Because, Israel

[sunday]

59 minutes ago, rmgill said:

No constitution. No limiting principles of governance. Entrenched leftist judges who get to appoint their own successors in perpetuity. Courts that offer arbitrary, expedient, constantly evolving, sometimes contradictory rulings to block laws passed by duly-elected, center-right governments. An attorney general empowered to barelected leaders from participating in national debates. Sounds like a progressive paradise.

Sounds like the Polish system the EU wanted to perpetuate, indeed.

[BansheeOne]

On 3/28/2023 at 7:35 AM, Mighty_Zuk said:

Honestly I'm sick and tired of religious nutjobs on the train offering me to join their prayers or whatever while I'm watching satanic rituals on my phone.

So what's this "national guard" the interior minister got authorized in return for not rage-quitting the government coalition over Netanyahu delaying the reform? Supposedly there's something like that already, but by the sound of it there's so much bad historical precedent from the party militias of the Weimar Republic to Putin's Rosgvardia that I don't even know where to begin.

[Mighty_Zuk]

1 hour ago, BansheeOne said:

So what's this "national guard" the interior minister got authorized in return for not rage-quitting the government coalition over Netanyahu delaying the reform? Supposedly there's something like that already, but by the sound of it there's so much bad historical precedent from the party militias of the Weimar Republic to Putin's Rosgvardia that I don't even know where to begin.

The national guard is actually a welcome thing, but not when handled by pyromaniacs like the coalition. It was first proposed in 2021 in response to Israeli-Arabs blocking roads for military transports and their general violence during a military operation in Gaza.

It was to be composed of former border police units and some military reserves, although many were sceptical because the IDF and Israeli police are already facing manpower shortages.

Its primary task would be to tackle disturbances to the IDF's activity inside Israel's borders, and a secondary task would be to assist the police in tackling large scale violence.

It was always just talks, and no concrete plans were laid out, including who would command over such a force. However it seems now that Ben Gvir wants it to answer to him.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

[BansheeOne]

4 hours ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

The national guard is actually a welcome thing, but not when handled by pyromaniacs like the coalition. It was first proposed in 2021 in response to Israeli-Arabs blocking roads for military transports and their general violence during a military operation in Gaza.

It was to be composed of former border police units and some military reserves, although many were sceptical because the IDF and Israeli police are already facing manpower shortages.

Its primary task would be to tackle disturbances to the IDF's activity inside Israel's borders, and a secondary task would be to assist the police in tackling large scale violence.

It was always just talks, and no concrete plans were laid out, including who would command over such a force. However it seems now that Ben Gvir wants it to answer to him.

Ah, I couldn't quite tell from Israeli reports which seemed just as confused about the purpose. Other than, given that as you note new organisations don't automatically increase available manpower, law enforcement personnel who share the minister's politics and complaints that police is acting to tame against opponents of the reform might be inclined to switch to the new force, to be used with less inhibition by a separate command.

[Mighty_Zuk]

2 hours ago, BansheeOne said:

Ah, I couldn't quite tell from Israeli reports which seemed just as confused about the purpose. Other than, given that as you note new organisations don't automatically increase available manpower, law enforcement personnel who share the minister's politics and complaints that police is acting to tame against opponents of the reform might be inclined to switch to the new force, to be used with less inhibition by a separate command.

Indeed in the IDF conscripts' unit assignment requests are taken into account, and this include the border police and likely the new national guard. Hence there are already quite a few combat units that are known to be politically inclined.

[Ivanhoe]

https://www.newsweek.com/americanization-israeli-politics-opinion-1791240

 

Quote

The opposition politics in Israel brings to mind similar recent developments in the United States. We thus see unfolding an "Americanization" of Israeli politics, through which political differences are fought in the streets just as much as they are at the ballot box. That trend has been developing in the United States for at least a decade.

 

[rmgill]

We don't just export Budweiser, blue jeans and rock and roll...

[BansheeOne]

American culture, including political, has of course heavily influenced the Western world since at least WWII, and probably WWI; see recent TN debates about that including conspiracy thought, wokeness, abortion, and a general trend to polarization in society. Israel seems a bit more afflicted than other nations, probably due to particularly tight relations with the US over security affairs, Jewish-American/Israeli links including people making aliyah (apparently Jewish-American immigrants are prominent among the settler movement), Evangelical support for Israel, etc. I frequently get the impression that Netanyahu is more popular in the US than at home, too.

[Ivanhoe]

The USian chattering classists going after Netanyahu are using the same tactics used against Trump, so I am going to assume the real criminals/fascists in Israel are Natanyahu's opponents. One rarely goes wrong in assuming that leftist accusations against the right are actually Freudian confessions of leftist misdeeds. 

Of course, the perpetual angst and opprobrium towards a nation with a whopping 0.1% of the world's population, versus say the PRC, continues to amuse me. People who live thousands or tens of thousands of miles away from a little podunk country (that is the only multiracial, multi-faith, semi-functional democracy in the region) appear to have Jews On The Brain™. 

[R011]

12 minutes ago, Ivanhoe said:

The USian chattering classists going after Netanyahu are using the same tactics used against Trump, so I am going to assume the real criminals/fascists in Israel are Natanyahu's opponents. One rarely goes wrong in assuming that leftist accusations against the right are actually Freudian confessions of leftist misdeeds. 

Of course, the perpetual angst and opprobrium towards a nation with a whopping 0.1% of the world's population, versus say the PRC, continues to amuse me. People who live thousands or tens of thousands of miles away from a little podunk country (that is the only multiracial, multi-faith, semi-functional democracy in the region) appear to have Jews On The Brain™. 

Tempting as it is to assume that local politics and foreign politics are the same, it does seem that Netanyahu is doing things that the Bad Orange Man would only do in the fevered fantasies of the left, and the opposition isn't just the usual suspects, but a fairly large proportion of Israeli society

[jmsaari]

17 minutes ago, Ivanhoe said:

The USian chattering classists going after Netanyahu are using the same tactics used against Trump, so I am going to assume the real criminals/fascists in Israel are Natanyahu's opponents. One rarely goes wrong in assuming that leftist accusations against the right are actually Freudian confessions of leftist misdeeds.

You'd probably go wrong about 50% of the time with that, and the fact that the traditional left has all but shrunk into oblivion in Israel and much of the opposition of bibi's latest shenanigans includes ... well, pretty much everyone, including right-wing nationalist parties, is a pretty good indication this is one of those times.

[rmgill]

1 hour ago, R011 said:

Tempting as it is to assume that local politics and foreign politics are the same, it does seem that Netanyahu is doing things that the Bad Orange Man would only do in the fevered fantasies of the left, and the opposition isn't just the usual suspects, but a fairly large proportion of Israeli society

If the left in the US was subjected to daily or weekly rocket attacks, they'd make FDR's Japanese Internment seem like a holiday resort. 

[Josh]

2 hours ago, rmgill said:

If the left in the US was subjected to daily or weekly rocket attacks, they'd make FDR's Japanese Internment seem like a holiday resort. 

That seems unrelated to destroying any checks and balances in the government. Reading up on Israel’s court system, it does seem like it could use some legitimate reform…but the current legislation seems like a clear attempt to completely sideline the court system in a naked power grab by a PM who conveniently has criminal charges leveled against him.

[rmgill]

Then implement a constitution with defined powers and roles/limits. They seem to have a situation where the courts are a self appointing body with no defined limits. aka Calvin ball and they always have the ball. 

[Mighty_Zuk]

5 hours ago, Ivanhoe said:

The USian chattering classists going after Netanyahu are using the same tactics used against Trump, so I am going to assume the real criminals/fascists in Israel are Natanyahu's opponents. One rarely goes wrong in assuming that leftist accusations against the right are actually Freudian confessions of leftist misdeeds. 

Of course, the perpetual angst and opprobrium towards a nation with a whopping 0.1% of the world's population, versus say the PRC, continues to amuse me. People who live thousands or tens of thousands of miles away from a little podunk country (that is the only multiracial, multi-faith, semi-functional democracy in the region) appear to have Jews On The Brain™. 

Netanyahu is not right wing, and his opposition are not left wing. You do know that political left/right in the US is unrelated to the Israeli classification, right? 

In US terms, Netanyahu is more leftist than his opposition by quite a significant margin.

3 minutes ago, rmgill said:

Then implement a constitution with defined powers and roles/limits. They seem to have a situation where the courts are a self appointing body with no defined limits. aka Calvin ball and they always have the ball. 

Israel never gets to a point where it can allow itself a constitution. That would require a large majority, say 70, 80, or whatever high limit they decide upon. But not 61. The current coalition, at 64, is the largest in many years.

The leftist and centrist camps, which in recent years morphed into just a large centrist camp, have always supported a constitution. The "right wing" camp, for obvious reasons, always rejected a constitution, and managed to turn the only quasi-constitutional laws into regular laws.

 

[Josh]

47 minutes ago, rmgill said:

Then implement a constitution with defined powers and roles/limits. They seem to have a situation where the courts are a self appointing body with no defined limits. aka Calvin ball and they always have the ball. 

That is a hopeless task, much like any modern day constitutional reform in the US. You might as well ask for cold fusion.

[lucklucky]

19 minutes ago, rmgill said:

Hamas continues to fight, so does Fatah because it's in their specific tribal interest to do so. the only reason they still exist is that their opponents and the world aren't willing to end them like every other conflict of this sort of existential form did. 

Because Israel is an icon, a representation of the Liberal West that Marxist West wants to destroy. 

Israel - Palestinian conflict it is in fact a Western World political conflict. 

With no Israel existence Palestinians would not exist, they would be Jordanians and Egyptians and no one would care much even if they were massacred every day by the local Dictator because it would not be an useful avatar to wage political war in West. Since they would not appear in newspapers - because newspaper do not exist to give you the news but to make politics - they would not exist politically. 

[rmgill]

Well, if they DO go in and deal with the problem they get decried for being big genocidal meanie pantses.

[Mighty_Zuk]

30 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

More like the police surrounding a prison but never actually entering it or taking control of it, but justifying their actions on the basis of whatever thug was running the prison in their absence.    That's Gaza.  

boo hoo.

[glenn239]

 

3 hours ago, rmgill said:

Well, if they DO go in and deal with the problem they get decried for being big genocidal meanie pantses.

That made sense for the first decade.  But we do agree that sometime over the next decade we need a solution?  Can you picture Gaza still in the same boat 50 years from now?

[Ssnake]

Wouldn't you also agree that those living in Gaza bear part of the responsibility of how the place develops?

[Mighty_Zuk]

11 hours ago, glenn239 said:

 

That made sense for the first decade.  But we do agree that sometime over the next decade we need a solution?  Can you picture Gaza still in the same boat 50 years from now?

Either:

1. Gazans and Palestinians in general are responsible for their future so we cannot expect of Israel to fix all their problems.

Or

2. Palestinians cannot be responsible for their future, which makes them inferior as human beings and perhaps the national equivalent of children.

Which one is it?

[glenn239]

4 hours ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

Either:

1. Gazans and Palestinians in general are responsible for their future so we cannot expect of Israel to fix all their problems.

Or

2. Palestinians cannot be responsible for their future, which makes them inferior as human beings and perhaps the national equivalent of children.

Or

3.  Gaza cannot take responsibility for its own future so long as Israel denies its basic security by (a) tolerating a terrorist organization running the place and (b) preventing any other responsible power from policing the place.

Which one is it?

In that list?  I'd say its #3.    (Ok, I may have added #3 myself, but still).

The point is this.  Gaza is a prison with no prison guards.  These have withdrawn to outside the prison and allow the most ruthless prisoners to run the joint.  Then, the guards bitch that the women and moderate men haven't taken over. 

 

Edited April 1 by glenn239

[glenn239]

15 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Wouldn't you also agree that those living in Gaza bear part of the responsibility of how the place develops?

Yes, once some army or other has cleared out Hamas and restored a normal civil government.  If that army will not be Israel's, then perhaps given recent tectonic shifts in Middle Eastern alignments, perhaps some other group will do so.  I thought that NATO should do it in order to ward off the possibility that some other new sheriff would take over.   And that's the problem with the rules based order, Ssnake.   If you don't have more guns, you can't have one set of rules for Israel and another for Gaza.

Edited April 1 by glenn239