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The whole idea of "permanent safety" is such a ridiculous conception of a policy goal that it says a lot about the mendacity and stupidity of the American foreign policy intelligentsia that it's taken seriously as a condition for a peace process.
Is it, though?
Ceasefire is pretty central to the narrative.
... I'm lost here about what point you're making.
That the State Department, and the likely appointees to SoS on the R side come a Trump victory in November, accept Permanent Security and an entirely neutered Palestinian reservation as a serious idea that Israel will pursue seems unrelated to Oxfam's desire for a ceasefire.
Maybe I misunderstood who you had in mind as “foreign policy intelligentsia.”
I think if you asked the average pro-Palestine demonstrator if there should be a ceasefire, they’d say yes. Even though it doesn’t pretend to be a lasting solution, a lot of the messaging is about how Gazans are dying now, and stopping that is a core goal.
I think organizers and theorists would say something similar. The Rorschach option isn’t mainstream.
Yup. I'm not talking about a ceasefire, which is the only moral choice when Israel as much as admits it has no realistic plan to achieve anything in particular.
If this is a punitive expedition fine, they've achieved your proportional punishment. Thousands more Gazans have been killed, and some number gang raped in prison it seems.
But this nonsense of permanent security isn't a real goal. I would intellectually respect our foreign policy apparatus and Israel's government more if they were frank genocidaires honest about their plans. As it is they are engaged in an orgy of violence with no realistic goal.
I’m not seeing where the demand for permanent security has torpedoed a more realistic plan. We’ve been facilitating awkward, partial solutions since the beginning.
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Except that this isn't true. Retrieve as many hostages as possible, neutralize Hamas, work out a some arrangement where Gaza is less of a threat than it was before (most likely involving other nations, or just leaving Gaza disunited enough that Hamas or another similar organisation can't completely militarise it again). Any or all of those things might be (very) difficult, but that's quite a different thing from what you said.
None of these goals are realistic, or at least they aren't working towards them in any meaningful way. I agree with Trump, and anyway the deaths of 100,000 to rescue a few hundred is so desperately out of proportion it has lost all sense. At this point Israel has bombed and marched across all of Gaza multiple times, if they haven't neutralized Hamas yet color me skeptical that the next 100,000 corpses will solve the problem. And working out a plan for a future government of Gaza was a good idea to work out before the war, as Israel was repeatedly urged to do by the international community, not after. Israel is strategically flailing, despite their infinite ability to tactically dominate.
I don't know, Hamas have lost huge numbers of soldiers, commanders, vital parts of their infrastructure and ability to smuggle weapons. Some sources suggest they've basically stopped firing rockets into Israel, even after Haniyeh's killing. That all seems pretty meaningful.
The central thesis of the article you mentioned - that Hamas are undercounting the number of dead Gazans by a factor of anywhere between 2 to 4, seems wildly unrealistic, especially given that Hamas' main strategy is to use negative propaganda to bring international condemnation and pressure on Israel.
Talk of proportionality is also meaningless - nations generally speaking don't respond to wars of aggression by seeking to inflict the exact same damages that were inflicted on them. I've never heard anyone argue that the correct response to Pearl Harbour was for the US to kill an equal number of Japanese soldiers and civilians, then go home.
I'm not sure why you're so skeptical, they seem to be making solid progress. This sounds a bit like like saying if the D-Day landings didn't completely neutralize Germany then there's little reason for anyone to have thought further fighting would achieve anything.
It sure helps to know exactly what to aim for, but you can come up with plans during the war and after. And pretty much any outcome is better for Israel than what was there before.
You've seemed to be a generally smart guy and good poster, so don't take this personally, but this is why I stopped reading books or watching movies about WWII for seven years. WWII is the source of all our war metaphors, and that narrows our imagination.
That said, these particular comparisons are inapposite. At no point in either the European or Pacific theaters were the Americans or Russians flailing about randomly. Throughout the process, they had specific aims and plans they were working towards. Their intention was to occupy Germany and Japan, and institute by force a government which they would sustain by force for however long it took for those nations to be trustworthy self-governing members of the international community again. Importantly, the Allies understood that after victory, after surrender, they would take on responsibility for Japanese and German (and other national) civilian populations. They would take on responsibility for the administration of the territory, the provision of necessary goods, and the healing of the harms of the war. At no point was this in doubt. The Battle of the Bulge, won or lost, wouldn't have changed the intended outcome of the war for the Allies.
Israel has no intention of occupying Gaza and providing administration or aid to the population. They have no plan to institute a government, nor even a publicly stated outline of what an acceptable government would look like. A Hamas Rudolf Hess or a Gazan Donitz are unimaginable, because it's not clear how a Palestinian could obtain a position to offer an unconditional surrender, or under what terms Gazans could organize to achieve any kind of self governance. We need a Gazan Konrad Adenauer, but I don't see a path to finding one.
All this is complicated by the structure of Gazan vs German/Japanese society, and I'm not unsympathetic to the plight facing the Israelis. If they wanted to invest their resources in occupying Gaza, in forcing families apart and educating Gazan children in government-run schools which would inculcate new values, I might not support it but I would respect it. But as of now, they aren't doing that. Their win conditions are something like Gazans stop hating us, unlikely to be advanced by their current strategy, or all the Gazans are dead, which they will presumably reach eventually though I doubt they've made significant progress towards extinction during the current war.
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They already tried the whole "live with a certain amount of rocket fire and hope your enemies are rational and indolent enough to just live off the aid money" strat
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Is it? Germany and Japan haven't caused trouble in almost a century. There hasn't been armed conflict involving US in the Americas since Granada I think. And even covert after the mid 2000s.
I mean yes, it would be a good strategy for the Jews in Israel to move to America if they desire to be part of a massive hegemon well liked by its smaller neighbors. If they wish to remain a small, ethnically distinct enclave then they will have problems with this situation.
Further, Germany would definitely be a threat to any of its neighbors, if it weren't for the EU, which makes it less than beneficial for Germany to do so. France didn't keep Germany down by grinding it into a permanently dependent statelet with no power and no independence, rather they built a mutually beneficial structure for European integration in which Germans have been prime beneficiaries. The punitive theory failed and was discredited after Versailles. The idea of German revanchism for Alsace-Lorraine is silly, because any German that wanted to do so could move there tomorrow. Germany's and Japan's participation in Washington Consensus institutions is what keeps them on the leash, not permanent occupation.
Alas, my half serious suggestion of settling the Zionists near Zion National Park and having them share the American Zion state with the Mormons was never considered a real option.
I’d take that deal. Utah’s fantastic, and mormons are way better than haredim. I would prefer a slightly more northern location though, but that’s just haggling.
I'd always figured that if our Jewish friends can't figure out how to get along with the Mormons than I will change my mind about the neighborly qualities of Arab Muslims.
Well, I'm just n=1, but my family (wife and a bunch of kids) and I spent a good while in Utah and found it easy to integrate - adjusting a bit for the cultural differences between Israelis and Americans in general. My wife still keeps in touch with a couple of our Mormon ex-neighbors. They left a great impression on me - very polite, generally nice, and industrious. Ex-Mormons gave me the same impression, only they'd go for a coffee break with me.
There are also a couple of small Jewish communities in Utah, but I find American Jews to be a bit weird, so we had a harder time integrating with the local congregation.
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Adam Corolla used to do a standup bit that they could settle it if the whole thing was just moved to Baja, because people are happier in Baja.
I used to listen to Carolla's podcast damned near daily when I worked in lab, it one of the first podcasts I'd ever really listened to. At some point, it got a little repetitive, and I started to feel like he inserted too many right-wing talking points and was kind of a hack about it. A decade later, it turns out that as a California guy a couple decades older than me, he'd just had more time and opportunity to get sick of the bullshit and that in due time I would be every bit sick of people like Gavin Newsom and Antonio ViaRetardo as Carolla was.
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