UN warns of 'full-scale war' as Israel Gaza conflict escalates

[Broomstick]

If it were JUST Israelis it would be one thing, but it isn't. "Jewish" and "Israeli" are so conflated in the world mind that what Israel does I get splattered with, even if I've never been to Israel, have no desire to go to Israel, have never practiced the Jewish religion, and basically have no dog in this fight - dad's family is Jewish therefore to many millions of people I'm just as bad as a fanatical West Bank settler and deserve [fill in the blank] just as much as those awful genocidal war-crime Israelis.

In actual fact, most of my dad's family is anti-Zionist, were opposed to how the modern state of Israel was created, and opposed to the government of modern Israel, as am I. The lands where modern Israel currently exist were not empty when massive numbers of Jews emigrated in the first half of the 20th Century, they displaced massive numbers of prior occupants. That is never going to end well.

Not that I'm looking for sympathy - I get that EVERY group that is the victim of bias goes through this shit, and Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims also get people making assumptions about them as well, but it's why these conflicts spill over, especially in this very-connected modern world.

[Darth Yan]

Some people are shitheads and will do that regardless. At the same time Zionists have worked very hard to conflate Judaism with Israel, which is annoying.

[Broomstick]

There has always been an anti-Zionist segment of what might be called "greater Judaism", but Zionists have been dominant, and so loud, that the anti-Zionists or critics of the Israeli government either are shouted down or don't feel they can speak their minds. Part of the problem of basing a government in part on religion (which, for all that Israel claims to be a democracy, religion factors heavily into their politics) is that dissent gets labeled heresy.

Some of the recent media stories involving Orthodox/Ultra-Orthodox Judaism do touch on this a bit. Netflix's Unorthodox, which involves the Satmar community, shows an Ultra-Orthodox group that is anti-Zionist and while it's not a constant drumbeat in the series it does come up from time to time. This wiki is a start on anti-Zionism, including Jewish anti-Zionism which is not a self-contradiction. In addition to questions about whether or not a secular founding of modern Israel is or isn't within G*d's plan, the West Bank and Gaza figures a great deal into Jewish anti-Zionism. Needless to say, for many of the most ardent Zionists, any Jew who isn't a Zionist is a self-hating anti-Semite. Which is my way of circling back to your statement that "Zionists have worked very hard to conflate Judaism with Israel". The fact that the dream of a new nation of Israel and a home for the diaspora was prominent for the better part of two thousands years and Jews in the diaspora still sing "next year in Jerusalem" at the end of Passover and Yom Kippur tends to blur "Judaism" and "Israel" even without the complication of Zionism and an actual physical nation of Israel.

Of course, the Palestinians whose families have been living on that land for the better part of that two thousand years have a different view of all these foreigners showing up and claiming an attachment to the land. I do wish I had as good an understanding of their side as I do of the Jewish/Israeli side, but it's hard to get good information, harder yet in the US, I don't have the same connection to Palestinian culture that I do to Judaism, and given that my name is ethnically Jewish in the same way that someone with a surname "Martinez" is assumed to be Latino, it can be hard to approach Palestinians and convince them of my sincerity in wanting to understand their side.

[Ralin]

Israel and Zionism aren't synonymous with Judaism, but between representing a significant percentage of the world's Jewish population, being the only Jewish majority state and being an actual physical state of Israel they certainly seem entitled to an outsized say in what constitutes Judaism and Jewish beliefs. And, as noted

the dream of a new nation of Israel and a home for the diaspora was prominent for the better part of two thousands years and Jews in the diaspora still sing "next year in Jerusalem" at the end of Passover and Yom Kippur tends to blur "Judaism" and "Israel" even without the complication of Zionism and an actual physical nation of Israel.

So conflating the two isn't exactly an irrational position. And it's not obvious that the Zionists are wrong to say that they're the ones doing Judaism right.

[Broomstick]

"American Jews" are as numerous as the Jewish population of Israel. There is precedent for a dual-state Judaism, although it's been a few thousand years.

Even at times when the Jews have been united under one authority, even in the times there was one Temple, there have still been numerous dissident and differing groups.

So I don't see where Israel, or the government of Israel, should automatically be THE determinant in all things Jewish. The Diaspora means Judaism long ago grew past being limited to just one place, even if some Jews haven't figured that out.

[Ralin]

So I don't see where Israel, or the government of Israel, should automatically be THE determinant in all things Jewish. The Diaspora means Judaism long ago grew past being limited to just one place, even if some Jews haven't figured that out.

The determinant? No. But if [Google says somewhere between thirty and fifty percent percent] of the world's Christian population lived in Vatican City and surrounding areas controlled by them and there were no other Christian majority countries anywhere in the world I'd say that the Catholic Church was at the front of the line when it comes to groups who should be taken seriously when they say what being a Christian means.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

The escalation in violence between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza, brought to an end after 11 days by a ceasefire on Friday, has been the worst fighting between both sides since 2014. At least 230 Palestinians have been killed, with 12 killed in Israel.

Among the death toll during those 11 days are more than 70 children. The overwhelming majority of those were Palestinian and lost their lives in Gaza. Three Palestinian children have been killed in the West Bank. Two Israeli children aged 5 and 16 have also been killed.

On a single day alone, on 16 May, 18 children lost their lives in Gaza. Among them was six-month-old Qusai Sameh Fawwaz al-Qawlaq, the youngest victim of the conflict.
There are many cases of multiple siblings from the same family being killed. Four childen from the al-Hadidi family died on 15 May. Suhayb, 13, Yahya, 11, Abderrahman, 8, and Osama, 6, were visiting their cousins when the building where they had been staying was hit. Only their five-month-old baby brother, Omar, survived.

Eleven of the children killed in Gaza over the last week were participating in a programme run by the Norwegian Refugee Council aimed at helping them deal with trauma. They were aged between 5 and 15 years old.

More than 70 children have been killed in the Israel-Palestine conflict. These are their names and faces.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas faced an early test when clashes broke out between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police following Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

It was unclear what sparked Friday’s violence at the mosque, a flashpoint holy site in Jerusalem which triggered the 11-day war between Israel and Hamas earlier this month.

Police fired stun grenades and tear gas, and Palestinians hurled rocks after hundreds took part in a celebratory demonstration in which they waved Palestinian and Hamas flags and cheered the militant group.

Israeli police said they arrested 16 people.

Protesters also clashed with Israeli troops in parts of the occupied West Bank, which has seen violent demonstrations in recent days linked to Jerusalem and Gaza.

Thousands took to the streets of Gaza as the cease-fire took hold at 2am.

Young men waved Palestinian and Hamas flags, passed out sweets, honked horns and set off fireworks.

Celebrations also broke out overnight in east Jerusalem and across the occupied West Bank.

Israel captured all three territories in the 1967 war and the Palestinians want them for their future state.

The 11-day war left more than 250 dead - the vast majority Palestinians - and brought widespread devastation to the already impoverished Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

It is the worst Israeli-Palestinian violence since 2014.

The Gaza Health Ministry says at least 243 Palestinians were killed, including 66 children, with 1,910 people wounded.

It does not differentiate between fighters and civilians. Twelve people were killed in Israel, all but one of them civilians, including a 5-year-old boy and 16-year-old girl.

Palestinians returned to survey the damage of their homes caused by hundreds of Israeli airstrikes that it says have targeted Hamas’ infrastructure, including a vast tunnel network.

Hamas rocket missiles, that brought life to a standstill in much of Israel were seen by many Palestinians as a bold response to perceived Israeli abuses in Jerusalem, the emotional heart of the conflict.

Earlier on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned against further attacks, saying: "If Hamas thinks we will tolerate a drizzle of rockets, it is wrong."

He vowed to respond with “a new level of force” against aggression anywhere in Israel.

He added that Israeli forces had caused “maximum damage to Hamas with a minimum of casualties in Israel.”

He said Israeli strikes killed more than 200 militants, including 25 senior commanders, and hit more than 60 miles of militant tunnels.

On Friday, a funeral took place for members of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas movement, who died in the Israeli bombardment of a tunnel.

Hamas and the Islamic Jihad militant group have only acknowledged 20 fighters killed.

Gaza truce holds but clashes break out between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

With things the way they are any truce is only going to be temporary at best. The disproportionate number of child casualties is the most disturbing part of the whole thing.

[Broomstick]

So I don't see where Israel, or the government of Israel, should automatically be THE determinant in all things Jewish. The Diaspora means Judaism long ago grew past being limited to just one place, even if some Jews haven't figured that out.

The determinant? No. But if [Google says somewhere between thirty and fifty percent percent] of the world's Christian population lived in Vatican City and surrounding areas controlled by them and there were no other Christian majority countries anywhere in the world I'd say that the Catholic Church was at the front of the line when it comes to groups who should be taken seriously when they say what being a Christian means.

The problem with that line of reasoning is that the Vatican City has a Pope - someone who, at least for the first few centuries, was considered THE authority and spoke with the Voice of God. The Jews haven't had that in thousands of years, not since the last prophet Malachi about 2500 years ago (if that prophet was even an individual - the details are murky) and not in the sense of "centralized religious authority" since the fall of the Second Temple in 79 AD. For the next 1900+ years the Jews spread over three continents (and in the last few centuries to an additional 3) and the practice of the religion was such that no central authority was needed or even existed. That is why there are so many different Jewish "traditions", sects, groups, etc. Judaism as it has been practiced for the last 19 centuries does not have a central authority, does not require one, and has long allowed for differing practices all of which can be described as "Judaism".

Even within Israel itself, despite the Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox wanting to be The Authority On How To Be Jewish they aren't - Israel has plenty of Reform, Reconstructionist, Secular, Atheist, and a bunch of other varieties of "Judaism".

In other words: Judaism and Christianity are not comparable in that manner, and Judaism has been fractured into divergent and squabbling sects half again as long as Christianity has even existed (about 3,000 years since the United Kingdom split into the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah - the Jews have if anything become ever less united since then). Even the Chief Rabbinate of Israel is not united - it has TWO chief rabbis, one Ashkenazi and one Sephardic (I guess the Mizrahi are just shit out of luck, despite being the Middle Eastern Jews who never left the region which is consistent with modern Israel shitting on the people who were in the region before all those European Jews moved into the neighborhood). I'll also note that there is considerable dislike and opposition to that Rabbinate both within Israel and in the greater global Jewish community for a variety of reasons I don't care to go into at the moment, as it would be off-topic for this thread.

[Broomstick]

Gaza truce holds but clashes break out between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

See, this is a part of the problem - the Al-Aqsa mosque is the third most holy site in Islam, so Muslims claim they own it and no one else. However, the pile of brick and dirt it sits on is what remains of the Second Temple - THE most holy site in all Judaism, with Jews basically allowed access to the Western Wall which is all that remains standing of THEIR Very Most Holy Site in their religion. There are Muslims who want the Jews kept far away, which would be like denying a Muslim access to Mecca and someone else building a religious structure on top of the Kaaba. Meanwhile, there are Jews who would really like a Third Temple, which would mean razing the Al-Aqsa and denying entry to anyone not Jewish (the most Holy of Holy being off-limits even to most Jews).

These are not compatible viewpoints.

Nor do I see a lot of room for compromise. The current situation is actually about as good as it gets without invoking some pretty major destruction and long-term outrage. And by "compromise" I mean "a situation where everyone is about equally pissed off and WWIII hasn't (yet) broken out over it".

[Jub]

What if some third power, perhaps China as they have almost zero connection to the region, kicked both groups out and said they'd hold the land in trust until such a time as both sides could agree to share it? They could even make the threat that any attempt at retaliation would lead to them demolishing the sites so that nobody has them.

Yes, I am suggesting taking away the toy that two siblings are fighting over and threatening to throw it out if they can't behave. I'm doing so precisely because both sides aren't able to act like adults when their imaginary friend in the sky gets involved.

[GuppyShark]

Then let Italy have it. It used to be Roman territory.

[Broomstick]

Well, yeah - it was the Romans who destroyed the Second Temple.

My Dark Side says destroy the whole Temple Mount - wall, mosque, and all - for much the same reason Jub proposes.

A thought of mine I do not normally share with my more devout Jewish friends is that a lot of folks seems to be ignoring a possible Message From God: God allowed the destruction of the Temple of Solomon and saw the Jews off to exile in Babylon. Then the Jews returned to Jerusalem, built the Second Temple, then a couple centuries later God allowed the Romans to destroy that building, the Jews were scattered to the four corners of the world, and THEN someone else builds a different holy place on top of it!

Holy crap, guys, can't you take a hint?.

Build Temple number 3 and the next time the hammer drops the Jews will wind up all over the solar system. Or further. Maybe God is done with Temple-centered Judaism? Sort of like how after Moses the Jewish God decided he didn't want to talk directly to any of his people again, and then after Malachi God decided that was enough prophets?

Again, personal opinion, I'd tell the Jews they'd be better off living scattered rather than invest so much blood and treasure in a piece of real estate that has been soaked in blood for the last 10,000 years but hey, it's not like anyone would put me in charge of anything, and I have no attachment to a land I've never seen and whose government I find repellent even if, supposedly, my ancestors once lived there many centuries ago. But I guess that's a big difference between me and a Zionist, isn't it?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Well, yeah - it was the Romans who destroyed the Second Temple.

My Dark Side says destroy the whole Temple Mount - wall, mosque, and all - for much the same reason Jub proposes.

If I remember rightly, that was part of the idea of the Mid-East peace plan dreamt up in Tom Clancy's "Sum of All Fears" (the book, not the film) - take all the holy sites in Jerusalem and put them udner the control of the Swiss Guard as a neutral party.

[MKSheppard]

What if some third power, perhaps China as they have almost zero connection to the region

I have suggested this to my CHINESE COMMUNIST friend; use troops from Xinjang to oversee the Temple Mount. But then again, the PRC would likely want no part of this mess.

[MKSheppard]

And... at the danger of repeating myself:



Nothing ever changes.

So a whole bunch of people died and a whole bunch of buildings got blown up, for....what?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

What if some third power, perhaps China as they have almost zero connection to the region, kicked both groups out and said they'd hold the land in trust until such a time as both sides could agree to share it? They could even make the threat that any attempt at retaliation would lead to them demolishing the sites so that nobody has them.

Yes, I am suggesting taking away the toy that two siblings are fighting over and threatening to throw it out if they can't behave. I'm doing so precisely because both sides aren't able to act like adults when their imaginary friend in the sky gets involved.

That sounds like it would have a better chance of lasting success than the temporary ceasefire which does precisely jack shit about the root causes of all this.

[AniThyng]

What if some third power, perhaps China as they have almost zero connection to the region, kicked both groups out and said they'd hold the land in trust until such a time as both sides could agree to share it? They could even make the threat that any attempt at retaliation would lead to them demolishing the sites so that nobody has them.

Yes, I am suggesting taking away the toy that two siblings are fighting over and threatening to throw it out if they can't behave. I'm doing so precisely because both sides aren't able to act like adults when their imaginary friend in the sky gets involved.

That sounds like it would have a better chance of lasting success than the temporary ceasefire which does precisely jack shit about the root causes of all this.

Given the Xinjiang situation I don't think you can really count on the PRC to be considered a neutral party in all this. Unless your goal is precisely to drag china into it even more...

[Tribble]

What if some third power, perhaps China as they have almost zero connection to the region, kicked both groups out and said they'd hold the land in trust until such a time as both sides could agree to share it? They could even make the threat that any attempt at retaliation would lead to them demolishing the sites so that nobody has them.

Yes, I am suggesting taking away the toy that two siblings are fighting over and threatening to throw it out if they can't behave. I'm doing so precisely because both sides aren't able to act like adults when their imaginary friend in the sky gets involved.

That sounds like it would have a better chance of lasting success than the temporary ceasefire which does precisely jack shit about the root causes of all this.

Ya at the very least Jerusalem should be a true international city, being the centre of 3 major religions and all. Hard to figure out a neutral third party to oversee and defend it but it’d be better than what’s going on atm for sure.

Of course if everyone finally stopped believing in their imaginary sky friends and getting into dick measuring contests over which one is mightiest that would go a long way.

[Broomstick]

What if some third power, perhaps China as they have almost zero connection to the region, kicked both groups out and said they'd hold the land in trust until such a time as both sides could agree to share it? They could even make the threat that any attempt at retaliation would lead to them demolishing the sites so that nobody has them.

Yes, I am suggesting taking away the toy that two siblings are fighting over and threatening to throw it out if they can't behave. I'm doing so precisely because both sides aren't able to act like adults when their imaginary friend in the sky gets involved.

That sounds like it would have a better chance of lasting success than the temporary ceasefire which does precisely jack shit about the root causes of all this.

You honestly think the Muslims involved wouldn't object to China given its treatment of the Muslim Uighurs? I don't see how the Palestinians would accept them as a "neutral" party give that particular genocide going on currently. I think "zero connection to the region" is probably a situation the folks in the Middle East want to maintain.

[Zaune]

I suppose President Biden could always ask the Vatican to step up, now that Tom Clancy is too dead to complain about people plagiarising his novels.

[Gandalf]

You honestly think the Muslims involved wouldn't object to China given its treatment of the Muslim Uighurs? I don't see how the Palestinians would accept them as a "neutral" party give that particular genocide going on currently. I think "zero connection to the region" is probably a situation the folks in the Middle East want to maintain.

Also IIRC, PRC has a strong history of cooperation and general friendly relations with Israel. So their perception as some sort of weird neutral party may not be universal.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Considering any third party has to be both sufficiently strong and politically neutral to both sides, is there any entity that would qualify?

[Formless]

Considering any third party has to be both sufficiently strong and politically neutral to both sides, is there any entity that would qualify?

I would say no, because almost every country on Earth that isn't the United States considers Israel to be on the wrong side of history, and their governments only don't come out and say it because they want to stay on the US's good side.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Considering any third party has to be both sufficiently strong and politically neutral to both sides, is there any entity that would qualify?

I would say no, because almost every country on Earth that isn't the United States considers Israel to be on the wrong side of history, and their governments only don't come out and say it because they want to stay on the US's good side.

Probably not Russia, but despite propping up Syria I can't imagine them being interested in Israel.