Subject: RE: BS: Israel & Hamas & gaza strip 2024
From:
robomatic
Date: 22 Oct 24 - 02:07 PM
Thank you in return for YOUR civility in return. This was the first and so far only vid from the site, which I watched because my brother told me to. He and his family are very antithetical to the violence going on, whereas I am both aggressively depressed and extremely pissed off at the same time, and have to limit my exposure at this time, to the Middle East, Ukraine, and practically all American politics. Last night I went to a fund raiser for our (lone) Democratic Representative, who is fighting a hard battle to retain her position. She appeared and practically apologized for the state of the campaign but she emphasized how hard fought it was and still is due to the extremely narrow margin of Reps in the House and she accurately descibed it as a 'dogfight' which I think encapsulates our politics in general these days, and to be fair, the positive aspect of it all is that it is hard fighting but it IS (still) democratic. It reminds me of a line from the excellent BBC series "I Claudius" where a historian tells one of the tyrants (played by Patrick Stewart) how it is too bad that mankind lost their sense of smell.
So now I have two things to apologize to dogs about.
Among the things that Gur says, well within the first half of my re-watching, is that Hamas spent Palestinians' taxes on the very involved tunnel network which civilians are not allowed to enter, and is designed to protect Hamas. The civilian deaths are a plus, because they are martyrs. Hamas would have no problem if there were more. (Remember he is talking last May). Gur folds in his understanding of Hamas' ideological viewpoint as distinct from other Islamic viewpoints, but not as militant. In particular he mentioned that there are Islamists who disdain Hamas because if Islam is correct and Allah is true, all Jews and Christians everywhere will come to Allah and Islam, and coexistence could be such a path.
If Hamas is not vanquished and SEEN to be vanquished, they will be perceived by Gazans and everybody else as victors. This can be bad for a lot more than Israel. He compared the struggle to contain ISIS, which he interprets as a victory that took five years, with the best that can be hoped for against Hamas. As opposed to the 20 year struggle against the Taliban, which was a failure. (He is well aware of the argument that you can't kill an idea BTW but he is talking about modus vivendi). He feels that the Palestinians have been grievously wornged and have rights that are unaddressed, but I don't recall any specifics. I don't recall any observations about the West Bank, either. He does go into the history of Zionism and the origins of the violence, and the larger issue of the current Islamic world concerned with its overall weakness. For instance, when the English basically took over Egypt, the locals said to themselves, "Hey, we're dominated by the most powerful nation on earth, they walked all over the Ottomans so it must be Allah's will." But when they observed nascent Zionism they reacted: "These are weakest of the weak, how do they fit in with Allah's plan?" He also distinguishes between the viewpoints of the Islamic elites and the man in the street as to coexistence.
Having written this I'm reluctant to reduce it to stuff I probably imperfectly understand, and this by no means summarizes Gur. But here y'are.
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sj
