Sanctions would address one side of the equation. How is the disarmment of Hamas, release of hostages, and regional security for both Israelis and Palestinians to be accomplished?

The heat is turning up on Kash.

Just wish it would lead to some action. 

Kash Patel facing congressional probe after missteps in Kirk assassination probe amid turmoil at FBI - Florida Politics

Growing up in the 80's it was extremely "disliked" to be gay. - You weren't allowed out of the closet, that actually got worse in the 90's.
People killed themselves because of it.

But being gay and being surrounded by "heterosexuality" day-in, day-out didn't make them heterosexuals, it just made life more miserable as they weren't allowed to be, who they were born to be.

Spoken like someone who has never had to fight tooth and nail for their position in life... Someone who wasn't "passed over" because they were different for an opportunity.

I fought stupidly hard to get where I am today... And I had to do so, fighting harder than others, because there wasn't inclusivity.

Thankfully today it's different, we dress the fire trucks in rainbow colours every year, we participate in the pride march, there isn't homophobic slurs in the fire station, there isn't homophobia.. People like that got kicked out of the service for the mistreatment of others.
And now? You are who you are, if you can do the job, great. - Doesn't matter if you are of a different ethnic background, gender, sexuality or more.

It's the way it should be.

“I will never visit the United States again,” Mr. Jeong said.

@nytimes.com #Hyundai
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/12/w...

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— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) 13 September 2025 at 17:01

Hundreds of South Korean workers who had been detained in shackles in the United States landed in their home country on Friday, met by their family members who applauded and tearfully hugged them.

President Trump has demanded that allies like South Korea and Japan vastly expand their investments in the United States and build new plants to help rejuvenate its manufacturing industry and create jobs. But in the aftermath of the raid, South Korea complained that its companies have had a hard time finding skilled technicians in the United States needed to build factories or getting work visas to bring such workers from South Korea.

So companies like LG and its subcontractors brought workers from South Korea on B-1 short-term business visas or under a visa-waiver program.

===

"Industry officials in Seoul have warned that the projects—collectively worth more than $101 billion—could face serious delays or be placed on indefinite hiatus unless Washington agrees to bilateral talks for new visa arrangements for South Korean employees."

South Korean companies with U.S. business interests have canceled travel plans and recalled their U.S.-based staff, fearing that their employees could be affected by more raids.

Trump’s ICE Just Wrecked Massive Business Investment Deal for the U.S. | The New Republic

Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, endorsed Zohran Mamdani for mayor of New York City on Saturday and called on his party’s leadership to do the same, criticizing them for a delay that he said allowed President Trump to exploit Democratic divisions.

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— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) 13 September 2025 at 22:55

“Yet, many Democratic members of the Senate and the House representing New York have stayed on the sidelines,” Mr. Van Hollen told a cheering group of Democratic activists and officials gathered on Saturday afternoon in Des Moines. “That kind of spineless politics is what people are sick of. They need to get behind him and get behind him now.”

Delight? I think that's completely disingenuous. I know the people who post I visit the forums daily I just don't login or post.

Reopening the thread is back off the cards probably. I think my entire point is fully proven.

With a UN Peace Force preferably.

There were already plans from Egypt and Qatar to form a technocratic interim government in Gaza.
Hamas was already on board with that and is fully for stepping down from government.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/27/qatar-and-egypt-will-help-form-new-palestinian-technocratic-government

The formation of a new Palestinian technocratic government would be aided by both Qatar and Egypt and involves consultations with all Palestinian political factions – including Hamas, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot, has said.

The move appears to be part of an attempt to show that a reformed interim Palestinian government that has roots in the entire Palestinian movement is ready to take over the governance of both Gaza and the West Bank soon after any ceasefire.

Zomlot stressed Hamas would have no members in the new technocratic government, but the fact that it would be consulted showed efforts were under way to see if Palestinian unity between Hamas and Fatah was achievable.

...

Zomlot said he hoped the technocratic government would be followed by both Palestinian parliamentary and presidential elections, once wounds had healed. He did not set a precise timeline for this ambition, but said it would be a matter of months not years. Palestine has not held elections since January 2006, and the US has been insisting that as part of a revitalised Palestinian government fresh elections must be held in which the current president, Mahmoud Abbas, would stand aside.

This was from before the ground attack on Rafah (Biden's red line) and since then Netanyahu has only sabotaged negotiations and broken the ceasefire earlier this year. Trust has only gone down hill and while Hamas is still willing to step down, they draw a red line at disarmament for a ceasefire. They're not opposed to disarming but want guarantees first for the safety of Gaza. 

Which makes sense in regards to what they're up against and in comparison the IRA didn't disarm until 7 years after the Good Friday agreement. 

Hamas has repeatedly offered to release all hostages for a comprehensive ceasefire deal leading to peace. It was already part of the ceasefire deal Netanyahu broken in March. All the hostages would have been home for a long time if Netanyahu had not broken the ceasefire. 

The proposal was divided into three stages, each 42 days (six weeks) long. Its aims were the release of all Israeli captives – whether civilian or military, alive or deceased; release of some number of Palestinian prisoners; return of "sustainable calm"; and the end of Israeli occupation and siege of the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu aborted the ceasefire deal after the first 6 weeks, unwilling to negotiate for peace / end the Israeli occupation.

Regional security will only be achieved by reigning in Israel's expansionistic policies. Israel needs to retreat from Lebanon and Syria, the occupied Golan Heights and Shebaa farms need to be given the choice to either go back to Lebanon / Syria or be formally annexed to Israel. 

In short the UN needs to sort out the borders, instead of a bunch of dotted lines that keep the conflicts going.

Israel is now occupying territory all the way up to and including Mount Hermon, as well as the UN buffer zone with Syria and into Syria.

The West bank is an even more difficult problem to solve with 700,000 illegal settlers having been put there. Some will need to move to make a Palestinian state viable. While Palestinian leaders want to go back to 1967 lines, the reality on the ground will make that very difficult. And the biggest problem is, all those settlers are the most radical extremists that terrorize Palestinians daily. 

The Oslo accords were supposed to slowly give full Palestinian control back to the West Bank, instead Netanyahu has seized them to further strengthen the occupation of the West Bank. Without solving that longstanding issue, nothing will be solved.

2019: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-38458884
Israel and the Palestinians: Can the settlement issue be solved?

According to the Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now, there are 132 settlements and 113 outposts, external - settlements built without official authorisation - in the West Bank. The group says more than 413,000 settlers live there, with numbers increasing year on year.

A year ago while Israeli settlements are still accelerating:



So really, Hamas stepping down and disarming are minor issues and merely symptoms (Hamas formed in 1987 as a resistance group) compared to solving the occupation, apartheid and expansionistic colonial mindset in Israeli politics.

Same goes for Hezbollah, another resistance group arisen from Israeli occupation (formed in 1982 in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon). They're divided over disarmament as well since they don't trust the Lebanese government to be able to keep the Israeli army out. (Which is still occupying 5 strategic points in Lebanon as well as never having given back Shebaa farms)



Likud needs to be disolved as well as Hamas and Hezbollah...
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/original-party-platform-of-the-likud-party

The Likud Party used the formulation ben ha-yam le-Yardén tihyé rak ribonút israelít (בין הים לירדן תהיה רק ריבונות ישראלית, "between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty" Likud's core identity is rooted in Revisionist Zionism and a commitment to the concept of a "Greater Israel" encompassing the territories captured in the 1967 war.

The Likud was formed on 13 September 1973 as a secular party by an alliance of several right-wing parties prior to that year's legislative election—Herut, the Liberal Party, the Free Centre, the National List, and the Movement for Greater Israel.

The Herut had its roots in Vladimir Jabotinsky's Revisionist Zionism, popular especially among Russian Jews of the 1920s and '30s.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Herut-Party

Herut was the major conservative nationalist political party in Israel from 1948 until its formal merger into Likud in 1988. It was an adherent of Revisionist Zionism. In 1948, Hannah Arendt and other Jewish intellectuals wrote a letter declaring that some of their policies were comparable to those of fascism.


As long as Likud remains in power / government, nothing can really be solved. Netanyahu's Likud party makes the alliances with the smaller extremist right parties (Ben Gvir's Otzma Yehudit "Jewish Power" and Smotrich's Religious Zionist Party) to fuel the genocide and annexation of the West Bank.

Thanks for the info. Will have to read more into it before I can respond to most of it, as a lot of it is new info to me, and I try my best not to limit speaking on matters I don't fully understand. But I did read it all, and genuinely appreciate you taking the time to lay it out.

My understanding is that Hamas platform specifically rejects a two state solution. From the river to the sea I believe is their motto, referring to the Jordan River to the Mediterranean sea, borders which would encompass all of Israel. What this would hypothetically mean for the people currently living in Israel is unclear, however if Hamas were to remain an active presence, their record on religious liberty is suspect to put it mildly.

Definitely agree that the expanding settlements and the Israeli violence which accompanies them is a massive problem which almost certainly is a violation of international law. The announced plans to expand them has certainly changed my view of things.

As an update, the Guardian has retracted the original story after being unable to verify the original source. Unsurprising. They are still trying to find a way to blame this on the left. The current best attempt is claiming that after living his whole life in Maga world, one semester at a university turned him into a cold blooded killer.

Also, you have to keep in mind that even Germany voted YES, despite the last 70 years basically saying "yes" and "amen" to everything Israel was doing to excuse themselves for what they did with the holocaust.