Skip to content

Israel. Gaza. PUPPY!

2009-01-05 · John · watch on YouTube · World affairs · news analysis

Pegged to Israel's invasion of Gaza, John argues that an old conflict is not intractable, sketches the history from the 1947 UN partition to Hamas's 2006 election win, and proposes a two-state path to peace.

What is said

00:00:00 — Newsday: Israel invaded Gaza last night; why discussing Israel and Palestine is miserable; 'man is a wolf to man'

  • ★★ Because the Israeli army invaded the Gaza Strip last night, John feels he has to discuss it on Newsday although it makes him miserable, and shows puppy footage to counter that. (hedged) — 00:00:02 · Willy
  • ★★ John hates talking about Israel and Palestine because emotion makes the discourse awful, mostly people screaming that one side or the other are animals. — 00:00:02
  • ★ John quips that both sides are animals, since, as the Romans put it, man is a wolf to man. (playful) — 00:00:02

00:00:32 — Old arguments are not necessarily intractable (the Chuck E. Cheese band argument)

  • ★★★ The roots of every war go back thousands of years, but an old argument is not necessarily intractable; the brothers' 20-year Chuck E. Cheese band argument never made John want to kill Hank. — 00:00:32

00:01:01 — History: 1947 UN partition, two-state solution, sixty years of wars, West Bank and Gaza, the 2006 election

  • ★★ In 1947, when Britain still colonized about a fifth of the world, the UN decided British rule of Palestine should end and create Israel and an independent Palestine, with UN-run Jerusalem. — 00:00:32 · United Kingdom
  • ★★★ John says the two-state plan, an independent Israel, an independent Palestine and a shared Jerusalem, is the only solution, and everyone not entirely crazy still agrees. — 00:01:01 > «everyone, and I mean everyone, who is not entirely crazy, still agrees that this is the only solution»
  • ★★ Sixty years and several wars later, Israel has changed its borders for defence, and Palestinian land, still not a country, is split into the West Bank and the 25-mile Gaza Strip. — 00:01:01
  • ★★ Both Palestine and Israel have unfairly attacked and dehumanized each other, and judging whose awfulness is worse is tempting but useless. — 00:01:30
  • ★★ In 2006 Palestinians held their first really free elections; Fatah, long the most powerful party (said as 'in Pakistan'), lost to Hamas, an internationally recognized terrorist organization. — 00:01:30
    • number check: for decades — doubtful

00:01:59 — Primer on Hamas, voters' priorities, escalation to the invasion and its likely effect

  • ★★ Hamas is the Palestinian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, which inspired al-Qaeda and the Taliban and is illegal in Egypt, one reason the Egyptian government hates Hamas. — 00:01:59
  • ★★ Hamas is responsible for many rocket attacks and suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians, but also for almost all Gaza infrastructure of the last 15 years: hospitals, schools, orphanages. — 00:01:59
  • ★★ John reports that analysts think about 90% of Hamas's budget goes to social welfare programs and 10% to weapons. — 00:02:29
  • ★★ Palestinian voters, like American voters who mostly prioritized the economy over the Iraq war, do not vote solely on foreign policy. — 00:02:29
  • ★★ Since the election, Hamas rocket fire and Israel's stronger responses have worsened tit for tat, culminating in last night's invasion. — 00:02:29
  • ★★★ John thinks removing Hamas from power, as Israel wants, is a great idea, but notes most analysts expect the invasion to strengthen Hamas. (hedged) — 00:02:29

00:02:58 — The John Green path to peace in one minute; sign-off

  • ★★★ John's path to peace: Israel stops and dismantles illegal settlements and frees political prisoners; Hamas and al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades stop all attacks; Fatah quits corruption. — 00:02:58
  • ★★★ If these steps happen, John says Hamas will be out of power within a year, and Fatah and Israel can draw a map like 1949 with real Palestinian sovereignty, even at some security cost. (hypothetical) — 00:02:58
  • ★★ John says it is a situation no one will be happy with but everyone can live with. — 00:03:27

Threads in this video

BR2_6c46c82c63