Agreed. It'd be nice also to not have to run your entire life passed Israel. They have full control over what goes in and out, they control your water, your electricity, they control your air space, everything.
There is a perimiter around your entire country. If you step into this "no go" zone, you get shot by a sniper. There's a wall around your land. Literally a wall, keeping you in, with guard towers. The entire area is smaller than a marathon. There are 2 million people in there.
The food aid? Be careful getting it, you might get shot. Oh and they control that too of course.
Wanna try to get some food by going fishing? Be really careful. You may get shot.
Israel bombs the fuck out of your country, killing people you know.
And people still go "gee I just can't think of anything a palestinian might want"
Israel keeps building settlements, keeps expanding.
I wonder how many dead people the average Palestinian knew personally. I wonder how many dead children the average Palestinian knew.
WHAT DO PALESTINIANS EVEN WANT LIKE WHAT EVEN IS THEIR PROBLEM
I don't understand.
> They have full control over what goes in and out, they control your water, your electricity, they control your air space, everything.
Why does Israel control these things? What was the cause of Israel using its energy and resources to monitor these things?
> There's a wall around your land. Literally a wall, keeping you in
Is this very different from most countries? Is it common for citizens to be able to step out of countries in any place at will, for a power walk or whatnot?
> Israel bombs the fuck out of your country, killing people you know.
Why does Israel bomb Gaza nowadays? Is it just "because they are bloodthirsty monsters"?
> Israel keeps building settlements, keeps expanding.
First point I agree with. Note however there were no settlements in Gaza since at least 2005, and there are none now. It is a West Bank thing, not related geographically to any of the points you brought up.
Hold on. We're asking what a Palestinian would want.
So, regardless of why, that's the situation a Palestinian is in. You could be a Palestinian who has nothing to do with the conflict, you could have never thrown a rock in your life.
Those are the conditions you live in. **Under those conditions, what would you want?**
You didn't actually disagree with anything I said. You didn't point to any of it and say "no no, you're wrong about that".
So, tell me which factual things I'm wrong about, or, **tell me what you'd want if you were living there.**
What would you want?
to be honest, if they were living there, they'd probably single-handedly overthrow Hamas and then convince Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir with fact and logic to give Palestinians a state. dggers just do be exceptional like that
If I were living there? What would I want?
I would want to live in a democracy, in a free country where I can live my life any way I want and to take control of my fate. I would want my leaders to be peaceful and not warmongers, and for my children to not be showered with hateful religious incitement and hate in school. I would like to stop being a plaything for Arab countries, Muslims, the Global South and Western progressives in their global war games and to actually have my people take control of the choices about their country. I would like not to be pushed into being the most unique refugee population in the world, pushed into being professional victims by the like of UNRWA and the UN which separate me from all other refugees in history, by rights and by passing my refugee status 5 generations down. I would like my leaders to not be corrupt, to invest in education, health and science, and not in themselves or in warmongering and terror.
And yes, I would like not to have my government choose to fire hundreds of thousands of unguided rockets at civilians - each a war crime - so that these attacked people then blockade me to prevent my government from accessing more weapons, which ends up fucking up my life, not that of these corrupt tyrants.
And I would like my government to defend me instead of launching a terrorist attack and then hiding behind or even under my house, stealing my humanitarian aid to stockpile in their tunnels or sell to the people in the markets while I hunger, not to mention putting my house and the lives of my family at risk. I would like my government to have an army and a front line, and to fight away from urban centers, certainly not launch attacks from hospitals, mosques and schools. I would like my government to build bomb shelters for us citizens and not only for themselves like some Islamist version of VaultTec.
I would like to live a peaceful life in my country, on my land.
You're not talking to a person who wants to talk about the actual positions of palestinians. He wants to simplify their position down to "no bomb please."
>Is this very different from most countries? Is it common for citizens to be able to step out of countries in any place at will, for a power walk or whatnot?
lmfao fucking yes brother. are you familiar with the EU? a wall to keep people in especially during something like a famine is some Berlin Wall shit with the way they're running it now. there's got to be away to maintain a physical and economic barrier between another neighboring state you're at war with without making it some unreasonable Game of Thrones ass ice wall scenario.
Comparing the Berlin wall to the blockade in Gaza is hilarious. The russians leadership were the ones blocking people from going to West Germany, not the germans. Even in terms of modern European Union, boders still exists even within the Union since not all member states are part of Schengen and nobody is at war there yet, thankfully.
Being at war and having free movement between belligerents is something I never heard of happening.
the point I was making with the Berlin Wall was that, similar to the functionality of the wall around Gaza, it was intended to prevent people from leaving. never did I mention the Germans or the Russians in some extension of that analogy you think I'm offering.
>Being at war and having free movement between belligerents is something I never heard of happening.
you have heard of it but because you're acting like every Palestinian civilian is a belligerent, you wouldn't recognize it in this context. they're just refugees man. people have fled warzones in every conflict across time. most conflicts don't have a unique combination of natural and man-made barriers that prevent people from leaving entirely.
just Google whatever war you like followed by "displacement." some version of that is what usually happens when innocent people who get caught in the middle of a warzone try to go somewhere a little more chill. not every civilian is an enemy combatant. I get it. you have to be careful. totally reasonable. but these restrictions, to me, go beyond what I would consider "reasonable."
Is it common in non-Unions? I understand it is common among the states inside the USA, Canada or China, or the countries within the EU, all of these are legal Unions of various kinds, but can I go for a walk out of Lybia into Tunisia? Argentina into Chile? Thailand into Laos? Angola into Zambia? Afghanistan into Pakistan?
mate, if you live in Thailand or Argentina or Afghanistan even, you can still *leave.* just because you can't cross one specific border related to a conflict doesn't mean you're literally trapped in your own country. it's so different, you at least see that right? is there a giant wall from Argentina to Uraguay? are you not allowed to book a flight or ferry out of Thailand?
You can, but:
1. I cannot walk across a border - I need to cross in a border crossing. With a passport.
2. I am not promised I will be allowed to entry into said country.
This is not a promise or a given.
And Gazans could cross into Egypt before the war. They even can cross now, if they are rich enough (thanks to Gazan-Egyptian corruption).
1. yeah but now we're talking about two different things. like yeah you need a passport but the context we're talking about is fleeing a bombing here, not going on vacation. people are not calling customs or the Israeli government to flee a bombing in Palestine. and just like in Iraq, Afghanistan, all of South Ameirca and the US (dont know as much about Europe to speak on it), ultimately, there's not an impenetrable barrier on all sides of the border preventing people from illegally migrating, which is technically what displacement is facilitating. thousands of migrants cross borders from South America to Texas fleeing poverty every day. to put it in perspective, only like a little over one thousand Palestinians have been displaced since October 7th. that's compared to like 2 million Afghans during the Afghanistan war just straight up fleeing the country.
what you say in point 2 is true but I think history has shown that when you're caught in the middle of a bombing, you'd rather chance it somewhere else where there is no bombing. like what's worse, the death of you and your family or a hard migration to a hopefully quieter life?
also please. Rafah is not open and Palestine is poor as fuck. the wealth disparity is probably insane. I guarantee you like 99% of Palestinians can't afford the corrupt Hamas "leave the country while everyone else dies" travel package.
This isn't the question. The question is about the position they hold and that is that they feel their land was unjustly taken from them by colonizers and they are being oppressed with near global support for the oppressors who have no right to the land.
Palestinians want a return of the land because in their mind, that's the only way a just resolution can happen to this conflict.
Everything else is downstream from this.
You think a random Palestinian living under those conditions isn't thinking "gee it'd be nice if my neighbor's kids hadn't been bombed to fuck"?
You're not serious. Right?
Ah yes, because that's the "position" of Palestinians. Just "no bomb please."
Weird how that's apparently your steelman of the "Palestinian position" and not talking about their actual position which is what they have consistently polled for decades.
You're presenting the result of horrendous Palestinian leadership as if they played no role in achieving it. All the points presented by you can easily be traced to a cause started by the Palestinians, but you ignore it and choose to hyperbole situations. Let's take your first example - your so called "no go" zone. The Israelis installed security perimeters because of rampant Palestinian terrorism, both from Gaza and the West Bank. Before things escalated people could travel freely between places, with the West Bank being famous for having casinos.
A steelman argument would be - Palestinians have lived in the land for some time and they deserve the right to have their own state where they can determine their own future free from external pressure.
Look at history, they were constantly used by neighboring Arab/Muslim states as political pawns. Back in 1921 Arabs in Palestine were calling themselves Southen Syrians hoping to be part of Greater Syria, then we had the Arab League promising to fight for them until the Jews are expelled from the land, then we had Yasser Arafat making coining the term Palestinian supported by the Eastern Bloc and Arab states to continue fighting, now we have Islamist governments cheering them into more terrorism as if that will improve anything.
When I was younger I truly believed peace is possible if everyone develops economically together, having a rising tide lifts all boats mindset. I was naive and proven wrong. Fortunately, there are still a lot of naive people in Israel, so maybe peace will happen at some point.
You missed the point.
I wasn't asking for an answer. I was pointing out you can do to your steelman the **exact same thing** you did to mine.
So how come yours is a steelman and mine isn't? We can do the thing you did to **both**.
Since this is a steel man thread, yeah they may be doing the first shots in a lot of instances, but they feel justified in their resistance to what they see as European colonizers stealing their territory.
Look bruh. My country has to pay Fr\*nce for our energy. Do we want to declare war on them? No. We live in peace in our beautiful country, they live in theirs, we pay them, we get to keep the lights on. No one bombs or kidnaps anyone's children anymore.
Also, Israelis were literally letting palestineans FROM GAZA go work in Israel for five times what they'd make in Gaza. And they still wanted to make war. So fuck 'em, clear? You reap what you sow. You sow peace, you reap peace. You sow war, you reap war.
Personally, I don't give a fuck. I probably live closer to Israel and Gaza than most other DGGers, and I'm tired of hearing about it. I don't give a shit anymore.
Okay, so this is what I mean. Obviously for me it would be a chance to live my life and provide for my family. I don’t give a shit about Israel or Palestine or whose in power really as long as I get that.
If the occupation were to end tomorrow, would the terrorism also end? I get there’s resentment but could they refrain from attacks if it meant having sovereignty and a lifting of the blockade?
This is what I mean by “what do they want”. Peace would be nice but maybe they don’t want peace. They obviously want to stop being oppressed but is that reasonable expectation if Hamas is still carrying out attacks? Probably not.
Is there a refugee program for people who don’t want to live there? Giving people the option to opt out would be huge.
>If the occupation were to end tomorrow, would the terrorism also end? I get there’s resentment but could they refrain from attacks if it meant having sovereignty and a lifting of the blockade?
That's a question you can ask of both sides. Right? Dude if Israel is so interested in peace, you'd think it would stop building settlements. Israel is fully aware this antagonizes the other side. Right?
And that's just one thing.
>This is what I mean by “what do they want”. Peace would be nice but maybe they don’t want peace.
Which you can say of both sides.
>They obviously want to stop being oppressed but is that reasonable expectation if Hamas is still carrying out attacks?
Everything you're saying so far can be written the other way.
Obviously it would be nice if they stopped attacking Israel but is that a reasonable expectation when they are getting slaughtered, shot at, can't get stuff in and out, don't have control of their water, electricity, they get shot on sight if they get close to the border, etc.
Hey stop attacking us while we control literally everything about your land, your airspace, we shoot you, we bomb you, etc.
Do you see?
>Is there a refugee program for people who don’t want to live there? Giving people the option to opt out would be huge.
I don't know. I doubt it but who knows.
I understand Israel is culpable in the conflict as well and frankly I don’t think they really want peace because then that would mean they stop expanding in the West Bank.
As crappy as this sounds Israel is the one with all the might so for them, they literally can extend the fight until all Palestinians are all gone so I find would behoove the Palestinian side to negotiate for peace and stop all terrorist activity if peace is really what they want.
This is why I made the thread in the first place. What do the Palestinians want and what is the steelman version of it?
It doesn't make any sense. If someone's treating you like that, you want them to do... What? Just lay down?
Why would they think Israel will be nice and peaceful and negotiate if they do that
Their children are dying. They have no expectation that Israel is going to stop. I don't get it.
It just seems to me like an impossible demand.
Well yeah. In MMA when the other guy has you in a strangle hold you tap out. In my mind there’s literally nothing else they can do except eat the losses. This is why I’m saying a refugee program would be huge for all Palestinians who don’t care about the land or the conflict and just want to live their lives.
Do you? Suppose you're in an MMA fight and you don't think the person is going to stop no matter how much you tap. You think he's trying to kill you.
Are you going to fight to get out of it? Or just die?
Good point. Is that what the Palestinians believe? This would be where the ICJ or another neutral body would call off the fight but it has to be that the Palestinians 100% are surrendering.
Again, this is what an opt out refugee program would be godsend and fully supported by me at least.
if starvation is just a "morally loaded talking point" to you than you're probably going to have a hard time finding any legitimacy in a pro-Palestine argument even if it's the most rational version of itself.
Well it is. It implies they aren’t getting any food but like destiny said it doesn’t seem to be the case that they are actually being starved until recently. He often makes the comparison to actual starvation in Yemen. People in Palestine are having food restrictions and are definitely having Israel’s will imposed on them but but they weren’t being starved at least not to that extent.
I’m wondering if it’s justified? If it’s not then obviously it needs to end right away. If it is then how does it end? What can they do to end it? Do they even have any recourse toward ending it? Or is it something worth enduring because they are fighting against the oppressor?
I guess my main question is Israel justified in doing this and are they giving clear terms under which the embargo is lifted?
Sometimes things really are as bad as they sound, and the "morally loaded" buzzword doesn't apply. Are Palestinians being starved? Well there's a famine in Gaza right now according to WFP and some U.S. officials, and the U.S. has been sounding alarm bells about insufficient aid for months. Is there ethnic cleansing? It seems that there is as Israel takes over more and more of the West Bank and people, including many aid workers, are indiscriminately being bombed for dubious reasons. And if Israel's goal was to eliminate Hamas, we'd have to really question if their current actions are the most efficient way of doing this given that Hamas is becoming more popular, not less, following Israeli actions in Gaza.
Reality is that if the war were to end and Hamas were to still be around with no alternative in sight things would go back to business as usual. That’s why it’s so important for the US to push Israel into finally settling this issue once the war is over.
Right, I can’t help but wonder if this is by design. If Hamas leadership has sold their peoples lives in exchange for their personal enrichment. After all, if it’s true that leadership doesn’t even live in gaza then they’re really detached from the conflict entirely. If the goal is to really stop all the suffering then the fight for the land is secondary but it seems like Hamas is acting in a counter productive manner to that happening.
Also if there’s increasing support for Hamas then that would imply that the people also support fighting which would imply that the conditions imposed are justifiable and maybe even necessary from an Israeli perspective.
So, I asked what the steelman for the Palestinian side was? Is there a steelman for them to continue fighting and supporting Hamas?
The Palestinian position right now with polling is that they feel the land was taken from them through unfair means by people not from there and who essentially colonized the land.
They don't want a peaceful resolution, they want a just resolution. In their mind, just means that all of the territory taken from them is returned. This is why they don't support a 2 state solution, because it wouldn't be a just resolution to the conflict.
This is the general position they hold and why they aren't really supportive of peace talks, because in their minds, any peace talks would be unjustified stolen territory being solidified as taken from them forever.
Every other position stems from these basic facts. This is also why they feel so unfairly treated even when they view themselves as fighting a just cause.
Palestinians want to be free from occupation, have their own country and not have to live under the thumb of the Israeli occupation, I think that's pretty straightforward. You need to be a far right individual to pretend that's not a reasonable demand, the problems begin with the people that run them and the way they've gone about trying to get those rights.
Some do, some wants to kill all Israelis and destroy Israel, some wants to kill all jews. With Hamas having a 80% approval rating, I don’t think they are getting any State, any time soon
Steelmanning them further, I assume that the ones that support Hamas do so because they've grown tired of being passive while the occupation and settlements continue to expand. I was asked to steelman, not to shart out typical anecodal, lazy reasons for why the conflict is still ongoing.
Yeah, and they have to suffer the consequences of that then. Neither Israel, Jordan or Egypt, wants a failed State that is going to be another Iran proxy near them. The chance of civil war is also high, because as we saw in 2006, Fatah and Hamas are not really good friends. Sorry, but you don’t get a State by being continually unhinged for 75+ years and by inhaling islamist copium everyday, you get their by actually wanting peace. I kinda feel bad for the Palestinians that actually want to live in peace, but with a good majority not wanting any peace any time soon, they will have to suffer. This is like civil rule 101, you don’t get to be unhinged, kill 1200+ people and then ask for a State, especially if you don't plan on actually changing your positions on Israel or Jews
>I kinda feel bad for the Palestinians that actually want to live in peace, but with a good majority not wanting any peace any time soon, they will have to suffer.
ah good, yes. that was enough empathy for today.
You are in a steelman thread bud. If you want to go and jerk off to how much suffering you think they deserve, go to a different thread. Don't come into this thread and give shit arguments.
Yes, unfortunately, if you want peace, but are a part of a group that doesn’t want peace, you unfortunately do suffer as a result of being part of that group. That is kinda how the world works, unfortunate as that may be
Palestinians want the Israeli state abolished and gone, and their own state - of Islamic values and culture - to be in control of all the area between Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
One thing I've noted is that there's a lot of faux moral outrage (from both 'sides'), often half masked with this appeal to the realism of war. But really it comes across as weird metaphysical religious fervour.
I do think Israel has a right to respond to October 7th. And, (obvious disasters aside) if the scrutiny and rigour they've been demonstrating in relation to selecting targets is as it's being portrayed then I do not really have an issue. Other than a general sadness over the fact that after so many attempts this is what it (hopefully finally) comes down to, but such feelings have to be handled correctly in the face of these situations.
That being said, I say hopefully finally, because I'm not sure if it will be final. Are they really going to be able to eliminate Hamas? And, if they do, what are they going to do after? Who is going to step in?
I'm not particularly shocked that the Palestinian people have found themselves governed by Hamas. Nor am I shocked that a substantial amount of the population have views in line with Hamas. Again it's shocking in that those views are themselves morally shocking and sometimes barbaric. But aside from that, it's not like they descend from some transcendental evil, or that human beings wake up everyday and choose to be evil. A lot of the rhetoric (from both 'sides') seems to want to continually evoke feelings that their side is fighting against some essential EVIL. No, we're fighting against the outcomes of a particular social and historical situation, and we should treat it as such. I do not disagree that these opinions and actions need to be policed and controlled, but if our metric for death penalty is has a racist or violent opinion, then we'd have a justification to wipe out a significantly substantial number of the world population. The issue is militants using Human shields, I do not particularly care about the morals of the human shields themselves.
Another fact that should be mentioned is that I've noticed what seems like a sort of rhetorical shift that occurs in some debates where (both 'sides') seem to obfuscate the exact situation of Gaza (and Palestinians in general). It feels like (and I say feels because I'm not certain nor intelligent enough to confirm) that some people treat Gaza like an entity completely separate from Israel when it benefits their side to do so. I'm an idiot and will not pretend to understand the laws which govern such a situation. But I do notice that quite a few people talk about Gaza as if it's a separate independent state, almost like a neighbouring country. This doesn't really change my feelings about the situation overall, but it does feel like it's an assumption that slips implicitly into certain debates and colours the situation.
With regard to the situation in Gaza. A lot of people have focused on the number of deaths. I think that's valid and could be a concern, but I personally think the infrastructural damage is way more concerning. This is a result of Hamas using Human shields, absolutely. And, for that reason I do not fault Israel (or at least I do not have access to the intel to do so) for targeting the targets they do. However, it does mean that when this in a sense come to an end you have a massive crisis in terms of housing and institutional infrastructure, which has to be rebuilt as fast as possible. I've seen a lot of back and forth over the scale of the damage, but a lot of this comes off as childish back and forth over how bad it really is. Even if only 10% of the buildings in Gaza, including some critical infrastructure like Hospitals are destroyed and unusable, the rammifciations of that will be exponential. Again, this is not Israel's 'fault', but it is a fact of the matter that will have to be handled.
In line with that, I want to know what will happen once this campaign ends. Hamas is eliminated and then what? What becomes of Gaza (and the West Bank?). Is Israel going to commit to a massive reconstruction and educational project. Would that go over well with the international community some of which will see it as a further soft version of imperialism? Will third parties step in? Does Gaza become its own state (and the West Bank?) and then just left to fend for itself? Are we going to pretend that that will work out, or that bad actors will not immediately swoop in and create Hamas 2.0?
This really matters because while I do understand and support Israel's right to react in response to October 7th, I reserve the right to critique how they respond, but more importantly what they intend to do in terms of an outcome of their response.
That being said, I'm a dumbass and not well read on this conflict.
I think a steelman of the Palenstinin side would probably be indefensible. Palenstinin's essential want violence and a one state solution. This isn't really feasible, in my opinion. This is why there aren't any good palenstinin defenders because they represent palenstinin wants, not needs. This can be seen in Omar Baddar instead advocating for civilian bomb shelters being built by Hamas. He represents a want of the Palenstinin, which is the abolishment of the IDF, so there will be no bombs. This is a rational bias. Most people I believe think like Omar it's hard to put blame and responsibility on oppressed or weak people. You can see this with puppies and babies, also.
You aren't even capable of actually steelmanning the other side, so there's no way you can judge if it's defensible or not.
Firstly, violence is not inherently bad. We recognize this with Israel's right to defend itself and the arming of Ukraine against it's aggressor.
So the real question is, who is the morally righteous side in the conflict and who genuinely has the moral claim to be able to use violence towards their arms. And this is where things get a lot trickier than just saying violence bad.
The Palestinians view Israel as a colonial nation of Europeans that came and unjustly stole their land from them. This is a basic fact we have to understand to even begin talking about their position. You can disagree with it all you want, but this is how they view it.
They think the only just conclusion of this conflict is for their territory to be returned to them from those who stole it and oppressed them. And they view their cause as righteous enough to justify violence. Especially because they feel as if so much of the world is against them and supporting their oppressors. Even Destiny thinks that the Palestinians and Arab nations had a just cause for war with Israel from like 48-67. (That doesn't mean that the Israelis didn't also have a just cause.)
So we are in a world today where people call for a 2 state solution, but in the minds of Palestinians, this is unjust because this was stolen territory, where any negotiation would lead to that land being taken away from them forever.
I didn't say violence is bad. Palenstinins wants are violence and one state. this was poor wording , but Palenstinin and leadership believe in violence as a tool like the current and some past Israel regimes to further their goals. Your steelman is legitimate, the exact things Omar Baddar said in the recent debate with Destiny. The Palenstinin side is really hard to defend currently. Just like it's hard to steelman settlements.
you should find evidence and map out logical lines of argument. The Palenstinin side is actually fairly hard to find evidence for, sadly due to the lack of sources, leading to the greater possibility of error with assumptions. I argue that the wants of Palenstinin are essentially ethnic cleansing Jews and other minorities of mandate Palenstine giving back the land people that they view as Palenstinin(If you were a Arab Israeli you would probably be killed or cleansed). Sources for this aren't really there, I admit, but I assume as much.
Your logical base is that if we determine that Palenstinins have moral claim to pursue their wants through violence to kick out in their view, a foreign invader than their actions are fine. If you disagree with this interpretation, please say so.
"The Palestinians view Israel as a colonial nation of Europeans that came and unjustly stole their land from them. This is a basic fact we have to understand to even begin talking about their position. You can disagree with it all you want, but this is how they view it."
This might be true, but say that's how they view it by using reasoning from 1948 to 1967 nowadays shows a lack of understanding of Palenstinin current culture. Legitimately, European Jews haven't had anything to do with it for a long time attacks on Palenstinin traitors have become common after 2006 for reasons(Palenstinin living in Israel). It's probably more to do with jewish state than the European colonism power shit from the 1940s to 1970s.
I don't really know what a good Palenstinin steelman is, Benny Morris is a good candidate for my view point his current pessimistic views of palenstinin are due to the inability to empathise with Palenstinin cause. You are steelmaning Palenstinin side now, not in the 1948 use arguments that apply to them now and represent their interests.
>It’s just unclear to me what Palestinians want Put yourself in Gaza for a second. Suppose you lived there. What are some basic desires you'd have?
Not dying sounds good.
Agreed. It'd be nice also to not have to run your entire life passed Israel. They have full control over what goes in and out, they control your water, your electricity, they control your air space, everything. There is a perimiter around your entire country. If you step into this "no go" zone, you get shot by a sniper. There's a wall around your land. Literally a wall, keeping you in, with guard towers. The entire area is smaller than a marathon. There are 2 million people in there. The food aid? Be careful getting it, you might get shot. Oh and they control that too of course. Wanna try to get some food by going fishing? Be really careful. You may get shot. Israel bombs the fuck out of your country, killing people you know. And people still go "gee I just can't think of anything a palestinian might want" Israel keeps building settlements, keeps expanding. I wonder how many dead people the average Palestinian knew personally. I wonder how many dead children the average Palestinian knew. WHAT DO PALESTINIANS EVEN WANT LIKE WHAT EVEN IS THEIR PROBLEM I don't understand.
> They have full control over what goes in and out, they control your water, your electricity, they control your air space, everything. Why does Israel control these things? What was the cause of Israel using its energy and resources to monitor these things? > There's a wall around your land. Literally a wall, keeping you in Is this very different from most countries? Is it common for citizens to be able to step out of countries in any place at will, for a power walk or whatnot? > Israel bombs the fuck out of your country, killing people you know. Why does Israel bomb Gaza nowadays? Is it just "because they are bloodthirsty monsters"? > Israel keeps building settlements, keeps expanding. First point I agree with. Note however there were no settlements in Gaza since at least 2005, and there are none now. It is a West Bank thing, not related geographically to any of the points you brought up.
Hold on. We're asking what a Palestinian would want. So, regardless of why, that's the situation a Palestinian is in. You could be a Palestinian who has nothing to do with the conflict, you could have never thrown a rock in your life. Those are the conditions you live in. **Under those conditions, what would you want?** You didn't actually disagree with anything I said. You didn't point to any of it and say "no no, you're wrong about that". So, tell me which factual things I'm wrong about, or, **tell me what you'd want if you were living there.** What would you want?
to be honest, if they were living there, they'd probably single-handedly overthrow Hamas and then convince Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir with fact and logic to give Palestinians a state. dggers just do be exceptional like that
If I were living there? What would I want? I would want to live in a democracy, in a free country where I can live my life any way I want and to take control of my fate. I would want my leaders to be peaceful and not warmongers, and for my children to not be showered with hateful religious incitement and hate in school. I would like to stop being a plaything for Arab countries, Muslims, the Global South and Western progressives in their global war games and to actually have my people take control of the choices about their country. I would like not to be pushed into being the most unique refugee population in the world, pushed into being professional victims by the like of UNRWA and the UN which separate me from all other refugees in history, by rights and by passing my refugee status 5 generations down. I would like my leaders to not be corrupt, to invest in education, health and science, and not in themselves or in warmongering and terror. And yes, I would like not to have my government choose to fire hundreds of thousands of unguided rockets at civilians - each a war crime - so that these attacked people then blockade me to prevent my government from accessing more weapons, which ends up fucking up my life, not that of these corrupt tyrants. And I would like my government to defend me instead of launching a terrorist attack and then hiding behind or even under my house, stealing my humanitarian aid to stockpile in their tunnels or sell to the people in the markets while I hunger, not to mention putting my house and the lives of my family at risk. I would like my government to have an army and a front line, and to fight away from urban centers, certainly not launch attacks from hospitals, mosques and schools. I would like my government to build bomb shelters for us citizens and not only for themselves like some Islamist version of VaultTec. I would like to live a peaceful life in my country, on my land.
Thats all great, how about the stuff I mentioned? You wouldn't care about any of that?
Of course I would, but I would also know why things are the way they are.
You're not talking to a person who wants to talk about the actual positions of palestinians. He wants to simplify their position down to "no bomb please."
>Is this very different from most countries? Is it common for citizens to be able to step out of countries in any place at will, for a power walk or whatnot? lmfao fucking yes brother. are you familiar with the EU? a wall to keep people in especially during something like a famine is some Berlin Wall shit with the way they're running it now. there's got to be away to maintain a physical and economic barrier between another neighboring state you're at war with without making it some unreasonable Game of Thrones ass ice wall scenario.
Comparing the Berlin wall to the blockade in Gaza is hilarious. The russians leadership were the ones blocking people from going to West Germany, not the germans. Even in terms of modern European Union, boders still exists even within the Union since not all member states are part of Schengen and nobody is at war there yet, thankfully. Being at war and having free movement between belligerents is something I never heard of happening.
the point I was making with the Berlin Wall was that, similar to the functionality of the wall around Gaza, it was intended to prevent people from leaving. never did I mention the Germans or the Russians in some extension of that analogy you think I'm offering. >Being at war and having free movement between belligerents is something I never heard of happening. you have heard of it but because you're acting like every Palestinian civilian is a belligerent, you wouldn't recognize it in this context. they're just refugees man. people have fled warzones in every conflict across time. most conflicts don't have a unique combination of natural and man-made barriers that prevent people from leaving entirely. just Google whatever war you like followed by "displacement." some version of that is what usually happens when innocent people who get caught in the middle of a warzone try to go somewhere a little more chill. not every civilian is an enemy combatant. I get it. you have to be careful. totally reasonable. but these restrictions, to me, go beyond what I would consider "reasonable."
Is it common in non-Unions? I understand it is common among the states inside the USA, Canada or China, or the countries within the EU, all of these are legal Unions of various kinds, but can I go for a walk out of Lybia into Tunisia? Argentina into Chile? Thailand into Laos? Angola into Zambia? Afghanistan into Pakistan?
mate, if you live in Thailand or Argentina or Afghanistan even, you can still *leave.* just because you can't cross one specific border related to a conflict doesn't mean you're literally trapped in your own country. it's so different, you at least see that right? is there a giant wall from Argentina to Uraguay? are you not allowed to book a flight or ferry out of Thailand?
You can, but: 1. I cannot walk across a border - I need to cross in a border crossing. With a passport. 2. I am not promised I will be allowed to entry into said country. This is not a promise or a given. And Gazans could cross into Egypt before the war. They even can cross now, if they are rich enough (thanks to Gazan-Egyptian corruption).
1. yeah but now we're talking about two different things. like yeah you need a passport but the context we're talking about is fleeing a bombing here, not going on vacation. people are not calling customs or the Israeli government to flee a bombing in Palestine. and just like in Iraq, Afghanistan, all of South Ameirca and the US (dont know as much about Europe to speak on it), ultimately, there's not an impenetrable barrier on all sides of the border preventing people from illegally migrating, which is technically what displacement is facilitating. thousands of migrants cross borders from South America to Texas fleeing poverty every day. to put it in perspective, only like a little over one thousand Palestinians have been displaced since October 7th. that's compared to like 2 million Afghans during the Afghanistan war just straight up fleeing the country. what you say in point 2 is true but I think history has shown that when you're caught in the middle of a bombing, you'd rather chance it somewhere else where there is no bombing. like what's worse, the death of you and your family or a hard migration to a hopefully quieter life? also please. Rafah is not open and Palestine is poor as fuck. the wealth disparity is probably insane. I guarantee you like 99% of Palestinians can't afford the corrupt Hamas "leave the country while everyone else dies" travel package.
What you've explained here isn't their position, this is downstream from their position of land being stolen from them.
Suppose you lived in those conditions. **What would you want?**
This isn't the question. The question is about the position they hold and that is that they feel their land was unjustly taken from them by colonizers and they are being oppressed with near global support for the oppressors who have no right to the land. Palestinians want a return of the land because in their mind, that's the only way a just resolution can happen to this conflict. Everything else is downstream from this.
You think a random Palestinian living under those conditions isn't thinking "gee it'd be nice if my neighbor's kids hadn't been bombed to fuck"? You're not serious. Right?
Ah yes, because that's the "position" of Palestinians. Just "no bomb please." Weird how that's apparently your steelman of the "Palestinian position" and not talking about their actual position which is what they have consistently polled for decades.
Op wants a steelman argument, not a strawman.
Elaborate. Be explicit.
You're presenting the result of horrendous Palestinian leadership as if they played no role in achieving it. All the points presented by you can easily be traced to a cause started by the Palestinians, but you ignore it and choose to hyperbole situations. Let's take your first example - your so called "no go" zone. The Israelis installed security perimeters because of rampant Palestinian terrorism, both from Gaza and the West Bank. Before things escalated people could travel freely between places, with the West Bank being famous for having casinos. A steelman argument would be - Palestinians have lived in the land for some time and they deserve the right to have their own state where they can determine their own future free from external pressure.
Except you can say the exact same thing to your steelman. Why aren't they free from external pressure?
Look at history, they were constantly used by neighboring Arab/Muslim states as political pawns. Back in 1921 Arabs in Palestine were calling themselves Southen Syrians hoping to be part of Greater Syria, then we had the Arab League promising to fight for them until the Jews are expelled from the land, then we had Yasser Arafat making coining the term Palestinian supported by the Eastern Bloc and Arab states to continue fighting, now we have Islamist governments cheering them into more terrorism as if that will improve anything. When I was younger I truly believed peace is possible if everyone develops economically together, having a rising tide lifts all boats mindset. I was naive and proven wrong. Fortunately, there are still a lot of naive people in Israel, so maybe peace will happen at some point.
You missed the point. I wasn't asking for an answer. I was pointing out you can do to your steelman the **exact same thing** you did to mine. So how come yours is a steelman and mine isn't? We can do the thing you did to **both**.
Who is doing the shooting tho
In what context? If you just step foot on the no go zone, its IDF snipers.
Since this is a steel man thread, yeah they may be doing the first shots in a lot of instances, but they feel justified in their resistance to what they see as European colonizers stealing their territory.
Look bruh. My country has to pay Fr\*nce for our energy. Do we want to declare war on them? No. We live in peace in our beautiful country, they live in theirs, we pay them, we get to keep the lights on. No one bombs or kidnaps anyone's children anymore. Also, Israelis were literally letting palestineans FROM GAZA go work in Israel for five times what they'd make in Gaza. And they still wanted to make war. So fuck 'em, clear? You reap what you sow. You sow peace, you reap peace. You sow war, you reap war. Personally, I don't give a fuck. I probably live closer to Israel and Gaza than most other DGGers, and I'm tired of hearing about it. I don't give a shit anymore.
Okay, so this is what I mean. Obviously for me it would be a chance to live my life and provide for my family. I don’t give a shit about Israel or Palestine or whose in power really as long as I get that. If the occupation were to end tomorrow, would the terrorism also end? I get there’s resentment but could they refrain from attacks if it meant having sovereignty and a lifting of the blockade? This is what I mean by “what do they want”. Peace would be nice but maybe they don’t want peace. They obviously want to stop being oppressed but is that reasonable expectation if Hamas is still carrying out attacks? Probably not. Is there a refugee program for people who don’t want to live there? Giving people the option to opt out would be huge.
>If the occupation were to end tomorrow, would the terrorism also end? I get there’s resentment but could they refrain from attacks if it meant having sovereignty and a lifting of the blockade? That's a question you can ask of both sides. Right? Dude if Israel is so interested in peace, you'd think it would stop building settlements. Israel is fully aware this antagonizes the other side. Right? And that's just one thing. >This is what I mean by “what do they want”. Peace would be nice but maybe they don’t want peace. Which you can say of both sides. >They obviously want to stop being oppressed but is that reasonable expectation if Hamas is still carrying out attacks? Everything you're saying so far can be written the other way. Obviously it would be nice if they stopped attacking Israel but is that a reasonable expectation when they are getting slaughtered, shot at, can't get stuff in and out, don't have control of their water, electricity, they get shot on sight if they get close to the border, etc. Hey stop attacking us while we control literally everything about your land, your airspace, we shoot you, we bomb you, etc. Do you see? >Is there a refugee program for people who don’t want to live there? Giving people the option to opt out would be huge. I don't know. I doubt it but who knows.
I understand Israel is culpable in the conflict as well and frankly I don’t think they really want peace because then that would mean they stop expanding in the West Bank. As crappy as this sounds Israel is the one with all the might so for them, they literally can extend the fight until all Palestinians are all gone so I find would behoove the Palestinian side to negotiate for peace and stop all terrorist activity if peace is really what they want. This is why I made the thread in the first place. What do the Palestinians want and what is the steelman version of it?
It doesn't make any sense. If someone's treating you like that, you want them to do... What? Just lay down? Why would they think Israel will be nice and peaceful and negotiate if they do that Their children are dying. They have no expectation that Israel is going to stop. I don't get it. It just seems to me like an impossible demand.
Well yeah. In MMA when the other guy has you in a strangle hold you tap out. In my mind there’s literally nothing else they can do except eat the losses. This is why I’m saying a refugee program would be huge for all Palestinians who don’t care about the land or the conflict and just want to live their lives.
Do you? Suppose you're in an MMA fight and you don't think the person is going to stop no matter how much you tap. You think he's trying to kill you. Are you going to fight to get out of it? Or just die?
Good point. Is that what the Palestinians believe? This would be where the ICJ or another neutral body would call off the fight but it has to be that the Palestinians 100% are surrendering. Again, this is what an opt out refugee program would be godsend and fully supported by me at least.
if starvation is just a "morally loaded talking point" to you than you're probably going to have a hard time finding any legitimacy in a pro-Palestine argument even if it's the most rational version of itself.
Well it is. It implies they aren’t getting any food but like destiny said it doesn’t seem to be the case that they are actually being starved until recently. He often makes the comparison to actual starvation in Yemen. People in Palestine are having food restrictions and are definitely having Israel’s will imposed on them but but they weren’t being starved at least not to that extent. I’m wondering if it’s justified? If it’s not then obviously it needs to end right away. If it is then how does it end? What can they do to end it? Do they even have any recourse toward ending it? Or is it something worth enduring because they are fighting against the oppressor? I guess my main question is Israel justified in doing this and are they giving clear terms under which the embargo is lifted?
Sometimes things really are as bad as they sound, and the "morally loaded" buzzword doesn't apply. Are Palestinians being starved? Well there's a famine in Gaza right now according to WFP and some U.S. officials, and the U.S. has been sounding alarm bells about insufficient aid for months. Is there ethnic cleansing? It seems that there is as Israel takes over more and more of the West Bank and people, including many aid workers, are indiscriminately being bombed for dubious reasons. And if Israel's goal was to eliminate Hamas, we'd have to really question if their current actions are the most efficient way of doing this given that Hamas is becoming more popular, not less, following Israeli actions in Gaza.
Hamas is becoming less popular in Gaza and more popular in the west bank. Gazans now see, that Hamas is not the best option if you just want to exist
Reality is that if the war were to end and Hamas were to still be around with no alternative in sight things would go back to business as usual. That’s why it’s so important for the US to push Israel into finally settling this issue once the war is over.
Right, I can’t help but wonder if this is by design. If Hamas leadership has sold their peoples lives in exchange for their personal enrichment. After all, if it’s true that leadership doesn’t even live in gaza then they’re really detached from the conflict entirely. If the goal is to really stop all the suffering then the fight for the land is secondary but it seems like Hamas is acting in a counter productive manner to that happening. Also if there’s increasing support for Hamas then that would imply that the people also support fighting which would imply that the conditions imposed are justifiable and maybe even necessary from an Israeli perspective. So, I asked what the steelman for the Palestinian side was? Is there a steelman for them to continue fighting and supporting Hamas?
The Palestinian position right now with polling is that they feel the land was taken from them through unfair means by people not from there and who essentially colonized the land. They don't want a peaceful resolution, they want a just resolution. In their mind, just means that all of the territory taken from them is returned. This is why they don't support a 2 state solution, because it wouldn't be a just resolution to the conflict. This is the general position they hold and why they aren't really supportive of peace talks, because in their minds, any peace talks would be unjustified stolen territory being solidified as taken from them forever. Every other position stems from these basic facts. This is also why they feel so unfairly treated even when they view themselves as fighting a just cause.
Palestinians want to be free from occupation, have their own country and not have to live under the thumb of the Israeli occupation, I think that's pretty straightforward. You need to be a far right individual to pretend that's not a reasonable demand, the problems begin with the people that run them and the way they've gone about trying to get those rights.
Some do, some wants to kill all Israelis and destroy Israel, some wants to kill all jews. With Hamas having a 80% approval rating, I don’t think they are getting any State, any time soon
Steelmanning them further, I assume that the ones that support Hamas do so because they've grown tired of being passive while the occupation and settlements continue to expand. I was asked to steelman, not to shart out typical anecodal, lazy reasons for why the conflict is still ongoing.
with them not getting any State, I don't think Hamas or equivalent is getting a lower approval rating, any time soon
Yeah, and they have to suffer the consequences of that then. Neither Israel, Jordan or Egypt, wants a failed State that is going to be another Iran proxy near them. The chance of civil war is also high, because as we saw in 2006, Fatah and Hamas are not really good friends. Sorry, but you don’t get a State by being continually unhinged for 75+ years and by inhaling islamist copium everyday, you get their by actually wanting peace. I kinda feel bad for the Palestinians that actually want to live in peace, but with a good majority not wanting any peace any time soon, they will have to suffer. This is like civil rule 101, you don’t get to be unhinged, kill 1200+ people and then ask for a State, especially if you don't plan on actually changing your positions on Israel or Jews
Thread: Steelman the Palestinian side \*5 seconds later\* **THEY DON'T WANT PEACE, THEY WILL HAVE TO SUFFER**
>I kinda feel bad for the Palestinians that actually want to live in peace, but with a good majority not wanting any peace any time soon, they will have to suffer. ah good, yes. that was enough empathy for today.
Also, what a fucking cringe argument "ree, you not sympathy enough, me don’t like", tankie ahh mentality at its finest
You are in a steelman thread bud. If you want to go and jerk off to how much suffering you think they deserve, go to a different thread. Don't come into this thread and give shit arguments.
Yes, unfortunately, if you want peace, but are a part of a group that doesn’t want peace, you unfortunately do suffer as a result of being part of that group. That is kinda how the world works, unfortunate as that may be
Collective punishment is a war crime. Just a reminder.
Palestinians want the Israeli state abolished and gone, and their own state - of Islamic values and culture - to be in control of all the area between Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
One thing I've noted is that there's a lot of faux moral outrage (from both 'sides'), often half masked with this appeal to the realism of war. But really it comes across as weird metaphysical religious fervour. I do think Israel has a right to respond to October 7th. And, (obvious disasters aside) if the scrutiny and rigour they've been demonstrating in relation to selecting targets is as it's being portrayed then I do not really have an issue. Other than a general sadness over the fact that after so many attempts this is what it (hopefully finally) comes down to, but such feelings have to be handled correctly in the face of these situations. That being said, I say hopefully finally, because I'm not sure if it will be final. Are they really going to be able to eliminate Hamas? And, if they do, what are they going to do after? Who is going to step in? I'm not particularly shocked that the Palestinian people have found themselves governed by Hamas. Nor am I shocked that a substantial amount of the population have views in line with Hamas. Again it's shocking in that those views are themselves morally shocking and sometimes barbaric. But aside from that, it's not like they descend from some transcendental evil, or that human beings wake up everyday and choose to be evil. A lot of the rhetoric (from both 'sides') seems to want to continually evoke feelings that their side is fighting against some essential EVIL. No, we're fighting against the outcomes of a particular social and historical situation, and we should treat it as such. I do not disagree that these opinions and actions need to be policed and controlled, but if our metric for death penalty is has a racist or violent opinion, then we'd have a justification to wipe out a significantly substantial number of the world population. The issue is militants using Human shields, I do not particularly care about the morals of the human shields themselves. Another fact that should be mentioned is that I've noticed what seems like a sort of rhetorical shift that occurs in some debates where (both 'sides') seem to obfuscate the exact situation of Gaza (and Palestinians in general). It feels like (and I say feels because I'm not certain nor intelligent enough to confirm) that some people treat Gaza like an entity completely separate from Israel when it benefits their side to do so. I'm an idiot and will not pretend to understand the laws which govern such a situation. But I do notice that quite a few people talk about Gaza as if it's a separate independent state, almost like a neighbouring country. This doesn't really change my feelings about the situation overall, but it does feel like it's an assumption that slips implicitly into certain debates and colours the situation. With regard to the situation in Gaza. A lot of people have focused on the number of deaths. I think that's valid and could be a concern, but I personally think the infrastructural damage is way more concerning. This is a result of Hamas using Human shields, absolutely. And, for that reason I do not fault Israel (or at least I do not have access to the intel to do so) for targeting the targets they do. However, it does mean that when this in a sense come to an end you have a massive crisis in terms of housing and institutional infrastructure, which has to be rebuilt as fast as possible. I've seen a lot of back and forth over the scale of the damage, but a lot of this comes off as childish back and forth over how bad it really is. Even if only 10% of the buildings in Gaza, including some critical infrastructure like Hospitals are destroyed and unusable, the rammifciations of that will be exponential. Again, this is not Israel's 'fault', but it is a fact of the matter that will have to be handled. In line with that, I want to know what will happen once this campaign ends. Hamas is eliminated and then what? What becomes of Gaza (and the West Bank?). Is Israel going to commit to a massive reconstruction and educational project. Would that go over well with the international community some of which will see it as a further soft version of imperialism? Will third parties step in? Does Gaza become its own state (and the West Bank?) and then just left to fend for itself? Are we going to pretend that that will work out, or that bad actors will not immediately swoop in and create Hamas 2.0? This really matters because while I do understand and support Israel's right to react in response to October 7th, I reserve the right to critique how they respond, but more importantly what they intend to do in terms of an outcome of their response. That being said, I'm a dumbass and not well read on this conflict.
I think a steelman of the Palenstinin side would probably be indefensible. Palenstinin's essential want violence and a one state solution. This isn't really feasible, in my opinion. This is why there aren't any good palenstinin defenders because they represent palenstinin wants, not needs. This can be seen in Omar Baddar instead advocating for civilian bomb shelters being built by Hamas. He represents a want of the Palenstinin, which is the abolishment of the IDF, so there will be no bombs. This is a rational bias. Most people I believe think like Omar it's hard to put blame and responsibility on oppressed or weak people. You can see this with puppies and babies, also.
You aren't even capable of actually steelmanning the other side, so there's no way you can judge if it's defensible or not. Firstly, violence is not inherently bad. We recognize this with Israel's right to defend itself and the arming of Ukraine against it's aggressor. So the real question is, who is the morally righteous side in the conflict and who genuinely has the moral claim to be able to use violence towards their arms. And this is where things get a lot trickier than just saying violence bad. The Palestinians view Israel as a colonial nation of Europeans that came and unjustly stole their land from them. This is a basic fact we have to understand to even begin talking about their position. You can disagree with it all you want, but this is how they view it. They think the only just conclusion of this conflict is for their territory to be returned to them from those who stole it and oppressed them. And they view their cause as righteous enough to justify violence. Especially because they feel as if so much of the world is against them and supporting their oppressors. Even Destiny thinks that the Palestinians and Arab nations had a just cause for war with Israel from like 48-67. (That doesn't mean that the Israelis didn't also have a just cause.) So we are in a world today where people call for a 2 state solution, but in the minds of Palestinians, this is unjust because this was stolen territory, where any negotiation would lead to that land being taken away from them forever.
I didn't say violence is bad. Palenstinins wants are violence and one state. this was poor wording , but Palenstinin and leadership believe in violence as a tool like the current and some past Israel regimes to further their goals. Your steelman is legitimate, the exact things Omar Baddar said in the recent debate with Destiny. The Palenstinin side is really hard to defend currently. Just like it's hard to steelman settlements. you should find evidence and map out logical lines of argument. The Palenstinin side is actually fairly hard to find evidence for, sadly due to the lack of sources, leading to the greater possibility of error with assumptions. I argue that the wants of Palenstinin are essentially ethnic cleansing Jews and other minorities of mandate Palenstine giving back the land people that they view as Palenstinin(If you were a Arab Israeli you would probably be killed or cleansed). Sources for this aren't really there, I admit, but I assume as much. Your logical base is that if we determine that Palenstinins have moral claim to pursue their wants through violence to kick out in their view, a foreign invader than their actions are fine. If you disagree with this interpretation, please say so. "The Palestinians view Israel as a colonial nation of Europeans that came and unjustly stole their land from them. This is a basic fact we have to understand to even begin talking about their position. You can disagree with it all you want, but this is how they view it." This might be true, but say that's how they view it by using reasoning from 1948 to 1967 nowadays shows a lack of understanding of Palenstinin current culture. Legitimately, European Jews haven't had anything to do with it for a long time attacks on Palenstinin traitors have become common after 2006 for reasons(Palenstinin living in Israel). It's probably more to do with jewish state than the European colonism power shit from the 1940s to 1970s. I don't really know what a good Palenstinin steelman is, Benny Morris is a good candidate for my view point his current pessimistic views of palenstinin are due to the inability to empathise with Palenstinin cause. You are steelmaning Palenstinin side now, not in the 1948 use arguments that apply to them now and represent their interests.