“Israel has built the most efficient starvation machine you can imagine.”
There's political opposition to this within Israel. Here's what happened to an elected member of the Knesset who spoke out against the cruelty in Gaza.[1] He was forcibly removed from the podium of the Knesset.
People sometimes forget how bitterly divided Israel was before October 7th, with hundreds of thousands of people protesting in the streets. The war put some of the infighting on hold for a while, but all the former problems still exist, and the stakes are higher.
The division is not about the starvation of Gaza. All Zionist parties in the Israeli parliament support the military campaign in Gaza. Apart from some lip-service from left-wing leaders, to my knowledge no Jewish leader has spoken against the starvation. Israeli media (except for Haaretz) have largely denied that there is a famine, and have called it a "propaganda campaign" by the Hamas.
About 22% of Israel is orthodox and about 13% can be called "ultra-orthodox".
They play a major role in politics. Most prominently and recently, the 8-decade long exemption from the draft for Haredi Jewish people was ended causing a major crisis in Israel's government. All Haredi representatives of the Knesset withdrew leaving Netanyahu's party's majority with a razor thin margin of 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset
You mean the really small minority of orthodox Jews who live outside Israel and oppose Zionism because they believe the coming of the Messiah should not be driven by humans (or something like that)? Or the ones who oppose the current Gaza conflict because of the recent push to conscript them into the armed forces, when they previously enjoyed the exemption?
Trust me, no orthodox Jews are opposing the Gaza conflict on humanitarian grounds. On the contrary, there is a STRONG orthodox faction in Netanyahu's government (of which Smotrich is a member).
My understanding is the defense made by Zionist parties is more that Hamas has culpability in the starvation. I haven't seen this claim verified or debunked sufficiently to have a strong opinion about it but it at least seems within reason to me that Hamas is acting in bad faith and is weaponizing starvation of Gaza residents.
Perhaps the fact that the Israeli state are the only ones making this claim, and many multiple experts, humanitarians, countries, leaders, are saying the exact opposite should be sufficient enough to debunk the claim.
Honest question from someone whose knowledge of Israel's government isn't deep: does "Zionist parties" mean anything other than the parties which are not Arab parties? (are members of the Arab parties free to advocate against Zionism and Israel's status as a Jewish state?)
All parties except for the Arabs and ultra religious are Zionist. The ultra religious have their own relationship with Zionism, but are members of the government.
While Arab MKs do enjoy freedom of speech, they are ostracized and delegitimized by the majority of Jewish MKs.
> they are ostracized and delegitimized by the majority of Jewish MKs
Not exactly.
A conservative Arab party was part of the ruling government coalition in 2021. They joined with a wide spectrum of political parties seeking to defeat the Likud Prime Minister Netanyahu.
If you watch Peter Beinart's channel, he has had Ehud Olmert and Avraham Berg on. IDK if they touched upon starvation specifically, but it seemed like they were not in denial about Israel's actions, especially the latter (I think Beinart lightly pressed Olmert on whether Israel's actions constitute genocide, and Olmert disagreed, and I don't know that I begrudge him that, given his position).
Neither of these former politicians are current leaders, of course.
> how bitterly divided Israel was before October 7th ... people protesting in the streets. The war put some of the infighting on hold ... the stakes are higher
What are the factors that transform a society that is generally decent, even if not free from flaws, into a society devoid of any moral restraints, into a multitude that wallows in the dubious pleasure of its cohesion and unity, indifferent to suffering, completely closed to others?
The victims of the Nazis' knowledge were indeed the Jews. Nazi anti-Semitism was indeed particularly destructive and murderous.
But the Nazis disregarded human life wherever it was. The extermination of hundreds of thousands of Russian prisoners of war is just another example, but their attitude towards their own army, on the Stalingrad front for example, was also devoid of any human consideration.
Hitler did indeed lead these moves, but only here and there did anyone voice a complaint or reservation. With the outbreak of the war, the spirit of those who could truly resist was completely broken.
Is it really that easy to break the spirit? How does that happen? Few history books deal with this. Huffner tries to explain, and even if he is not always convincing and does not see everything, this experience of his, so close to the moment of truth in Europe on the eve of the outbreak of World War II, is unique and one of a kind. I believe that even in our time and even in our places, it is worthy of in-depth study.
- Shulamit Volkov (afterword to "The Story of a German" by Sebastian Huffner).
I don't know much about Charlie Kirk except what I've read recently. But he does/did seem to be part of a growing element of the right in the USA who stand against Israel and Netanyahu specifically. And while I support that, I don't think it's necessarily to support Palestinians, but more as an America First policy.
In that context, "of all people" makes sense to me. I too have been surprised by the move, of some on the right, against Israel, considering their almost unanimous support previously.
> I too have been surprised by the move, of some on the right, against Israel, considering their almost unanimous support previously
The right is not a monolith. Various elements on the right have always been anti-Israel, from the non-interventionists to the straight-up racists. Kirk was one of the former.
Kirk is on video making a joke about how he used to tell leftists, "they would throw you off a tall building in Gaza," but now there are no tall buildings in Gaza (hyuk hyuk), because of those "stupid Muslims attacking Jews."
As the genocide has become more and more indefensible, many right wing water carriers (also including Tucker Carlson) have been peeling off and voicing occasional (but essentially harmless) criticisms of the relationship. It's more cynicism than principle.
For context these are the questions asked since obviously this claim will change a lot based on questions. I wouldn't say it's terribly surprising based on my experiences, I've met Republicans against a lot of these things. I'm also wondering a bit how they got their sample since they had way more Democrats than Republicans and how representative it is (it also didn't close to match the racial makeup of the US). Not hating on the study, I didn't spend enough time reading it to know it's effectiveness, mainly the actual questions seemed important.
Item 1) Abortion should be illegal.
Item 2) The government should take steps to make incomes more equal.
Item 3) All unauthorized immigrants should be sent back to their home country.
Item 4) The federal budget for welfare programs should be increased.
Item 5) Lesbian, gay and trans couples should be allowed to legally marry.
Item 6) The government should regulate business to protect the environment.
Item 7) The federal government should make it more difficult to buy a gun.
Item 8) The federal government should make a concerted effort to improve social and economic conditions for African Americans.
Edit: to be clear I read the study and they used Prolific (https://www.prolific.com/) to get the participants but that means nothing to me.
This and my original comment apparently struck a nerve for some people, but I’m just sharing what I observe from the links I’ve included. I’d love to see some actual response to the content of these videos given Kirk’s apparent change of heart on Israel (especially if I’m off-base) as opposed to just downvotes with substance-free responses
The US was the victim of a terror attack at 9/11. It became the bad guy by invading Afghanistan and Iraq for 20 years using one terrorist attack as the justification.
You could argue Israel's right to strike back on Oct 8th, 15th, 31. That justification has vanished as the onslaught has continued. 2 years later.
Yes, Israel is the bad guy for committing genocide. Being the target of a terrorist attack doesn't give a country the right to wage war on civilians.
USA tried to establish themselves in those lands also to prevent future terror attacks, which I think they did. It's questionable if it was worth it or the right thing to do, but in the meantime, you guys in the USA didn't have a single terror attack afterwards, or? (I can't remember to be honest)
What would a single Israel's strike on the 8th of October etc have done? They got 100+ hostages, some are still there btw after 2 years, and there is proof that the civilians knew about it and actually supported it.
People still support Hamas and still believe they will win. Without mentioning that those people (the civilians, yes) supported that s** that "Hamas" had done on the 7th of October - there is plenty of evidence for it.
They did not. ISIS was a direct consequence of the US invasion of Iraq. Instead of stomping out terrorists, they created a whole bunch of new terrorist cells and inspired the arab spring uprisings.
And more for Israel itself "Israeli intelligence officials had new evidence that Iraq was speeding up efforts to produce biological and chemical weapons"
All I ever hear are calls for "ceasefire now" as long as Israel is winning, and those calls are silent whenever there's an offer to exchange hostages for a ceasefire. It does not seem to me that the peace these people are calling for are what you or I would call peace.
I see the "ceasefire now" people, who are usually very vocal, quiet every time there is a serious ceasefire proposal.
Furthermore, I see very little international pressure on Hamas to release the hostages, other than from the US. Quite the opposite, the Europeans pressure Israel, not Hamas.
When asked whether it supports or opposes the disarmament of Hamas in the Gaza Strip in order to stop the war on the Gaza Strip, an overwhelming majority (85% in the West Bank and 64% in the Gaza Strip) said it is opposed to that; only 18% support it.
When asked whether it supports or opposed the eviction of some Hamas military leaders from the Gaza Strip if that was a condition for stopping the war, 65% said they oppose it and 31% support it. Support for this step stands at 47% in the Gaza Strip and only 20% in the West Bank.
This is very much one sided. Other side of the argument, in civillians supporting horrible violence, doesn't do any favors dor Israel. Most of the world is appalled in the delusional civil society.
The man speaking is Ayman Odeh [1], an Arab Israeli MK and chairman of Hadash, a left-wing Arab Israeli party. Arab Israelis and their political leaders are marginalized in Israeli society. Arab Israeli parties are largely considered illegitimate by a majority of Jewish Israelis.
Political opposition to the starvation of Gaza is still marginal, especially in Jewish society. Protests in Arab cities against the starvation and the genocide are being curbed and prevented by the police. the Jewish majority is still largely silent on these issues, if not outright supportive of the government policy.
Israel is where we in the west get shown a mirror in front of our faces. A country led by religious fanatics, who don't respect other religions and for the most part feel no remorse when people of other faith suffer due to their actions or inaction. A genocidal military, that continues its deeds, seemingly aiming to reach ISIS level of despicability. But we have tons of people here, who don't want to see anything wrong with Israel and how it acts. That really shows us our double standards. Religious fanatics are OK for us, as long as they are not against us. Crimes against humanity are OK, as long as they are inflicted upon a group, that is not seen by the mainstream as "us".
We have really lost the plot when it comes to ethics. Not all of us, but many, and especially in our leaderships and governments.
Just to be fair, Israel itself is considered illegitimate by those parties. I doubt most democracies would let parties that are staunchly anti-state run, but Israel, for some reason, does.
Canada has a federal party since 1991, the Bloc Québécois, "devoted to Quebecois nationalism, social democracy, and the promotion of Quebecois sovereignty."[0] They're explicitly separatist by policy. Quebec's last attempt at attaining sovereignty was a provincial referendum in 1995 that lost by 0.5%. Had it succeeded, the provincial gov't was prepared to declare full independence the next day.
As a Canadian I'd also say that having such a party is a huge boon to the country. Separatists are going to separatist - your choice, as a nation, is whether to allow them to organize and have their voices heard within the system of politics or whether to force them to resort to violence and underground organization. Those underground separatist groups will always exist but giving formal political representation to the desire for separation (even if it isn't granted) can help defuse extremism and provide better methods for airing grievances.
The modern BQ is much more tame than the BQ of thirty years prior - they've mainly morphed into a party focused on franophone rights within Canada and the maintenance of QC labor rights. So while they specifically no longer represent that separatist movement as directly there are other groups focused on prairie separatism that are a better modern parallel.
Hadash is a communist party, first and foremost. But the Arab parties - Balad, Raam, Taal - they are advocating for Palestinian "right of return" and turning Israel into a bi-national state, therefore ending what we know as Israel today.
> hardly in the way that could be described as the destruction of the state
It would be a destruction of the nation-state of Israel as a state for the Israeli, predeominantly Jewish, nation.
> Abolishing Jim Crow in the south hardly destroyed the south
It certainly felt that way to them! Strongly enough that they fought a war over it. (EDIT: Nobody went to war over Jim Crow. They did over slavery. Jim Crow was basically an attempt to regain part of what was lost in the war. Put another way, even a war--alone--is not enough.)
That's the point. The single-state solution, practically, would require a war. I know we pulled out of Afghanistan. But I thought we'd have a bigger gap before another group of Westerners decided they like drawing borders in the Middle East, and that anyone who disagrees with them--including the people on the ground--should be violently forced to comply.
> It would be a destruction of the nation of Israel as the people of Israel see it.
Just like the people in my home states of Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee thought that ending Jim Crow would destroy them. They were wrong, just as the people of Israel would be wrong.
> It certainly felt that way to them! Strongly enough that they fought a war over it.
No war was fought over the end of Jim Crow.
> That's the point. The single-state solution, practically, would require a war. I know we pulled out of Afghanistan.
At the moment, probably. That can change.
> But I thought we'd have a bigger gap before another group of Westerners decided they like drawing borders in the Middle East, and that anyone who disagrees with them--including the people on the ground--should be violently forced to comply.
Those Knesset members are not asking western intervention to end their ethnostate.
> They were wrong, just as the people of Israel would be wrong.
They may be. Maybe India and Pakistan could peacefully reünify, too. I'm doubtful. But that matters less than the people there being very much more doubtful.
> No war was fought over the end of Jim Crow
Sorry, fair enough. Ending Jim Crow wasn't a credible threat to the South at that time. The war had already been fought.
> At the moment, probably. That can change
Sure. But sentiment has to shift before one can peacefully move borders.
> Those Knesset members are not asking western intervention to end their ethnostate
I've lost your argument. (Also, ethnostate and nation-state are practically synonymous.)
The war for a single state is already happening mind you, and westerners are already involved and influential in it. i disagree that there is now an option to decide now that we dont want to draw borders, only whether we're satisfied with the new borders or not.
Not a real argument, but I don't think I can come up with a real argument for your case, so fair enough.
Show me a single case where previously-warring nations peacefully unified (i.e. not through conquest or subjugation)? Poland-Lithuania and England-Scotland are the only two I can think of.
Because the counterexample--multiethnic nations that split along national-identity lines--is far more frequent since the age of conquest. Former Yugoslavia. Pre-Partition India. Sudan. Ethiopia. Algeria.
Multiethnicisim is hard. Where it works, it happened through immigration. Combining previously-warring nations under one roof is basically just assisted civil war.
Mostly the ones where multinationality has been reduced to a different set of cuisines. If you look around the Middle East region, then every multiethnic state there has had civil wars recently.
It’s borderline bigoted to force your values onto a completely different population that’s Islamist, tribal and radicalized. After Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza people thought it would be a good idea to hold elections there. Hamas, the Palestinian equivalent of ISIS, won. There haven’t been elections since. In the West Bank, no PA elections since 2005 because the PLO feared Hamas would win there too.
> name all the democratic states which have Arab culture
This is a genuine pro-Israeli argument. It’s not a valid anti-Arab one.
How many extraction-economy former colonies have successfully democratised? (Extraction being the sole or overwhelming economic sector.) Because that’s the common link between e.g. Central Asia and the Arab world.
Sorry, I meant to just characterise the argument, not its speaker. The absence of Arab democracies doesn't have a well-established predictive mechanism that would allow us to predict a Gazan democracy should fail. It does highlight a unique aspect of Israel in its region.
For rule of the people (democracy) to work, certain base values and education are necessary. I implore you to research this, it is discussed often by both Arabs (who understand Arab culture) and Westerner scholars (who do not).
Sure, no problem, I actually had this conversation with somebody a few months ago. He's an Israeli Arab, not a Gazan Arab, but they are both Sunni Muslims. The conversation was in Hebrew, though I often speak with Arabs in Arabic as well. I spend much time interested in their culture and language - Israelis and Westerners know almost nothing about them.
Firstly, legal authority lies only with God. Not with man, as in Jewish and Christian societies (his comparison, not mine, and yes he mentioned Christians for some reason even though his town does not have Christians). There is no decision of man about what is permitted and what is not - even if the majority in a democracy want it. Allah has revealed what is good and just for man, even though he emboldened man with other desires and temptations.
Another problem with democracy in Arab society (not Muslim society as the previous paragraph dealt with) is how would voting even work. Two women's votes would be needed for every man's votes. He specifically said that this is an Arab problem, not a Muslim problem. And he says that women should not vote anyway, nor should children whose father is still alive, because they can only vote for who the father or husband says. Secret voting does not change that.
Another problem is Jews will manipulate the voting, or the results. Or any voting results the party doesn't like, will be blamed on Jewish intervention. I think he means Israeli intervention but those are his words.
That's just from some store owner I was talking to. You can choose to decide that he doesn't represent anybody. But he is a Sunni Muslim who lives a half hour drive from Gaza city.
I understand all this very well. What I don't agree with is that the solution to this problem is to not give them any say in their government. The solution is education, and that doesn't happen when they're starved and bombed. Analogously, the slaves freed in the US Civil War were mostly illiterate and had been kept so by law. It is very difficult to run a democracy with an illiterate electorate, but nobody would suggest that we just throw up our hands and give up on having the government represent the will of the people.
hamas killed or tortured into submission all opposition in gaza.
palestinian authority stopped having elections as well. because hamas will win. latest polling (in link that i sent you in other thread) shows hamas polling at 40+%
got mistaken with previous polls. hamas not 40+ but 30+. 10 points higher than fatah and in case those that don't know who they vote for, won't vote - i guess hamas gets majority.
But PA promised to France/UK/Canada/Australia that Hamas wouldn't be allowed to participate in elections, so...
Thank you. I don't have a sense for the credibility of the poll.
But taking their numbers at face value, we have 58% of Gaza residents saying Hamas was incorrect to launch its 7 October offensive. (Surprisingly, 59% in the West Bank say it was correct. That's problematic.)
Problematically, too, is the 2/3rds of respondents in Gaza who oppose Hamas disarming. Based on this survey, which again, I have zero ability to judge in terms of accuracy, there would need to be a long civic transition to democratic self-rule while new political parties are given a safe space to form and grow.
They are not parties considering Israel illegitimate nor are they calling for the destruction of Israel. They are parties calling for a two-state solution, and consider the globally-recognized-as-illegal settlements as illegitimate i.e. they call the ever expanding borders of Israel as illegitimate.
If you were to make them illegal, you're basically legally disenfranchising 25% of Israel's population.
Is there any direct source for the questionability which does not come from Israel, or from entities backed by Israel? Because nowadays, all of these “sources” which I’ve seen to be shared were clearly lying propaganda, like “they lied about what the link said” obvious lies, or shared links which were said by Israel basically. The funniest was the account whose only purpose was to show that Palestine was rich in reality, and tried to show that shops are still full with stuffs there, while clearly tried to disguise from where or when the information came. And it does only that, nothing else.
I don't know what you mean by "logical" narrative. There is no logic here. Israel facilitates the entry of virtually all the food going into Gaza. They monitored the food prices and when they spiked, they took action, bringing them back down.
Considering factors like different countries having different populations, "most efficient" has very little to do with the raw number of people starving.
There's political opposition to this within Israel. Here's what happened to an elected member of the Knesset who spoke out against the cruelty in Gaza.[1] He was forcibly removed from the podium of the Knesset.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzDxV7jnAos