It doesn’t seem that Eastern Ukraine is an area controlled by terrorists. On the contrary, a terrorist state attacked there, which is precisely the opposite situation.
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Unusually honest and direct talk about the Israel-Hamas war. I echo the sentiment and it’s exactly how I’ve felt for the past half a year following this conflict. When the war started, I was firmly on Israel’s side, but it’s getting harder day by day, and day by day I’m less sure if there’s even a right and wrong side in that war, or anything salvageable at all.
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Iran’s water crisis is not easing:
https://www.newsweek.com/iran-tehran-water-crisis-satellite-image-2112832
Masoud Pezeshkian, Iranian president: “In Tehran, if we cannot manage and people do not cooperate in controlling consumption, there won’t be any water in dams by September or October.”
Netanyahu adds insults:
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202508158267
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Hamas’s terrorism explains Israel’s actions, but how is the situation in the peaceful Fatah-controlled West Bank explained? Israel is building new settlements in the West Bank, contrary to international law, to which far-right, ultranationalist, neo-Zionist, and other extremist elements are moving. However, as I have written here before, nearly a thousand violent attacks were carried out from these settlements into Palestinian areas last year. This would therefore be terrorism if carried out by anyone other than Israelis, but now the term is surely something else.
Israel’s Minister of Finance announced that Israel would go even further. The construction of a new settlement, dividing the West Bank, is after all to begin, and as Minister of Finance Smotrich said: “the Palestinian state will be wiped out – not with slogans, but with deeds.” The only problem is that the West Bank administration is peaceful, and the settlements are, according to international law, illegal land grabs. Israel no longer even claims that everything is due to Hamas; instead, areas controlled by Fatah are also being plundered, and the living conditions of the remaining people are being worsened by continuous terrorist attacks, which have intensified even further this summer. Israel intends to take everything from the Palestinians, Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas is merely a good excuse.
If one intends to dismiss all of this with false sources or a biased UN, one can also find more about settler violence from Israeli sources or by simply using AI (settler violence).
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This has been Israel’s modus operandi for a long time. In the West Bank, the aim has been to encircle Palestinians into small Indian reservations and prevent the formation of large contiguous areas, so that the population can be effectively controlled and rebellions suppressed as easily as possible.
The same divide & conquer strategy has been used by Russians and Americans to eliminate the indigenous peoples of their own territories, and Palestinians currently lack the ability to acquire enough weapons in that area to militarily resist Israel’s actions. External intervention is becoming urgent if Palestinians are to be given the conditions for establishing their own state before they disappear from the world map. Our (the left’s) childlike naivety in issuing some useless political declaration torn from the past is completely futile. Apartheid was ended by a trade embargo, and it currently seems to be the most likely way to bring the small oppressor state back to negotiations and thereby achieve a permanent solution, given that a war between Western countries and Israel is not realistic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_during_apartheid
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A trade embargo is not, in my opinion, realistic, given how strong the Jewish community’s ties are across the Atlantic, and on the other hand, its influence in the USA.
And without the USA, a trade embargo is likely meaningless.
And the USA, despite everything, has strong influence even over Arab countries; the rest of the world hardly cares.
Indeed, what is now being sought is, if not an end-lösung, then an end-game regarding a purely Jewish state, as unconditional support in the USA is guaranteed for at least another 3.5 years.
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This is probably true in principle, but Israel has succeeded in making its support a completely partisan political issue, and the issue will certainly become even more polarized in the future. If they decide to flatten Gaza, nothing can be done about it, but if power changes after Trump, then anything is possible and still completely open. The time of unconditional support is over:
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A good article on why the atrocities committed by Hamas justify the two-tier legal system in the West Bank.
Too often it is forgotten that there is an example of how Israel treats a group of people who do not engage in active armed resistance, but are in an area completely controlled by Israel.
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Israeli settlement construction focuses on Area C, which is entirely under Israeli control. There are no Israeli settlements in areas controlled by Fatah. In fact, Israelis are not even allowed to enter Area A, which is controlled by Fatah. The terror of violent settlers is mainly directed at those Palestinians who, unfortunately, remained living in Area C when the division of the West Bank administration was decided in the Oslo Accords. I do not in any way defend the actions of extremist Zionist fanatics, but this is not about areas controlled by Fatah.
Fatah’s leadership cooperates obediently with Israel and, in return for peace, receives millions of euros and dollars from the EU and USA. These funds should be used to improve the living conditions of Palestinians, but in practice, only crumbs are left for the ordinary people.
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Here are the area maps for reference:
Area A is under Palestinian control.
Area B is under a form of joint control.
Area C is under Israeli control.
The original plan in Oslo was that all areas would gradually be transferred to Palestinian control, but in practice, the opposite has happened. What strange people, those Palestinians, as they refuse to live peacefully surrounded by walls 
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You’re confusing cause and effect now. Walls were built around the Palestinians after they killed hundreds of Israeli civilians with suicide bombs. For some reason, a peaceful life has not been possible for that group.
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There is now officially a famine in Gaza.
The United Nations officially declared a famine in Gaza on Friday. This is the first time a famine has been declared in the Middle East.
The IPC, the world’s leading food crisis expert body under the UN, announced that a famine has been confirmed in Gaza City. It covers approximately 20 percent of the Gaza Strip.
This is a consequence of deliberate actions.
– This is a famine that we could have prevented if we had been given the opportunity. But food is piling up at the borders due to systematic obstruction by Israel, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher told reporters in Geneva.
According to Israeli leadership, the military operation continues to free the hostages and destroy Hamas. According to some sources, the hostages could have already been released peacefully.
https://bsky.app/profile/thetnholler.bsky.social/post/3lx24wrw3ak23
Israel’s military leadership opposes the continuation of the military operation in Gaza.
JERUSALEM/CAIRO, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Israel’s military chief has pushed back against Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to seize areas of Gaza it doesn’t already control, three Israeli officials said, as the prime minister faces increasing pressure over the war both at home and abroad.
But politicians decide.
Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote on X Wednesday that the military chief has both the right and the duty to voice his opinion, but said that the military would carry out the government’s decisions until all war objectives are achieved.
Those familiar with the matter have warned that Hamas is an ideology and cannot be destroyed militarily.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/20/middleeast/hagari-netanyahu-destroy-hamas-israel-intl
Netanyahu certainly knows this, he is not stupid, but Netanyahu’s goal is probably different. Like Putin, he is also wanted by the ICC for war crimes, and like Putin, his main goal is political survival. Unlike Putin, he could relinquish power without a Glock bullet waiting for him, but trials and potential imprisonment certainly would. Netanyahu has many trials awaiting him at home once the current crisis ends. Even now, legal proceedings are underway against Netanyahu, but it is possible that they are on hold during the national emergency. At least no noticeable progress has occurred in the media since Hamas’s October 2023 terrorist attack.
So why waste a good crisis?
Netanyahu reportedly replied: “You’re right. We are going to be fighting this war for decades to come.”
A new Channel 13 exposé features former U.S. officials admitting Netanyahu repeatedly derailed ceasefire and captive release agreements.
https://x.com/dropsitenews/status/1959030137506414885?s=46
Thus, the military operation in Gaza can continue indefinitely.
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No, I’m not. They did try primarily peaceful ways to get rid of the Israeli occupation, including the First Intifada, which led to the Oslo Accords. This development was cut short when Jewish extremists assassinated their own prime minister to avoid withdrawing from Palestinian territories:
A political leader named Benjamin Netanyahu was also publicly encouraging this assassination. The name is probably familiar, isn’t it?
The halting of the peace process by Israel showed that achieving independence through peaceful means was not possible, leaving active attacks against the occupying state and its population as the remaining options. This led to the construction of walls by Israel, but, less surprisingly, enclosing an entire people in an open-air prison never leads to a reduction in violence in the short term.
Now that time has passed since the construction of the walls and the Palestinians have been successfully divided into separate Indian reservations, it is unclear whether the population of the West Bank is capable of a third Intifada. However, the threat of violence and the reactions of the international community are the only protections against Israel repeating the leveling of Gaza in the future in the West Bank as well. Based on one conspicuously publicized attack, the killing and injuring of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, and the displacement of a million people, is now justified. If this has no consequences for Israel, the same will be repeated in the West Bank as soon as some local extremist organization kills a few extremist Jewish colonialists.
But of course, in your opinion, it’s the Palestinians’ own fault for not agreeing to disappear peacefully under Israeli occupation. It would certainly be easier for everyone if they just somehow died off and this long-lasting conflict ended that way, because following it is tiring and unpleasant for Westerners.
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Jewish settlements in the West Bank only began to be built less than 50 years ago, and nowadays, the settlements that fragment the West Bank are already inhabited by approximately 500,000 Jews.
I don’t find it surprising that the local Palestinians are resentful, and some in the wrong way.
Jewish settlement – Wikipedia Juutalaissiirtokunta – Wikipedia
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Every time the Palestinians have resorted to violence, their situation has worsened compared to the starting point. A smarter person might conclude from this that violence is an irrational solution in a situation where one does not hold winning cards. However, you and many others think that it is the only and justified path. Then people wonder when they end up in conditions resembling an open prison.
If the Palestinians had used all the energy and money wasted on violence for something constructive, Gaza and the West Bank could now have numerous flourishing tourist destinations, economic prosperity (for others than smugglers and leaders of extremist movements), and movement between Palestine and Israel would be uncomplicated and fast. Such a starting point would have been much more fruitful for negotiations for an independent state. However, the Palestinians have collectively and, above all, actively chosen another, violent path.
The Palestinians indeed started this war too and will suffer the consequences. I don’t recall anyone greatly lamenting the miserable fate of the Germans in 1943-45, when the country was bombed to ruins and hundreds of thousands of civilians died. This, by the way, was done by Western democracies.
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When you start an armed struggle for independence, the outcome cannot be known beforehand. The Estonians started a war of independence against a great power and succeeded in expelling the foreign forces in an armed conflict.
The Chechens tried the same, and in revenge, their cities were destroyed with such immense firepower that they have not yet fully recovered.
You present it as if the Palestinians had some alternative to establishing a flourishing economy under an occupying power, and because they didn’t, the death of hundreds of thousands is entirely their own fault. However, you cannot unilaterally establish a state other than by armed means if the other party acts to prevent it.
Israel has always had the power to decide the fate of the territory it occupies, and those walls would not be needed if the occupying forces withdrew from the area. That is very Russian logic: first, an area is conquered, and then torture and killing are declared permissible because the people living in the occupied territory do not cease their resistance.
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Perhaps this comparison should be reconsidered for a moment, as they have no similarities other than war.
Palestine was already oppressed by the British administration after the Ottoman rule in the 1920s. In 1948, the state of Israel was created in its place as a reaction to the antisemitism rampant in Europe. Of course, one can go further back in history and consider that the area had a Jewish history.
A comparison could be sought, for example, from the Roma people who originated from the North Indian region. The British could have announced that they would establish a Romani state in India. The Indian inhabitants would then have been evicted from the area and driven into settlements behind walls. Roma people spread across the world would have found a home there for themselves. Other similarities can also be found; the Germans oppressed the Roma just as they did the Jews.
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That might apply to the first attempt, but what about the fifth or tenth? Facing a completely superior army in every way, yet still fighting armed and imagining there will be no consequences.
Israel has acted astonishingly humanely with the Palestinians until 2023. Jordan abandoned its own citizens in the 1967 war and did not evacuate the residents of the West Bank when the areas were lost. In other words, residents of a foreign state became Israel’s burden, and instead of being, for example, killed or expelled, they have been given the opportunity to live peacefully and offered autonomy multiple times. I doubt the Russians would have been capable of something similar.
Withdrawing Israeli troops from the West Bank is not realistic in any way, because the area must be held if one wants to defend the rest of Israel from attacks. Nowadays, the West Bank is de-facto part of the State of Israel, because it has been systematically settled and the area is full of settlements and other Israeli infrastructure.
The Palestinians have had several opportunities for their own state over the last 80 years. However, they have systematically refused offers because they have not received everything they wanted. Each offer has been weaker than the previous one, but excellent compared to the current situation. The last really good deal would have been Barak’s proposal in 2000 at Camp David, but Arafat did not accept it.
Currently, the situation is that there is no point in hoping for any Palestinian state, at least not in the West Bank or Gaza Strip. The Palestinians completely messed up their own fate.
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Committing a slow genocide is not humane by any measure. Indeed, everyone there understands the consequences of armed struggle, and in retaliatory strikes, not even children are spared, but what alternatives are there to fighting?
At the same time, the Israeli army is so strong that it is foolish to fight against it, but on the other hand, it is so weak that it has not been able to withdraw from the West Bank even once in 50 years due to security reasons. You speak as if Israel were genuinely interested in peace, but Israel’s leading politicians have labeled a Palestinian state an existential threat to the country’s existence. Although there are some liberal forces in Israel, the country has always been heavily militarized and hardline values have always been at the core of its politics, so the state’s perpetual goal has become preventing the birth of a Palestinian state.
The assassination of political leaders has been the primary tool used to break Palestinian political demands. No international negotiations would have even taken place if Mossad had not repeatedly failed in assassinating Arafat. A new Arafat is unlikely to emerge, because if someone tries, they will surely be assassinated, perhaps even with missiles, if necessary. How does one conduct peaceful negotiations with such an entity?
That narrative of yours, that Israel was forced to occupy the West Bank and it was actually the Transjordanians’ fault for not evacuating a foreign people to their own land, is truly in a class of its own in its utter madness. Finns, too, unfortunately remained here as a nuisance to the Russians when the Swedes withdrew to the other side of the bay after the war 
We are the robbers when we cross borders. Others are just protecting their security when they shift borders.
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This ‘a state has been offered’ refrain is, in my opinion, a bit misleading. Few have been the agreements that weren’t ‘you give and we take’; there has been no concrete guarantee that Israel would have adhered to a single agreement, which it hasn’t done to this day. I myself don’t believe that even if all Palestinians, both Hamas and Fatah, stopped all resistance today, Israel would just invent new reasons to continue harassing Palestinians and occupying territories.
As long as the refrain ‘Because of the Palestinians’ continues without imposing restrictions and sanctions on Israel for breaking agreements, no one would agree to lay down arms and throw themselves at the mercy of Israeli fanatics.
And to those who repeat ‘Gaza would be a tourist paradise,’ I directly state ‘lol’.
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