I don’t see how any Palestinians will be saved by these symbolic gestures. How will this stop Israel? How many refugees will these countries take in? Compare with Ukraine. I don’t recommend...
I don’t see how any Palestinians will be saved by these symbolic gestures. How will this stop Israel? How many refugees will these countries take in?
Compare with Ukraine. I don’t recommend sending arms to Hamas like we do to the Ukrainians, but since that’s out, taking in refugees seems like the best thing to do.
I don't really understand why the article considers this purely symbolic. Recognition will give Palestine and its citizens more international rights. I guess you could argue that the only...
I don't really understand why the article considers this purely symbolic. Recognition will give Palestine and its citizens more international rights. I guess you could argue that the only recognition that actually matters is from the USA, but I don't think that makes other recognitions symbolic gestures.
I also don't understand why this article only mentions Hamas, and not the internationally recognised government of Palestine.
These three countries will now consider Palestinians to be from an actual country and not a make-believe one. The exact rights will vary from country to country, but typically things related to...
These three countries will now consider Palestinians to be from an actual country and not a make-believe one. The exact rights will vary from country to country, but typically things related to travel, work, studies, doing business, etc.
According to this article, UK recognition means very little for ordinary Palestinians as far as the UK is concerned: What does recognising Palestine as a state actually mean? (The Independent) I...
According to this article, UK recognition means very little for ordinary Palestinians as far as the UK is concerned:
Sir Vincent Fean, a former British consul general to Jerusalem and now a trustee of the charity Britain Palestine Project, explained that recognition of Palestine as a state would mean that if Palestinian passports were issued, they would subsequently be recognised by the UK as passports of a state.
However, Sir Vincent said Palestinian statehood would not affect the UK’s refugee system.
“Does it impact the tally of refugees coming to the UK? No,” he said. This is because he expects the visa regime the UK currently has with Palestine – where travel is only allowed between the two after a successful visa application – will continue.
He added that Palestinian statehood “wouldn’t particularly change the right of return for Palestinians to their homeland”. He said this was a “long-standing right”, although it would require negotiation with Israel.
I asked ChatGPT to find similar articles for Canada and Australia, and it was unable to find any.
I live in the Brussels city center and for the past months, every day like clockwork there’s protestors yelling about Palestine. Only thing they seem to care about is recognising a Palestinian...
I live in the Brussels city center and for the past months, every day like clockwork there’s protestors yelling about Palestine. Only thing they seem to care about is recognising a Palestinian state.
I don’t know what you mean by “what’s the ask.” But if someone asked the protesters what recognizing a Palestinian state (by Belgium? the EU?) would accomplish, I wonder what they would say?
I don’t know what you mean by “what’s the ask.” But if someone asked the protesters what recognizing a Palestinian state (by Belgium? the EU?) would accomplish, I wonder what they would say?
Despite their protestations to the contrary, I think it's hard to read this as anything other than a reward for October 7 and a validation of Hamas's tactics of sacrificing Palestinian lives for...
Despite their protestations to the contrary, I think it's hard to read this as anything other than a reward for October 7 and a validation of Hamas's tactics of sacrificing Palestinian lives for political gains, and I think that's how the Palestinian public is going to interpret it.
I mean, we're nearly at a 100:1 casualty ratio for Palestinians vs Israelis. If Israel didn't respond in such an outsized, genocidal way and continuously undermine peace talks maybe the...
I mean, we're nearly at a 100:1 casualty ratio for Palestinians vs Israelis. If Israel didn't respond in such an outsized, genocidal way and continuously undermine peace talks maybe the international community wouldn't be pressed to do this.
October 7th was horrible, but at this point Israel has had so many options to get off this ride and has actively decided not to.
the metric should be civilian to non-civilian palestinians, no? I think that is also horrific at even the lowest credible estimates, even if the data aren't totally clear (to be expected, always...
the metric should be civilian to non-civilian palestinians, no? I think that is also horrific at even the lowest credible estimates, even if the data aren't totally clear (to be expected, always difficult to get reliable info during war)
I'm pretty sure the leaders endorsing the state of Palestine have full-on condemned the actions of Hamas. I don't know your perspective, but I believe the Palestinian public will accept any help...
I'm pretty sure the leaders endorsing the state of Palestine have full-on condemned the actions of Hamas.
"Let's be frank. Hamas is a brutal terror organization. Our call for a genuine two-state solution is the exact opposite of their hateful vision," Starmer said Sunday. "So we are clear, this solution is not a reward for Hamas, because it means Hamas can have no future, no role in government, no role in security."
I don't know your perspective, but I believe the Palestinian public will accept any help they can get at this point. Statehood would grant them irrevocable rights on the international stage and I'm sure no one in a war zone is going to turn their nose up at that.
While I agree, this is also the predictable outcome of Israel going completely feral. There’s an alternate universe where the Israeli response was more measured, with realistic war goals and an...
While I agree, this is also the predictable outcome of Israel going completely feral. There’s an alternate universe where the Israeli response was more measured, with realistic war goals and an articulated strategy that didn’t just revolve around blanket immiseration of the population until Hamas is “destroyed,” whatever that means for an irregular terrorist group.
I was not among those who thought Israel was committing genocide earlier on, though war crimes did abound. And I was generally sympathetic to the broad strokes of something like the “generals plan” where they’d set up a safe zone, filter who gets in, and steady expand that zone.
But once they cut off all aid with no realistic plan for how people were going to eat it became clear there’s no concern for preservation of life and the scale tipped over to ethnic cleansing. How long should people tolerate this sort of barbarity for fear of validating Hamas’ strategy?
This is a bit of a strange way of framing things, given that the Palestinians should already be entitled to statehood. Hamas's greatest objective was turning the world against Israel, which Israel...
This is a bit of a strange way of framing things, given that the Palestinians should already be entitled to statehood. Hamas's greatest objective was turning the world against Israel, which Israel delivered to them.
Not currently, they don't. They fail 2/4 of the Montevideo Convention: they do not have properly defined territory nor do they have a properly functioning government. There's a country that has...
Palestinians should already be entitled to statehood.
Not currently, they don't. They fail 2/4 of the Montevideo Convention: they do not have properly defined territory nor do they have a properly functioning government.
There's a country that has fulfilled 4/4 of these since 1949 and has been recognized by only 12 countries: Taiwan.
The Montevideo convention doesn't require a properly functioning government (whatever that means), it just requires a government. Palestine does have clear borders, given that there's literally a...
The Montevideo convention doesn't require a properly functioning government (whatever that means), it just requires a government. Palestine does have clear borders, given that there's literally a wall separating Israel and Palestine and most people can agree what constitutes Gaza and the West Bank. If territorial disputes means a country can't exist then many countries shouldn't exist. Montevideo is also only a Western hemisphere convention.
This is what I love about the framing of Hamas, they are both simultaneously the representative government of Palestine (when needed to justify the killing of civilians) and not a representative...
This is what I love about the framing of Hamas, they are both simultaneously the representative government of Palestine (when needed to justify the killing of civilians) and not a representative government (when needed to justify why Palestine isn't a real state).
Also, there are territorial boundaries, Israel just doesn't respect them.
You could swap October 7th for September 11th and make the exact same point. The terrorists win when you let them strike terror into you, and start making emotional and impulsive decisions. Israel...
You could swap October 7th for September 11th and make the exact same point.
The terrorists win when you let them strike terror into you, and start making emotional and impulsive decisions.
Israel has killed over 50,000 Palestinians since October 7th. Much like the Iraq war, this is not a proportional response, it is an emotional one.
I don't see how the consequences of October 7 can be seen as anything other than a catastrophe for Palestinians, or even for Hamas. If they get some minor political gains, it's hardly worth the...
I don't see how the consequences of October 7 can be seen as anything other than a catastrophe for Palestinians, or even for Hamas. If they get some minor political gains, it's hardly worth the losses. Unless it's using the logic of a suicide bomber, where they don't care if they die if they can take someone else out.
Incremental international recognition and delegitimization/condemnation of Israel. Hamas doesn’t care how many Palestinians die, nor does it even care that much how many Hamas members die — with...
Incremental international recognition and delegitimization/condemnation of Israel. Hamas doesn’t care how many Palestinians die, nor does it even care that much how many Hamas members die — with this number of deaths, there will easily be enough regular Palestinians newly motivated to replace any dead Hamas members to continue the fight against Israel, and the enormous birth rate in Palestine will still easily exceed the total death caused by Israel so no shortage of future martyrs.
You're framing it as if Israel had no agency in causing the international consequences after October 7th. Hamas has also been trying to negotiate an end to the conflict, with Israel torpedoing...
You're framing it as if Israel had no agency in causing the international consequences after October 7th. Hamas has also been trying to negotiate an end to the conflict, with Israel torpedoing negotiations. In honesty, which party is currently acting in more bad faith?
Hamas refuses to release the hostages, so how much good faith is there on their end either? No party truly wants an end to this other than non-Hamas Palestinians.
Hamas refuses to release the hostages, so how much good faith is there on their end either? No party truly wants an end to this other than non-Hamas Palestinians.
Israel also goes through the motions of negotiation, but I don’t think anyone is expecting anything to come of that either. Are you really saying that Hamas is a good faith player here?
Israel also goes through the motions of negotiation, but I don’t think anyone is expecting anything to come of that either.
Are you really saying that Hamas is a good faith player here?
Yes, of course Israel has agency and is to blame, but if we're discussing whether the results were good for the Palestinians (or Hamas), you have to go with the actual results. Similarly, if we...
Yes, of course Israel has agency and is to blame, but if we're discussing whether the results were good for the Palestinians (or Hamas), you have to go with the actual results.
Similarly, if we were discussing whether a strategy worked for the Ukrainian military, it's a disaster if the main result was that the Russians killed half of them.
Man, I'm just going to pause to say this is a wild take. If you really think that is what is happening, just take a minute to imagine what must be happening to a people to have them chose that...
Man, I'm just going to pause to say this is a wild take.
If you really think that is what is happening, just take a minute to imagine what must be happening to a people to have them chose that path. Either they are innately horrible people, who do not deserve sympathy, which is what your comment suggests you may think. Or they have been so violently oppressed that excessive death tolls of their own people seems like a better option.
I don’t think many people are innately horrible. I’m not even really making a value judgement here. I’m just saying, from a realpolitik perspective, this is what Hamas’ goals and values are. Hamas...
I don’t think many people are innately horrible. I’m not even really making a value judgement here. I’m just saying, from a realpolitik perspective, this is what Hamas’ goals and values are.
Hamas wants to wage war against and destroy Israel, so the outcomes of October 7 and their goals have to be looked at from that lens and not from a humanitarian disaster perspective, because Hamas absolutely does not care about humanitarian disasters — they encourage them to achieve their goals.
Maybe it might be helpful to flip it on it's head. What is Israel's goal? If we're using actions as indicators it seems like this might be just as valid:
Maybe it might be helpful to flip it on it's head. What is Israel's goal? If we're using actions as indicators it seems like this might be just as valid:
Israel wants to wage war against and destroy Palestine, so the outcomes of the last two years and their goals have to be looked at from that lens and not from a humanitarian disaster perspective, because Israel absolutely does not care about humanitarian disasters — they encourage them to achieve their goals.
It's a cute rhetorical trick, but I don't think your edit accurately accounts for Israel's actions because Israel and Hamas are not symmetric players. In my view, Israel basically has two goals:...
It's a cute rhetorical trick, but I don't think your edit accurately accounts for Israel's actions because Israel and Hamas are not symmetric players. In my view, Israel basically has two goals:
prolong the status quo by stalling and false negotiations until no living person in Palestine has a personal claim to east Jerusalem or any of the illegally occupied territories of Palestine by having lived there pre-Six-Day War.
kill Hamas and all other armed resistance factions (Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Al-Aqsa, etc), to a level where they put up nominal resistance but aren’t a genuine security threat
Your argument is that recognition justifies Hamas's horrible actions, but you fail to recognize that not recognizing Palestine justifies Israel's even more horrible actions. That is, they can get...
Your argument is that recognition justifies Hamas's horrible actions, but you fail to recognize that not recognizing Palestine justifies Israel's even more horrible actions. That is, they can get away with anything, up to and including genocide, and it won't compromise in the slightest their ultimate objective of a greater Israel.
I don’t see how any Palestinians will be saved by these symbolic gestures. How will this stop Israel? How many refugees will these countries take in?
Compare with Ukraine. I don’t recommend sending arms to Hamas like we do to the Ukrainians, but since that’s out, taking in refugees seems like the best thing to do.
I don't really understand why the article considers this purely symbolic. Recognition will give Palestine and its citizens more international rights. I guess you could argue that the only recognition that actually matters is from the USA, but I don't think that makes other recognitions symbolic gestures.
I also don't understand why this article only mentions Hamas, and not the internationally recognised government of Palestine.
That sounds interesting. What international rights will Palestinians get? Any better articles?
These three countries will now consider Palestinians to be from an actual country and not a make-believe one. The exact rights will vary from country to country, but typically things related to travel, work, studies, doing business, etc.
According to this article, UK recognition means very little for ordinary Palestinians as far as the UK is concerned:
What does recognising Palestine as a state actually mean? (The Independent)
I asked ChatGPT to find similar articles for Canada and Australia, and it was unable to find any.
I live in the Brussels city center and for the past months, every day like clockwork there’s protestors yelling about Palestine. Only thing they seem to care about is recognising a Palestinian state.
With that in mind, what’s the ask if not that?
I don’t know what you mean by “what’s the ask.” But if someone asked the protesters what recognizing a Palestinian state (by Belgium? the EU?) would accomplish, I wonder what they would say?
Despite their protestations to the contrary, I think it's hard to read this as anything other than a reward for October 7 and a validation of Hamas's tactics of sacrificing Palestinian lives for political gains, and I think that's how the Palestinian public is going to interpret it.
I mean, we're nearly at a 100:1 casualty ratio for Palestinians vs Israelis. If Israel didn't respond in such an outsized, genocidal way and continuously undermine peace talks maybe the international community wouldn't be pressed to do this.
October 7th was horrible, but at this point Israel has had so many options to get off this ride and has actively decided not to.
the metric should be civilian to non-civilian palestinians, no? I think that is also horrific at even the lowest credible estimates, even if the data aren't totally clear (to be expected, always difficult to get reliable info during war)
I'm pretty sure the leaders endorsing the state of Palestine have full-on condemned the actions of Hamas.
I don't know your perspective, but I believe the Palestinian public will accept any help they can get at this point. Statehood would grant them irrevocable rights on the international stage and I'm sure no one in a war zone is going to turn their nose up at that.
While I agree, this is also the predictable outcome of Israel going completely feral. There’s an alternate universe where the Israeli response was more measured, with realistic war goals and an articulated strategy that didn’t just revolve around blanket immiseration of the population until Hamas is “destroyed,” whatever that means for an irregular terrorist group.
I was not among those who thought Israel was committing genocide earlier on, though war crimes did abound. And I was generally sympathetic to the broad strokes of something like the “generals plan” where they’d set up a safe zone, filter who gets in, and steady expand that zone.
But once they cut off all aid with no realistic plan for how people were going to eat it became clear there’s no concern for preservation of life and the scale tipped over to ethnic cleansing. How long should people tolerate this sort of barbarity for fear of validating Hamas’ strategy?
This is a bit of a strange way of framing things, given that the Palestinians should already be entitled to statehood. Hamas's greatest objective was turning the world against Israel, which Israel delivered to them.
Not currently, they don't. They fail 2/4 of the Montevideo Convention: they do not have properly defined territory nor do they have a properly functioning government.
There's a country that has fulfilled 4/4 of these since 1949 and has been recognized by only 12 countries: Taiwan.
The Montevideo convention doesn't require a properly functioning government (whatever that means), it just requires a government. Palestine does have clear borders, given that there's literally a wall separating Israel and Palestine and most people can agree what constitutes Gaza and the West Bank. If territorial disputes means a country can't exist then many countries shouldn't exist. Montevideo is also only a Western hemisphere convention.
This is what I love about the framing of Hamas, they are both simultaneously the representative government of Palestine (when needed to justify the killing of civilians) and not a representative government (when needed to justify why Palestine isn't a real state).
Also, there are territorial boundaries, Israel just doesn't respect them.
You could swap October 7th for September 11th and make the exact same point.
The terrorists win when you let them strike terror into you, and start making emotional and impulsive decisions.
Israel has killed over 50,000 Palestinians since October 7th. Much like the Iraq war, this is not a proportional response, it is an emotional one.
I don't see how the consequences of October 7 can be seen as anything other than a catastrophe for Palestinians, or even for Hamas. If they get some minor political gains, it's hardly worth the losses. Unless it's using the logic of a suicide bomber, where they don't care if they die if they can take someone else out.
Incremental international recognition and delegitimization/condemnation of Israel. Hamas doesn’t care how many Palestinians die, nor does it even care that much how many Hamas members die — with this number of deaths, there will easily be enough regular Palestinians newly motivated to replace any dead Hamas members to continue the fight against Israel, and the enormous birth rate in Palestine will still easily exceed the total death caused by Israel so no shortage of future martyrs.
You're framing it as if Israel had no agency in causing the international consequences after October 7th. Hamas has also been trying to negotiate an end to the conflict, with Israel torpedoing negotiations. In honesty, which party is currently acting in more bad faith?
Hamas refuses to release the hostages, so how much good faith is there on their end either? No party truly wants an end to this other than non-Hamas Palestinians.
Israel also goes through the motions of negotiation, but I don’t think anyone is expecting anything to come of that either.
Are you really saying that Hamas is a good faith player here?
Yes, of course Israel has agency and is to blame, but if we're discussing whether the results were good for the Palestinians (or Hamas), you have to go with the actual results.
Similarly, if we were discussing whether a strategy worked for the Ukrainian military, it's a disaster if the main result was that the Russians killed half of them.
Man, I'm just going to pause to say this is a wild take.
If you really think that is what is happening, just take a minute to imagine what must be happening to a people to have them chose that path. Either they are innately horrible people, who do not deserve sympathy, which is what your comment suggests you may think. Or they have been so violently oppressed that excessive death tolls of their own people seems like a better option.
I don’t think many people are innately horrible. I’m not even really making a value judgement here. I’m just saying, from a realpolitik perspective, this is what Hamas’ goals and values are.
Hamas wants to wage war against and destroy Israel, so the outcomes of October 7 and their goals have to be looked at from that lens and not from a humanitarian disaster perspective, because Hamas absolutely does not care about humanitarian disasters — they encourage them to achieve their goals.
Maybe it might be helpful to flip it on it's head. What is Israel's goal? If we're using actions as indicators it seems like this might be just as valid:
It's a cute rhetorical trick, but I don't think your edit accurately accounts for Israel's actions because Israel and Hamas are not symmetric players. In my view, Israel basically has two goals:
Your argument is that recognition justifies Hamas's horrible actions, but you fail to recognize that not recognizing Palestine justifies Israel's even more horrible actions. That is, they can get away with anything, up to and including genocide, and it won't compromise in the slightest their ultimate objective of a greater Israel.
Hamas leadership died too, though, not just foot soldiers.
Yeah, that’s how Islamic terrorist martyrdom works though, I don’t know if that is a major deterrent.