The United States has corrupted Israel for decades by giving unquestioning backing to whatever Israel does. Years ago, Netanyahu said "No one can judge Israel." What he meant was, "It doesn't matter if others judge us. They can't harm us, because the U.S. will back us no matter what." He has continued this sustained aggression ever since Oct. 7 to maintain a state of unending crisis so that he can escape responsibility for his extraordinary incompetence and record of failure, a record that sensibly endangers the continued existence of Israel. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the Democrats remain terrified of offending the Israeli lobby while the Republicans strive to outdo themselves in blind loyalty to Israel.
A significant number of the right wing parties that make up the coalition that Netanyahu and Likud depends upon to remain in power will tolerate nothing less than the expulsion of the Palestinians and complete retaking of "the historic homeland" which God gave them (defined depending on the biblical text preferred from a minimal to maximalist territory. The creation of a "Greater Israel" that extends from the east of the Jordan to the Sea (including Gaza) has been part of Likud's founding objectives, set aside for a time but once again being advanced by the religious right parties. The reason it was set aside then was because by annexing (not just occupying) parts of Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan they would need to accommodate more Arabs in a single Israeli state and undo the whole idea of a Jewish State. Israel recognized no "right of return" for any Arabs. In the 1980s it was considered politically impossible to either expel Arabs so the programs of settlements displacing Arabs began in earnest.
The difference in 2024 is the idea of making life for the Arabs impossible will increase the number of voluntary departures and reducing the remaining Arabs to a manageable number easily policed and controlled.
So it is politically impossible for Netanyahu to do anything other than what he is doing. To moderate or negotiate would lose a good portion of his base. His intelligence service has probably already aware that most, if not all, of the remaining hostages have been murdered so the cease fire negotiations serve no purpose. Provoking Iran is the surest way to pull his allies further into a regional war.
The "Iran is 10 days away from having a nuclear bomb" canard is so reminiscent of the lead up to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 that it hurts the thinking brain... it has been "10 days away..." for several years now. Shouldn't he just say they HAVE nuclear weapons? Why has Iran been holding back for all this time to close the 10 day window?
I am not really criticizing Israel for its choices in prosecuting their belligerent approach. It is what it is but Biden and the West should get sober about the political realities within which Netanyahu is operating and look at the long range implications of what is going on today.
Most importantly, when the rest of the west says "Don't use nukes", Israel will dutifully use nukes. Nothing matters to Israel except its own survival on its own terms.
The US must end the isolation if Israel by destroying the ability of Iran to make war. Dismantling the Iranian government is the only road to a long-term peace and is, therefore, in the interest of the US and all people in the region who want to live free of fundamentalist Islam.
Netanyahu is at least as big of a barrier to peace as any member of the IRGC, Hamas, or Hezbollah that you care to name. And dear Bibi needs those enemies more than any living Israeli.
Peace shouldn't be the goal, because pursuing only peace has caused us to sacrifice any chance of real peace. Defeating Iran, which places destroying Israel above the welfare of Muslims in the region, will lead to peace. As in our personal lives, avoiding conflict at all costs prevents us from the growth that confrontation can bring.
Avoiding conflict at all costs can cause problems.
That sure as hell is not Netanyahu's problem.
Netanyahu is a deeper and more immediate threat to Israel's national security and continued existence, so maybe you are a little right that some confrontation could be healthy. Just a little different from the conflicts you suggest.
I despise Bibi and our part in helping to keep his butt in power. Like trump, he needs to be tried for the crimes he’s been charged with. He’s warring to stay away from justice at the expense of world peace. If our politicians had the guts to cut off his weapons and withdraw our ships from the area we might find out how brave Netanyahu really is. Either that or he’d blow up that part of the world. He’s poison for the region. He’s killed thousands of innocents trying to kill an idea. He’s poured fuel all over that part of the world and is sitting with a lit match just waiting to toss it.
Thanks for the fascinating glimpse into the psychology of how someone can be so invested in a particular narrative that their rationalizations start bordering on the ludicrous.
I wonder how this logic would work in other scenarios: So because Hitler wanted to destroy the Jewish population, he put people in camps and provided water and electricity for years? That doesn’t even pass the laugh test.
Does that sound like a compelling argument to you? Or something a Holocaust denier would say? Because I’d say the latter.
And just to be clear, the IDF seized control of all water supply in Gaza and the West Bank in 1967. The water Palestinians received was always separate from the water supplied to Israeli citizens and was turned on and off at will. When Palestinians tried to prepare for the unreliability of the water supply by building cisterns to collect rain water, they were arrested and the cisterns were destroyed. Israel literally prevented Palestinians from accessing water *from the sky*!
But that was *before* October 7th. After that date, Israel has halted *all* water and electricity supplied to Gaza. The Palestinians who are still alive are surviving largely on the small amount provided by the limited humanitarian relief organizations that have not yet been blocked by Israel.
You can argue that Israel’s blockade of water is warranted. I would disagree, but at least it’s a logical position. OTOH, the argument that “Israel can’t possibly be intent on destroying Palestine *because they were/are providing Palestinians with water and electricity* “ is just factually untrue.
Here’s where your lengthy analogy falls apart: Jews were some of the most productive citizens of Germany before Hitler decided,without provocation, to exterminate them. People in Gaza,by contrast, are not interested in producing what they need to flourish, like water and electricity, preferring instead to exterminate the Jews.
Just letting people know that Mr. Dial’s original statement about why Palestinians civilians deserved to die and Jews in the Holocaust did not, was that the former were “evil” while “Jews were innocent”
Apparently he realized that such a statement might sound racist and heartless (it did) so he amended it to the slightly less nakedly racist and heartless argument used by people like Ayn Rand and Ronald Reagan that “Palestinians [deserve to die] because they don’t produce [water and electricity] whereas Jews do”.
This facile and self satisfying rationalization is wrong not just on the merits (if someone fails to produce something, they are the only ones who suffer) but in this case, it is also completely baseless. It perpetuates a false stereotype and fails to account for the fact that Western Countries like Britain and the United States helped to establish and fund (and continue to fund) the State of Israel and that many Jewish people also received reparations from Germany.
Had he read the articles I had posted, he would have understood that Palestinians do not have rights to water because Israel seized it in 1963 nor do they have the right to own or build on land without permission from the Israeli government which has shown zero interest in creating the conditions needed for Palestinians to survive much less flourish. I should not have to say, though I will, that Jewish people in concentration camps were also not producing food, water or electricity for their own consumption. But unlike Mr. Dial, I do not think that this somebody justifies murder.
There is one other commonality between Jewish people in concentration camps and the Palestinians in Gaza. According to one anecdote, a man who was sent to a concentration camp started praying after he got there. When a fellow prisoner asked him “what on earth he had to pray about?!?”, he answered “I thank God that He did not make me like *them*”. I encountered the same sentiment echoed in a poem by a Palestinian poet.
So rather than get angry or upset by the willful ignorance, racism and heartlessness expressed by people like Mr. Dial, I choose to follow the example of those brave souls and Thank God that he did not make me like him. I pray that one day God grants him the ability to regard his fellow humans as humans and know that the death of an innocent child is always a tragedy regardless of whether her parents are Jewish or Arab or American and whether or not they produced sufficient amounts of the things Mr. Dial considers valuable.
All you have to do is take out Iran and militant Islam will wither on the vine. Although every president beginning with Carter has refused to protect Americans from Iran, G. W. Bush was the worst because he bizarrely attacked Iraq instead of Iran...and then lost.
Netanyahu needs enemies more than anything or anyone. The lives of Israelis or Jews are frankly beside his point. If war ends, so does his Premiership.
The United States has corrupted Israel for decades by giving unquestioning backing to whatever Israel does. Years ago, Netanyahu said "No one can judge Israel." What he meant was, "It doesn't matter if others judge us. They can't harm us, because the U.S. will back us no matter what." He has continued this sustained aggression ever since Oct. 7 to maintain a state of unending crisis so that he can escape responsibility for his extraordinary incompetence and record of failure, a record that sensibly endangers the continued existence of Israel. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the Democrats remain terrified of offending the Israeli lobby while the Republicans strive to outdo themselves in blind loyalty to Israel.
A significant number of the right wing parties that make up the coalition that Netanyahu and Likud depends upon to remain in power will tolerate nothing less than the expulsion of the Palestinians and complete retaking of "the historic homeland" which God gave them (defined depending on the biblical text preferred from a minimal to maximalist territory. The creation of a "Greater Israel" that extends from the east of the Jordan to the Sea (including Gaza) has been part of Likud's founding objectives, set aside for a time but once again being advanced by the religious right parties. The reason it was set aside then was because by annexing (not just occupying) parts of Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan they would need to accommodate more Arabs in a single Israeli state and undo the whole idea of a Jewish State. Israel recognized no "right of return" for any Arabs. In the 1980s it was considered politically impossible to either expel Arabs so the programs of settlements displacing Arabs began in earnest.
The difference in 2024 is the idea of making life for the Arabs impossible will increase the number of voluntary departures and reducing the remaining Arabs to a manageable number easily policed and controlled.
So it is politically impossible for Netanyahu to do anything other than what he is doing. To moderate or negotiate would lose a good portion of his base. His intelligence service has probably already aware that most, if not all, of the remaining hostages have been murdered so the cease fire negotiations serve no purpose. Provoking Iran is the surest way to pull his allies further into a regional war.
The "Iran is 10 days away from having a nuclear bomb" canard is so reminiscent of the lead up to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 that it hurts the thinking brain... it has been "10 days away..." for several years now. Shouldn't he just say they HAVE nuclear weapons? Why has Iran been holding back for all this time to close the 10 day window?
I am not really criticizing Israel for its choices in prosecuting their belligerent approach. It is what it is but Biden and the West should get sober about the political realities within which Netanyahu is operating and look at the long range implications of what is going on today.
This is excellent. Thanks.
Most importantly, when the rest of the west says "Don't use nukes", Israel will dutifully use nukes. Nothing matters to Israel except its own survival on its own terms.
The US must end the isolation if Israel by destroying the ability of Iran to make war. Dismantling the Iranian government is the only road to a long-term peace and is, therefore, in the interest of the US and all people in the region who want to live free of fundamentalist Islam.
Netanyahu is at least as big of a barrier to peace as any member of the IRGC, Hamas, or Hezbollah that you care to name. And dear Bibi needs those enemies more than any living Israeli.
Peace shouldn't be the goal, because pursuing only peace has caused us to sacrifice any chance of real peace. Defeating Iran, which places destroying Israel above the welfare of Muslims in the region, will lead to peace. As in our personal lives, avoiding conflict at all costs prevents us from the growth that confrontation can bring.
Avoiding conflict at all costs can cause problems.
That sure as hell is not Netanyahu's problem.
Netanyahu is a deeper and more immediate threat to Israel's national security and continued existence, so maybe you are a little right that some confrontation could be healthy. Just a little different from the conflicts you suggest.
I despise Bibi and our part in helping to keep his butt in power. Like trump, he needs to be tried for the crimes he’s been charged with. He’s warring to stay away from justice at the expense of world peace. If our politicians had the guts to cut off his weapons and withdraw our ships from the area we might find out how brave Netanyahu really is. Either that or he’d blow up that part of the world. He’s poison for the region. He’s killed thousands of innocents trying to kill an idea. He’s poured fuel all over that part of the world and is sitting with a lit match just waiting to toss it.
31 years from 48-79. No peace. Deafeating Iran will not bring peace. Going back to 1948 UN borders will bring peace. The sooner the better.
Why does that theory not apply to Israeli leaders who place the destruction of Palestine above the welfare of Jews in the region?
So because Israel wants to destroy Palestine, they’ve been providing water and electricity for decades? That doesn’t even pass the laugh test.
Thanks for the fascinating glimpse into the psychology of how someone can be so invested in a particular narrative that their rationalizations start bordering on the ludicrous.
I wonder how this logic would work in other scenarios: So because Hitler wanted to destroy the Jewish population, he put people in camps and provided water and electricity for years? That doesn’t even pass the laugh test.
Does that sound like a compelling argument to you? Or something a Holocaust denier would say? Because I’d say the latter.
And just to be clear, the IDF seized control of all water supply in Gaza and the West Bank in 1967. The water Palestinians received was always separate from the water supplied to Israeli citizens and was turned on and off at will. When Palestinians tried to prepare for the unreliability of the water supply by building cisterns to collect rain water, they were arrested and the cisterns were destroyed. Israel literally prevented Palestinians from accessing water *from the sky*!
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/11/the-occupation-of-water/
But that was *before* October 7th. After that date, Israel has halted *all* water and electricity supplied to Gaza. The Palestinians who are still alive are surviving largely on the small amount provided by the limited humanitarian relief organizations that have not yet been blocked by Israel.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/siege-gazas-water
You can argue that Israel’s blockade of water is warranted. I would disagree, but at least it’s a logical position. OTOH, the argument that “Israel can’t possibly be intent on destroying Palestine *because they were/are providing Palestinians with water and electricity* “ is just factually untrue.
Here’s where your lengthy analogy falls apart: Jews were some of the most productive citizens of Germany before Hitler decided,without provocation, to exterminate them. People in Gaza,by contrast, are not interested in producing what they need to flourish, like water and electricity, preferring instead to exterminate the Jews.
Just letting people know that Mr. Dial’s original statement about why Palestinians civilians deserved to die and Jews in the Holocaust did not, was that the former were “evil” while “Jews were innocent”
Apparently he realized that such a statement might sound racist and heartless (it did) so he amended it to the slightly less nakedly racist and heartless argument used by people like Ayn Rand and Ronald Reagan that “Palestinians [deserve to die] because they don’t produce [water and electricity] whereas Jews do”.
This facile and self satisfying rationalization is wrong not just on the merits (if someone fails to produce something, they are the only ones who suffer) but in this case, it is also completely baseless. It perpetuates a false stereotype and fails to account for the fact that Western Countries like Britain and the United States helped to establish and fund (and continue to fund) the State of Israel and that many Jewish people also received reparations from Germany.
Had he read the articles I had posted, he would have understood that Palestinians do not have rights to water because Israel seized it in 1963 nor do they have the right to own or build on land without permission from the Israeli government which has shown zero interest in creating the conditions needed for Palestinians to survive much less flourish. I should not have to say, though I will, that Jewish people in concentration camps were also not producing food, water or electricity for their own consumption. But unlike Mr. Dial, I do not think that this somebody justifies murder.
There is one other commonality between Jewish people in concentration camps and the Palestinians in Gaza. According to one anecdote, a man who was sent to a concentration camp started praying after he got there. When a fellow prisoner asked him “what on earth he had to pray about?!?”, he answered “I thank God that He did not make me like *them*”. I encountered the same sentiment echoed in a poem by a Palestinian poet.
So rather than get angry or upset by the willful ignorance, racism and heartlessness expressed by people like Mr. Dial, I choose to follow the example of those brave souls and Thank God that he did not make me like him. I pray that one day God grants him the ability to regard his fellow humans as humans and know that the death of an innocent child is always a tragedy regardless of whether her parents are Jewish or Arab or American and whether or not they produced sufficient amounts of the things Mr. Dial considers valuable.
Didn't we try this already?
No, we never have and that’s why we’ve never defeated militant Islam
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/taken-hostage-presidents-shah-strategic-partnership/
How do we defeat “militant Islam”?
And which "militant Islam" since the "militants" that do exist are not a monolith and have very different objectives in pursuing a militant pathway?
All you have to do is take out Iran and militant Islam will wither on the vine. Although every president beginning with Carter has refused to protect Americans from Iran, G. W. Bush was the worst because he bizarrely attacked Iraq instead of Iran...and then lost.
Netanyahu needs enemies more than anything or anyone. The lives of Israelis or Jews are frankly beside his point. If war ends, so does his Premiership.