Analysis Israel's options don't look good - but a full-scale military campaign in the near future is inevitable

[Morch]

28 minutes ago, sirineou said:

1984 meets Alice in wonderland where up is down and down is up.

People are displaced, their property is confiscated, their are placed in the world's largest concentration camp, ad when the react , they are the terrorists. 

 

No, that's your own version of things. Facts are different.

 

The Gaza Strip was not always under blockade and 'siege'. This is something that came about, gradually, in response to Palestinian attacks (more recently and specifically, Hamas) on Israel. It was not placed on a whim, not just to spite or harass the Palestinians - there were (and are) good reasons for it.

 

Your hyperbolic use of 'concentration camp' and the obvious insinuation are dully noted.

 

There is 'react', and then there's what the Hamas attack was - pure evil.

[Hanaguma]

33 minutes ago, sirineou said:

1984 meets Alice in wonderland where up is down and down is up.

People are displaced, their property is confiscated, their are placed in the world's largest concentration camp, ad when the react , they are the terrorists. 

 

Utter nonsense.  What kind of concentration camp sees the population GROW at one of the highest rates in the world?

 

Gaza has received untold millions in aid for years. Instead of building their own infrastructure, they spent the money on weapons and propaganda. Now they are going to pay the price for nurturing and keeping Hamas in their midst. 

[stevenl]

22 minutes ago, Jeff the Chef said:

More than a decade ago, Israel started to understand that its occupation of Gaza through siege could be to its advantage. It began transforming the tiny coastal enclave from an albatross around its neck into a valuable portfolio in the trading game of international power politics.

The first benefit for Israel, and its Western allies, is more discussed than the second.

The tiny strip of land hugging the eastern Mediterranean coast was turned into a mix of testing ground and shop window.

Israel could use Gaza to develop all sorts of new technologies and strategies associated with the homeland security industries burgeoning across the West, as officials there grew increasingly worried about domestic unrest, sometimes referred to as populism.

The siege of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians, imposed by Israel in 2007 following the election of Hamas to rule the enclave, allowed for all sorts of experiments. 

How could the population best be contained? What restrictions could be placed on their diet and lifestyle? How were networks of informers and collaborators to be recruited from afar? What effect did the population’s entrapment and repeated bombardment have on social and political relations? 

And ultimately how were Gaza’s inhabitants to be kept subjugated and an uprising prevented?

The answers to those questions were made available to Western allies through Israel’s shopping portal. Items available included interception rocket systems, electronic sensors, surveillance systems, drones, facial recognition, automated gun towers, and much more. All tested in real-life situations in Gaza. 

Israel’s standing took a severe dent from the fact that Palestinians managed to bypass this infrastructure of confinement last weekend – at least for a few days – with a rusty bulldozer, some hang-gliders and a sense of nothing-to-lose. 

Which is part of the reason why Israel now needs to go back into Gaza with ground troops to show it still has the means to keep the Palestinians crushed.

Nonsense clearly stolen from some fringe conspiracy site 

[metisdead]

A post contravening our Community Standards has been removed:

 

27. You will not post any copyrighted material except as fair use laws apply (as in the case of news articles). Only post a link, the headline and three sentences from the article. Content in the public domain is limited to the same restrictions.

[rabas]

45 minutes ago, sirineou said:

1984 meets Alice in wonderland where up is down and down is up.

People are displaced, their property is confiscated, their are placed in the world's largest concentration camp, ad when the react , they are the terrorists. 

 

Poster wanders a dark imaginative cavern unaware Hamas is killing more Gazans by telling them to stay put and die as Israel urges them to flee and live.  

 

Hamas is the terrorist.

[BE88]

When will the human race become smarter and end all wars?

Probably when it disappears with nuclear weapons.

I don't see any other solutions.

[Jingthing]

1 hour ago, sirineou said:

1984 meets Alice in wonderland where up is down and down is up.

People are displaced, their property is confiscated, their are placed in the world's largest concentration camp, ad when the react , they are the terrorists. 

 

Sounds like you support the recent massacre of civilian Jews. Wow.

[xylophone]

15 hours ago, candide said:

The Arab Peace Initiative (Arabic: مبادرة السلام العربية; Hebrew: יוזמת השלום הערבית), also known as the Saudi Initiative (Arabic: مبادرة السعودية; Hebrew: היוזמה הסעודית), is a 10 sentence proposal for an end to the Arab–Israeli conflict that was endorsed by the Arab League in 2002 at the Beirut Summit and re-endorsed at the 2007 and at the 2017 Arab League summits.[1] The initiative offers normalisation of relations by the Arab world with Israel, in return for a full withdrawal by Israel from the occupied territories (including the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights, and Lebanon), a "just settlement" of the Palestinian refugee problem based on UN Resolution 194, and the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Peace_Initiative

Good info, thanks...........so who rejected this proposal?

[sirineou]

33 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Sounds like you support the recent massacre of civilian Jews. Wow.

No I do not, Life is preciouses all life 

[sirineou]

1 hour ago, Hanaguma said:

Utter nonsense.  What kind of concentration camp sees the population GROW at one of the highest rates in the world?

Talk about nonsense

[Jingthing]

3 minutes ago, sirineou said:

No I do not, Life is preciouses all life 

Your post came off as making excuses for Hamas.

[Jingthing]

3 minutes ago, sirineou said:

Talk about nonsense

How is it nonsense?

[Morch]

14 minutes ago, xylophone said:

Good info, thanks...........so who rejected this proposal?

Israel did not accept it. The Palestinian Authority was basically coerced into going along with it. Hamas 'responded' by carrying out a major bomb attack killing some 30 Israeli citizens.

 

It's a good basis for negotiations, and a shame Israel did not take the opportunity to engage the Arab World (even if nothing would have come out of it). Today, the geo-political situation changed to a degree that it's much harder to see it going forward, or endorsed.

[sirineou]

1 hour ago, Morch said:

No, that's your own version of things. Facts are different.

Read Former President Jimmy Carter's " Peace not Apartheid " for some facts 

or 

What Noam Chomsky himself a jew has to say on the subject, I hope you would not call him an antisemite.

 

[Morch]

6 minutes ago, sirineou said:

Read Former President Jimmy Carter's " Peace not Apartheid " for some facts 

or 

What Noam Chomsky himself a jew has to say on the subject, I hope you would not call him an antisemite.

Try and address the points made instead of name dropping.

And, being a Jew doesn't necessarily gives one special insight into matters at hand.

Chomsky is a fine scholar, but when it comes to geo-politics, it's not like his opinion is gospel or anything.

 

How about trying to answer with your own words and ideas?

[Jingthing]

3 minutes ago, Morch said:

Try and address the points made instead of name dropping.

And, being a Jew doesn't necessarily gives one special insight into matters at hand.

Chomsky is a fine scholar, but when it comes to geo-politics, it's not like his opinion is gospel or anything.

 

How about trying to answer with your own words and ideas?

Exactly.

Chomsky's area of expertise is LINGUISTICS.

[sirineou]

19 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Your post came off as making excuses for Hamas.

That's where the 1984 part of my reply comes in.

define  and dismiss

[sirineou]

7 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Exactly.

Chomsky's area of expertise is LINGUISTICS.

Since you like Caps.

" is an American PROFESOR and publicI NTELECTUAL known for his work in LINGUISTICS  , POLITICAL ACTIVISM  , and SOCIAL CRITICISM "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky

 

Seems to me like more Orwellian language  "define and dismiss" 

 

[Morch]

1 minute ago, sirineou said:

Since you like Caps.

" is an American PROFESOR and publicI NTELECTUAL known for his work in LINGUISTICS  , POLITICAL ACTIVISM  , and SOCIAL CRITICISM "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky

 

Seems to me like more Orwellian language  "define and dismiss" 

 

Being a political activist is not much of a credential. It denotes position, not superior understanding. Regardless, even if you want to idolize Chomsky, you ought to make your arguments by yourself. 

[Jeff the Chef]

1. What Hamas did 7 days ago was wrong/unacceptable to any civilised human being

2. What Hamas is doing to Palestinians in Gaza is wrong/unacceptable to any civilised human being

3. What Israel is doing in Gaza now is also totally wrong/unacceptable to any civilised human being.

[Morch]

10 minutes ago, Jeff the Chef said:

1. What Hamas did 7 days ago was wrong/unacceptable to any civilised human being

2. What Hamas is doing to Palestinians in Gaza is wrong/unacceptable to any civilised human being

3. What Israel is doing in Gaza now is also totally wrong/unacceptable to any civilised human being.

How would you suggest Israel address the situation created by Hamas? Realistically, that is. No fantasy stuff, please.

[Jeff the Chef]

@sirineou

 

Think "flogging a dead horse" ????

[Jingthing]

22 minutes ago, sirineou said:

Since you like Caps.

" is an American PROFESOR and publicI NTELECTUAL known for his work in LINGUISTICS  , POLITICAL ACTIVISM  , and SOCIAL CRITICISM "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky

 

Seems to me like more Orwellian language  "define and dismiss" 

 

His academic field is linguistics.

[Jeff the Chef]

10 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

His academic field is linguistics.

A bit more than that according to Wikipedia and I quote: 

 

Avram Noam Chomsky[a] (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics",[b] Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. Ideologically, he aligns with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism.

[Jingthing]

37 minutes ago, Jeff the Chef said:

A bit more than that according to Wikipedia and I quote: 

 

Avram Noam Chomsky[a] (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics",[b] Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. Ideologically, he aligns with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism.

The fact that American Chomsky has Jewish ethnicity does not mean that his rather extremist views on the conflict possess any magical Jewish space laser fairy dust.

I will also add that while I don't think Chomsky is an antisemite Jewish antisemites definitely do exist just as gay homophobes do. 

[sirineou]

43 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

His academic field is linguistics.

No disrespect but even you if intellectually honest would agree that the above is a weak retort 

[Jingthing]

5 minutes ago, sirineou said:

No disrespect but even you if intellectually honest would agree that the above is a weak retort 

I don't.

No university has hired him as a professor of geopolitics because he is not qualified for that.

Just as you wouldn't expect a brain surgeon to be able to replace a car transmission. 

[Morch]

4 minutes ago, sirineou said:

No disrespect but even you if intellectually honest would agree that the above is a weak retort 

A weak retort would be going on and on about Chomsky, without being able to articulate a coherent, and fact based comment on topic.

[Jeff the Chef]

10 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

The fact that American Chomsky has Jewish ethnicity does not mean that his rather extremist views on the conflict possess any magical Jewish space laser fairy dust.

I will also add that while I don't think Chomsky is an antisemite Jewish antisemites definitely do exist just as gay homophobes do. 

Give us a clue what is an anti-semite? and while you're at it what is a gay homophobe?

Sorry for being thick I'm a 70 year old Englishman.

[Jingthing]

13 minutes ago, Jeff the Chef said:

Give us a clue what is an anti-semite? and while you're at it what is a gay homophobe?

Sorry for being thick I'm a 70 year old Englishman.

As you weren't born yesterday you should know.