What a terrible human being, looking at his life filled with works trying to improve people. He should be ashamed, trying to look at the cause instead of the effect of global situations.
But in all seriousness, the chilling effect is real, because he’s the UN secretary general they’re holding back a little bit, but they’re demonstrating for everybody you better not say anything we don’t agree with. And that has a real impact on political speech globally.
Hamas is not the underprivileged good guy here. It’s the plight of the Palestinian people, that gives power to Hamas, that is the thing that needs to be addressed.
So saying looking at the situation that enables Hamas to get political power is a reasonable thing for a politician to say. That’s literally the game they play every day. Trying to remove the power from an antagonistic belligerent is a good thing.
For what it’s worth Hamas is a political organization, and they respond to political realities, in 2017 they attempted to amend their charter to give them the ability to negotiate.
The 2017 charter accepted for the first time the idea of a Palestinian state within the borders that existed before 1967 and rejects recognition of Israel which it terms as the “Zionist enemy”.[2]
Again, not apologizing for them, not condoning them… but there are political organization that exists in political reality is, and examining the realities that enable them to draw power from a population, is a reasonable thing to do, and in fact the job of a global politician - like the UN Secretary general.
When was the last time this political organization allowed for democratic elections so the people could have a voice, instead of holding on to power? Was it 17 years ago?
There was a bit of a coup and intervention, and then Palestine was effectively fractured with two defacto governments. As far as I can tell from the internet, Hamas runs as a religious dictatorship since 2007.
That’s exactly the kind of thinking that the Israeli government had a month ago, that by negotiating with them, they could find mutual self interest. 10/7 has disabused them of that delusion.
When someone says their goal is genocide, you should probably take them at their word.
I take issue with the implication that moving the Palestinians into reservations, and embargoing them from all trade, economic development, and movement is ‘finding mutual self interest’, but sure, fine, lets go with it, I preserve the issue for appeal, but not worth arguing here.
So Israel has been punished for treating The Gaza strip with dignity and mutual self interest… What should the new strategy be?
If the goal is to minimize ongoing future violence, what do you do now?
So Israel has been punished for treating The Gaza strip with dignity and mutual self interest… What should the new strategy be?
I have no idea. I don’t see a path from where we are to peace. But I am realistic about the fact that Hamas isn’t just some club of would-be liberal democrats just yearning for freedom. That’s just not realistic. They don’t want a two-state solution. They don’t want a “Jews still being alive” solution. And increasingly, it doesn’t seem like most Israelis want a two state solution either.
I don’t think anybody here is saying Hamas is a good guy. I haven’t seen a single comment in this thread defending Hamas.
A lot of people however, are rationally, and correctly, pointing out that organizations like Hamas are a symptom of an oppressed people. Like an apartheid state, or slave state, we can look at history for examples of people striking out over and over again. It’s not a justification, it is however an observation based on history. Slave rebellions are bloody affairs, and the innocent are killed, but the solution to slave rebellions is not harder slavery.
The two-state solution is no longer viable. It is impossible to break apart Palestine from Israel. Especially looking at how fractured the West Bank is, all of the Israeli exclaves, and all of the Palestinian reservations or intermixed - one might say even deliberately to prevent a two-state solution from being viable.
I can’t speak for the next 10 to 20 years, but the long-term viable solution in 30 years is going to be a single country encompassing both current Israel and current Palestine, in a secular, non-ethnocentric, non-religious democratic organization. Where people are equal regardless of their ethnicity, religion, or language.
And it’s going to be a very bloody time to get to that stage, but it’s the only stable steady state.
A lot of people however, are rationally, and correctly, pointing out that organizations like Hamas are a symptom of an oppressed people. Like an apartheid state, or slave state, we can look at history for examples of people striking out over and over again.
You can see it that way, but you also have to take Hamas’s stated goal into consideration. Their stated goal is not to liberate their people, it’s to be the new oppressor, and a far worse one than that.
Let’s put it another way. There are around two million Arab Israelis. They’re in the Israeli parliament, they serve in its courts, in the military, etc. Would they be liberated if Hamas achieved its goal? They would probably be viewed as collaborators and executed.
This myth that Hamas are just freedom fighters, like Nelson Mandela or Gandhi, really needs to be dispelled. It has no basis in reality.
There’s this weird urge in the minds of people to try to find a hero story. There’s no hero story. And if groups like Hamas weren’t wreaking havoc in the area for the past 50+ years, realistically, a Palestinian state would probably exist.
I can’t speak for the next 10 to 20 years, but the long-term viable solution in 30 years is going to be a single country encompassing both current Israel and current Palestine, in a secular, non-ethnocentric, non-religious democratic organization. Where people are equal regardless of their ethnicity, religion, or language.
Except no one in the region wants that. Certainly not Hamas.
you keep falling into this Pro Israeli or Pro Hamas dichotomy, those arnt the only options. We can be anti-apartheid and anti-hamas at the same time, but recognize the systemic nature of the violence that arises because of the oppression.
The Israeli Arabs are a good example of what a integrated Palestine Israel might look like to start with, just expand that to the entire population. Of course there are some outstanding issues to hammer out even with our model Israeli Arab integration wikipedia which ultimately means the government needs to change from being a ethnostate government to a national citizenship based government secular of religion. But I’m not going to let perfection get in the way of good enough, if we could integrate everyone today even with the racism issues, thats a huge win.
The whataboutism on this issue is off the charts. If your best defense of Israel’s government is to compare it to a terrorist group, don’t be surprised when people think of it as a terrorist group.
Hamas gets almost all of its direct funding from Iran and Russia.
Israel, along with the United Nations, United States, EU, etc funds humanitarian projects in Gaza. Some of that aid is surely diverted to Hamas and Hamas controls Gaza, but the moral case for allowing some aid to be diverted to Hamas in exchange for avoiding a humanitarian catastrophe is strong.
Toward the end of Netanyahu’s fifth government in 2021, approximately 2,000-3,000 work permits were issued to Gazans. This number climbed to 5,000 and, during the Bennett-Lapid government, rose sharply to 10,000.
That’s what counts as empowering Hamas? Letting Palestinians earn a living?
I mean I guess you can spin it that way, but it’s a spurious claim to make.
Or maybe Israelis are the ones who are not facing reality. You keep a malnourished and abused big dog chained in your backyard, you’re going to get bitten sooner or later.
…And now that they’ve been bitten, they’re going to beat it to death, and god help anyone that thinks what they’re doing is cruel and unnecessary (and terrorism, and a war crime).
They didn’t call the UN chief an anti-Semite. I guess that’s progress right?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/António_Guterres
What a terrible human being, looking at his life filled with works trying to improve people. He should be ashamed, trying to look at the cause instead of the effect of global situations.
But in all seriousness, the chilling effect is real, because he’s the UN secretary general they’re holding back a little bit, but they’re demonstrating for everybody you better not say anything we don’t agree with. And that has a real impact on political speech globally.
According to Hamas’ own charter, “the cause” is that a Jew somewhere in the world has a pulse.
So I think it’s reasonable for us to say, no, we’re not going to address their stated grievances.
Hamas is not the underprivileged good guy here. It’s the plight of the Palestinian people, that gives power to Hamas, that is the thing that needs to be addressed.
So saying looking at the situation that enables Hamas to get political power is a reasonable thing for a politician to say. That’s literally the game they play every day. Trying to remove the power from an antagonistic belligerent is a good thing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Charter
For what it’s worth Hamas is a political organization, and they respond to political realities, in 2017 they attempted to amend their charter to give them the ability to negotiate.
The 2017 charter accepted for the first time the idea of a Palestinian state within the borders that existed before 1967 and rejects recognition of Israel which it terms as the “Zionist enemy”.[2]
Again, not apologizing for them, not condoning them… but there are political organization that exists in political reality is, and examining the realities that enable them to draw power from a population, is a reasonable thing to do, and in fact the job of a global politician - like the UN Secretary general.
When was the last time this political organization allowed for democratic elections so the people could have a voice, instead of holding on to power? Was it 17 years ago?
2006/2007 - the results didn’t go the way external parties would have liked…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatah–Hamas_conflict
There was a bit of a coup and intervention, and then Palestine was effectively fractured with two defacto governments. As far as I can tell from the internet, Hamas runs as a religious dictatorship since 2007.
A pretty good video summary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is6hIUw0KzM
That’s exactly the kind of thinking that the Israeli government had a month ago, that by negotiating with them, they could find mutual self interest. 10/7 has disabused them of that delusion.
When someone says their goal is genocide, you should probably take them at their word.
I take issue with the implication that moving the Palestinians into reservations, and embargoing them from all trade, economic development, and movement is ‘finding mutual self interest’, but sure, fine, lets go with it, I preserve the issue for appeal, but not worth arguing here.
So Israel has been punished for treating The Gaza strip with dignity and mutual self interest… What should the new strategy be?
If the goal is to minimize ongoing future violence, what do you do now?
I have no idea. I don’t see a path from where we are to peace. But I am realistic about the fact that Hamas isn’t just some club of would-be liberal democrats just yearning for freedom. That’s just not realistic. They don’t want a two-state solution. They don’t want a “Jews still being alive” solution. And increasingly, it doesn’t seem like most Israelis want a two state solution either.
I don’t have a solution for you.
I don’t think anybody here is saying Hamas is a good guy. I haven’t seen a single comment in this thread defending Hamas.
A lot of people however, are rationally, and correctly, pointing out that organizations like Hamas are a symptom of an oppressed people. Like an apartheid state, or slave state, we can look at history for examples of people striking out over and over again. It’s not a justification, it is however an observation based on history. Slave rebellions are bloody affairs, and the innocent are killed, but the solution to slave rebellions is not harder slavery.
The two-state solution is no longer viable. It is impossible to break apart Palestine from Israel. Especially looking at how fractured the West Bank is, all of the Israeli exclaves, and all of the Palestinian reservations or intermixed - one might say even deliberately to prevent a two-state solution from being viable.
I can’t speak for the next 10 to 20 years, but the long-term viable solution in 30 years is going to be a single country encompassing both current Israel and current Palestine, in a secular, non-ethnocentric, non-religious democratic organization. Where people are equal regardless of their ethnicity, religion, or language.
And it’s going to be a very bloody time to get to that stage, but it’s the only stable steady state.
You can see it that way, but you also have to take Hamas’s stated goal into consideration. Their stated goal is not to liberate their people, it’s to be the new oppressor, and a far worse one than that.
Let’s put it another way. There are around two million Arab Israelis. They’re in the Israeli parliament, they serve in its courts, in the military, etc. Would they be liberated if Hamas achieved its goal? They would probably be viewed as collaborators and executed.
This myth that Hamas are just freedom fighters, like Nelson Mandela or Gandhi, really needs to be dispelled. It has no basis in reality.
There’s this weird urge in the minds of people to try to find a hero story. There’s no hero story. And if groups like Hamas weren’t wreaking havoc in the area for the past 50+ years, realistically, a Palestinian state would probably exist.
Except no one in the region wants that. Certainly not Hamas.
you keep falling into this Pro Israeli or Pro Hamas dichotomy, those arnt the only options. We can be anti-apartheid and anti-hamas at the same time, but recognize the systemic nature of the violence that arises because of the oppression.
The Israeli Arabs are a good example of what a integrated Palestine Israel might look like to start with, just expand that to the entire population. Of course there are some outstanding issues to hammer out even with our model Israeli Arab integration wikipedia which ultimately means the government needs to change from being a ethnostate government to a national citizenship based government secular of religion. But I’m not going to let perfection get in the way of good enough, if we could integrate everyone today even with the racism issues, thats a huge win.
The whataboutism on this issue is off the charts. If your best defense of Israel’s government is to compare it to a terrorist group, don’t be surprised when people think of it as a terrorist group.
I didn’t mention the Israeli government, except to point out that they were delusional. This isn’t whataboutism.
This is a statement free of whataboutism: Hamas is a terrorist organization intent on killing as many Jews as possible, worldwide, without stopping.
That’s it. No need to expand on that. That’s a statement free of whataboutism.
Then why did Netanyahu fund them then? The PLO was open to a two state solution.
Hamas gets almost all of its direct funding from Iran and Russia.
Israel, along with the United Nations, United States, EU, etc funds humanitarian projects in Gaza. Some of that aid is surely diverted to Hamas and Hamas controls Gaza, but the moral case for allowing some aid to be diverted to Hamas in exchange for avoiding a humanitarian catastrophe is strong.
I assume they were talking about this
That’s what counts as empowering Hamas? Letting Palestinians earn a living?
I mean I guess you can spin it that way, but it’s a spurious claim to make.
You’re getting downvoted because no one here wants to face reality.
I get it. Reality sucks.
Also, people want to see themselves in an underdog. They want a “good guy” to root for.
Or maybe Israelis are the ones who are not facing reality. You keep a malnourished and abused big dog chained in your backyard, you’re going to get bitten sooner or later.
…And now that they’ve been bitten, they’re going to beat it to death, and god help anyone that thinks what they’re doing is cruel and unnecessary (and terrorism, and a war crime).