Is the war in Gaza a civil war?
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Chris Alemany🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇸replied to Janneke last edited by
@janneke @evan no argument that they are trying to colonize and settle Palestine, but the war isn’t happening in the settlements. It is happening in Gaza, which has not been consumed by Israel. It had a separate government, separate citizens, separate infrastructure, even though Israel is gatekeeper the two are not the same.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Scott M. Stolz last edited by
@scott Interesting!
I think the argument of the "one state reality" is that the territory that has been occupied and managed by a single government for almost 60 years, since 1967, is functionally a single state.
Even the proposed "two-state solution" from Oslo supposes a less-than-sovereign state in the West Bank and Gaza, with no military or border control.
Anyway, thanks for the in-depth response.
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Scott M. Stolzreplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by@Evan Prodromou I'll let people judge for themselves, but it comes down to this question:
Is Palestine being treated as an occupied territory, or is it being treated as equals with the same rights and privileges?
Your answer to that will tell you if they are de facto one state or two. -
Evan Prodromoureplied to Scott M. Stolz last edited by
@scott I disagree that this is a good rubric; I think there are sadly many examples in the world where a population are not treated with equal rights, and yet we consider them part of the same state.
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Mark Darbyshirereplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@evan Researching my answer for this poll, I'm sad but not surprised to see which countries have and haven't recognised the State of Palestine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Palestine#/media/File:Palestine_recognition_only.svg
Case in point: my country supports a two-state solution but doesn't recognise Palestine as a country.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
So, a civil war is a war between parties within a single state. If you recognize both Israel and the State of Palestine, the War in Gaza is an international war. Or, perhaps, a war between a sovereign state, and some kind of perpetually occupied territory. But not within.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
But there is another pov, the so-called "one state reality", which says that after 65+ years of occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and East Jerusalem, with no end in sight and not even a promise of a truly sovereign Palestinian state, Israel/Palestine is a de facto single state. So, in this framing, the War in Gaza is a civil war between ethnic factions, or perhaps between a central government and a rebellious ethnic enclave.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
I find this framing appealing, even though I find the war unconscionable. It highlights the fact that Israel and Palestine might be inextricably entwined. And for some reason a fratricidal war at this level seems all the more tragic and self destructive.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by [email protected]
But the framing also means ignoring the existence of the State of Palestine, which has struggled so hard to come into the world.
And it also, surprisingly, cheapens the recognition of Israel within its borders. If the state's boundaries aren't where it says they are, but wherever the observer defines them, it undercuts that nation's right to define its own geography.
Just saying that the whole place is a hellish mush of Israel/Palestine denies either part the right to exist.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
So, I'm a qualified no. I think the civil war framing underlines the internality of the war, but it denies recognition to the two parts.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Mark Darbyshire last edited by
@markdarb mine either.
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@evan how can we see this as anything other than a proxy war with America on one side and Iran and Russia on the other? The people of Israel and Palestine continue to pay the price as the great powers fight over strategically important land.
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Brantley Harrisreplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@evan This is a war between Israel and Iran because Israel has normalized relations with other Arab states and that threatens Iranian regional standing significantly.
Iran sponsors terrorist organizations and knows Israel will respond oppressively. It’s PR of the worst sort. This context must be understood.
So technically a foreign-state sponsored insurrection and brutal response.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Brantley Harris last edited by
@deadwisdom to my eyes, it's an ethnic cleansing by an Kahanist government using starvation, infrastructure destruction and high civilian casualties to exterminate the Palestinian residents or force them to flee so Israel can annex the territory.
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Brantley Harrisreplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@evan Caveat: I'm speaking from a specifically objective geo-political, historical context.
So, I would say what you just described is a hard no.
The Israeli and Palestinian people overwhelmingly want peace and prosperity.
The Israeli government wants to find a way to to endless hostilities, and needs to do it with the support of the majority of western governments who would never allow such things.
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Brantley Harrisreplied to Brantley Harris last edited by
@evan "Ethnic cleansing", and "genocide" is definitely not the situation, and is language chosen for it's ironic and inflammatory effect.
If anything, Jews are by far the minority here. Look elsewhere in the middle-east, and the rest of the world to see their kind chased out even in modern times.
This stuff resonates with western socialist ideals (which I am usually very aligned to, btw). But it defies the context of the politics and history from the past 3000 years.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@deadwisdom I appreciate your perspective but the fact that former Kach party members like Ben Gvir and Smotrich hold the balance of power in the cabinet, and that ultraright Likud members like Gamliel also hold sway, and that they threaten to walk and force new elections every time that there's a chance of letting through more food or having a ceasefire, makes me pretty sure that the point of the war is eradication.
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Brantley Harrisreplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@evan No doubt there are many hardliners, but "eradication" simply cannot happen with the support of western powers that they absolutely require.
Your characterization of the war as a one-sided extermination fails with the news of more missile attacks from Iran. Why is Iran sending missiles at Israel because of an air-strike of a single target in Lebanon?
This isn't some authoritarian blitz.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Brantley Harris last edited by
@deadwisdom The US government and other Western governments have been trying to broker a ceasefire since November 2023. There have been multiple votes in the UN Security Council (vetoed) and UN General Assembly (passed). The International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Courts have cases before them for Israel and for Netanyahu. The world wants this war to end.