zazen

True, that's why if you can't trust their character, you can at best trust them to pursue their own interest. Not as much need to rely on character, consciousness or stage of development when you can rely on self interest of both parties aligning. A stage orange person who's money oriented may start a business with a stage green person who's environmentally oriented - the sustainable business and social investing trend. Different values, but they align to cooperate. Even the ESG movement is basically the marrying of the capitalist financiers with the anti-capitalist social liberals. The capitalists still get to make money whilst appeasing and avoiding revolution from the socialists. Europe established peace after world war by the same means, cooperation and economic interdependence - the deeper connection came later. Likewise the US with its strong navy established the safety of sea lanes and global flow of trade to allow countries to become more dependent on each other which aligned their interests despite their opposing sentiments. Even with this conflict, we can see who among the Muslim world is the most and least vocal depends on who is the most interdependent. Saudi is less vocal as they depend on the USA for security. They may not trust USA, but their incentives align - Saudi gets security whilst US gets a stronghold in the region including petrodollar. USA becoming a net energy exporter thanks to shale etc obviously changes that which is why Saudi has to orient towards peace among the region including with Iran. Turkey has been more vocal because although they do trade a lot with the West, financial ties can more easily be re-oriented away but security not - and security is more of a need over prosperity. Turkey has one of the strongest armies in the region and isn't dependent and left as vulnerable. To see people made refugees is sad, but to see refugees on their own land made refugees once again with whats happening now is appalling.

Peace only requires cooperation, not deep connection. It is operational based on incentive and personal gain rather than intention and personal trust. It's more of a association rather than a brother/sisterhood alliance. When each side can't trust the others intention - hidden heart of the other, they can rely on incentives to align and the hidden hand of personal gain to allow their society to at least be operational and civil. Distrusting everyone's wiser than trusting everyone, but knowing who to trust is superior to both. Good judgement grants the freedom to trust as without judgment you get hurt less by simply assuming everyone is bad - the opportunity cost however is peace, prosperity and passing on the good people among the other side. The more actively distrusting you are whether as a person or country, the more cautious others are of you - in a sense you only condemn and hurt yourself. This is what Israel does when it shuns world opinion. Netenyahu and his cabinets narcissistic middle finger to the world is its loss. Using spiral dynamics lingo for this - if you can't trust their state of being, you can rely on structural incentive (state vs structure). The question is what structure of society best incentives both towards peace? A apartheid like structure with unequal rights and a security apparatus that discriminates on a segment of the population definitely doesn't.

''For every Hamas member you kill how many do you create? And if you create more than you kill, you've not succeeded.'' - Elon Musk This video by the Israeli professor Sam Vaknin seems very fair and objective. Unfortunately, it seems a solution barely exists or would be hard to come to fruition.

@DawnC It's a complex situation with a long history of back and forths that will take a lot of time to delve into every detail of. I see wrongs on both sides and a just cause on both also, but for practical purposes we can either discuss the current situation going forward and the general root cause of the issue. Labels often confine us to the actions associated with those labels more than they liberate us. Labels are like psychic chains, nationalities are like psychic cages and literal interpretations of religion are like a psychic straitjacket. Each more confining, restricting and stubborn. Both parties have mutually exclusive claims to the land, divinely legitimized by their religions. It's very hard to negotiate over land that is claimed holy by both sides, especially in the case of Jerusalem and the site of Al Aqsa. Wishful thinking would be for either or both of them to discard religion and give away parts of the land, but even non religious people have land disputes. What makes it harder is that it's a small piece of land with limited resources, and we expect both parties who feel entitled to this land to negotiate over this. The peace proposals never admitted full sovereignty to the Palestinians, the security apparatus from Israels side that they insisted on setting up in Palestine feels intrusive and could at any time creep towards authoritarian - as has been confirmed by whats happening in the West Bank. This nullifies a two state solution defined by Israel that wishes to 'occupy' the Palestinian side with some form of security to thwart any future terrorism - including the plans to handle Gaza indefinetley as Netenyahu is saying. They will not be governed peacefully by a regime that just bombarded their homes and killed their loved ones. If people are tamed like animals - every movement, thought and action - they will lash out like such for the freedom to be human again. To add insult to injury, this is not only done in a random land but on their own home land which humiliates them further and only adds to an angered resistance that eventually erupts. *Solutions* Genocide by expulsion won't work as they will only plot their return from slightly further away (Egypt or Jordan), two state won't work because no side is willing to capitulate to what they feel entitlement to, one state governed by Israel won't work because they have shown to abuse their position of power by being complicit in settlement expansion and unequal rights. That leaves a one state solution ideally a secular state with equal rights for all or possibly a Lebanon style system where each side is given positions of power equally in governing the country. In practice, a quasi one state already exists with Israel controlling Gaza, and occupying the West Bank. Is it feasible though? Are both sides willing to work for this? I'm not sure after all thats happened, but if Jews are able to live within Europe and especially in Germany where Nazi's once industrially massacred them, then hopefully they can live together and put the past aside.

The ridiculous thing about the situation is that people A (Brits) gave people B (Jews) another people C's (Palestinians) land. It's like me giving away money that isn't even mine. When the British empire de-colonised it usually was giving the local people its land back, but in this particular case, it gave the land to another group and hoped for the best. This remark about why don't the many Arab states take the Palestinians in - why should they? Jordan is already a 1/3 Palestinian, Egypt has enough domestic pressure handling its own impoverished people with its limited infrastructure - and people expect to capitulate to Israel's demands and take their burden or wrong doings. Should the French go and live in Spain, or the Italians in Spain? Their European and similar after all? But that isn't the point, even among Arabs there are distinct cultures and peoples married to their geographies. Why do other people suffer (Palestinians) for others sins. It wasn't the Arabs who heavily persecuted the Jews historically, it was the Europeans and at its climax the Nazi's committing the Holocaust. The Europeans taking Israels side completely with double standards is them ridding themselves of the guilt of their past atrocities against the Jews. Most people aren't calling for the elimination of Israel - just the current form it takes in the way it persecutes the Palestinians - and to give them the rights and dignity on their own home land which they share.

It doesn't work because the Palestinian authority have held to the peace agreements since the Oslo accord and all they've got in the West Bank is increasing settlements and authoritarianism from Israel. Israel don't do anything to stop the settlements so they are complicit in them. This is what gives more authority and support to Hamas because Palestinians see the Palestinian authority as having no back bone or ability to support the rights and just cause of the Palestinians. They are left with no choice. Palestinians have tried all avenues. Proposals and deals were always unjust and didn't meet the basic requirements of the Palestinians (for example no control of their Jordan border for at least 15 years), they tried peaceful protest in 2018 with the march of return - IDF shot at disabled people, medics, journalists and children. What their left with is a violent resistance in the end. The root cause of this whole issue is occupation and hindering their development even when they aren't ''fully'' occupied - everything is controlled to the point they aren't able to develop economically, socially etc. The excuse used to stop their development is the potential for terror, yet stopping their development causes resistance to arise in the ugliest form of terror.

I wonder if any commercial interest have got to do with the dedication to take Gaza and expel the Palestinians from it - prime beach front real estate, energy sector, transport canal. https://www.planetcritical.com/p/everybody-wants-gazas-gas https://www.offshore-technology.com/news/israel-awards-gas-exploration-licences/#:~:text=Israel has awarded 12 licences,are divided into two groups. The Ben Gurion canal has to go around Gaza which is very costly. If it could cut through the North of Gaza it would save a lot of money and transport time / cost. https://www.eurasiareview.com/07112023-alternate-suez-canal-the-israeli-ben-gurion-canal-oped/

Why wouldn't they have the ability? Is it because their subhuman 'animals'? Israel can't block their economic development, and then claim that they are incapable of economic development. Then we look on from our comfortable homes and feel as if we're more 'developed' and higher up on the spiral stages than them. ''JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has cost the seaside territory as much as $16.7 billion in economic losses and sent poverty and unemployment skyrocketing, a U.N. report said Wednesday, as it called on Israel to lift the closure. The report by the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development echoed calls by numerous international bodies over the years criticizing the blockade. But its findings, looking at an 11-year period ending in 2018, marked perhaps the most detailed analysis of the Israeli policy to date.'' The claim to a land because of historic roots can be taken to any degree. For example we could all go to South Africa's gold mine region, take that land from the people and then negotiate with them on how much is fair for us to take and for them to keep - because we have a common ancestry connection from 100'000 years ago. And when they resist, especially with arms we call them terrorists and gaslight them.

@Nivsch They left in 2005 but not completely. Control of borders, air space, sea and essentials such as food/water which can be leveraged against them at any time is not completely leaving. It may not be a death camp, but its close enough to a concentration camp. You said you think the protests are waking up the world to see how violent and stupid the people within them are but its in fact the opposite. There are some extremists but that's a very small minority. The protests are peaceful and people are waking up to the inhumane conditions the Palestinians have been suffering for decades and even questioning why their governments fund/support Israel including many Jews. By law it is the occupied people who have a right to resist, even the right to armed resistance. If people want to keep going back in history to a time when their ancestors once lived in such and such land then we can all go back to many different lands including Africa where humans originated and claim all the resource riches as a bonus.

Caitlin Johnston from twitter: “One of the reasons this specific bombing campaign is getting so much more public backlash than others is because the pro-Palestine movement has had generations to build, whereas when the US empire lays waste to a country using military explosives it's normally a fast ordeal which moves from manufacturing consent to execution very quickly. By the time people figure out they were lied to about the justifications for a depraved war the empire is usually two or three new wars down the track. The Israel-Palestine issue has been just sitting there for decades, so there's been time to accumulate popular opposition. Once someone learns about the realities of the Palestinian plight they very seldom abandon their support for it, so every newly-opened pair of eyes stays open on this issue for a lifetime. Another major reason is because of humanity's exponentially expanded ability to rapidly share information in recent years. Palestinians have become able to record the abuses of Israeli apartheid and bombing campaigns on their phones and upload them onto the internet, where they rapidly circulate on social media. This ability to rapidly circulate raw video footage has played a major role in Israel's PR problem in recent years, because there's nothing an Israel apologist can say that will have more impact than raw footage of an Israeli settler telling a Palestinian family that he stole their home because "If I don't steal it, someone else is gonna steal it." This killed off a lot of public sympathy for Israel in the lead-up to the current onslaught. Another reason is because the pro-Palestine movement was carried on the tide of the global movement against apartheid South Africa, giving the world a framework to understand Israeli abuses and helping to build the base of a related cause. Another reason is because many of us in colonized countries like Australia, the US and Canada recognize the patterns of what's happening in Israel and see that there's an opportunity for human history to get it right this time before the genocide machine really gets going. Another reason is because the abuses of the Israeli regime are so glaringly obvious and uncomplicated that they can override all the propaganda and cognitive biases we are swimming in in western civilization. All most people need is to really see it and wrap their minds around what they're seeing, and truth does the rest of the work for them. That was true before the Gaza massacre began, and it's so much more true now.”

Why did Israel deny the 50 hostages Hamas offered? Why is Israel bombing complete blocks if they care about the hostages? @Emerald Very well said. A nice phrase I like to keep in mind - marginalisation leads to radicalisation. Similar problem with the Pakistan and India partition that the British facilitated - Pakistan was created as a state for the muslim population of India. That event displaced 15 million roughly and up to 2 million dead. Labels and identities confine you the the actions that are associated to only them, and creating state's based on narrower identities will naturally end up being more exclusive to those outside of that identity. Muslims and Jews lived peacefully in the Palestine region for 100's of years, but once the label of Zionism came in, that corrupted the psyche and actions up to this day.

That’s disgusting of that activist to say. There’s extremists on both sides. This is what Palestinians are dealing with for example: https://x.com/subjectiveviews/status/1721372139905839306?s=46&t=DuLUbFRQFGpB8oo7PwRglQ The difference is the extremists on the Palestinian side are made extreme by the extreme conditions their born into whilst the extremists on the Israeli side are made extreme via culture and upbringing. The Palestinians can and are of course being raised in extreme ways also but their living conditions give birth to that extreme ideology - conditions imposed by Israel. Israelis use past extreme conditions (Holocaust and being exiled from multiple communities) in the present day where anti Semitism isn't such a big issue. The creation of a ethno-state like Israel to those hardships Jews faced was the cure, but that cure brings about its own ailments and side effects - mainly when creating it the displacement of the indigenous people and for its continued existence apartheid like conditions for the Arabs due to the fear of them resisting or what the ignorant narrative likes to call terrorism. But it’s many politicians or who have spoken in a genocidal manner. I think power not only corrupts but it attracts the most corrupt personalities from the population.

If leaders and politicians reflect the population then what about Israel’s? A democracy reflects the people more than a dictator, so Israel’s leadership is more accurately representing its people than say Hamas - among the politicians you have guys calling to use nukes as an option. https://news.sky.com/story/amp/netanyahu-suspends-israeli-minister-for-saying-dropping-nuclear-bomb-on-gaza-one-of-the-possibilities-13001055 20-30% isn’t a big chunk of the population as you mention below.

@Gennadiy1981 Thanks will give it a listen. https://news.sky.com/story/amp/netanyahu-suspends-israeli-minister-for-saying-dropping-nuclear-bomb-on-gaza-one-of-the-possibilities-13001055 From Twitter : So people understand where we are. An Israeli cabinet minister called for dropping a nuclear bomb in Gaza. He got a pat in the back from the Prime Minister. His comments were carefully ignored in the global debate. In the meantime the revenge impulse is so strong it even overrides Israel’s long-established policy of not publicly admitting it has nukes.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CyYiXStoAer/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== https://www.instagram.com/reel/CyYiXStoAer/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== https://news.sky.com/story/amp/netanyahu-suspends-israeli-minister-for-saying-dropping-nuclear-bomb-on-gaza-one-of-the-possibilities-13001055 https://x.com/muhammadshehad2/status/1721239223091536228?s=46&t=DuLUbFRQFGpB8oo7PwRglQ Not a good look for those governing Israel

Speaking on Zionism

Interesting view on Zionism

So Israel are occupiers and the Palestinians are under occupation? Do Palestinians have a right to defend themselves against occupation? Yesterday a hospital was bombed (video below) - you don’t think more Palestinians will get radicalised from this? https://x.com/mohammed_hijab/status/1720511987887563032?s=46&t=DuLUbFRQFGpB8oo7PwRglQ London experienced the 7/7 underground terror attack in 2005 - they responded by increasing surveillance, intelligence sharing, and de-radicalisation policies. China had extremist elements amongst the Uighur Muslims causing problems for example and a bit questionably are re-educating them. But it’s bad strategy to occupy a whole community in the way Israel does and the extreme level of control it exercises over them. Then to have periodic operations to ‘cut the grass’ as they call it amongst the IDF which only further radicalises Palestinian recruits into Hamas in a never ending cycle.

Nicely put. The dynamic and act are the same, the aesthetic is different. A distinction can be made that civilizational development amplifies the tools society has (technology, weapons etc) while cultural development awakens the consciousness of the user using those tools. The problem is modernity has amplified our tools to the point they can destroy the earth, but have we awakened enough to be able to wield that power well enough. it's easy to see the shiny buildings and sophisticated military and think 'oh their developed' and equate that with moral value and development.

If Israel as claimed is the only democracy in Middle east, by the people and for the people - doesn't that represent the people of Israel? If it doesn't, then can we also say the same for the Palestinians - that Hamas don't represent the Palestinians as a whole and shouldn't be demonised or collectively punished. Should the Israeli's be collectively punished by the Muslim world for what the few politicians do or the settlers?

Members of the Israeli cabinet have said things along the lines of Palestinians are responsible sympathizers for Hamas implying they should all be dealt with - and that's in a democracy which represents the people of Israel more accurately than Hamas represents the Palestinian people. There hasn't been an election in Gaza since 2006, when the 2006 election took place a large portion of the population didn't vote as they were underage or just being born. Those children born in 2006 are now 18 years old and had no say in that election yet are held to account. How can people lay blame to Palestinians for electing Hamas 18 years ago when majority didn't even elect them but from the other side can't see the genocidal degrading language of the the Israeli politicians who actually were elected into power in much recent times by Israelis themselves - yet say those far right politicians don't represent them? So yes, Israel is such a 'developed' nation with more of a representative democracy - and what does that representation reflect in the politicians they currently have? I think this whole paradigm of 'less developed' and 'more developed' glosses over the fact that the same dynamics can be taking place from any level of development, just in a different aesthetic/colour. A stage red society can kill with tools, a stage orange society can also kill but with a different more sophisticated set of tools - same dynamic and act (killing) but different manifestation and aesthetic. A stage green person can be a warrior the same way a stage red person can - their just a social justice warrior, but in the name of stage green values they can carry out similar injustices as a stage red tribal warrior.

Wonder why they can just call for ceasefire and instead call for just a pause. Tomorrow Hezbollah will be making a statement - could be a big day and change the trajectory of what's to come.

They won't allow a single state, especially not after this attack. Too much bad blood and broken trust that will take generations to mend perhaps. Also, demographically Palestinians will outnumber Israeli's which in a democracy means they will start to have more representation and power eventually - the Israeli's won't allow that. A two state is difficult to achieve also due to distrust of being neighbours and the Palestinians attacking one day - as members of this forum have mentioned. In fact, it won't even be allowed to be a state in the true sense as they won't allow it control of its borders or to have a military - essentially occupation light. The West Bank which could be the Palestinians state is now full of settlers who are far right, moving them will be next to impossible, especially after Ben Gvir has armed them with guns. I understand the difficulty Israel faces in eradicating Hamas whilst not committing war crimes/minimising casualties and having the world come at them for it - but maybe this simply doesn't have a military solution but a diplomatic one. At least the most basic thing would be to lift the blockade, siege and occupation and stop funding/protecting and giving impunity to settlers in the West Bank , and holding them to account. The settlers who have killed Palestinians in the West Bank have not even been charged.

For a start not carpet bombing which has probably killed those very hostages. Not cutting of water, electricity, food etc for the civilians to suffer and the world to get more enraged. Those actions alone are sucking Israels support globally and only enraging the world further against it. Using special ops forces to go in and take out Hamas - only targeting Hamas once they get confirmation of their location. When an entire area is levelled, how can Israel claim that Hamas was in every one of those buildings including the only main bakery the Gazans were using? They should use precision strikes on key locations. If they bring buildings down to rubble, yet claim Hamas are in tunnels, that rubble has now just made it harder to get access to those very tunnels and only given more potential for booby traps and ambush spots amongst the rubble. They could establish good faith by ending restrictions and restarting the peace process.