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55701 |
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Date: September 25, 2024 at 23:09:55
From: ao, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Why Everything Is Suddenly Spiraling for Israel |
URL: What would you do? |
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What would you do?
There is no other question that Israel’s government has posed to the world
more often since Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7 and Hezbollah attacked
Israel on Oct. 8.
What would your country do if terrorists crossed your western border and
killed, maimed, kidnapped or sexually abused hundreds of Israelis they
encountered and the next day their Hezbollah allies sent rockets over your
northern border, driving away thousands of civilians — all cheered on by
Iran?
What would you do?
It is a powerful and relevant question and one that Israel’s critics often
dodge.
But they aren’t the only ones dodging it.
This Israeli government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, wants you and me and
every Israeli and all of Israel’s friends — and even enemies — to believe that
there was always only one right answer to that question: Invade Gaza, hunt
down every Hamas leader and fighter, kill every last one and not be deterred
by the civilian casualties, then pummel Hezbollah in Lebanon — and do both
without spending time planning an exit strategy for either.
I’ve argued from Day 1 that it was a trap, a trap I’m sorry to say the Biden
administration was not firm enough in stopping Israel from falling into and
not firm enough in insisting on a better road, a road not taken.
This is no time to be pulling punches. The Jewish state of Israel is in grave,
grave danger today. And the danger comes from both Iran and the current
Israeli ruling coalition.
You see, I have never had any illusions about the macro reasons this war
happened. It is the unfolding of an Iranian grand strategy to slowly destroy
the Jewish state, weaken America’s Arab allies and undermine U.S.
influence in the region — while deterring Israel from ever attacking Iran’s
nuclear facilities — by using Iranian proxies to bleed Israel to death. That is
the macro story.
The immediate trigger and goal of the war was a Hamas-Iranian interest to
scuttle the Biden team’s diplomatic initiative to forge Israel, the Palestinian
Authority and Saudi Arabia into a ring of peace.
The Iranian-Hamas counterstrategy was to ignite a ring of fire around Israel,
using Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq and
West Bank militants armed by Iran with weapons smuggled through Jordan.
The Iranian strategy is exquisite from Tehran’s point of view: Destroy Israel
by sacrificing as many Palestinians and Lebanese as necessary but never
risk a single Iranian life. The Iranians are ready to die to the last Lebanese,
the last Palestinian, the last Syrian and the last Yemeni to eliminate Israel
(and distract the world from the Iranian regime’s abuses of its own people
and imperialist control over Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria).
The problem for Israelis and the Jewish people is that while the Netanyahu
government was right in its diagnosis that this was a war of annihilation, it
refused to conduct it in the only way that could hope to bring success —
because that strategy ran counter to the political interests of the prime
minister and the messianic ideological interests of his coalition.
Israel faces an existential threat from the outside, and its prime minister and
his allies have been prioritizing their own political and ideological interests
ahead of that. They have even lately resurrected their judicial coup attempt
to crush the Israeli Supreme Court — in the middle of a war of national
survival while hostages rot in Gaza. It is one of the most shameful episodes
in Jewish history, and shame on the AIPAC pro-Israel lobby in Washington
for not speaking out against it.
To counter this Iranian threat network, Israel needed four things: a lot of
time, because this ring of fire could not be extinguished overnight; a lot of
resources, particularly from the United States and other Western allies; a lot
of Arab and European allies, because Israel cannot fight a war of attrition
alone; and, perhaps most crucial of all, a lot of legitimacy.
President Biden and his team offered Israel a road map for that
counterstrategy but, sadly, they just never had the steel to impose it on
Netanyahu with a combination of leverage, diplomacy and ultimatums. Such
a road map would have involved persuading America’s Arab allies to
fundamentally reform the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank with new,
credible leadership and then getting Israel to agree to open negotiations
with that Palestinian Authority leadership on a long-term pathway to a two-
state solution.
That would have done the following: 1) Opened the way to isolating and
pressuring Hamas to agree to a cease-fire in which Israel gets out of Gaza in
return for all the hostages — ending the war there and eliminating
Hezbollah’s excuse for attacking Israel from the north. 2) Opened the way
for Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel — a devastating blow to
Hamas and Iran. 3) Opened the way for the United Arab Emirates to partner
with a reformed Palestinian Authority to put troops on the ground in Gaza
and do the thing Hamas would hate most — replace it as the governing
authority there, backed by hundreds of millions of dollars for rebuilding
Gaza, which would probably make it the most popular Palestinian force in
Gaza overnight.
Up to now, though, Bibi has turned Biden down (while openly playing footsie
with Donald Trump) because the prime minister would have had to break
with the right-wing crazies who brought him to power and form a different
governing coalition with more moderate parties. Bibi has prioritized his
personal political security over Israel’s national security. And for months,
he’s been spinning the world and his own people to disguise it.
Netanyahu thought he could just tell the world that Israel was defending the
frontier of freedom against Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran and
everyone would fall in line behind Israel. What would you do? But the only
place in the world that that gets you a standing ovation is in the U.S.
Congress.
The rest of the world, particularly the moderate Arab states and the
Europeans, told him: Bibi, you don’t have a clean story. You cannot tell the
world you are defending the frontier of freedom against Hamas and
Hezbollah while expanding — increasingly violently — Israel’s settler
occupation over Palestinians in the West Bank. You don’t have a clean story.
So the Israeli prime minister opted instead for the Netanyahu doctrine: Fight
alone on three fronts — Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank — with no plan
for the morning after anywhere. In doing so, he rejected the Biden strategy:
Embed Israel in a U.S.-Israeli-moderate-Arab coalition that would isolate
Iran and its proxies, provide some hope that maybe one day we’d see two
states for two indigenous peoples between the Jordan River and the
Mediterranean and make clear to the world that the source of trouble in the
region is not the Party of God in Israel but the Parties of God in Lebanon,
Yemen and Iran.
Netanyahu’s strategy is a disaster. As a veteran U.S. military commander
who has observed close up Israel’s war strategy in Gaza told me privately,
anyone with two eyes in his head knows that the only way to way to defeat
Hamas is a strategy of “clear, hold and build”: Destroy the enemy, hold the
territory and then build an alternative local, legitimate Palestinian governing
authority. Israel’s strategy in Gaza, he said, has been: “Clear, leave, come
back, clear again the same place, leave again, come back and clear again.”
It is a textbook example of how to transform Hamas, he added, “from a
quasi-military to a classic insurgency.” Did you read the lead article on
Haaretz online the day of the remarkable Israeli pager attack on Hezbollah?
If you did, you’d have found four young Israeli soldiers killed that day
battling Hamas in Gaza staring back at you — almost a year after the war
there started. Almost daily now you also read of large numbers of Gazan
civilians killed in an Israeli operation against a few Hamas fighters living
among them. Meanwhile, no one is governing Gaza.
Yes, yes, I know the criticism: You are delusional. What Israeli or Palestinian
leader would come together on such a plan? Well, two friends of mine have
done just that: the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and the former
Palestinian Authority foreign minister Nasser al-Qudwa. You can check out
their plan for a two-state solution right here. Biden should invite them both
to the Oval Office on Thursday to embrace their project, which is totally in
line with U.S. interests.
I repeat: Israel is in terrible danger. It is fighting the most just war in its
history — responding to the brutal, unprovoked murder and abduction of
women and children and grandparents by Hamas — and yet today Israel is
more of a pariah state than ever.
Why? Because when you fight a war like this with no political horizon for this
long — one that denies any possibility for more-moderate Palestinians to
govern Gaza — the Israeli military operation there just starts to look like
endless killing for killing’s sake. That is just what Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran
want.
There was always a road not taken. Do I know for sure it would work? Of
course not. The only thing I know for sure is that the road that Netanyahu
has Israel locked on now is a road to ruin, encircled by a ring of fire. Stay
that course, and Israel’s most talented people will start to leave, and the
Israel you knew will be gone forever.
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Responses:
[55706] [55717] [55731] [55734] [55738] [55718] [55719] [55732] [55743] [55704] [55723] [55733] [55744] [55707] |
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55706 |
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Date: September 26, 2024 at 04:31:31
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: do you know what plagiarism is, ao? |
URL: OPINION THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Why Everything Is Suddenly Spiraling for Israel Credit...Atef Safadi/EPA, via Shutterstock |
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It's presenting someone else's writing as your own without attribution, no
quotes, no source.
"suddenly spiraling' is typic Thomas Friedman bs.
this vigorous Israelis/US ethnic cleansing campaign is nearly a year old.
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Responses:
[55717] [55731] [55734] [55738] [55718] [55719] [55732] [55743] |
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55717 |
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Date: September 26, 2024 at 10:41:29
From: ao, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: do you know what plagiarism is, ao? |
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"this vigorous Israelis/US ethnic cleansing campaign is nearly a year old."
I seem to remember some little dust up.. was it on 10/07.. a year ago? Do
you remember that akira? You know.. when Hamas slaughtered Israelis at a
music festival..?
You do remember that right akira?
And wasn't it Hezbollah that then followed that with a rain of bombs from
the north? What, you say that's nothing to get up about? Really?
No.. when your boys slaughter Jews that's just a walk in the park. That's
what you call a picnic, isn't it? You relish the killing of Jews, but cry like a
stuck pig when they fight back.
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Responses:
[55731] [55734] [55738] [55718] [55719] [55732] [55743] |
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55731 |
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Date: September 27, 2024 at 12:29:52
From: chaskuchar@stcharlesmo, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: do you know what plagiarism is, ao? |
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half of those who died were shot by israel. and no
sexual violence or baby killing has been confirmed.
most of the hamas killing were police and military.
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Responses:
[55734] [55738] |
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55734 |
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Date: September 27, 2024 at 12:42:55
From: ao, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: do you know what plagiarism is, ao? |
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You're sound as antisemitic as akira.. birds of a feather and all that..
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Responses:
[55738] |
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55738 |
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Date: September 27, 2024 at 13:32:20
From: chaskuchar@stcharlesmo, [DNS_Address]
Subject: 35 of my shipmates were killed by israel in lthe six day war. |
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i dont forget that. i forgive israel but she is an evil
regime.
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Responses:
None |
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55718 |
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Date: September 26, 2024 at 11:42:55
From: old timer, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: do you know what plagiarism is, ao? |
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“You relish the killing of Jews, but cry like a stuck pig when they fight
back.”
you think slaughtering women and children is fighting back? you think
akira relishes the killing of jews? get help dude, that’s some fucked up
shit
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Responses:
[55719] [55732] [55743] |
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55719 |
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Date: September 26, 2024 at 13:02:59
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: do you know what plagiarism is, ao? |
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I guess that was a 'no'. lol
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Responses:
[55732] [55743] |
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55732 |
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Date: September 27, 2024 at 12:34:00
From: chaskuchar@stcharlesmo, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: do you know what plagiarism is, ao? |
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akira stated that her/his heritage is jewish.
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Responses:
[55743] |
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55743 |
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Date: September 27, 2024 at 14:36:33
From: Redhart, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: do you know what plagiarism is, ao? |
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by dna, not faith if I recall.
I have a little hebrew in me, too..a jewish colonist in
the late 1700's took a Cherokee bride in my lineage.
I don't claim to be of the jewish faith, however. I
also don't have a card claiming to be of the Cherokee
tribe (although I respect their believes and have
several books on the shelf about them and am proud of
the small history I do share of them in my family).
I am a complete person unto myself who chooses my
spirituality for myself.
Never judge a book simply by their heritage cover.
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Responses:
None |
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55704 |
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Date: September 26, 2024 at 00:56:50
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Why Everything Is Suddenly Spiraling for Israel |
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definitely a rock and a hard place...and they sure haven't done themselves any favors...
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Responses:
[55723] [55733] [55744] [55707] |
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55723 |
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Date: September 27, 2024 at 08:56:25
From: Redhart, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Why Everything Is Suddenly Spiraling for Israel |
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no, they haven't.
It's past time for the Israeli people to rise up and get
rid/jail of their suicidal leader.
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Responses:
[55733] [55744] |
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55733 |
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Date: September 27, 2024 at 12:39:25
From: chaskuchar@stcharlesmo, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Why Everything Is Suddenly Spiraling for Israel |
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i see an opportunity for peace if hamas would release
all hostages without conditions. the usa would be
forced to make israel to submit to a cease fire.
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Responses:
[55744] |
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55744 |
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Date: September 27, 2024 at 14:37:58
From: Redhart, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Why Everything Is Suddenly Spiraling for Israel |
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I like the idea, but good luck on "forcing them to
submit". They seem very impervious to any outside
political pressure so far.
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Responses:
None |
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55707 |
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Date: September 26, 2024 at 04:32:42
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Why Everything Is Suddenly Spiraling for Israel |
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if anyone else did this, you'd be reading them the riot act. No integrity.
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Responses:
None |
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