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this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2024
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No Stupid Questions
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Hmm... For a more realistic answer not necessarily. This isn't the first time they invaded Lebanon. I'm admittedly not aware of why they left the first time, but from what I know at least in the short term they're mostly content with the territory they currently control. Of course "currently control" including Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan heights; ethnically cleansing those was always the plan. Also when Egypt inevitably collapses as a state I could see them trying to go for Sinai.
How can you comment on something you don't understand? Israel already took control of the Sinai when Egypt declared war on them and lost. Israel voluntarily gave it up in exchange for recognition. Egypt has kept their word, so why would Israel break theirs? Egypt and Israel are actually good allies.
Uh... I think you missed the part that said "when Egypt inevitably collapses".
It already has, numerous times. Nothing happened.
Huh? Are we having the same conversation?
I'm pointing that Egypt has already collapsed since Israel captured the Sinai and returned it in exchange for recognition. You claimed that when this Egyptian government collapses, or rather if it does, then Israel will seize the opportunity to do so. But they've had this opportunity presented to them already. For example, in 2011... but they didn't do anything, so why would they now?
Uh... Egypt did not collapse in 2011. That was a regime change. I'm talking about a Libya or Syria-style failure to keep existing as a sovereign state.
Government collapses tend to count as state collapses, but using your definition it's pretty hard for Egypt to end up in that state. Unless an extremely powerful empire like the British or the Ottomans takes over. Egypt's geography makes it very hard for the country to be divided and fall into civil war. Virtually all Egyptians live on the Nile or its delta, and those areas are completely packed with a fairly homogenous population. There's isn't a big demographic rift or a clear ideological divide. There's the Coptic Christians who make up 10% of the population, but they aren't large enough to do anything and there's the islamic fundamentalists, who do cause trouble, but they either swing the whole country in that direction or don't have enough influence to do anything.
You only say that because you don't know how Egypt is looking like right now. Egypt's economy is the worst it's ever been in decades because of mismanagement, and it's not getting better. We're seeing the government build new bridges and cities using our tax pounds while people can't buy food. They're borrowing money at absurd rates to try to keep the whole thing from collapsing and paying back by selling the counter piecemeal to gulf states while refusing to actually fix anything. People keep having to find places to cut back on food and other essentials just so they don't starve. We can't get enough fuel for the country so blackouts have been going on for a while and it's killing newborns in hospitals. Hell, a guy I know had a 9-hour long blackout recently.
Egypt's economy is in free fall right now and there's not much more room for falling before people starve. Some kind of revolution is going to happen within the next few decades (because people don't like to die of starvation) and you know what happens when the people try taking back control from a military dictatorship. Where exactly it'll be on the Frenchrevolution-Syrian civil war (which started because the Syrian government refused to give up its power) spectrum I don't know, but given what I've seen from other examples in the region and the behavior of Egypt's government I am very much not optimistic.
I am well aware that Egypt's economy is in shambles because of Al Sisi's vanity project in building the new capital city with money the country doesn't have. I agree with you that some kind of revolution is bound to happen at this rate, and I actually think it'll happen in the next few years because the situation is pretty grim. I'm not Egyptian, but I've talked to Egyptians who say their families in Egypt are struggling to the point where they find it difficult to buy rice and sugar. I don't think a revolution is a few decades away with conditions like that. With that being said, is there any indication that the upcoming revolution will end in civil war? Egypt can't be compared to the other countries in the region because it's a unique country due to its geography and high population. Based on recent Egyptian history, which I think is the best comparisons we can make, the country has had a few dictators and revolutions but it hasn't had any civil wars, at least not any that I could recall. Is there something on the ground that is not apparent in the media our Egyptian diaspora?
Not really; it's just that I doubt the army will give up power peacefully. Hence civil war or violent revolution. And in both cases it wouldn't be strange if Israel decided to expand into Sinai during the chaos.
There's also a good possibility that one of the high ranking military officers will use the opportunity that will arise from the chaos to orchestrate a coup and put themselves in power.
But think about it from an objective point of view. Israel has already taken control of the Sinai twice. Once from October 1956 to March 1957 and again from June 1967 to April 1982. The second time, it held the Sinai for 15 years. That's not a small amount of time and Israel even had a few settlements set up. However, it gave all of them up and handed back the Sinai in 1975 as a part of the Egypt Israel peace treaty. This treaty has been active for 50 years, what would Israel gain from destroying it?
Unlike the previous times where Egypt was the aggressor, that excuse can't be used by Israel if it occupied the Sinai again. The occupation would immediately be seen as unprovoked aggression. Why? Because Israel is the one that's very clearly hostile and violating the treaty. Egypt has been keeping it's part of the deal since 1975. It has allowed for Israeli ships to pass through the Suez, it has kept the Sinai largely demilitarized, and it has recognized Israel. If Israel invades, it would be a pariah like Russia when it invaded Ukraine. Unlike it's war with Hamas or Hezbollah, the US won't be backing Israel on this. Egypt is not a terrorist group and it's not an aggressor, and Israel would have blatantly violated a US brokered treaty. Backing Israel would be a massive blow to the credibility of American diplomacy and no US president would risk American soft power for an ally that's not willing to respect them or keep their words. They would have to back Egypt, or at the very least condemn Israel's aggression. If the US abandons Israel, you can be sure the EU will follow.
But it actually gets worse for Israel, because all the other Arab countries that established relations with it will immediately sever relations again. Why wouldn't they? Not only is Egypt a fellow Arab country, but it is the most populated Arab country and a key ally to all the other Arab countries. It's in their interest to back up their fellow Arab country that's in the right. After all, if Egypt, who has kept their part of the deal for 50 years, still ended up getting attacked, what's there to stop the other Arab countries from being next? Clearly Israeli treaties are worthless since they won't even bother to honor them and they're hellbent on violent conquest.
You can also be certain that the moment Egypt declares war back on Israel, the Palestinian terrorist groups and the Iranian backed terrorist groups are going to go wild. They'll attack Israel from every direction. Hell, I wouldn't even be surprised if the bordering Arab countries joined the war alongside Egypt. I'm sure Syria would love to get Golan Heights back, Jordan and Lebanon would want Israel eliminated as a threat, and the other Arab countries would want a decisive victory to end this long conflict. In the off chance that Israel does win another war against an Arab coalition by itself, it would have gained the Sinai at the cost of all of it's diplomacy and it would have to start again from scratch.
And what for exactly? A piece of largely inhospitable desert that bares no security threat from a country that's both peaceful and cooperative with Israel. Israel has already given up the Sinai twice because it doesn't hold enough strategic value. The things it gained from making peace with Egypt is far greater than anything the peninsula had to offer.
So let's summarize Israel loses it's valuable alliances with the US and the West, it loses all the recognition and diplomacy it worked for in the Arab world, it risks fighting another coalition war by itself, and it'll become a pariah state all for an empty piece of desert that poses no threat, has little strategic value, and it has given up twice before. So I ask again, what would Israel gain from doing this?
I just don't see it happening.
That is, admittedly, a possibility I hadn't considered.
If the treaty remains active then makes sense, but I doubt anyone will care about a peace treaty with a failed state. You know how when a country just falls apart its neighbors go after the pieces? That's the sort of scenario I'm envisioning here. Admittedly my thinking might be overly simplistic, and I should've considered more orderly possibilities, but at least in the Syria-style absolute chaos situation I'm imagining (which after thinking about it isn't as likely as I thought) of I don't see why they'd honor the sovereignty of a state that ceased to exist, in the same way nobody really cares about Syria as a sovereign state anymore.
Literally the same exact thing happened to Jewish villages, towns, and populations in cities in Palestine.
That's what the1920 Nebi Musa riots against Jews in Jerusalem or the 1921 Jaffa riots or the Jaffa deportations by the Ottomans in 1917 or the 1929 riots and massacres (including the Hebron Massacre which destroyed the ancient community there). Not to mention the nearly 1 million Jews who were exiled from the islamic world to Israel for no other than being Jewish.
I see your point. It's not wrong when it happens to Arabs but wrong when it happens to Jews. Can you help me fill in the blanks?
R A _ _ S _
Spoiler
racist ass motherfuckerI'm literally Arab (Iraqi), but okay
No, they weren't the same thing. Zionist Land Purchases were unlike anything prior, leading to the forced expulsion of over hundreds thousand Palestinians under the British Mandate. This, along with the Zionist leadership being very open about the Concept of Transfer since the 1880s, stocked Palestinian fears of being violently forced out of their homes by these new arrivals. There is a lot of context that gets ignored during these events, and it's not easy to summarize. I'll include a few paragraphs but if you want more context I suggest you read the whole chapter.
The Concept of Transfer 1882-1948
Transfer Committee and the JNF led to Forced Displacement of 100,000 Palestinians throughout the mandate.
The fear over control of the Temple Mount and a failure by leadership on both sides to quell the fears (and instead, incite them) sparked the terrible pogroms of Jewish Settlements.
1929 Riots: Forward and 972Mag
Shaw Commission
Peel Commission Report
The 1936-39 revolt began as a protest against the British Mandate and Zionist Expansion, and escalated in violence as the protests were met with lethal force.
1936-1939 Revolt: JVL, Britannica, MEE
The Jewish exodus from the Muslim world was also not the same
Keeponstalin's comments are always top notch, and I just want to add a bit more info about the exerpt that reads:
The "minor incident" went as follows:
It's interesting you say this because, ironically, you conveniently leave out a lot of context and ignore many events. I'll include a few paragraphs as well, but there's just so many of these events that I'm afraid Lemmy's character limit won't allow to give you anywhere near a comprehensive list. This very, very brief list will have to do for now:
West Bank:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Hebron_massacre
Jordan:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamization_of_Jerusalem
Bahrain:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_the_Muslim_world#Bahrain
Syria:
After the vote in favour of the partition of Palestine, the government abetted and organised Aleppo's Arab inhabitants to attack the city's Jewish population.[3][4][5] The exact number of those killed remains unknown, but estimates are put at around 75, with several hundred wounded.[1][5][6] Ten synagogues, five schools, an orphanage and a youth club, along with several Jewish shops and 150 houses were set ablaze and destroyed.[7] Damaged property was estimated to be valued at US$2.5m.[8][9] During the pogrom the Aleppo Codex, an important medieval manuscript of the Torah, was lost and feared destroyed. The book reappeared (with 40% of pages missing) in Israel in 1958.[10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_anti-Jewish_riots_in_Aleppo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_the_Muslim_world#Syria
Yemen:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_anti-Jewish_riots_in_Aden#Background
Egypt:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_the_Muslim_world#Egypt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Cairo_bombings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_anti-Jewish_riots_in_Egypt
Libya:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_anti-Jewish_riots_in_Tripolitania
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_anti-Jewish_riots_in_Tripolitania
Tunisia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghriba_synagogue_bombing
Iraq:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_the_Muslim_world#Iraq
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farhud
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_Baghdad_hangings
You're absolutely right, it wasn't the same. The Jewish exodus from the muslim world was way worse.
Those weren't ignored, they were addressed with the last link. Palestinians are not responsible for the Jewish exodus. Your argument is trying justify the Israeli Apartheid and Genocide by conflating Palestinians with all Arabs/Muslims and conflating all Jewish people with Israel.
Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making the society ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it also includes indirect methods aimed at forced migration by coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction.
Forced expulsion of Palestinians has been central to Zionism since the 1880's
There are a lot of factors of the Jewish exodus from the Muslim world, but your conflating of the two as justification or minimization of the Nakba doesn't work; unless you somehow think all Arabs or Muslims are the same. But it's pretty clear your racist towards Palestinians or Arabs or Muslims when your argument boils down to 'they are violent primitives and deserve to die,' just going straight to dehumanization and ignoring all material conditions of Apartheid
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_the_Muslim_world
You didn't address anything. You posted 3 unsourced paragraphs from 3 random historians that contain cherrypicked statements that confirm your biases. This isn't the smoking gun evidence you think it is. Their opinions have no bearing on the actual events that happened, assuming that these are their opinions or that their opinions are credible, both of which are big ifs. I actually linked over a dozen examples of actual events and their aftermath in over half a dozen countries, including the Palestinian territories. I actually provided context, you provided confirmation bias.
The Palestinians had their own ethnic cleansing of Jews, but that's besides the point. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is not contained to just Israel and Palestine. It is much bigger than that, and it has affected way more people. Disingenuous people like you try to box in the conflict to specific parameters to push propaganda fueled narratives, like you brought up about apartheid and genocide. The fact that this is how you're choosing to frame things just shows that you don't actually have an interest in the truth, but rather your interest lies in satisfying the narratives you've subscribed to. You can't oversimplify the conflict. You can't erase the coalition wars the Arabs waged against Israel or the million Jews that were exiled from the islamic world or the havoc that the Palestinian refugees caused in the Arab countries that invited them or so on. If this conflict was localized to just Israel and Palestine then it would be such a big global conflict. It would've been thought of in the same light as the Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict or the Morocco-Sahrawi conflict... but it's not... for a reason.
I'm not sure what you were trying to achieve here, but I already know the definition of ethnic cleansing.
Literally 21% of Israeli citizens are Arab, and another 6% is neither Jewish or Arab.
That's not what I'm doing. You're trying very hard to push this idea, but it's not going to work. If you actually scroll up and read my original statement, I simply claimed that the violence and ethnic cleansing went both ways... which is undoubtably true.
No, but the conflict is broader than what you're trying to make it out to be. Take Jordan for example. This country has taken part in multiple coalition wars against Israel on behalf of Palestine, spent decades supporting Palestine militarily/economically/politically, had governed the West Bank, ethnically cleansed Jews from it's land, ethnically cleansed Jews from East Jerusalem, lost both to Israel, had taken in a lot of Palestinians, kicked out those Palestinians when they tried to overthrow the government (black September), expelled the PLO to Lebanon, took in Palestinians again afterwards, became the second Arab country to recognize Israel, and the list goes on and on. This is a history that runs deep with the conflict. It's not just Jordan, but also Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and so on. You can't pretend that this history doesn't exist. No, not all Arabs or muslims are the same and not all Jews are the same, but this conflict is interwoven with these identities, at least to a degree.
I'm literally Arab, I'm Iraqi. But I'm sure you know more about Arab world than I do.
When did I do that exactly? I have at no point argued anything even remotely close to that. I merely challenged the brain dead and blatantly false narrative that you and your propaganda driven friends here are harping on, which is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one sided and always has been when that's very clearly not true. I then proceeded to give examples that disprove this notion. It's clear you don't actually have a case to present. You try to sound smart, but once you scratch the surface the facade disappears and you reveal yourself to be a pretentious . If you're going to lie and put words in my mouth then I have no interest in talking with you.
I added the link, those quotes show why most historians consider the comparison of the Nakba and Jewish exodus from the Muslim world to be a false equivalence. While there were certainly pogroms, the vast majority of Jewish immigrants were able to sell their possessions and willingly move. This is in contrast to the Nakba, where all 800,000 Palestinians were forcibly removed by a deliberate ethnic cleansing campaign. Whether you recognize it or not, when you bring up the exodus as a reaction to the Nakba with the conclusion that both sides are bad, the point of that argument is a justification for the Nakba.
If you're Iraqi, how do you not see that all the different Arab countries have their own interests? While there was some semblance of pan-Islamism and pan-arabism during the British Mandate, it ultimately was a failed project. Jordan, Egypt, and other countries were not operating on the 'behalf of Palestine,' and their actions are not the fault of Palestinians.
You bring up the 1913 Pogroms and the 1930s Riots in Palestine in reaction to the Nakba too, as if they were fueled by Antisemitism instead of anti-settler-colonialism. Even the commissions done by the British disagree with that.
The Concept of forcible transfer the native Palestinians population was central to Zionism since the 1880s when Palestine was chosen as the location. During the British Mandate, around a 100,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced by land purchases (unlike previous land purchases, where peasants would normally continue working and living on the land). Ben-Gurion used Partition as a tactic to dissuade the British from considering a Bi-National Secular State, and instead create a causi-belli for the beginning of a Jewish ethnostate within Palestine. The Nakba, or Plan Dalet, was deliberately planned for over a year. That ethnic cleansing campaign is directly responsible for the Palestinian Occupied Territories of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza. The 1967 war was a deliberate tactic for Israel to take control of those areas and begin the never ending occupation, once those policies were practiced on the Palestinian population that remained in the Green Line after the Nakba.
So what are you trying to agrue? Because none of that is false.
The Concept of Transfer 1882-1948
Transfer Committee and the JNF led to Forced Displacement of 100,000 Palestinians throughout the mandate.
1967 war: Haaretz, Forward
Israel Martial Law and Defence (Emergency) Regulations practiced in the occupied territories after 1967
No, you can't make up claims like this. Your quotes do NOT show that most historians have this opinion. It only shows that those very specific individuals hold this opinion, that is all. In fact the very Wikipedia article that you linked provides examples of historians who disagree with this narrative. If you want to prove that most historians hold this opinion then you're going to need evidence that actually supports that claim like a survey or a poll.
Interesting you say that because the very article you linked disproves your claims:
Clearly the situation is much more complex given how the situation differed from country to country, from culture to culture, and from community to community. The sheer scale of this exodus prevents it from being entirely uniform. However, despite that, it still does disprove the notion that the Jewish exodus went all fine and dandy like you're making it out to be. Even the most conservative estimates range in the billions. That is an insane amount. Even if we become ultra skeptical about this particular estimate and cut the figures by a factor of 10 due to exaggeration from bias, that would still put the amount somewhere between $10 and $30 billion. The amount lost per person on average is somewhere between $10,000 and $30,000. Even if we cut this estimate by a factor of 100, that would still be a high amount. So while some Jews might've been lucky enough to sell their property and voluntarily move, that wasn't the case for many.
Yes, this was bad. I never argued against the Nakba. I'm not having a juvenile competition about which is worse. I'm just proving the point that the violence and ethnic cleansing isn't one sided. It went both ways.
No, that's not a coherent line of thought. The point is to showcase that the one sided narrative that you're pushing for is false. You can't oversimplify this conflict to good vs bad. You're trying to spin these historical events in way that disregards so much context that it renders your renditions of them to be historically inaccurate and misleading. You're doing it now by trying to pretend that the Jewish exodus from the muslim world wasn't bad at all. That's simply not true.
When the UN proposed the partition plan in 1947, the Jews rejoiced while the Arabs protested and rioted. This turned in to the 1947-1948 civil war which lead both sides to lose about 1000 lives each. This escalated when the Arab Liberation Army infiltrated Palestinian population areas and started organizing attacks on Jews. This eventually culminated in the Arab Liberation Army blockading the 100,000 or so Jews in Jerusalem. The Jewish army tried to send supplies in but the Arab militants killed all who tried to get through. This event caused the US to withdraw it's support from the partition plan, which embolden the Arab Liberation Army into thinking that it could end the partition plan all together. In the meantime, there were talks between the Arab countries on militarily intervening on behalf of Palestine. The Jews who were fighting were struggling, but their leadership ordered them to hold ground as much as possible until they could come up with a new strategy that defended the Jews in anticipation of the impending Arab invasion.
That strategy eventually came, and it was called plan Dalet. The plan was to basically secure the Jewish settlements, unify them into a single cohesive unit, remove the Palestinians in between, and declare the independence of a new Jewish state. This was the beginning of what the Palestinians called the Nakba. This plan lasted about a month or two, and on May 14th, 1948, a day before the British Mandate ended, the Jews declared independence. The US and USSR both recognized the new state, but the Arab countries refused and decided to form a coalition army and invade. The Arab world was already hostile to Jews due to the antisemitic hatred that descends from islam, the situation in the British Mandate, and their close relations to Nazi Germany (which were spurred by their mutual hatred of Jews). The Jews in the muslim world faced constant discrimination, violence, and harassment, but after the Arab countries invaded? The rhetoric and propaganda were dialed up to max. This was the beginning of the Jewish exodus from the muslim world.
Back to the invading Arab countries, while their numbers were great, they were pretty incompetent. Armies had poor communication among themselves, there was poor coordination among the different countries, and the leadership made poor decisions. This led the Arab forces to lose ground to the Israeli army. As Israel was making gains, it was basically continuing plan Delat on the new territory that it acquired. Which caused more displacement of Arabs. Meanwhile, the Arab countries increased their propaganda and nationalist rhetoric even more at home to compensate for their losses, which caused even more discrimination, harassment, and violence against Jews which forced more of them to flee. These events kept going until 1949, when Israel pretty much won and signed armistices with the invading countries. The end result? Over 6,000 dead Jews, over 10,000 dead Arabs, over 700,000 displaced Arabs, and around 1 million Jews were displaced. It should be noted that the violence, displacement, and aggression didn't stop from either the Jews or the Arabs, and things kept going, at a slightly slower pace, until things boiled over again in 1967.
That's so much history happening in such a short span of time that affected so many people. There was no moral side and there was no unjust cause. It's a lot complicated than that. But that's my point. You can't brush off all this context. You can't oversimplify this conflict to comic book superhero storylines. You can't disregard historical information because you subscribed to an inaccurate narrative. Pointing out the complexity of the situation is not a justification of anything, it's merely pointing out the complicated reality.
Back then, the idea of different Arab nations hasn't really set in yet. There were different Arab states, but the Arab world viewed itself as one big nation and thought that eventual unification was inevitable. That's why they went to such great lengths to try and help establish Palestine. Each state acted in it's own interests, yes, but they were all pursuing the same goals. Not to mention that the Palestinian leadership called on them for help, so they didn't go in uninvited. Of course, you can't blame this on civilians, but these states did act on behalf of the Palestinian state that they wanted to take place. All of these ideas are less true today because so much time and history has passed that the different states were able to form their own national identities. Even though Arabs still view themselves as one people (this is slowly but surely decreasing in popularity), idea of unification is now seen as farfetched and even as undesirable.
We’re going to remember people like you when this is all over.
Remember what, that he's right?
Uh... Have you heard of the word "settlement"?