I think we're in agreement then. The current, democratically elected government of Israel intends to remove the Palestinian population and annex the territories.

When you talk about "a*holes like Netanyahu", he's the Prime Minister, and has been for something like 17 of the last 30 years. He speaks for the country. If Israelis don't support his actions, they should elect someone different.

No or not exactly. What's missing is the nuance and in this case it's everything. Netanyahu voted 4 times for the law that bans Jewish settlements in Gaza. This law is still in effect.

Yes, he has coalition members that want to repeal that law and are actively trying to resettle Gaza, but the IDF stops them because it's against the law. Yes, they want to repeal that law but even within their extreme coalition that would be tough.

Saying Israelis should elect someone different is even worse than saying Americans shouldn't elect Trump. This lacks nuance and understanding in how elections and parliamentary systems work. This is also the exact argument Israelis make about Hamas: the people of Gaza voted for them. Both are bad arguments.

Netanyahu got roughly 30% of the vote in Israel. He built a coalition based on many conflicting parties. On the one hand he has the fascist extremists. They got a large number of the votes thanks to unification within their ranks. Then he has the Hasidic Jews, they don't care about anything as long as they get paid. This coalition brings him to roughly 50% of the voting populace, he won in a landslide by a 3000 vote difference in the last election. The reason is mostly due to the collapse of the left due to electoral complexities in the way votes are tallied.

Netanyahu himself lacks ideals and is practically made of Teflon. He switched ideological sides multiple times, charged with crimes etc. Prosecution of his crimes just solidifies his base which chucks all of that to "leftist persecution". It's remarkably hard to break that cognitive bias. Guess what helps that cognitive bias?

A sense of persecution. "Everyone is against us" is his greatest slogan. The "pro-Palestinian" rallies were the biggest gift Netanyahu could receive and have bolstered his grasp over Israel. He's pointing at them as "we can't trust western countries", he isn't wrong. Every time Biden tried to pressure Israel politically or by leveraging weapon shipments this actually boosted support for Netanyahu. It's stupid, but it's a fact.

Biden understands that which is why he showed strong support to the Israeli people. Unfortunately, the leader at that time was Bibi and it's really hard to show support for Israel while attacking its elected leader directly. It is a very tight rope and I don't think Biden could have done much better. Especially given the recent claims that Trump has been calling Bibi and encouraging him to avoid a deal.

I wish people abroad would understand this nuance, but it doesn't play well on TikTok. It also doesn't have a nice slogan or rally. We need people to support both Israel and the Palestinian people while demanding their respective far-right factions get out of power.

I understand that Israeli politics is complex, but ultimately it’s a democracy, and Netanyahu is who was chosen, repeatedly. All of those far right parties that make up Netanyahu’s coalition got real votes and they represent a real slice of Israeli opinion.

If Israelis want something different they just have to vote differently in the next election.

The U.S. cannot just pretend Rabin is still in power and send money and weapons with the idea that Israel desires peace at the end of the day, because that faction is (as you say, for many reasons) no longer a majority in Israel.

As for Hamas, yes they were elected, and that does have significance, but also that was 18 years ago, and most of what would be the current electorate wasn’t even old enough to vote back then.

Ultimately as it stands though I believe both sides of the conflict wish to conquer the other, and the U.S. should just decline to support either side.

> If Israelis want something different they just have to vote differently in the next election.

So 54% of Americans (which includes a lot of Democrats) support deporting millions of Mexicans. These are law abiding non-citizens who are contributing to the economy, yet most Americans want them gone.

Is it surprising that a Trump like demagogue is successful when the people in question actually do commit mass murder and want to destroy the country?

The reaction to violence is never, OK I was wrong... Let's settle. It's always violence in response and the weaker side always suffers.

> The U.S. cannot just pretend Rabin is still in power and send money and weapons with the idea that Israel desires peace at the end of the day, because that faction is (as you say, for many reasons) no longer a majority in Israel.

The first part is 100% true. Things changed. The problem is that your base assumption is completely wrong. You need to understand why the US sends weapons to Israel and that has a complex and long history. First, it sends weapons because it gives jobs to Americans. Israel demonstrates the quality of the weapons and improves them.

Back in the day, Israel was completely embargoed. In the 60s it would buy French weapons and collect money to afford that. It developed its own industry but on the eve of war the French cut off Israel. Despite that Israel won, big time. It then started making the best weapons on earth. Guns like Uzi became the hot tool for everyone. Even its planes started selling everywhere and were pretty good. The US started selling weapons to Israel both to eliminate the competition and to improve its own. When Israel got its early shipments of US made planes it would rip out all the avionics and push in its own. US made avionics and weapons systems at the time were crap. They no longer are, guess who made that happen?

But Israel is also a powerful ally. E.g. Sadam Husain would have a Nuclear weapon were it not for Israel. So would Assad. Israel killed quite a few terrorists on the US most wanted lists and provided a lot of support in the middle east on things where the US would rather stay neutral. It enabled keeping countries like Egypt and Jordan on the western side of the fence and serves as a balancing tool/lightning rod in the region. That has value.

The more interesting thing is what would happen if the US would stop weapon shipments. This would be very bad for everyone. Most Israelis would see it as proof that they are alone again. This would mean Israel would need to show deterrence. It still has a massive security industry and still makes some of the best weapons around, it still has stocks of weapons but would now need to make them all count. It would mean a massive aggressive attack.

Why?

Without US support Israel would be concerned that this would serve as a signal for Iran or even Jordan that Israel is now "fair game". That can quickly deteriorate to nuclear war to keep deterrence clear.

Finally, look at countries like Turkey which just bombed many civilian Kurds. They are a member of Nato and no one is even talking about it... Obviously no one cares just like no one cares about Sudan, China etc. None of those causes have TikToks or advocates since they have no sponsors.

Both Turkey and Israel have similar problems. Authoritarian leaning leaders who are slowly dismantling democracy. The solution in both cases is difficult, most aggressive action can accelerate this process and make things worse for everyone. There aren't any good answers here.

> As for Hamas, yes they were elected, and that does have significance, but also that was 18 years ago, and most of what would be the current electorate wasn’t even old enough to vote back then.

As I said, I think it's a silly argument but don't expect a different result prior to the war. Hamas controlled UNRWA completely and was teaching pretty horrific stuff. If anything I'm afraid the situation is worse.

See Egypt, given democracy they instantly picked the Muslim Brotherhood which is a fanatic organization. The education in these countries is mostly comprised around religion and a pretty extreme perception of said religion.

> Ultimately as it stands though I believe both sides of the conflict wish to conquer the other, and the U.S. should just decline to support either side.

It isn't a "both sides" scenario.

Israel has a law that disallows settlements in Gaza, signed by Netanyahu. The IDF specifically stopped settlement attempts there. Yes, there are extremists in the government who want to revert that law. But they don't have the votes for that. Biden has drawn a red line related to that and to violations of Leahy. There is a status quo, it might seem more extreme than in the past and Bibi is indeed stretching the boundaries but there is a line.

The idea that sending weapons to Israel is some sort of economic or military advantage to the U.S. is sophistry. We could simply take those same weapons and add them to our own inventory and use them in ways that actually benefit the U.S.

The actual reason the U.S. sends weapons to Israel is two fold. One is as a carrot to continue the peace process. The permanent allocation to Israel started when Camp David I was signed. The second reason is that a lot of people that support Israel live in the U.S. and they vote. If Israel no longer desires peace, the first reason doesn't exist. The second reason still does which is why it continues, despite being against the interests of the U.S.

Yes, Netanyahu stopped the settlements in Gaza, but again, sophistry. While the settlements in Gaza were dismantled, the settlements in the West Bank were being expanded, as they continue to be. Netanyahu has always been about creating physical conditions that cause a two state solution to be politically impossible, regardless of changes in the Israeli government.

It very much is a "both sides" scenario. I'm not going to argue about exactly which side is more unreasonable, but ultimately so much water has gone under the bridge that I don't think a settlement is possible, and I'm not interested in paying taxes to supply weapons to fuel an unresolvable conflict. If Israel wants to turn Gaza into rubble, leave millions of people homeless, and year after year take more land in the West Bank, I suppose we can't practically stop this, but personally I don't want want any part of it.

> The idea that sending weapons to Israel is some sort of economic or military advantage to the U.S. is sophistry. We could simply take those same weapons and add them to our own inventory and use them in ways that actually benefit the U.S.

A huge number of US politicians disagree. It's fashionable to claim that they are all stupid but the fact is that this just isn't true. Looking at Israels success in missile defense and similar technologies it shows where the R&D collaboration with the US has made both more successful.

If the US won't send weapons Israel would just make its own and in the past made fantastic weapons. Including great fighter jets that were approaching F16 level in the 80s.

> One is as a carrot to continue the peace process.

That is true too.

> The second reason is that a lot of people that support Israel live in the U.S. and they vote.

That is also true. Today that's mostly the evangelicals though.

> If Israel no longer desires peace, the first reason doesn't exist.

This isn't true. First it assumes Israel doesn't want peace which is detached from reality. Peace exists with Egypt, Jordan etc. Israel returned territory it captured at war and signed a peace deal. All sides abide and this works well.

It can very well be argued that the current war is because of peace pressure against Israel. Israel left Gaza under US pressure to do so with no deal. Despite repeated attacks from Hamas it didn't go back in and maintained status quo. US pressure worked but created a powder-keg in Gaza that blew up eventually.

US pressure using the weapons as incentive worked very well, but you can't just wish peace to happen and force it on some people.

> Yes, Netanyahu stopped the settlements in Gaza, but again, sophistry.

Netanyahu has one ideal: Netanyahu. He has no morals, no backbone and no principals.

> While the settlements in Gaza were dismantled, the settlements in the West Bank were being expanded, as they continue to be.

As you can see from my other answers here I 100% agree that this is indeed a huge problem. The right-wing used the violence of Hamas as a means to attack the Palestinian authority for the past 3 decades. To be fair the Palestinian authority isn't great (e.g. lynching Israelis by tearing them limb from limb) but I agree that this is awful. The only way to solve this is to remove the two zero-sum entities: Hamas and the current government of Israel. The latter might not be removed in the next election, but the pendulum will eventually swing back...

Without Hamas things would hopefully calm down for a while.

> It very much is a "both sides" scenario.

No. The fact that there are bad people on both sides is true. But that simplifies the situation. Israel wants a Palestinian state and tries to achieve that. Yes, it has some lunatics but unlike Hamas even in the current government they can't do anything.

Hamas just wants to kill all Israelis. No law other than Sharia law. No civilian differentiation.

But the real horrible thing about Hamas is that they don't care how many Palestinians die as part of their Jihad. They consider the death of their own children as a bonus, they would go to heaven as they die heroes. Israel has never been like that. If Hamas had the firepower of Israel there would be no Israeli left. The reverse isn't true despite everything.

> If Israel wants to turn Gaza into rubble, leave millions of people homeless, and year after year take more land in the West Bank, I suppose we can't practically stop this, but personally I don't want want any part of it.

The thing is that Israel can do it and doesn't.

Furthermore, once the war is over it will help rebuild Gaza as it did in the past. The war isn't against the people of Gaza, it's against Hamas whose an enemy of the people of Gaza. It's a terrible organization that murders gays, believes domestic violence isn't a crime and brainwashes children to commit suicide bombings.

Yes, the war is terrible and violent. But what's the alternative?

Leaving the hostages to die?

Letting Hamas regain power and do another round of the same thing?

Violence is terrible. Always. But sometimes the avoidance of violence doesn't work. It just shoves it into a pressure cooker; it will be worse later on. We saw that with the 2005 deal. Israel left Gaza and tried to mostly ignore Hamas, that didn't work out well for anyone.

@throwaway9917 and @invalidname -- thank you both for a fantastic example of civil disagreement and interesting conversation.

> A huge number of US politicians disagree. It's fashionable to claim that they are all stupid but the fact is that this just isn't true. Looking at Israels success in missile defense and similar technologies it shows where the R&D collaboration with the US has made both more successful. If the US won't send weapons Israel would just make its own and in the past made fantastic weapons. Including great fighter jets that were approaching F16 level in the 80s.

I don't doubt that they would make their own weapons, and I'm sure they'd be pretty good. From a standpoint of U.S. interests though, collaborating with Israel hasn't been that great. Israel took U.S. money and tech to develop that F-16 level jet (the Lavi), and then covertly sold the design to the Chinese. Meanwhile, when the U.S. wanted to send Israeli produced, U.S. owned SPIKE missiles to Ukraine, Israel blocked the transfer.

> This isn't true. First it assumes Israel doesn't want peace which is detached from reality. Peace exists with Egypt, Jordan etc. Israel returned territory it captured at war and signed a peace deal. All sides abide and this works well.

Yes but the settlement with Egypt where land was returned was 45 years ago. Israel is not the same country it was back then.

> Israel wants a Palestinian state and tries to achieve that.

Based on Israel's actions, and the statements of Netanyahu and a couple of ministers, I don't believe this. I think that they've given up and intend to remove the Palestinians from the occupied territories.

> But the real horrible thing about Hamas is that they don't care how many Palestinians die as part of their Jihad. They consider the death of their own children as a bonus, they would go to heaven as they die heroes. Israel has never been like that. If Hamas had the firepower of Israel there would be no Israeli left. The reverse isn't true despite everything.

That's probably true, and so I also do not support sending weapons to Hamas.

We both agree that this is a very difficult problem. Personally I see no practical long-term solution, because the demographics of Israel have changed and continue to change in a direction towards more right-wing nationalism. Many peace-oriented Israelis (incl people I know personally) have left Israel over this. I don't think that if things calm down that minds will gradually change and a deal will be struck, because when things were relatively calm, Israel continued to expand the settlements and continued to oppress the Palestinians in numerous unnecessary ways. The Palestinians rightly don't believe that if they just stop attacking Israel that eventually they'll get their state.

How do you see there being a positive resolution in the long-term?

> Israel took U.S. money and tech to develop that F-16 level jet (the Lavi),

Its development was started based on prior Israeli Jets so the technology was Israeli. Funding was given to keep an eye on the project and control. Israel had far superior avionics which eventually went into US jets as a result.

> and then covertly sold the design to the Chinese.

It's unclear if it was sold or stolen. Regardless the technology is ancient by today's standards. This was 20 years after the project was disbanded and possibly had reduced classification by then.

> Meanwhile, when the U.S. wanted to send Israeli produced, U.S. owned SPIKE missiles to Ukraine, Israel blocked the transfer.

I agree that's pretty terrible. Israeli governments did a lot of shitty moves like that and still does. But it's not alone in that sense.

First, this is pretty standard stuff when selling weapons. You can't sell them to 3rd parties without permission. This is true for US weapons that are sent to Israel and any country selling weapons.

The main logic behind this is that Israel is concerned about escalating against Russia. There are many Jews in Russia which might be on the receiving end of retaliation and there is deep Russian presence in the middle east (notably Syria). I can understand that concern and we don't know all the facts since a lot of it has to do with information that isn't exposed to the public.

But I'm 100% with you that Israel should have been more helpful to Ukraine. It set up a field hospital and helped later on with some knowledge transfer but not much beyond that. At least not publicly.

Back to the main subject though. Israel is sharing a ton of information with the USA using spy networks. There's a lot of collaboration in preventing nuclear armament in Iran, Syria and Iraq.

Israel did a lot of the dirty work the USA just can't do. After Afghanistan and Iraq it is pretty clear that the USA is losing its deterrence and Israel can do the stuff the USA doesn't want to do officially. It can wag its finger publicly but approve of the result in some of these cases. E.g. the Hezbollah people that Israel killed in Lebanon had US bounties on their heads. Furthermore, the level of destruction is indeed horrible, but it's deterrence. The US can then enjoy both sides: It has the higher moral ground of avoiding the dirty work and chastising Israel. But it still gets the impact of "you mess with the west and we can get you anywhere".

> Yes but the settlement with Egypt where land was returned was 45 years ago. Israel is not the same country it was back then.

The settlement with Jordan was 30 years ago. The Oslo accord with the Palestinians is still in effect today.

Yes, I sadly agree Israel moved to the right. That is exactly what I would like to fix. The problem is that a lot of the well meaning people are doing more damage than good.

You can't stop a war by taking weapons, it will just make the war FAR more violent since you need to make every bomb count. I very much agree there should be pressure on Israel but it needs to be the right nuanced type of pressure.

> > Israel wants a Palestinian state and tries to achieve that. > > Based on Israel's actions, and the statements of Netanyahu and a couple of ministers, I don't believe this. I think that they've given up and intend to remove the Palestinians from the occupied territories.

Sadly that might make more sense in the past tense at the moment. Still, despite all the violence and terrible government there are still Israelis who have hope for a two state solution.

This is exactly my point. How do we change things back so Israelis will have hope again in a two state solution?

The first ingredient is time. Right now we've got a war going on. It's terrible for everyone and should end as soon as possible. If Hamas survives this war in any functional way then the Palestinians will be f*ed. It will do this all over again and things will end up worse. It's in its nature.

But if it's a shell of its former self then there is a chance. There's now a border wall which keeps Israel out as much as it keeps Palestinians in. There are offers such as the Saudi deal which can pave a way for a long term deal. Netanyahu is old by now and since he eliminated any competitor on the right, there is no heir apparent.

> the demographics of Israel have changed and continue to change in a direction towards more right-wing nationalism.

Sadly this is very true. Even worse... Due to the success of the Oslo accord young Israelis don't meet Palestinians and vice versa. It creates a detachment between the people and lets both sides develop antagonism.

Unfortunately when speaking to foreigners the opinions are either you're evil or you're 100% right. Both are the wrong answer. E.g. a friend of mine was living in Ashdod which gets lots of Hamas rockets. About a decade ago we had lunch and he was furious. He told me about the panic in his kids eyes, the started bed-wetting from the fear. They lived like that for a decade with no end in sight.

He said something along the lines of "I don't care what they bomb in Gaza, they're coming after my kids". My answer was roughly "you're right, but that would only make a father in Gaza feel the same way". That worked well.

Looking at things like US funding contributing to the war is problematic. Israelis blame the US for this whole mess. It left Gaza because of US pressure. It didn't go back in because of US pressure. Cutting funding or weapons would be the ultimate betrayal and authorization to do "anything". I think it will make everything worse.

> This is exactly my point. How do we change things back so Israelis will have hope again in a two state solution?

I have no idea. I also have no idea how you'd get the Palestinians to have hope either. Even if Israel were willing to do a two state solution, they would undoubtedly ask for a very limited sovegerenty that would require the Palestinian state to be demilitarized, which would mean that Israel would have to control ports and border crossings to check for weapons, which means they could also do things like they have done in the past like prohibit the import of concrete.

What the Palestinians see is the Israelis constantly expanding the settlements, and so they see that their only alternative to losing their land inch by inch is armed resistance, futile as that may be.

As an American, I don't really see how the U.S. is positively influencing the situation, or can positively influence it. If you look at what's happened in Gaza, yes, Israel is legitimately furious over Oct 7, but the response has killed something like 28,000 noncombatant Palestinians. For all of that, they've managed to get the release of, or rescue 60 or so hostages.

As an American and as a Dad, I don't want to buy bombs so that Israel can kill Palestinian kids. The sense in the media is that Israel expects us to view Israeli lives as being worth 1000x as much as Palestinian lives, but as a gentile American, I view them as equally valuable.

If there were some credible plan that would lead to a resolution of the issue from the Israeli side, it would be a different matter, but all I can see is endless carnage, and I do not want to be a party to it.

> I also have no idea how you'd get the Palestinians to have hope either. Even if Israel were willing to do a two state solution, they would undoubtedly ask for a very limited sovegerenty that would require the Palestinian state to be demilitarized, which would mean that Israel would have to control ports and border crossings to check for weapons, which means they could also do things like they have done in the past like prohibit the import of concrete.

I'm pretty sure a demilitarized state is the only option for everyone involved. I think that seeing the destruction in Gaza might be the incentive that lights a fire under both sides to compromise.

Israel will control border crossings regardless. The west bank can bring in products from Jordan but I'm guessing Israel would demand oversight. That would probably force Israel to tame its expectations. Also as time moves and the deal proves itself Israel could relax, I doubt Hamas will let it relax too much but I'm hopeful on that front.

I hope this can be done as part of a wide region Saudi deal. Biden has been pushing for that and it's the smart move. A Saudi peace agreement will change the region and validate Israels right to exist, it would put a huge damper on Hamas's ambitions.

> What the Palestinians see is the Israelis constantly expanding the settlements, and so they see that their only alternative to losing their land inch by inch is armed resistance, futile as that may be.

That conflates the two situations. Palestinians in Gaza don't have settlements. Palestinians in the west bank (who specifically aren't joining in the war), have settlements.

That's part of the insanity of the Israeli right wing... Hamas is evil so they get no settlements and what is effectively their own country. West bank is mostly moderate so they get settlements and restrictions. This is obviously over simplified but just bonkers.

The Palestinians in the west bank understand the violence when you're the weaker side eventually hurts them. That doesn't mean there are no attacks there (there are), but they are driven by Hamas offshoots and small forces. Palestinian resistance in the west bank is mostly political which makes a lot more sense and IMHO far more damaging to Israel in the long term. I hope Israelis will be able to climb out of their bubble and disassociate the two approaches.

Settlements in the west bank get constructed as response to violence from Hamas. That's an insane policy by an insane government. Things like that can be reverted though, most of these settlements are illegal by Israeli law.

> As an American, I don't really see how the U.S. is positively influencing the situation, or can positively influence it. If you look at what's happened in Gaza, yes, Israel is legitimately furious over Oct 7, but the response has killed something like 28,000 noncombatant Palestinians. For all of that, they've managed to get the release of, or rescue 60 or so hostages.

I see that and I mostly agree (although none of us know the exact number of noncombatant casualties but even one is tragic). That's why Biden's pressure for a hostage deal is so important. I wish pro-Palestinian protesters would march with both flags calling for a deal which is in everyone's interest at this point.

> As an American and as a Dad, I don't want to buy bombs so that Israel can kill Palestinian kids. The sense in the media is that Israel expects us to view Israeli lives as being worth 1000x as much as Palestinian lives, but as a gentile American, I view them as equally valuable.

Don't cast that as a racist war. Yes, Israel has racist just like any place. Also no one on the Israeli side is targeting kids. It's also not about balance (and the number isn't 1000x right now even based on larger estimates it's around 20-40x).

> If there were some credible plan that would lead to a resolution of the issue from the Israeli side, it would be a different matter, but all I can see is endless carnage, and I do not want to be a party to it.

That is understandable, neither do I. But picking up and going home can lead to far worse consequences as the USA saw in Afghanistan. That was tragic on a whole different level and is a continuing disaster to everyone who lives there. America broke the middle east on multiple occasions, right now the options are between bad and worse.

If the USA stops weapon shipments this will:

* Force Israel to use more less accurate armaments

* Let the right-wing claim that "Jews are abandoned again", "we can trust no one"... Then proceed to do whatever they want to do with no concequences

* If it runs out of weapons it might use nuclear weapons for deterrence

As a parent myself I always threaten my kids with punishment if they misbehave. The problem is that when you actually punish them (e.g. throwing away a toy or deleting a game), then you're fed. You no longer have the leverage of the threat and need to either move to more extreme threats or lose any control over them.

Biden is in that position. Obviously threatening Israel with war isn't on the table... But if he does anything, it can seriously backfire. Furthermore, the impact is *much* bigger. Israel is part of a proxy east/west war against Iran/Russia/China. If there's even a hint Israel isn't getting the full support of the USA it can have dire consequences to Ukraine/Taiwan.

Yes, bad people within the Israeli government are abusing that and the US elections to get away with terrible stuff. I very much liked the Biden set of sanctions against settlers. I think they can go further with action like that but it's a delicate needle to thread.