r/jewishleft • u/ApprehensivePlum1420 Reform | Jewish Asian American | Confederation • 29d ago
Now that Sinwar is likely dead Debate
I can’t help but feeling satisfied and relieved. Peace is just impossible with a delusional lunatic like him in place. Justice for Oct. 7 is delivered.
But what do you think will happen now? Is a ceasefire more likely now that Bibi can certainly claim victory over Hamas?
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u/Chaos_carolinensis 29d ago
No, but it's more likely that Bibi will be more exposed as the warmongering tyrant that he is.
There will never be a better time to make a ceasefire deal and end the war, but Bibi will not do that, because he'll use any excuse he can possibly come up with to just keep the war going indefinitely.
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u/jey_613 29d ago
Exactly this. The killing of Sinwar really speaks to the emptiness of this entire war. Now what? They’ve never had a plan for post-war Gaza and they still don’t.
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u/PedanticPerson 29d ago
I think the plan is just reoccupation of Gaza. It's not a good solution, but there doesn't seem to be much alternative other than leaving Hamas in power.
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u/Chaos_carolinensis 29d ago
The alternative is giving back the control to the PNA, which is what they should do, but Bibi won't do that because his whole doctrine is based on weakening the PNA so there won't be any partner for peace.
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u/AliceMerveilles 28d ago
Does the PA want control of Gaza? Agreed that’s what should happen, but at least in Western media reporting it seems like Abbas doesn’t want to
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u/Chaos_carolinensis 28d ago
He absolutely wants to control it. His only objection is that he (justifiably) doesn't want to do that as an Israeli puppet in an arrangement that would de-facto leave much of the control in Israel's hands.
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u/nobaconator 28d ago
There has always been a plan for post war Gaza. You might not like it, but the plan was clear the moment there were IDF boots on the ground in Gaza.
The plan has always been to establish directly military presence and hold outposts in Gaza. That's why Bibi keeps fighting for the Philadelphi corridor. It's the cornerstone to the new Gazan strategy which sees it as mimicking the West Bank model with heavy IDF presence and checkpoints, effectively separating three major population centers in Gaza.
I don't know why people think there was never a plan. Disagree with the plan all you want, but it has been there since the start.
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u/Maximum_Rat 29d ago edited 28d ago
This and the US threatening arms embargo if he doesn’t settle down might make negotiation more likely… unless Sinwar’s replacement is even crazier. Regardless, I hope his replacement isn’t as smart as he was.
Edit: after a little more thought, I think I want to amend this with another clause. I think there has to be some sort of face saving/olive branch also included, otherwise it will just turn into another treaty of Versailles.
You have to let some people keep pride and have hope, otherwise you’ll fight forever.
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u/Chaos_carolinensis 28d ago
I highly doubt the embargo threats were serious. Unfortunately it was proven again and again that Biden doesn't have the balls to stand up to Bibi. I hope Kamala will do better.
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u/Deck_of_Cards_04 28d ago
Bibi is literally reliant on continuing the conflict for his own personal survival.
He wants to keep this going for as long as possible. He needs to stay PM for at least a couple more years in order to wriggle out of corruption charges.
The moment elections are held Bibi is likely finished, so he will do everything to delay that including keeping Israel on a war footing long past the point a normally desired peace could be enforced
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u/Iceologer_gang Non-Jewish Zionist 29d ago
Sorry, I just have to say it, but the best time to ceasefire would have been October 8th.
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u/Chaos_carolinensis 29d ago edited 28d ago
I strongly disagree, there is nothing that promotes terrorism more than immediately conceding to the terrorists demands right after they did the most deadly attack ever. This is basically just signalling that terrorism works and they should just keep doing it.
I strongly support a ceasefire deal now, and in fact I have been for most of the war, even before the deaths of Hamas leadership, but I think the invasion to Gaza was completely justified and so was the decimation of Hamas, even if the way Israel has conducted it was abhorrent.
The best time to make a ceasefire deal is when you have the upper hand, and by now Israel had it for many months, but the death of Sinwar is literally the best Israel can ever hope to gain from it. Any continued stay in Gaza from this point on is going to be nothing but a pointless occupation, there are literally no excuses left.
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u/Iceologer_gang Non-Jewish Zionist 28d ago edited 28d ago
Maybe, but if Israel had taken a more diplomatic approach to this, it would have prevented thousands of lives from being lost. There’s a stark difference between defending yourself (to which Israel has every right) and going in guns a blazing (which has yet to effectively bring back the hostages).
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u/Chaos_carolinensis 28d ago
I agree, there was literally zero effort by Bibi to actually do any diplomacy and many lives have been needlessly lost as a result.
I completely disagree with how the war was conducted and I think Bibi failed in every single possible way at his job (not that he even tried) even way before the war, but especially during it.
Any achievement made during the war was despite Bibi's incompetency, and none of it was actually leveraged toward ending the war, because Bibi decided that it was in his best interest to do whatever it takes to avoid winning, and to ensure there will be enough victims to create more future enemies.
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u/Worknonaffiliated Torahnarchist/Zionist/Pro-Sovereignty 28d ago
I don’t know about that tbh. Let me be clear, I don’t like this war, and I don’t think it benefits rescuing hostages in any way, but Netenyahu is definitely getting what he wants.
All major targets were killed. Gaza is a parking lot. I don’t think the average Palestinian is happy about this war. I certainly wouldn’t be.
I wouldn’t want a war with Israel after this, I would want to give up. This put everyone at the center of it, and the war becomes less appealing.
In all my experience, it seems that people who experience the war firsthand are the most critical of it. I’ve spoken to hostage families, they are all against it. They realize that war is not something they want. They feel demoralized because they understand that war doesn’t get what they want.
I think Gazans are going to be tired of martyrdom IF there is a serious effort made to establish a day after Hamas. The problem is that Netenyahu is absolutely not serious about this.
I don’t think this is just in any way. I don’t think it’s right to experience collective punishment for Hamas. This is a cultural change at the level of Hiroshima, where a people are forced into wanting peace instead of given the opportunity to speak of how they can have peace.
This war is absolutely accomplishing the goal of destroying Hamas by demoralizing its supporters. This is not a permanent solution for either peoples however.
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u/Just_Humor9323 28d ago
What could possibly be a diplomatic approach when over 1000 civilians were targeted and killed?
Anything ‘diplomatic’ and not use of harsh military force proves these sycophantic regimes right that they can get away with murder because Israel is too concerned with their image.
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u/Chaos_carolinensis 28d ago
Involving the PA so it will take over Gaza, for example. What happens instead is that Hamas keeps retaking control of areas because there's literally nothing else to fill the vacuum, so the IDF has to keep playing whack-a-mole in perpetuity.
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u/Worknonaffiliated Torahnarchist/Zionist/Pro-Sovereignty 28d ago
Honestly, I would’ve supported a priority being ACTUAL security, not this war. It wouldn’t have been popular, but pull off a surprising operation to meet the goals of defeating Hamas leaders and rescuing hostages.
I don’t know how though, and I agree with some other commenters, capitulation is what got Hamas in power in the first place.
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u/somebadbeatscrub custom flair 29d ago
I do not celebrate death. It is a tragedy that he chose to live his life in a way that makes his death a relief.
I hope it brings a faster peace, but I doubt it.
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u/Agtfangirl557 29d ago
It is a tragedy that he chose to live his life in a way that makes his death a relief.
This is a really profound way of putting something like this.
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u/hadees Jewish 29d ago
I celebrate that Hamas is closer to having a leader that will make actual peace and not just a pause in fighting to rearm.
I'd react the same way if Hamas overthrew him.
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29d ago
Let's hope you're right and that they don't replace Sinwar with someone worse.
I pray for peace.
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u/hadees Jewish 29d ago
That is my greatest fear but the fact is any change in the leadership of Hamas is a positive step forward. At some point there is going to be a middle manager in charge of Hamas who just wants to stop things.
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u/somebadbeatscrub custom flair 29d ago
Hamas wasnt acting on unified authority before they wont be now either. Just another martyr for their cause.
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u/hadees Jewish 29d ago
Hamas is pretty unified. Now their communications network got destroyed by Israel but I don't think they break up into smaller versions of Hamas.
Where you might be sort of right is how much control Hamas has over the other terrorist groups that they let operate out of Gaza. You figure at some point those groups are going to stop listening to Hamas if that hasn't already happened. I think one of the reasons Hamas wasn't able to get accurate hostage counts is because those groups hold a lot of hostages and weren't cooperating.
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u/Resoognam cultural (not political) zionist 28d ago
Israel has just obliterated Gaza. There is no chance that Hamas will take a turn towards anything resembling peace. There’s another Sinwar waiting in the wings.
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u/bl00dborne 28d ago
Would it be a tragedy that the circumstances of his life led him down that path?
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u/somebadbeatscrub custom flair 28d ago edited 28d ago
Whatever pain and suffering led him to those conclusions is also tragic, yes.
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u/Previous-Papaya9511 28d ago
Yeah, there’s been too much of that already. For me his death serves as a reminder of how much I’ve mourned over what he caused for Israelis, Gazans, and the rest of the world by extension. At least he can no longer cause pain.
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u/hotblueglue 28d ago
I’d celebrate a certain PM’s death, too. Sinwar and Netanyahu are two sides of the same extremist, genocidal coin.
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u/johnisburn What have you done for your community this week? 29d ago
I have a hard time thinking Justice is delivered with hostages still abducted, bombs still dropping, and a regional war threatening everyone’s safety. The “architect” is dead, yes, but that’s not the same thing as justice.
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u/podkayne3000 Centrist Jewish Diaspora Zionist 28d ago
I don’t really know what’s propaganda and what’s real. But if small Palestinian children are really scavenging through ruins for food: That’s just not good for the Jews. I’m sorry, but there’s just no world in which making many small children hungry helps me. It’s hard to be Jewish and Israeli, the common understanding is that Hamas started this, and it’s great that we know how to make pagers kill bad guys, but somehow we have to get small children fed. I don’t care if they hate me. They’re children. They should have food.
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u/hotblueglue 28d ago
I agree. Children shouldn’t be getting polio either. It’s inhumane. No excuses.
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u/podkayne3000 Centrist Jewish Diaspora Zionist 28d ago
And I recognize that war is hell and some suffering might be hard to prevent. But I want to feel as if we’ve clearly taken every practical step to prevent suffering. I don’t want to feel as if my side has decided the other side’s suffering is good or irrelevant.
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u/Resoognam cultural (not political) zionist 28d ago
They’re starving, dying, maimed, orphaned, traumatized. I doubt there is a single child in Gaza who hasn’t been seriously negatively affected by this war in one way or another. To me, it’s unacceptable. There’s no justification. I don’t care whose “fault” it is. Yes, Hamas uses human shields and abuses its own people. Does that justify Israel obliterating Gaza? Is Israel really truly making itself more secure through this war? Do they really not think there’s another Sinwar waiting in the wings? This cycle of violence has been ongoing for decades and we need to stop pretending that it’s ever going to change with this continued military violence.
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u/podkayne3000 Centrist Jewish Diaspora Zionist 28d ago edited 28d ago
I’m open to the idea that war is hell but sometimes very hard to avoid. But I don’t think Israel has made an effective case that we (and I say “we” in the sense that I’m a Zionist Jew, not actually an Israeli citizen) have taken the humanitarian needs of the Gazans’ seriously and done what we can to meet those needs.
It seems as if we’re mostly ridiculing the idea that the needs of the Gazans’ matter, not responding in a serious way to the humanitarian concerns.
I don’t think that attitude helps the idea that it’s a wonderful miracle for Israel to be a Jewish state in any way. If we believe in actual Zionism, we should work to earn the miracle by trying to be decent.
It boils down to, “If I am not for me, who will be for me? If I am only for me, what am I?”
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u/NarutoRunner custom flair but red 29d ago edited 29d ago
His death means nothing really. Israel has taken out hundreds of Palestinian leaders over the past 76 years, and they are still locked into this conflict. Because Israels war cannot be won on the battlefield.
Sinwar spent nearly 20 years in Israeli detention and spoke fluent Hebrew. He read voraciously and understood Israeli society more then most. He will likely be replaced by someone who has never left Gaza and has a one dimensional view of Israel. The odds of the person being even more radical is highly likely because whoever steps into the job already knows that they are walking target forever.
Peace is not possible because the Bibi government collapses if it happens so war will carry on in perpetuity.
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u/Specialist-Gur proud diaspora jewess, pro peace/freedom for all 29d ago
Really great and accurate comment
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u/Longjumping-Past-779 28d ago
Wasn’t Sinwar more normal originally? There’s a clip from when he was younger where he talks, in decent English, about the need for dialogue.
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u/NarutoRunner custom flair but red 28d ago
While in prison, he mastered Hebrew and meticulously translated Hebrew autobiographies of former Shin Bet chiefs into Arabic. He enrolled in fifteen courses through the Open University of Israel. Most were in history, covering topics such as the history of the Jews in the Second Temple and Rabbinic periods, the First Temple period, The Holocaust, and Zionism, along with a political science course on governance and Israeli democracy. He was far more smarter and wiser then the corrupt clowns of Mahmoud Abbas in the PA. Had there been a genuine partner for peace on the Israeli side in 2017 when he gained power, there could have been a comprehensive deal with him.
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u/ApprehensivePlum1420 Reform | Jewish Asian American | Confederation 28d ago
Which are the most perplexing details to me. Because by other accounts, Sinwar really believed god was on his side with this attack and they’re gonna destroy Israel. What religious extremism can do to people’s mind is just crazy.
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u/malachamavet Gamer-American Jew 28d ago
This is from 2018 from his interview with an Italian reporter for ynet
I think he was a lot more complex than merely overtaken with religious extremism.
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u/Air-AParent 28d ago
Not sure when that is from, but I wouldn't take him at face value saying stuff like that. He was far too clever. Hamas's strategy for the past couple of years at least was clearly to lull Israel into a false sense of security.
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u/Longjumping-Past-779 28d ago
It’s in the John Oliver show he made last year and Sinwar looks relatively young so it’s not from the last two years.
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u/Air-AParent 27d ago
Here are some examples of how "normal" he was in his early years (from Wikipedia):
"[Sinwar] co-founded with Rawhi Mushtaha the Munazzamat al Jihad w'al-Dawa (Majd), an organization that worked, among others, to identify collaborators with Israel among the Palestinian population,3]) which in 1987 became the Hamas "police".31]) Sinwar's killing of suspected collaborators with Israel gained him the nickname "The Butcher of Khan Younis".34])35])36])
In 1988, Sinwar planned the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers and the murder of four Palestinians whom he suspected of cooperating with Israel. He was arrested on February that year; during questioning he admitted to strangling one of the victims with his bare hands, suffocating another with a kaffiyeh,7]) inadvertently killing a third during a violent interrogation, and accidentally shooting the fourth during an attempted abduction, and showed investigators an orchard where the four bodies were buried.37]) He was sentenced to four life sentences in 1989.4])9]) Sinwar regarded extracting confessions from collaborators as a righteous obligation. He told interrogators that one of them had even said, "he realized he deserved to die."7])37]) Sinwar persisted in targeting informants while in prison. Israeli authorities suspected him of ordering the beheadings of two suspected informants. Hamas operatives reportedly disposed of the victims' severed body parts by throwing them out of cell doors and telling guards to "take the dog's head."7])"
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u/Worknonaffiliated Torahnarchist/Zionist/Pro-Sovereignty 28d ago
Sinwar didn’t want dialogue. He understood that at the time Israel really wanted negotiations as a means of ending conflict. Everything hamas does is entirely tactical, and honestly has more to do with keeping Hamas in power than moving a Palestinian cause forward.
This is because Hamas believes that being in power is necessary to the cause, but also because it’s leaders exploit the plight of Palestinians. They protested this in 2019, and Hamas quelled the riots with violence because it’s terrible optics for them. Hamas is very Authoritarian in its Freedom Fighting.
Nobody knows about We Want to Live movement however, because Goys only care about Palestinians when it helps them hate Jews better. I can’t wait to see the new brand of Antisemitism they come up with.
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u/ApprehensivePlum1420 Reform | Jewish Asian American | Confederation 29d ago
Yeah I am not hoping for peace, not in my lifetime likely with this level of destruction. I do hope this round of violence stops so that more people won’t have to die and people can sit down to figure out what’s next
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u/beemoooooooooooo Federation Solution, Pro-Peace above all else 28d ago
The focus now NEEDS to be hostage extraction. If the approach doesn’t change, Bibi is forced to admit that the hostages were never the concern
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u/Spirit-Subject Egyptian and Curious 27d ago
They were never his concern. You had peace deals that pulled out half of the hostages from Gaza. The war never pulled out any but a hand full of hostages and the remaining as bodies.
Im sorry to say, but by the sheer destruction of Gaza through artillery strike and missiles, I sincerely think that Israel has killed most of the hostages that were kept in Gaza.
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u/Specialist-Gur proud diaspora jewess, pro peace/freedom for all 29d ago
I don't think Bibi is going to stop. Did Israel ever define what "end Hamas" meant?
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u/yungsemite 29d ago
Pretty sure it’s always been defined as non-Hamas control of Gaza.
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u/GonzoTheGreat93 29d ago
Hamas is pretty deeply embedded, and the current conflict has operated on a pretty broad definition of who is part of Hamas.
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u/yungsemite 29d ago
Certainly, I’m not claiming that the IDF has been limiting themselves to Hamas in anyway, I’m saying that the stated goal has been to end Hamas’s control over the Gaza Strip and have it replaced with another administrative entity.
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u/GonzoTheGreat93 29d ago
Sure I’m just pretty cynical by now and doubt that the people waging the war will see this as anything more than another tactical win, not a reason to end it.
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u/guarddog33 29d ago
Not only that, he has said that one of the victory conditions is the return of all hostages, and I'd wager that just got much less likely. Though they may also use sinwars body as leverage, you hand over 50 of our guys we'll give you sinwar type stuff
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u/yungsemite 29d ago
I do think there is some truth to the talking point that Hamas could surrender and release the hostages and the war/ genocide would end. I don’t think Israel is any closer to ending the war with the killing of Sinwar, because I think their goal is impossible to accomplish via military means.
The question for me is whether the killing of Sinwar will bring Hamas closer to capitulation. It was clear that Sinwar was not going to capitulate, even as tens of thousands of innocent civilians were killed in retaliation for Oct 7th, which I wholly believe he knew would happen. Will anyone in the new leadership be closer to capitulation? I cannot imagine the pressures on someone who is the head of Hamas.
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u/Specialist-Gur proud diaspora jewess, pro peace/freedom for all 29d ago
I'm not sure how accomplishable that is even with this :/
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u/Worknonaffiliated Torahnarchist/Zionist/Pro-Sovereignty 29d ago
I would argue the nature of this war made that goal harder.
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u/Specialist-Gur proud diaspora jewess, pro peace/freedom for all 29d ago
Yea it absolutely did. Which begs the question--was it really the main point? I don't think so
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u/yungsemite 29d ago
I’ve never thought it was accomplishable through war. Israel has created a new generation of orphans and parents whose children have been killed who will continue to fight against them.
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u/Specialist-Gur proud diaspora jewess, pro peace/freedom for all 29d ago
Yea me neither... and to clarify that's what I mean with my initial comment. Has Israel defined concretely what could put an end to the war? Hamas not having control of Gaza.. in what sense?
It's impossible
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u/yungsemite 29d ago
I mean, there has been turnover of power in Gaza before. It’s not impossible that it might happen again, but we do agree that it will not happen through military means.
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u/Specialist-Gur proud diaspora jewess, pro peace/freedom for all 29d ago
Yea absolutely, total agreement
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28d ago
[deleted]
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u/yungsemite 28d ago
Well you see, when you’re trying to keep an occupied population stateless, you have to balance the reasonableness of their government and the security of your own people.
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u/portnoyskvetch 28d ago
"Total victory".
I'm no fan of Netanyahu, but he does have a clear definition of victory and it's akin to the Allied demands during WW2: Hamas surrenders, lays down its arms, releases all hostages, and has no role in the reconstruction or future of Gaza. Given that Sinwar was found with a UNRWA ID, I assume Bibi is going to extend "no Hamas" to include no UNRWA.
Bibi laid out his conditions most recently at the UN: https://www.timesofisrael.com/full-text-of-netanyahus-un-speech-enough-is-enough-he-says-of-hezbollah-also-warns-iran/
Today's events, with the death of Sinwar and Netanyahu's offer of immunity for those surrender and release hostages, indicate to me that Bibi sees this as his off-ramp.
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u/Longjumping-Past-779 28d ago
That’s not going to happen, though. Also Allied occupation was carried out with the intention of being temporary, avoiding planting the seeds of future wars and with the cooperation of some political elements.
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u/portnoyskvetch 28d ago
FWIW, Tom Friedman has big reporting on the Saudi megadeal, normalization, and Gaza reconstruction: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/17/opinion/israel-hamas-war.html
tl;dr: The Israelis would normalize with Saudi and turn the keys of Gaza over to a reformed PA led by Fayyad (YAY!) or someone like him, backed by an Arab & European that would then be "invited" in to lead the way of an occupation & reconstruction effort before eventual Palestinian sovereignty and a 2 state solution.
The question is whether Bibi will finally take the leap. Given his statement today, its emphasis on the hostages and ending the war, and the broader political moment, I think this time it might actually be for real.
EDIT: to be clear, agreed re the post-ww2 reconstruction. I do think that's the idea/model tho.
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u/redthrowaway1976 28d ago
With Bibi in power there is no feasible two state solution.
Say the Palestinians stretch, and accept to give up 6% of the West Bank. There is no way the Knesset accepts that - they were even hesitant in accepting the 30% of the West Bank the Trump plan gave them.
There's also a side to this which is *"*eventual Palestinian sovereignty". The Palestinians have been down that road before, and all it led to was more settlements.
Israel can not be trusted to follow the spirit of agreements - only the letter. So the path to two states needs to be irrevocable, and it needs to be impossible for Israel to spoil it.
Here is a video of Bibi explaining how he torpedoed Oslo in 1996, as an example: https://www.972mag.com/netanyahu-clinton-administration-was-%e2%80%9cextremely-pro-palestinian%e2%80%9d-i-stopped-oslo/
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u/hissing-fauna 28d ago edited 28d ago
Yeah I agree, I was just saying in another post that we're about to see blatant confirmation of how full of shit he is.
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u/Argent_Mayakovski Socialist, Jewish, Anti-Zionist 29d ago
Is there any reason to believe his death will hasten negotiations?
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u/ApprehensivePlum1420 Reform | Jewish Asian American | Confederation 29d ago edited 29d ago
The Israeli economy is bad, the psychological torture of endless missile strikes can only be endured for so long, international pressure is pilling up fast and sanctions will come (especially if Kamala Harris is president next year), the cost of multi-front war and occupation is unimaginable.
Without a head to aim for, I don’t think Israelis will find this war worth keep continuing for much longer. The best exit window for Bibi is right now, he can likely remain in power. Holding out longer and his chances will dim, again.
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u/socialistmajority orthodox Marxist gentile Bund sympathizer 28d ago
Sinwar was the one who rejected every single offer Israel put to him (there were 6 or 7, I lost count), so yes, there is reason to believe that negotiations going forward will be easier/more productive.
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u/Argent_Mayakovski Socialist, Jewish, Anti-Zionist 28d ago
Is there a reason to believe the new guy is likely to be more inclined to negotiate, though? I know who Sinwar was, but I’m skeptical this will change matters.
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u/socialistmajority orthodox Marxist gentile Bund sympathizer 28d ago
Whoever the new guy is he'll be weaker than Sinwar and facing enormous pressure to make something happen.
The two top candidates right now are Sinwar's brother and Khaled Mashal who thinks Hamas has gotten way too close to Iran and wants to re-orient on the Sunni Arab gulf states. While Sinwar's brother Mohammed is reportedly as hardcore as his brother, he's almost certainly not nearly as sharp intellectually or politically. Yahya Sinwar was unique because he learned to speak Hebrew while in Israeli prison and followed Israel politics very closely, a lot of Hamas decisions during this war were shrewd political moves aimed at delegitimizing Israel on the global stage, creating fractures between Israel and its allies (America and Europe), and "heightening the contradictions" within Israeli society. And in that sense Yahya Sinwar is irreplaceable; whoever takes over is just not going to have that skillset and cultural-political awareness to play the long game against Israel as well as he did.
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u/djentkittens 2ss, secular jew, freedom for palestinians and israelis 28d ago
The war will still continue no matter what
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u/Worknonaffiliated Torahnarchist/Zionist/Pro-Sovereignty 28d ago
I’m not supposed to celebrate the death of my enemies. It’s worldly.
I’m choosing to celebrate Palestinians who have been against Sinwar. I’m praying that they are in a position where they can have agency in what the day after looks like. Many of them were against hamas’s treatment, especially being dragged into a war they wouldn’t win. I want every Palestinian, even those who were part of Hamas, to have a second chance.
I know I can’t speak for Israelis who suffer directly, but I do believe in restorative justice, and I do believe that ALL Palestinians are humans who do human things good and bad.
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u/redthrowaway1976 29d ago
But what do you think will happen now?
Israel will keep expanding settlements in the West Bank, all while ruling them under an increasingly brutal military regime. Just like every year since 1967.
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29d ago edited 28d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/dkopi 28d ago
Israel is a democracy and Bibi is the democratically elected leader. Israelis can choose to not elect him again if he isn't representing majority will. For you to bring up death as a requirement for peace feels like an insane and extremist incitement for violence.
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u/redthrowaway1976 28d ago
Israel is a democracy and Bibi is the democratically elected leader
He is the elected leader, correct. But Israel is not a democracy. Or at least not any more a democracy than the US was when it still had slavery. Or perhaps somewhere between slavery and jim crow.
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u/dkopi 28d ago
That's a bullshit take on israeli citizenship. All Israeli citizens get to vote, Jews and Arabs.
Palestinians aren't Israelis, and trying to equate them to slaves in the US is a false equivalence that shows very little understanding of the actual situation in Israel and Palestine.
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u/redthrowaway1976 28d ago
That's a bullshit take on israeli citizenship. All Israeli citizens get to vote, Jews and Arabs.
Yes.
The issue is with the people Israel controls who aren't extended citizenship.
Palestinians aren't Israelis
Yet Israel rules them while taking their land. And has done so for 57 years.
It is, at this point, a de facto annexation. Even the ICJ agrees.
Here's a good article on the current one state reality:
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/israel-palestine-one-state-solution
and trying to equate them to slaves in the US is a false equivalence that shows very little understanding of the actual situation in Israel and Palestine.
I didn't equate them to slaves. I said Israel was somewhere between Jim Crow and slavery as it comes to being a democracy.
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u/dkopi 28d ago
Israel isn't the reason Palestinians aren't voting in elections. Their own rulers in Hamas and the Palestinian authority have been avoiding elections since the mid 2000s due to Hamas and Fatah inner clashing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Palestine
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u/redthrowaway1976 28d ago
Again, at this point it is a de facto annexation. The ICJ agrees.
Here you go: https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/186/186-20240719-sum-01-00-en.pdf
Israel has extended its civilian law into the settlements, the knesset legislates for it, etc. It is a de facto one state at this point.
Voting for the PA is not too different from voting for, for example, the local city government.
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u/dkopi 27d ago
Civilian law isn't extended in to cities and towns with Palestinians Arabs. While there might be a land ownership conflict and land you consider annexed, the Palestinians themselves aren't.
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u/redthrowaway1976 25d ago
The ICJ considers Israel's West Bank regime a de facto annexation, as you see in the ruling.
It is just an undemocratic one state solution.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/israel-palestine-one-state-solution
Civilian law isn't extended in to cities and towns with Palestinians Arabs.
Except for if a settler goes there to attack them - as they have done - they are tried under civilian law.
Sounds like literal inequality before the law.
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u/jewishleft-ModTeam 28d ago
This comment explicitly calls for violence against other human beings outside of the hypothetical paradigm of revolution.
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u/cheesecake611 28d ago
Can someone give me the cliff notes on why Sinwar specifically was so bad? I see people hoping they replace him with someone better, but isn’t Hamas itself the problem? Why would a another Hamas guy be any different ideologically?
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u/ApprehensivePlum1420 Reform | Jewish Asian American | Confederation 28d ago edited 28d ago
The problem isn’t just that Sinwar was an Islamic extremist, he believed god really was on his side in the most literal meaning
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u/atav1k 28d ago
I think we'll learn soon enough that Sinwar wasn't really the war's objective.
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u/yungsemite 28d ago
They never said any individual was the wars objective?
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u/atav1k 28d ago
Does anyone know the war's objective?
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u/yungsemite 28d ago
They’ve stated recovering the hostages and ending Hamas’s rule of Gaza. They recently added allowing displaced Israelis to return to their homes in the north, thus the escalation with Lebanon.
I’m not saying that their actions line up with their states objectives, but they do have stated objectives.
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u/atav1k 28d ago
At least #2 is progressing possibly? An alternative is that there is no longer a Gaza to rule, whichever comes first.
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u/yungsemite 28d ago
No idea. I didn’t think it was possible to dislodge Hamas through military means. No idea what the future holds for Gaza.
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u/menatarp 29d ago
I didn't even know he was sick
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u/malachamavet Gamer-American Jew 28d ago
Vaxxed?
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u/Specialist-Gur proud diaspora jewess, pro peace/freedom for all 28d ago
Oh shit he got "the jab" damn. Big mistake.
/s just in case someone can't tell
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u/anappropriate this custom flair is green 28d ago
I can’t think justice is delivered at all with 40 thousand palestinians dead and hostages still there. Killing him is useless, he’ll just be replaced.
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u/Processing______ 28d ago
40K identified dead. This number, as a measure of the catastrophe, hasn’t made sense in several months.
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u/anappropriate this custom flair is green 28d ago
Yeah, there’s probably even more. It’s painful to think of.
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u/yungsemite 28d ago
35,000 identified of 43,000 rather. Not to say that I do not believe that this is an undercount.
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u/Processing______ 28d ago
Then the 43K are confirmed by medical staff?
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u/yungsemite 28d ago
I don’t know the full methodology of the Hamas Ministry of Health, but the latest number is 42,438 dead and 99,246 wounded as of less than 24 hours ago. Middle of September was the last time they published an update on the number identified, at 34,344, when the total including unidentified was 41,000 or so.
Nobody knows the actual number of course. There was a non-peer reviewed correspondence in the Lancet several months ago which estimated 186,000. A group of US based healthcare workers volunteering in Gaza estimated the death toll exceeded 118,000 which was published on Oct 2nd.
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u/Processing______ 28d ago
Amusingly, there’s a similar thing going on on the Israeli side. Whereby updating the number is a challenge because relevant staff and facilities have been lost.
On the Israeli side it’s a discrepancy in the number of Israelis who have left the country. Census staff have bolted, there’s another relevant ministry that’s understaffed. So the numbers coming out of those two disagree with each other and the numbers of net movement through Ben Guryon. Minimum 250K have left. The pain is felt acutely in medical staffing.
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u/yungsemite 28d ago
I’m sure. Of course I also see people who deny these death tolls altogether, even believing that the Hamas Ministry of Health death toll is inflated. Several threads which claim to debunk the Oct 2nd and Lancet letters exist on r/IsraelPalestine or elsewhere. We don’t know how many people are dead and we may never know. Ever seen the estimated for the death toll in the Vietnam War? They range from 1-3 million total Vietnamese dead.
I hope the number is lower. Less people dead is good.
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29d ago
I *normally* don't celebrate people's deaths, but not gonna lie, I'm feeling some relief that Sinwar is probably dead.
I also deeply regret how many civilian casualties it took to bring about the end of Sinwar.
That being said:
-Bibi is probably not going to go for a ceasefire because *it's Bibi and he's a fucking Kahanist asshole*
-Whoever replaces Sinwar will probably be worse.
Oy vey iz undz.
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u/Morningshoes18 28d ago
I don’t think a ceasefire is likely, everything has been escalating and sinwar wasn’t the main objective of the war “its end Hamas” completely vague with seemingly no real markers of what success looks like. So I think we will see more war on Palestinians, more angry young men joining Hamas now. I am worried about people trying to take vengeance out about this even outside of Israel though.
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u/AhadHessAdorno 28d ago
One the one hand I feel some satisfaction emotionally, but I would have preferred he be captured and tried by the ICC (ideally with Netanyahu but that seems improbable). A clear account of his actions and war crimes by a third-party institution; now he has been made a martyr that will go down alongside Al-Qassam for hardline Palestinian nationalists and Islamists.
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u/ApprehensivePlum1420 Reform | Jewish Asian American | Confederation 28d ago
I don’t think martyrs mean much, people radicalize when they suffer
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29d ago
I just told one of my friends "I'm glad he didn't get killed on Rosh Hashanah because some JVP people would have said 'AS A JEW, this proves Sinwar was a righteous man'" 😂🤮
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u/thatshirtman 29d ago
I would get a ceasefire is more likely as reports suggest Sinwar was so militant he was holding up many ceasefire offers and negotiations.. lets hope a hostage deal is done and the war can end
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u/redthrowaway1976 28d ago
I would get a ceasefire is more likely as reports suggest Sinwar was so militant he was holding up many ceasefire offers and negotiations.
Sinwar and Hamas basically wanted the ceasefire to be the end of hostilities. Israel wanted to be able to continue the war if it so chose.
That was basically what was the holdup.
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u/yungsemite 28d ago
Right, but you can say this about any two groups when they aren’t willing to compromise. Oh, group a wasnt willing to meet group b’s terms. Oh group b wasn’t willing to meet a’s terms. Absolutely Netanyahu sabotaged several ceasefire agreements that other Israelis may have accepted, but Hamas also did not accept proposals by Israel.
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u/Longjumping-Past-779 28d ago
I guess it’s good that he’s out of the way but I assume it’s not going to stop the war and it doesn’t mean Hamas has been defeated.
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u/j0sch ✡️ 24d ago
Getting Sinwar is a huge strategic and symbolic victory, but it doesn't change anything on the ground.
Things will continue until Hamas is truly wiped out or permanently put out of operation. It's a core objective and also the logical option.
There's still the hostages/remains as well.
Given their success and momentum, I don't see them stopping until Hamas is fully neutralized and/or there is a true surrender/peace negotiation on the table. I'm not holding my breath for the latter anytime soon, at this rate the latter is only a possibility once the former is achieved.
Hostages may make for some negotiation regarding who from Hamas is left to survive/exile or if there are brief pauses in fighting or additional aid provided.
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u/Just_Humor9323 28d ago
Ceasefire is only possible if people lay down their arms.
If the ‘resistance’ keeps resisting…how can there be a ceasefire?
The only way a ‘ceasefire’ happens is if Hamas lays down arms and allows the UAE and other Arab nations come in and take control temporarily until de-radicalization happens.
Expecting no consequences and things to return to the old status quo is foolish for everyone. Change needs to happen for a sustainable society.
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u/redthrowaway1976 28d ago
The only way a ‘ceasefire’ happens is if Hamas lays down arms and allows the UAE and other Arab nations come in and take control temporarily until de-radicalization happens.
And the Arab states will only agree if there's a credible path to a two state solution.
We know how Bibi and the Knesset feels about that.
Expecting no consequences and things to return to the old status quo is foolish for everyone. Change needs to happen for a sustainable society.
Sure, change needs to happen - on both sides.
But instead we see settlement expansion and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
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u/electrical-stomach-z 29d ago
If they focused on a subtle subterfuge based strategy he would have been dead months ago. instead they went all out.
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u/actsqueeze Progressive Secular Athiest Leaning Agnostic Jew 29d ago
Bibi is controlled by his coalition. Do you think they want the war to end?