The Gaza Strip... Why?

Laertes · Post by **Laertes** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 10:21 am

Shatner:
All the people who can leave, have left. There are immense Palestinian ghettoes in the neighbouring countries. Jordan's population is 66% Palestinian and Lebanon has enough to seriously upset her already fragile balance between different sectarian groups. London, where I live, has a huge Palestinian population consisting mostly of those who left in 1967, and I imagine many other big Western countries do too. Bahrain, where I used to live, is mostly run by middle class Palestinians. To say "why don't they leave?" is like looking at some smouldering ruins and saying "why hasn't that caught fire?"

What you've got left - especially in Gaza - is people with no money, no skills, no education and no prospects. Nobody's going to let them into their country if they can help it, and when they do they are very careful to keep them in separate enclaves where they can be prevented from flooding the country's economy and welfare state. Egypt doesn't let them in for the same reasons that the US closes its borders to Mexicans, South Africa closes its borders to Zimbabweans and Australia closes its borders to non-white people.

When I was in Ramallah briefly as a young, angry left wing student, I was amazed at the extent to which Palestinians keep in touch with the diaspora (although as a diaspora South African myself I probably shouldn't be.) They're a nation with an ancestral home which they believe they will one day return to. The parallels with Judaism are obvious and pretty blackly funny.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 10:56 am

DSMatticus wrote:it's a lot harder to explain how you managed to name drop name_here as giving you bad explanations while quoting the exact post in which he said this:
name_here wrote:As for why people are staying in Gaza now, as opposed to why they stayed in the first place, it's not like they have anywhere to go at present. Israel has the place pretty well blockaded, and Egypt is a bit busy at the moment to accept a major refugee population and accusations of harboring terrorists.

No, that's very easy to explain. And the explanation is: The post I quoted is not the same post as that. I don't know why you thought they were, because they weren't. Here, let me go ahead and reproduce the conversation in its entirety, omitting only posts that I was not responding to in the first place:

Shatner wrote:And moving the people out from the Strip in to the West Bank hasn't happened... why, exactly?

Chamomile wrote:I would like to know the same. I assume Israel is interfering somehow, as if I was Palestinian I would be eagerly evacuating to someplace friendlier.

name_here wrote:People don't like leaving their houses much, as it turns out, even if it would be really convenient for everyone and their personal safety if they went somewhere else. Also, the West Bank isn't precisely a great place to live either, what with Israel treating it as unclaimed territory open for settlement.

Note: A Shatner post with quote blocks that are difficult to copy/paste goes in here. I do not respond to him directly, but he is basically saying the same thing I did in this next one:

[quote="Chamomile]I'm a semi-nomadic person by habit anyway, so it might just be something I don't understand, but if bombs were falling in my city and there wasn't really any organized effort to stop it, I'd be looking for any option to move to a place where that isn't happening.[/quote]

name_here wrote:Actually, the Palestinian artillery has shitty aim. Israel also has some shiny new counter-artillery tech to shoot down incoming rockets and shells that look like they'll actually hit something.

As for why people are staying in Gaza now, as opposed to why they stayed in the first place, it's not like they have anywhere to go at present. Israel has the place pretty well blockaded, and Egypt is a bit busy at the moment to accept a major refugee population and accusations of harboring terrorists.

Now, at this point name_here has clarified his position to something that's more reasonable, so being entirely fair he wasn't actually wrong, just misleading. I read this post, but since name_here doesn't have an avatar and that is primarily how I identify people, I didn't realize it was actually from him.

However, Maxus then says this:

[quote="Maxus]

Chamomile wrote:I'm a semi-nomadic person by habit anyway, so it might just be something I don't understand, but if bombs were falling in my city and there wasn't really any organized effort to stop it, I'd be looking for any option to move to a place where that isn't happening.

You gotta remember, Israel -was- Palestine back in the day. The Palestinians were suddenly told their land wasn't theirs and forced into smaller and smaller areas while discriminated against by their new government. They're fed up[/quote]

To which I respond:

Chamomile wrote:Sure, and if that exact same thing happened to my city, I'd leave. I'd move to Canada, or even Mexico and learn a new language, pretty much at the drop of a hat if at all possible, and let the invaders have the old land because sticking around just out of stubbornness while they slowly exterminate my people isn't really a winning strategy. If I can't save it, I'm not going to risk dying with it just because.

The conversation has always been about my unwillingness to believe that people will stick around in a place like Gaza strip just because they've always lived there and don't want to give Israel the satisfaction of forcing them out. It's really weird that two people have then walked in and asked me to eat crow after agreeing with me and backing up my position with facts.

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 2:52 pm

Okay. I believe I've got it. Thanks everyone for the explanations; they are very much appreciated.

As a followup question, which I can split off into a separate thread if folks want, is, Why is Israel getting so much US funding? Is anyone else doing it to remotely the same degree? Because if the US really is the major financial backer of Israel, couldn't they say "hey, Gaza, Israel, everyone in the Strip gets moved to the West Bank. We're sending grunts and trucks over to make it happen (Operation Clear End Goal and Exit Strategy is go!). If Israel doesn't like it, we stop paying their rent."

Laertes · Post by **Laertes** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 3:00 pm

Shatner:
I think you miss the point. America has tried for a long time now to turn her funding of Israel into any influence over her, and has failed. The real impediment to peace - the settlements in the West Bank - have never been something that America has been able to curtail.

Also, remember that no matter how much sense it may make in EU3 terms, nobody in Palestine is going to countenance being ethnically cleansed out of Gaza. Gaza city is their largest urban area and it's unlikely to be abandoned at any point. There are Israelis who have suggested ethnically cleansing Gaza but they tend to be the Kahane types who are also in favour of exiling Israeli Arabs.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 3:05 pm

The U.S. has a powerful Jewish lobby that pushes heavily to support Israel, along with some Christian apocolypse cults who want Israel kept around so it can fulfill the prophecies and bring about the end of the world. That's not a joke.

There's also historical ties from the Cold War.

Sarandosil · Post by **Sarandosil** » Sun Jul 20, 2014 5:50 pm

Shatner wrote: "hey, Gaza, Israel, everyone in the Strip gets moved to the West Bank. We're sending grunts and trucks over to make it happen (Operation Clear End Goal and Exit Strategy is go!). If Israel doesn't like it, we stop paying their rent."

I'm confused what you think this will accomplish.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:43 am

I'm pretty sure (in a, I have no evidence at all, but whatever, sort of way) that US funding to anyone at all is for the purpose of subsidising the US manufacturing and resource sectors. Regarding Israel.

The US military live-fire tests its weapons with near-zero US casualties. The US weapons manufacturers sell more of their overpriced garbage. The US government marks it up as benevolent "foreign aid" and also helping fight the great enemy (you know, the one we've always been at war with). The Israeli government gets free military gear, hell yes. The religious nuts all vote for it like the crazy people they are. Every nut and bolt is built in a different representative's district! Who could possibly lose?

The Palestinians.

@Ship 'em out!

So 1) that's genocide. 2) Really, who else could they test all their weapons systems on? Other countries have actual armies that would fight back if sufficiently provoked. No dice. You can't justify all that spending if you're not constantly at war, you know, especially a fake war where the other side can't fight back and you never have to stop for lack of boys to throw in the grinder.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 7:44 pm

name_here wrote:...along with some Christian apocolypse cults who want Israel kept around so it can fulfill the prophecies and bring about the end of the world. That's not a joke.

This is true to a creepy degree. I was in a FaceBook group for a couple of weeks primarily composed of a den of Baptists. Several of them (one in particular) couldn't stop fapping to "prophesies of the end times; I can't wait to go home!". They're gleefully hoping for the world as we know it to end so they can skip straight to their good ending.

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 7:50 pm

And how does Israel beating up Palestine bring about the Biblical Apocalypse, exactly?

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:04 pm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism

schpeelah · Post by **schpeelah** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:32 pm

Shatner wrote:And how does Israel beating up Palestine bring about the Biblical Apocalypse, exactly?

The setting of most of the Bible is the Palestine, most of the New Testament characters including Jesus are from there, and Christian prophecies involve a lot of war and chaos happening right before the end of the world. Obviously, that would primarily be war in the Middle East. There were people who supported the Iraq war because they thought that would trigger the Apocalypse too.

codeGlaze · Post by **codeGlaze** » Tue Aug 05, 2014 8:25 pm

So. Thoughts on this.

The Middle East Problem: http://youtu.be/8EDW88CBo-8

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Aug 05, 2014 8:45 pm

Well, there's some straight-up factual inaccuracies. There's no continuity between the three Jewish states, for one thing, and the region has been occupied and controlled by various Muslim and Arab empires at different points in time. Nor has this only ever been a case of "Israel has only ever desired peace" - as has been mentioned, Israel has no shortage of assholes. They straight up sterilized a bunch of Ethiopian Jews, walled off Gaza and have been encroaching in the territory ever since.

Which isn't to say all Israelis are assholes or willing to bomb civilian targets. And yeah, the various surrounding nations have totally tried to invade Israel before and probably would do it again.

codeGlaze · Post by **codeGlaze** » Tue Aug 05, 2014 10:46 pm

Ancient History wrote:Well, there's some straight-up factual inaccuracies. There's no continuity between the three Jewish states, for one thing, and the region has been occupied and controlled by various Muslim and Arab empires at different points in time.

And this is pretty much why I asked xD

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Aug 05, 2014 11:36 pm

Also, the entire premise that "Israel" is willing to accept a Palestinian state is misleading to the point of being essentially a lie. While a majority of Israelis say they support a two state solution, the current Prime Minister of Israel said that was never ever something he could accept full sovereignty for Palestinians as recently as last month.

As long as the political leaders of Israel refuse to accept Israel being a bi-national state and also refuse to accept Palestinians having a separate state, Israel cannot negotiate in good faith and it does not matter what Israeli people do or do not want. They are literally offering the Palestinians nothing but the choice of slavery or death. Netanyahu has said repeatedly that neither equality for Palestinians nor independence for Palestinians are negotiable options, and there aren't a lot of other options.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Aug 06, 2014 1:06 am

Yeah, there have been a lot of efforts lately to promote "thinking sensibly about this and not just picking a side, look, here are the facts" and it basically boils down to misinformation (and outright lies) in an effort to convince people that Israel is totally not in the wrong here. Because throwing a bone of "Now obviously they are reckless and criminally negligent with how they are handling this..." makes it seem less biased.

I've seen a few such things rock up on my facebook feed just in the last week. It's really weird.