West Bank
Fair enough. I stand corrected. Slow motion ethnic cleansing it is.
They could set their borders unilaterally at any time
Sure. The problem is if they do that strongly implies they'll be pulling out of the other places.
Which could instantly result in them being turned into terror bases.
and their governments say the same thing
The other governments are far away and can say this sort of stuff cost and impact free. The Palestinians have walked away from peace agreements and engaged in serious terrorism over it.
It's a massive leap of faith to think they're engaging in terrorism and are upset over settlements when they claim otherwise, even at a negotiating table that could end the settlements and result in them getting a country.
North: Israel was able to devastate both foes since they had little entanglement
This is true. However if we're comparing the WB to Gaza one can reasonably think the former outcome is more desirable.
North: Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal... from a given area
If someone is being forced to move from Gaza to Gaza, is that "ethnic cleansing"? I see that claim a lot from the same people who claim the same for the WB.
North: two decades of violent steady but gradual land expropriate and dispossession doesn’t count as ethnic cleansing because, what, it’s too gradual?
Do a deep dive on a specific case about a specific house and we're going to find the Arabs being removed didn't own it. Far as I can tell the settlements are new construction. The toxic part is the security needed to protect it.
North: As for the right of return? It’s a canard and we both know it. ...That the PA or other Palestinian representatives won’t say the magic words
You and I agree it's insane and Israel will never allow it. Where we disagree is you are claiming the Palestinians aren't serious but I see nothing to support that.
RoR is what they say officially, in peace negotiations, and in man-on-the-street interviews (see my previous link).
None of those random dozen Palestinians talked about "the settlements" except in the context of "all of Israel is a settlement".
We are still fighting over whether the Jews get a state. The core problem isn't the settlements, it's that the Palestinians view all of Israel as a "settlement" and want there to be no Israel and no Jews.
For what it's worth, here are some random Palestinian civilians talking about what they want. This channel does "Ask an Israeli/Ask a Palestinian Project".
They don't want peace. Nor do they want their own state if that means accepting Israel. They want the Jews to leave. "This is only our land".
Lee: Jews take up too much room and make too much noise for our population size.
Far as I can tell, if the world would just treat Jews as normal uninteresting people that's what they would be.
Normal countries are allowed to go to war over terrorism and kill civilians in the process. Witness our reply to 911 (and a long list of other wars). It's normal for "war".
For that matter normal countries are allowed to be ethnostates and even allowed to repress their minorities within limits.
North: The PA has maintained peacable de jeur relationships with Israel for many years now.
Other than having budget items for rewarding terrorists and dismissing the Trump peace plan as "hot garbage" because it didn't have a right to return; Sure, the PA can be bribed and threatened into working with Israel's security.
So... if Israel pulls out and leaves them in charge (maybe with international pressure for the PA to be less corrupt and more democratic), what should we expect to see happen?
Didn't Israel try that plan in Gaza and in Lebanon?
Israeli rights’ land seizures, vandalism, violent attacks and exclusionary development doesn’t constitute slow motion ethnic cleansing?
My claims are:
1) The dictionary definition of ethnic cleansing doesn't match what Israel is doing. That doesn't make it ethical. Unless they start forcing people to leave the West Bank (which they might) what they're doing seems to be closer to "Jim Crow".
2) The settlements don't matter because we're still stuck on "the right of return", i.e. "no Israel, no Jews".
If we want to have a detailed discussion on where Israel's borders should be, and which settlements should be removed, then there needs to be a partner for peace. The PA is still telling it's people there can't be peace without a right to return.
It's probably worth having another Camp David style sit down where we get everyone together and talk about having a peace agreement. However given that the PA can't even float "no RoR" as a trial balloon the only real purpose would be to make it clear to the West that they're not serious.
That said authority is corrupt and non-democratic is true but irrelevant.
IMHO the only reason it can cooperate with Israel on security (when it's not paying for terrorism) is because it's corrupt and not-democratic.
The generic Palestinians want their land back and that requires a war where they drive the Jews into the sea. Hamas represents the Palestinians on this issue.
The one hope from the current war is the Palestinians are getting a really good look at what war with Israel really looks like. Maybe their general ideology will be dropped if it's clearly shown to be failed.
But that's not going to happen if the world rides to the rescue to prevent the Palestinians from suffering the consequences of the war.
what Israel is up to in Gaza doesn’t meet the bar of genocide or ethnic cleansing… yet. I find the very purposeful ignoring of what Israel is getting up to in the territories intellectually dishonest
IMHO we can mostly ignore this only because the Palestinians are dialed up to eleven just because Israel exists. That has been repeatedly been made clear.
Various charters. Everything that happened before the settlements existed (the 3 no's). Various rejections of peace agreements because they don't include an Israel destroying Right of Return.
I'm sure they don't like the settlements, but there is nowhere to go after dialing it up to eleven. They've rejected peace offers that would fix the settlements (or even predate the settlements) in favor of trying for "No Israel, No Jews".
With or without the settlements this is not a fixable problem.
The big things that derailed Oslo were the assassination of Rabin (by a Jewish extremist), the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre (ditto), and Hamas' wave(s) of suicide bombings.
All of these were expressly done to disrupt the peace process and Oslo.
Yes, the settlements are also a big problem... although my impression was the Palestinians didn't get serious about peace until the settlements forced their hand.
Claiming that the Palestinians weren't involved in derailing Oslo ignores that Israel walking away from security tends to result in more terrorism.
Big picture there is absolutely a problem with lone wolf Jews engaging in terrorism and violence. However their counter parts among the Palestinians are way more organized and can even win elections from this sort of thing.
DavidTC: We’ve passed laws saying we won’t sell weapons to countries that did not sign and yet developed nuclear weapons.
My two minute search found we can't export nuclear tech or nuclear weapons to countries that haven't signed. That's not the same as "can't sell any weapons".
We do have laws that prevent us from sending weapons to countries which are committing genocide and the like. However invoking those depends on redefining 'genocide' to mean something like 'fighting a war'.
The pro-Palestinian movement does a lot of motte-and-bailey.
No one is in favor of "ethnic cleansing" so let's claim Israel is doing that and point to a legal case where land that changed hands in wars has a court rule on it.
That's the motte. The bailey is they want an Israel destroying right of return to undo what they claim is "ethnic cleansing".
The simple way to sum up their self expressed views is "No Israel, no Jews". They don't say that because it doesn't play well in the West, precisely because it is accurate.
I am pointing out that we need different words to describe what is going on. If we use normal rules, then it's reasonable for the gov to build neighborhoods in areas it controls and to have laws which control who owns what.
The complications are "who owns what" can be land which has changed hands several times because of wars and the "neighborhoods" can require security to prevent genocide and/or terrorism.
Normally we'd have some sort of peace agreement after the war ends which includes national borders.
Lee: I emotionally don’t like the idea of the Palestinians getting rewarded
Whatever happens won't be a "reward".
Israel should admit it doesn't have a partner for peace and won't for the foreseeable future. Then it should do what is in it's best interests. That might include pulling out of the WB, it will certainly include ignoring whatever the Palestinians want.
2nd issue is all those decades of obstruction and war with Israel have cost them dearly. They have lost land that they could have gotten from peace deals. Further that has happened repeatedly and repeatedly cost them more.
There has also been vast amounts of economic and other damage. All the jobs that people in Gaza had which involved working over the boarder for Jews went away permanently.
And they're not done digging. Hamas isn't going to surrender and won't be destroyed. Ergo after the Gaza war ends Israel will prevent Gaza from having military development, which will include preventing most economic development.
We're going to see the "open air prison" aspect of Gaza back but this time a lot more seriously.
Far as I can tell, we don't have vast numbers of Palestinians being kicked out of the West Bank. If we want to call it "ethnic cleansing" then that needs to happen.
What Israel is doing with the settlements is uncool and unwise, but that's just my opinion. The counter argument is they don't have settled boarders, and it's weird to insist land Israel controls should be Jew free because it is going to upset the genocidal jihadists.
IMHO relations are so poisonous between them that serious ethnic cleansing might be an path to improvement.
DavidTC: For example, if they’re doing ethnic cleanings.
Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. (wiki's definition).
The Palestinians aren't being forced to leave Gaza. If you can't make your case without redefining basic terms, then you have no case.
By normal language, Israel is engaged in a war. The terrorists they're fighting started the war, use their own population as human shields, and are responsible for the civilian death toll in Gaza if we use normal ethics.
By normal military standards for urban warfare the way Israel has fought the war has been fine. That doesn't mean no war crimes, but subtract the hysteria and they're doing better than most.
If we're going to stop supporting them it needs to be for some reason other than "genocide", "ethnic cleanings", and the like. Typically the reasoning seems to amount to "Israel shouldn't exist", or "war shouldn't exist".
DavidTC: Or have developed nuclear weapons without signing on to the non-proliferation treaty.
Not signing the treaty means they weren't bound by it. To the best of my knowledge we've passed no laws saying we'd punish countries who didn't sign.
The 4 UN nations who didn't sign are India, Israel, Pakistan, and South Sudan. North Korea joined in 1985 but pulled out in 2003.
DavidTC: notice how opposition to arming Israel is met with ‘You don’t oppose Hamas and they’re as bad’,
Israel is our ally and at war with civilian targeting genocidal terrorists.
The only reason to stop them would be if they're engaged in genocide (thus the accusations of genocide). Since Gaza's birth rate is higher than their death rate, when the war ends their population will have increased. Thus these accusations require redefining "genocide" to mean "fighting a war".
Opposition to the war seems to be based on the idea that Israel shouldn't exist, or that war shouldn't exist. Both of those seem unreasonable.
Larry is a convicted serial child rapist. That's bottom of the food chain by prison standards. He's going to be despised even by them. Just keeping him alive might require solitary confinement.
The death penalty might be less punishment. I'm not sure if any of his (many) crimes would have gotten him the death penalty since he didn't kill anyone.
Insisting that it be "equitable" is also insisting it be eliminated. Criminals don't commit crimes by percentage of population nor do we even have a definition on what "equitable" would even mean.
Thank heaven for small mercies, Sebastian was not strangled before doing this. The fellow travelers on the subway made sure to get video instead of acting like vigilantes.
And that is why the jury refused to convict Penny.
He's leaving them in prison. We're just done with the idea that we're going to be executing those guys so we're done with the expensive fighting about it.
One of the big arguments against the death penalty is we don't seem able to do it right. We convict someone and then spend the next 30 years navel gazing over whether or not we're going to kill them.
Iran contra was in 1987 and it was obvious then.
His staff presumably understood it earlier.
Alzheimers was probably the source of all of his "absent mindedness" which was a thing before his first term.
I get to say that she wasn't up to being elected because she did so poorly in running.
And burden of proof here is mostly on you. If you're trying to claim she was super competent then you should be pointing to her record, ideally her VP record.
The only thing of significance I can think of is her boarder czar role where she never bothered to visit the boarder and didn't accomplish anything.
Yes, that's why I say Sarah wasn't ready for the big time. Alaska (like a few other states) is the size of a city. If we're reaching down to that level we should also include big city mayors.
There is less management, leadership, governance, and difficulty in getting elected if we compare being a DA to being a governor. It's a stronger "signal".
Blue could (and should) have taken a look at current and former Blue governors. Make a list, take the most charismatic and successful and you're basically there.
More importantly, trying to claim Harris was "better" than Sarah, even if we accept that as true, doesn't change that neither of them were ready. Both could be expected to be terrible candidates because of their lack of experience in the big time and their ideological extremism.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Joe Biden Agrees that Some People *DO* Deserve the Death Penalty”
West Bank
Fair enough. I stand corrected. Slow motion ethnic cleansing it is.
They could set their borders unilaterally at any time
Sure. The problem is if they do that strongly implies they'll be pulling out of the other places.
Which could instantly result in them being turned into terror bases.
and their governments say the same thing
The other governments are far away and can say this sort of stuff cost and impact free. The Palestinians have walked away from peace agreements and engaged in serious terrorism over it.
It's a massive leap of faith to think they're engaging in terrorism and are upset over settlements when they claim otherwise, even at a negotiating table that could end the settlements and result in them getting a country.
"
North: Israel was able to devastate both foes since they had little entanglement
This is true. However if we're comparing the WB to Gaza one can reasonably think the former outcome is more desirable.
North: Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal... from a given area
If someone is being forced to move from Gaza to Gaza, is that "ethnic cleansing"? I see that claim a lot from the same people who claim the same for the WB.
North: two decades of violent steady but gradual land expropriate and dispossession doesn’t count as ethnic cleansing because, what, it’s too gradual?
Do a deep dive on a specific case about a specific house and we're going to find the Arabs being removed didn't own it. Far as I can tell the settlements are new construction. The toxic part is the security needed to protect it.
North: As for the right of return? It’s a canard and we both know it. ...That the PA or other Palestinian representatives won’t say the magic words
You and I agree it's insane and Israel will never allow it. Where we disagree is you are claiming the Palestinians aren't serious but I see nothing to support that.
RoR is what they say officially, in peace negotiations, and in man-on-the-street interviews (see my previous link).
None of those random dozen Palestinians talked about "the settlements" except in the context of "all of Israel is a settlement".
We are still fighting over whether the Jews get a state. The core problem isn't the settlements, it's that the Palestinians view all of Israel as a "settlement" and want there to be no Israel and no Jews.
"
For what it's worth, here are some random Palestinian civilians talking about what they want. This channel does "Ask an Israeli/Ask a Palestinian Project".
They don't want peace. Nor do they want their own state if that means accepting Israel. They want the Jews to leave. "This is only our land".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH1iV1fb2pg
"
Lee: Jews take up too much room and make too much noise for our population size.
Far as I can tell, if the world would just treat Jews as normal uninteresting people that's what they would be.
Normal countries are allowed to go to war over terrorism and kill civilians in the process. Witness our reply to 911 (and a long list of other wars). It's normal for "war".
For that matter normal countries are allowed to be ethnostates and even allowed to repress their minorities within limits.
"
Asking the legal system to deal with issues that were resolved (sometimes multiple times) by wars is a bit of a problem.
"
North: The PA has maintained peacable de jeur relationships with Israel for many years now.
Other than having budget items for rewarding terrorists and dismissing the Trump peace plan as "hot garbage" because it didn't have a right to return; Sure, the PA can be bribed and threatened into working with Israel's security.
So... if Israel pulls out and leaves them in charge (maybe with international pressure for the PA to be less corrupt and more democratic), what should we expect to see happen?
Didn't Israel try that plan in Gaza and in Lebanon?
Israeli rights’ land seizures, vandalism, violent attacks and exclusionary development doesn’t constitute slow motion ethnic cleansing?
My claims are:
1) The dictionary definition of ethnic cleansing doesn't match what Israel is doing. That doesn't make it ethical. Unless they start forcing people to leave the West Bank (which they might) what they're doing seems to be closer to "Jim Crow".
2) The settlements don't matter because we're still stuck on "the right of return", i.e. "no Israel, no Jews".
If we want to have a detailed discussion on where Israel's borders should be, and which settlements should be removed, then there needs to be a partner for peace. The PA is still telling it's people there can't be peace without a right to return.
It's probably worth having another Camp David style sit down where we get everyone together and talk about having a peace agreement. However given that the PA can't even float "no RoR" as a trial balloon the only real purpose would be to make it clear to the West that they're not serious.
"
That said authority is corrupt and non-democratic is true but irrelevant.
IMHO the only reason it can cooperate with Israel on security (when it's not paying for terrorism) is because it's corrupt and not-democratic.
The generic Palestinians want their land back and that requires a war where they drive the Jews into the sea. Hamas represents the Palestinians on this issue.
The one hope from the current war is the Palestinians are getting a really good look at what war with Israel really looks like. Maybe their general ideology will be dropped if it's clearly shown to be failed.
But that's not going to happen if the world rides to the rescue to prevent the Palestinians from suffering the consequences of the war.
what Israel is up to in Gaza doesn’t meet the bar of genocide or ethnic cleansing… yet. I find the very purposeful ignoring of what Israel is getting up to in the territories intellectually dishonest
IMHO we can mostly ignore this only because the Palestinians are dialed up to eleven just because Israel exists. That has been repeatedly been made clear.
Various charters. Everything that happened before the settlements existed (the 3 no's). Various rejections of peace agreements because they don't include an Israel destroying Right of Return.
I'm sure they don't like the settlements, but there is nowhere to go after dialing it up to eleven. They've rejected peace offers that would fix the settlements (or even predate the settlements) in favor of trying for "No Israel, No Jews".
With or without the settlements this is not a fixable problem.
"
this is not the fault of Palestinians.
The big things that derailed Oslo were the assassination of Rabin (by a Jewish extremist), the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre (ditto), and Hamas' wave(s) of suicide bombings.
All of these were expressly done to disrupt the peace process and Oslo.
Yes, the settlements are also a big problem... although my impression was the Palestinians didn't get serious about peace until the settlements forced their hand.
Claiming that the Palestinians weren't involved in derailing Oslo ignores that Israel walking away from security tends to result in more terrorism.
Big picture there is absolutely a problem with lone wolf Jews engaging in terrorism and violence. However their counter parts among the Palestinians are way more organized and can even win elections from this sort of thing.
"
DavidTC: We’ve passed laws saying we won’t sell weapons to countries that did not sign and yet developed nuclear weapons.
My two minute search found we can't export nuclear tech or nuclear weapons to countries that haven't signed. That's not the same as "can't sell any weapons".
We do have laws that prevent us from sending weapons to countries which are committing genocide and the like. However invoking those depends on redefining 'genocide' to mean something like 'fighting a war'.
"
The pro-Palestinian movement does a lot of motte-and-bailey.
No one is in favor of "ethnic cleansing" so let's claim Israel is doing that and point to a legal case where land that changed hands in wars has a court rule on it.
That's the motte. The bailey is they want an Israel destroying right of return to undo what they claim is "ethnic cleansing".
The simple way to sum up their self expressed views is "No Israel, no Jews". They don't say that because it doesn't play well in the West, precisely because it is accurate.
"
I am pointing out that we need different words to describe what is going on. If we use normal rules, then it's reasonable for the gov to build neighborhoods in areas it controls and to have laws which control who owns what.
The complications are "who owns what" can be land which has changed hands several times because of wars and the "neighborhoods" can require security to prevent genocide and/or terrorism.
Normally we'd have some sort of peace agreement after the war ends which includes national borders.
"
Lee: I emotionally don’t like the idea of the Palestinians getting rewarded
Whatever happens won't be a "reward".
Israel should admit it doesn't have a partner for peace and won't for the foreseeable future. Then it should do what is in it's best interests. That might include pulling out of the WB, it will certainly include ignoring whatever the Palestinians want.
2nd issue is all those decades of obstruction and war with Israel have cost them dearly. They have lost land that they could have gotten from peace deals. Further that has happened repeatedly and repeatedly cost them more.
There has also been vast amounts of economic and other damage. All the jobs that people in Gaza had which involved working over the boarder for Jews went away permanently.
And they're not done digging. Hamas isn't going to surrender and won't be destroyed. Ergo after the Gaza war ends Israel will prevent Gaza from having military development, which will include preventing most economic development.
We're going to see the "open air prison" aspect of Gaza back but this time a lot more seriously.
"
North: *cough* The West Bank?
Far as I can tell, we don't have vast numbers of Palestinians being kicked out of the West Bank. If we want to call it "ethnic cleansing" then that needs to happen.
What Israel is doing with the settlements is uncool and unwise, but that's just my opinion. The counter argument is they don't have settled boarders, and it's weird to insist land Israel controls should be Jew free because it is going to upset the genocidal jihadists.
IMHO relations are so poisonous between them that serious ethnic cleansing might be an path to improvement.
"
DavidTC: For example, if they’re doing ethnic cleanings.
Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. (wiki's definition).
The Palestinians aren't being forced to leave Gaza. If you can't make your case without redefining basic terms, then you have no case.
By normal language, Israel is engaged in a war. The terrorists they're fighting started the war, use their own population as human shields, and are responsible for the civilian death toll in Gaza if we use normal ethics.
By normal military standards for urban warfare the way Israel has fought the war has been fine. That doesn't mean no war crimes, but subtract the hysteria and they're doing better than most.
If we're going to stop supporting them it needs to be for some reason other than "genocide", "ethnic cleanings", and the like. Typically the reasoning seems to amount to "Israel shouldn't exist", or "war shouldn't exist".
DavidTC: Or have developed nuclear weapons without signing on to the non-proliferation treaty.
Not signing the treaty means they weren't bound by it. To the best of my knowledge we've passed no laws saying we'd punish countries who didn't sign.
The 4 UN nations who didn't sign are India, Israel, Pakistan, and South Sudan. North Korea joined in 1985 but pulled out in 2003.
"
DavidTC: notice how opposition to arming Israel is met with ‘You don’t oppose Hamas and they’re as bad’,
Israel is our ally and at war with civilian targeting genocidal terrorists.
The only reason to stop them would be if they're engaged in genocide (thus the accusations of genocide). Since Gaza's birth rate is higher than their death rate, when the war ends their population will have increased. Thus these accusations require redefining "genocide" to mean "fighting a war".
Opposition to the war seems to be based on the idea that Israel shouldn't exist, or that war shouldn't exist. Both of those seem unreasonable.
"
Jaybird: Back in 2023, Larry Nassar got shivved in prison. What was the most common response?
https://apnews.com/article/larry-nassar-gymnastics-stabbed-prison-98c5ca2052f0ebce4a785f5fa2b2ede2
Larry is a convicted serial child rapist. That's bottom of the food chain by prison standards. He's going to be despised even by them. Just keeping him alive might require solitary confinement.
The death penalty might be less punishment. I'm not sure if any of his (many) crimes would have gotten him the death penalty since he didn't kill anyone.
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/23/2024”
If there were enough red flags and he slipped through the cracks in the system enough, then that's a deep-sounding pronouncement itself.
For example the guy who Penny killed had a history of attacking random people and had been arrested 42 times before that time.
At some point we get to say it's a serious flaw in the system itself.
On “Joe Biden Agrees that Some People *DO* Deserve the Death Penalty”
Insisting that it be "equitable" is also insisting it be eliminated. Criminals don't commit crimes by percentage of population nor do we even have a definition on what "equitable" would even mean.
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/23/2024”
Thank heaven for small mercies, Sebastian was not strangled before doing this. The fellow travelers on the subway made sure to get video instead of acting like vigilantes.
And that is why the jury refused to convict Penny.
On “Joe Biden Agrees that Some People *DO* Deserve the Death Penalty”
He's leaving them in prison. We're just done with the idea that we're going to be executing those guys so we're done with the expensive fighting about it.
One of the big arguments against the death penalty is we don't seem able to do it right. We convict someone and then spend the next 30 years navel gazing over whether or not we're going to kill them.
On “From The Wall Street Journal: How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in Charge”
Iran contra was in 1987 and it was obvious then.
His staff presumably understood it earlier.
Alzheimers was probably the source of all of his "absent mindedness" which was a thing before his first term.
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024”
I get to say that she wasn't up to being elected because she did so poorly in running.
And burden of proof here is mostly on you. If you're trying to claim she was super competent then you should be pointing to her record, ideally her VP record.
The only thing of significance I can think of is her boarder czar role where she never bothered to visit the boarder and didn't accomplish anything.
"
Phil: As does a sitting VP.
This is the strongest part of her resume. I excluded that because she didn't have it when she was picked to be VP.
Having said that, she seemed to be given a lot of authority in her first year in Biden's term and then ignored the last three.
She certainly wasn't being groomed for the top spot up until she had to take over.
"
Yes, that's why I say Sarah wasn't ready for the big time. Alaska (like a few other states) is the size of a city. If we're reaching down to that level we should also include big city mayors.
"
There is less management, leadership, governance, and difficulty in getting elected if we compare being a DA to being a governor. It's a stronger "signal".
Blue could (and should) have taken a look at current and former Blue governors. Make a list, take the most charismatic and successful and you're basically there.
More importantly, trying to claim Harris was "better" than Sarah, even if we accept that as true, doesn't change that neither of them were ready. Both could be expected to be terrible candidates because of their lack of experience in the big time and their ideological extremism.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.