in the thread, who seem to believe that Israel is 100% innocent and the only victim here.  I don't think anyone in the region can legitimately plant their flag in the moral high ground.
 

No nation in the history of the planet is completely innocent. Most borders were formed by force, and they are protected by force. The historical norm is that land is taken by force by the dominate powers. We live in a very rare period where most of the current dominate powers are not interested in taking more land. 

Who does the land in question belong to now? Israel. It does not matter- at all- who had it when or who wants it. All that matters is that Israel has it now and capable of defending it. The current borders were drawn through years of conflict and compromise. Borders are not drawn by the losers of wars, and this land has seen lots of winners and losers over the last couple thousand years. 

As for who is the current victim? Palestine/Hamas has zero chance of defeating Israel. They have unleashed terror attacks with no military value. Israel has every right to do anything they see fit to eliminate the threat and keep their citizens safe. They have shown remarkable restraint, and have put themselves at great risk to minimize harm to Palestinian civilians. Hamas has shown much less concern for Palestinian citizens than has Israel. If the roles were reversed- Hamas was strong and Israel was weak- would Hamas show similar restraint? 

In reply to 02Pilot :

No apology necessary.  The ambiguity was mine.

In reply to everyone else:

As we've noted, this region has been unstable and hotly contested for thousands of years.

In the early pages of this thread, a number of posters who will remain un-singled-out were calling for the utter destruction af HAMAS and any other perceived Muslim threat, more or less regardless of collateral damage, in retribution for the most recent outbreak of violence.  Much like Israel itself is calling for.

I respectfully submit that some blame for the current hostilities must be placed on 50 years or so of Israeli expansionism, as evidenced by the maps that 02Pilot and I posted.

I am also speaking in a larger context than the specifics of the alleged hospital attack and a smaller context than the last 3000 years.

In reply to volvoclearinghouse :

I didn't think the funding comments were crass, but a subject that needed clarification. I have a number of relatives that believe our aid to both countries is just piles of money being sent to launder back to the President's family. It's probably good to put in print once in a while that it's largely existing supplies being used. 

Maybe some breaking UNCONFIRMED news:   Explosions at 3 US bases in the Middle East.  The President was apparently called off of a press conference to the situation room.  In the least, it is concerning. 

There have already been, at least attempted, attacks.  We will see if this is different.  I will alter this post if this is inaccurate.  As I noted UNCONFIRMED.

 I don't know if this is an actual picture of an attack:

In reply to aircooled :

Drone attacks on two US bases in Syria - al-Tanf and al-Rukban - and one in Iraq (unknown at this time). Initial reports say drones were successfully engaged, but that is preliminary information.

It's not surprising, given that the USS Carney knocked down a bunch of ordnance headed for Israel. These attacks happen periodically, and outside of the current context, are rarely mentioned in the press. Unless there are much more robust efforts against US assets in the region, I wouldn't read too much into it.

In reply to 02Pilot :

OK, thanks.  Kind of what I figured. The president getting pulled out of a speech was a bit concerning.  I suspect, considering the situation, any such attacks need to paid close attention to make sure it is not the start of something bigger.

Wally (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to volvoclearinghouse :

... It's probably good to put in print once in a while that it's largely existing supplies being used. 

'Existing supplies' being depleted. A backlog and greatly increased cost for production of the replacement munitions, but hey - much of the new production can be spent in targeted districts to gain bi-partisan congressional support. Is this borrowed or magically 'printed' money that it all comes from?

In reply to AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) :

Without getting into the political side of this, there are those among the Pentagon brass who look at this as a great opportunity to phase out legacy systems and pour money into development of next-generation projects. It's much harder to convince Congress to allocate lots of money for R&D when there are big piles of the last latest and greatest systems piled up in warehouses, but when there's a demonstrable need to build more stuff anyway, shouldn't it be the newest and shiniest?

And there's also the bonus of all that free, high-intensity operational testing of the last generation to cite in the Projected Future Requirements section of the proposal.

In reply to AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) :

I'm not saying it's a good thing but it's a vastly different situation than one person writing himself a check which is what an embarrassing number of my relatives believe is happening. 

In reply to Wally (Forum Supporter) :

Money is fungible 

In reply to Duke :

In the early pages of this thread, a number of posters who will remain un-singled-out were calling for the utter destruction af HAMAS and any other perceived Muslim threat, more or less regardless of collateral damage, in retribution for the most recent outbreak of violence.  Much like Israel itself is calling for.

I went back through the thread, I didn't see that. Hamas' stated reason for being is death to Israel. They faked peace talks while planning the slaughter of innocent civilians. They attacked a concert filled with teenagers and killed babies. That's a little more than a "recent outbreak of violence." Israel is trying to protect their people, not brainwash them and use them for human shields. There is no equivalency. Collateral damage? Did Hamas warn the Israelis that they would be attacking in 24 hours and for civilians to leave the area? They have left little doubt that they have zero interest in coexisting. Someone has to go. I don't think they thought this through, or they were so blinded by their hate that they fell prey to their Iranian puppet masters. 

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

I believe Duke is one of those good guys that feels violence is never the answer and that there should better option. It would be nice if there was another option, but sadly there are animals like hamas, hezbollah, isis etc that see that as a sign of weakness. The only thing they understand is overwhelming force to the point of their extinction. Would I love there to be a sit down with all the leaders and come to an agreement to not kill each other? What halfway normal human wouldnt? Sadly that will not happen. Hamas has already shown what happens when you try to work with them to work a peace deal and way for them to self govern. They take that time and resources to plot an attack to kill babies, women and elderly. Those aren't people. They are feral rabid animals and the only way you treat those is to put them down. 

Off Topic to thread:  Not to defend the bad actors in the DoD contracting space, but the primary issue lies in products that are specific to one system (with no alternatives being allowed) ordered as a low quantity (sometimes just one) rather than the 10k that the "reasonable price" was bid at.  

I do cost estimates for a DoD contractor, so I am quite familiar with the bidding and renegotiating process.  In fact, we have a few bids that are held up by the contract officer because *gasp* the price in 2023 for a lower quantity is significantly higher than the prices when they previously bought them in 2018.  Ironically enough, we are still lower than the 2018 contract holder.  

02Pilot said:

In reply to AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) :

Without getting into the political side of this, there are those among the Pentagon brass who look at this as a great opportunity ...

The political side and brass perspective can be quite ugly. ...enough said.

In reply to bobzilla :

Allow me to challenge your assertion by asking a simple question: is there, in your view, any negotiated solution that would be mutually acceptable to Israel, Hamas, and the surrounding states? If there isn't, then this isn't really a matter of "feral rabid animals" fighting civilization, but rather a weaker faction recognizing its poor position and electing to utilize whatever limited means it has available in an effort to alter the status quo in its favor.

That said, I still argue that the driving force behind this is Iran - which has shown itself willing to fight to the last Palestinian - not Hamas. Hamas has very little to gain here, but because it is so reliant on Iran is also beholden to them; Iran is the real winner, having significantly degraded Israel's relations with the Arab world. But the calculus remains the same.

Wally (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) :

I'm not saying it's a good thing but it's a vastly different situation than one person writing himself a check which is what an embarrassing number of my relatives believe is happening. 

And there were a large number of people who thought similar things when we went into Afghanistan back in the early 2000's.  Interesting how one's perception of history and current events can change based on which team has the ball.  

I've ben hearing the "existing weapons being used" line so much that I feel it had to have been pushed out to all the news organizations to use as a talking point.  Very common.  This was not the point of any of those articles listed, however.  The point was about the new stuff being built, and the exact states that would benefit from that spending.  Not hard to notice that most of the states mentioned went either red or purple in the last election cycle.  

Its also interesting to note how the recent dialogue is tying the war in Ukraine and the war in Israel together.  While there may be some similarities, lumping them in together seems like priming to get us thinking about WWIII.  It's being done for budgetary purposes- and, as cited, also adding in the southern US border funding.  It's the strategy behind the omnibus spending bills that Congress uses to get budgets passed- toss enough funding around for everyone, and you'll get a majority vote in favor.  Except now it's being done for wars.  

02Pilot said:

In reply to bobzilla :

Allow me to challenge your assertion by asking a simple question: is there, in your view, any negotiated solution that would be mutually acceptable to Israel, Hamas, and the surrounding states? If there isn't, then this isn't really a matter of "feral rabid animals" fighting civilization, but rather a weaker faction recognizing its poor position and electing to utilize whatever limited means it has available in an effort to alter the status quo in its favor.

That said, I still argue that the driving force behind this is Iran - which has shown itself willing to fight to the last Palestinian - not Hamas. Hamas has very little to gain here, but because it is so reliant on Iran is also beholden to them; Iran is the real winner, having significantly degraded Israel's relations with the Arab world. But the calculus remains the same.

 

 

The problem with your idea is peace has been tried. Repeatedly. Israel made an effort the last 2 years to set Gaza up to be self-governed and be able to thrive once again. What happened instead? They plotted, planned, stockpiled arms to launch a sneak attack to kill all the Zionists. How could you possibly ever negotiate with that when this happens time and time again?

Look, the problem here, IMO, is you have a group that the entire purpose of their existence is to wipe out another group. What is there to negotiate with animals like that? Their entire purpose is to kill any and all at any cost, even their own people and themselves. That's a rabid following that cannot be negotiated with. I would love to be wrong, but I think history is going to bear out that I'm not. Again. 

EDIT: Let me try this again. Any of you ever had a blood hound? I've not personally but have friends that have had them over the years. They are great animals. But if they lock onto a scent, there is nothing you can do to stop that short of tackling them and locking them in a crate, driving them miles away and hope it was far enough. They've had a couple that were found 7 miles away with something treed. IT's in their DNA to do that. These groups set on destruction are no different. They want nothing more than to kill all Jews or in the case of the real instigator Iran, destroy the west. 

Nobody wants to govern the Palestinians.  Nobody wants to have them in their country.  Their Arab buddies?  Nope.  The PLO, Hamas, Fatah, none of them care to actually put together an operational government to make things better for themselves and their people.  They'd rather just try and wipe out Israel, using their own people as human shields/cannon fodder.  It begs the question, if they even could take over Israel, what then?  They still couldn't govern.

These groups are terrorist organizations, period.  They don't deserve the same consideration that an operational government/country do.  They need to be wiped out and since they hide behind their populace, sadly there will be civilian casualities.

There's NO way we'd be as restrained as Israel has been if Canada or Mexico was constantly lobbing mortars and rockets across the border, let alone invading, killing and kidnapping our citizens.  Look at what we did when a terrorist group took out two of our buildings.  We cross the planet and invaded two countries...

bobzilla said:

02Pilot said:

In reply to bobzilla :

Allow me to challenge your assertion by asking a simple question: is there, in your view, any negotiated solution that would be mutually acceptable to Israel, Hamas, and the surrounding states? If there isn't, then this isn't really a matter of "feral rabid animals" fighting civilization, but rather a weaker faction recognizing its poor position and electing to utilize whatever limited means it has available in an effort to alter the status quo in its favor.

That said, I still argue that the driving force behind this is Iran - which has shown itself willing to fight to the last Palestinian - not Hamas. Hamas has very little to gain here, but because it is so reliant on Iran is also beholden to them; Iran is the real winner, having significantly degraded Israel's relations with the Arab world. But the calculus remains the same.

The problem with your idea is peace has been tried. Repeatedly. Israel made an effort the last 2 years to set Gaza up to be self-governed and be able to thrive once again. What happened instead? They plotted, planned, stockpiled arms to launch a sneak attack to kill all the Zionists. How could you possibly ever negotiate with that when this happens time and time again?

Short on time, so this will be brief.

I think the argument that Israel has made a comprehensive, good-faith effort to "to set Gaza up to be self-governed and be able to thrive once again" is disputable. This may be less due to desire on the part of the government than to domestic political pressure and the small far-right parties that have proven critical to creating coalition governments there over the years, but the result from the Palestinian point of view is the same regardless of the cause.

I do not dispute that there are extremists who want nothing more than to eradicate Israel. What I would argue remains questionable is the source of their motivation, and the level of culpability Israeli policy has for it. With those sources of discontent mitigated, how many extremists would remain? And in current circumstances, with the level of damage inflicted on Gaza thus far, I suspect there will be an increase in the number of Palestinians drawn to the radical extreme, in whatever form it takes. This is in many ways the classic paradox of counterinsurgency warfare.

Boost_Crazy said:

In reply to Duke :

In the early pages of this thread, a number of posters who will remain un-singled-out were calling for the utter destruction af HAMAS and any other perceived Muslim threat, more or less regardless of collateral damage, in retribution for the most recent outbreak of violence.  Much like Israel itself is calling for.

Hamas' stated reason for being is death to Israel.

Hamas EXISTS because of hardline expansionist Israel putting pressure on Palestinian settlements and territory for at least 50 years.  That is my point.

bobzilla said:

I believe Duke is one of those good guys that feels violence is never the answer and that there should better option.

I am a firm believer in defensive violence.  Sometimes violence has to be the answer.

But I also believe that you damage your own credibility and righteousness when you spend 50 years provoking the other side into taking the first swing just so you can flatten them and take their lunch.

In reply to volvoclearinghouse :

I think the "red or purple" nature of the defense contracts is a chicken or egg scenario. 
 

Are the contracts awarded to those states for political gain, or do those states have a proclivity toward being supportive of the military and therefore get the contracts?

I don't think there is an answer, but I am definitely of the opinion that many red states are more supportive of the military. 
 

In reply to SV reX :

A valid point, I agree.  But it still certainly doesn't hurt to point out who benefits.  

bobzilla said:

In reply to Duke :

Fine. Let's blame Israel for all the ills in the Middle East.

sorry they earned what they're getting and more. Blame Israel all you want, they didn't ask for thousands to be slaughtered. 

Neither did the Palestinians.  They certainly didn't ask to be ousted from their homes in Old City Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, or the West Bank.  Israeli occupation of non-Israeli territory grew by more than 600,000 people between 1970 and 2020.  But of course, Israel is the utterly blameless victim here, right?  They didn't have anything at all to do with why the Muslims just seem to mysteriously hate them for absolutely no reason, right?!  Is that what you're saying?  It sure sounds like it, but I wouldn't want to get that wrong, or anything.

But thanks for grossly overstating my point.  Please feel free to continue misinterpreting it.

In reply to bobzilla :

C'mon Bob. That isn't what Duke said.