Such a subtle, yet deep intellect you muster.

The IDF were operating in that area, do you know why? You know little about the world and war. War is hell, innocents will die. That is war. But she was caught in an IDF operation in response to Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Jenin, which followed a series of terrorist attacks in Israel.

You know what else happened to happen in Jenin: [Link]

Condolences to you, it must've been hard to be raised by siblings for parents.

Edited by Sheks Crows Eye (19 Oct 2023 1.43pm)

Edited by Sheks Crows Eye (19 Oct 2023 1.44pm)

Edited by Sheks Crows Eye (19 Oct 2023 1.44pm)

It's not the first time it's happened, but it's a relatively new - and interesting - way to wage war. Basically bomb your own side, swear blind that the enemy did it and wait for the bigoted and the gullible to fall in line. It reminds me of Ed Norton's character beating himself up in 'Fight Club'.

Palace since 19 August 1972. Palace 1 (Tony Taylor) Liverpool 1 (Emlyn Hughes)

This is feasible. Albeit I suspect cock-up not conspiracy. The story that it was a rocket launched by Islamic Jihad and not Hamas may have some truth. Or may not.

The idea that nobody got hurt etc. is just so laughable, all the mainstream media accept there was a major loss of life. It is awful that innocents get caught up in these things. The 'warriors' give little impression of caring on both sides.

I don't think people should be allowed to blaspheme on this hallowed site.

Great analogy! I'd consider it reminiscent of a child causing themselves harm before running to a parent to land a sibling in trouble.

If this is of course true, and I only say this as you can't be sure of anything these days, it demonstrates the extent to which individuals are willing to so nonchalantly dispose of human life to further a political or otherwise cause, even if the chance of success is minimal and the consequences as awful as you can imagine. Horrendous.

Now Zaha's got a bit of green grass ahead of him here... and finds Ambrose... not a bad effort!!!!

But what of The People's Front of Judea?

It's important to remember that these groups represent two very different ideologies and that cohabitation or cooperation wasn't tangible in the long run. While they both strived for the total deconstruction of the imperialist Roman state and all its power structures, they vastly differed in their opinions on what the Romans really did for them. You could say that the PFJ was much more aware of the positive effects the Romans had on the Judean region. Don't be mistaken though, they truly hated the Romans. I mean, they didn't just hate them like everyone else, they hated them a lot. So despite their recognition of Roman improvements, they were still actively sabotaging the Roman government.

That being said, the PFJ explicitly recognized Roman improvements in various areas. One prime example were the aquaducts and sanitation. Unlike most members of the JPF, the leader of the PFJ clearly remembered what the city used to be like before the Romans came into power, suffice it to say that he never wavered on this particular point. It didn't stop there though, the roads go without saying, but there were many more Roman improvements that were actively recognized as such by the PFJ. They were also very vocal and positive about the Roman wine, medicine, public health and irrigation. Most of all, they recognized the fact that the Roman military was probably one of the only known organizations capable of maintaining public order in a place like that. However, despite all of this, they still hated the Romans a lot and often raised the question as to what the Romans had ever done for them.

In contrast, the JPF never even acknowledged these improvements and they were a lot more linear in their thinking. To them anything Roman was despicable. Both ideologies were very uncompromising and this ultimatly led to the split between both parties. You could say that the PFJ was a lot less radical in their ideology, even though their actions say otherwise.

Strong points and I'll add that Hamas is a Muslim brotherhood offshoot, which recently Egypt's military overthrew in the past decade after their first "free and fair" elections, since then many members of the Muslim Brotherhood were sentenced to death.

Totally agree on the radicalization comment as well, I recently read an old poll from 2013 which demonstrated this: [Link]

I don’t have a stunning conclusion to offer other than “peace in the Middle East seems like a hard problem.”

But even though that conclusion sounds banal, I do think it’s important. As it happens, Palestinian rights are defined in this discourse in a way that Israelis understand as being incompatible with the fundamental existence of their country. That makes the problem much thornier than if it were just a dispute about the exact borders of a Palestinian state. In the west, we frequently see a politics of pure position-taking around this.
You can become a good progressive ally by espousing certain slogans at the cost of alienating yourself from mainstream Jewish institutions or vice-versa. But none of that amounts to a practical strategy for resolving anything. All kinds of countries all over the world mount fierce resistance to the idea of dramatically revising their immigration policies to permit much larger uncontrolled inflows, over and above the specific historical factors at play. Of course if Israelis had totally different opinions from the opinions they actually hold, this might be a relatively easy problem to fix. And by the same token, if the nature of the Palestinian Cause were defined differently, then the problem of improving Palestinians’ lives and welfare would likely also be much easier to solve. Given the actual configuration of views, though, it’s a very challenging situation. And if you don’t acknowledge how hard the underlying problem is, you’re likely to end up underrating the behavior of various third parties — when in fact it really just is a hard issue.

I'll repeat what I said in a previous post from yesterday:

The recent attack by Hamas has shocked the current conflict out of the now default war of choice framework and made it clearly a war of necessity. I expect Israel to do whatever it takes to at the very least either dismantle Hamas or establish a buffer zone between itself and the people of Gaza. If it does not, the problem will fester, and the Israelis will find themselves in the exact same position a few years down the line. It would be nice to believe that the Palestinian conflict could be solved by the stronger side being more accommodating towards its enemy. But there is little in the history of warfare, and certainly nothing in the doctrine of Hamas, to suggest this is a viable path forward. The choice faced by Israel is a tragic one, no matter how much in denial those currently calling for restraint are about this fact.

Apologies for snark in previous posts towards one of the users, but when something has been debunked for 36 hours now, it is a little maddening.