Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, this week announced that Israel would retain an open-ended security presence in Gaza. Israeli officials talk of imposing a buffer zone to keep Palestinians away from the Israeli border. They rule out any role for the Palestinian Authority, which was ousted from Gaza by Hamas in 2007 but governs semi-autonomous areas of the occupied West Bank.
The United States has laid out a much different vision. Top officials have said they will not allow Israel to reoccupy Gaza or further shrink its already small territory. They have repeatedly called for a return of the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority and the resumption of peace talks aimed at establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
These conflicting visions have set the stage for difficult discussions between Israel and the U.S.
The problem is that you can’t just roll in an army, shoot anything that pokes its head out, and call it a day. Without extensive efforts to build infrastructure and create jobs to give people a sense of normalcy and belief that their lives are improving, you’ll just build up resentment. That’s what the US did for Germany and Japan post-WWII, and any other such endeavors will require at least that same amount of ongoing commitment. Admittedly, German and Japanese rehabilitation was also greatly helped by the fact that the USSR existed as a convenient external enemy to point at, and I don’t think there’s anything nearly as convenient in the Middle East, given that for most Israel would be said external enemy.
I thought Israel was building infrastructure and providing them with services, that’s why they were able to shut them off when they went to war.
The US insisted on unconditional surrender by both Germany and Japan because of the circumstances that led to world war II after world war I; lies and uncertainty and scapegoating regarding the causes for their loss, wouldn’t happen again.
Should Israel do something similar? It certainly seems like the Jews are once again being blamed for the consequences of a war they did not start, and their opponents this time refuse to lay down arms no matter how many times they are defeated. That would make the circumstances of Germany and Japan, and hopefully the outcome, be similar to that of Palestine.
Hey look it’s the cudgel I mentioned in another post. No one is talking about Jews here except you when you want to wield it as a weapon to shut down discussion.
Calling everything anti-semitism when it’s only criticism of Israel makes it easier for actual anti-Semites to find cover. See: “The boy who cried wolf” or “chicken little” for reference.
Stop it, it’s gross and unhelpful.
I was drawing parallels between WWII and this conflict, not calling anyone posting here an antisemite or shutting down discussion. I posted to encourage discussion. Certainly, though, I don’t think it’s controversial to say that a force that wants to genocide Jews is antisemitic, which is what the bit you cited implies. Not, “critics of Israel.”
Well you missed the mark.
Israel is committing genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
Is that hard to admit?
Think of the holocaust, would you have listened to propaganda and denied it too? Imagine how longer it would have gone on if people just ate up all that Nazi propaganda for longer.
The US also didn’t continuously send in armed squatters to kick the Germans and Japanese out of their homes, which is a state of affairs that works directly counter to the notion that things might get better.
Have you ever heard of [Breaking the Silence]( And it’s not even comparable, stop equating things with holocaust, it’s really disrespectful)? It’s a Jewish organization so you can keep your tits calm.