Hamas has launched a major attack on Israel

[Herdfan]

Major incursions into Gaza will probably result in the death of most of the hostages

Do you think the hostages have any chance no matter what happens? I can't see Hamas letting them go alive regardless.

 

[Citysnaps]

Do you think the hostages have any chance no matter what happens? I can't see Hamas letting them go alive regardless.

It does feel grim. But I wouldn't be surprised if there was, at some point, a rescue attempt. Though a completely different situation, Entebbe comes to mind.

I feel pretty confident Israel and the US are at least gaming out different possibilities.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Like I mentioned earlier. Straight out of the rule book. Smaller power attacks bigger power in order to get overwhelming retaliation and then gain sympathy on the world stage for that retaliation.

But this can only work in a bubble and most of the world doesn’t exist in that bubble. It’s refreshing that most of the media is pointing the complete blame on Hamas and not Palestinians as a whole. The exception of course is Republicans with how Joe Biden is responsible for every bad thing that happens in the universe, fucking dullards.

 

[Roller]

Do you think the hostages have any chance no matter what happens? I can't see Hamas letting them go alive regardless.

Sadly, I don't think they have a great chance, even if Israel doesn't launch a big ground attack. To get them out, one would need to know where the hostages are being held, and I suspect they're widely dispersed. Also, Gaza is so densely populated that it's hard even for trained military units to operate there. But I sure hope I'm wrong about this.

An interesting point is the presence of Americans and citizens of other countries amongst the hostages. I'm sure we're supplying the Israelis with intelligence about what's going on in Gaza, though I don't know if it's better than what the Israelis are getting themselves at this point.

 

[dada_dave]

View attachment 26568


Depending on what gets confirmed as I said, the political fallout may not wait until the end of the conflict. I think this is the 3rd or so paper claiming to have sources that Egypt tried to warn Israel. We don't know of course that those are independent sources - so do not take this as absolute confirmation.

Full text of that part:

Egypt sent intel. warning to Israel

Israel also cannot afford the type of intelligence failure that enabled the Hamas attack. Al-Monitor's sources confirmed reports that emerged on Monday to the effect that senior Egyptian officials had warned Israel of an impending assault from Gaza. They said Egyptian intelligence officials had indeed shared warnings with their Israeli counterparts, but the information was not specific or focused and was not brought to Netanyahu’s attention.

Explanations for the intelligence fiasco suggest Israel has grown far too reliant on its cutting-edge defense technology, whereas Hamas had learned the lesson of its vulnerability to Israeli eavesdropping and surveillance and reverted to more basic means of communication to avoid detection [ @Citysnaps ] . Israel was also convinced that Hamas could become a rational governing force, propped up with money from Qatar and work permits for Gazan laborers in Israel. In the face of this colossal failure on his watch, Netanyahu is working to protect his rule and legacy even as he directs preparations for war.

Hamas is also stunned.

"Their success surprised them, too," a diplomatic source in the region told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. "They hoped to kill some Israelis, embarrass the IDF and return to Gaza with two or three kidnapped Israelis. Instead, they roamed inside Israel for more than a day, killing over a thousand Israelis and getting stuck with something like 200 abductees," the source said.

"They are very worried. With two abductees, they could have negotiated with Israel for permission to build a seaport and freedom for hundreds of prisoners held in Israeli jails. With more than 100 abductees, they will face the entire Israeli army inside Gaza. That's the tragedy of their success[*]," the diplomatic source added.

*obviously from the POV of Hamas, not humanity. I'm not sure I totally buy this, didn't mean to "kill/capture so many" given the scale of the operation, but it's possible I suppose. The extent of the horror of the crimes committed to the victims, not just the scale, is not exactly an "oopsie" though is it?

Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/original...ce-launch-gaza-ground-operation#ixzz8FmpjqFzj

 

[dada_dave]

 

[dada_dave]

 

[GermanSuplex]

This is insane. The thought is bad enough, but you don’t have time to process everything with the constant gaslighting. The right is probably hoping for videos of American beheadings so they can point and say “this never would have happened if shit for brains was president.”

These people really think there was world peace with Donald Trump’s perceived “strength” (lying and calling people names on social media, real tough stuff) and that he is the key to restoring it.

To each their own, I’m glad we have a rational president and a cabinet of adults, not someone who probably would have trouble condemning any of this if any of the terrorists wore a MAGA hat.

 

[dada_dave]

This is insane. The thought is bad enough, but you don’t have time to process everything with the constant gaslighting. The right is probably hoping for videos of American beheadings so they can point and say “this never would have happened if shit for brains was president.”

These people really think there was world peace with Donald Trump’s perceived “strength” (lying and calling people names on social media, real tough stuff) and that he is the key to restoring it.

To each their own, I’m glad we have a rational president and a cabinet of adults, not someone who probably would have trouble condemning any of this if any of the terrorists wore a MAGA hat.

Tankies and MAGATs allied that Russians should be allowed to kill Ukrainians are now split - the tankies range from justifying the killing of jews, denying it happened, or reveling in it and bloodthirsty MAGATs are calling for the carpet bombing of Gaza and justifying the killing of as many Palestinians as possible.

 

[KingOfPain]

These people really think there was world peace with Donald Trump’s perceived “strength” (lying and calling people names on social media, real tough stuff) and that he is the key to restoring it.

The best response would be: Wasn't Jared Kushner supposed to handle the peace deals in that region? So why did this happen?
(I know that he most likely wasn't cut out for that work anyway. And I guess he was much more interested to set up the $2 billion deal with the Saudis.)

 

[dada_dave]

Over the years, this was always something I thought from afar must be an undercurrent of the Israeli right's thinking, but I had no idea how true it was or how explicit it was:

 

[dada_dave]

The best response would be: Wasn't Jared Kushner supposed to handle the peace deals in that region? So why did this happen?
(I know that he most likely wasn't cut out for that work anyway. And I guess he was much more interested to set up the $2 billion deal with the Saudis.)

If anything the "deal" destabilized the situation further, as it was designed to ignore and cutout Palestine. It was never about peace and now further work on it is dead.

 

[KingOfPain]

If anything the "deal" destabilized the situation further, as it was designed to ignore and cutout Palestine. It was never about peace and now further work on it is dead.

I didn't expect Jared Kushner to have any positive effect in that position, but it's a good rebuttal against the ones who claim that it would be better with Trump.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

This is insane. The thought is bad enough, but you don’t have time to process everything with the constant gaslighting. The right is probably hoping for videos of American beheadings so they can point and say “this never would have happened if shit for brains was president.”

These people really think there was world peace with Donald Trump’s perceived “strength” (lying and calling people names on social media, real tough stuff) and that he is the key to restoring it.

To each their own, I’m glad we have a rational president and a cabinet of adults, not someone who probably would have trouble condemning any of this if any of the terrorists wore a MAGA hat.

I have a reliable source who informed me Hamas militants entered the US from the southern border completely unimpeded by following the “Biden’s open border ahead” billboards scattered throughout Mexico. Once in the country they went straight to the CA welfare office where they were given free housing, a Costco card, and pedicure. After shooting up drugs on Hollywood Blvd. they boarded a plane to DC to take a selfie with their boyfriend Joe Biden who handed them several large duffle bags full of cash and Hunter Biden’s new laptop.

From there they boarded Jack Smith’s private jet to Ukraine. They didn’t need to take Jack Smith’s private jet to Ukraine but he was heading there anyway and had some available seats, so why not? Once the plane was in the air they were corned by a medical team who tried to force them to have gender reassignment surgery but they successfully bribed them against it with a backpack full of child pornography given to them by the Clintons.

Once in Ukraine they met with Zelenskyy who was wearing a shirt that said “White Christian Nationalists can lick my balls”. They exchanged the duffle bags full of cash for US missiles that were modified with a stencil that says “Made in Iran”. The missiles were then smuggled into Gaza on Taylor Swift tour buses. Of note, thanks to Miss Swift there are now 9 billion Palestinians registered to vote in the US who don’t even live here!

Because I’m a free thinker I’m willing to admit some of this information might be inaccurate but I think we can all agree that it’s completely plausible.

 

[Huntn]

Look Israel is responsible for a lot of deaths, including that of Palestinian children. I'm not going to deny or sugar coat that. And the latest retailiatory strikes have killed at least 140 kids. Cutting off food, water, and electricity to 2.1 million people plus sealing the border in so they can't leave despite telling them to do so is a war crime no matter what was done to Israel.

But no. When Hamas starts cutting the heads off of babies, taking more children, again including babies, hostage and threatening to execute them on camera, and none of that is an exaggeration, this is not reaping what you sow. That's just fucking ISIS. There are times when the lines between terrorism and freedom fighter can indeed get blurry and depend on your point of view. This? this is not one of those times.

Plenty of Israelis have been fighting for peace as have plenty of Palestinians. Both understand that how we got here involved a lot of bloodshed, repression, and the worst of humanity on display. I don't paint every Palestinian, problematic or not, with Hamas any more than I paint every Israeli, problematic or not, with Likud, and by combining them here I'm being unfair to Likud fascist assholes that they are but Hamas is that much worse.

Inexcusable, the amount of Hamas hate and atrocities. They have turned it into we scorch you, or you scorch us situation and Israel will be sure to oblige them, along with many of the 2M citizens living in Gaza becoming “justified“ victims. A legitimate question might be how much oppression can Israel deal out, before people strike back?

I am very critical of Israel the underdog, who became the oppressors in their immediate vicinity for “security”. However, Israel has been in constant conflict with it’s neighbors since the beginning. Here you can blame the West who decided to take land from Arabs and plop down a Jewish State in the middle of them. I also feel sorry for the Israelis who were born into this and feel like they are constantly in jeopardy, trying to change policy to better fit in with their neighbors.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...yahu-liability-must-go-israel-palestine-hamas

Behind paywall, read it with Safari in reader mode, Israeli Gaza Conflict Timeline:

Here is a timeline of the clashes between Palestinian militants and Israel.

The relentless and deadly conflict has persisted for decades.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Roller]

Inexcusable, the amount of Hamas hate and atrocities. They have turned it into we scorch you, or you scorch us situation and Israel will be sure to oblige them, along with many of the 2M citizens living in Gaza becoming “justified“ victims. A legitimate question might be how much oppression can Israel deal out, before people strike back?

I am very critical of Israel the underdog, who became the oppressors in their immediate vicinity for “security”. However, Israel has been in constant conflict with it’s neighbors since the beginning. Here you can blame the West who decided to take land from Arabs and plop down a Jewish State in the middle of them. I also feel sorry for the Israelis who were born into this and feel like they are constantly in jeopardy, trying to change policy to better fit in with their neighbors.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...yahu-liability-must-go-israel-palestine-hamas

Behind paywall, read it with Safari in reader mode, Israeli Gaza Conflict Timeline:

Here is a timeline of the clashes between Palestinian militants and Israel.

The relentless and deadly conflict has persisted for decades.

www.nytimes.com

"Plop down a Jewish State?" You make it sound as if it was decided to found Israel in an area to which Jews had no historical claim, which is false. Jews have been in the region for thousands of years. This doesn't mean other people don't have a right to live there too, but the Arab states attacked Israel immediately after its declaration and several times since. Fortunately, some of them, notably Egypt and Jordan, eventually recognized Israel. Not so terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, whose objective is to completely obliterate the Jewish state.

It's also important to consider that Israel was founded immediately after the Holocaust, in which approximately six million Jews were slaughtered. Many Jews immigrated to and flourished in Western countries like the U.S., the U.K., and Canada, but Israel was, and still is, the only place we can call ours.

Have you ever been to Israel? Compared to other countries it's tiny, about the size of New Jersey. A bit over 260 miles in length and only around 6 miles wide at its narrowest, and much of it is arid or semi-arid. It should be possible for Israel to peacefully coexist with a Palestinian state next to it, but that's never been acceptable to Palestinian negotiators. Sadly, this has made it easier for horrible leaders like Netanyahu to maintain a constant state of turmoil and stay in power.

 

[dada_dave]

From Twitter, there are some points I disagree with, but also a lot of good points. I have added some of my own thoughts to it in italics, this is not exhaustive as it is a very long piece:

Isaac Saul
@Ike_Saul People ask me all the time if I am "pro-Israel" because I am a Jew who has lived in Israel, and my answer is that being "pro-Israel" or being "pro-Palestine" or being a "Zionist" does not properly capture the nuance of thought most people do or should have about this issue. It certainly doesn't capture mine.I have a lot to say. I’ve spent the last 72 hours writing, texting, and talking to Israelis, Jews, Muslims, and Palestinians. Much of my reaction is going to piss off people on "both sides," but I am exhausted and hurting and I do not think there is any way to discuss this situation without being radically honest about my views. So I'm going to try to say what I believe to be true the best I can.Let me start with this: It could have been me.That's a hard thought to shake when watching the videos out of Israel — the concert goers fleeing across an empty expanse, the hostages being paraded through the streets, the people shot in the head at bus stops or in their cars. I went to those parties in the desert, I rubbed shoulders with Israelis and Arabs and Jews and Muslims, I could have easily accepted an invitation to some concert near Sderot and gone without a care, only to be indiscriminately slaughtered. Or, perhaps worse, taken hostage and tortured.I don’t believe Hamas is killing Israelis to liberate themselves, nor do I believe they are doing it to make peace. They're doing this because they represent the devil on the shoulder of every oppressed Palestinian who has lost someone in this conflict. They're doing it because they want vengeance. They are evening the score, and acting on the worst of our human impulses, to respond to blood with blood — an inclination that is easy to give in to after what their people have endured. It should not be hard to understand their logic — it is only hard to accept that humans are capable of being driven to this. Not defending Hamas is a very low bar to clear. Please clear it. [I would add here that Hamas went well beyond blood for blood. They went for horror for blood.].

It’s not possible to recap the entire 5,000 year history of people fighting over this strip of land in one newsletter. There are plenty of easily accessible places you can learn about it if you want to (and, by the way, many of you should — far too many people speak on this issue with an obscene amount of ignorance, loads of arrogance, and a narrow historical lens focused on the last few decades). But I'll briefly highlight a few things that are important to me.In my opinion, the Jewish people have a legitimate historical claim to the land of Israel. [if every group wanted its historical homeland back, we'd have a very bad time of it around the world. that said the next points are solid, if depressing. There had to have been a better way in 1948, but that would have required everyone, including the Palestinians and Arabs, to act better than they did, not just the West/UN/Israel.] Jews had already been expelled and returned and expelled again a half dozen times before the rise of the Muslim and Arab rule of the Ottoman Empire. Of course it’s messy because we Jews and Arabs and Muslims are all cousins and descendents of the same Canaanites. But Arabs won the land centuries ago the same way Israel and Jews won it in the 20th century: Through conflict and war. The British defeated the Ottoman Empire and then came the Balfour Declaration, which amounted to the British granting the area to the Jewish people, a promise they’d later try to renege on — all before the wars that have defined the region since 1948.That historical moment in the late 1940s was unique. After World War II, with many Arab and Muslim states already in existence, and after six million Jews were slaughtered, the global community felt it was important to grant the Jewish people a homeland. In a more logical or just world that homeland would have been in Europe as a kind of reparation for what the Nazis and others before them had done to the Jews, or perhaps in the Americas — like Alaska — or somewhere else. But the Jews wanted Israel, the British had taken to the Zionist movement, the British had conquered the Ottoman Empire which handed them control of the land, and America and Europe didn’t want the Jews. As a result, we got Israel.The Arab states had already rejected a partitioned Israel repeatedly before World War II and rejected it again after the Holocaust and the end of the war. They did not want to give up even a little bit of their land to a bunch of Jewish interlopers who were granted it all of a sudden by British interlopers who had arrived a hundred years prior. Who could blame them? It had been centuries since Jews lived there in large numbers, and now they wanted to return in waves as secularized Europeans. Many of us would probably react the same way. So, just as humans have done forever, they fought. The many existing Arab states turned against the burgeoning new Jewish state. One side won and one side lost. This is the brutal and broken and violent world we live in, but it is what created the global world order we have now.Are Israelis and British people "colonizers" because of this 20th century history? Sure. But that view flattens thousands of years of history and conflict, and the context of World War I and World War II. I don’t view Israelis and Brits as colonizers any more than the Assyrians or the Babylonians or the Romans or the Mongols or the Egyptians or the Ottomans who all battled over the same strip of land from as early as 800 years before Jesus’s time until now. [Again, maybe we should've learned from that history and done better?] The Jews who founded Israel just happened to have won the last big battle for it. You can’t speak about this issue in a vacuum. You can't pretend that it wasn't just 60 years ago when Israel was surrounded on all sides by Arab states who wanted to wipe them off the face of the planet. Despite the balance of power shifting this century, that threat is still a reality. [Also true, many of the Arab/Palestinian complaints are that they were on the losing side, not the tactics employed] And you can't talk about that without remembering the only reason the Jews were in Israel in the first place was that they'd spent the previous centuries fleeing a bunch of Europeans who also wanted to wipe them off the face of the planet. And then Hitler showed up. [Yup]

American partisans have a narrow view of this history, and an Americentric lens that is infuriating to witness. As Lee Fang perfectly put it, "Hamas would absolutely execute the ACAB lefties cheering on horrific violence against Israelis if they lived in Gaza & U.S. right-wingers blindly cheering on Israeli subjugation of Palestinians would rebel twice as violently if Americans were subjected to similar occupation."And yet, many Americans only view modern Israel as the "powerful" one in this dynamic. Which is true — they obviously are. It isn't a fair fight and it hasn't been for decades because Israel's government is rich and resourceful, has the backing of the United States and most of Europe, and has an incredibly powerful military. At the same time, Israeli leadership has made technological and military advancements that have further tipped those scales — all while the Israeli government has helped create a resource-thin open air prison of two million Arabs in Gaza.Conversely, Palestinians are devoid of any real unified leadership, and the Arab world is now divided on the issue of Palestine. Israel is unwilling to give the people in Gaza and the West Bank more than an inch of freedom to live. These are largely the refugees and descendents of the refugees of the 1948 and 1967 wars that Israel won. And you can't keep two million people in the condition that those in the Gaza strip live in and not expect events like this.I'm sorry to say that while the blood on the ground is fresh. The Israelis who were killed in this attack largely have nothing to do with those conditions other than being born at a time when Israel and Jews have the upper hand in this conflict. Some of the victims weren’t even Israeli — they were just tourists. This is why we describe them as “innocent” and why Hamas has only reaffirmed that they are a brutal terror organization with this attack — an organization that I hope is quickly toppled, for the sake of both the Palestinian people and the Israelis. But as someone with a deep love for Israel, with friends in danger and people I know still missing, it breaks my heart to say it but I'm saying it again because it remains perhaps the most salient point of context in a tangled mess full of centuries of context:You cannot keep two million people living in the conditions people in Gaza are living in and expect peace.You can't. And you shouldn’t. Their environment is antithetical to the human condition. Violent rebellion is guaranteed. Guaranteed. As sure as the sun rising. [Again, violent rebellion is indeed expected, this attack was beyond that] And the cycle of violence seems locked in to self-perpetuate, because both sides see a score to settle:1) Israel has already responded with a vengeance, and they will continue to. Their desire for violence is not unlike Hamas’s [It should be pointed out that there is a moral difference between deliberately targeting civilians and collateral damage ... however when the collateral damage is so high and so ... expected, there is no real formula for equating horror here] — it’s just as much about blood for blood as any legitimate security measure. Israel will “have every right to respond with force." Toppling Hamas — a group, by the way, Israel erred in supporting — will now be the objective, and civilian death will be seen as necessary collateral damage. But Israel will also do a bunch of things they don't have a right to. They will flatten apartment buildings and kill civilians and children and many in the global community will probably cheer them on while they do it. They have already stopped the flow of water, electricity, and food to two million people, and killed dozens of civilians in their retaliatory bombings. We should never accept this, never lose sight that this horror is being inflicted on human beings. As the group B’Tselem said, “There is no justification for such crimes, whether they are committed as part of a struggle for freedom from oppression or cited as part of a war against terror.” I mourn for the innocents of Palestine just as I do for the innocents in Israel. As of late, many, many more have died on their side than Israel's. And many more Palestinians are likely to die in this spate of violence, too. Unfortunately, most people in the West only pay attention to this story when Hamas or a Palestinian in Gaza or the West Bank commits an act of violence. Palestinian citizens die regularly at the hands of the Israeli military and their plight goes largely unnoticed until they respond with violence of their own. Israel had already killed an estimated 250 Palestinians, including 47 children, this year alone. And that is just in the West Bank.2) Every single time Israel kills someone in the name of self-defense they create a handful of new radicalized extremists who will feel justified in wanting to take an Israeli life in retribution sometime in the future. Half of Gaza’s two million people are under the age of 19 — they know little besides Hamas rule (since 2006), Israeli occupation, blockades, and rockets falling from the sky. The suffering of these innocent children born into this reality is incomprehensible to me. They will suffer more now because of Hamas’s actions and Israel’s response, all through no fault of their own.There is no way out of this pattern until one side exercises restraint or leaders on both sides find a new solution. Israelis will tell you that if Palestinians put their guns down then the war would end, but if Israel put their guns down they'd be wiped off the planet. [I've always hated the expression because the Palestinians literally don't have a home, so it would be a peace with no justice]

I don't have a crystal ball and can’t tell you what is true. But what I am certain of is that every time Israel kills more innocents they engender more rage and hatred and recruit more Palestinians and Arabs to the cause against them. There is no disputing this.So, why did this happen now?I'm not sure how to answer that question except to say it was bound to happen eventually. It was a massive policy and intelligence failure and Netanyahu should pay the price politically — he is a failed leader. Iran probably helped organize the attack and the money freed up by the Biden administration's prisoner swap probably didn't help the situation, either. [ Iran does not have a dime of that money. It is sitting in a Middle Eastern bank and can only be used to fund humanitarian programs inside Iran. No money has been withdrawn for any purpose. ] Israel's increasingly extremist government and settlers provoking Palestinians certainly didn't help. Nor has going to the Al-Aqsa mosque and desecrating it. Nor do blockades and bombings and indiscriminate subjugation of a whole people. Nor does refusing to talk to non-terrorist leaders in Palestine. Nor does illegally continuing to expand and steal what is left of Palestinian land, as many Jews and Israelis have been doing in the 21st century despite cries from the global community to stop. A violent response was predictable — in fact, plenty of people did predict it.Israel is forever stuffing these people into tinier and tinier boxes with fewer and fewer resources. But if you want to blame Israeli leaders for continuing to expand and settle land that does not belong to them (as I do), then you should also spare some blame for Palestinian leaders for repeatedly not accepting a partitioned Israel during the 20th century that could have led to peace (as I do).Please also remember this: Hamas is still an extremist group. The Palestinian people do not have a government or leaders who legitimately represent their interests, and it sure as hell isn't Hamas. [The last elections were 17 years ago, however Hamas did win it. Of course they haven't had one since and brutally repressed any opposition and used violence with Israel to maintain power. It is difficult to know what level of support they have. It may be higher than the author wants to admit. It may be lower than those who wish to flatten Gaza would like to believe] Will some Palestinians cheer and clap at the dead, or spit on them as they are paraded through Gaza? Yes they will. And they have. Many will also mourn because they loathe Hamas and know this will only make things worse. This is no different than how some Americans cheer at the dead in every single war we've ever fought. It's no different than the Israelis who set up lawn chairs to watch their government bomb Palestine and cheer them on, too. This doesn't mean Palestinians or Israelis or Americans are evil — it means some of them are giving in to their violent impulses, and their zealous feelings of righteous vengeance.Solutions, you ask? I can’t say I have any. If you came here for that, I’m sorry. The two-state solution looks dead to me. A three-state solution makes some sense but feels out of the view of all the people who matter and could make it happen. I wish a one-state solution felt realistic — a world of Israelis and Arabs and Muslims and Jews living side by side with equal rights, fully integrated and defused of their hate, is a version of Israel that I would adore. But it seems less and less realistic with every new act of violence.Am I pro-Israel or pro-Palestine? I have no idea.I'm pro-not-killing-civilians.I'm pro-not-trapping-millions-of-people-in-open-air-prisons.I'm pro-not-shooting-grandmas-in-the-back-of-the-head.I'm pro-not-flattening-apartment-complexes.I'm pro-not-raping-women-and-taking-hostages.I'm pro-not-unjustly-imprisoning-people-without-due-process.I'm pro-freedom and pro-peace and pro- all the things we never see in this conflict anymore.Whatever this is, I want none of it. [Agreed there will be no peace for the foreseeable future barring a miracle. It would be inhuman to expect Israel to not respond to this with force and that response will more likely beget more violence in the future unless we are very very lucky. As I said, I hope we will come out of this with more than just graveyards, but that hope is dim.] [Another solution is an early EU-like situation, two or more states but with limited to no border controls, but of course ... that isn't going to happen either in the near future]

 

[GermanSuplex]

The best response would be: Wasn't Jared Kushner supposed to handle the peace deals in that region? So why did this happen?

Mic drop argument right there.

 

[Roller]

From Twitter, there are some points I disagree with, but also a lot of good points. I have added some of my own thoughts to it in italics, this is not exhaustive as it is a very long piece:

Like you, I agree with much, but not all, of what Saul says. He claims a two-state solution is dead, but a three-state solution doesn't make sense, either. He doesn't define it, but it's usually taken to mean Israel, Gaza under Egyptian control, and the West Bank under Jordanian control. But neither of those two Arab countries is interested in taking on populations of Palestinians, who have no real government or advocate.

 

[dada_dave]

Like you, I agree with much, but not all, of what Saul says. He claims a two-state solution is dead, but a three-state solution doesn't make sense, either. He doesn't define it, but it's usually taken to mean Israel, Gaza under Egyptian control, and the West Bank under Jordanian control. But neither of those two Arab countries is interested in taking on populations of Palestinians, who have no real government or advocate.

I think there have been a couple of three state solutions, but yeah I dunno what he meant and regardless he didn't think any of them were viable including that one. I'll be honest, the only solutions with a hope of lasting peace to me (and I'm not an expert so my opinion is worthless) is either the one state solution or the borderless multi-state solution, but good luck convincing anyone there of that. Especially now, after what's just happened and what's to happen. Which means it isn't actually a solution, but then none of them appear to be. So