Israel, Palestine & the Levant rolling events: Oct 23 on

My impression is that neither Israel, nor Hamas, nor the PA want the PA to govern Gaza

the usa & eu have recently been pushing the idea of the pa governing gaza in the aftermath of the war. the pa has actually said they're open to it if it means a proper two-state solution that the usa forces israel to abide by, but that still seems pretty unlikely.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/09/world/middleeast/palestinian-authority-gaza.html

of course, israel absolutely doesn't want the pa to govern gaza because it would strengthen claims of palestinian statehood, but they also don't want the divide & conquer status quo of hamas staying in control now that hamas have proven to be more of a threat than they thought, so there aren't really any clearly good options for them and they're just throwing all sorts of ideas at the wall.

Except the one that, yknow, would actually show some level of humanity

Nimrod Flaschenberg
@Nimrod_Flash
·
8h
Netanyahu announced this evening that he will not allow the PA to take control of Gaza. This means Israel's official plan is to reoccupy Gaza indefinitely.
It's time for the US, Germany, and other backers of Israel to say this will not pass. It's quite simple.

the usa has already publicly rejected the idea of israel reoccupying gaza and have continued to suggest that the palestinian authority should end up in charge. reportedly they've also been privately floating other ideas like having israel's arab neighbours be responsible for it (which none of them are interested in), or have some un peacekeeping force in charge of it (which israel has also rejected). there are pretty public differences there already

Yes, moves are being made in the background...and here Macron has come out in support of the ceasefire, which is lol given he was banning protests a couple of weeks ago.

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Waleed Shahid 🪬
@_waleedshahid
MACRON calls for a ceasefire on BBC: “I think the only solution we have is a ceasefire because it's impossible to explain we want to fight against terrorism by killing innocent people"

Fractures in Europe are welcome.

the usa has already publicly rejected the idea of israel reoccupying gaza and have continued to suggest that the palestinian authority should end up in charge. reportedly they've also been privately floating other ideas like having israel's arab neighbours be responsible for it (which none of them are interested in), or have some un peacekeeping force in charge of it (which israel has also rejected). there are pretty public differences there already

Israel to the USA: "Suck It"

How would you describe the settler movement?

I see the settler movement today as a direct continuation of the settler movement of a hundred and twenty, thirty, forty years ago. I see it as a chapter in the history of Zionism, and we are in one of those chapters of modern Zionism. Settlement is the way to return to Zion.

You said, "Settlement is the way to return to Zion”?

Yes. It’s the end of the dispersion and the beginning of the revival of the Jewish nation in this homeland.

What are the borders of that Jewish nation?

The borders of the homeland of the Jews are the Euphrates in the east and the Nile in the southwest. [This would include the territory of multiple Middle Eastern countries as well as the territory that Israel controls today.]

There’s a Palestinian slogan that has become very controversial: “From the river to the sea,” which means from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. It’s controversial because it would include all the land that currently makes up Israel. But you’re saying from the river to the—

What is controversial?

Palestinians sometimes use the slogan “From the river to the sea.” But what you’re saying is that from the river to the Nile is the Jewish homeland, correct?

Of course. If someone decides to invent a new religion today, who will decide the rules? The first nation that got the word from God, the promise from God—the first nation is the one who has the right to it. The others that follow—Christianity and Islam, with their demands, with their perceptions—they’re imitating what existed already. So, why in Israel? They could be anywhere in the world. They came after us, in the double sense of the world.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-extreme-ambitions-of-west-bank-settlers

Posted that yesterday. Knew quite a bit of the mindset at a high level but not the bit I pulled out, where she said the land they think is theirs stretches even further into the middle east.

manifest destiny iirc

when your defenses are "god gave this to us" is starts to become very difficult to even have a legitimate conversation about the merits

The latest updates on hospital strikes that I've seen include even more detailed eyewitness accounts, which I won't paste. Netenyahu claims that some evacuations have taken place, so if he can send troops in to that, why can't they go further, in search of the Hamas infrastructure, supposedly concealed in Al-Shifa hospital, for instance: with orders to be selective, do not shoot or bomb patients etc. Is it not safe enough 'til the whole Strip is Carthage?

Some people might still be caught in crossfire (although once again I think of the tunnels, and that a lot of Hamas won't be hanging around for IDF approach). But even if that happened, it wouldn't be as bad as the bombings---

Posted that yesterday. Knew quite a bit of the mindset at a high level but not the bit I pulled out, where she said the land they think is theirs stretches even further into the middle east.

― xyzzzz__, Sunday, November 12, 2023 12:32 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think this is still a pretty fringe view. It's also kind of hard to see how anyone thinks Israel could achieve conquest of greater parts of the middle east with an army and population its size.

I mean I'm not sure I'm exactly clear on how much of the Nile and how much of the Euphrates would form the boundary, but aren't we talking about land 10, 15, 20x the size of Israel?

It’s obviously not a realistic goal to go from the Nile to the Euphrates, but why wouldn’t someone with that mindset take the W in ethnically cleansing Gaza?

what user dow is referring to in things they “won’t paste” are live images of IDF soldiers shooting patients who aren’t doing anything. just abominable images.

i've seen people adamantly stating that the shootings outside the hospital are being done by Hamas and not the IDF (which I assume is not true if there are photos of the IDF doing exactly that)

i feel like Occam’s razor comes into effect at a certain point with these acts. I remember my father insisting to me in that Indian Hindu agents had beheaded Daniel Pearl and framed Pakistanis because “Muslims wouldn’t do that” but…

I think this is still a pretty fringe view. It's also kind of hard to see how anyone thinks Israel could achieve conquest of greater parts of the middle east with an army and population its size.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Sunday, 12 November 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Sure, it was eye opening, and you wonder how much of the public could be radicalised to her views.

One would hope it is fringe, except the person interviewed was happy with Netanyahu (though there were remarks about him not going far enough), and...I think there are people in the Israeli cabinet who appear to share her viewpoints (?) going by what I've seen.

All too close for comfort.

"you wonder how much of the public could be radicalised to her views."

I mean, I don't really wonder that. I guess I know too many Israelis. As for support for continued settlement of the West Bank, for which I think there is a constituency, the problem is as much one of lack of strong opposition as outright support. A lot of people either oppose but don't make it a central factor in their lives -- sort of like an American who might oppose police brutality but isn't about to go out and do anything about it, i.e. a huge % of Americans -- or else weakly support the settlements because they just feel jaded about the peace process and/or afraid (as opposed to for strong religious reasons).

tables, the eyewitness details from hospitals that I was referring to are not primarily images in this dispatch, but what the doctor says in the second graf (lots more stuff in here too). Brace yourselves before reading:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/11/middleeast/gaza-al-shifa-hospital-israel-attack/index.html

thanks dow

xps the lack of strong opposition to the settlements is just the result of netanyahu's whole political project over the past few decades - trying to achieve security without peace. political support for the peace process has collapsed over the past ~15 years and the parties that even remotely care about it at all have become increasingly marginal.

I think there are people in the Israeli cabinet who appear to share her viewpoints (?) going by what I've seen.

the parties that are that far-right have 14 seats in the knesset and are part of the current government yeah.

I doubt even most settlers think Israel to the Euphrates and Nile. It’s extremely fringe and I don’t think there will ever be significant Israeli support for a forever war to overextend Israel in conquest. It’s batshit.

Netenyahu claims that some evacuations have taken place

Ramy Abdu| رامي عبده
@RamAbdu
·
1h
Israel has murdered another Palestinian journalist.

Ahmad Fotaima lost his life in an Israeli sniper attack

Dr. Mustafa Elmasri
@Gaza_Psych
·
25m
For those who started their guilt stricken grief for failing us, thank you for everything but please step aside we still have work to do, and we are still alive btw

Does anyone know anything about PAMA, the org in that CNN article? I would like to donate. The frustration I feel is not understanding whether/how/how much aid can even get into Gaza right now but at least maybe it can enter in the near future?

I am under the impression this organization is very good: https://www.anera.org/

Their FAQs are transparent about what they can and can't do to get aid in

Jewish Currents
@JewishCurrents
This past weekend, Dr. Hammam Alloh—a nephrologist at Al-Shifa Hospital, who contributed a dispatch about conditions in Gaza two weeks ago—was killed in his home by an Israeli airstrike.

Read his words here:
https://jewishcurrents.org/we-have-lost-the-ability-to-provide-true-care

UNHCR has been my go-to charity for years, but I would welcome being corrected.

From a thread on today's events:

‏تمار 🌴 Тама́р 🌴 תמר
@tamars
IDF Golani brigade took over the parliamentary chamber in Gaza and brandish Israeli flags

Dr. Abusalama
@ShahdAbusalama
Israel has just committed another massacre against Jabalia Refugee Camp, now hosting displaced families from all over the north. Initial reports suggest at least 150 people slaughtered. They bombed a whole residential square that once was full of life, again! #CeasefireNowInGaza

And here is a piece collating testimonies from Gaza.

https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/can-you-tell-us-why-this-is-happening/

Gil Dikman's relatives were kidnapped and murdered by Hamas on October 7th.

Today he went to the Knesset and heard Likud MK
@GalitDistel
call for Gaza to be annihilated.

Please listen to his response

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https://x.com/BenzionSanders/status/1724052701187584087?s=20

rip vivian silver

74-year-old Vivian Silver, the Israeli peace activist and leader of Women Wage Peace, was thought kidnapped in Gaza. They only just identified her body, five weeks after she was killed. Read about her life's work, and may her memory be a blessing to all: https://t.co/ZbprTjBEOe https://t.co/y0AphsexF0

— Yair Rosenberg (@Yair_Rosenberg) November 13, 2023

aw jeez. RIP

Devastating, my heart is broken

A pointed thread from purplechrain on the topic:

https://x.com/purplechrain/status/1724195704568979911

that is a really important thread, I've thought a lot about the irony of these peace activists' deaths being used to justify a campaign they would have despised

hope this link works:

https://nitter.net/purplechrain/status/1724195704568979911#m

my mom told me a couple weeks ago that she'd heard that the Canadian embassy thought Vivian Silver was dead, but I was hoping there was a chance that was wrong. hope her sons can find some measure of solace.

xps thank you, and I'm glad people have posted that. I especially feel awful for her family for what they've been going through in light of the struggles they had in getting help, much less answers.

FWIW, I mentioned this in passing in another thread, but a friend of mine was killed in the Middle East. He was a journalist, but he was very much a man of peace - he cared deeply for the people he was covering and did everything he could to help them. He was killed by terrorists, and more than once, some asshole would use his death to do the same mendacious bullshit of promoting a hateful ideology of destruction. The way he died changes nothing - he understood the risks of his job, and more importantly what terrorists did and did not represent. And his family understood that even when they pleaded to him not to continue his line of work. There's no greater credit to that than his mother, who not only dedicates her life to a greater cause but demanded that her son's killers be prosecuted without the death penalty (a unanimous request that was made by all family members involved in that case), and that request was honored.

I've thought about him a lot over the past few weeks in relation to Silver, and it's also been very unsettling seeing how a few acquaintances have angrily defended the bombings without ever engaging the reality that so many civilians, doctors, and children have been murdered in the process. I never believed in revenge but I opposed it with the stipulation that everyone grieves differently, that I'd accept someone's need for vengeance as valid and beyond my understanding, but honestly I've become really skeptical of that. In reality, vengeance isn't anything more than a perversion of justice, warped by anger.

my condolences, birdistheword

Thanks Alfred

my sentiments too, re condolences and what you've come to believe about vengeance (how many revenge-objects' last thoughts are "O now I see the error of my ways!")

Netenyahu claims that some evacuations have taken place
100 babies, the last I heard---how will they re-connect with their parents---?
― dow, Sunday, November 12, 2023

Also "tried" to deliver fuel, said rep

Thanks dow. And you're right about that - I can't guarantee a murderer will ever truly see the wrong they've done, but I'd rather they have the rest of their life to think about that and the bear the consequences it's brought.

*and bear

Yes.