Tornado Alley (PROG)

[sortagreen]

"When we say that the Arabs are the aggressors and we defend ourselves ---- that is only half the truth. As regards our security and life we defend ourselves. . . . But the fighting is only one aspect of the conflict, which is in its essence a political one. And politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves." (Righteous Victims, p. 652)
- - David Ben-Gurion

"it's bullshit and you know it"
- - brooklyn13

Well then.

Let me ask you this. When has Israel considered sitting down with Hamas or Hezbollah? I don't mean Sinwar... but after decades of insensate barbarism, a Sinwar is what you get. He wasn't always the case.

The problem is, that without continuous unrest, Israel cannot keep expanding. You can actually find this in Ben Gurion's own words,

In the early 2000s the US and Israel encouraged Hamas to enter the political process, and they did that... and won a plurality of the votes, which wasn't expected. Fatah refused to accept that. The US and Fatah then attempted to subvert that election and stage a coup, whereupon Hamas seized power.

Israel then blockaded Gaza by land sea and air. (don't talk about Egypt as they're on the payroll and also weren't going to have 2 million Palestinians pushed over the fucking border onto them.)

The goal of Israel’s blockade was to put Gaza “on brink of collapse,” as Israeli officials told the US State Department in 2008. Or, to quote Dov Weisglass, adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the goal was to put Palestinians “on a diet.”

https://palestinenexus.com/articles/a-history-of-ceasefire-talks-between-israel-and-hamas

Hamas for years, largely adhered to ceasefires, and Israel didn't. I remember specifically before even the 2008 ceasefire, and even during that period afterward, Israel continued to hunt their leadership with Hellfire missiles in urban areas.

Say what you will about the despotic regimes around them, I haven't seen any of them attack under a white flag. The US and Israel have attacked Iran in the middle of negotiations twice within the past 9 months. They've assassinated the leadership and sunken an unarmed ship (again on a neutral mission) leaving sailors to drown.

Don't tell me about October 7th, without mentioning Sabra and Shatila. You want to go running to Mommy screaming how Johnny hit you, but when Mom asks what you did, it turns out you were beating Johnny with a stick.

And don't bring up the proportional response silliness, it's bullshit and you know it.

Of course I know it. The IDF ain't shit when you take away their main weapon, which is terrorism on a grand scale. Why do you think they're so belligerent about Iran? Because the IDF is great at massacres, and they have all the toys and the best friend their filthy money can buy... the US Congress. And they may be more than a match for the local Arab kingdoms, but the IRGC would waste them in an actual fight. And that's their real worry.

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I'd refer you to this sort of prescient column from Gideon Levy six months before October 7th happened.

Haaretz | Opinion
Opinion | Israel Didn’t Want Quiet
Gideon Levy
Apr 9, 2023 1:01 am IDT



Israeli border policemen take position near Al-Aqsa compound also known to Jews as the Temple Mount, while tension arises during clashes with Palestinians in Jerusalem's Old City, Wednesday.Credit: AMMAR AWAD/ REUTERS

Israel didn’t want quiet, even for a moment. The agitators’ motives varied but they shared the same goal: fanning, igniting and blowing things up. History has already taught us that when Israel wants quiet, it’s almost always wonderfully maintained. When it wants an escalation, just wait and see it come. Who hadn’t been warning against the current wave? Who hadn’t seen it coming? And on the other hand, who didn’t do a thing to head it off and instead just stirred things up?

Now we will again bewail our bitter fate, the rockets and terrorist attacks, our neighbors’ violence and our sacred victims who died in vain. Israel could have prevented all this, and this time it could have been done rather easily.

When Israel doesn’t want quiet, it knows exactly what to do. Four or five anonymous aerial bombings of Iranian targets in Syria, a jab and yet another at Syrian sovereignty and Iranian power, in the total knowledge that at some point Iran and Syria will no longer be able to restrain themselves.

Diverting all-out war, Israel must now contend with a simmering West Bank
Israel-attributed airstrikes in Syria: Hezbollah may not be the only target anymore
Behind the bluster, Bibi normally opts for caution. This time may be different

When Israel doesn’t want quiet, it unleashes troopers in police uniform in an extremely holy place for Muslims during their holy month. When Israel doesn’t want quiet, it dispatches its police to barbarically beat the faithful, putting hundreds of people in restraints on the carpets of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem to humiliate them on camera, for the Arab world to see.


There isn’t a single Muslim, or any human being for that matter, who could have remained unmoved by the shocking scenes at the mosque. Of course, it’s possible to spread stories about how people “holed themselves up” in the mosque, but the truth is that many young people want to spend Friday nights during Ramadan inside the holy mosque. That’s their right, certainly in the last place on earth in which Palestinians still have remnants of sovereignty.

Beating them in such a way isn’t wanting quiet, but rather death. Killing an Israeli medical student from the Bedouin town of Hura at a gate to the mosque compound and later providing a ridiculous version of the circumstances and not disclosing even a shadow of the truth is also a means of provocation. Not wanting quiet is permitting hundreds of rioting settlers to invade a Palestinian town time after time, permitting them to engage in arson and destruction and assault at their whim, within sight of Israel Defense Forces soldiers who never thought to do their duty and protect the Palestinians. Not bringing any of the rioters to justice is also a way of preventing quiet at any price.

A country that doesn’t want quiet slowly bleeds those under its occupation. There has barely been a week in recent months without unbearable Palestinian fatalities and then everyone acts surprised, wondering what these human animals are doing to us, carrying out a car ramming attack in Tel Aviv and a shooting in the Jordan Valley.

Not wanting quiet is dispatching crazy numbers of troops after each terrorist attack to the Palestinian refugee camps and towns and turning the residents’ lives upside down for an extended time, demolishing the homes of terrorists’ families and arresting thousands of people. Detaining 1,000 people for long months without trial is also a proven way to achieve a lack of quiet, which Israel has also accomplished.

Imprisoning the Gaza Strip forever, bombing Syria without limits and cruelly subjugating the Palestinians. What else does warmongering require?

The motives change but the goal always remains. Now it’s the extreme right that is bloodthirsty in the government and that is in ecstasy every time Palestinian blood is spilled, hoping in the process to achieve Gog and Magog, followed by the hoped-for second Nakba.

And along with them there is the pro-Bibi right that wants to crush the protest movement, which could only be wiped out by another round of bloodletting. And later we could always say it was the Arabs.

https://archive.ph/20230409000933/https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-04-09/ty-article-opinion/.premium/israel-didnt-want-quiet/00000187-6233-dde0-afb7-7e3323f40000#selection-773.0-801.23