While Tuberville blocks all military appointments, Rand Paul is blocking all state department appointments until they investigate the "real" cause of Covid pandemic. There is no American ambassador in Israel, Egypt, Kuwait or Oman. No speaker of the house. Own the libs!
Hamas is only interested in killing Jews, the same for Hezbollah & Iran. No different than Hitlers goal.
Saboteur Tommy Tuberville said the US should not take sides in the Middle East. Of course not. He can't go against Putin.
The idea that Israel did not know this operation was being planned and failed to detect the incursion and wasn't able to deploy any IDF troops for 6 hours is so remote, I think I'm on solid ground to assume they allowed this attack to happen on purpose. For what reason? Logical conclusion is they wanted support for launching an extreme assault against Hamas/Gaza. But something this nefarious couldn't simply be about their own self defense, because if their own defense was their primary concern, they'd never have allowed such barbaric attacks. When I say "they", I'm not talking about the Israeli people in general or even the rank and file military/intelligence, but someone high up. Israel is fully justified to blow Hamas to smithereens. But why are the cutting off water to Gaza? How precise are the attempting to be with their assault? We've not even seen a ground invasion yet. I have to wonder if they are trying to invoke a response from Arab countries, which would lead to an big time escalation of the war, including the US and other NATO countries getting into a hot war with Iran (which seems to have been on the menu for awhile). Also, almost every prominent western leader is totally behind Israel. Russia may end up joining as well...WW3.
What is happening is not war, it's terrorism and genocide. Killing innocent people who cannot defend themselves is not war. War is waged army to army. There's no honor in this horrible terrorist attack no matter the politics behind it. No excuse period. I stand with the civilians and families who've lost loved ones senselessly. All the fundementalist's and dictators are now feeling empowered to divide and conquer their neighbors. The UN is proving to be useless.
Twice impeached loser having a sad he isn't center of attention. Also Netanyahu committed unpardonable sin of congratulating Biden after 2020 election. Not only is Hamad "really smart", just like Putin and Kim Jong Un, the war would never have happened had election not been rigged and stolen. Meanwhile on Earth, a lot of anger in Israel that Netanyahu has not really addressed the nation or reached out to families of hostages. Biden had a long zoom call with relatives of killed and missing Americans and Macron spoke to families of French citizens. Israeli PM can't be bothered?
Netanyahu is a power hungry smart version of Trump, all the investment he made in trying to change the laws in Israel to squash his own corruption issues is probably why there was not enough time to properly respond to the alleged intelligence warnings about these terrorism threats.
Of course the attacks were disgusting, and all of the rallies being held at universities, and statements of public support by various groups such as BLM are disgusting. But it's also a fact that Gaza is like a large prison that the Israeli's expelled the Palestinians to after taking their land. And before that Arabs of that area had attacked Jewish settlements because they hated the idea of Jews in the holy land. There is no clear "right party" in this conflict. But murdering civilians is wrong, period. The people of Gaza hate the Israeli's so much now, I don't see how they'll ever be able to live together. There are calls to give the Palestians a homeland, but nobody wants them. And if they were granted a homeland, next door to Israel, the problem would just continue.
Israelis did not expell people to Gaza, that's just not how it happened. If you really think that, you believe propaganda. Let's start with the fact that in 1947 the predecessor to the UN voted to end the British mandate and authorized the creation of the 2 state solution. Let's be also very clear that the only side that supported it was the side that became Israel, the Arab countries were very much against the existence of the state of Israel and the 1948 war was basically all the Arab countries around it fighting to eliminate the very new state of Israel. Of the Arabs that lived in the area, those that opposed to the existence of Israel ran away while waiting the armies of Eygpt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon at al to come and win. Those that were not against it and remained became Israeli citizens and as mentioned before, about 20% of the population in Israel is Arab. The area that Israel had after the 1948 war was basically what was agreed upon by the international community in the 1947 decision (with small changes), so the Arabs that ran away from there would have been living in Israel's territory to begin with. Gaza was part of Egypt and when the 6 days war happened in 1967 and the Arab countries lost badly, Israel gained the Sinai peninsula and Gaza in 1967 (as well as the west bank from Jordan and portions of the Golan Height from Syria). Egypt tried to get them back in the Yom Kippur war in 1973 - but after a fast start, they eventually lost even more territory (same happened to Syria, Jordan iirc was not a part of that war). In 1979 as part of the peace accord between Egypt and Israel the Sinai peninsula was returned, Egypt didn't want Gaza back so it remained under Israel control. People from Gaza could work in Israel since it was occupied. In 1993, the Oslo accord between Israel and the PLO was a start of the process for a 2 state solution, the Palestinians would get authority over the west Bank and Gaza and they would for the first time accept Israel's right to exist - with the idea that after self authority, there will be continued work to get to a 2 state solution with peace around. At some point (2006 or so), the people of Gaza elected Hamas to take authority in Gaza over the PA (the group that replaced the PLO after they gained authority) - and immediately reneged on the Oslo agreement and once again vowed to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth. At this point, the frequency of terror attacks from Gaza increased significantly and Israel started to impose much tighter control over Gazans ability to move into Israel for work. The argument I am making is that Hamas and the people of Gaza are the ones that really made Gaza a prison. They basically abandoned the peace process and are crying foul over their isolation because of it. Now, you will hear a lot of noise about poor Palestinians that did not want it and settlements and all that kind of stuff - and I agree with both, there are many Palestinians that suffer even tho they do not want that war. I also agree that the settlements are absurd and Israel should not have done them, but we have seen in the past that Israel was willing to evacuate settlements for peace (*), there were multiple settlements in the Sinai peninsula that were evacuated when it was given back to Eygpt. (*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamit But, frankly, at it's core, this conflict is about a subset of the Arab world not willing to accept Israel's right to exist. Logically, when you have an enclave that actively wants to eliminate you from the face of the earth all these arguments about humanities go out of the window. Israel has to protect itself from terror and regimes that want to eliminate it. It's the Palestinians job to compromise and accept Israel's right to exist, until this happens (Israel, we have seen, has compromised multiple times) - the conflict is mostly of their own doing. The sob stories about human suffering are right, but the cause of that human suffering is primarily by their own hands.
It's a long sordid history. I know we're pontificating about things that we only have a surface knowledge of. The Arabs attacked Jewish settlments in that region even before the 1948 war, and I think the "Israel shouldn't exist" attitude is at the root of a lot of the problem. But here is an excerpt from Yaakov Sharett, son of the 2nd prime minister of Israel, who fought in the 1948 war, talking about the Israeli seizing of the town of Bersheeba and shipping the survivors to Gaza. “The attackers came at dawn, quickly occupying the town. The men were separated from the women and shot. One of the attackers, opening the door of one of the homes, found an old man standing there. He shot him. ‘He enjoyed shooting him,’ an eyewitness to the attack said afterwards. Soon the town was empty—the entire population of 5,000 had either been killed or expelled, those who survived put on trucks, and driven to Gaza. The empty homes were looted. ‘We were very happy,’ one of the participants said afterwards. ‘If you don’t take it, someone else will. You don’t feel you have to give it back. They were not coming back.’” Israel didn't really hide the fact that they stole the land, just as Hamas doesn't hide their genocidal intentions. Here is eulogy given by Moshe Dyan, Israel Chief of Staff in 1956, following the murder of Roi Ruttenberg at the hands of Palestinian terrorists. Let us not cast the blame on the murderers today. Why should we declare their burning hatred for us? For eight years they have been sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we have been transforming the lands and the villages where they and their fathers dwelt, into our estate. It is not among the Arabs in Gaza, but in our own midst that we must seek Roi’s blood. How did we shut our eyes and refuse to look squarely at our fate, and see, in all its brutality, the destiny of our generation? Have we forgotten that this group of young people dwelling at Nahal Oz is bearing the heavy gates of Gaza on its shoulders? Beyond the furrow of the border, a sea of hatred and desire for revenge is swelling, awaiting the day when serenity will dull our path, for the day when we will heed the ambassadors of malevolent hypocrisy who call upon us to lay down our arms. Roi’s blood is crying out to us and only to us from his torn body. Although we have sworn a thousandfold that our blood shall not flow in vain, yesterday again we were tempted, we listened, we believed. We will make our reckoning with ourselves today; we are a generation that settles the land and without the steel helmet and the canon’s maw, we will not be able to plant a tree and build a home. Let us not be deterred from seeing the loathing that is inflaming and filling the lives of the hundreds of thousands of Arabs who live around us. Let us not avert our eyes lest our arms weaken. This is the fate of our generation. This is our life's choice—to be prepared and armed, strong, and determined, lest the sword be stricken from our fist and our lives cut down. The young Roi who left Tel Aviv to build his home at the gates of Gaza to be a wall for us was blinded by the light in his heart and he did not see the flash of the sword. The yearning for peace deafened his ears and he did not hear the voice of murder waiting in ambush. The gates of Gaza weighed too heavily on his shoulders and overcame him.
It's been a long time since I read about the 1948 war but my memory was that the vast majority of the Beer Sheba residents ran away to Hebron and a fraction of about 150 left after it fell were sent to Gaza, so while there was certainly an element of that, it was really a small amount of people that were removed and I have no memory of exactly why they were removed and if they even wanted to stay. Let's also remember that per the 1947 international decision, Beer Sheba had 4,000 residents, most of them Arab, so basically less than 4,00 residents who mostly ran away to Hebron on their own accord - so let's not claim that Gaza is mostly people that were sent there after a war, because it is not the case. As for "stealing" the area, there was a war, there was a loss of territory, that's pretty much par for the course for a war - and I have little sympathy for the aggressor losing in a conflict they initiated, consequences and so forth. Now, I am sure that we can get into minute details of some people that were removed after a war and of areas that might have or not have been exactly as per the proposed 1947 map, but the version I mentioned above is basically the gist of the thing. The main reason the Palestinian people suffer, especially in the Gaza strip is because of their own actions or the actions of the regimes they elected. The main reason citizens are hurt in this war is because the Hamas chooses to put military people / weapon stores etc.. within citizen areas. It is never something that should happen - but citizens are hurt on both sides because the Hamas is a terror organization. They went out of their way to attack music festival goers or a citizen Kibbutz, and they also set weapon caches and military establishments within non military areas in their own territory. I will once again say, they are the main reason for the suffering.
I'm far from a bleeding heart supporter of the Arabs, but their hate isn't totally unjustified. If any of us grew up in fenced in shithole like Gaza we'd probably hate those on the other side of the fence too. (not at all trying to justify Hamas, I want them dead) They are cutting off water to the area FCS. The situation is fucked basically. Israel isn't going anywhere. They'd nuke the middle east before being defeated.
A very interesting low-level detail interview here: https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/15/opinions/israel-misunderstood-hamas-kobi-michael-bergen/index.html Seem to agree with most of the points I made earlier.
