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‘A stern message’: how return of Trump loomed over Gaza ceasefire negotiations
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2025
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Israel and Palestine Politics Discussion
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This was posted yesterday, and since that time, Israel has already killed dozens more people including a bunch of little kids, and Netanyahu has said he won't put the cease-fire up for a cabinet vote until Hamas stops sabotaging it in ways he is leaving unspecified.
The people who are taking seriously this idea that Trump might have been the guy who finally grasped how best to make progress on the Israel and Palestine problem, need to take a long, hard look at themselves and how they form their judgements, and why they are willing to believe hilarious fantasies as long as it'll serve a narrative they like. And maybe stop doing that.
Since you're obliquely inferring it, I don't support Trump and neither does the Guardian. In Britain, "Guardian reader" is used to imply a stereotype of a person with modern progressive, left-wing or "politically correct" views.
I don't expect journalists to report a version of reality that I like; that's how I stay grounded and avoid getting trapped in a bubble where only some vast improbable conspiracy can explain why my assumptions about the world are constantly contradicted by reality.
Do you ever get tired of being profoundly wrong?
Update: They started killing in the West Bank, too. Airstrikes with drones and helicopters on a refugee camp, and then a ground operation.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg750yzdr8o
Like I say, it's hard to predict the future, but if I had to guess at the specifics, I would say anywhere from two weeks to two months of no humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza, meaning people are still dying horribly at a pretty rapid pace, and then some pretext to resume the full military operation there. We'll see whether I am profoundly wrong about that, I easily could be. My only pretty confident prediction is that the dying in Gaza will continue this year.
I didn't have operations in the West Bank on the bingo card quite this soon, and I won't make any specific predictions about what will happen there, but it's not surprising to me that they're being pretty overt about their rejection of peace. Like I said, any qualified observer could have seen it coming after watching the past year. In any context that didn't give an opportunity to shit on Biden, I suspect that you'd be able to see it, too, and we wouldn't be having any kind of disagreement about this.
Edit: Further update: Trump lifted the pause on 2,000 pound bombs.
https://denvergazette.com/news/nation-world/trump-to-lift-pause-on-2-000-pound-bomb-supply-to-israel-walla-news-reports/article_f8a0e8a8-f574-52eb-ad39-0cd579379ae4.html
Not that Biden had enacted any particularly effective level of stoppage of weapons shipments. But, Trump is on his first day going out of his way to undo even the pretty pitiful limits Biden had put on it. It's a key priority for him. For contrast, here's what Biden did on day one:
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2021/interactive_biden-first-day-executive-orders/
My assumption about the world is that Israel will resume killing Gazans en masse within 3-6 months, and potentially much sooner than that, and will not stop completely for quite some time. We'll see whether that prediction is profoundly wrong. Actually, I think it is better than even odds that the Gaza Strip as a Palestinian entity will no longer exist by the end of Trump's term.
I'll be absolutely glad to be wrong if that turns out not to be that case, of course. It's hard to predict the future. I still don't plan to give Trump credit for achieving this cease-fire, because he is incredibly cruel, racist against Arabs, and also so mentally incapable of successful diplomacy or geopolitics that it seems silly to talk about. It's truly bizarre that The Guardian is attempting to credit him for this, saying things like that nonsense about "dictation pace," irrespective of the progress on the cease-fire.
I definitely think that it's possible that Netanyahu wanted to stall the cease-fire until the lack of one had hurt the Democrats in the election, because Trump will be a much more friendly partner to him even than Biden was, and Biden was a war criminal for his partnership with Netanyahu. Netanyahu is not a moron, and he sure does like killing Palestinians, and I see no reason to think Trump has any desire to stand in his way.
I'm aware that The Guardian is traditionally left-leaning and reliable. They seem to be 99% sensible stories and then 1% total weird bullshit like this. For some reason, the topic of the weird bullshit is almost always Trump- or Russia-related. I don't have any particular vast improbable conspiracy to explain why that is, I have simply noticed the pattern and been alarmed by it.
I don't think that believing Trump is a moron, and reacting with alarm and disbelief to a story that paints him as a skilled and fast-talking diplomat, means I am trapped in a bubble. I think that it means that I am, as you say, grounded in reality.
Update: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/hostages-hamas-gaza-suspend-release-israel-rcna191507
Not that I am in any way happy about it. The whole reason I'm harping on this is that I think it's bizarre that you are universally opposed to state power, apparently including even elements of it like elections that are pretty widely regarded as good features, but you've carved out a specific exception for this thing Trump did as an exercise of state power, even to the point of involving a MAGA-apologist fantasy about Trump and Israel's future conduct in Gaza that anyone in any other context could have seen wasn't going to be their future conduct in Gaza.
I'll probably let it go after one more message notating the complete collapse of the peace, whether that comes in a few months or it comes this week. Honestly, I'm just trying to help you see that sometimes getting tangled up in "isms" can lead you to thinking up is down, because whatever world event has to always be manipulated and interpreted in a way that it always has to back up your "ism".
The primary thing you're demonstrating through these updates is that you deeply misunderstand my politics, but are happy to assign me reductionist beliefs and motivations that I don't hold.
All of this because you're desperate to have a debate where you appear the victor. In lieu of me admitting defeat, you'll accept that I stop responding as a sort of victory. Unlike you, I am not afraid of an ideological defeat, because it means I come away with a more nuanced view of the world. Winning or losing an argument is not an act of emotional endurance, but of careful listening and consideration.
But I can't win or lose an argument against you. You only understand anarchism well enough to convince people with no concept of it that you do. You haven't done any independent research despite the ease of finding anarchist writing on the internet, and you expect your intellectual adversaries to explain it to you. But even doing the work of explaining it to you is a waste of time, as you've demonstrated that you'll twist their words just as you've added non-textual interpretations of this article, or turn it into a straw-man, like what you've done in your mind to me.
I'm not an anarchist out of ignorance of liberalism. I'll all too aware of your beliefs and arguments, I held most of them at some point in my life, and I see little value in engaging with people who demonstrate bad faith who still hold those beliefs. The way you act toward people with socialist and anarchist politics online is toxic, and if you really do value healthy dialogue or debate, you should reconsider Lemmy as an appropriate space for you to participate in while you haven't done the prerequisite work on yourself.
Are you not universally opposed to state power, and to elections? If I've misunderstood something, you can definitely explain it to me, or point me to what I need to read.
To a certain extent, yeah. There is a significant extent, though, to which I really want to help you understand what look to me like mistakes you're making in your worldview. You may be right that I have your worldview wrong. I'm happy for you to explain. But you said some specific things about the world, totally separate from anything about anarchism, that I wanted to address, because to me they seemed extremely wrong.
If I didn't take you seriously to some extent as wanting to understand the world and make progress in it, I wouldn't talk with you at all. We definitely don't need to agree in order to talk with each other.
Nothing we are currently talking about is anarchism. I'm making a little bit of a jumping-off to criticizing what seems to me like dogmatism that might be why you think it makes sense that Trump might have achieved significant progress as described in the article. But mostly what I'm talking about is criticizing that conclusion, nothing about the ideologies involved.
Maybe you're right that it's not fair for me to ascribe to you the reasons why you made this particular mistake, when you interpreted this article as something sensible instead of as a hilarious fantasy. The truth is, I have no idea why you read this article and thought it made sense. I'm just guessing. Mostly I'm pointing out that world events after the article are backing up my interpretation of its (screaming lack of) credibility.
What did I misinterpret from this article?
What am I ascribing to you that isn't right?
Why do you assume I'm a "liberal?" People who I disagree with often use this reductionist framework to tell me why I am wrong, or tell me what my beliefs and arguments are, and very often they are extremely wrong. I probably am a "liberal" in Lemmy's consensus categories, but I have a feeling that if you describe what "liberalism" is to you, there's going to be a bunch of stuff in it that I strongly disagree with.
Tell me: What do I think about Gaza? What do I think about US state power? What do I think about Biden's performance in office? I'm curious what my beliefs and arguments are.
Why is everything this tribal framework with you?
I'm really not trying to have an extensive argument with you. You felt the need to follow up on my comment, so I'm following back up on the situation with you as it develops further. Like I said, I'll probably stop, once the killing resumes at scale with Trump's approval.
Do you honestly want to talk with me about this? It sounds like you don't. I tend to be pretty hostile sometimes when I talk online, which I can understand usually leads to conflict which doesn't need to be there. I'm trying to be better about that, actually. I sort of don't get why I would need to treat people with particular ideologies with kid gloves, though, or whatever you're trying to invoke when you say I act toxic to people with particular ideologies. What did I do here that is toxic? What are you saying that I do in general? I'm genuinely asking.
Update: Israel has also, according to sources on the ground, violated the ceasefire in Gaza multiple times since Sunday, including when a sniper shot a child.
https://truthout.org/articles/israeli-sniper-killed-child-in-gaza-1-day-after-ceasefire-went-into-effect/
Edit: If you'd like me to stop, let me know and I will. I thought we could just send each other updates, though, and keep each other informed how things are going.