By Henri Astier BBC News
Israel has suggested that the long-term aim of its military campaign in Gaza is to sever all links with the territory.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said that once Hamas had been defeated, Israel would end its “responsibility for life in the Gaza Strip”.
Before the conflict, Israel supplied Gaza with most of its energy needs and monitored imports into the territory.
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That’s… not bad?
It’s disengenuous. People complain about Gaza not having enough of its own water or electricity infrastructure and relying on Israel, but up until now Israel has required Gaza to get their permission on any new construction. So Israel have been holding Gaza hostage via water and now they’re cutting them off and making excuses for it.
It doesn’t help when the government in the region digs up infrastructure to construct weapons with and makes hype videos about it.
Man good point. Glad the Israelis aren’t using any weapons that are disproportionately more effective on a captive populace. The prisoners shouldn’t fight back against their oppressor through whatever desperate means they have available. Please die and suffer in silence, Palestinians.
I know right. Imagine they used air burst munitions or. Cheaper mass artillery barrages rather than the primary kinetic and precision strikes they use now. It would look like Eastern Ukraine in Gaza.
Ah yes, because the current bombing campaign against civilians and civilian infrastructure has been very humanitarian. So glad Israel has been showing “restraint”. Never mind the white phosphorous too, very legal and very restrained.
Do you know how and why wp rounds get used? You mark a target with wp rounds and now it has an IR signature. So your artillery round can be a single “smart” round that hits your target.
Without wp you’d need to send dozens of rounds in to only probabilistically hit your target and if there was unexpected wind or pressure you might need to try multiple times. That would level whole neighborhoods and sometimes would level them as a “miss”.
People talk about wp rounds like they’re mustard gas or something. It’s a wp round per target or it’s 10-40 artillery rounds per target.
How about, no rounds per target?
I love how you’re debate-lording me on the specifics of how civilians, children and their infrastructure get blown to bits. Even if you could justify it in that way, that shit is still a war crime for a reason.
It’s not a war crime though. That’s the point. They’re not specifically targeting civillians. They’re targeting dual use infrastructure.
That’s not making the point you intended.
My bad. Imagine civilians killed in the original slave raid weren’t Jewish.
They weren’t, the first civilian bombing in the conflict is objectively the bombing of a hotel that housed the Palestinian embassy of sorts, killed like 91.
Pointing fingers in this conflict is a bit idiotic, the protagonists are all ultra religious shitheads fucking over huge populations because of story time interpretations.
Details on the hotel bombing?
That’s very true, however I don’t believe Gaza had sufficient water supplies even before then.
The whole issue is a mess, with so many bad actors on both sides.
Gaza has a sizeable aquifer and it’s received enough aid where it could have and should have built desalination plants to augment it’s water supply (but instead spent that money on Condos in Qatar).
*Have been routinely denied permit, it’s been a thing for awhile.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/11/the-occupation-of-water/
You can blame Hamas for being shitty but they wouldn’t have support without Israel being shitty. Stop trying to point fingers, everyone is to blame and no one here has the moral high ground.
So we’re really saying that an organization that digs up water infrastructure to make weapons shouldn’t be held responsible for bad water infrastructure?
Jesus fucking christ, I swear you people don’t know how to read.
Read a book.
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When the ruling party have publicly stated and action supported main goal in destruction of Jewish state, it is called security measure.
Wouldn’t it be a better solution though inevitably? I know nothing about the region so please don’t take offense, just seems if Palestine was granted autonomy while it would be rocky at first being free to govern themselves would probably be good in the end right or am I missing a lot on the situation?
Probably, however I don’t really think that Israel are looking to offer a better solution for Palestinians here.
Nah, definitely not especially right now.
There isn’t a happy ending here. They have nothing that makes a successful state.
isn’t it obvious hamas doesn’t want a state, they were given aid and international support and increasing cooperation with Israel, but they reject all that and choose war. That’s where we’re at now.
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So they give them water and electricity it is because they are holding them hostage. But they take it away and that is also bad. So they need to offer Schrodinger’s utilities?
They keep them reliant on water from Israel by preventing them from building new infrastructure. At no point has Gaza had a sufficient water supply.
Now correct me if I’m wrong, but this is the same group of people who, on video, showed how they dig up pipes to use for rockets right?
Yep, rocketing themselves in the foot-shaped hospital with that - or at least their government are. Even so, before they dug it all up I don’t think they had sufficient infrastructure.
It’s such a complex set of issues you can always whataboutism almost any point. Not that I’m knocking you for doing it.
And Israel bombed their civil airport, because it was representing a security concern for them. How not to love your oppressor, right?
The “moral” solution would be to provide electricity and water while they aid them in constructing their own infrastructure that they’ve been preventing them from building.
If I take you hostage on a boat and free you in the middle of the ocean, that’s not a good thing, right? You can’t put someone in a bad situation and then claim that they’re responsible for themselves now and not take blame for it.
Destroy people’s homes, utilities, food, etc, then pulling out and saying “not my problem” while people die from lack of basic necessities and medical care as a result of Israel’s destruction and Israel does a pikashocked face while continuing to do whatever they can to limit aid getting in still seems pretty bad. Like, better than stealing the Territory…
It is a long term goal, not immediate goal. Having Palestine state (without Hamas) responsible for itself is a good thing.
Seeing promising things about a 2 state solution being discussed at the Cairo peace summit. Let’s hope after the violence cooler heads prevail and we can see a lasting peace in the region.
I would just expect another militant group to take their place. Every bombing essentially creates a new radicals. Would you really expect Palestinians to just forget about all their dead realitives?
I hope they will remember why they have dead relatives. A lot of Germans died too during WW2, but they did make right conclusions.
Funny how you compare them to the Germans when the Palestinians are the ones being ethnically cleansed.
This is more like the Afghan war. Everytime you bomb a civilian you create a new enemy.
Do you know what ethnic cleaning means? That it is different from genocide. Genocide is a method of ethnic cleansing, but not all ethnic cleansing is genocide. For example, Gaza did experience ethnic cleansing when Israel agreed to demilitarize the area and remove all settlements. All the Jews were forced out and it became essentially completely Arab.
A peace deals that involves land swaps can be considered ethnic cleansing. But it doesn’t involve killing anyone. What is happening is a fucking war. It is between an underdeveloped region and a very developed nation, but it is war. And you can absolutely bring up war crimes, rules of engagement, etc. But at least know what those things mean.
See people always say this, but it isn’t some universal truth. Often people get exhausted and would prefer a shaky peace with a compromise over writing about random bombs and rockets.
The IRA and Ireland (I’ve often seen people comparing Hamas to the IRA situation, but just imagine if the IRA had been demanding not only a united Ireland, but they also wanted England, Scotland, and Wales too). ETA and basque country. Although there are a lot more extremist groups in that region that could take hold, I will admit. Which is why Israel is likely planning on a wider more strict dmz until peace can be agreed upon and sustained. And if it cannot, then Gaza should probably work on their Egyptian diplomatic relations and a 3 state solution is more likely here.
Because even if you want to think bad things about Israel’s government, they are working hard on diplomacy in the region and do not want repeated war with Gaza to sidetrack it. They were supposed to have diplomatic talks with Saudi Arabia until Hamas attacked them. Already have them with several Arab league nations. A large dmz, Hamas removed from power, and Gaza being forced to work with Egypt might accomplish that.
They’ll steal the territory after they’ve starved out anyone who was able to resist it.
They had complete control of Gaza and the whole Sinai Peninsula. Which quadrupled the size of land Israel controlled. But they gave control back to Egypt to make peace in 1978. Then in 2004-05 they completely withdrew from Gaza and dismantled and (sometimes forcefully) removed all settlements and settlers in an attempt at making peace.
Now in the first situation since for 45 years, the two groups have maintained peace. The other Arab nations were less peaceful with Israel, however. Islamic jihadists even assassinated Sadat. But there has been peace with Israel.
In the second, they used it an opportunity to essentially become a terrorist controlled territory. And increased the attacks. And reject any peace negotiations.
So what should Israel do? What solution might you suggest.
If they want to make Gaza a independent state, then let them have unrestricted maritime trade access with the world. Build them enough water and power capability to self sustain - then they can truly say ‘we did all that we could do, our responsibility is over’
This escape from new york style prison city with no trade, no water, no electricity, and no imports, isn’t going to make peaceful neighbors.
Populations that co-depend on each other for economic success are more peaceful, trade, and integration are keys to long term stability.
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It’s only responsible that any decolonization process have the colonizer ensure basic services exists at the time of independence. In this circumstance the colonizer has prevented any imports of technology which could be used to create energy and water independence. Not to mention the bombing of infrastructure over time. They had more power generating capacity, but it’s been bombed.
So if you want to get to a clean slate, clean hands, you need to provide the bare minimum so that there’s not an immediate humanitarian crisis when you give them full independence, and you’re no longer responsible.
That being said I’m sure the Palestinian people would value independence over water and electricity, as long as they’re allowed to trade with other countries, they will take independence and a humanitarian emergency any day over no independence. It’s just not a good look for the colonizer
Look the problem is that is that any official actions by any government is done on paper and you may have “good” interactions or good feelings with any number of people in their governing organizations, but technically on paper they are very clear on their objectives, that is the annihilation of the state of Israel and its citizens. The question is how can you allow them to bring anything they want inside the country without supervision when it is part of their written policies in laws to use what they have available to attack another country. If they changed their constitution, that would be a first step to trust.
If you’re saying they’re an independent country and you’re not responsible, fine, treat them like an independent country. Don’t embargo their sea trade
If you are going to control what goes in and out, and not let people leave, and not let trade happen, call it what it is, a prison.
Governments running prisons have obligations and responsibilities to prisoners. Water food health care
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Removed under Rule 4. We aren’t going to let people call for the dissolution of a state or people. It doesn’t matter if they’re Israeli or Palestinian.
Okay but you have to understand that by doing so you are decidedly and actively shifting the discourse to favour the Israelis, right?
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Why would they do that? They pulled out of the territory in 2004 in an attempt at peace. Every Jew who wanted to live there has been forced out.
Really? No settlers on Palestinian land since 2004? Really?
They are talking about Gaza.
Palestine is more than just Gaza. You think they are going to be okay with Israel stealing their land as long as they are notstealing land from the giant open air prison?
If the government of the West Bank was organizing this violence I’d be a lot more understanding of the violence.
0 in the Gaza Strip. 0 in the land that Hamas administers. 0 amongst the people that started the conflict.
Ah yes, “Israel continues to maintain direct control over Gaza’s air and maritime space, six of Gaza’s seven land crossings, maintains a no-go buffer zone within the territory, controls the Palestinian population registry, and Gaza remains dependent on Israel for its water, electricity, telecommunications, and other utilities.”
I guess Gazans should have been really grateful for that…
Edit: responded to the wrong comment.
Well it’ll be a DMZ inside Gaza with a very hard border that nothing may cross so it will all be Egypt’s problem.