Perhaps worth mentioning that at the time of the establishment of Israel, there were over a million Jews living in Arab countries like Egypt, Morocco, Iraq , Iran, etc, as productive citizens. After Israel was established they were stripped of citizenship, wealth and property. Many of them ended up in Israel, which is not only a country of European refugees but of middle eastern refugees as well. I've always wond ered why those Arab countries did not welcome their Palestinian cousins in the same way. They certainly could have supported this by using the property they had confiscated from the Jews.
'Netanyahu's hawkish defence minister Avigdor Liberman was the first to report in 2020 that Bibi had dispatched Mossad chief Yossi Cohen and the IDF's officer in charge of Gaza, Herzi Halevi, to Doha to "beg" the Qataris to continue to send money to Hamas."
It's even worse than that, Bibi has been supporting Hamas so that he can continue exterminating Palestinians.
"Both Egypt and Qatar are angry with Hamas and planned to cut ties with them. Suddenly Netanyahu appears as the defender of Hamas," the right-wing leader complained.
A year later, Netanyahu was further embarrassed when photos of suitcases full of cash going to Hamas became public. Liberman finally resigned in protest over Netanyahu's Hamas policy which, he said, marked "the first time Israel is funding terrorism against itself."
Netanyahu's education minister Naftali Bennett also denounced the payments, and also quit...
Paying Hamas to weaken Oslo
On March 12, 2019, Netanyahu defended the Hamas payments to his Likud Party caucus on the grounds that they weakened the pro-Oslo Palestinian Authority, according to the Jerusalem Post:
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Israel's regular allowing of Qatari funds to be transferred into Gaza, saying it is part of a broader strategy to keep Hamas and the Palestinian Authority separate, a source in Monday's Likud faction meeting said," the Post reported.
"The prime minister also said that 'whoever is against a Palestinian state should be for' transferring the funds to Gaza, because maintaining a separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza helps prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state."
Oh, and Hamas absolutely sucks, but so do the right-wingers who support Bibi the corrupted criminal. I feel for the good people of Israel, who were marching in the street over him trying to strip the judicial branch of power (and the civilian Palestinians), that both suffer over the bad leadership.
Iran has funded Hamas for decades and I see no reason why they would stop as long as the Revolutionary regime is in power.
You may be aware of the conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. Iran is the leader of the Shiite world and Saudi Arabia is the leader of the Sunni world. One of the obvious reasons for the timing of this terrorist attack is to disrupt the peace process between Israel and Saudi Arabia, the number one Muslim rival of Iran.
The murdering of Israeli civilians and the deprivation endured by the Palestinians motivates a desire for a negotiation between Israel and Hamas. But if Hamas is little more than a tool of Iran then this needs to be acknowledged as a waste. Any negotiation needs to happen with Iran. If that is impossible it is constructive to admit that negotiation with Hamas is futile. This means the Biden administration’s negotiation with Iran should receive more attention. Did they really just release $6 billion to Iran? What did they get in return? And the negotiations between Israel and Saudi Arabia should be prioritized and pushed to a successful conclusion. These aspects of the conflict are being obscured by the news media's focus on the violence. That is surely Iran's intent.
PS. When it comes to funding these conflicts, $6 billion is pretty much chump change. Iran is getting most of its foreign exchange by selling oil to Russia and India. India doesn't like us enough to stop buying cheap Iranian oil.
India hasn't bought Iranian oil since 2018-19 as India gave in to pressure from US. Anyway India is a poor country and doesn't have the luxury to discard cheap oil supplies. Also it is in India's interest to have a good relationship with Iran for access to Central Asia and Russia; maybe to also counter Pakistan in future.
Also it is not a matter of liking, as India might also have problem from close relationship of Israel and Azerbaijan (to counter Iran) given historical poor relations between India and Azerbaijan (Pakistan, Turkey and Azerbaijan's trilateral relationship and their unequivocal support for Pakistan for their Kashmir occupation).
As for what the US got from Iran, they got a release of six American prisoners. There have been no successful US - Iran negotiations since 2016. Iran's a pretty hostile country—they view it in their interests to keep the Middle East at a boil. It's really hard to see away forward given the attitude of both Hamas and Iran. that's why I say in the final line of my post that I don't know that there has ever been a more intractable conflict.
You completely understated the Israeli actions of 1948. It was not just threats. The Irgun committed multiple massacres, the most prominent being Deir Yassin. It wasn't just threats. The Zionist militias murdered civilians in multiple instances. Oh, and then the head of the Irgun was elected Prime Minister. It's like if we elected William Bedford Forrest President.
You may be correct. It is very hard to be absolutely certain exactly who killed whom in a war. However, a large Palestinian population remained inside Israel after 1948, so the ethnic cleansing was far from thorough.
It's not a maybe. Deir Yassin was one of the best documented crimes in history. Witnesses from the Israeli and Palestinian side confirm that there was mass murder of civilians.
And yes, there was a remnant Palestinian population. But, the ethnic cleansing was never meant to be complete. It was meant to produce a large enough Jewish majority that they could maintain the veneer of being both a democracy while also being a Jewish ethnostate. The presence of a small, politically impotent, minority is a large benefit to Israel while it costs them nothing since even the most left parties in Israel are very reluctant to coalition with them. The only time Arab parties have been part of a governing coalition was in 2021, and that was a coalition of necessity to kick out Netanyahu but fell apart quickly. Just imagine if black politicians were never part of governing coalitions in the US. Would you comfort yourself that that was just fine since the US was still nominally a democracy?
That's just not correct at all. Muslim birthrates across the world are in decline, and Muslims in Israel are no exception to this. Religious Jews have a higher birthrate in Israel, and combined with Jewish immigration the long term trends do not favor Muslims coming anywhere close to a majority. And even if they did Israel would do something about it before hand.
I was going to put a source for the demographic projections, but most of the graphs I looked up were paywalled. But you can see them in sources like the Economist that pretty clearly show that the trend is definitely not in direction of Muslims becoming a majority.
And finally, I do not think any of this justifies murdering civilians. I don't accept the lefty position of "we can't judge how oppressed people fight their oppressors." I certainly can in cases where Hamas indiscriminatingly kills civilians. I just don't accept the "Israel was just standing there doing nothing and those primitive Arabs just hate them for being Jewish" story that the pro-Zionist side tells. The story of the modern state of Israel is a tragedy, not a Marvel-movie morality tale. Both sides have the blood of innocents on their hands in situations where there was absolutely no moral justification for it. But, on the flipside, I can't 100% say that if I were a young man on either side today that I would be able to fully suppress my murderous rage at the other side. Perhaps the British could have dealt with the situation better post-WW1. Maybe if one or both sides were just a little bit more willing to compromise in previous decades a more workable solution could have been found. But in 2023 the dye is cast, and nothing resembling peace is going to happen for a couple more decades at least. Such is the tragedy of our fallen nature as humans.
Maybe in Greater Israel but in current Israel it's Jews who are increasing their share as mentioned by Critic of the Cathedral with orthodox Jews having TFR greater than 6!!
Israel has been at crossroads of many civilisation and hence has always been a battleground. Countless people have occupied Israel but it has been birthplace of Jewish civilisation.
Well, New York was the birthplace of Iroquois Civilization, but how much weight should we grant to that? Why is Israel privileged over the Iroquois?
I totally understand why the Jews wanted to make a homeland for themselves in Palestine, but I think events have revealed that it was a long-term mistake. They should have bought themselves a chunk of a less crowded area, perhaps Argentina or Brazil. Both of those countries have been historically very open to immigration.
Well if Iroquois people were alive today in significant number and wanted a nation state they would have settled in New York and pushed away Christians :)
Making a nation state is extremely complicated task and settling in Argentina or Brazil would have weakened their argument than settling in Holy land as the latter is much more powerful narrative.
In my opinion, Jews were scared by Holocaust & they wanted their own nation state at all cost and Israel seemed like a natural choice. South America wouldn't feel like a home.. If peace and prosperity was the only thing that satisfied people why would a sizeable chunk of American Jews continue to support Israel no matter what Israeli govt. do..
Well, when you talked about the Six Day War you forgot mention that was an attach by Arab states (primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) and I suspect if wasn't for this attach Israel would not have control of the areas you mentioned.
That is absolutely correct. But Israel was not attacked by the Palestinian residents of the West Bank, and the attack by surrounding Arab nations did not change their rights.
The fact that Germany went through Belgium twice to attack France did not change the status or right of the Belgians to their own country. You could also say that the Allies counterattacked Germany by going through Belgium, but the Allies did not claim ownership of Belgium because their armies moved triumphantly through it.
The West Bank was a battleground of the war, but it was not a participant. It did not have the sovereignty to act as a participant.
Totally right, Jordan army came through West Bank and Israel "felt" they needed to control that area do avoid future threats. And there was Arafat and PLO whose charter called for the total destruction of Israel, so perhaps fear as bit factor to keep control.
I don't know what Arafat's attitude was, but the present Palestinian Authority has agreed that the Israeli army can have a presence along the Jordan River to ensure security. The present Palestinian Authority has been cooperating for years with the Israeli army to ensure security. That does not mean that Israelis need to put settlements on the West Bank.
Yes, just now. I'm still working to figure this thing out. I was an early adopter to Substack, but then kinda forgot about it. So much to read, so little time. Amazing how this thing works. I have to figure out how to send you an email next....
I just sent you another note on your Yahoo email address. Please respond to the email address I enclosed. Exciting that you're going back to China. Quite frankly that's a bit rich for my blood.
I haven't receive it yet....(?) I'll respond when I get it.
China is much, MUCH less menacing than our punditry imagines. It's so very different, it's hard to express the vast divergence in what we read here and what one experiences there. Of course, anything can happen, but people's perceptions of what China are....in all the cases that might affect one personally...nonsense. Even the geopolitical stuff is largely misrepresented here.
Perhaps worth mentioning that at the time of the establishment of Israel, there were over a million Jews living in Arab countries like Egypt, Morocco, Iraq , Iran, etc, as productive citizens. After Israel was established they were stripped of citizenship, wealth and property. Many of them ended up in Israel, which is not only a country of European refugees but of middle eastern refugees as well. I've always wond ered why those Arab countries did not welcome their Palestinian cousins in the same way. They certainly could have supported this by using the property they had confiscated from the Jews.
'Netanyahu's hawkish defence minister Avigdor Liberman was the first to report in 2020 that Bibi had dispatched Mossad chief Yossi Cohen and the IDF's officer in charge of Gaza, Herzi Halevi, to Doha to "beg" the Qataris to continue to send money to Hamas."
It's even worse than that, Bibi has been supporting Hamas so that he can continue exterminating Palestinians.
"Both Egypt and Qatar are angry with Hamas and planned to cut ties with them. Suddenly Netanyahu appears as the defender of Hamas," the right-wing leader complained.
A year later, Netanyahu was further embarrassed when photos of suitcases full of cash going to Hamas became public. Liberman finally resigned in protest over Netanyahu's Hamas policy which, he said, marked "the first time Israel is funding terrorism against itself."
Netanyahu's education minister Naftali Bennett also denounced the payments, and also quit...
Paying Hamas to weaken Oslo
On March 12, 2019, Netanyahu defended the Hamas payments to his Likud Party caucus on the grounds that they weakened the pro-Oslo Palestinian Authority, according to the Jerusalem Post:
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Israel's regular allowing of Qatari funds to be transferred into Gaza, saying it is part of a broader strategy to keep Hamas and the Palestinian Authority separate, a source in Monday's Likud faction meeting said," the Post reported.
"The prime minister also said that 'whoever is against a Palestinian state should be for' transferring the funds to Gaza, because maintaining a separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza helps prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/netanyahu-israel-gaza-hamas-1.7010035
Thanks for the link!
Oh, and Hamas absolutely sucks, but so do the right-wingers who support Bibi the corrupted criminal. I feel for the good people of Israel, who were marching in the street over him trying to strip the judicial branch of power (and the civilian Palestinians), that both suffer over the bad leadership.
If Iran stopped funding Hamas would it wither away making space for negotiation?
Iran has funded Hamas for decades and I see no reason why they would stop as long as the Revolutionary regime is in power.
You may be aware of the conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. Iran is the leader of the Shiite world and Saudi Arabia is the leader of the Sunni world. One of the obvious reasons for the timing of this terrorist attack is to disrupt the peace process between Israel and Saudi Arabia, the number one Muslim rival of Iran.
The murdering of Israeli civilians and the deprivation endured by the Palestinians motivates a desire for a negotiation between Israel and Hamas. But if Hamas is little more than a tool of Iran then this needs to be acknowledged as a waste. Any negotiation needs to happen with Iran. If that is impossible it is constructive to admit that negotiation with Hamas is futile. This means the Biden administration’s negotiation with Iran should receive more attention. Did they really just release $6 billion to Iran? What did they get in return? And the negotiations between Israel and Saudi Arabia should be prioritized and pushed to a successful conclusion. These aspects of the conflict are being obscured by the news media's focus on the violence. That is surely Iran's intent.
PS. When it comes to funding these conflicts, $6 billion is pretty much chump change. Iran is getting most of its foreign exchange by selling oil to Russia and India. India doesn't like us enough to stop buying cheap Iranian oil.
India hasn't bought Iranian oil since 2018-19 as India gave in to pressure from US. Anyway India is a poor country and doesn't have the luxury to discard cheap oil supplies. Also it is in India's interest to have a good relationship with Iran for access to Central Asia and Russia; maybe to also counter Pakistan in future.
Also it is not a matter of liking, as India might also have problem from close relationship of Israel and Azerbaijan (to counter Iran) given historical poor relations between India and Azerbaijan (Pakistan, Turkey and Azerbaijan's trilateral relationship and their unequivocal support for Pakistan for their Kashmir occupation).
Thanks for the insights.
As Iran probably intended I expect Israel will now attempt to dismantle Hamas in Gaza using its control over water and electricity.
Thanks for your interest.
As for what the US got from Iran, they got a release of six American prisoners. There have been no successful US - Iran negotiations since 2016. Iran's a pretty hostile country—they view it in their interests to keep the Middle East at a boil. It's really hard to see away forward given the attitude of both Hamas and Iran. that's why I say in the final line of my post that I don't know that there has ever been a more intractable conflict.
You completely understated the Israeli actions of 1948. It was not just threats. The Irgun committed multiple massacres, the most prominent being Deir Yassin. It wasn't just threats. The Zionist militias murdered civilians in multiple instances. Oh, and then the head of the Irgun was elected Prime Minister. It's like if we elected William Bedford Forrest President.
You may be correct. It is very hard to be absolutely certain exactly who killed whom in a war. However, a large Palestinian population remained inside Israel after 1948, so the ethnic cleansing was far from thorough.
It's not a maybe. Deir Yassin was one of the best documented crimes in history. Witnesses from the Israeli and Palestinian side confirm that there was mass murder of civilians.
And yes, there was a remnant Palestinian population. But, the ethnic cleansing was never meant to be complete. It was meant to produce a large enough Jewish majority that they could maintain the veneer of being both a democracy while also being a Jewish ethnostate. The presence of a small, politically impotent, minority is a large benefit to Israel while it costs them nothing since even the most left parties in Israel are very reluctant to coalition with them. The only time Arab parties have been part of a governing coalition was in 2021, and that was a coalition of necessity to kick out Netanyahu but fell apart quickly. Just imagine if black politicians were never part of governing coalitions in the US. Would you comfort yourself that that was just fine since the US was still nominally a democracy?
From everything I've read, Israel is headed toward a majority Muslim population based on demographic trends.
That's just not correct at all. Muslim birthrates across the world are in decline, and Muslims in Israel are no exception to this. Religious Jews have a higher birthrate in Israel, and combined with Jewish immigration the long term trends do not favor Muslims coming anywhere close to a majority. And even if they did Israel would do something about it before hand.
I accept your observations as worthy of my vigilance and research.
I was going to put a source for the demographic projections, but most of the graphs I looked up were paywalled. But you can see them in sources like the Economist that pretty clearly show that the trend is definitely not in direction of Muslims becoming a majority.
And finally, I do not think any of this justifies murdering civilians. I don't accept the lefty position of "we can't judge how oppressed people fight their oppressors." I certainly can in cases where Hamas indiscriminatingly kills civilians. I just don't accept the "Israel was just standing there doing nothing and those primitive Arabs just hate them for being Jewish" story that the pro-Zionist side tells. The story of the modern state of Israel is a tragedy, not a Marvel-movie morality tale. Both sides have the blood of innocents on their hands in situations where there was absolutely no moral justification for it. But, on the flipside, I can't 100% say that if I were a young man on either side today that I would be able to fully suppress my murderous rage at the other side. Perhaps the British could have dealt with the situation better post-WW1. Maybe if one or both sides were just a little bit more willing to compromise in previous decades a more workable solution could have been found. But in 2023 the dye is cast, and nothing resembling peace is going to happen for a couple more decades at least. Such is the tragedy of our fallen nature as humans.
Maybe in Greater Israel but in current Israel it's Jews who are increasing their share as mentioned by Critic of the Cathedral with orthodox Jews having TFR greater than 6!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tIdCsMufIY&ab_channel=NinaPaley
Israel has been at crossroads of many civilisation and hence has always been a battleground. Countless people have occupied Israel but it has been birthplace of Jewish civilisation.
Well, New York was the birthplace of Iroquois Civilization, but how much weight should we grant to that? Why is Israel privileged over the Iroquois?
I totally understand why the Jews wanted to make a homeland for themselves in Palestine, but I think events have revealed that it was a long-term mistake. They should have bought themselves a chunk of a less crowded area, perhaps Argentina or Brazil. Both of those countries have been historically very open to immigration.
Well if Iroquois people were alive today in significant number and wanted a nation state they would have settled in New York and pushed away Christians :)
Making a nation state is extremely complicated task and settling in Argentina or Brazil would have weakened their argument than settling in Holy land as the latter is much more powerful narrative.
So, the Jews had a choice between a powerful narrative and endless war
As opposed to a less powerful narrative and peace and prosperity.
Apparently, they chose drama, a good deal of suffering for themselves, and utter misery for the Palestinians.
All that is worth a powerful narrative—not.
In my opinion, Jews were scared by Holocaust & they wanted their own nation state at all cost and Israel seemed like a natural choice. South America wouldn't feel like a home.. If peace and prosperity was the only thing that satisfied people why would a sizeable chunk of American Jews continue to support Israel no matter what Israeli govt. do..
Well, when you talked about the Six Day War you forgot mention that was an attach by Arab states (primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) and I suspect if wasn't for this attach Israel would not have control of the areas you mentioned.
That is absolutely correct. But Israel was not attacked by the Palestinian residents of the West Bank, and the attack by surrounding Arab nations did not change their rights.
The fact that Germany went through Belgium twice to attack France did not change the status or right of the Belgians to their own country. You could also say that the Allies counterattacked Germany by going through Belgium, but the Allies did not claim ownership of Belgium because their armies moved triumphantly through it.
The West Bank was a battleground of the war, but it was not a participant. It did not have the sovereignty to act as a participant.
Totally right, Jordan army came through West Bank and Israel "felt" they needed to control that area do avoid future threats. And there was Arafat and PLO whose charter called for the total destruction of Israel, so perhaps fear as bit factor to keep control.
I don't know what Arafat's attitude was, but the present Palestinian Authority has agreed that the Israeli army can have a presence along the Jordan River to ensure security. The present Palestinian Authority has been cooperating for years with the Israeli army to ensure security. That does not mean that Israelis need to put settlements on the West Bank.
You found me....😉. I didn't know that I had something that could be subscribed to. Anyway, here I am.
I sent you an email— did you get it?
Yes, just now. I'm still working to figure this thing out. I was an early adopter to Substack, but then kinda forgot about it. So much to read, so little time. Amazing how this thing works. I have to figure out how to send you an email next....
I just sent you another note on your Yahoo email address. Please respond to the email address I enclosed. Exciting that you're going back to China. Quite frankly that's a bit rich for my blood.
I haven't received the email to my Yahoo email address. I received previous ones, I have no idea why you're latest didn't arrive...(?)
Message just sent.
I sent you an email outside Substack.
I haven't receive it yet....(?) I'll respond when I get it.
China is much, MUCH less menacing than our punditry imagines. It's so very different, it's hard to express the vast divergence in what we read here and what one experiences there. Of course, anything can happen, but people's perceptions of what China are....in all the cases that might affect one personally...nonsense. Even the geopolitical stuff is largely misrepresented here.
Thanks for this background. I'd add a few things.
The creation of Israel was linked to the Holocaust.
Before the creation of Israel, Jews were fighting the British as occupiers, sometimes killing civilians.
During WW2, Ben Gurion summarized Jewish policy in the pithy statement below. The White Paper represented the British restrictions on a Jewish state
"We will fight the war as if there were no White Paper, and we will fight the White Paper as if there were no war."