i have been seeing on social media lately that people consider this a war. asking questions "what if israel surrenders/loses?" israel cannot and will not "lose" this battle, no matter what. for one, if virtually every other country in the middle east attacked israel, they would get their asses kicked. israel is the most powerful country in themiddle east. by far. even if israel was to somehow get overtaken, the rest of the world wouldn't allow them to lose. if israel laid down their arms, this planet would instantly have 500 loose nukes in the wind, up for grabs for islamic fundamentalists who are jonesing to turn this entire planet into a debris field. no other nation is going to sit back and let that happen. much less many major nations are dominated by monotheistic beliefs and they don't like the idea of their holiest sights and artifacts in the hands of "evil-doers".
can you imagine what would happen if any of the muslim terror groups got hold of a nuclear warhead? that's the stuff of their wet dreams. they would more than likely accidentally detonate it on themselves. but still, its the thought that counts.
my question was why they get to be separated as a fringe element in israeli society, while you paint palestinians and arabs in one stroke of having dirty hands.
for a start? one side is a legitimate western democracy in which fringe elements occasionally lobby for shitty policy and get their way. the other side is run by an islamic fundamentalist terror group who's stated goal is to destroy that democracy, establish an islamic caliphate in the region, and are well on their way to doing it in the section of land they control (suspending all elections, executing dissenters and moderates as "israeli collaborators," etc...). basically, in gaza, the fringe is the only authority. the palestinians elected them with backing from outside powers in the region (muslim brotherhood, syria, iran, etc). they literally thought their best option was to elect a group who publicly supports al qaeda and isis; a group that doesn't give two shits about the palestinian people or finding a peaceful solution. now everyone sees the consequences and is like "ooops... we fucked up." dirty hands and consequences, my friend. edit: yeah, there's no way israel gets overrun militarily. they are the biggest, baddest kid on the block when it comes to conventional military forces and could easily mop the floor with their neighbors in a fight for survival (i.e. when they aren't picking targets based on public image issues). some fun reading on the topic: why arab armies lose wars israel's nuclear deterrence strategy
two big myths: 1. there's only a handful islamic fundamentalists. it's true that these radical groups represent a small percentage of the muslims, but there's over 1.5 billion muslims worldwide. in the volatile regions of the middle east these people are everywhere, and if you add all of these groups up you're talking about millions, probably tens of millions of members. there's also a big misconception that groups that have not yet been labeled as terrorist organizations are peaceful. 2. if we make reasonable agreements and negotiations with moderate muslims these 'fringe' groups will start to dissipate. these groups live in a culture that values perpetual war. that's why we can't win in afghanistan. it exists as a country only in name. in reality it's a band of rival tribes that hate each other and hate us even more. the long term goal of some fundamentalist groups is a world wide caliphate, but this is completely impractical and an oversimplification of what these groups do. their membership, their goals, and their alliances all change daily. they try to play the other factions off against each other while seeking any advantage to extend their power. it's kind of like european medieval nobility, but even more violent. what i'm trying to say is israel can't cut a deal with hamas. organizations like theirs will lie, cheat, murder, do anything to increase their influence. if you put an agreement in writing with them it might as well just be a piece of paper they can wipe their ass with. the best hope for israel is to see hamas overthrown and then allow the palestinians to establish a leadership whose words are worth a damn. still - groups like hamas will not just go away. any territorial concessions israel considers must come with the reality that groups like hamas will be there.
i've thought about this since you posted it. what you have done here is make an assertion without any back up. what leads you to the conclusion you have stated above? for instance, the questions i'd want answered are the following: 1. what land is palestinian? what is the justification for those lands being palestinian? 2. when was the land taken away? is there a justification for those lands being removed from palestinian control? 3. if there is no justification for the taking of palestinian lands, which countries are backing the continued removal of that land from palestinian control? 4. is there a 'map' of lands that the palestinians would be satisfied with? does any such map include israel or lands under jewish control? 5. if there is such a map, would it be feasible? would the parties accept such a map? ultimately, what gets missed a lot in this dispute is people place too much emphasis on the religious aspect of the fight. this fight is largely geographic, and has been for the past 60 years. there are certainly extremists on both sides. the question as to peace remains: is there a map that gives everyone what they supposedly want?
although a risk, its not a very likely one. that uranium has to get enriched somewhere and it takes a lot of resources to get a weapon's grade amount to make a functional warhead. theres no enrichment facility on earth that's not being monitored. the risk is trying to enrich it in some poorly run, ramshackle facility and accidentally (or intentionally) setting off a dirty bomb. low or zero explosiveness, but high irradiation. as for israel, every single able-bodied citizen gets military training and even if they're not active duty, they could be called to mobilize at any given moment. if they somehow got overrun, they would throw a hail mary and turn the middle east into glass with their arsenal.
no. we're talking about a region of land that's been in disputed ownership more or less constantly since jesus was a contemporary character. it's become the focus of more religious weight and social/nationalist identity pressure than any other chunk of realestate and is core to the central identity of a group of people who are more despised than almost any other demographic other than duke athletics and they're sitting really close to a group o people who hate them as much as the commenters at feministe hate duke sports. at some point, we all need to acknowledge that it's a fucking war zone and understand that it's not going to be resolved until one side resolves the issue - and that's not looking like it's going to happen without an 8 figure death count. neither side wants to be seen as fighting a war, nor held to account for their civilian casualties. it suits everyone's agenda to play the hard done by party and try and leverage external support to minimize their own losses in what's playing out.
longer ago than that. as i said before, but, even before that. a hundred thousand years ago, homo sapiens were in iraq. at some point, most likely overlapping time, homo neanderthalensis were in africa. if you've wandered in north africa, you can't go west or you're in the ocean, you can't go north or you're in the med sea, you can't go south or you're in the desert. so, you head east / northeast. you know where these homo neanderthalensis bump into homo sapiens? israel. as long as there have been people, they've been fighting over that land. once religion got in the mix several thousand years before jesus, they never stood a chance of resolving it. it won't ever be resolved, ever. the best intentions and best people or governments can only succeed in slowing down the death toll and destruction.
its been making its rounds on the web this week, and i think someone may have mentioned it on this board already, but the public discovery of us/uk task force black sounds like something out of a tom clancy novel. its just a squad of sas/devgru/delta members that operates autonomously and has the sole purpose of assassinating isis militants. the fact that were just learning about it now probably means that they've been around for a while, but still pretty interesting.
you mean, the fact that we're just learning about it means a new group you've never heard about is already in place.
probably. kind of like how people thought seal team 6 was a new thing when bin laden got capped or that government spying on emails was a new thing when the nsa stuff got leaked. i have nothing to back it up, but i just assume that any time any information like this comes out, its not something brand new. its all in the strateegery.
you know what actually reminds me of stalin? executing political dissidents, and publishing shit like this in your official charter. did it ever occur to you that during this conflict hamas has executed, by far, many more of it's own civilians - so called traitors, than they've killed israeli soldiers? go look up hamas' official charter. if you can make it all the way through without thinking these people are mentally ill you might want to check yourself in to the nearest facility. http://www.maannews.net/eng/viewdetails.aspx?id=722656 that is an example, there are dozens more of such stories if you care to look, and it gets to the crux of the problem with the bizarre mindset that all problems in the region are western/israeli caused. we want to believe that through more education, being 'nicer' on a global stage, sending more economic aid, and making more concessions that these problems will eventually fix themselves, and that it's not really about radical islam because that's only a result of our own doing. people want to support hamas because israel is stronger, and the palestinians suffer higher casualties. in reality, the casualties would be astronomically higher if hamas had the military capacity to execute their goals rather than just aiming for martyrs and short term political victories. their current goals are to convince naive people that they have a moral high ground in the conflict so they can chip away and get the resources they need to further a stronger army that can confront israel head on. several nations, including other predominantly muslim states like egypt label them as a terrorist organization, but does that matter to you? does it matter what their political agenda is, or how much evidence is displayed portraying those with political power in gaza for what they are, or is it a simple matter of tallying up body counts?