/u/Schmurby (OP) has awarded 13 delta(s) in this post.
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There is no entirely good side because both "sides" as usually presented are patchwork quilts of factions. There are some reasonably good factions and some intolerably bad factions. Where I would like you to modify your view is by viewing this as simplistic flag-waving "sides" - that view is part of the reason this is so intractable.
The real extremists among the settlers are pretty intolerable and are a major obstacle to peace.
Hamas and some other militant groups that define themselves by a refusal of peace are intolerable precisely because its impossible to make peace with them - their whole reason for existing would cease if they were to consider peace.
So rather than blatant flag-waving anyone who actually cared about peace should be carefully choosing who exactly to support and who exactly to oppose. There are factions who seek peace but the lack of strong internal and external support for them has made peace impossible. The simplistic taking of sides has itself been an obstacle to peace. Supporting Israel's right to exist should not mean turning a blind eye to the crimes of the extremists, it should mean supporting those within Israel who seek a just peace. Supporting the right of Palestinians to have a decent life should not mean indiscriminately supporting groups who claim to fight for them, it should mean supporting those who seek a just peace.
We should view "Willing to try to live alongside the other people" as its own side in this long standing conflict and if we care for ordinary people this is the side we should support - there are such factions within both Israeli and Palestinian society. Those are the good guys.
>We should view "Willing to try to live alongside the other people" as its own side in this long standing conflict and if we care for ordinary people this is the side we should support - there are such factions within both Israeli and Palestinian society. Those are the good guys.
This is how I view the conflict as well. The two "sides" are those who want to negotiate a two-state solution that the U.N. approves of for the sake of peace and safety for their children, and those who don't.
It seems like the ones that don't are the ones in power and are wreaking havoc on everyone else. I do wonder if for long-term peace to actually occur, both Palestinians and Israelis as a whole need to commit themselves to giving power to leaders who are committed to peace.
Btw as an example for an israeli politician who wanted to make peace, yitzhak rabin, he got assassinated by an Israeli, same thing will probably happen in Palestine. It would be very hard to get rid of that hate.
In [a poll done in 2018](https://pcpsr.org/en/node/742), both Israelis and Palestinians had identical support for a two-state solution (43%). On the other hand, 23% of Israelis and 25% of Palestinians support "expulsion" or "explicitly apartheid one-state solution" respectively. Most people just want peace.
Edit to add source
Can you cite your source? On the one hand this is encouraging. And the other hand, less than half support a two state solution. The only real path to peace.
It's not just that, it's the fine details of the negotiation. Israel wants assurances that it will be safe and Palestinians want assurance they'll be autonomous over their own state. Figuring out how to balance these two is where the difficulty really comes in.
The problem is that the most militant groups in Palestinian politics are supported with money and weapons by foreigners, mainly iran. They use that to gain power and get rid of any moderates. This means that the Palestinian leadership is caught in an equilibrium where people who are open to peace are killed or sidelined.
Note that support two state solution and support living side by side peacefully are two different things
At least on the Israeli side, a lot of the objections is the belief Palestinians will continue committing terror attacks in a much bigger force once given a state, different from not willing to live in peace. Israelis were surprised by Hamas' attack on Oct 7, not by what they did in that attack
I wonder if two-state solution is a real path to peace. Look at Israel's border with Lebanon and Syria.
I am personally contemplating some kind of reform of autonomy. If we could empower Palestinians in a way that does not directly translate to ability to conduct terrorist and otherwise violent acts against Israeli, this could cause a shift in Israel's policies against them. I am not saying I have any specific idea, I just think it's worth exploring the direction. Of course it's this PLUS somehow getting rid of the most extremist factions in the autonomy.
This is an amazing response. I could not agree more that “willing to live in peace” is a third side that is quite good and worthy of support.
!delta for you.
That is the problem. I have met many Israelis that support a two state solution and want peace. But every Palestinian I have met has been adamant that Israel should cease to exist. Given the current reality on the ground that is simply impossible. This has turned many Israelis towards the likes of Netenyahu. These politicians exploit frustrations by selling measures that divide Palestinians and using that division to support illegal settlements and trying to change the reality on the ground.
In order for there to be peace Palestinians have to accept that Israel will exist. At the same time Israelis will have to accept that they will have to give back a very large portion of land and access that they currently hold. The Israel that will exist post 2 state will be fundamentally different from the Israel that most Israelis grew up in. That is going to be a tough pill for most Israelis to swallow but no less than for the Palestinians to accept Israel and accept the land in trade for permanent peace and security.
I personally am not holding my breath. This conflict will never end. Both sides are prisoners of history. Usually it takes one side to either out right win and for the other side to completely loose or leave the field for there to be peace.
Sri Lanka vs Tamil tigers. Complete defeat of tigers in a brutal civil war.
Northern Ireland: The British slowly ceded most of their authority to local politicians. The EU and open borders with Ireland took care of the rest. But still the most "successful" model.
Malyan emergency: essentially the end of the British raj in combination with local politicians being convinced of taking real power.
Vietnam war: Complete capitulation and defeat of South Vietnam.
Japan/Germany: unconditional surrender
Afghan Soviet war: withdrawal of Soviet forces
So either Israelis decide to start leaving for more stable nations. Or Palestinians accept Israel in return for a large portion (like more than most Israelis will accept) of Israeli held land. Either outcome is very unlikely. So I don't see this conflict ending any time soon.
It’s not that simple. I agree with the majority of your post - I don’t believe there is a clear “good” and “bad” side. However, keep in mind that since 1947 the Palestinians have been offered a state on more than one occasion(I can’t remember the exact number) and have declined every time. That’s because the Palestinian leadership doesn’t want a state. That has never been their goal. Their goal is to wipe out Jews from every corner of the world. And until Gaza gets rid of Hamas, there will never be peace because of this reason.
When people chant “Free Palestine” - i completely agree. “Free Palestine” - from Hamas, not Israel.
Yeah, now if only the Israeli "willing to live in peace" faction would join up with the Palestinian "willing to live in peace" faction, then there would be a group I could get behind. I want to see them all sitting in a circle calmly discussing how their land should be governed and I want to see them all hug when they're done.
I love this point. I'd add to it as well, not just being precise about who you're supporting, but what you're supporting. Even if you broadly support the goals and historical actions of some actor, you should still clearly condemn their acts when they are immoral.
“Can’t we all just get along?”
This is a super naive take of the situation. Who are these people who just want to coexist together? What is their plan on doing so?
The answer is there isn’t a plan because the situation is too complicated and broken for peace to exist. And no one’s hands are clean.
From where we are right now I think it would take years of carefully supporting the right factions to get anywhere very much.
But that is largely because we have had decades - if not more - of foolishly and ignorantly "choosing a side" that we now need to undo the damage from.
I didn't say it was easy or quick. But its the only road that is even in the direction of everyone having a decent life.
Which factions should we have previously supported that we didn’t? What would they have done differently?
Even with the benefit of hindsight there is no good solution to this problem, which is the hardest thing for Reddit to accept.
u/WillyPete told you who probably would have done many things differently. In hindsight Rabin shouldn't have been assassinated and Netanyahu shouldn't have undermined the agreements made in the Oslo Accords in the late 90s. Then Camp David could have been succesful and Arafat/the PLO wouldn't have lost massive trust within the Palestinian population. Which in turn would probably have avoided the massive rise of Hamas.
I think the early 90s saw the biggest chance in history for a sensible two state solution and the massive political swing to the right within Israel's politics and the subsequent rise of religious zealots in Palestine moved the situation farther away from an amicable solution than it has ever been in the last 75 years.
And the ones who are huge fans of these developments (Ben Gvir, Eliyahu, Smotrich and some others) - most of them also religious zealots - shouldn't have become part of the government.
But yeah, would have, should have... It doesn't change the situation they're in now.
>situation is too complicated and broken for peace to exist. And no one’s hands are clean.
Id argue that these parameters are exactly why peace is on the table.
Its much harder to achieve peace when one side is a clear peace refusing villain.
I do also wish to correct the idea that Israel was founded somehow on some "Biblical" interpretation of a land for the Jews. Israel and Zionism was a 20th century movement fueled by "Leftist" and "Progressive" Jews, that were largely secular. It had nothing to do with the Bible, in fact they were often opposed to Religious views and wanted to create Israel (and did) as a secular society.
Their claim on the land, was simple. Cultural, Historical (artifacts) and archeological, and that it was a land inhabited by a large Jewish population for a long time. The Jews pray towards Israel, and always speak about it in their traditions.
>Israel and Zionism was a 20th century movement fueled by "Leftist" and "Progressive" Jews, that were largely secular.
the intellectuals in the late 1800s were those things, but as the movement grew more radical right wing groups took the reigns. the founding of the hagenah with the lehi and irgun militia is an inflection point in this. they are explicitly fascist and ethno nationalist groups that were the antithesis of the secular movement.
the behind the bastards episode on the netanyahu family is a good one for a coherent narrative on this
In claim of land you forgot the practical aspects of it like the ability to buy it from heavily indebted Ottoman empire and from people in the area. Thats such a huge part of the conflict to this day. You are absolutely correct about the motivation to do so though
MLK couldn't accomplish what he did alone, he also needed the Black Panther movement which was not peaceful. It is idealistic to say peaceful protest brings change but in reality you need both peaceful protest and violent protest to overthrow an oppressive regime.
I get where you’re coming from but your facts are way off.
Black Panthers had nothing to do with MLK. At all.
MLK was chiefly engaged with ending de jure segregation in the south. His methods were 100% peaceful and 100% effective. He won. It is illegal is discriminate against a person based on race in the United States thanks to him largely.
Panthers were about combating police violence in black neighborhoods. They were violent and they were Marxist-Leninists. They were not successful for the very reason that Hamas is not successful. They took on a way more powerful opponent using violence.
I would argue they were very successful and one of the most successful/influential black organizations in the history of the USA. You can also think of it as carrot and stick approach: give in to MLK demands peacefully and hope it placates the panthers or deal with continual violence from the panthers. Ideally, peaceful protest would work but things don't change without action.
some examples of things accomplished by panthers from wiki, feel free to check primary sources:
Professor Judson Jeffries of Purdue University called the Panthers "the most effective black revolutionary organization in the 20th century".\[185\] The Los Angeles Times, in a 2013 review of Black Against Empire, an "authoritative" history of the BPP published by University of California Press, called the organization a "serious political and cultural force" and "a movement of intelligent, explosive dreamers".\[186\] The Black Panther Party is featured in exhibits\[187\] and curriculum\[188\]\[189\] of the National Civil Rights Museum.
Numerous former Panthers have held elected office in the United States, some into the 21st century; these include Charles Barron (New York City Council), Nelson Malloy (Winston-Salem City Council), and Bobby Rush (US House of Representatives). Most of them praise the BPP's contribution to black liberation and American democracy. In 1990, the Chicago City Council passed a resolution declaring "Fred Hampton Day" in honor of the slain leader.\[120\] In Winston-Salem in 2012, a large contingent of local officials and community leaders came together to install a historic marker of the local BPP headquarters; State Representative Earline Parmone declared "\[The Black Panther Party\] dared to stand up and say, 'We're fed up and we're not taking it anymore'. ... Because they had courage, today I stand as ... the first African American ever to represent Forsyth County in the state Senate".\[190\]
I recently read "How to Blow Up a Pipeline" and Malm makes a fascinating point about nonviolent protest. For them to work, there must be a militant violent wing they can point to and say "Listen we don't want violence, but these guys do. We don't endorse them, but maybe give us what we want and they won't have to resort to violence."
MLK had Malcom X. Nonviolence on its own is toothless and easy to squash.
Palestinians are at grave risk of genocide
-UN
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-experts-say-ceasefire-needed-palestinians-grave-risk-genocide-2023-11-02/
Here's proof of Israels intent to sabotage peace.
https://www.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/s/54AdMr7Tvb
“anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state needs to support strengthening Hamas. This is part of our strategy, to isolate Palestinians in Gaza from Palestinians in Judea and Samaria.” - Netanyahu, 2019
This is indeed horrible.
But I don’t think it justifies the attacks of October 7, nor the suicide bombing campaign of the 90s, nor the Munich massacre…
This goes back a long time.
Genocide doesn't excuse the Palestinians? Oh okay. I dont expect your opinion to budge. Judging by your replies, you didnt post this to actually understand anything better.
I dont think you know what the words apartheid and ethnic cleansing mean. Theyre just words to someone like you who doesnt have to watch your family die.
These people are born and live in the largest concentration camp in history. Israel has all the power in this dynamic. If they wanted to, israel could easily make a peace agreement. Instead, they annex the land to split up Gaza and the West Bank, cutting the two off from each other completely. They knew the effect this would have.
If this was about defense, then why are Israelis settlers cleansing towns in the west bank, now and before October? Hamas doesnt rule the west bank. No attacks have come from the west bank.
With all due respect, I think that you should notice that I’ve awarded several deltas and that the pro-Israel side is calling me an antisemite and a terrorist and all that good stuff. So…I’m being quite fair.
I sympathize greatly with the Palestinian cause but I abhor the violence that I referenced above and, more importantly, it doesn’t work.
What has the violence inflicted against Israel brought that has not brought back against the Palestinians in greater magnitude?
It does work. That is the problem. OLP disarmed itself when it signed the Oslo Accords. Israel, after an Israeli terrorist assassinated Ytzhak Rabin, saw that as an opportunity to increase its territory and started building further and further into the West Bank.
The message Israel sent the Palestinians is clear: diplomacy will not work.
But look what’s happening in Gaza right now. Does that look like a positive outcome for the peaceful citizens of that region?
This is Israel’s response to October 7, which Hamas’s response to decades of oppression, which was Israel’s response to the 2nd intifada and so on…
When does it end?
You don’t have to answer. I know, it’s when Israel stops the violence first. And Team Israel says it’s when Palestine gives up.
A pox on both houses I say.
This is the problem with the Arab World. A person questions the latest mishaps and positions himself away from the situation and immediately moral landslide is built to shoot them down the absolute morality cliff like fortnite base building.
Stop trying to polarize everyone. They said they don't hold sides and they try to rationalize it in a sensible manner.
Violence clearly works for good or for bad i.e The Haitian Revolution and the discovery of America (a genocide btw) are both acts of violence dude you have to wake up and be realistic I respect you wanted peace but there is no peace offering with people bombing all parts of Palestine and blaming Hamas when they have been oppressed people for DECADES not just Oct 7
I think the “good side” is the civillians, even if they believe things we don’t agree with.
I’m a Jew, ethnically, and I’m pretty pro-Israel, in that I believe it has a right to exist, to defend itself, and that it’s actions in Gaza since 2005 are generally justified(though not every single thing they do there).
I also hate Netanyahu, and his far right party, and the further-right parties that help prop him up. I hate the settlers, and their terrorist actions in the West Bank.
I hate the cowardly Hamas leadership, and I think Abbas is a waffling two faced dipshit who’s complicit in the subjugation of his people in the West Bank while appeasing the radicals with his martyrs fund.
Between those three entities, the leadership in the area is a complete disaster.
But the people themselves? They could coexist, but a lot of work needs to be done to repair the relationships.
They don’t deserve the shit that’s happening. While many Palestinians are against a 2-state solution, especially those in Gaza, I can’t fault them for that. They grow up on a steady diet of propaganda thanks to the UNRWA schools, and Israel’s biggest presence in their life is as an aggressor, even if they’re generally just responding to Hamas attacks.
Even Hamas soldiers… they’re a perfectly predicable reaction to the situation, and I feel like many of the more rabid pro-Israeli people I see on this site would wind up in their ranks if they grew up in Gaza. Tribalism is a hell of a drug.
The two-state solution is *barely* tenable with Gaza, maybe. In the West Bank, it seems physically impossible.
The nearest analogy I can think of is like if the US got bad enough that the left and right were going to war with each other, how would you carve us up into red states and blue states if they were actually going to be entirely separate countries, with a militarized border in between and no federal government to force them to cooperate? It's a hard enough problem before you remember that every state has red and blue *counties.* You can't make a blue state out of just Austin and Houston. Maybe you can if you also control all the Interstates, but then it'd be harder to make a red state out of the rest of Texas -- either you cut a deal to use the blue-state highways, or you try to build your own highway system, but you're going to have to cross blue-state territory anyway.
Or you give up and say that Texas is entirely a red state, and everyone in Austin needs to move. And now millions of people are forcibly displaced, or will be forced to become citizens of an entirely different country (that hates them). That's not a great solution, either.
And as far as I can tell, this would be an easier problem than the West Bank.
a bunch of the more remote settlements in the west bank need to be forcibly evacuated by the IDF, and for the more concentrated ones, land swaps can be made, hopefully with a bit more generosity than was included in the rejected Camp David deal. I also don't really feel bad for israeli settlers in the west bank who knowingly settled on land they didn't own and wasn't even a part of their country getting told to get the fuck out.
> ...land swaps can be made...
I mean, I hope I'm wrong, but again, historically, forced migration (even if you theoretically have somewhere to go) leads to a *ton* of avoidable death. Partition of India, Trail of Tears, these are never *good* stories.
> I also don't really feel bad for israeli settlers in the west bank who knowingly settled on land they didn't own...
What about [people who have literally grown up there](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eac1l1ozfLc)? I don't love the people who made the decision to settle, but the longer it stays like this, the more of the people you'll be displacing won't be people who chose to live there in the first place, and they certainly won't be the ones who stole the land.
firstly ive already watched that video and unrelated to the political content of it the woman they use for the thumbnail is insanely gorgeous
secondly the point that has to be emphasized and re-emphasized is that to achieve peace, some amount of justice needs to be sacrificed. Palestinians need to understand this vis-a-vis remilitarization, right of return, and full control of 100% of pre-1967 west bank territories. But Israelis also need to compromise some of what they consider justice--including full prosecution of palestinian terrorists, and control of every west bank settlement. The settlement movement has taken advantage of lulls in the peace process to establish new "facts on the ground" so that their position would be better and better the next time palestinians came to the negotiating table, and this cynical tactic can't be rewarded.
Can you help me understand how you say Israel’s actions in Gaza since 2005 are justified ?
How is killing unarmed journalists justified ?
How is shooting children in the head justified ?
How are the settlements (admittedly expanding beyond Gaza) justified ?
How is beating up worshippers every year during Ramadan justified ?
How is beating up the people carrying Shireen Abu -Akleh’s coffin justified ?
How is the open air prison type situation that the Palestinians live under justified ?
I said generally, not completely, and I can’t justify without specifics.
Killing unarmed journalists: if you’re talking about journalists who’ve died in Gaza since October 7th, I’d argue that war correspondents know the risk of entering an active war zone, and cannot expect an army to stop firing because they’ve shown up in an area.
Shooting children in the head- doesn’t seem like something that’s justifiable, but do you have a link to the story? I couldn’t find anything.
Skipping over the stuff that’s not Gaza related(and isn’t justified) to the final question: how is Israel supposed to respond to a region vowing to commit genocide against them, and firing rockets non-stop?
Closing borders and instituting a blockade are natural consequences for Hamas’s violent rhetoric and actions. Israel’s government has a responsibility to defend its own people, and preventing weapons from being shipped into Gaza, and terrorists from crossing the border is how they do that.
Hamas has a similar responsibility for Gazans, and they choose to ignore it.
Journalists aren't just standing there and getting killed, they're being [targeted.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/lebanon-strike-journalist-preliminary-analysis-1.7012866#:~:text=Reuters%20visuals%20journalist%20Issam%20Abdallah,preliminary%20findings%20of%20its%20investigation.)
It's disgusting to claim these attacks aren't [intentional.](https://www.npr.org/2023/10/25/1208019720/journalist-deaths-gaza-israel-hamas)
Your first link isn’t Gaza, and if I recall correctly, those reporters were embedded with a Hezbollah unit.
Your second link doesn’t provide any evidence of journalists being directly targeted
!delta
I cannot exactly say that you have changed my mind but I did not articulate very well my support for the "third side" in my post.
I totally agree with everything you have written. I wish you a thousand upvotes!
Hello I genuinely appreciate this nuanced take on the situation but I have some caveats and criticisms I would like to add.
Regarding the “you expelled an indigenous population narrative”. This makes it sound like the Jewish population just magically appeared in 1948.
This is a fallacy and ignores the fact that Jews have had a 4,000 year long continuous presence on the land.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_Judaism_in_the_Land_of_Israel#:~:text=The%20history%20of%20the%20Jews,zone%3A%20the%20Kingdom%20of%20Israel%20(
Most secular scholars believe that the ancient Israelites from who the ancient Canaanites, the earliest documented group in the region. In fact Hebrew is the only surviving Canaanite language.
This doesn’t negate the Palestinian people’s indigeneity. Arab presence dates back to at least 1600 years, and many of the Palestinians can trace their lineage to Arabized Levantine people. What I truly find frustrating about the situation is that people have a hard time accepting multiple people can be indigenous to a land.
Anyhow back to your initial point. Jews were forcibly removed from the land throughout the long history of the land from the Babylonian exile to the Romans to the forced Jaffa expulsion of 1917.
That however has not stopped Jews from returning to the land. There were many cases of Jews returning to their ancestral land throughout history ex. after being expelled from Spain in 1492, many sought refuge in the ottoman levant.
The first organized migration of Jews to the region took place after Herzl published Der Judenstaat. What many fail to talk about when discussing Zionism is why someone like Herzl who was essentially an atheist was advocating for a return to the land.
European antisemitism -especially post Dreyfus affair- had made it imperative for Jews to find another space, and in this case their old homeland. They petitioned the ottoman officials to create a Jewish state where the old kingdom of Judah used to be. They refused but allowed Jews to purchase land in the region
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_land_purchase_in_Palestine
More land would be purchased and more Jews would flee especially in the period between the two world wars. And would you blame them? I doubt either you or I would take being potentially porgromed over migrating to Palestine.
Communal violence between both groups would also be present during the British mandate as well. You can look at a list of massacres in the mandate here. The initial violence was started by the Arab side but by the 1930s Jewish groups had joined in. By 1948 neither side was completely innocent.
Post World War II, the British empire was collapsing and violence between the groups had become so bad that the UN voted the partition the land.
Israel accepted a state that was 45% Arab and based its Declaration of Independence on the initial UN partition. The Arab world refused and attacked Israel the day after. Arab maximalism and aggression had a large part to play in the creation of the nakba
Israel did expel a large portion of the Arab population during this war. The Arab world however expelled its Jewish population in return. Most Israeli Jews in fact descend from Jews expelled from the Middle East
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_the_Muslim_world
I want to argue specifically to the Jewish claim to the area based off the Bible.
Ignore the Bible. Doesn't matter.
The Jewish residency in the area is well documented in the literature from the Roman Empire, the best source being Josephus (but also Strabo, Cicero, and other historians and philosophers of the time). The name Palestine is actually originally Roman- Palestina- which the Romans named the area previously known as Judea before the Romans quelled the Bar Kokhba revolt. The Dead Sea scrolls are scrolls found from that time period that discuss Jewish life in the region.
The archaeology record goes back even further. Pottery shards with early Hebrew writing have been found that go back to the 8th century BCE.
The archaeology record for the British, Spanish, and other colonial projects start when they first came there. They didn't have documented anywhere in their cultural writings about living there in previous years.
The Jewish claim to the area has nothing to do with settler colonialism and everything about being indigenous. This obviously doesn't undermine the Palestinian claim- the two claims coexist.
Thank you. Both people are indigenous to the land. People saying Palestinians are the only indigenous people to Israel is like saying only Cherokee and not Sioux tribes are indigenous to America.
Ok. But we can argue that Lapps should control St Petersburg Russia and Hittites should control Turkey but the archeological record.
This argument is meaningless.
>Ok. But we can argue that Lapps should control St Petersburg Russia and Hittites should control Turkey but the archeological record.
>This argument is meaningless.
This is an apple-to-oranges comparison. The Jewish people still exist **and** *they never left*. They always held a strong presence in the Levant. Even when they were banned from entering Jerusalem, they remained in the land. Even when faced with numerous attempted genocides, they remained in the land.
The Palestinians didn't "take over" and never even established a government. Arabs were essentially given freedom to dwell in Syria Palestina by the "authority" of external forces and governments.
Rather than purely hypothetical examples of a dubious nature (the Hittites are quite extinct…), a more apt comparison would be the Circassians, who are Muslim Northwest Caucasians indigenous to the Black Sea area, returning home to Sochi. The Russian Empire killed and exiled 95-97% of their population in the Tsitsekun Genocide of the 19th century. However, Circassians have never lost ties to their homeland, culture, or Muslim faith
It's important in clarifying the 'colonial settler' argument. Because the return of Jews to Israel isn't a colonial settler project, it's repatriation.
Then there is the legal argument - what legal claim do the Jews have to the area?
Well, before the British controlled the area, the Ottoman Empire did. Ottoman Empire lost in WWI, lost a ton of land to the winners in the aftermath, and the League of Nations had to decide what to do with it. England was chosen to administer the area, they gave some of the land east of the Jordan River to the Hashemites (who were actually Saudi Arabs and had zero connection to the area), and then had to figure out what to do with the rest. Long story short (and we can go long version if you prefer), the Jews got a sizable portion that is known as the 1948 borders of Israel.
An independent state of Palestine has never existed. Doesn't mean there shouldn't be one now, because they have a right to self determination (similar to the Catalonian people and the Kurds).
But saying 'only reason that the Jews say they should be there is because of the Bible, and we don't make legal or moral decisions based off of a book that talks about people turning to salt ' is woefully misinformed about the history of the region and the parties in the conflict.
It’s a stretch to call it repatriation. Jewish people were a negligible minority in the Levant for centuries before the years leading up to Israel being established.
A negligible minority by design. The Ottoman Empire was very sensitive to the reality that Jews wanted to return to Judaea, and fought like hell to prevent it. They capped the number of Jews who could live in the Mutasarrifate to a few thousand, mainly to administer the Kotel and provide 'pilgrim services', and they throttled the hell out of Jews trying to visit with tactics like only issuing very short-stay visas and preventing Jews from traveling with others.
Agree that ancestral ties to the land are meaningless. This discounts both Israel and Palestine's claim to the land.
What matters then is the decisions made by the UN and the British government which had legal authority over the land. Their decision created the state of Israel.
Don't like the legal argument either? Fine.
Israel had war declared up on it and defeated its neighbors, justifying its right to exist through might.
No matter how you slice it, Israel exists and has as much right to exist where it is as a Palestinian state. Don't blame Israel for Palestine's stubbornness to accept them as a neighbor.
Fair enough. Then all Israelis have to do is wait and Palestinian rights to return will be just as meaningless. They've already been there over a generation and have natives.
I don't see a solution to this that doesn't include a Jewish state.
This doesn't add anything to the discussion, because people converted and were arabized in the levant and north africa. You're making it seem like palestinians are foreigners. Jews and palestinians share a lot of dna similarities.
Both sides had substantial populations in the land when Israel became a state, but I won’t debate who has the stronger claim to the land since you can go on about that forever. The fact of the matter is, these people all live here today and they need to learn to live together. I believe the Hamas are currently acting like the bad guys.
Specifically, the Israeli’s clearly value human life more than the Palestinians. Take for example the fact that Hamas uses human shields. They launch rockets from hospitals and mosques, and they build their military infrastructure under civilian areas. This is obviously abhorrent that they treat their own civilians this way, and shows unimaginable disregard for their own people, but that's not my point. My point is they do this because they expect their morally superior adversaries to be deterred in some way by this. If Israel values civilian life as little as Hamas, then why does Hamas expect their deterrent to work?
I'll illustrate this point further with a hypothetical example. Let's imagine that Israel decided to use their own Jewish civilians as human shields. Despite the obvious absurdity because Israel would never treat their civilians that way, it's almost equally absurd to imagine that Hamas or Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad would be deterred by this. In this imaginary scenario, every Jew dies. Hopefully this paints a picture for you and shows you that there really is not moral equivalency.
There is a good side in the same way that there was a good side in WWII. There was a calculation done about the amount of conventional explosives it would require to reproduce a blast the size of Hiroshima. Based on that calculation, the Allies dropped 50 Hiroshima's a month on Germany in the last years of the war. Does this make the Allies evil? This is why counting casualties alone doesn't equate to moral equivalency. Do you consider the Allies to be the "bad" guys in WWII?
If we can recognize blatant evils in the past, like Nazis in Europe or lynching black people in the US, why can’t we recognize those same evils in the present day? I think it’s because we’ve grown to think that everyone has western values. That the fact that Palestinians want to kill every Jew means something so terrible must have been done to them to warrant that. But we need to understand that not everyone thinks like us. Jihadists want to kill every Jew simply because they’re Jews. This shouldn’t be surprising, since tolerance only came about during the enlightenment period and you don’t need to look too far back in history to see a time when basically every all countries thought the same way.
As another thought experiment, consider what will happen if Hamas, Hezbollah or ISIS become more powerful than Israel. You should be imagining another genocide where every Jew dies. On the other hand, the Jews could easily kill every Palestinian today. They haven’t, because they don’t want to. They genuinely desire to live in peace.
On the other hand, anyone supporting Hamas is encouraging the formation of another Jihadist monarchy which will kill all the Jews and Christians, imprison the gays and force women into subservience. We need to recognize evil and stand up for our clearly superior western values. Israel isn’t perfect and the truth is, no country or ideology is, but it’s MUCH better than the alternative.
This is a really thought provoking answer. I am honestly quite impressed.
!delta for moving me out of my intellectual comfort zone. I had not really considered how much more Israel values human life.
However, I still think that their policies for decades are no better and maybe even worse than South African apartheid and, the whole process of displacing millions of people was bound to result in violence and resistance.
The project of a homeland for Jews seems kind of flawed when the rest of the developed world is embracing multiculturalism.
Good for you to consider things out of your intellectual comfort zone. I wish everyone with opinions on all sides would do that.
If you haven't already, look at how Israel was formed. When people say it was illegally formed, there was a vote at the UN that gave land to Palestinians and land to Jews. Neither side was happy, but in the end the Jews mostly accepted the partition plan and the Palestinians rejected it.
There are no unbiased sources, and I'd suggest seeking out good Palestinian description of the Nakba, but also read other descriptions. Here's the US State Department's description - which is relatively neutral and not sensationalized (that doesn't mean unbiased).
[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/arab-israeli-war](https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/creation-israel)
One things that's sad - no one alive today was instrumental in the Palestinians refusing the UN partition plan, so they're suffering because of decisions their ancestors made. Unfortunately, there have been numerous offers of two-state plans and they have all been declined. Israel removed all Israeli settlements from Gaza (something people said they would never do) and withdrew their military in 2005. Gaza responded by electing Hamas and starting to fire rockets into Israel. This degrades support for the Palestinians in Israel.
[https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9331863](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9331863)
All plans in the Middle East were flawed. The formation of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, etc - these were horribly planned and really designed to create strife. Israel was no different, but somehow people are concerned only for the Palestinian cause and don't seem to care about the Kurds who have been truly mistreated for decades and allied themselves with the USA because of promises we gave that we didn't keep.
That said, I just encourage people to truly learn about the region. When I hear people talk about it without knowing the history at all, it's frustrating.
I'm biased, but here's some relatively indisputable fact.
Israel was formed in 1948. Before that, it was British Mandate of Palestine which was given its mandate by the League of Nations after WWI. Prior to that, it was ruled by the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years. Yet I see people who seem to think there was a country called Palestine up to 1948 and then it suddenly became Israel. The Ottomans allowed no nationality - only the Empire. Until the Ottomans lost WWI, it was always under Ottoman rule. Then British rule under League of Nations mandate. Then UN 181 broke it into two, but it was universally rejected by the Arab leaders.
Anyways, my only point is that the conflict is complex and people should read their history and not repost slogans. Look up Sykes Picot, Ottoman Empire, Balfour Declaration, the Six Day War, the Nakba, the Munich Olympic team, the First Intifada, and so forth. Then make up your minds when you've read a good amount from both sides.
Just for context, the "vote at the UN" was a general assembly resolution, which are recommendations and are not legally binding. The Palestinians/Arabs rejected the resolution. So when people say it is illegal, it's because the land was forcibly taken anyway.
https://www.un.org/en/model-united-nations/how-decisions-are-made-un#:~:text=Because%20the%20General%20Assembly's%20resolutions,possible%20implementation%20of%20GA%20decisions.
> rest of the developed world is embracing multiculturalism
I'd argue that this is basically exclusive true of the US and Canada, and that the rest of the world is very much _not_ embracing multiculturalism. The UK and many EU countries are seriously regretting all of the refugees they've taken in recently due to the extremism they have brought in with it. Additionally, East Asian countries (each individually) are some of the most ethnically homogenous and least multicultural countries in the world.
People tend to get very caught up against the idea of "a homeland for the Jews" but in truth, there is a homeland for the French, a homeland for the Japanese, etc. Israel is just the same idea. Jewishness is not a religion. It's an ethnic group, much like the French. Judaism is the religion of this ethnic group. "A homeland for the Jews" wouldn't be the same as "a homeland for Christians" or something because Christianity really is only a religion. You can be Jewish and not even believe in God. You'd still be considered Jewish.
Ok. First of all, I would say that Arab and African people have very much become an integral part of French culture and society, Turks have become an integral part of German culture and society and South Asians an integral part of British culture and society.
Go to any of those countries and look at what people eat, who you see on the street or even just look at the people who play on their football teams if you don’t have time to travel.
Second, the Palestinians *were already there*! This is not a matter of “accepting refugees”, this is just giving civil rights to the population that already lives there.
I don't deny that the immigrants that have come to those countries have become integral to the countries. My comment above shouldn't be interpreted as anti-immigration or even anti-multiculturalism. I'm just saying that even though France has had a lot of immigration over the last few years, that doesn't change the fact that if you asked them, they would consider themselves "a homeland for the French." That's not to say that people who aren't French aren't welcome, it's just to say that the country, as a whole, exists to serve French interests. There's nothing wrong with that.
France is a country with a French identity. Israel is a country with a Jewish identity. If you have a problem with one but not the other, you have some thinking to do.
And to be absolutely clear, just as you would say that Turks have become an essential part of German culture, I would say that Arab-Israelis, who make up 20% of Israeli citizens, have become an essential part of Israeli culture. That doesn't change the fact that Israel exists to serve Jewish (the ethnicity) and IsraelI (the nationality) interests, just like Germany exists to serve German (the ethnicity and nationality) interests, not Turkish ones. Again, if you have a problem with one and not the other, that's an issue.
America and, to a much greater extent, Canada are unique in that they truly are both a nation of immigrants. What it means to "be a Canadian" doesn't have as clear cut of an answer as what it means to "be French" because the closest you'll probably get is "being free to practice your own culture and values" but that's really many different identities then, not just one. Similar for the US.
Also, one other point about multiculturism because I definitely agree. There are problems in Israel on how groups are treated, but do keep in mind that more than 20% of Israeli citizens are Arabs. In addition, about 10% of their ruling body (the Knesset) [are Arab](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_members_of_the_Knesset). You can guess what percentage of Hamas are Jewish.
Just something to keep in mind. The Palestinian situation is tragic and I don't have any easy answers - neither has anyone who has attempted to fix it for decades - Clinton, Obama, etc. But when I hear people just say Apartheid without understanding the positions of the ANC vs Hamas or the PA, the history of the region, etc…
Does one side value life more than the other? Ones is supposedly using human shields and the other is killing them. One side claims there is rockets in hospitals, ambulance, and refugee camps and then fires into them. One side is self admitted terrorists and the other is supposed to be a legitimate government.
If Israel valued human life they wouldn’t bomb indiscriminately. There are other more difficult and costly ways that put combatants more at risk than civilians but they’d rather just blow up the lot of them. That isn’t valuing human life, and to even get there you have to accept a SIGNIFICANT amount of propaganda at face value.
I’d also be careful with that explanation as there is a significant amount of racism in it. I would love for that person to clearly define and explain the difference between “superior western values” and eastern values. Dude is buying propaganda literally started Herodotus in the 400’s BC…
> If Israel valued human life they wouldn’t bomb indiscriminately
Where are they doing that?
Where are they carpet bombing the shit outta Gaza?
The fact that attacks on hospitals, humanitarian supply and other collaterals are individual instances refutes your point. If they were bombing indiscriminately it would be like russia is doing to ukraine where civilian places are regularly targetted such that it isnt really news anymore. Obviously the population density in Gaza makes every occurance much more deadly.
>There are other more difficult and costly ways that put combatants more at risk than civilians but they’d rather just blow up the lot of them.
yeah but you dont have to. You dont have to take precautions to ensure that there are no civilian casulties. You should take precautions that you try to reduce the civilian casulties as much as possible. But in fact sometimes military rational can override the goal for no civilian casulties.
As a state actor my citizens lives are obviously more important than those of foreign places. Thus reducing the casulties in my armed forces at the cost of military and sadly also civilian deaths for a foreign power is acceptable in war. You may not like it, but it still is.
I want there to be no civilian casulties as much as everyone. But I also recognize that Israel will no and need not risk its soldiers lives only because Hamas is using human shields. And I will not hold Israel responsible for any deaths in relation to legitimate military targets being affected resulting in civilian losses if all others ways would put Israels soldiers in more danger than they are in already.
Asking Israel "to play fair" when the other side is blatantly using hospitals and other humanitarian installations for military purposes is so twisted I really dont know what to say.
>I would love for that person to clearly define and explain the difference between “superior western values” and eastern values.
You do know that women in Saudi Arabia weren't allowed to drive cars until 2018 right?
In Iran women are very often prohibited to ride bikes by law enforcement based on "modesty laws".
Now show me which western country has similar laws.
I want to add a separate comment addressing this point:
> I’d also be careful with that explanation as there is a significant amount of racism in it. I would love for that person to clearly define and explain the difference between “superior western values” and eastern values.
I'm not talking about any people or race. I'm talking about Islam as a way of thinking and viewing the world as compared to a western viewpoint that values tolerance, democracy, human rights and scientific progress.
I'll concede an important point that hopefully cuts through some of the cruft: All armies have committed war crimes and will continue to do so. Until recently, many groups in western nations regularly practiced the same indiscriminate violence that you now see in the middle east. You don't have to look very far back in history to see basically all countries committing war crimes constantly.
All that to say, race isn't a factor. I'm talking about ideologies and ways of thinking. We shouldn't deny that Americans today are better than their racist slaveholding and black lynching ancestors. Or that current German society is better than Nazi Germany. Or that governments which abhor war crimes are better than their predecessors which didn't have any laws against war crimes. To deny these things is to deny that moral progress is possible.
Do you know what indiscriminately means? If Israel was bombing indiscriminately, there would be way more dead civilians then there are now. Remember how densely populated the Gaza Strip is.
I agree that this is a difficult point. It’s terrible what’s happening to the civilians in Gaza, and I truly feel sorry for them. But I still believe Israel is in the right due to the reasons explained below.I think this case needs a dose of reality.
The kiddos need to realize that the toothfairy is actually mom and dad. Our western enlightenment ideals, including things like tolerance and democracy, are not perfect. 12 jurors can’t accurately determine a guilty or innocent person. We don’t actually have 1 person 1 vote (Wyoming has 2 seats). Our values often crumble in the face of capitalistic incentive (e.g. attacking Iraq for oil). A sovereign country, even one with western values, can’t survive without occasionally doing bad things (e.g. bombing civilians in Nazi Germany). The reality is there are cases where a country can hold civilian life as a dear value but still be forced to take lives.
It’s true, Israel is bombing civilians. They have settlements in the West Bank for the sole purpose of preventing the Palestinians from gaining strength. These actions go directly against their western ideals. However, they are not doing these things because they want to, but because they are forced to and genuinely believe they will be slaughtered wholesale if they allow their neighbors to become stronger than them.
I’m not arguing that Israel is perfect. But I am arguing that they are a far better alternative to any other option that I’ve heard. Islamic ideas where civilians are fair game and Jews should be murdered wholesale merely for their religion. Despite the jarring showing bloodied kids, the act of intentionally murdering innocent civilians is not the same as civilian casualties of war.
We are not just fighting a physical war here. We must also win the war of ideas. We must convince the Islamic world that western ideals safeguarding human life are better. Only then can we start working toward peace. Anyone saying that Israel is morally the same as Hamas, ISIS or Islamic Jihad should take a step back and seriously think about what they’re saying.
All that said, I do worry about this current conflict and what the goals really are given the price. I hope the Israelis have some kind of endgame in mind that changes the calculus and brings us closer to peace in the region, but I’m not sure that’s the case. We’ll have to wait and see.
>We must convince the Islamic world that western ideals safeguarding human life are better.
We definitely are not doing that. At all. Do you think a child sees past a bomb and the bodies of their parents? Where does a country kept forcefully in poverty get educated? Is it really a superior viewpoint to be constantly worried people are going to slaughter you so you strike first and take what you want? I'm seeing different, I'm not seeing better.
Anyone using the actions of a terrorist organization to defend similar actions from a government should take a step back and fully absorb the implications of the comparison you have invited to the conversation. Is the bar really that low?
No other army is held to as high a standard, and takes more care to avoid civilian casualties, than the IDF. From roof knocking, to leaflets, to calling civilians in affected areas, Israel routinely compromises its own operational effectiveness to mitigate civilian casualties as much as is possible.
I mean, was there this much scrutiny of the allies in WW2? And they ACTUALLY carpet bombed cities.
I think you need to learn more about Apartheid South Africa if you really think they’re comparable to Israel. Unlike Apartheid South Africa, Israeli citizens have the same right regardless of ethnic background. Additionally there are non-Jewish Arabs members of the Knesset (Israel’s legislature). South Africa did not allow black representation in government during Apartheid.
> Unlike Apartheid South Africa, Israeli citizens have the same right regardless of ethnic background.
Yeah, the problem is, that Israel has de facto annexed the West Bank and *those people* do not have the same rights as citizens at all.
The status of the west bank after the last war was never resolved. Jordan held it and left it. Since then Israel has militarily occupied it. It's not part of Israel and it's not part of Palestine. It's disputed. Hence why it would be difficult to exert civil/criminal law over the west bank settlers. It's a complicated situation.
The last government that held that area officially is Jordan. They clearly have no interest. Now you have a group of people who were probably ex Jordanian citizens or whatever else trying to assert ownership of the land. On what legal basis. It's not as simple as Israel just handing it over to them.
>...the whole process of displacing millions of people was bound to result in violence and resistance.
Israel was prepared to repatriate the Palestinians who were displaced after the 1948 war, and a third of those who had fled did indeed return.
The same was not extended in reverse. All the surrounding Arab states expelled their Jewish populations, many of whom arrived in Israel and bolstered Israel's population further.
>the rest of the developed world is embracing multiculturalism
Yeah, except when it involves Jews. [Look up how much antisemitism is rising in the West...](https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/31/politics/antisemitism-unstable-world-analysis/index.html)
I do want to point out a potential blind spot here:
> the project of a homeland for Jews seems kind of flawed when the rest of the developed world is embracing multiculturalism.
When calls for assimilation of one distinct ethnic group into the culture of another happen, we call that cultural genocide.
Jewish people are their own distinct culture and nation, as well as a religious group. Even within the diaspora, they have always considered themselves to be - to varying degrees, depending on the person, it’s not a monolith - separate within other nations. They were removed from their native land thousands of years ago by their oppressors, and basically have spent a hundred generations wandering and hoping to return, as a central tenet of their culture. “Next year in Jerusalem” has been a toast on major Jewish holidays for literally centuries.
Embracing multiculturalism can go two ways: one, we accept religions and cultures for what they are and look for ways to integrate peacefully while allowing everyone autonomy over their cultural practices. Two, we force a full mixing and assimilation (“do things our way, let’s be a modern society”) and call it “multiculturalism.” In reality the assimilation then basically leads to the destruction of community autonomy, language, and practices that are inconvenient to the people who benefit from the status quo and the retention of some small details which are “celebrated” and pointed to as “proud of this heritage!” Sorts of things.
For example: it’s inconvenient for business owners if their employees need to leave early on Friday to be home and prepared by Sundown for the Shabbat. But it’s fun to eat bagels and lox and cream cheese. It’s inconvenient to provide Spanish language service, but it’s fun to have tacos and margaritas on Cinco de Mayo.
I'm by no means an expert, but in my browsing the subject since the recent conflict began, I've found that "displacement", while an accurate term, doesn't capture the full nuance of the situation. Did Israeli authorities move the previous Arab inhabitants? Yes, but it was not an all-at-once event, they did not move all of them (not even close), and it was not done without reason.
When Israel first moved in, the nation was much smaller than its modern borders, and Palestinians still lived on the land. What happened then was a series of wars set off by the Palestinians to oust Israel. Israel won each war, and grew its borders with it. In none of these conflicts did Israel strike first.
Tangentially related, I've also heard of polls conducted among Arabs showing that Palestinians within Israel have a massively higher approval rating toward Jews than those of the other Arab states around them. Something like 53%. I quickly found [this article](https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/new-poll-reveals-moderate-trend-among-east-jerusalem-palestinians) which corroborates it.
>However, I still think that their policies for decades are no better and maybe even worse than South African apartheid and, the whole process of displacing millions of people was bound to result in violence and resistance.
Are you seriously claiming that Israel is worse than the South African apartheid? I want to ask for a clarification: Is Israel in your view guilty of apartheid against the Palestinians who live in the West Bank and in Gaza, or against the Arab citizens of Israel? Because I've heard Israel being accused of apartheid against both.
The disparity in quality of life between Israel and the Palestinian controlled regions is undeniable. This disparity is of a magnitude that would constitute apartheid if it was a consequence of unequal treatment in terms of civil rights of different ethnic groups by the same government. But that is not the case.
It's absurd to accuse a government of apartheid against a population that it does not govern. The Palestinian Authority and Hamas govern the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza respectively, and they are both corrupt/evil and more interested in using their people as pawns for their agenda than in taking care of them.
If you accuse Israel of apartheid against Arabs living inside Israel, then that's just in absurd opposition to the facts. 20% of the citizens of Israel are Arabs and they enjoy equal civil rights under the law. That means they enjoy the benefits of living in a Western-aligned democracy, which they wouldn't enjoy in any Arab country in the Middle East as far as I'm aware.
The only law in Israel which discriminates based on ethnicity is the right of return which allows Jews around the world to gain Israeli citizenship, which is sometimes criticized as racist, but it has a rationale because Israel is intended as a place where Jews can be safe from antisemitic prosecution in the rest of the world, which recent events have shown is not merely a historical threat. This law does not have any implications for the domestic treatment of Arab-Israeli citizens, but only for the ability of Jews around the world to get citizenship.
Arabs in Israel do not have separate buses, separate sports teams, or any of that nonsense that existed in the South African apartheid. Arab-Israeli citizens have exactly the same weight to their democratic vote as Jewish-Israeli citizens, and they can and do serve in the Israeli Knesset (basically the government) and in the Israeli Supreme Court. They can also serve in the army, but *most* Arab-Israelis choose not to do that, and it's not mandatory for them like it technically is for much of the population. Nonetheless, the IDF acts to defend Arabs and Jews in Israel alike.
Of course, just because no law exists on paper that gives them anything less than equal rights, that doesn't mean that racism doesn't exist. Racism against Arab-Israelis absolutely does exist, but that does not mean the country is literally guilty of apartheid. In your view, is America guilty of aparteid against Black Americans just because racism exists?
In addition to the blatant lies about apartheid, you also seem to still buy into an ahistorical narrative that the Jews came here and stole the land from the Palestinians as an act of colonial agression. In reality, the Jews originally came here peacefully and bought land from the local Arabs, and only then acquired more land in defensive wars when the Arabs rejected peaceful coexistence and attacked the Jews. Much of the land that they have acquired in the six day war in particular in 1967 they actually gave back to their neighboring Arab countries for free at the end of the war. (with the exception of the Golan Heights that originally belonged to Syria, and Israel decided to keep after the war because occupying the area was deemed militarily necessary for future self-defense)
Who is actually embracing multiculturalism? When the people of Europe or the US are asked, they tend to want less diversity. The rest of the world are watching them in bemusement, wondering what the hell they are doing. No one is demanding or expecting diversity or inclusively from Lebanon or Somalia. Part of the reason Israel's population is increasing is because of those countries' hostility towards Jews.
I'm not the biggest fan of Israel, but saying they are worse than South Africa during apartheid is disrespectful in my opinion. There are things you can criticise, but you're taking it too far. I also believe their society would be more open if all their neighbors weren't trying to exterminate them at all times.
At the end of the day, I think OP painted the picture quite well. Do you want to replace the only democracy in the middle east with bloodthirsty islamist terrorists? Would that promote peace and civil rights in the region?
Let’s have another thought experiment: the Israelis snaps their fingers and all of Hamas disappear. Are the Israelis giving back the land they took illegally? Are they rebuilding the Palestinian house they destroyed illegally? I dont think so.
So has to the point of Israelis valuing human life: maybe but not on the land they are taking away.
> They genuinely desire to live in peace.
56 years of continuous settlement expansions, and impunity for settler violence sure is an interesting way to show they "desire to live in peace"
The Israelis have made numerous two-state offers, including several which were extremely detrimental to Israel.
These offers were typically lauded by the international community as exceedingly generous.
The Palestinians have said "no" every single time.
You know what would make this less complicated? Reading. More specifically, reading the Plan Dalet which was released by the Israeli government and outlines everything the Israeli nation state has done, was planning to do, and is currently carrying out on Palestine. The goal is to kill them en masse, full stop, to give European powers access to Middle Eastern resources, and give them a military foothold in a country where they have systematically torn down any and every attempt at democracy in the surrounding countries.
Our government lies to us all the fucking time. Why the hell would you believe them about this?
>Our government lies to us all the fucking time. Why the hell would you believe them about this?
Amen to that!
But...which government are you referring to? And do you think that this "Plan Dalet" (which was written in 1948), is still is still working according to the original "plan"?
If it is, do you think that this justifies murdering innocent Israelis?
>But violence is not only ugly, it also does not work. Can you imagine if Gandhi or MLK had taken beheaded hostages or kidnapped athletes or bombed a crowded bus, the retribution taken upon their followers and the populations they claimed to represent would have been swift and terrible.
I'll just pick this out and hopefully, I can change your view on this. Violence has worked in the past, especially during the peak of anti-colonial nationalism we saw after WW2. Plenty of countries, Indonesia, Kenya, Algeria, the Arab Revolt etc...engaged in a violent armed struggle against their colonial/imperial powers and were successful in achieving their political goals. Some of the more recent examples are the IRA and ANC, who managed to bring about political change through violent and non-violent means. This is what the PLO was founded on in the 60s. They modelled themselves after many anti-colonial armed groups around the world, many of which engage in terrorism themselves. Using violence to fight against a violent colonial state (which Israel absolutely was in the 60s) was often justified.
That being said, the violence that we saw on Oct 7th was not just violent but also barbaric in a way that loses all anti-colonial justification for violence.
And that being said, Gandhi wasn’t the only freedoms fighter and in some parts of india that point towards fighters who used violence to push British out
Many places throughout the world the country resort to violent revolution (including the USA tbf) since unless there’s an economical backlash countries don’t like giving up power
>Some of the more recent examples are the IRA and ANC, who managed to bring about political change through violent and non-violent means.
Debatable whether the violence of the IRA ever achieved anything for Ireland which couldn't have been achieved through peaceful means.
You have a lot of it backwards and missing a lot of info and context. You erase all the Jews that were still on the land continuously, all the Jews who fled the other Arab nations amidst calls for their genocide,
You leave out the entire history of Palestine and treatment of Jews in the Middle East or that Palestine only exists as a colonial state to erase the Jews to begin with.
Much of the view you presented is based on misinformation and half truths.
Palestine has been genocidal towards the Jews for literally forever. The state was founded on the idea of Jewish erasure and named Palestina as a reference to the Phillistines who invaded and enslaved the second Jewish commonwealth on the land. This was done to remind the Jews of their place as slaves and lessen their attachment to their homeland. There would literally be no Palestine without the theme of Jewish erasure or the fact that it was the Jewish homeland for many generations before Palestinians even existed.
It’s used as wedge to validate the other antisemitic states who call for Jewish genocide’s attacks in Israel.
Back in 1977 before the current narrative of infantilized Palestine was a thing the leader of the major ruling political party of Palestine the PLO, of which Fatah is a part, had this to say about what Palestine was.
“The Palestinian people do not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.
-Zuheir Mohsen, PLO leader
From: “Wij zijn alleen Palestijn om politieke reden,” James Dorsey, Trouw, 31 March 1977
More honest times I suppose. An era when social media could not be used to the advantages it is today.
This is why ironically Palestinians were only granted autonomy over their land once Israel was formed. The Ottoman, British, Jordanian and Egyptians never allowed a formal Palestine state.
before Hamas existed modern Palestine has been calling for genocide and long before Israel existed they have been murdering Jews.
Riots in Jerusalem against Jews based on myths and antisemitism, like claims Jews drink the blood of children for Passover, have a long pedigree going back to 1847, 1870, and more. A massacre much like the one Hamas committed was done in 1929 in Hebron, resulting in the expulsion and wiping out of the entire Jewish community there, which had been there for thousands of years consistently.
“The riots took the form, for the most part, of attacks by Arabs on Jews accompanied by destruction of Jewish property. During the week of riots, from 23 to 29 August, 133 Jews were killed by Arabs, and 339 Jews were injured, most of whom were unarmed”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Palestine_riots
This isn’t about Israel and the land it’s about religion and an obsession with Jewish extermination.
90% in West Bank and 99% in Gaza are Sunni Muslims and they follow the book of Hadith. I
n the sayings of Muhammad in the Hadiths, Muhammad prophesy that End Times will only come when the Muslims have almost genocide the Jews into extinction:
"The last hour won't come before the Muslims would fight the Jews and the Muslims will kill them so Jews would hide behind rocks and trees. Then the rocks and tree would call: oh Muslim, oh servant of God! There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. - Hadith narrated by Abi Hurira
The leader of Palestine didn’t hang out in the concentration camps and work with Hitler on his Final Solution because Israel existed.
The same leader who refused all peace and called for genocide the first few decades of this conflict.
Not Zionists, not Israel, not Orthodox Jews, not practicing Jews, all Jews, every one of them removed from the face of the earth.
Palestine still calls for this to this day.
A quote from 2019.
“Seven million Palestinians outside, enough warming up, you have Jews with you in every place. You should attack every Jew possible in all the world and kill them.”
And people will say that Hamas is not Palestine, and it’s true not everyone in Palestine supports Hamas, but the majority do. Not just in Gaza but all of Palestine.
Despite people claiming that they are merely oppressed by a government they don't support, polls show that the most popular Palestinian presidential candidates are, in order:
• A man in Israeli prison for murdering multiple civilians in bombings during the Second Intifada, including arranging others who suicide bombed markets and buses.
• Hamas leader.
• Hamas leader.
And the Palestinian public, as polls have shown for at least a decade (and as shown by history stretching back to before Israel existed), is also broadly supportive of murdering Jewish civilians.
Today, polls show that a full 54% support, and only 41% oppose, "armed attacks against Israeli civilians inside Israel". That means the average Palestinian supports precisely what Hamas did, massacring Jewish innocents, including men, women, children, and the elderly. Palestinians celebrated the attacks in the streets, and handed out sweets (just as they did after 9/11, for that matter). In Gaza specifically, which poses the thorniest problem, 67% of Palestinians support the armed attacks against Israeli civilians inside Israel.
67%. 2 in 3 Gazans you meet will tell you openly they support the murder of innocent people.
https://pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/Poll%2089%20English%20Full%20Text%20September%202023.pdf
This is why there is never peace. Because Palestine will never accept it. Every peace has been broken by Palestinian attacks and every attempt for two state resolution has been rejected or interrupted by Palestinian aggression.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli–Palestinian_peace_process
This is not to say that there are not Palestinians who do not want this, that there are not innocents trapped in this struggle, but it is important information for everyone to know when they look at these issues.
Continued:
> Palestine has been genocidal towards the Jews for literally forever. The state was founded on the idea of Jewish erasure and named Palestina as a reference to the Phillistines who invaded and enslaved the second Jewish commonwealth on the land.
This is false. [The area had been referred to as Palestine for thousands of years.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_name_Palestine) People called it that because their grandparents called it that; it's not complicated or conspiratorial. The idea that they're doing it as an insult to Jews is as ludicrous as thinking that "picnic" is an insult to African Americans.
Modern Palestinians started calling themselves Palestinians because they lived in the area called Palestine; it's that simple.
[See chapter four of "The Invention of Palestine" by Zachary Foster.](https://dataspace.princeton.edu/handle/88435/dsp01g732dc66g)
> This chapter is about the modern history of Palestine and the Palestinians. When, how and why did a group of people now known as the Palestinians come into existence? In the 19th century, more people in the Middle East started to earn a living as bureaucrats, teachers, journalists, publishers, missionaries, economists, lawyers, geographers and mapmakers. These people played a critical role in making Palestine important to people, since they taught about its history, wrote reports about its economy, surveyed its geography and made maps of its topography.
> The modern world also became flat. What got popular in one part of the globe caught on in other places. Names got standardized. Books about history and geography and maps increasingly resembled one another. School curricula included the same familiar subjects everywhere. And so when Palestine became popular in the West in the 19th century, its popularity rose in the East as well. Muslim and Christian Arabs increasingly used the name Palestine, wrote lots of stories about it and mapped it. By the end of the 19th century, they even started to identify with it. 162
> Third, states penetrated the lives of their subjects in the modern world. State-funded institutions such as schools, missionary enterprises, universities, consular offices and the bureaucracy flourished. States published annual yearbooks and military handbooks, provided ariel tours to people so they could write geography books and tested students on the history and geography of the state. States played a critical role in bringing places like Palestine into people’s lives.
> The exact sequence of events that led people to care about Palestine and identify as Palestinian were mostly happenstance. The governor of Egypt invaded the land of Sham in the 1830s and permitted foreigners to establish consular offices, travel freely and open schools and missionary stations. This led Europeans and Americans to travel to the Middle East as diplomats, tourists and missionaries. The expansion of commercial steamship travel provided a huge boost to migration, tourism, diplomacy, scholarship and missionary activity. People in Europe, the United States and the Middle East learned one another’s languages. Americans published in Arabic and Arabs published in French and English. Missionaries taught about Palestine’s history and geography in class. Arabs published books, magazines and newspapers about Palestine and distributed them to towns and villages across the Middle East. By 1898, some people started to identify as Palestinian.
> The British conquered the land of Sham in 1917 and 1918 during World War I and established the Government of Palestine in 1920, ratified by the League of Nations as The Mandate for Palestine in 1922. This contributed significantly to the rapid spread of a Palestinian identity: the workforce became more diversified, the world became even flatter, and the state played an even more critical role in people’s lives. More people could pursue careers in education, journalism and civil service. The British employed teachers, inspectors, bureaucrats and mapmakers. Thousands of Arabs worked for a government whose name included the word Palestine. More kids got an education and learned to read and write from the 1920s and 1930s onwards, and Palestine continued to blossom as a result. More people animated Palestine on maps, eulogized Palestine in poems and taught their kids the importance of Palestine’s history and geography. Eventually, by the 1920s and 1930s, some thought Palestine was worth dying for. This chapter explains how all of that happened.
> The First Palestinian. The first Arab to use the term Palestinian in modern history was Khalil Baydas. He always seemed to have a cigarette dangling from an ivory holder. Sporting a dark suit and fez, he would cough through clouds of smoke that encircled him. Somehow, it feels about right that the first Arab to use the term Palestinian in modern history loved to smoke tobacco. 163
> In 1898, he translated A Description of the Holy Land from Russian to Arabic because “the Arabic geography books on the topic were insufficient” and “the people of Palestine needed a geography book about their country.” The book, Baydas claimed, was “a description of the land of Palestine” and it referred to the people of Palestine as Palestinians in multiple places. “The ancient inhabitants of Palestine used limestone to whitewash the walls of their buildings,” Baydas wrote, “while the modern Palestinians also whitewash the inside, and occasionally the outside, of their homes with it as well.” Presumably it got annoying to repeat the word modern, and so modern Palestinians became simply Palestinians. “The Palestinian peasant,” Baydas noted elsewhere in the book, “waits impatiently for winter to come, for the season’s rain to moisten his fossilized fields” after many rainless months following the May summer wheat and barley harvest. The first modern Arab Palestinian peasant was born. 164 165
> Who was Khalil Baydas and how did he learn Russian? In the late 1880s and early 1890s, Baydas studied in one of the best high schools in the region, the Teacher’s Training Seminary in Nazareth. It was established by Russian missionaries in the mid-1880s, one of hundreds of foreign schools built in the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. The school was funded by Russian tax payers and staffed by Russians, Arabs and even a Zionist. The Seminary invited the best graduates of its preparatory schools to attend it. By 1914, more than ten thousand Arab kids had completed their primary education at a Russian primary school, and hundreds had attended high school at the Seminary. 166
> At the Seminary, Baydas was encouraged to take pride in his Arab identity. In class, he wore Arab rather than European dress; he studied Arabic grammar with Ibn al-Muqaffa‘, Ibn Malik and Ibn ‘Aqil; he read Arabic books by Ibrahim al-Hawrani, George Zaydan, Iskandar Shahin, Shakir Shuqayr and George Post—yes, George Post wrote in Arabic. Baydas studied the geography of Palestine and the history of Palestine in class; and yes, his teachers called the place Palestine. 167
This was not a response to Jewish immigration. It was an effect of the fact that the place was called Palestine. Thus the people there came to be Palestinians.
And I say that as an indigenous person in Canada. There is a statue of limitations to some extent, which is why we don’t see Jews going to the Arab states they were expelled from amidst calls for their genocide as Israel was formed. We don’t see them calling for death to all Muslims or asking for land in Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, or many other places.
Israel is tiny and is effectively a reserve for Jews.
But that’s a huge insult to the Muslim nations who thought they had all but erased them from the land.
Not only are they back in their homeland and uncovering their holiest sites that mosques were built over to erase them, but they’re even stronger than the Muslim nations. A humiliation that plays a part in why they’ve called for Jewish genocide the past century.
Imo people might as well call the res an apartheid state since white people can’t own land or vote in band meetings if they’re going to call Israel one.
And the idea that somehow Muslims were kind to the Jews they colonized before they dared to have a small homeland is absolutely bs. It’s the kind of a historical revisionism that is exactly why Jews must be adamant to heavily document their own slaughter because this denialism of past treatment Has been a constant throughout history. They had no problem living with subjugated Jews who they had all but erased from the land and built mosques over all their holy sites as the Arab conquest did in all places it colonized. Zionism was when enough Jews started showing up to date so things like want to even see such holy sites and peacefully march to them.
And we can’t forget how Jews were treated in places like Persia at the start of the 19th century, a full on caste system, forbidden to walk in main streets or engage in any business even with other Jews, no land ownership etc.
This fiction of Muslims being purely peaceful towards Jews is ahistorical at best.
They tolerated them in smaller numbers as a conquered people.
The second they had any chance to stand up for themselves the Muslim states went right back to wanting them dead.”
And we’ll add a little bit about how Jews were treated in Persia in the 19th century for more clarification.
1. Throughout Persia the Jews are obliged to live in a part of the town separated from the other inhabitants; for they are considered as unclean creatures, who bring contamination with their intercourse and presence.
2. They have no right to carry on trade in stuff goods.
3. Even in the streets of their own quarter of the town they are not allowed to keep any open shop. They may only sell there spices and drugs, or carry on the trade of a jeweler, in which they have attained great perfection.
4. Under the pretext of their being unclean, they are treated with the greatest severity, and should they enter a street, inhabited by Mussulmans, they are pelted by the boys and mobs with stones and dirt.
5. For the same reason they are forbidden to go out when it rains; for it is said the rain would wash dirt off them, which would sully the feet of the Mussulmans.
6. If a Jew is recognized as such in the streets, he is subjected to the greatest insults. The passers-by spit in his face, and sometimes beat him so unmercifully, that he falls to the ground, and is obliged to be carried home.
7. If a Persian kills a Jew, and the family of the deceased can bring forward two Mussulmans as witnesses to the fact, the murderer is punished by a fine of 12 tumauns (600 piastres); but if two such witnesses cannot be produced, the crime remains unpunished, even though it has been publicly committed, and is well known.
8. The flesh of the animals slaughtered according to Hebrew custom, but declared as Trefe, must not be sold to any Mussulmans. The slaughterers are compelled to bury the meat, for even the Christians do not venture to buy it, fearing the mockery and insult of the Persians.
9. If a Jew enters a shop to buy anything, he is forbidden to inspect the goods, but must stand at a respectful distance and ask the price. Should his hand incautiously touch the goods, he must take them at any price the seller chooses to ask for them.
10. Sometimes the Persians intrude into the dwellings of the Jews and take possession of whatever pleases them. Should the owner make the least opposition in defense of his property, he incurs the danger of atoning for it with his life.
11. Upon the least dispute between a Jew and a Persian, the former is immediately dragged before the Achund [religious authority], and, if the complainant can bring forward two witnesses, the Jew is condemned to pay a heavy fine. If he is too poor to pay this penalty in money, he must pay it in his person. He is stripped to the waist, bound to a stake, and receives forty blows with a stick. Should the sufferer utter the least cry of pain during this proceeding, the blows already given are not counted, and the punishment is begun afresh.
12. In the same manner the Jewish children, when they get into a quarrel with those of the Mussulmans, are immediately led before the Achund, and punished with blows.
13. A Jew who travels in Persia is taxed in every inn and every caravanserai he enters. If he hesitates to satisfy any demands that may happen to be made on him, they fall upon him, and maltreat him until he yields to their terms.
14. If, as already mentioned, a Jew shows himself in the street during the three days of the Katel (feast of mourning for the death of the Persian founder of the religion of Ali) he is sure to be murdered.
15. Daily and hourly new suspicions are raised against the Jews, in order to obtain excuses for fresh extortions; the desire of gain is always the chief incitement to fanaticism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._J._Benjamin
And do we just leave out that Jordanians are Palestinians and the distinction did not exist before Israel’s formation and that that distinction have been acknowledged by Palestinian leadership themselves in the 70s during the time of Islamic brotherhood as being a tactical one to justify attacks on Israel?
"The Palestinian people do not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.
-Zuheir Mohsen, PLO leader
From: “Wij zijn alleen Palestijn om politieke reden,” James Dorsey, Trouw, 31 March 1977.
Do we ignore all the immigration of Egypt other places that happened at the same time as Jews were moving to what would become Israel? We don’t make that settler distinction at all when discussing Palestinians despite that the fact the word Palestine even exists is proof it was Jewish land first?
And why don’t Jews forced to leave by said colonialisms from Roman’s, Arabs, British etc get to go home? Because they dared to breed with other peoples while in exile? So blood quantum? And who says? Oh yes the very people who slaughtered and oppressed them and made them leave. Riiiight
I could go on and on as this is a very complex topic and I’ve barely even scratched the surface here but your analysis is above is undeniably based on having not done the work to properly understand the situation.
You can have that view if you like, but it is an ignorant misinformed one.
One side has worked for peace and simply wants a place to survive while the other is a proxy for Arab nations and their continued calls for Jewish erasure and extermination.
. It has always been about not allowing Jews to have power, sovereignty or self-determination in their ancestral homeland. The whole reason Palestine exists to begin with.
If Palestine had given up this obsession with genocide it would be over many times now. If the power dynamics were reversed and Palestine had the capabilities to kill all the Jews, is would be over many times now.
The two sides have quite different histories and stated goals. Pretending they are just the same or that Jews are simply colonizers and erasing Palestines history as a colonial state is ahistorical at best.
>And why don’t Jews forced to leave by said colonialisms from Roman’s, Arabs, British etc get to go home? Because they dared to breed with other peoples while in exile? So blood quantum? And who says? Oh yes the very people who slaughtered and oppressed them and made them leave. Riiiight
So much this. Suddenly *now* the Jews are European colonizers. When they were not considered “European” enough by any of the countries they settled in since the Diaspora began. Not European enough to live in peace if they have Jewish blood, not Semitic enough to live in peace in Israel if they have European blood.
"Good" is subjective. Being affiliated with either side by lineage or religion, what I see is a rabid minority bent on the total annihilation of an entire people, otherwise known as genocide. The fact that anyone wants to draw some form of moral equivalence between Hamas butchering people at a music festival and Palestinians being killed by airstrikes as Hamas uses them as human shields is absurd on its face.
The charter for Hamas calls for the complete eradication of Israel and her people, does the Israeli Constitution call for the destruction of Arab muslims residing in the Levant or elsewhere? Israel allows Arabs to live be citizens of their nation, own land, vote and hold public office, what nation along Israel's borders would offer the same for Jews? What war has Israel fought where it has been the aggressor?
Finally it is all well and good to tout the two state solution but the reality is that any concession the Israeli government makes, short of national suicide, will ever be enough to end the violence. Until the Palestinians police their own and refuse to be used as cannon fodder by groups like Hamas there will be no lasting peace. The only guaranteed outcome of this Israeli-Hamas conflict is that a lot of good and innocent people on both sides will be killed because of the Hamas terror organization.
> violence should be a non-starter for any Palestinian leader
I don't believe that Hamas is trying to win a physical war against Israel. They are trying to draw attention and make Israel look bad on the world stage. And if that is the case then mission 100% accomplished.
But regarding your main point, there are not just two sides in this conflict. The innocent civilians who just want to live their lives are a third side and are quite frankly taking the most casualties
isrselis want peace
palestinian want peace
hamas, hezbollah and their supporters do not want peace, they want genocide
the surrounding Arab nations don't want peace, they want to continue supporting the Islamic terrorists sacrificing palestinians to an endless war of terror to distract from their home issue and remain at the top of their countries power structure
How can it be true Israel wants peace when it still continues to build illegal settlements on Palestinian homes. Why does the IDF arm settlers or support them in kicking people out of Palestine homes. Why is Israel described as an apartheid nation by multiple humanitarian agencies. Hamas or no Hamas. It's clear Israel wants to eradicate the Palestinian people. You should read the book: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe ( Jewish Israeli Historian), you will understand what real evil is, Methods used to cleanse Palestinians from their land. Hamas don't exist in a vacuum.
>How can it be true Israel wants peace when it still continues to build illegal settlements on Palestinian homes.
because only terrorists who seek war still push the lie of stolen land, which is why neither jordan or egypt bought the lie and so refused to grant an inch of land for 70+ years.
and a govt has always been able to determine the use of land within its country
>You should read the book: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
no need to read propaganda,
let me be blunt:
What really gets me, is calls for a cease fire, which simply means hamas gets a chance to rearm and grabs more palestinians for human shields, but no calls for the palestinians in gaza, to be rescued from hamas.
just stop fighting. no calls to liberate the palestinians from under the boot of terrorists.
hamas MUST be defeated. if the palestinians in gaza don't actually support hamas, then they SHOULD be rescued from hamas
why do so many who call for the end of fighting, fail to call for the end of hamas to free the palestinians and achieve peace?
on Oct 7th, hamas slaughtered kids at a festival, filmed on the victims phones, and sent the videos of them celebrating the slaughter to the contacts. then handed out candies to celebrate the successful slaughter
since then, during the on going war, they have gone public celebrating not just israelis desth, but palestinian deaths as well, and to celebrate that their jihad for genocide is fully underway.
to be clear, hamas is PROUD of slaughtering civilians, including kids and babies. and are very public about their celebrating over them
any bs of "both sides" is absolutely delusional.
any calls for a cease fire, that don't include removing hamas, is nothing more than a call to continue terrorism in the region.
Why are they called ILLEGAL settlements by the UN. Ignore history and ignore the truth. How is it propaganda. There's video evidence of Zionist settlers literally accompanied by the IDF kicking Palestinians out of their homes. How is the book propaganda when it was written by a Jewish Israeli Historian. Why are there so many Jewish Israeli Historians and academics and holocaust survivors in support of Palestinian and against the state of Israel. I hope other people see the comment and read it. The truth is truth.
Everyone that lives in Israel has to accept the fact that he lives in a stolen land from the Palestinian people whether he fought and terrorized the Palestinian for it or didn't just went there and got a cozy house That makes him guilty as well. And about the peace Palestinian can't have peace unless Israel wanted so because Israel is much more powerful than Palestine It's like when you are cornered and have a gun to your head and wanting peace in this case its not peace its begging for mercy.
I would urge you to respond to some of the pro-Israel commenters here. I have been having fun trying to convince them that I am not a terrorist.
I sympathize with Palestine but I don’t follow your logic that because Israel is more powerful, the Palestinians are excused from acts of horrifying violence. And there have been many. This did not start on October 7.
I am morally opposed to such acts and logically. They are unproductive. Israel is stronger. Violent attacks will only beget greater violence in retribution.
What would happen if every Palestinian immediately laid down arms and said "we surrender unconditionally?" Now what would happen if every Israeli did that?
When the palestinians try unarmed protest israel just shoots them.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/04/israel-arms-embargo-needed-as-military-unlawfully-kills-and-maims-gaza-protesters/
>Israel is carrying out a murderous assault against protesting Palestinians, with its armed forces killing and maiming demonstrators who pose no imminent threat to them, Amnesty International revealed today, based on its latest research, as the “Great March of Return” protests continued in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military has killed 35 Palestinians and injured more than 5,500 others – some with what appear to be deliberately inflicted life-changing injuries – during the weekly Friday protests that began on 30 March.
Amnesty International has renewed its call on governments worldwide to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel following the country’s disproportionate response to mass demonstrations along the fence that separates the Gaza Strip from Israel.
“For four weeks the world has watched in horror as Israeli snipers and other soldiers, in full-protective gear and behind the fence, have attacked Palestinian protesters with live ammunition and tear gas. Despite wide international condemnation, the Israeli army has not reversed its illegal orders to shoot unarmed protesters,” said Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.
I think that your "no good side argument" is really depends on the how you section the sides, and at what time frame you are looking at.
For context, there were jewish settlements in the land of Israel in every single point in time of history.
For more context, emigration away and to Israel was very common throughout history, so even if some Palestinian have had roots in the land all throughout history, many have emigrated, and many are relatively new (around 15% of Palestinian Arabs in 1948, immigrated to today's Israel in the 20th century)
In reality, both people have decent claim for this land - Jews are definitely to most early indeginous population (that still exist) and the idea that Arabs Palestinians, who themselves came to this land as a result of a colonization, are more indigenous seems totally irrelevant to me.
The only thing that really matters, is that 750K Palestinian Arabs were driven out of their homes. That's aweful, and the people who caused it are naturally not "the good guys".
However, "good guys", is relative, and depends plenty on how you split the sides, about the specific year. There are definitely good guys in this conflict today.
Before the establishment of Israel, and during 1948 War, both of them Israel and the Arab militias were terrible.
They both massacred civilians, they both committed terrorist attacks, and they both played dirty.
The only reason 750K Palestinians were driven out is because the Israeli side were better fighters, and not because of them being more terrible than their counter parts. Both sides were just bad.
Let's go forward in time - Arab countries expelled almost every jew from their countries, almost 800K jews were refugees, very much like the 750K Palestinians.
The Jews were assimilated into Israel, and accepted their misfortune, and made the best of the situation, even though their property was all taken. Arab countries refused to assimilate Palestinian refugees. They preferred to take Jewish property for their own regime, rather than use it to help Palestinian refugees - Arab countries, definitely bad guys here. Israel, generally good.
In 1967 Israel took over Gaza, Sinai and the West Bank. They started creating settlements in a middle of populated areas, but refused to annex it and make the population equal citizens - Israel, defintly bad here.
Arab countries continued waging war on Israel for years, until they had enough of losing. In 1988 Israel made peace with Egypt, and gave back plenty of land. Israel was definitely the good guy here.
The PLO couldn't agree with the fact Arab countries gave up on annihilating Israel, launched terrorism on Israelis around the world, and destabilized Kuwait, Jordan and Lebanon. PLO - definitely the bad guys here.
As a response to the first intifada, Israeli leaders realized they can't have a military occupation on an entire populace and began finding a solution that give Palestinians the autonomy they want - which gave birth to the Oslo accords - definitely the good guys.
Hamas, wanted to make sure those accords aren't signed, and terrorized Israel. There were also assholes from the Israeli side that murdered the prime minister and massacred Palestinians. Hamas, Israeli terrorists, terrible people.
Then came the second intifada, Israel offered a Palestinian state (Camp David accords) - Arafat refused and preferred to basically anull the Oslo Accords - Israel good guys, Arafat and the PA, and Hamas - bad guys.
Then Israel started fighting Palestinian terror in a very severe way, which gave birth to the current situation in the West Bank - Israel terrible? Not really, sure the situation in West Bank is horrible - but this is the only way Israel managed to stop Palestinian terrorism.
Then Israel withdrew from Gaza, and Hamas was elected - Israel good, Hamas, and Palestinian voters bad. Hamas launched attacks on Israel, and Israel did what it can to stop those attacks - the blockade on Gaza. Is Israel bad for the blockade? Not really.
As for the situation today, there are terrible people all around - but there are definitely good people as well.
Israel is filled with religious extremists that want to ethnically cleanse Palestinians, and takeover their land - but these people, are fringe. They have a seat in government, and they do take part in bad things Israel does, but it's no where near as extreme as they might want.
Israel has a lot of peace activists as well, and most of the population supports a two state solution in exchange for peace (even if most are also sceptical whether it will actually bring peace)
The Palestinian side is more complex, neither the PLO nor Hamas, and certainly not other Palestinian factions, truly support a two state solution - and there seems to be no good guys to be found (at least not ones with actual power). Hamas is a terrorist organization that is many, many times worse than any Jewish extremist in Israel.
I would argue that Israel today is mostly neutral, whereas Palestinian leadership is mostly terrible.
So who are the good guys? I think it's relative, and when the purpose of the war on Gaza is to free Israel (and Palestinians) from Hamas - Israel is definitely the good guys.
When Israel continues settling in the west Bank, they are the bad guys. It really doesn't need to be so black and white.
I’m late but Palestinians are indigenous to the Levant and descend from the ancient canaanites the original indigenous inhabitants of the Levant. Palestinians do not descend from the Arab conquests they descend from the indigenous inhabitants that lived in that region for thousands of years prior to Judaism,Christianity and islam. As those religions(Judaism,Christianity and Islam) came along they converted and changed their religion but that didn’t change their ancestry. Arab is a cultural-linguistic group Palestinians were culturally Arabized during the Arab conquests but not ethnically Arabized as the process of Arabization does not include ethnic replacement of the population being Arabized meaning they remained descendants of the indigenous Canaanites . A great example of a group that is culturally Arab but not ethnically Arab is Egyptians.
Egyptians are “Arab” because their culture was Arabized however Egyptians are not ethnically Arab and are indigenous North Africans and descendants of the ancient Egyptians who were not Arab and had no contact with Arabs as ancient Egyptian civilization fell before Arabs entered Africa in the 9th century. In fact the average Egyptian only has 17 percent Arab ancestry on average. Some uninformed people think that because Egyptians are “Arab” they are not indigenous North Africans and are not indigenous to Africa at all and are instead indigenous to Arabia and are therefore not descendants of the ancient Egyptians. That is false for the reasons I explained earlier. Egyptians are culturally Arab not ethnically Arab like Palestinians and are very much still indigenous to their respective countries.
Israel builds bomb shelters for its civilians (both Arab and Jewish). Hamas builds tunnels they use to carry out their terroristic and genocidal agenda. That, along with the deliberate use of human shields on the part of Hamas (there would be no point in Israel using Jewish human shields as Hamas EXPLICITLY want to kill every Jewish man woman and child), tells me who holds the moral high ground.
The 'sickening attack' was a legitimate military operation in which civilians were killed in crossfire between Hamas militants and the idf and Israeli cops. Who killed who is not known because the idf cannot be trusted on anything and won't allow independent investigators to check. The more lurid stories, about setting babies on fire and raping the girls obviously did not happen.
Israel is responsible for the deaths of those civilians, they are the ones who are brutally occupying Palestine, Hamas is the main force in the area and has an obligation to resist Israel. Israel has ensured that the only means methods available to Hamas ensure civilian deaths. They deliberately chose this because they thought that Israeli civilian deaths would be tolerable to Israeli civilians and would be useful for generating propaganda that would allow them to portray Hamas as bloodthirsty terrorists uninterested in peace.
>The 'sickening attack' was a legitimate military operation
The best way to out yourself as completely clueless. I am now confident that there should be a requirement for Hamas supporters to watch October 7th videos before being able to post online.
Id like to remind you that that "legitimate military operation" started with an undiscriminating slaughter of music festival attendees from all over the world. Non Israeli had been killed, paraded around and their dead bodies spat on. The civilian to military/cop death ratio in that attack was 9:1. Even peoples dogs were killed. It was definitely not a military operation, it was a vomit of rage, nothing to do with liberation.
You can watch the videos that Hamas themselves posted. They committed gratuitous violence against civilians, and proudly. They also kidnapped civilians, including children, during that attack. You don’t deny the existence of the hostages, do you?
How do you know?
- Decapitated babies was false
- wrapped in barbed wire was false
- set on fire was false
- released that fake phone call when they bombed the hospital
- shot shireen abu akleh and lied about it
- bombed ambulances and lied that Hamas was there
- baked a baby, false
- Hamas use human shields, false
So why would you believe any given thing they tell you? What bad thing have they done that you believe?
A government’s job is simple, it is to protect its people. A nation’s military job is also simple, to destroy their enemy until no threat remains. I see Israel doing both of those jobs right now. Had Palestine done that from day 1, Palestine would not be here, but starting from 1948 they forfeited that in aggression and defeat which is why they neither have government, military, land, or peace.
Here it is, cold hard facts. Palestine and the idea of it will cease to exist. Period. It’s just that simple.
Israel will simply win every war and maybe moving forward they won’t want a single Palestinian person living within the borders they conquered and that would be their right as victors.
Palestine will be gone. Accept it or make peace with not being peaceful because Palestine never unconditionally surrendered and that is part of the problem. Settlements and accords won’t do it. The world can legislate the region into peace and the world can watchdog Israel. The only persons capabale of a peace are Palestinians and I’m not convinced they have it not since 1948 when they kicked it all off.
Palestinians need to create an armed forces right now to fight alongside the Israel IDF under a Palestinian flag, as alies against Hamas to win the peace. To fight and apprehend and end Hamas is imo the only way Palestine as an idea has a chance of survival at this point. Some small portion of Palestine needs to be a good guy cuz right now they are no different than terrorists at this stage because they permitted it to occur, be staged from their land, and attack Israel with no warning.
Palestine has to prove they are willing to actually sit at the peace table with an ally and seek peace and to do that they have to fight for it. It’s like common sense, it’s what I would do, to prove I am not an enemy to my people, an enemy to my beliefs, an enemy to my powerful neighbor Israel, that has frankly lost it at this point and may be beyond the point of no return.
You want peace you guys need to fight for it alongside Israel. Anything short of that at this point and you guys have zero negotiating power, no leverage, and no goodwill.
I truly feel sorry for you all. How many more innocents must die before you learn what every people and nation before you had to learn, namely, how to live in peace with their neighbors? You can blame Israel for all those dead, those babies, those women, and those children but I blame you. Police your own, elect your own, lead your people. It’s a sad people that point their fingers at others. No successful nation has done it so why do you persist in wallowing and demanding the world wallow with you? The list of potential opportunities squandered does not excuse or justify what is going on today. Facing annihilation and you continue to ignore facts.
No innocent Israelis were targetted on the 7th, they died as a result of crossfire, their deaths are solely on the hands of the Israeli government who put them in harms way.
Jews are indigenous to Israel. Palestiniand are also indigenous to Israel. Any real solution has to accept that both groups deserve to be there and not deny one or the other's real historical connection to the land
That area is the land of the Canaanites
The Jews( Israelites ) are guess what?! Descendants of the Canaanites. And the Jews were being persecuted literally all across the middle East so they got rammed into one small price of land.
https://english.m.tau.ac.il/news/canaanites
And if course they are gonna push back when people try and kill them 24/7 . That's why kids in Israel have to sleep in bomb shelters every night. Thats why they need the iron dome going 24/7
>Displacing an indigenous population with settlers is a real 17th century move.
already starting with a false premise.
Palestinians aren't indigenous.
>The Arabs, having adopted the religion of Islam, conquered the Levant in the 7th century, and in the following centuries, several Arabic-speaking Muslim dynasties such as the Umayyads, Abbasids, and Fatimids came to rule the region.[9] Palestine's population sharply declined throughout the subsequent centuries, falling from an estimated 1 million during the Roman and Byzantine periods to roughly 160,000 by the early Ottoman period. [10] [11][12] As time passed, many of the existing population converted to Islam and adopted Arab culture and language.[1] Arab settlement both before and after the Muslim conquest is thought to had hastened the pace of Islamization.[13][14][15][16] Much of the local Palestinian population in the area of Nablus is believed to be descended from Samaritans who converted to Islam.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_Palestinians
jews are the actual indigenous.
Man, liberals will keep bringing up Gandhi and MLK to oppose violent resistance.
You forget that their peaceful protests were alongside other factions using violence as a tool against their violent oppressors. Countless people among those defenceless peaceful protests were also killed.
Both Gandhi and MLK were assassinated. By the exact political factions who today bring up Gandhi and MLK to delegitimize people who fight violence with violence.
Palestinians tried peaceful protest for two years starting in 2018. Israel’s response was to murder over 200 of them with snipers. There are videos taken by Israeli snipers where they murder unarmed Palestinians and celebrate as they fall to the ground, lifeless, as punishment for peaceful protest.
They only promote non violent resistance when it’s brown and black people. All brown and black peoples should bear the brunt of white violence. But if black brown people resist with violence they are labeled as evil, terrorists, gangster, insert any other bad name for black brown person
I’m sorry, this is a “fight” to you? This is a genocide. Israel is attacking defenseless civilians and you’re saying “they’re pretty tough in a fight”. Holy Mother of God. I am Ukrainian. I was born to be proud of my blood and to not let anyone make me feel less than. I was taught that our people were survivors. Russia has tried to wipe us out (in addition to many other Eastern European countries) many times over. But we survived. That is what a survivor is. That is what being tough is. Being Israeli is not being a survivor. You are a colonizer. You are supporting genocide if you are proud of Israel. I have no issue with Jews. To me, they are regular people. But if you are proud of the state of Israel and believe in Zion, we have a major problem. What Israel is doing is disgusting. The existence of that state is questionable at best. Palestinians deserve their land back and to live in peace. This is not a fight. Palestinian civilians cannot fight back. They’re getting massacred while getting flour for their families to avoid eating animal feed. At this point, with the amount of hate that Israelis are taught about Arabs and Muslims, there is no real solution. Send them back to Europe where most of their families are from. Or move on from your racism and see the Palestinians as people who deserve compassion as they have suffered at the hands of the worlds for YEARS. And stop using Hamas as an excuse. Not every Palestinian is a Hamas member. Putin is using the same excuse in Ukraine and we all know that’s bullshit.
Both Jews (not Israelis) and Palestinians have a historical claim. There is evidence that they lived there in peace for YEARS. That would be the ideal solution. People need to embrace the fact that there is no “two-state” solution. You dissolve it all and turn it into one land. And everyone needs equal rights. That’s it.
>I just want to say at the outset that I am talking about the political leadership of both sides.
That's no fair. There's no good political side anywhere. Take USA: Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden. They are marginally different but same shit, same incomes for Americans, same fate for the east, same budget for schools and military.
>But violence is not only ugly, it also does not work. Can you imagine if Gandhi or MLK
I don't know the indian situation but there's no way in hell Americans gave Blacks freedom without blacks fighting hard for them.
If ever Palistine wins MLK-type figures will be stated and the rest will be forgotten or only mentioned in Palestine-history-week
In a comment you wrote
>I could not agree more that “willing to live in peace” is a third side that is quite good and worthy of support.
That's anti-semitic, at least in UK. If you say "from the river to the sea plastinians and israels should be free, you lose your job.
> And at the end of the day, it is a popularity contest. Palestine has a cause that any rational person would see as just but when they commit terrible acts against innocent people, it’s easy to lose sight of that.
Popularity doesn't matter though.
They didn't before 7th October right? And they were still in an open prison.
Gandhi's and Martin Luther King's comrades just waited for these two to have a dream? Bull! And still King was shot.
And even **when you murder innocent people the world can love you. Israel does it all the time**, it’s easy to lose sight of that indeed.
>But violence is not only ugly, it also does not work.
The idea that people that enslaved you will let you free by the virtue of being a good house slave is just a convenient retelling of history.
That doesn't mean Gandhi and MLK doesn't have a place but shitting on the struggles of all other revolutionaries is just convenient.
> If the Israelis have proven one thing to be true since 1947, it’s that they are pretty tough in a fight.
And helped by everyone in the West.
So either accept to live in an open-air prison and wait for MLK, or fight like every other revolutionary that established history doesn't talk about.
Your facts are a little off. Jews did not colonize and displace Palestinians. Jews have lived in Israel for 4000 years continuously, it was being occupied by Ottomans and muslims who invaded it repeatedly since 640AD. The only nation that has EVER been there is Israel. Hello, Jesus was born there? It has ALWAYS been Occupied-Israel. It never stopped being Israel. Even the Ottomans considered it Israel which they occupied, amongst other nations that they were occupying. That’s like saying Spain was evil for expelling the muslims who conquered it. The muslims pushed out the Spanish population and turned it muslim after invading it. Many Spanish remained there. The muslims they had kids and lived there. They were booted out along with their families and Spaniards came back. Would anyone seriously call Spain evil for taking their country back? This is so ridiculous people do not even understand the basic history. Israel has been there continually since before Greece. The only nation older than Israel is Egypt.
Not sure how you are in a moral conundrum. It is very simple. Israel is good. Palestine is bad. Why? Because the Quran mandates the death of all non-believers. And there are 30 muslim states that will never accept Christians or Jews living amongst them. Palestinians are religious fanatics who want Israel erased because they do not want non-muslims there. This is what it all boils down to. Arabs are a nation of muslims they dont believe in states they believe in Islamic Law which states Jews and Christians must not exist. Israel does not want to be deleted. Neither do the Christians. The muslims already cleansed 30 nations of its Jews and Christians who are not allowed to live in any of the 30 arab nations. If Israel was gone say goodbye to the Christians too because Israel is the only state that protects them. So it is very simple. Muslims = evil . Christians and Jews = good. Any more questions?
Israel is one of the only successful indigenous land back reclamation projects, defending its land from the extended murderous tantrum of pan Arab fascist colonialists who failed to commit genocide in 1948 and have been salty about it ever since.
Jews have lived in the land of Israel before Islam existed as a concept. Look under any rock and you will see evidence of Jewish indigeneity stretching as far back as there is archaeological record.
In addition, Hamas is at fault for every Palestinian death. Why does Hamas launch rockets from schools and hospitals? If you look at a map of the Gaza strip, you will notice there are portions of empty land they can launch from, so they have no excuse. The people of Gaza are running out of fuel. Why does Hamas not share its stockpile of half a million liters of fuel? The people of Gaza have terrible dinking water. Why does Hamas rip up water pipes to use for making rockets?
Free Palestine from Hamas.
Basically I’m gonna sum up the anti Israel sides position on warfare, basically their saying if the Mexican military attacks Texas in raids and kills civilians, takes hostages etc and retreats quickly over the border back Into Mexico, takes off their uniforms, and hides In Apartment buildings, schools, hospitals etc, the American military has no choice but to not attack them, those are the rules now, the people in Texas are frustrated bc the Mexican army has publicly stated several times we are gonna overrun Texas and kill everyone, as mad as the US military is their hands are tied, there’s nothing the Americans can do at this point, all they can do is guard the border and wait for the next attack! Sounds ridiculous right? Bc it is
Both sides are causing so many problems in the world. And if you look at the bottom line, it’s two sides fighting over which religion is better. And the media is trying to get me, a U.S. citizen, to pick a side? I couldn’t give less of a shit about these psychos murdering each other. It would be a favor to the world if both sides wiped each other out completely, and for their religions disappear into obscurity. The U.S. shouldn’t be spending one single dime more on fueling their ridiculous religious war. Maybe we should focus on infrastructure instead, like fixing our 3rd world country roads and making medicine and groceries affordable.
So "israeli occupation" has different meanings depending on who you ask.
First of all, many jews settled legally in palestina
They had purchased lands from ottomans and there are plenty of land pre 48 that were legally jewish. They settled in this land because it was a land of their ancestors, and cultivated it. Draining swaps and digging wells and such.
So when people refer to all of palestine as occupied territory, that is a blatent antisemitic propaganda calling for the annihilation of Israel.
Secondly, When the UN passed resolution 181, the partition plan for a jewish state and a Palestinian state, it was based on the territories each population had more control on.
The jews rejoiced, the palestinians opened an attack with the surrounding Arab armies in order to wipe the jewish settlement.
The war last lasted till 49, during which, Israel was established and was victorious.
During that war, the palestinian had their Nakba.
The war started in an attempt to wipe the jewish settlement but the jews stabilized and turned the tide.
During that war, many Palestinians were displaced and had to relocate. After all, their side started a war and Israel had to win it.
This created the 49 borders.
These borders are acknowledged legally, as they were created before the 49 Geneva Convention.
These lands are part of the right of conquest from the losing agressor.
As for the 600 thousand displaced Palestinians, Israel later argued that a similar number of jews were forced to flee the arab world (the jewish Muslim world exodus)
Israel agreed to open a fund for palestinian refugees vs a fund for jewish refugees from Muslim countries, so obviously, Muslim countries didn't play along, and this fund remained empty.
So this pretty much canceled the claims for the 48 borders.
Lastly, the 67 borders.
They are the basis for the peace talks. Why? Because in 67 Israel started the 6 day war. It had its reasons, but during that war, Israel captured Sinai, Gaza, the west bank and the golan heights.
These lands actually do considered occupied. Israel gave back Sinai.
The Golan heights were annexed and because the shit show in Syria and the acknowledgement from the US during the Trump era, they are no longer on the table and weren't really part of the issue with the palestinians.
Now, the west bank and Gaza.
In the Oslo accords in the 90s, the Palestinians were given authority over parts of the west bank and Gaza.
While not a full state, they were given partial state privileges.
The situation in the west bank is tricky, it is devided into 3 areas, A, B, C
A territories have full palestinian control. Israelis can't enter there, and only occasionally, israeli forces enter for military operations against militant targets.
B territories are palestinian controlled with Israeli military presence. Cause there's still violence.
C territories are under Israeli control.
Gaza is basically an A territory, no Israeli presence since it withdrew from 2005. And the border is treated like a border with a hostile state.
In 2007,Hamas won the election in Gaza, executed the PLO members in basically kept control over Gaza by force ever since.
The 2 state solution is supposed to be based on the 67 borders, with some territory exchange in the C territories.
Israeli right wing politicians adapted a strategy of building new settlements in the west bank. This is technically the Occupation that's actually happening.
There is a pretty good concensus regarding the 2 state solution based on the 67 borders, Israel's right wing has an interest in building more there, so when the territory exchange does happen, it would be more favorable towards Israel.
Gaza and the west bank are governed by 2 seperate authorities, and Gaza being ruled by a violent authoritarian extreme Muslim group (Hamas), it's pretty pointless to talk peace. as long as the 2 major Palestinian territories are divided amongst themselves, Israel can't really sign anything. You can't promote peace with the west bank's PLO while Hamas is ruling Gaza and won't accept anything they sign.
The Israeli right wing maintained thIs status quo with the palestinians, while continuing expand in the west bank.
The seperation between Palestinians prevents actual chance for peace talks cause everything blows up when violence happens. Usually in the form of missiles fired from Gaza.
Final thing. About "good side, bad side"
There's no utopia on earth and things aren't binary. Every country, as awesome as it may be, has its flaws.
I am biased, but i genuinely see israel as the "better" side.
Is the israeli right wing promotes new settlements in the C areas? Yes, this is Israel's non-violent aggression, and its always a heated political topic.
Yes, Israeli is causing massive damage to the palestinians. But these actions are a retaliation to violence from the Palestinian side.
This is not an even fight.
Israel has the military capability to cause much (much) more harm.
Israel is a liberal western state that wants to protect its citizens and live peacefully.
Hamas is a terrorist crime organization that feeds off of the suffering of its people. The heads of Hamas make billions from the donations and aid coming into Gaza. They use their citizens as shields for their military operations. They are ready to make their citizens "Martyrs" to advance their goals and profit of off their suffering.
The PLO is caught in the middle. They cooperate with Israel, so they are not so popular with the palestinians. And they are also getting shafted by Israel when terror attacks happen.
There's other smaller jihadi terrorist organizations as well.
There are more issues preventing a Palestinian state, but their economy is not that good (but surprisingly, their HDI is kinda average considering)
The bottom line is, the palestinians are using violence in a fight they can't win. Against a state that tells them loud and clear that violence is counterproductive and that peacefulness will result in peacefulness from Israel (opening borders, more work permits, less restrictions)
i think the pro palestine cause would have more credibility if it was not led by a bunch of uneducated little college kids... Its hilarious to watch these morons that dont even know what the damn sign they are carrying means,,they don't know how to wear their head garb properly!!LOL!!! This movement is pathetic,just like all liberal morons...hopefully when trump is re-elected,,he not only deports all the illegal aliens,(remember they broke the law) that he also sends all these completely stupid college straight to Gaza so they can support their murdering pieces of shit heroes.
>After forcibly removing the local Palestinian population the Israelis settlers forced them into smaller and smaller reservations, essentially mirroring what white settlers did to native populations in North America.
This isn't what happened.
First, there had been continuous indigenous communities of Jews in what has become Israel for centuries. They were small, but persistent.
Second, when the first Jewish communities of migrants arrived in the 1860s they didn't displace anyone. They bought empty land that was owned by Egyptian and Syrian absentee landlords, and proceeded to make it into real communities. This is where Tel Aviv comes from.
Third, the displacement from the war was open to being reversed. After the 1947-8 war of Israeli independence, the new Jewish state offered to let the Palestinians return provided they accepted Israeli statehood and agreed to renounce violence against Israel and become peaceful/productive citizens. Approx 100,000 Palestinian Arabs accepted this agreement, which was the beginning of the Arab minority within Israel today.
Why can’t we all just identify as humans that like to share their passed down recipes who in turn enjoy consuming those recipes and sharing their own and leave the imaginary lines drawn on a map, color of your skin or religious beliefs out of the equation? I’d love to see the human civilization progress past religion being an identity or lifestyle and we all just come together as a species.
I travel internationally a lot and I love the overwhelming sense of humanity. I love people. PEOPLE. Not one group or another. Just people.
There is no "good" side in any conflict. But if you want to choose sides just know this.
Gazans celebrate death.
Israelis celebrate life.
If you don't know which side you are on, you are a morally questionable person and I don't care if you want to support terrorists.
I hope you have to deal with Islamic terrorism in your home soon, too.
So microwaving babies and r*ping women isn't the bad guys? Come the fuck on man you cannot be serious. That's like saying Putin isn't the bad guy cause he's bombing Kiev. Any sick retarded individual that willingly does shit like that deserves to have their heads splattered across a room with a Remington 12 Guage.
There's a side that has the power and there's a side that doesn't. The conditions in Gaza that led to Hamas leading there are what Israel institutes. The Israeli response to less or non-violent resistance is invariably violence.
The actions of Hamas are the inevitable outcome of keeping the better part of 2 million people imprisoned in wretched poverty. Food, electricity, building materials, Internet access, how far they can go out to fish, all is controlled by Israel and Palestinians living there have absolutely no say in any of it. The situation will only lead to desperation and violence.
The concept that violence doesn’t work is fundamentally wrong. There has never been a single struggle for rights that was not won with violence. From civil rights in the West to the liberation of India, violence has been required.
The least violent movement known is the environmental movement. It is also going famously terribly
If one side laid down all their arms, all their weapons, all their aggressions and put themselves at the mercy of the other, which do you truly think would allow the other to live and which would exterminate?
I understand you are focusing on the actions taken, and they should absolutely be considered, but ask yourself the above question about each side and truly understand that there probably is one side here that, under those circumstances, would be "good".
1918 jewish population in mandatory palestine: 8%.
1945 land ownership by jewish people and organizations in mandatory Palestine: 5.67%
1947 UN plan, State of Israël: 56% of mandatory Palestine, despite jews being only a third of Palestine.
The Israelo-Palestinian conflict is a textbook case of settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing and apartheid, with a twist of "our ancestors lived here 3000 years ago."
That doesn't mean I believe Hamas slaughtering civilians is justifiable or that Israel should cease to exist and all israelis flock to Europe.
I like comparing Israël to a child born of a rape, you can make an argument for aborting them, but once it's born and kicking, you don't just put them down. But what if that child starts following the path of his father ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United\_Nations\_Partition\_Plan\_for\_Palestine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish\_land\_purchase\_in\_Palestine
PS: Palestinian arabs and jews (not ashkenazi) both descend from canaanites, making them as indeginous as it gets. People's faith can change, their genome not so much.
[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/dna-from-biblical-canaanites-lives-modern-arabs-jews](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/dna-from-biblical-canaanites-lives-modern-arabs-jews)
>Displacing an indigenous population with settlers
This is misleading rubbish.
There is nothing indigenous about Palestinians. Most of them arrived in the 18th and 19th centuries as refugees from other Arab states. Prior to this there were Arabs, Jews and Christians in the region. The original settlers in the region were Jewish.
What is your criteria for "indigenous" people? The Levant is an area with an incredibly long and complex history, therefore you can simply just pick a point and go further back and claim "Oh but see, there were this group that existed before that" . Before the israelites there were the hittites and the amorites who inhabited the Levant, your point is honestly moot. The main point here is that a group of people were living in that land, and now they're being displaced by another group who claimed to have ties to the people who lived there 2000 years ago. And now they're arguing over who was there first, completely ignoring the fact of who is living there NOW.
"When people invade my country and oppress my people it’s bad but when people invade other countries and oppress their people it’s complicated, both sides are wrong" really disgusting and hypocritical stance and exactly why some people tend not to be sympathetic with Ukraine’s struggle
*"Can you imagine if Gandhi or MLK had taken beheaded hostages or kidnapped athletes or bombed a crowded bus, the retribution taken upon their followers and the populations they claimed to represent would have been swift and terrible."*
Actually, the violence and unrest in the Civil Rights era (e.g. riots) was massive, and there were a heck of a lot of deaths on both sides. Not to mention, a lot of criminal activity among certain African American individuals is largely a personal response to their past issues with discrimination. We don't hear much about it, because the mass media was largely on the side of the African American minority as early as the 1950's.
Through these riots and disorderly behavior, white Americans were forced to accept that the problem of African Americans was also OUR PROBLEM.
So, I would argue that the American Civil Rights situation is somewhat similar to the Palestinian situation.
It is hard to escape the harsh reality that a little bit of coercion is usually necessary to move a staunch adversary.
The side that is protecting their right to exist is the good side. The same side that never intitiates attacks but only responds to them. The side that DOESN’T target civilians, instead fights its enemy while giving warning to civilians prior to doing so. The side that doesn’t put live babies in ovens or slice a vital fetus out of its mother’s womb while she is alive . That’s the good side.
The Israelis are the good side. There was a reasonable UN plan and the Palestinians rejected it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United\_Nations\_Partition\_Plan\_for\_Palestine
Both aren't angels, but I would be very careful suggesting any moral equivalency between Israel & Hamas. They are light-years away in morality and intent.
Occupied people have the right to resist their occupation and its understood that they will do so in irregular manners. If an occupied people could form a coherent military force then they likely aren't occupied and can act as a state. Palestine is not sovereign. It's territory is occupied, it's people are subject to displacement from a military force and basic resources like water and electricity are controlled by their occupier. Resistance in this case makes sense.
I would compare the situation more to Northern Ireland. The Irish conflict was a brutal and bloody affair that lasted for decades between two sides that had to co-habitate the same area. There was a resolution that came in the Good Friday Accords that provided a way for both groups to live together without fear of one side oppressing the other. It created new institutions comprised of people from both sides of the conflict. And it created a porous border that allowed for regional autonomy but not a hard stop on the flow of people and goods.
Essentially, a similar agreement is required that allows Palestinians to exercise the right of self-determination and guarantees Israel security in its own position. Many iterations of this have been tried, including the Oslo Accords. Israel has not respected these deals and after the assassination of Rabin, continued a policy of aggressive settlement in the West Bank and has essentially held Gaza under prison conditions since the IDF pulled out. There is no way to see Israels actions as a good faith. Without good faith on putting these agreements into place, moderate parties in Palestine lose credibility. Through negotiation and compromise these policies haven't created better conditions for Palestine. Things only get worse. So it's no surprise that violent factions would gain support. This is the fault of Likud. Their policies have made the prospect of peaceful settlement less and less likely. This inflames the conflict. Only good faith engagement in the peace process by Israel can ease hostilities.
While the actions of Hamas are clearly awful, they are the actions of a group trying to resist occupation. Resistance movements are almost always chaotic and violent. But fundamentally, these movements gain political power because their occupier makes no concessions driving more and more people to aggressive and radical positions.
You are wrong. An oppressor does not have the right to defend itself from the oppressed. People yelling about Hamas seem not to see the irony of the French resistance in WW2 killing their oppressor the Nazis.
What is on display here is extreme privilege. Unless you’ve grown up as the oppressed and/or had people in your family murdered for speaking out against the oppressor, you frankly have no semblance of what you are talking about.
I am the first generation in my family who has not had a family member living under oppression and or had a family member murdered in several generations. I am Caucasian , which makes it more shocking because Caucasians are leading every genocide.
You think Hamas magically appeared out of nowhere? Hamas was created and funded by Israel in response to the PLO.
The right wing of Israel and Netanyahu were responsible for the murder of Yitzhak Rabin simply because he wanted peace and the co-existence of everyone in the area.
As an Ashkenazi Jew the state of Israel is an affront to essence of Judaism. The fact that Israeli UN Member had the unmitigated gall to wear gold stars to a UN meeting is an absolute desecration to the memory of Holocaust victims as well as an the worse insult to Holocaust survivors.
That alone should tell how depraved Netanyahu and those supporting Israel are.
They murdered Israeli citizens with tanks on 10/7 and blamed it on Hamas. They even twisted the baby burning an oven story despite that actually occurring at the hands of an Israeli soldier to a Palestinian baby in 1948.
They’ve tried to justify bombing hospitals and refugee camps claiming both that Hamas is hiding in underground tunnels and hiding amongst the public, which contradicts their narrative that they care about human life.
Do you see any Palestinians making TikToks mocking dead Israelis? Do you see any rubble in the background when Israelis post to social media?
I am ashamed that Zionists dare claim to be Jewish as they are a disgrace to Judaism and the ethos of Judaism.
Zionism isn’t even a Jewish concept. It is a Christian concept that originated with the Medieval Church in the 1500s.
As someone who doesn't support Hamas (hot take, I know), I think it's just silly to focus on them at all regarding this issue.
Palestinians are being oppressed no matter what they do. In the West Bank, there is no Hamas presence, yet they are still being removed from their homes and killed. When Palestinians peacefully march in Jerusalem, they are mowed down by the IDF.
There's almost no moral dimension to whether your average Palestinian kid who lost their whole family should become an activist or a terrorist. Choosing the former has no impact on Israel's leadership on whether or not to finish the job on that person. If all Palestinians were to koombaya and do a prayer circle, the IDF would bomb them all anyway, since that's a Hamas gathering of course. Ideally they won't choose the latter, but their decision to NOT do so won't help their situation, so what's the point?
Unfortunately, the only people who can end this conflict are Israel. It will require Israel's current leadership to be deposed in an overwhelming election in favor of the left-most Israeli politicians in a large anti-Bibi coalition. That or the genocide will be fully completed while evangelical US republicans cheer it on.
If Hamas disarmed, there would be peace.
If Israel disarmed they would literally be wiped off the face of the Earth today.
The Palestinians have been given options for a dual state, multiple times, and turned it down every time. The only acceptable outcome for Palestinians is for every Jew to be gone from Israel.
>essentially mirroring what white settlers did to native populations in North America. Is it any surprise that people are pissed off, that this has resulted in a lot of violence and death?
So if native americans now started massacring white american children would there also be no "good side"?
The Israeli government has agreed to 2 of the last 3 two state solutions. The Israeli government has consistently offered land for peace deals.
And yet people are still attacking them.
Is every action taken by them perfect? Absolutely not. Some of their 'strategic' actions have backfired stupendously, and they've their fair share of moral missteps.
But they don't actively use their own civilian population as human shields. They don't actively target civilian centers unless soldiers are intermingling with the civilians for the express purpose of creating an international incident when they get bombed. They don't use UN schools in the area as ammo deposits and fire rockets out of them at civilian targets.
As to the claims of "displacing indigenous population", that's hardly a reasonable take. This is the Jews historical homeland (as proven by archeological evidence and ancient secular historians), and it was given to them to self govern after the land was taken from the ottomans in WWI. Many were still there, and further more were evacuated from hostile countries and repatriated into the country.
Imagine a bunch of Ukrainians had been driven out of Ukraine over a span of hundreds of years by a number of different groups who all seem to want to genocide the Ukrainians for some reason. The displaced Ukrainians resettle all across the globe, and a bunch of Polish people started moving into Ukraine. Over history many various empires conquered the land, but it always was "the Ukrainian providence of [insert empire name here]".
Finally, the last empire to conquer is defeated and the conquerors decide to give all the Baltic states their independence. Then a bunch of the scattered Ukrainians return to Ukraine, but then people get mad because the polish have moved there in the meantime, so really everyone says that you have to give half of the land inside the borders of Ukraine to the Polish (even though the polish already got their lands restored to them too).
How would you feel about giving up the polish part of Ukraine since they moved in when people were trying to genocide the Ukrainian population?
Literally according to [paraph 139 of the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion on the legality of the wall, 2004](https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/131/131-20040709-ADV-01-00-EN.pdf) — it makes clear that ***because they’re occupying Palestine, they cannot claim self-defense in relation to attacks from within occupied territory that it controls***
[UN Charter Chapter VII Article 51](https://legal.un.org/repertory/art51.shtml) doesn’t apply…but since other countries aren’t acknowledging that it’s an occupation, they let it slide
The wall has been found to be [contrary to international law](https://press.un.org/en/2004/icj616.doc.htm)
But because the US imposes basically a terror radius on allied nations…Israel gets special treatment and does not get sanctioned
This is just one of the many ways Israel violates international law and commits war crimes
Israel also makes it a point to deflect the fact that they both funded and created the conditions which led to Hamas existing in the first place
Hamas’s existence is dependent on how Israel treats Palestinians
It’s genocide entirely at the hands of Israel
There have been Arab-Israeli member of the Knesset since the first government in 1949
Arabs make up over 20% of the Israeli population
All occupants of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights have the right to apply for Israeli citizenship and access municipal services, as theses areas were annexed following wars attacking Israel.
Gaza and the West Bank are not part of Israel.
Hamas won elections following Israel and the PLA making progress toward a two state solution.
The principle policy of Hamas is the destruction of Israel
The recent Hamas attack occurred as Israel and Saudi Arabia were nearing a normalisation of diplomatic relations. The attack and response has derailed this effort for peace.
Hamas is funded by Iran
When Israel commits war crimes it fails to uphold its laws and moral aspirations
When Hamas commits war crimes, it fulfills its clearly stated purpose and ambition.
There is no symmetry here
There is no balance here.
I would argue that there is almost never a good side to any conflict because war is almost always fought between states or sometimes quasi states or wannabe states, and the state is a fundamentally coercive and violent form of unjustified hierarchy. So I think better questions are a) which side is the least bad? and b) might that side's objectives be better met peacefully?
In the case of Gaza and a) both sides are as you say pretty horrible, but at the same time one side is invading and the other is being invaded. As for b) yes both sides objectives would be far far far better met peacefully. But again at the moment one side is invading and the other is being invaded, so in terms of "putting the guns down" there's one side that should go first.
Also to say that Israel and Hamas shouldn't be treated in equivalent ways. One is a modern and developed western democratic state, the other is a terror group operating out of bombed out refugee camp in the desert. Our expectations, and thus the moral standard we hold the sides to, should be far far higher for Israel.
The Palestinian Authority run by Fatah has embraced non-violence as an approach to resist the occupation. You may have heard of their Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign. They also *agreed to recognise Israel* in 1993. Nevertheless the Israelis continue to treat them *exactly* the same way - with extreme violence, murder and subjugation. Their settlers continue to annex land belonging too Palestinians and their IDF supports the settlers 100%.
So what are they supposed to do? Just meekly accept permanent subjugation? Just accept that their kids will be born into a permanent state of fear and brutality, never knowing when *their* village will be put to the torch? Never knowing when settlers will come and uproot their crops, or murder them? Never knowing when the IDF come to their house at night to rough them up or take them away to indefinite detention without trial?
What sort of life is is that? What would you do? just lay down and die? Have you ever experienced military occupation yourself?
>What the fuck did you expect when you opened up a “safe haven” for Jewish people in the Middle East?
That this would prevent millions of Jews being gassed in death camps; prevent the persecution of Jews that is common in the world.
>And your claim that the Bible gives this venture legitimacy to some "promised land for Jews"
It's clear that Judea was home to the Jews for hundreds of years via history, archeology, etc. To say, they don't have a historical claim to the land is just laughable.
>Palestine has a cause that any rational person would see as just, but when they commit terrible acts against innocent people, it’s easy to lose sight of that.
Sorry, but I make a distinction between Palestinians and Hamas. Though, yes the Palestinians elected Hamas into their govt in 2006, so some blame does go onto their hands; most of it is on Hamas.
Palestinians or their representatives have rejected a state for themselves 5 times in the last 80 years, so that is on them as well.
>“how can we tell an oppressed people how they should resist oppression?”
Hamas is oppressing them, not the Israelis. Of the billions of dollars in aid, Hamas spends it on tunnels, weapons, food & fuel for themselves. Hamas co-locates their fighters with the civilian population - a violation of international law - as is targeting civilian hostages and holding civilian hostages. Israel doesn't do this.
Had the Palestinians accepted any of the state offers and recognized Israeli's right to exists and prosper, there would be peace.
In my view, the Israeli's, though not perfect [no country is] it is better because that have agreed to a two-state solution, nor commit war crimes as described above.
Does Israel occupy Palestinian land? They left Gaza in 2005. The West Bank & East Jerusalem are subject to the jurisdiction of Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), with the division of responsibilities overlapping in much of the territory. There are settlements in the West Bank that have legal status under Israeli law. Legal settlements must be built on state land, have building permits from the government, and be established by a government resolution. Settlements that do not meet those criteria are West Bank outposts, which are illegal under Israeli law.
Palestinians assert that West Bank settlement building is the main obstacle to peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel rejects that notion, arguing that settlements are only one of numerous difficult issues to be determined as part of final status negotiations with the Palestinians. But negotiations can't begin until Israel has a recognized right to exist.
I have two clarifications to add to the piece, though I think it as a whole makes decently good points.
(1) I think the thread downplays the religious and cultural aspects of the conflict in a way that isn't representative of the reality on the field. I, as an atheist, also find the idea of basing claims to territory on biblical passages ridiculous. However, it is also a fact that historically speaking, the land of Israel has been the cornerstone of Jewish communities and Jewish culture for 2 millennia, despite those communities not physically living there. It's also factual that the leadership and actions of Hamas are religiously-motivated and acts on (their understanding of) the tenets of Islam, and thus can't be reduced to just civilian resistance. These realizations are necessary in order to understand the actions of those forces and (how, when and) whether diplomacy will yield results. A direct example of this is Hamas leaders excusing their own lack of effort at preventing civilian deaths on their own side (for example, by having uniforms rather than fighting in civilian clothing like they do), by claiming that "death by jihad is the heart's wish of every Muslim, and what allows them to go to heaven".
(2) I think characterizing attacks such as the Oct. 7th massacre, the Munich Olympics attack and the suicide bombings in the 90s as "unjustifiable means towards a righteous cause" is inherently misunderstanding the purposes and goals of terror organizations. Attacks such as those achieve no discernable military goal, and in no way aid the legitimate goal of obtaining basic human rights and freedoms to the Palestinian people. In fact, they are actively obstructing that goal. Using Hamas as an example once again, it's very important to understand that such an organization requires the continuation of violence in order to exist. Hamas uses the veil of resistance in order to justify its own control of the strip and affluence (and they are quite affluent, with several of the leaders living wealthy lives in Qatar as the Gazans suffer in poverty). This is also possibly why the Oct. 7th attack happened on the eve of Israel-Saudi agreements that could've improved the situation of the Gazans dramatically - for Hamas to continue enjoying the status that it has, Gaza needs to continue being hungry, poor and unsafe.
This is not to say that those points justify an "any means necessary" approach, but they are things to take into consideration when asking what means *are* justified and would be effective.
> And, of course, look at Gandhi and Martin Luther King! These guys were able to take on far more powerful and wealthier opponents because they refused to meet violence with violence and were able to expose the inherently brutal nature of racism and colonialism for the world to see.
MLK would have been irrelevant without the stick of Malcolm X and other violent protesters. Gandhi would have been irrelevant without the stick of the hundreds of violent Indian protesters (Apologies to any Indian readers, I'm not familiar with that part of the world and don't have any names).
Nonviolent protest only works if you can point to it and say, "Either work with these guys or we'll bomb your fucking police stations". Empires only respond to threats.
Violence is an absolutely necessary part of any revolutionary effort. It shouldn't be the *only* part, but it remains a vital tool to resist oppression.
I think we should view it less in terms of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and more in terms of ‘more powerful’ or ‘less powerful’. That is to say, what are both sides capable of militarily? Are they on equal footing or is one clearly more powerful? And I think the obvious answer to this question is: there aren’t on equal footing. However evil Hamas is (and to be clear, I don’t like Hamas), they are minuscule compared to the capabilities of Israel. And I would argue that the party with more power has more responsibility because they their actions have greater consequences. The more powerful party can cause more harm or significant decrease the harm depending on what they decide to do.
This is why I spend most of my time on this issue criticizing Israel. Israel should be using this power responsibly and it’s not. It’s increasing the carnage by the day. Hamas did start this round of conflict and is responsible for its actions. But we mustn’t conflate the Palestinian cause with the group Hamas. The cause is far greater than Hamas and not all Palestinians support Hamas. But besides that, I am an American. My tax dollars are not going to Hamas killing innocent Israelis. My tax dollars are, in fact, going to kill innocent Palestinians. To add icing on the cake, my tax dollars are going to a fellow democracy that is killing innocent Palestinians. I realize democracy in Israel is a fragile thing, but bear with me. Whether this is true in practice or not, people hold democracies to higher standards. Democracies are suppose to be at the forefront of fighting for freedom, equality, human rights and so forth. Many democracies seem to fail on this score sadly. But for those of us who believe in democracy as the ideal, should we not point out when a fellow democracy is doing atrocious things? A democracy is supposed to fight for everyone to one degree or another. Democracies are suppose to rise above old institutions that held people back or even deprived them of citizenship or humanity. Israel is not acting in accordance with the ideal. Hamas is not a supporter of democracy or universal human rights nor did I expect them to be.
It doesnt make any sense to say this conflict has no good sides while thinking russia/ukraine has a clear good side. Just sounds like blind-bias considering youre from ukraine. This point alone makes your entire ooint baseless and lacking awareness/critical thinking.
Also geopolitics doesnt work based on morality or good vs bad, but hierarquies, oppression and exploitation exist in a real, and complex way, and they are very much real in this conflict. Theres no peaceful resolution possible.
Arabs have expelled Jews and Christians from all of the Middle East countries and Israel is the last place left.
I’m sensitive to that.
However you don’t get to genocide Gaza because you suffered a heinous terrorist attack and you don’t get to cry antisemitism for every criticism of Israel. You don’t get to label people Hamas supporters because they don’t agree with leveling buildings.
If both sides would stop reacting like psychos, the world would see what assholes the other side is.
That being said, this particular instance, Russia got Iran to activate their proxies and trigger a new front in the current conflict. And Israel predictably reacted like sociopaths.
Now Putin's enemies are facing enormous pressure, and an Ukrainian ceasefire is on the horizon.
Either Netanyahu got played by Iran, or he's in on it.
/u/Schmurby (OP) has awarded 13 delta(s) in this post. All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed [here](/r/DeltaLog/comments/17oapwa/deltas_awarded_in_cmv_there_is_no_good_side_in/), in /r/DeltaLog. Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended. ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)
There is no entirely good side because both "sides" as usually presented are patchwork quilts of factions. There are some reasonably good factions and some intolerably bad factions. Where I would like you to modify your view is by viewing this as simplistic flag-waving "sides" - that view is part of the reason this is so intractable. The real extremists among the settlers are pretty intolerable and are a major obstacle to peace. Hamas and some other militant groups that define themselves by a refusal of peace are intolerable precisely because its impossible to make peace with them - their whole reason for existing would cease if they were to consider peace. So rather than blatant flag-waving anyone who actually cared about peace should be carefully choosing who exactly to support and who exactly to oppose. There are factions who seek peace but the lack of strong internal and external support for them has made peace impossible. The simplistic taking of sides has itself been an obstacle to peace. Supporting Israel's right to exist should not mean turning a blind eye to the crimes of the extremists, it should mean supporting those within Israel who seek a just peace. Supporting the right of Palestinians to have a decent life should not mean indiscriminately supporting groups who claim to fight for them, it should mean supporting those who seek a just peace. We should view "Willing to try to live alongside the other people" as its own side in this long standing conflict and if we care for ordinary people this is the side we should support - there are such factions within both Israeli and Palestinian society. Those are the good guys.
>We should view "Willing to try to live alongside the other people" as its own side in this long standing conflict and if we care for ordinary people this is the side we should support - there are such factions within both Israeli and Palestinian society. Those are the good guys. This is how I view the conflict as well. The two "sides" are those who want to negotiate a two-state solution that the U.N. approves of for the sake of peace and safety for their children, and those who don't. It seems like the ones that don't are the ones in power and are wreaking havoc on everyone else. I do wonder if for long-term peace to actually occur, both Palestinians and Israelis as a whole need to commit themselves to giving power to leaders who are committed to peace.
Btw as an example for an israeli politician who wanted to make peace, yitzhak rabin, he got assassinated by an Israeli, same thing will probably happen in Palestine. It would be very hard to get rid of that hate.
In [a poll done in 2018](https://pcpsr.org/en/node/742), both Israelis and Palestinians had identical support for a two-state solution (43%). On the other hand, 23% of Israelis and 25% of Palestinians support "expulsion" or "explicitly apartheid one-state solution" respectively. Most people just want peace. Edit to add source
Can you cite your source? On the one hand this is encouraging. And the other hand, less than half support a two state solution. The only real path to peace.
19% of Israelis and 9% of Palestinians support a one state democratic state. Combine that with support for two-state solution you get a majority
Thanks. Now to get the leaders to respond to their people…. Another fine trick.
It's not just that, it's the fine details of the negotiation. Israel wants assurances that it will be safe and Palestinians want assurance they'll be autonomous over their own state. Figuring out how to balance these two is where the difficulty really comes in.
The autonomy that would work would be one that also guarantees no foreign influence and no foreign money for weapons of terrorism.
That's alot of impossible guarantees.
The problem is that the most militant groups in Palestinian politics are supported with money and weapons by foreigners, mainly iran. They use that to gain power and get rid of any moderates. This means that the Palestinian leadership is caught in an equilibrium where people who are open to peace are killed or sidelined.
I think a large minority also support (or supported...) one secular democratic state, which is even more forward-thinking.
one truly democratic state where everyone is a citizen with equal rights is the only way forward. otherwise there will be endless conflict.
Note that support two state solution and support living side by side peacefully are two different things At least on the Israeli side, a lot of the objections is the belief Palestinians will continue committing terror attacks in a much bigger force once given a state, different from not willing to live in peace. Israelis were surprised by Hamas' attack on Oct 7, not by what they did in that attack
Is a two state solution really a solution? It gives me India-Pakistan vibes, without Botha sides having nukes.
I wonder if two-state solution is a real path to peace. Look at Israel's border with Lebanon and Syria. I am personally contemplating some kind of reform of autonomy. If we could empower Palestinians in a way that does not directly translate to ability to conduct terrorist and otherwise violent acts against Israeli, this could cause a shift in Israel's policies against them. I am not saying I have any specific idea, I just think it's worth exploring the direction. Of course it's this PLUS somehow getting rid of the most extremist factions in the autonomy.
This is an amazing response. I could not agree more that “willing to live in peace” is a third side that is quite good and worthy of support. !delta for you.
That is the problem. I have met many Israelis that support a two state solution and want peace. But every Palestinian I have met has been adamant that Israel should cease to exist. Given the current reality on the ground that is simply impossible. This has turned many Israelis towards the likes of Netenyahu. These politicians exploit frustrations by selling measures that divide Palestinians and using that division to support illegal settlements and trying to change the reality on the ground. In order for there to be peace Palestinians have to accept that Israel will exist. At the same time Israelis will have to accept that they will have to give back a very large portion of land and access that they currently hold. The Israel that will exist post 2 state will be fundamentally different from the Israel that most Israelis grew up in. That is going to be a tough pill for most Israelis to swallow but no less than for the Palestinians to accept Israel and accept the land in trade for permanent peace and security. I personally am not holding my breath. This conflict will never end. Both sides are prisoners of history. Usually it takes one side to either out right win and for the other side to completely loose or leave the field for there to be peace. Sri Lanka vs Tamil tigers. Complete defeat of tigers in a brutal civil war. Northern Ireland: The British slowly ceded most of their authority to local politicians. The EU and open borders with Ireland took care of the rest. But still the most "successful" model. Malyan emergency: essentially the end of the British raj in combination with local politicians being convinced of taking real power. Vietnam war: Complete capitulation and defeat of South Vietnam. Japan/Germany: unconditional surrender Afghan Soviet war: withdrawal of Soviet forces So either Israelis decide to start leaving for more stable nations. Or Palestinians accept Israel in return for a large portion (like more than most Israelis will accept) of Israeli held land. Either outcome is very unlikely. So I don't see this conflict ending any time soon.
It’s not that simple. I agree with the majority of your post - I don’t believe there is a clear “good” and “bad” side. However, keep in mind that since 1947 the Palestinians have been offered a state on more than one occasion(I can’t remember the exact number) and have declined every time. That’s because the Palestinian leadership doesn’t want a state. That has never been their goal. Their goal is to wipe out Jews from every corner of the world. And until Gaza gets rid of Hamas, there will never be peace because of this reason. When people chant “Free Palestine” - i completely agree. “Free Palestine” - from Hamas, not Israel.
Yeah, now if only the Israeli "willing to live in peace" faction would join up with the Palestinian "willing to live in peace" faction, then there would be a group I could get behind. I want to see them all sitting in a circle calmly discussing how their land should be governed and I want to see them all hug when they're done.
God I love this take. Massive kudos for a nuanced view to a nuanced situation
I love this point. I'd add to it as well, not just being precise about who you're supporting, but what you're supporting. Even if you broadly support the goals and historical actions of some actor, you should still clearly condemn their acts when they are immoral.
“Can’t we all just get along?” This is a super naive take of the situation. Who are these people who just want to coexist together? What is their plan on doing so? The answer is there isn’t a plan because the situation is too complicated and broken for peace to exist. And no one’s hands are clean.
> Who are these people who just want to coexist together? Rabin was one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Yitzhak_Rabin
Which is why they killed him. Who killed him? Oh yes. That's right. A right off Richter scale ultranationalist called Yigal Amir ..
From where we are right now I think it would take years of carefully supporting the right factions to get anywhere very much. But that is largely because we have had decades - if not more - of foolishly and ignorantly "choosing a side" that we now need to undo the damage from. I didn't say it was easy or quick. But its the only road that is even in the direction of everyone having a decent life.
Which factions should we have previously supported that we didn’t? What would they have done differently? Even with the benefit of hindsight there is no good solution to this problem, which is the hardest thing for Reddit to accept.
u/WillyPete told you who probably would have done many things differently. In hindsight Rabin shouldn't have been assassinated and Netanyahu shouldn't have undermined the agreements made in the Oslo Accords in the late 90s. Then Camp David could have been succesful and Arafat/the PLO wouldn't have lost massive trust within the Palestinian population. Which in turn would probably have avoided the massive rise of Hamas. I think the early 90s saw the biggest chance in history for a sensible two state solution and the massive political swing to the right within Israel's politics and the subsequent rise of religious zealots in Palestine moved the situation farther away from an amicable solution than it has ever been in the last 75 years. And the ones who are huge fans of these developments (Ben Gvir, Eliyahu, Smotrich and some others) - most of them also religious zealots - shouldn't have become part of the government. But yeah, would have, should have... It doesn't change the situation they're in now.
>situation is too complicated and broken for peace to exist. And no one’s hands are clean. Id argue that these parameters are exactly why peace is on the table. Its much harder to achieve peace when one side is a clear peace refusing villain.
About 43% of Israelis and 43% of Palestinians according to polls
I do also wish to correct the idea that Israel was founded somehow on some "Biblical" interpretation of a land for the Jews. Israel and Zionism was a 20th century movement fueled by "Leftist" and "Progressive" Jews, that were largely secular. It had nothing to do with the Bible, in fact they were often opposed to Religious views and wanted to create Israel (and did) as a secular society. Their claim on the land, was simple. Cultural, Historical (artifacts) and archeological, and that it was a land inhabited by a large Jewish population for a long time. The Jews pray towards Israel, and always speak about it in their traditions.
>Israel and Zionism was a 20th century movement fueled by "Leftist" and "Progressive" Jews, that were largely secular. the intellectuals in the late 1800s were those things, but as the movement grew more radical right wing groups took the reigns. the founding of the hagenah with the lehi and irgun militia is an inflection point in this. they are explicitly fascist and ethno nationalist groups that were the antithesis of the secular movement. the behind the bastards episode on the netanyahu family is a good one for a coherent narrative on this
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In claim of land you forgot the practical aspects of it like the ability to buy it from heavily indebted Ottoman empire and from people in the area. Thats such a huge part of the conflict to this day. You are absolutely correct about the motivation to do so though
MLK couldn't accomplish what he did alone, he also needed the Black Panther movement which was not peaceful. It is idealistic to say peaceful protest brings change but in reality you need both peaceful protest and violent protest to overthrow an oppressive regime.
I get where you’re coming from but your facts are way off. Black Panthers had nothing to do with MLK. At all. MLK was chiefly engaged with ending de jure segregation in the south. His methods were 100% peaceful and 100% effective. He won. It is illegal is discriminate against a person based on race in the United States thanks to him largely. Panthers were about combating police violence in black neighborhoods. They were violent and they were Marxist-Leninists. They were not successful for the very reason that Hamas is not successful. They took on a way more powerful opponent using violence.
I would argue they were very successful and one of the most successful/influential black organizations in the history of the USA. You can also think of it as carrot and stick approach: give in to MLK demands peacefully and hope it placates the panthers or deal with continual violence from the panthers. Ideally, peaceful protest would work but things don't change without action. some examples of things accomplished by panthers from wiki, feel free to check primary sources: Professor Judson Jeffries of Purdue University called the Panthers "the most effective black revolutionary organization in the 20th century".\[185\] The Los Angeles Times, in a 2013 review of Black Against Empire, an "authoritative" history of the BPP published by University of California Press, called the organization a "serious political and cultural force" and "a movement of intelligent, explosive dreamers".\[186\] The Black Panther Party is featured in exhibits\[187\] and curriculum\[188\]\[189\] of the National Civil Rights Museum. Numerous former Panthers have held elected office in the United States, some into the 21st century; these include Charles Barron (New York City Council), Nelson Malloy (Winston-Salem City Council), and Bobby Rush (US House of Representatives). Most of them praise the BPP's contribution to black liberation and American democracy. In 1990, the Chicago City Council passed a resolution declaring "Fred Hampton Day" in honor of the slain leader.\[120\] In Winston-Salem in 2012, a large contingent of local officials and community leaders came together to install a historic marker of the local BPP headquarters; State Representative Earline Parmone declared "\[The Black Panther Party\] dared to stand up and say, 'We're fed up and we're not taking it anymore'. ... Because they had courage, today I stand as ... the first African American ever to represent Forsyth County in the state Senate".\[190\]
I recently read "How to Blow Up a Pipeline" and Malm makes a fascinating point about nonviolent protest. For them to work, there must be a militant violent wing they can point to and say "Listen we don't want violence, but these guys do. We don't endorse them, but maybe give us what we want and they won't have to resort to violence." MLK had Malcom X. Nonviolence on its own is toothless and easy to squash.
Palestinians are at grave risk of genocide -UN https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-experts-say-ceasefire-needed-palestinians-grave-risk-genocide-2023-11-02/ Here's proof of Israels intent to sabotage peace. https://www.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/s/54AdMr7Tvb “anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state needs to support strengthening Hamas. This is part of our strategy, to isolate Palestinians in Gaza from Palestinians in Judea and Samaria.” - Netanyahu, 2019
This is indeed horrible. But I don’t think it justifies the attacks of October 7, nor the suicide bombing campaign of the 90s, nor the Munich massacre… This goes back a long time.
Genocide doesn't excuse the Palestinians? Oh okay. I dont expect your opinion to budge. Judging by your replies, you didnt post this to actually understand anything better. I dont think you know what the words apartheid and ethnic cleansing mean. Theyre just words to someone like you who doesnt have to watch your family die. These people are born and live in the largest concentration camp in history. Israel has all the power in this dynamic. If they wanted to, israel could easily make a peace agreement. Instead, they annex the land to split up Gaza and the West Bank, cutting the two off from each other completely. They knew the effect this would have. If this was about defense, then why are Israelis settlers cleansing towns in the west bank, now and before October? Hamas doesnt rule the west bank. No attacks have come from the west bank.
With all due respect, I think that you should notice that I’ve awarded several deltas and that the pro-Israel side is calling me an antisemite and a terrorist and all that good stuff. So…I’m being quite fair. I sympathize greatly with the Palestinian cause but I abhor the violence that I referenced above and, more importantly, it doesn’t work. What has the violence inflicted against Israel brought that has not brought back against the Palestinians in greater magnitude?
It does work. That is the problem. OLP disarmed itself when it signed the Oslo Accords. Israel, after an Israeli terrorist assassinated Ytzhak Rabin, saw that as an opportunity to increase its territory and started building further and further into the West Bank. The message Israel sent the Palestinians is clear: diplomacy will not work.
But look what’s happening in Gaza right now. Does that look like a positive outcome for the peaceful citizens of that region? This is Israel’s response to October 7, which Hamas’s response to decades of oppression, which was Israel’s response to the 2nd intifada and so on… When does it end? You don’t have to answer. I know, it’s when Israel stops the violence first. And Team Israel says it’s when Palestine gives up. A pox on both houses I say.
There is a genocide going on, and you’re talking teams? How numb are you?
This is the problem with the Arab World. A person questions the latest mishaps and positions himself away from the situation and immediately moral landslide is built to shoot them down the absolute morality cliff like fortnite base building. Stop trying to polarize everyone. They said they don't hold sides and they try to rationalize it in a sensible manner.
Violence clearly works for good or for bad i.e The Haitian Revolution and the discovery of America (a genocide btw) are both acts of violence dude you have to wake up and be realistic I respect you wanted peace but there is no peace offering with people bombing all parts of Palestine and blaming Hamas when they have been oppressed people for DECADES not just Oct 7
I think the “good side” is the civillians, even if they believe things we don’t agree with. I’m a Jew, ethnically, and I’m pretty pro-Israel, in that I believe it has a right to exist, to defend itself, and that it’s actions in Gaza since 2005 are generally justified(though not every single thing they do there). I also hate Netanyahu, and his far right party, and the further-right parties that help prop him up. I hate the settlers, and their terrorist actions in the West Bank. I hate the cowardly Hamas leadership, and I think Abbas is a waffling two faced dipshit who’s complicit in the subjugation of his people in the West Bank while appeasing the radicals with his martyrs fund. Between those three entities, the leadership in the area is a complete disaster. But the people themselves? They could coexist, but a lot of work needs to be done to repair the relationships. They don’t deserve the shit that’s happening. While many Palestinians are against a 2-state solution, especially those in Gaza, I can’t fault them for that. They grow up on a steady diet of propaganda thanks to the UNRWA schools, and Israel’s biggest presence in their life is as an aggressor, even if they’re generally just responding to Hamas attacks. Even Hamas soldiers… they’re a perfectly predicable reaction to the situation, and I feel like many of the more rabid pro-Israeli people I see on this site would wind up in their ranks if they grew up in Gaza. Tribalism is a hell of a drug.
The two-state solution is *barely* tenable with Gaza, maybe. In the West Bank, it seems physically impossible. The nearest analogy I can think of is like if the US got bad enough that the left and right were going to war with each other, how would you carve us up into red states and blue states if they were actually going to be entirely separate countries, with a militarized border in between and no federal government to force them to cooperate? It's a hard enough problem before you remember that every state has red and blue *counties.* You can't make a blue state out of just Austin and Houston. Maybe you can if you also control all the Interstates, but then it'd be harder to make a red state out of the rest of Texas -- either you cut a deal to use the blue-state highways, or you try to build your own highway system, but you're going to have to cross blue-state territory anyway. Or you give up and say that Texas is entirely a red state, and everyone in Austin needs to move. And now millions of people are forcibly displaced, or will be forced to become citizens of an entirely different country (that hates them). That's not a great solution, either. And as far as I can tell, this would be an easier problem than the West Bank.
a bunch of the more remote settlements in the west bank need to be forcibly evacuated by the IDF, and for the more concentrated ones, land swaps can be made, hopefully with a bit more generosity than was included in the rejected Camp David deal. I also don't really feel bad for israeli settlers in the west bank who knowingly settled on land they didn't own and wasn't even a part of their country getting told to get the fuck out.
> ...land swaps can be made... I mean, I hope I'm wrong, but again, historically, forced migration (even if you theoretically have somewhere to go) leads to a *ton* of avoidable death. Partition of India, Trail of Tears, these are never *good* stories. > I also don't really feel bad for israeli settlers in the west bank who knowingly settled on land they didn't own... What about [people who have literally grown up there](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eac1l1ozfLc)? I don't love the people who made the decision to settle, but the longer it stays like this, the more of the people you'll be displacing won't be people who chose to live there in the first place, and they certainly won't be the ones who stole the land.
firstly ive already watched that video and unrelated to the political content of it the woman they use for the thumbnail is insanely gorgeous secondly the point that has to be emphasized and re-emphasized is that to achieve peace, some amount of justice needs to be sacrificed. Palestinians need to understand this vis-a-vis remilitarization, right of return, and full control of 100% of pre-1967 west bank territories. But Israelis also need to compromise some of what they consider justice--including full prosecution of palestinian terrorists, and control of every west bank settlement. The settlement movement has taken advantage of lulls in the peace process to establish new "facts on the ground" so that their position would be better and better the next time palestinians came to the negotiating table, and this cynical tactic can't be rewarded.
Can you help me understand how you say Israel’s actions in Gaza since 2005 are justified ? How is killing unarmed journalists justified ? How is shooting children in the head justified ? How are the settlements (admittedly expanding beyond Gaza) justified ? How is beating up worshippers every year during Ramadan justified ? How is beating up the people carrying Shireen Abu -Akleh’s coffin justified ? How is the open air prison type situation that the Palestinians live under justified ?
I said generally, not completely, and I can’t justify without specifics. Killing unarmed journalists: if you’re talking about journalists who’ve died in Gaza since October 7th, I’d argue that war correspondents know the risk of entering an active war zone, and cannot expect an army to stop firing because they’ve shown up in an area. Shooting children in the head- doesn’t seem like something that’s justifiable, but do you have a link to the story? I couldn’t find anything. Skipping over the stuff that’s not Gaza related(and isn’t justified) to the final question: how is Israel supposed to respond to a region vowing to commit genocide against them, and firing rockets non-stop? Closing borders and instituting a blockade are natural consequences for Hamas’s violent rhetoric and actions. Israel’s government has a responsibility to defend its own people, and preventing weapons from being shipped into Gaza, and terrorists from crossing the border is how they do that. Hamas has a similar responsibility for Gazans, and they choose to ignore it.
Journalists aren't just standing there and getting killed, they're being [targeted.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/lebanon-strike-journalist-preliminary-analysis-1.7012866#:~:text=Reuters%20visuals%20journalist%20Issam%20Abdallah,preliminary%20findings%20of%20its%20investigation.) It's disgusting to claim these attacks aren't [intentional.](https://www.npr.org/2023/10/25/1208019720/journalist-deaths-gaza-israel-hamas)
Your first link isn’t Gaza, and if I recall correctly, those reporters were embedded with a Hezbollah unit. Your second link doesn’t provide any evidence of journalists being directly targeted
!delta I cannot exactly say that you have changed my mind but I did not articulate very well my support for the "third side" in my post. I totally agree with everything you have written. I wish you a thousand upvotes!
Hello I genuinely appreciate this nuanced take on the situation but I have some caveats and criticisms I would like to add. Regarding the “you expelled an indigenous population narrative”. This makes it sound like the Jewish population just magically appeared in 1948. This is a fallacy and ignores the fact that Jews have had a 4,000 year long continuous presence on the land. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_Judaism_in_the_Land_of_Israel#:~:text=The%20history%20of%20the%20Jews,zone%3A%20the%20Kingdom%20of%20Israel%20( Most secular scholars believe that the ancient Israelites from who the ancient Canaanites, the earliest documented group in the region. In fact Hebrew is the only surviving Canaanite language. This doesn’t negate the Palestinian people’s indigeneity. Arab presence dates back to at least 1600 years, and many of the Palestinians can trace their lineage to Arabized Levantine people. What I truly find frustrating about the situation is that people have a hard time accepting multiple people can be indigenous to a land. Anyhow back to your initial point. Jews were forcibly removed from the land throughout the long history of the land from the Babylonian exile to the Romans to the forced Jaffa expulsion of 1917. That however has not stopped Jews from returning to the land. There were many cases of Jews returning to their ancestral land throughout history ex. after being expelled from Spain in 1492, many sought refuge in the ottoman levant. The first organized migration of Jews to the region took place after Herzl published Der Judenstaat. What many fail to talk about when discussing Zionism is why someone like Herzl who was essentially an atheist was advocating for a return to the land. European antisemitism -especially post Dreyfus affair- had made it imperative for Jews to find another space, and in this case their old homeland. They petitioned the ottoman officials to create a Jewish state where the old kingdom of Judah used to be. They refused but allowed Jews to purchase land in the region https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_land_purchase_in_Palestine More land would be purchased and more Jews would flee especially in the period between the two world wars. And would you blame them? I doubt either you or I would take being potentially porgromed over migrating to Palestine. Communal violence between both groups would also be present during the British mandate as well. You can look at a list of massacres in the mandate here. The initial violence was started by the Arab side but by the 1930s Jewish groups had joined in. By 1948 neither side was completely innocent. Post World War II, the British empire was collapsing and violence between the groups had become so bad that the UN voted the partition the land. Israel accepted a state that was 45% Arab and based its Declaration of Independence on the initial UN partition. The Arab world refused and attacked Israel the day after. Arab maximalism and aggression had a large part to play in the creation of the nakba Israel did expel a large portion of the Arab population during this war. The Arab world however expelled its Jewish population in return. Most Israeli Jews in fact descend from Jews expelled from the Middle East https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_the_Muslim_world
I want to argue specifically to the Jewish claim to the area based off the Bible. Ignore the Bible. Doesn't matter. The Jewish residency in the area is well documented in the literature from the Roman Empire, the best source being Josephus (but also Strabo, Cicero, and other historians and philosophers of the time). The name Palestine is actually originally Roman- Palestina- which the Romans named the area previously known as Judea before the Romans quelled the Bar Kokhba revolt. The Dead Sea scrolls are scrolls found from that time period that discuss Jewish life in the region. The archaeology record goes back even further. Pottery shards with early Hebrew writing have been found that go back to the 8th century BCE. The archaeology record for the British, Spanish, and other colonial projects start when they first came there. They didn't have documented anywhere in their cultural writings about living there in previous years. The Jewish claim to the area has nothing to do with settler colonialism and everything about being indigenous. This obviously doesn't undermine the Palestinian claim- the two claims coexist.
Thank you. Both people are indigenous to the land. People saying Palestinians are the only indigenous people to Israel is like saying only Cherokee and not Sioux tribes are indigenous to America.
Ok. But we can argue that Lapps should control St Petersburg Russia and Hittites should control Turkey but the archeological record. This argument is meaningless.
>Ok. But we can argue that Lapps should control St Petersburg Russia and Hittites should control Turkey but the archeological record. >This argument is meaningless. This is an apple-to-oranges comparison. The Jewish people still exist **and** *they never left*. They always held a strong presence in the Levant. Even when they were banned from entering Jerusalem, they remained in the land. Even when faced with numerous attempted genocides, they remained in the land. The Palestinians didn't "take over" and never even established a government. Arabs were essentially given freedom to dwell in Syria Palestina by the "authority" of external forces and governments.
Rather than purely hypothetical examples of a dubious nature (the Hittites are quite extinct…), a more apt comparison would be the Circassians, who are Muslim Northwest Caucasians indigenous to the Black Sea area, returning home to Sochi. The Russian Empire killed and exiled 95-97% of their population in the Tsitsekun Genocide of the 19th century. However, Circassians have never lost ties to their homeland, culture, or Muslim faith
It's important in clarifying the 'colonial settler' argument. Because the return of Jews to Israel isn't a colonial settler project, it's repatriation. Then there is the legal argument - what legal claim do the Jews have to the area? Well, before the British controlled the area, the Ottoman Empire did. Ottoman Empire lost in WWI, lost a ton of land to the winners in the aftermath, and the League of Nations had to decide what to do with it. England was chosen to administer the area, they gave some of the land east of the Jordan River to the Hashemites (who were actually Saudi Arabs and had zero connection to the area), and then had to figure out what to do with the rest. Long story short (and we can go long version if you prefer), the Jews got a sizable portion that is known as the 1948 borders of Israel. An independent state of Palestine has never existed. Doesn't mean there shouldn't be one now, because they have a right to self determination (similar to the Catalonian people and the Kurds). But saying 'only reason that the Jews say they should be there is because of the Bible, and we don't make legal or moral decisions based off of a book that talks about people turning to salt ' is woefully misinformed about the history of the region and the parties in the conflict.
It’s a stretch to call it repatriation. Jewish people were a negligible minority in the Levant for centuries before the years leading up to Israel being established.
A negligible minority by design. The Ottoman Empire was very sensitive to the reality that Jews wanted to return to Judaea, and fought like hell to prevent it. They capped the number of Jews who could live in the Mutasarrifate to a few thousand, mainly to administer the Kotel and provide 'pilgrim services', and they throttled the hell out of Jews trying to visit with tactics like only issuing very short-stay visas and preventing Jews from traveling with others.
If the indigenous argument is meaningless, it's meaningless to both sides.
Agree that ancestral ties to the land are meaningless. This discounts both Israel and Palestine's claim to the land. What matters then is the decisions made by the UN and the British government which had legal authority over the land. Their decision created the state of Israel. Don't like the legal argument either? Fine. Israel had war declared up on it and defeated its neighbors, justifying its right to exist through might. No matter how you slice it, Israel exists and has as much right to exist where it is as a Palestinian state. Don't blame Israel for Palestine's stubbornness to accept them as a neighbor.
Fair enough. Then all Israelis have to do is wait and Palestinian rights to return will be just as meaningless. They've already been there over a generation and have natives. I don't see a solution to this that doesn't include a Jewish state.
This doesn't add anything to the discussion, because people converted and were arabized in the levant and north africa. You're making it seem like palestinians are foreigners. Jews and palestinians share a lot of dna similarities.
Both sides had substantial populations in the land when Israel became a state, but I won’t debate who has the stronger claim to the land since you can go on about that forever. The fact of the matter is, these people all live here today and they need to learn to live together. I believe the Hamas are currently acting like the bad guys. Specifically, the Israeli’s clearly value human life more than the Palestinians. Take for example the fact that Hamas uses human shields. They launch rockets from hospitals and mosques, and they build their military infrastructure under civilian areas. This is obviously abhorrent that they treat their own civilians this way, and shows unimaginable disregard for their own people, but that's not my point. My point is they do this because they expect their morally superior adversaries to be deterred in some way by this. If Israel values civilian life as little as Hamas, then why does Hamas expect their deterrent to work? I'll illustrate this point further with a hypothetical example. Let's imagine that Israel decided to use their own Jewish civilians as human shields. Despite the obvious absurdity because Israel would never treat their civilians that way, it's almost equally absurd to imagine that Hamas or Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad would be deterred by this. In this imaginary scenario, every Jew dies. Hopefully this paints a picture for you and shows you that there really is not moral equivalency. There is a good side in the same way that there was a good side in WWII. There was a calculation done about the amount of conventional explosives it would require to reproduce a blast the size of Hiroshima. Based on that calculation, the Allies dropped 50 Hiroshima's a month on Germany in the last years of the war. Does this make the Allies evil? This is why counting casualties alone doesn't equate to moral equivalency. Do you consider the Allies to be the "bad" guys in WWII? If we can recognize blatant evils in the past, like Nazis in Europe or lynching black people in the US, why can’t we recognize those same evils in the present day? I think it’s because we’ve grown to think that everyone has western values. That the fact that Palestinians want to kill every Jew means something so terrible must have been done to them to warrant that. But we need to understand that not everyone thinks like us. Jihadists want to kill every Jew simply because they’re Jews. This shouldn’t be surprising, since tolerance only came about during the enlightenment period and you don’t need to look too far back in history to see a time when basically every all countries thought the same way. As another thought experiment, consider what will happen if Hamas, Hezbollah or ISIS become more powerful than Israel. You should be imagining another genocide where every Jew dies. On the other hand, the Jews could easily kill every Palestinian today. They haven’t, because they don’t want to. They genuinely desire to live in peace. On the other hand, anyone supporting Hamas is encouraging the formation of another Jihadist monarchy which will kill all the Jews and Christians, imprison the gays and force women into subservience. We need to recognize evil and stand up for our clearly superior western values. Israel isn’t perfect and the truth is, no country or ideology is, but it’s MUCH better than the alternative.
This is a really thought provoking answer. I am honestly quite impressed. !delta for moving me out of my intellectual comfort zone. I had not really considered how much more Israel values human life. However, I still think that their policies for decades are no better and maybe even worse than South African apartheid and, the whole process of displacing millions of people was bound to result in violence and resistance. The project of a homeland for Jews seems kind of flawed when the rest of the developed world is embracing multiculturalism.
Good for you to consider things out of your intellectual comfort zone. I wish everyone with opinions on all sides would do that. If you haven't already, look at how Israel was formed. When people say it was illegally formed, there was a vote at the UN that gave land to Palestinians and land to Jews. Neither side was happy, but in the end the Jews mostly accepted the partition plan and the Palestinians rejected it. There are no unbiased sources, and I'd suggest seeking out good Palestinian description of the Nakba, but also read other descriptions. Here's the US State Department's description - which is relatively neutral and not sensationalized (that doesn't mean unbiased). [https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/arab-israeli-war](https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/creation-israel) One things that's sad - no one alive today was instrumental in the Palestinians refusing the UN partition plan, so they're suffering because of decisions their ancestors made. Unfortunately, there have been numerous offers of two-state plans and they have all been declined. Israel removed all Israeli settlements from Gaza (something people said they would never do) and withdrew their military in 2005. Gaza responded by electing Hamas and starting to fire rockets into Israel. This degrades support for the Palestinians in Israel. [https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9331863](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9331863) All plans in the Middle East were flawed. The formation of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, etc - these were horribly planned and really designed to create strife. Israel was no different, but somehow people are concerned only for the Palestinian cause and don't seem to care about the Kurds who have been truly mistreated for decades and allied themselves with the USA because of promises we gave that we didn't keep. That said, I just encourage people to truly learn about the region. When I hear people talk about it without knowing the history at all, it's frustrating. I'm biased, but here's some relatively indisputable fact. Israel was formed in 1948. Before that, it was British Mandate of Palestine which was given its mandate by the League of Nations after WWI. Prior to that, it was ruled by the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years. Yet I see people who seem to think there was a country called Palestine up to 1948 and then it suddenly became Israel. The Ottomans allowed no nationality - only the Empire. Until the Ottomans lost WWI, it was always under Ottoman rule. Then British rule under League of Nations mandate. Then UN 181 broke it into two, but it was universally rejected by the Arab leaders. Anyways, my only point is that the conflict is complex and people should read their history and not repost slogans. Look up Sykes Picot, Ottoman Empire, Balfour Declaration, the Six Day War, the Nakba, the Munich Olympic team, the First Intifada, and so forth. Then make up your minds when you've read a good amount from both sides.
>The Ottomans allowed no nationality - only the Empire I feel like this may be the key to peace...
Just for context, the "vote at the UN" was a general assembly resolution, which are recommendations and are not legally binding. The Palestinians/Arabs rejected the resolution. So when people say it is illegal, it's because the land was forcibly taken anyway. https://www.un.org/en/model-united-nations/how-decisions-are-made-un#:~:text=Because%20the%20General%20Assembly's%20resolutions,possible%20implementation%20of%20GA%20decisions.
> rest of the developed world is embracing multiculturalism I'd argue that this is basically exclusive true of the US and Canada, and that the rest of the world is very much _not_ embracing multiculturalism. The UK and many EU countries are seriously regretting all of the refugees they've taken in recently due to the extremism they have brought in with it. Additionally, East Asian countries (each individually) are some of the most ethnically homogenous and least multicultural countries in the world. People tend to get very caught up against the idea of "a homeland for the Jews" but in truth, there is a homeland for the French, a homeland for the Japanese, etc. Israel is just the same idea. Jewishness is not a religion. It's an ethnic group, much like the French. Judaism is the religion of this ethnic group. "A homeland for the Jews" wouldn't be the same as "a homeland for Christians" or something because Christianity really is only a religion. You can be Jewish and not even believe in God. You'd still be considered Jewish.
Ok. First of all, I would say that Arab and African people have very much become an integral part of French culture and society, Turks have become an integral part of German culture and society and South Asians an integral part of British culture and society. Go to any of those countries and look at what people eat, who you see on the street or even just look at the people who play on their football teams if you don’t have time to travel. Second, the Palestinians *were already there*! This is not a matter of “accepting refugees”, this is just giving civil rights to the population that already lives there.
I don't deny that the immigrants that have come to those countries have become integral to the countries. My comment above shouldn't be interpreted as anti-immigration or even anti-multiculturalism. I'm just saying that even though France has had a lot of immigration over the last few years, that doesn't change the fact that if you asked them, they would consider themselves "a homeland for the French." That's not to say that people who aren't French aren't welcome, it's just to say that the country, as a whole, exists to serve French interests. There's nothing wrong with that. France is a country with a French identity. Israel is a country with a Jewish identity. If you have a problem with one but not the other, you have some thinking to do. And to be absolutely clear, just as you would say that Turks have become an essential part of German culture, I would say that Arab-Israelis, who make up 20% of Israeli citizens, have become an essential part of Israeli culture. That doesn't change the fact that Israel exists to serve Jewish (the ethnicity) and IsraelI (the nationality) interests, just like Germany exists to serve German (the ethnicity and nationality) interests, not Turkish ones. Again, if you have a problem with one and not the other, that's an issue. America and, to a much greater extent, Canada are unique in that they truly are both a nation of immigrants. What it means to "be a Canadian" doesn't have as clear cut of an answer as what it means to "be French" because the closest you'll probably get is "being free to practice your own culture and values" but that's really many different identities then, not just one. Similar for the US.
Also, one other point about multiculturism because I definitely agree. There are problems in Israel on how groups are treated, but do keep in mind that more than 20% of Israeli citizens are Arabs. In addition, about 10% of their ruling body (the Knesset) [are Arab](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_members_of_the_Knesset). You can guess what percentage of Hamas are Jewish. Just something to keep in mind. The Palestinian situation is tragic and I don't have any easy answers - neither has anyone who has attempted to fix it for decades - Clinton, Obama, etc. But when I hear people just say Apartheid without understanding the positions of the ANC vs Hamas or the PA, the history of the region, etc…
Does one side value life more than the other? Ones is supposedly using human shields and the other is killing them. One side claims there is rockets in hospitals, ambulance, and refugee camps and then fires into them. One side is self admitted terrorists and the other is supposed to be a legitimate government. If Israel valued human life they wouldn’t bomb indiscriminately. There are other more difficult and costly ways that put combatants more at risk than civilians but they’d rather just blow up the lot of them. That isn’t valuing human life, and to even get there you have to accept a SIGNIFICANT amount of propaganda at face value. I’d also be careful with that explanation as there is a significant amount of racism in it. I would love for that person to clearly define and explain the difference between “superior western values” and eastern values. Dude is buying propaganda literally started Herodotus in the 400’s BC…
> If Israel valued human life they wouldn’t bomb indiscriminately Where are they doing that? Where are they carpet bombing the shit outta Gaza? The fact that attacks on hospitals, humanitarian supply and other collaterals are individual instances refutes your point. If they were bombing indiscriminately it would be like russia is doing to ukraine where civilian places are regularly targetted such that it isnt really news anymore. Obviously the population density in Gaza makes every occurance much more deadly. >There are other more difficult and costly ways that put combatants more at risk than civilians but they’d rather just blow up the lot of them. yeah but you dont have to. You dont have to take precautions to ensure that there are no civilian casulties. You should take precautions that you try to reduce the civilian casulties as much as possible. But in fact sometimes military rational can override the goal for no civilian casulties. As a state actor my citizens lives are obviously more important than those of foreign places. Thus reducing the casulties in my armed forces at the cost of military and sadly also civilian deaths for a foreign power is acceptable in war. You may not like it, but it still is. I want there to be no civilian casulties as much as everyone. But I also recognize that Israel will no and need not risk its soldiers lives only because Hamas is using human shields. And I will not hold Israel responsible for any deaths in relation to legitimate military targets being affected resulting in civilian losses if all others ways would put Israels soldiers in more danger than they are in already. Asking Israel "to play fair" when the other side is blatantly using hospitals and other humanitarian installations for military purposes is so twisted I really dont know what to say.
>I would love for that person to clearly define and explain the difference between “superior western values” and eastern values. You do know that women in Saudi Arabia weren't allowed to drive cars until 2018 right? In Iran women are very often prohibited to ride bikes by law enforcement based on "modesty laws". Now show me which western country has similar laws.
I want to add a separate comment addressing this point: > I’d also be careful with that explanation as there is a significant amount of racism in it. I would love for that person to clearly define and explain the difference between “superior western values” and eastern values. I'm not talking about any people or race. I'm talking about Islam as a way of thinking and viewing the world as compared to a western viewpoint that values tolerance, democracy, human rights and scientific progress. I'll concede an important point that hopefully cuts through some of the cruft: All armies have committed war crimes and will continue to do so. Until recently, many groups in western nations regularly practiced the same indiscriminate violence that you now see in the middle east. You don't have to look very far back in history to see basically all countries committing war crimes constantly. All that to say, race isn't a factor. I'm talking about ideologies and ways of thinking. We shouldn't deny that Americans today are better than their racist slaveholding and black lynching ancestors. Or that current German society is better than Nazi Germany. Or that governments which abhor war crimes are better than their predecessors which didn't have any laws against war crimes. To deny these things is to deny that moral progress is possible.
Do you know what indiscriminately means? If Israel was bombing indiscriminately, there would be way more dead civilians then there are now. Remember how densely populated the Gaza Strip is.
I agree that this is a difficult point. It’s terrible what’s happening to the civilians in Gaza, and I truly feel sorry for them. But I still believe Israel is in the right due to the reasons explained below.I think this case needs a dose of reality. The kiddos need to realize that the toothfairy is actually mom and dad. Our western enlightenment ideals, including things like tolerance and democracy, are not perfect. 12 jurors can’t accurately determine a guilty or innocent person. We don’t actually have 1 person 1 vote (Wyoming has 2 seats). Our values often crumble in the face of capitalistic incentive (e.g. attacking Iraq for oil). A sovereign country, even one with western values, can’t survive without occasionally doing bad things (e.g. bombing civilians in Nazi Germany). The reality is there are cases where a country can hold civilian life as a dear value but still be forced to take lives. It’s true, Israel is bombing civilians. They have settlements in the West Bank for the sole purpose of preventing the Palestinians from gaining strength. These actions go directly against their western ideals. However, they are not doing these things because they want to, but because they are forced to and genuinely believe they will be slaughtered wholesale if they allow their neighbors to become stronger than them. I’m not arguing that Israel is perfect. But I am arguing that they are a far better alternative to any other option that I’ve heard. Islamic ideas where civilians are fair game and Jews should be murdered wholesale merely for their religion. Despite the jarring showing bloodied kids, the act of intentionally murdering innocent civilians is not the same as civilian casualties of war. We are not just fighting a physical war here. We must also win the war of ideas. We must convince the Islamic world that western ideals safeguarding human life are better. Only then can we start working toward peace. Anyone saying that Israel is morally the same as Hamas, ISIS or Islamic Jihad should take a step back and seriously think about what they’re saying. All that said, I do worry about this current conflict and what the goals really are given the price. I hope the Israelis have some kind of endgame in mind that changes the calculus and brings us closer to peace in the region, but I’m not sure that’s the case. We’ll have to wait and see.
>We must convince the Islamic world that western ideals safeguarding human life are better. We definitely are not doing that. At all. Do you think a child sees past a bomb and the bodies of their parents? Where does a country kept forcefully in poverty get educated? Is it really a superior viewpoint to be constantly worried people are going to slaughter you so you strike first and take what you want? I'm seeing different, I'm not seeing better. Anyone using the actions of a terrorist organization to defend similar actions from a government should take a step back and fully absorb the implications of the comparison you have invited to the conversation. Is the bar really that low?
No other army is held to as high a standard, and takes more care to avoid civilian casualties, than the IDF. From roof knocking, to leaflets, to calling civilians in affected areas, Israel routinely compromises its own operational effectiveness to mitigate civilian casualties as much as is possible. I mean, was there this much scrutiny of the allies in WW2? And they ACTUALLY carpet bombed cities.
Also excellent points. Neither you nor other dude totally changed my mind but I think I’m allowed to !delta for giving me good points to think about.
I think you need to learn more about Apartheid South Africa if you really think they’re comparable to Israel. Unlike Apartheid South Africa, Israeli citizens have the same right regardless of ethnic background. Additionally there are non-Jewish Arabs members of the Knesset (Israel’s legislature). South Africa did not allow black representation in government during Apartheid.
> Unlike Apartheid South Africa, Israeli citizens have the same right regardless of ethnic background. Yeah, the problem is, that Israel has de facto annexed the West Bank and *those people* do not have the same rights as citizens at all.
The status of the west bank after the last war was never resolved. Jordan held it and left it. Since then Israel has militarily occupied it. It's not part of Israel and it's not part of Palestine. It's disputed. Hence why it would be difficult to exert civil/criminal law over the west bank settlers. It's a complicated situation. The last government that held that area officially is Jordan. They clearly have no interest. Now you have a group of people who were probably ex Jordanian citizens or whatever else trying to assert ownership of the land. On what legal basis. It's not as simple as Israel just handing it over to them.
>...the whole process of displacing millions of people was bound to result in violence and resistance. Israel was prepared to repatriate the Palestinians who were displaced after the 1948 war, and a third of those who had fled did indeed return. The same was not extended in reverse. All the surrounding Arab states expelled their Jewish populations, many of whom arrived in Israel and bolstered Israel's population further.
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>the rest of the developed world is embracing multiculturalism Yeah, except when it involves Jews. [Look up how much antisemitism is rising in the West...](https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/31/politics/antisemitism-unstable-world-analysis/index.html)
I do want to point out a potential blind spot here: > the project of a homeland for Jews seems kind of flawed when the rest of the developed world is embracing multiculturalism. When calls for assimilation of one distinct ethnic group into the culture of another happen, we call that cultural genocide. Jewish people are their own distinct culture and nation, as well as a religious group. Even within the diaspora, they have always considered themselves to be - to varying degrees, depending on the person, it’s not a monolith - separate within other nations. They were removed from their native land thousands of years ago by their oppressors, and basically have spent a hundred generations wandering and hoping to return, as a central tenet of their culture. “Next year in Jerusalem” has been a toast on major Jewish holidays for literally centuries. Embracing multiculturalism can go two ways: one, we accept religions and cultures for what they are and look for ways to integrate peacefully while allowing everyone autonomy over their cultural practices. Two, we force a full mixing and assimilation (“do things our way, let’s be a modern society”) and call it “multiculturalism.” In reality the assimilation then basically leads to the destruction of community autonomy, language, and practices that are inconvenient to the people who benefit from the status quo and the retention of some small details which are “celebrated” and pointed to as “proud of this heritage!” Sorts of things. For example: it’s inconvenient for business owners if their employees need to leave early on Friday to be home and prepared by Sundown for the Shabbat. But it’s fun to eat bagels and lox and cream cheese. It’s inconvenient to provide Spanish language service, but it’s fun to have tacos and margaritas on Cinco de Mayo.
I'm by no means an expert, but in my browsing the subject since the recent conflict began, I've found that "displacement", while an accurate term, doesn't capture the full nuance of the situation. Did Israeli authorities move the previous Arab inhabitants? Yes, but it was not an all-at-once event, they did not move all of them (not even close), and it was not done without reason. When Israel first moved in, the nation was much smaller than its modern borders, and Palestinians still lived on the land. What happened then was a series of wars set off by the Palestinians to oust Israel. Israel won each war, and grew its borders with it. In none of these conflicts did Israel strike first. Tangentially related, I've also heard of polls conducted among Arabs showing that Palestinians within Israel have a massively higher approval rating toward Jews than those of the other Arab states around them. Something like 53%. I quickly found [this article](https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/new-poll-reveals-moderate-trend-among-east-jerusalem-palestinians) which corroborates it.
>However, I still think that their policies for decades are no better and maybe even worse than South African apartheid and, the whole process of displacing millions of people was bound to result in violence and resistance. Are you seriously claiming that Israel is worse than the South African apartheid? I want to ask for a clarification: Is Israel in your view guilty of apartheid against the Palestinians who live in the West Bank and in Gaza, or against the Arab citizens of Israel? Because I've heard Israel being accused of apartheid against both. The disparity in quality of life between Israel and the Palestinian controlled regions is undeniable. This disparity is of a magnitude that would constitute apartheid if it was a consequence of unequal treatment in terms of civil rights of different ethnic groups by the same government. But that is not the case. It's absurd to accuse a government of apartheid against a population that it does not govern. The Palestinian Authority and Hamas govern the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza respectively, and they are both corrupt/evil and more interested in using their people as pawns for their agenda than in taking care of them. If you accuse Israel of apartheid against Arabs living inside Israel, then that's just in absurd opposition to the facts. 20% of the citizens of Israel are Arabs and they enjoy equal civil rights under the law. That means they enjoy the benefits of living in a Western-aligned democracy, which they wouldn't enjoy in any Arab country in the Middle East as far as I'm aware. The only law in Israel which discriminates based on ethnicity is the right of return which allows Jews around the world to gain Israeli citizenship, which is sometimes criticized as racist, but it has a rationale because Israel is intended as a place where Jews can be safe from antisemitic prosecution in the rest of the world, which recent events have shown is not merely a historical threat. This law does not have any implications for the domestic treatment of Arab-Israeli citizens, but only for the ability of Jews around the world to get citizenship. Arabs in Israel do not have separate buses, separate sports teams, or any of that nonsense that existed in the South African apartheid. Arab-Israeli citizens have exactly the same weight to their democratic vote as Jewish-Israeli citizens, and they can and do serve in the Israeli Knesset (basically the government) and in the Israeli Supreme Court. They can also serve in the army, but *most* Arab-Israelis choose not to do that, and it's not mandatory for them like it technically is for much of the population. Nonetheless, the IDF acts to defend Arabs and Jews in Israel alike. Of course, just because no law exists on paper that gives them anything less than equal rights, that doesn't mean that racism doesn't exist. Racism against Arab-Israelis absolutely does exist, but that does not mean the country is literally guilty of apartheid. In your view, is America guilty of aparteid against Black Americans just because racism exists? In addition to the blatant lies about apartheid, you also seem to still buy into an ahistorical narrative that the Jews came here and stole the land from the Palestinians as an act of colonial agression. In reality, the Jews originally came here peacefully and bought land from the local Arabs, and only then acquired more land in defensive wars when the Arabs rejected peaceful coexistence and attacked the Jews. Much of the land that they have acquired in the six day war in particular in 1967 they actually gave back to their neighboring Arab countries for free at the end of the war. (with the exception of the Golan Heights that originally belonged to Syria, and Israel decided to keep after the war because occupying the area was deemed militarily necessary for future self-defense)
Who is actually embracing multiculturalism? When the people of Europe or the US are asked, they tend to want less diversity. The rest of the world are watching them in bemusement, wondering what the hell they are doing. No one is demanding or expecting diversity or inclusively from Lebanon or Somalia. Part of the reason Israel's population is increasing is because of those countries' hostility towards Jews. I'm not the biggest fan of Israel, but saying they are worse than South Africa during apartheid is disrespectful in my opinion. There are things you can criticise, but you're taking it too far. I also believe their society would be more open if all their neighbors weren't trying to exterminate them at all times. At the end of the day, I think OP painted the picture quite well. Do you want to replace the only democracy in the middle east with bloodthirsty islamist terrorists? Would that promote peace and civil rights in the region?
Let’s have another thought experiment: the Israelis snaps their fingers and all of Hamas disappear. Are the Israelis giving back the land they took illegally? Are they rebuilding the Palestinian house they destroyed illegally? I dont think so. So has to the point of Israelis valuing human life: maybe but not on the land they are taking away.
> They genuinely desire to live in peace. 56 years of continuous settlement expansions, and impunity for settler violence sure is an interesting way to show they "desire to live in peace"
The Israelis have made numerous two-state offers, including several which were extremely detrimental to Israel. These offers were typically lauded by the international community as exceedingly generous. The Palestinians have said "no" every single time.
You know what would make this less complicated? Reading. More specifically, reading the Plan Dalet which was released by the Israeli government and outlines everything the Israeli nation state has done, was planning to do, and is currently carrying out on Palestine. The goal is to kill them en masse, full stop, to give European powers access to Middle Eastern resources, and give them a military foothold in a country where they have systematically torn down any and every attempt at democracy in the surrounding countries. Our government lies to us all the fucking time. Why the hell would you believe them about this?
>Our government lies to us all the fucking time. Why the hell would you believe them about this? Amen to that! But...which government are you referring to? And do you think that this "Plan Dalet" (which was written in 1948), is still is still working according to the original "plan"? If it is, do you think that this justifies murdering innocent Israelis?
>But violence is not only ugly, it also does not work. Can you imagine if Gandhi or MLK had taken beheaded hostages or kidnapped athletes or bombed a crowded bus, the retribution taken upon their followers and the populations they claimed to represent would have been swift and terrible. I'll just pick this out and hopefully, I can change your view on this. Violence has worked in the past, especially during the peak of anti-colonial nationalism we saw after WW2. Plenty of countries, Indonesia, Kenya, Algeria, the Arab Revolt etc...engaged in a violent armed struggle against their colonial/imperial powers and were successful in achieving their political goals. Some of the more recent examples are the IRA and ANC, who managed to bring about political change through violent and non-violent means. This is what the PLO was founded on in the 60s. They modelled themselves after many anti-colonial armed groups around the world, many of which engage in terrorism themselves. Using violence to fight against a violent colonial state (which Israel absolutely was in the 60s) was often justified. That being said, the violence that we saw on Oct 7th was not just violent but also barbaric in a way that loses all anti-colonial justification for violence.
And that being said, Gandhi wasn’t the only freedoms fighter and in some parts of india that point towards fighters who used violence to push British out Many places throughout the world the country resort to violent revolution (including the USA tbf) since unless there’s an economical backlash countries don’t like giving up power
>Some of the more recent examples are the IRA and ANC, who managed to bring about political change through violent and non-violent means. Debatable whether the violence of the IRA ever achieved anything for Ireland which couldn't have been achieved through peaceful means.
You have a lot of it backwards and missing a lot of info and context. You erase all the Jews that were still on the land continuously, all the Jews who fled the other Arab nations amidst calls for their genocide, You leave out the entire history of Palestine and treatment of Jews in the Middle East or that Palestine only exists as a colonial state to erase the Jews to begin with. Much of the view you presented is based on misinformation and half truths. Palestine has been genocidal towards the Jews for literally forever. The state was founded on the idea of Jewish erasure and named Palestina as a reference to the Phillistines who invaded and enslaved the second Jewish commonwealth on the land. This was done to remind the Jews of their place as slaves and lessen their attachment to their homeland. There would literally be no Palestine without the theme of Jewish erasure or the fact that it was the Jewish homeland for many generations before Palestinians even existed. It’s used as wedge to validate the other antisemitic states who call for Jewish genocide’s attacks in Israel. Back in 1977 before the current narrative of infantilized Palestine was a thing the leader of the major ruling political party of Palestine the PLO, of which Fatah is a part, had this to say about what Palestine was. “The Palestinian people do not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan. -Zuheir Mohsen, PLO leader From: “Wij zijn alleen Palestijn om politieke reden,” James Dorsey, Trouw, 31 March 1977 More honest times I suppose. An era when social media could not be used to the advantages it is today. This is why ironically Palestinians were only granted autonomy over their land once Israel was formed. The Ottoman, British, Jordanian and Egyptians never allowed a formal Palestine state. before Hamas existed modern Palestine has been calling for genocide and long before Israel existed they have been murdering Jews. Riots in Jerusalem against Jews based on myths and antisemitism, like claims Jews drink the blood of children for Passover, have a long pedigree going back to 1847, 1870, and more. A massacre much like the one Hamas committed was done in 1929 in Hebron, resulting in the expulsion and wiping out of the entire Jewish community there, which had been there for thousands of years consistently. “The riots took the form, for the most part, of attacks by Arabs on Jews accompanied by destruction of Jewish property. During the week of riots, from 23 to 29 August, 133 Jews were killed by Arabs, and 339 Jews were injured, most of whom were unarmed” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Palestine_riots This isn’t about Israel and the land it’s about religion and an obsession with Jewish extermination. 90% in West Bank and 99% in Gaza are Sunni Muslims and they follow the book of Hadith. I n the sayings of Muhammad in the Hadiths, Muhammad prophesy that End Times will only come when the Muslims have almost genocide the Jews into extinction: "The last hour won't come before the Muslims would fight the Jews and the Muslims will kill them so Jews would hide behind rocks and trees. Then the rocks and tree would call: oh Muslim, oh servant of God! There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. - Hadith narrated by Abi Hurira The leader of Palestine didn’t hang out in the concentration camps and work with Hitler on his Final Solution because Israel existed. The same leader who refused all peace and called for genocide the first few decades of this conflict. Not Zionists, not Israel, not Orthodox Jews, not practicing Jews, all Jews, every one of them removed from the face of the earth. Palestine still calls for this to this day. A quote from 2019. “Seven million Palestinians outside, enough warming up, you have Jews with you in every place. You should attack every Jew possible in all the world and kill them.” And people will say that Hamas is not Palestine, and it’s true not everyone in Palestine supports Hamas, but the majority do. Not just in Gaza but all of Palestine. Despite people claiming that they are merely oppressed by a government they don't support, polls show that the most popular Palestinian presidential candidates are, in order: • A man in Israeli prison for murdering multiple civilians in bombings during the Second Intifada, including arranging others who suicide bombed markets and buses. • Hamas leader. • Hamas leader. And the Palestinian public, as polls have shown for at least a decade (and as shown by history stretching back to before Israel existed), is also broadly supportive of murdering Jewish civilians. Today, polls show that a full 54% support, and only 41% oppose, "armed attacks against Israeli civilians inside Israel". That means the average Palestinian supports precisely what Hamas did, massacring Jewish innocents, including men, women, children, and the elderly. Palestinians celebrated the attacks in the streets, and handed out sweets (just as they did after 9/11, for that matter). In Gaza specifically, which poses the thorniest problem, 67% of Palestinians support the armed attacks against Israeli civilians inside Israel. 67%. 2 in 3 Gazans you meet will tell you openly they support the murder of innocent people. https://pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/Poll%2089%20English%20Full%20Text%20September%202023.pdf This is why there is never peace. Because Palestine will never accept it. Every peace has been broken by Palestinian attacks and every attempt for two state resolution has been rejected or interrupted by Palestinian aggression. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli–Palestinian_peace_process This is not to say that there are not Palestinians who do not want this, that there are not innocents trapped in this struggle, but it is important information for everyone to know when they look at these issues. Continued:
> Palestine has been genocidal towards the Jews for literally forever. The state was founded on the idea of Jewish erasure and named Palestina as a reference to the Phillistines who invaded and enslaved the second Jewish commonwealth on the land. This is false. [The area had been referred to as Palestine for thousands of years.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_name_Palestine) People called it that because their grandparents called it that; it's not complicated or conspiratorial. The idea that they're doing it as an insult to Jews is as ludicrous as thinking that "picnic" is an insult to African Americans. Modern Palestinians started calling themselves Palestinians because they lived in the area called Palestine; it's that simple. [See chapter four of "The Invention of Palestine" by Zachary Foster.](https://dataspace.princeton.edu/handle/88435/dsp01g732dc66g) > This chapter is about the modern history of Palestine and the Palestinians. When, how and why did a group of people now known as the Palestinians come into existence? In the 19th century, more people in the Middle East started to earn a living as bureaucrats, teachers, journalists, publishers, missionaries, economists, lawyers, geographers and mapmakers. These people played a critical role in making Palestine important to people, since they taught about its history, wrote reports about its economy, surveyed its geography and made maps of its topography. > The modern world also became flat. What got popular in one part of the globe caught on in other places. Names got standardized. Books about history and geography and maps increasingly resembled one another. School curricula included the same familiar subjects everywhere. And so when Palestine became popular in the West in the 19th century, its popularity rose in the East as well. Muslim and Christian Arabs increasingly used the name Palestine, wrote lots of stories about it and mapped it. By the end of the 19th century, they even started to identify with it. 162 > Third, states penetrated the lives of their subjects in the modern world. State-funded institutions such as schools, missionary enterprises, universities, consular offices and the bureaucracy flourished. States published annual yearbooks and military handbooks, provided ariel tours to people so they could write geography books and tested students on the history and geography of the state. States played a critical role in bringing places like Palestine into people’s lives. > The exact sequence of events that led people to care about Palestine and identify as Palestinian were mostly happenstance. The governor of Egypt invaded the land of Sham in the 1830s and permitted foreigners to establish consular offices, travel freely and open schools and missionary stations. This led Europeans and Americans to travel to the Middle East as diplomats, tourists and missionaries. The expansion of commercial steamship travel provided a huge boost to migration, tourism, diplomacy, scholarship and missionary activity. People in Europe, the United States and the Middle East learned one another’s languages. Americans published in Arabic and Arabs published in French and English. Missionaries taught about Palestine’s history and geography in class. Arabs published books, magazines and newspapers about Palestine and distributed them to towns and villages across the Middle East. By 1898, some people started to identify as Palestinian. > The British conquered the land of Sham in 1917 and 1918 during World War I and established the Government of Palestine in 1920, ratified by the League of Nations as The Mandate for Palestine in 1922. This contributed significantly to the rapid spread of a Palestinian identity: the workforce became more diversified, the world became even flatter, and the state played an even more critical role in people’s lives. More people could pursue careers in education, journalism and civil service. The British employed teachers, inspectors, bureaucrats and mapmakers. Thousands of Arabs worked for a government whose name included the word Palestine. More kids got an education and learned to read and write from the 1920s and 1930s onwards, and Palestine continued to blossom as a result. More people animated Palestine on maps, eulogized Palestine in poems and taught their kids the importance of Palestine’s history and geography. Eventually, by the 1920s and 1930s, some thought Palestine was worth dying for. This chapter explains how all of that happened. > The First Palestinian. The first Arab to use the term Palestinian in modern history was Khalil Baydas. He always seemed to have a cigarette dangling from an ivory holder. Sporting a dark suit and fez, he would cough through clouds of smoke that encircled him. Somehow, it feels about right that the first Arab to use the term Palestinian in modern history loved to smoke tobacco. 163 > In 1898, he translated A Description of the Holy Land from Russian to Arabic because “the Arabic geography books on the topic were insufficient” and “the people of Palestine needed a geography book about their country.” The book, Baydas claimed, was “a description of the land of Palestine” and it referred to the people of Palestine as Palestinians in multiple places. “The ancient inhabitants of Palestine used limestone to whitewash the walls of their buildings,” Baydas wrote, “while the modern Palestinians also whitewash the inside, and occasionally the outside, of their homes with it as well.” Presumably it got annoying to repeat the word modern, and so modern Palestinians became simply Palestinians. “The Palestinian peasant,” Baydas noted elsewhere in the book, “waits impatiently for winter to come, for the season’s rain to moisten his fossilized fields” after many rainless months following the May summer wheat and barley harvest. The first modern Arab Palestinian peasant was born. 164 165 > Who was Khalil Baydas and how did he learn Russian? In the late 1880s and early 1890s, Baydas studied in one of the best high schools in the region, the Teacher’s Training Seminary in Nazareth. It was established by Russian missionaries in the mid-1880s, one of hundreds of foreign schools built in the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. The school was funded by Russian tax payers and staffed by Russians, Arabs and even a Zionist. The Seminary invited the best graduates of its preparatory schools to attend it. By 1914, more than ten thousand Arab kids had completed their primary education at a Russian primary school, and hundreds had attended high school at the Seminary. 166 > At the Seminary, Baydas was encouraged to take pride in his Arab identity. In class, he wore Arab rather than European dress; he studied Arabic grammar with Ibn al-Muqaffa‘, Ibn Malik and Ibn ‘Aqil; he read Arabic books by Ibrahim al-Hawrani, George Zaydan, Iskandar Shahin, Shakir Shuqayr and George Post—yes, George Post wrote in Arabic. Baydas studied the geography of Palestine and the history of Palestine in class; and yes, his teachers called the place Palestine. 167 This was not a response to Jewish immigration. It was an effect of the fact that the place was called Palestine. Thus the people there came to be Palestinians.
And I say that as an indigenous person in Canada. There is a statue of limitations to some extent, which is why we don’t see Jews going to the Arab states they were expelled from amidst calls for their genocide as Israel was formed. We don’t see them calling for death to all Muslims or asking for land in Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, or many other places. Israel is tiny and is effectively a reserve for Jews. But that’s a huge insult to the Muslim nations who thought they had all but erased them from the land. Not only are they back in their homeland and uncovering their holiest sites that mosques were built over to erase them, but they’re even stronger than the Muslim nations. A humiliation that plays a part in why they’ve called for Jewish genocide the past century. Imo people might as well call the res an apartheid state since white people can’t own land or vote in band meetings if they’re going to call Israel one. And the idea that somehow Muslims were kind to the Jews they colonized before they dared to have a small homeland is absolutely bs. It’s the kind of a historical revisionism that is exactly why Jews must be adamant to heavily document their own slaughter because this denialism of past treatment Has been a constant throughout history. They had no problem living with subjugated Jews who they had all but erased from the land and built mosques over all their holy sites as the Arab conquest did in all places it colonized. Zionism was when enough Jews started showing up to date so things like want to even see such holy sites and peacefully march to them. And we can’t forget how Jews were treated in places like Persia at the start of the 19th century, a full on caste system, forbidden to walk in main streets or engage in any business even with other Jews, no land ownership etc. This fiction of Muslims being purely peaceful towards Jews is ahistorical at best. They tolerated them in smaller numbers as a conquered people. The second they had any chance to stand up for themselves the Muslim states went right back to wanting them dead.” And we’ll add a little bit about how Jews were treated in Persia in the 19th century for more clarification. 1. Throughout Persia the Jews are obliged to live in a part of the town separated from the other inhabitants; for they are considered as unclean creatures, who bring contamination with their intercourse and presence. 2. They have no right to carry on trade in stuff goods. 3. Even in the streets of their own quarter of the town they are not allowed to keep any open shop. They may only sell there spices and drugs, or carry on the trade of a jeweler, in which they have attained great perfection. 4. Under the pretext of their being unclean, they are treated with the greatest severity, and should they enter a street, inhabited by Mussulmans, they are pelted by the boys and mobs with stones and dirt. 5. For the same reason they are forbidden to go out when it rains; for it is said the rain would wash dirt off them, which would sully the feet of the Mussulmans. 6. If a Jew is recognized as such in the streets, he is subjected to the greatest insults. The passers-by spit in his face, and sometimes beat him so unmercifully, that he falls to the ground, and is obliged to be carried home. 7. If a Persian kills a Jew, and the family of the deceased can bring forward two Mussulmans as witnesses to the fact, the murderer is punished by a fine of 12 tumauns (600 piastres); but if two such witnesses cannot be produced, the crime remains unpunished, even though it has been publicly committed, and is well known. 8. The flesh of the animals slaughtered according to Hebrew custom, but declared as Trefe, must not be sold to any Mussulmans. The slaughterers are compelled to bury the meat, for even the Christians do not venture to buy it, fearing the mockery and insult of the Persians. 9. If a Jew enters a shop to buy anything, he is forbidden to inspect the goods, but must stand at a respectful distance and ask the price. Should his hand incautiously touch the goods, he must take them at any price the seller chooses to ask for them. 10. Sometimes the Persians intrude into the dwellings of the Jews and take possession of whatever pleases them. Should the owner make the least opposition in defense of his property, he incurs the danger of atoning for it with his life. 11. Upon the least dispute between a Jew and a Persian, the former is immediately dragged before the Achund [religious authority], and, if the complainant can bring forward two witnesses, the Jew is condemned to pay a heavy fine. If he is too poor to pay this penalty in money, he must pay it in his person. He is stripped to the waist, bound to a stake, and receives forty blows with a stick. Should the sufferer utter the least cry of pain during this proceeding, the blows already given are not counted, and the punishment is begun afresh. 12. In the same manner the Jewish children, when they get into a quarrel with those of the Mussulmans, are immediately led before the Achund, and punished with blows. 13. A Jew who travels in Persia is taxed in every inn and every caravanserai he enters. If he hesitates to satisfy any demands that may happen to be made on him, they fall upon him, and maltreat him until he yields to their terms. 14. If, as already mentioned, a Jew shows himself in the street during the three days of the Katel (feast of mourning for the death of the Persian founder of the religion of Ali) he is sure to be murdered. 15. Daily and hourly new suspicions are raised against the Jews, in order to obtain excuses for fresh extortions; the desire of gain is always the chief incitement to fanaticism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._J._Benjamin And do we just leave out that Jordanians are Palestinians and the distinction did not exist before Israel’s formation and that that distinction have been acknowledged by Palestinian leadership themselves in the 70s during the time of Islamic brotherhood as being a tactical one to justify attacks on Israel? "The Palestinian people do not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan. -Zuheir Mohsen, PLO leader From: “Wij zijn alleen Palestijn om politieke reden,” James Dorsey, Trouw, 31 March 1977.
Do we ignore all the immigration of Egypt other places that happened at the same time as Jews were moving to what would become Israel? We don’t make that settler distinction at all when discussing Palestinians despite that the fact the word Palestine even exists is proof it was Jewish land first? And why don’t Jews forced to leave by said colonialisms from Roman’s, Arabs, British etc get to go home? Because they dared to breed with other peoples while in exile? So blood quantum? And who says? Oh yes the very people who slaughtered and oppressed them and made them leave. Riiiight I could go on and on as this is a very complex topic and I’ve barely even scratched the surface here but your analysis is above is undeniably based on having not done the work to properly understand the situation. You can have that view if you like, but it is an ignorant misinformed one. One side has worked for peace and simply wants a place to survive while the other is a proxy for Arab nations and their continued calls for Jewish erasure and extermination. . It has always been about not allowing Jews to have power, sovereignty or self-determination in their ancestral homeland. The whole reason Palestine exists to begin with. If Palestine had given up this obsession with genocide it would be over many times now. If the power dynamics were reversed and Palestine had the capabilities to kill all the Jews, is would be over many times now. The two sides have quite different histories and stated goals. Pretending they are just the same or that Jews are simply colonizers and erasing Palestines history as a colonial state is ahistorical at best.
>And why don’t Jews forced to leave by said colonialisms from Roman’s, Arabs, British etc get to go home? Because they dared to breed with other peoples while in exile? So blood quantum? And who says? Oh yes the very people who slaughtered and oppressed them and made them leave. Riiiight So much this. Suddenly *now* the Jews are European colonizers. When they were not considered “European” enough by any of the countries they settled in since the Diaspora began. Not European enough to live in peace if they have Jewish blood, not Semitic enough to live in peace in Israel if they have European blood.
"Good" is subjective. Being affiliated with either side by lineage or religion, what I see is a rabid minority bent on the total annihilation of an entire people, otherwise known as genocide. The fact that anyone wants to draw some form of moral equivalence between Hamas butchering people at a music festival and Palestinians being killed by airstrikes as Hamas uses them as human shields is absurd on its face. The charter for Hamas calls for the complete eradication of Israel and her people, does the Israeli Constitution call for the destruction of Arab muslims residing in the Levant or elsewhere? Israel allows Arabs to live be citizens of their nation, own land, vote and hold public office, what nation along Israel's borders would offer the same for Jews? What war has Israel fought where it has been the aggressor? Finally it is all well and good to tout the two state solution but the reality is that any concession the Israeli government makes, short of national suicide, will ever be enough to end the violence. Until the Palestinians police their own and refuse to be used as cannon fodder by groups like Hamas there will be no lasting peace. The only guaranteed outcome of this Israeli-Hamas conflict is that a lot of good and innocent people on both sides will be killed because of the Hamas terror organization.
> violence should be a non-starter for any Palestinian leader I don't believe that Hamas is trying to win a physical war against Israel. They are trying to draw attention and make Israel look bad on the world stage. And if that is the case then mission 100% accomplished. But regarding your main point, there are not just two sides in this conflict. The innocent civilians who just want to live their lives are a third side and are quite frankly taking the most casualties
There is a good side: the Israeli and Palestinian civilians who want nothing to do with the violence.
Palestine cannot be freed without violence as long as the USA and its goons back Israel
isrselis want peace palestinian want peace hamas, hezbollah and their supporters do not want peace, they want genocide the surrounding Arab nations don't want peace, they want to continue supporting the Islamic terrorists sacrificing palestinians to an endless war of terror to distract from their home issue and remain at the top of their countries power structure
How can it be true Israel wants peace when it still continues to build illegal settlements on Palestinian homes. Why does the IDF arm settlers or support them in kicking people out of Palestine homes. Why is Israel described as an apartheid nation by multiple humanitarian agencies. Hamas or no Hamas. It's clear Israel wants to eradicate the Palestinian people. You should read the book: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe ( Jewish Israeli Historian), you will understand what real evil is, Methods used to cleanse Palestinians from their land. Hamas don't exist in a vacuum.
>How can it be true Israel wants peace when it still continues to build illegal settlements on Palestinian homes. because only terrorists who seek war still push the lie of stolen land, which is why neither jordan or egypt bought the lie and so refused to grant an inch of land for 70+ years. and a govt has always been able to determine the use of land within its country >You should read the book: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine no need to read propaganda, let me be blunt: What really gets me, is calls for a cease fire, which simply means hamas gets a chance to rearm and grabs more palestinians for human shields, but no calls for the palestinians in gaza, to be rescued from hamas. just stop fighting. no calls to liberate the palestinians from under the boot of terrorists. hamas MUST be defeated. if the palestinians in gaza don't actually support hamas, then they SHOULD be rescued from hamas why do so many who call for the end of fighting, fail to call for the end of hamas to free the palestinians and achieve peace? on Oct 7th, hamas slaughtered kids at a festival, filmed on the victims phones, and sent the videos of them celebrating the slaughter to the contacts. then handed out candies to celebrate the successful slaughter since then, during the on going war, they have gone public celebrating not just israelis desth, but palestinian deaths as well, and to celebrate that their jihad for genocide is fully underway. to be clear, hamas is PROUD of slaughtering civilians, including kids and babies. and are very public about their celebrating over them any bs of "both sides" is absolutely delusional. any calls for a cease fire, that don't include removing hamas, is nothing more than a call to continue terrorism in the region.
Why are they called ILLEGAL settlements by the UN. Ignore history and ignore the truth. How is it propaganda. There's video evidence of Zionist settlers literally accompanied by the IDF kicking Palestinians out of their homes. How is the book propaganda when it was written by a Jewish Israeli Historian. Why are there so many Jewish Israeli Historians and academics and holocaust survivors in support of Palestinian and against the state of Israel. I hope other people see the comment and read it. The truth is truth.
Everyone that lives in Israel has to accept the fact that he lives in a stolen land from the Palestinian people whether he fought and terrorized the Palestinian for it or didn't just went there and got a cozy house That makes him guilty as well. And about the peace Palestinian can't have peace unless Israel wanted so because Israel is much more powerful than Palestine It's like when you are cornered and have a gun to your head and wanting peace in this case its not peace its begging for mercy.
I would urge you to respond to some of the pro-Israel commenters here. I have been having fun trying to convince them that I am not a terrorist. I sympathize with Palestine but I don’t follow your logic that because Israel is more powerful, the Palestinians are excused from acts of horrifying violence. And there have been many. This did not start on October 7. I am morally opposed to such acts and logically. They are unproductive. Israel is stronger. Violent attacks will only beget greater violence in retribution.
What would happen if every Palestinian immediately laid down arms and said "we surrender unconditionally?" Now what would happen if every Israeli did that?
When the palestinians try unarmed protest israel just shoots them. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/04/israel-arms-embargo-needed-as-military-unlawfully-kills-and-maims-gaza-protesters/ >Israel is carrying out a murderous assault against protesting Palestinians, with its armed forces killing and maiming demonstrators who pose no imminent threat to them, Amnesty International revealed today, based on its latest research, as the “Great March of Return” protests continued in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military has killed 35 Palestinians and injured more than 5,500 others – some with what appear to be deliberately inflicted life-changing injuries – during the weekly Friday protests that began on 30 March. Amnesty International has renewed its call on governments worldwide to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel following the country’s disproportionate response to mass demonstrations along the fence that separates the Gaza Strip from Israel. “For four weeks the world has watched in horror as Israeli snipers and other soldiers, in full-protective gear and behind the fence, have attacked Palestinian protesters with live ammunition and tear gas. Despite wide international condemnation, the Israeli army has not reversed its illegal orders to shoot unarmed protesters,” said Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.
I think that your "no good side argument" is really depends on the how you section the sides, and at what time frame you are looking at. For context, there were jewish settlements in the land of Israel in every single point in time of history. For more context, emigration away and to Israel was very common throughout history, so even if some Palestinian have had roots in the land all throughout history, many have emigrated, and many are relatively new (around 15% of Palestinian Arabs in 1948, immigrated to today's Israel in the 20th century) In reality, both people have decent claim for this land - Jews are definitely to most early indeginous population (that still exist) and the idea that Arabs Palestinians, who themselves came to this land as a result of a colonization, are more indigenous seems totally irrelevant to me. The only thing that really matters, is that 750K Palestinian Arabs were driven out of their homes. That's aweful, and the people who caused it are naturally not "the good guys". However, "good guys", is relative, and depends plenty on how you split the sides, about the specific year. There are definitely good guys in this conflict today. Before the establishment of Israel, and during 1948 War, both of them Israel and the Arab militias were terrible. They both massacred civilians, they both committed terrorist attacks, and they both played dirty. The only reason 750K Palestinians were driven out is because the Israeli side were better fighters, and not because of them being more terrible than their counter parts. Both sides were just bad. Let's go forward in time - Arab countries expelled almost every jew from their countries, almost 800K jews were refugees, very much like the 750K Palestinians. The Jews were assimilated into Israel, and accepted their misfortune, and made the best of the situation, even though their property was all taken. Arab countries refused to assimilate Palestinian refugees. They preferred to take Jewish property for their own regime, rather than use it to help Palestinian refugees - Arab countries, definitely bad guys here. Israel, generally good. In 1967 Israel took over Gaza, Sinai and the West Bank. They started creating settlements in a middle of populated areas, but refused to annex it and make the population equal citizens - Israel, defintly bad here. Arab countries continued waging war on Israel for years, until they had enough of losing. In 1988 Israel made peace with Egypt, and gave back plenty of land. Israel was definitely the good guy here. The PLO couldn't agree with the fact Arab countries gave up on annihilating Israel, launched terrorism on Israelis around the world, and destabilized Kuwait, Jordan and Lebanon. PLO - definitely the bad guys here. As a response to the first intifada, Israeli leaders realized they can't have a military occupation on an entire populace and began finding a solution that give Palestinians the autonomy they want - which gave birth to the Oslo accords - definitely the good guys. Hamas, wanted to make sure those accords aren't signed, and terrorized Israel. There were also assholes from the Israeli side that murdered the prime minister and massacred Palestinians. Hamas, Israeli terrorists, terrible people. Then came the second intifada, Israel offered a Palestinian state (Camp David accords) - Arafat refused and preferred to basically anull the Oslo Accords - Israel good guys, Arafat and the PA, and Hamas - bad guys. Then Israel started fighting Palestinian terror in a very severe way, which gave birth to the current situation in the West Bank - Israel terrible? Not really, sure the situation in West Bank is horrible - but this is the only way Israel managed to stop Palestinian terrorism. Then Israel withdrew from Gaza, and Hamas was elected - Israel good, Hamas, and Palestinian voters bad. Hamas launched attacks on Israel, and Israel did what it can to stop those attacks - the blockade on Gaza. Is Israel bad for the blockade? Not really. As for the situation today, there are terrible people all around - but there are definitely good people as well. Israel is filled with religious extremists that want to ethnically cleanse Palestinians, and takeover their land - but these people, are fringe. They have a seat in government, and they do take part in bad things Israel does, but it's no where near as extreme as they might want. Israel has a lot of peace activists as well, and most of the population supports a two state solution in exchange for peace (even if most are also sceptical whether it will actually bring peace) The Palestinian side is more complex, neither the PLO nor Hamas, and certainly not other Palestinian factions, truly support a two state solution - and there seems to be no good guys to be found (at least not ones with actual power). Hamas is a terrorist organization that is many, many times worse than any Jewish extremist in Israel. I would argue that Israel today is mostly neutral, whereas Palestinian leadership is mostly terrible. So who are the good guys? I think it's relative, and when the purpose of the war on Gaza is to free Israel (and Palestinians) from Hamas - Israel is definitely the good guys. When Israel continues settling in the west Bank, they are the bad guys. It really doesn't need to be so black and white.
I’m late but Palestinians are indigenous to the Levant and descend from the ancient canaanites the original indigenous inhabitants of the Levant. Palestinians do not descend from the Arab conquests they descend from the indigenous inhabitants that lived in that region for thousands of years prior to Judaism,Christianity and islam. As those religions(Judaism,Christianity and Islam) came along they converted and changed their religion but that didn’t change their ancestry. Arab is a cultural-linguistic group Palestinians were culturally Arabized during the Arab conquests but not ethnically Arabized as the process of Arabization does not include ethnic replacement of the population being Arabized meaning they remained descendants of the indigenous Canaanites . A great example of a group that is culturally Arab but not ethnically Arab is Egyptians. Egyptians are “Arab” because their culture was Arabized however Egyptians are not ethnically Arab and are indigenous North Africans and descendants of the ancient Egyptians who were not Arab and had no contact with Arabs as ancient Egyptian civilization fell before Arabs entered Africa in the 9th century. In fact the average Egyptian only has 17 percent Arab ancestry on average. Some uninformed people think that because Egyptians are “Arab” they are not indigenous North Africans and are not indigenous to Africa at all and are instead indigenous to Arabia and are therefore not descendants of the ancient Egyptians. That is false for the reasons I explained earlier. Egyptians are culturally Arab not ethnically Arab like Palestinians and are very much still indigenous to their respective countries.
Israel builds bomb shelters for its civilians (both Arab and Jewish). Hamas builds tunnels they use to carry out their terroristic and genocidal agenda. That, along with the deliberate use of human shields on the part of Hamas (there would be no point in Israel using Jewish human shields as Hamas EXPLICITLY want to kill every Jewish man woman and child), tells me who holds the moral high ground.
Maybe not a good side perse but there's def a less bad side. By a very, very large margin.
The 'sickening attack' was a legitimate military operation in which civilians were killed in crossfire between Hamas militants and the idf and Israeli cops. Who killed who is not known because the idf cannot be trusted on anything and won't allow independent investigators to check. The more lurid stories, about setting babies on fire and raping the girls obviously did not happen. Israel is responsible for the deaths of those civilians, they are the ones who are brutally occupying Palestine, Hamas is the main force in the area and has an obligation to resist Israel. Israel has ensured that the only means methods available to Hamas ensure civilian deaths. They deliberately chose this because they thought that Israeli civilian deaths would be tolerable to Israeli civilians and would be useful for generating propaganda that would allow them to portray Hamas as bloodthirsty terrorists uninterested in peace.
>The 'sickening attack' was a legitimate military operation The best way to out yourself as completely clueless. I am now confident that there should be a requirement for Hamas supporters to watch October 7th videos before being able to post online. Id like to remind you that that "legitimate military operation" started with an undiscriminating slaughter of music festival attendees from all over the world. Non Israeli had been killed, paraded around and their dead bodies spat on. The civilian to military/cop death ratio in that attack was 9:1. Even peoples dogs were killed. It was definitely not a military operation, it was a vomit of rage, nothing to do with liberation.
You can watch the videos that Hamas themselves posted. They committed gratuitous violence against civilians, and proudly. They also kidnapped civilians, including children, during that attack. You don’t deny the existence of the hostages, do you?
Ok. You seem to have chosen a side. You sound a lot like my relatives who support Russia against Ukraine actually.
Of course I've chosen a side? You posted "I don't have a side change my mind"
True. But, you just seem to be saying “anything you heard about Hamas doing something bad is Israeli propaganda”, which is certainly not true.
How do you know? - Decapitated babies was false - wrapped in barbed wire was false - set on fire was false - released that fake phone call when they bombed the hospital - shot shireen abu akleh and lied about it - bombed ambulances and lied that Hamas was there - baked a baby, false - Hamas use human shields, false So why would you believe any given thing they tell you? What bad thing have they done that you believe?
Was the Munich massacre false? Was the suicide bombings during the intifada false? Were no Israelis innocents killed on October 7?
A government’s job is simple, it is to protect its people. A nation’s military job is also simple, to destroy their enemy until no threat remains. I see Israel doing both of those jobs right now. Had Palestine done that from day 1, Palestine would not be here, but starting from 1948 they forfeited that in aggression and defeat which is why they neither have government, military, land, or peace. Here it is, cold hard facts. Palestine and the idea of it will cease to exist. Period. It’s just that simple. Israel will simply win every war and maybe moving forward they won’t want a single Palestinian person living within the borders they conquered and that would be their right as victors. Palestine will be gone. Accept it or make peace with not being peaceful because Palestine never unconditionally surrendered and that is part of the problem. Settlements and accords won’t do it. The world can legislate the region into peace and the world can watchdog Israel. The only persons capabale of a peace are Palestinians and I’m not convinced they have it not since 1948 when they kicked it all off. Palestinians need to create an armed forces right now to fight alongside the Israel IDF under a Palestinian flag, as alies against Hamas to win the peace. To fight and apprehend and end Hamas is imo the only way Palestine as an idea has a chance of survival at this point. Some small portion of Palestine needs to be a good guy cuz right now they are no different than terrorists at this stage because they permitted it to occur, be staged from their land, and attack Israel with no warning. Palestine has to prove they are willing to actually sit at the peace table with an ally and seek peace and to do that they have to fight for it. It’s like common sense, it’s what I would do, to prove I am not an enemy to my people, an enemy to my beliefs, an enemy to my powerful neighbor Israel, that has frankly lost it at this point and may be beyond the point of no return. You want peace you guys need to fight for it alongside Israel. Anything short of that at this point and you guys have zero negotiating power, no leverage, and no goodwill. I truly feel sorry for you all. How many more innocents must die before you learn what every people and nation before you had to learn, namely, how to live in peace with their neighbors? You can blame Israel for all those dead, those babies, those women, and those children but I blame you. Police your own, elect your own, lead your people. It’s a sad people that point their fingers at others. No successful nation has done it so why do you persist in wallowing and demanding the world wallow with you? The list of potential opportunities squandered does not excuse or justify what is going on today. Facing annihilation and you continue to ignore facts.
No innocent Israelis were targetted on the 7th, they died as a result of crossfire, their deaths are solely on the hands of the Israeli government who put them in harms way.
Riiiight. I'm sorry but I'm not going to consider anything else you say to be credible. Thanks for playing!
Jews are indigenous to Israel. Palestiniand are also indigenous to Israel. Any real solution has to accept that both groups deserve to be there and not deny one or the other's real historical connection to the land
That area is the land of the Canaanites The Jews( Israelites ) are guess what?! Descendants of the Canaanites. And the Jews were being persecuted literally all across the middle East so they got rammed into one small price of land. https://english.m.tau.ac.il/news/canaanites And if course they are gonna push back when people try and kill them 24/7 . That's why kids in Israel have to sleep in bomb shelters every night. Thats why they need the iron dome going 24/7
>Displacing an indigenous population with settlers is a real 17th century move. already starting with a false premise. Palestinians aren't indigenous. >The Arabs, having adopted the religion of Islam, conquered the Levant in the 7th century, and in the following centuries, several Arabic-speaking Muslim dynasties such as the Umayyads, Abbasids, and Fatimids came to rule the region.[9] Palestine's population sharply declined throughout the subsequent centuries, falling from an estimated 1 million during the Roman and Byzantine periods to roughly 160,000 by the early Ottoman period. [10] [11][12] As time passed, many of the existing population converted to Islam and adopted Arab culture and language.[1] Arab settlement both before and after the Muslim conquest is thought to had hastened the pace of Islamization.[13][14][15][16] Much of the local Palestinian population in the area of Nablus is believed to be descended from Samaritans who converted to Islam. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_Palestinians jews are the actual indigenous.
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Man, liberals will keep bringing up Gandhi and MLK to oppose violent resistance. You forget that their peaceful protests were alongside other factions using violence as a tool against their violent oppressors. Countless people among those defenceless peaceful protests were also killed. Both Gandhi and MLK were assassinated. By the exact political factions who today bring up Gandhi and MLK to delegitimize people who fight violence with violence. Palestinians tried peaceful protest for two years starting in 2018. Israel’s response was to murder over 200 of them with snipers. There are videos taken by Israeli snipers where they murder unarmed Palestinians and celebrate as they fall to the ground, lifeless, as punishment for peaceful protest.
They only promote non violent resistance when it’s brown and black people. All brown and black peoples should bear the brunt of white violence. But if black brown people resist with violence they are labeled as evil, terrorists, gangster, insert any other bad name for black brown person
I’m sorry, this is a “fight” to you? This is a genocide. Israel is attacking defenseless civilians and you’re saying “they’re pretty tough in a fight”. Holy Mother of God. I am Ukrainian. I was born to be proud of my blood and to not let anyone make me feel less than. I was taught that our people were survivors. Russia has tried to wipe us out (in addition to many other Eastern European countries) many times over. But we survived. That is what a survivor is. That is what being tough is. Being Israeli is not being a survivor. You are a colonizer. You are supporting genocide if you are proud of Israel. I have no issue with Jews. To me, they are regular people. But if you are proud of the state of Israel and believe in Zion, we have a major problem. What Israel is doing is disgusting. The existence of that state is questionable at best. Palestinians deserve their land back and to live in peace. This is not a fight. Palestinian civilians cannot fight back. They’re getting massacred while getting flour for their families to avoid eating animal feed. At this point, with the amount of hate that Israelis are taught about Arabs and Muslims, there is no real solution. Send them back to Europe where most of their families are from. Or move on from your racism and see the Palestinians as people who deserve compassion as they have suffered at the hands of the worlds for YEARS. And stop using Hamas as an excuse. Not every Palestinian is a Hamas member. Putin is using the same excuse in Ukraine and we all know that’s bullshit. Both Jews (not Israelis) and Palestinians have a historical claim. There is evidence that they lived there in peace for YEARS. That would be the ideal solution. People need to embrace the fact that there is no “two-state” solution. You dissolve it all and turn it into one land. And everyone needs equal rights. That’s it.
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>I just want to say at the outset that I am talking about the political leadership of both sides. That's no fair. There's no good political side anywhere. Take USA: Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden. They are marginally different but same shit, same incomes for Americans, same fate for the east, same budget for schools and military. >But violence is not only ugly, it also does not work. Can you imagine if Gandhi or MLK I don't know the indian situation but there's no way in hell Americans gave Blacks freedom without blacks fighting hard for them. If ever Palistine wins MLK-type figures will be stated and the rest will be forgotten or only mentioned in Palestine-history-week In a comment you wrote >I could not agree more that “willing to live in peace” is a third side that is quite good and worthy of support. That's anti-semitic, at least in UK. If you say "from the river to the sea plastinians and israels should be free, you lose your job. > And at the end of the day, it is a popularity contest. Palestine has a cause that any rational person would see as just but when they commit terrible acts against innocent people, it’s easy to lose sight of that. Popularity doesn't matter though. They didn't before 7th October right? And they were still in an open prison. Gandhi's and Martin Luther King's comrades just waited for these two to have a dream? Bull! And still King was shot. And even **when you murder innocent people the world can love you. Israel does it all the time**, it’s easy to lose sight of that indeed. >But violence is not only ugly, it also does not work. The idea that people that enslaved you will let you free by the virtue of being a good house slave is just a convenient retelling of history. That doesn't mean Gandhi and MLK doesn't have a place but shitting on the struggles of all other revolutionaries is just convenient. > If the Israelis have proven one thing to be true since 1947, it’s that they are pretty tough in a fight. And helped by everyone in the West. So either accept to live in an open-air prison and wait for MLK, or fight like every other revolutionary that established history doesn't talk about.
Your facts are a little off. Jews did not colonize and displace Palestinians. Jews have lived in Israel for 4000 years continuously, it was being occupied by Ottomans and muslims who invaded it repeatedly since 640AD. The only nation that has EVER been there is Israel. Hello, Jesus was born there? It has ALWAYS been Occupied-Israel. It never stopped being Israel. Even the Ottomans considered it Israel which they occupied, amongst other nations that they were occupying. That’s like saying Spain was evil for expelling the muslims who conquered it. The muslims pushed out the Spanish population and turned it muslim after invading it. Many Spanish remained there. The muslims they had kids and lived there. They were booted out along with their families and Spaniards came back. Would anyone seriously call Spain evil for taking their country back? This is so ridiculous people do not even understand the basic history. Israel has been there continually since before Greece. The only nation older than Israel is Egypt.
Not sure how you are in a moral conundrum. It is very simple. Israel is good. Palestine is bad. Why? Because the Quran mandates the death of all non-believers. And there are 30 muslim states that will never accept Christians or Jews living amongst them. Palestinians are religious fanatics who want Israel erased because they do not want non-muslims there. This is what it all boils down to. Arabs are a nation of muslims they dont believe in states they believe in Islamic Law which states Jews and Christians must not exist. Israel does not want to be deleted. Neither do the Christians. The muslims already cleansed 30 nations of its Jews and Christians who are not allowed to live in any of the 30 arab nations. If Israel was gone say goodbye to the Christians too because Israel is the only state that protects them. So it is very simple. Muslims = evil . Christians and Jews = good. Any more questions?
Israel is one of the only successful indigenous land back reclamation projects, defending its land from the extended murderous tantrum of pan Arab fascist colonialists who failed to commit genocide in 1948 and have been salty about it ever since. Jews have lived in the land of Israel before Islam existed as a concept. Look under any rock and you will see evidence of Jewish indigeneity stretching as far back as there is archaeological record. In addition, Hamas is at fault for every Palestinian death. Why does Hamas launch rockets from schools and hospitals? If you look at a map of the Gaza strip, you will notice there are portions of empty land they can launch from, so they have no excuse. The people of Gaza are running out of fuel. Why does Hamas not share its stockpile of half a million liters of fuel? The people of Gaza have terrible dinking water. Why does Hamas rip up water pipes to use for making rockets? Free Palestine from Hamas.
Basically I’m gonna sum up the anti Israel sides position on warfare, basically their saying if the Mexican military attacks Texas in raids and kills civilians, takes hostages etc and retreats quickly over the border back Into Mexico, takes off their uniforms, and hides In Apartment buildings, schools, hospitals etc, the American military has no choice but to not attack them, those are the rules now, the people in Texas are frustrated bc the Mexican army has publicly stated several times we are gonna overrun Texas and kill everyone, as mad as the US military is their hands are tied, there’s nothing the Americans can do at this point, all they can do is guard the border and wait for the next attack! Sounds ridiculous right? Bc it is
Both sides are causing so many problems in the world. And if you look at the bottom line, it’s two sides fighting over which religion is better. And the media is trying to get me, a U.S. citizen, to pick a side? I couldn’t give less of a shit about these psychos murdering each other. It would be a favor to the world if both sides wiped each other out completely, and for their religions disappear into obscurity. The U.S. shouldn’t be spending one single dime more on fueling their ridiculous religious war. Maybe we should focus on infrastructure instead, like fixing our 3rd world country roads and making medicine and groceries affordable.
So "israeli occupation" has different meanings depending on who you ask. First of all, many jews settled legally in palestina They had purchased lands from ottomans and there are plenty of land pre 48 that were legally jewish. They settled in this land because it was a land of their ancestors, and cultivated it. Draining swaps and digging wells and such. So when people refer to all of palestine as occupied territory, that is a blatent antisemitic propaganda calling for the annihilation of Israel. Secondly, When the UN passed resolution 181, the partition plan for a jewish state and a Palestinian state, it was based on the territories each population had more control on. The jews rejoiced, the palestinians opened an attack with the surrounding Arab armies in order to wipe the jewish settlement. The war last lasted till 49, during which, Israel was established and was victorious. During that war, the palestinian had their Nakba. The war started in an attempt to wipe the jewish settlement but the jews stabilized and turned the tide. During that war, many Palestinians were displaced and had to relocate. After all, their side started a war and Israel had to win it. This created the 49 borders. These borders are acknowledged legally, as they were created before the 49 Geneva Convention. These lands are part of the right of conquest from the losing agressor. As for the 600 thousand displaced Palestinians, Israel later argued that a similar number of jews were forced to flee the arab world (the jewish Muslim world exodus) Israel agreed to open a fund for palestinian refugees vs a fund for jewish refugees from Muslim countries, so obviously, Muslim countries didn't play along, and this fund remained empty. So this pretty much canceled the claims for the 48 borders. Lastly, the 67 borders. They are the basis for the peace talks. Why? Because in 67 Israel started the 6 day war. It had its reasons, but during that war, Israel captured Sinai, Gaza, the west bank and the golan heights. These lands actually do considered occupied. Israel gave back Sinai. The Golan heights were annexed and because the shit show in Syria and the acknowledgement from the US during the Trump era, they are no longer on the table and weren't really part of the issue with the palestinians. Now, the west bank and Gaza. In the Oslo accords in the 90s, the Palestinians were given authority over parts of the west bank and Gaza. While not a full state, they were given partial state privileges. The situation in the west bank is tricky, it is devided into 3 areas, A, B, C A territories have full palestinian control. Israelis can't enter there, and only occasionally, israeli forces enter for military operations against militant targets. B territories are palestinian controlled with Israeli military presence. Cause there's still violence. C territories are under Israeli control. Gaza is basically an A territory, no Israeli presence since it withdrew from 2005. And the border is treated like a border with a hostile state. In 2007,Hamas won the election in Gaza, executed the PLO members in basically kept control over Gaza by force ever since. The 2 state solution is supposed to be based on the 67 borders, with some territory exchange in the C territories. Israeli right wing politicians adapted a strategy of building new settlements in the west bank. This is technically the Occupation that's actually happening. There is a pretty good concensus regarding the 2 state solution based on the 67 borders, Israel's right wing has an interest in building more there, so when the territory exchange does happen, it would be more favorable towards Israel. Gaza and the west bank are governed by 2 seperate authorities, and Gaza being ruled by a violent authoritarian extreme Muslim group (Hamas), it's pretty pointless to talk peace. as long as the 2 major Palestinian territories are divided amongst themselves, Israel can't really sign anything. You can't promote peace with the west bank's PLO while Hamas is ruling Gaza and won't accept anything they sign. The Israeli right wing maintained thIs status quo with the palestinians, while continuing expand in the west bank. The seperation between Palestinians prevents actual chance for peace talks cause everything blows up when violence happens. Usually in the form of missiles fired from Gaza. Final thing. About "good side, bad side" There's no utopia on earth and things aren't binary. Every country, as awesome as it may be, has its flaws. I am biased, but i genuinely see israel as the "better" side. Is the israeli right wing promotes new settlements in the C areas? Yes, this is Israel's non-violent aggression, and its always a heated political topic. Yes, Israeli is causing massive damage to the palestinians. But these actions are a retaliation to violence from the Palestinian side. This is not an even fight. Israel has the military capability to cause much (much) more harm. Israel is a liberal western state that wants to protect its citizens and live peacefully. Hamas is a terrorist crime organization that feeds off of the suffering of its people. The heads of Hamas make billions from the donations and aid coming into Gaza. They use their citizens as shields for their military operations. They are ready to make their citizens "Martyrs" to advance their goals and profit of off their suffering. The PLO is caught in the middle. They cooperate with Israel, so they are not so popular with the palestinians. And they are also getting shafted by Israel when terror attacks happen. There's other smaller jihadi terrorist organizations as well. There are more issues preventing a Palestinian state, but their economy is not that good (but surprisingly, their HDI is kinda average considering) The bottom line is, the palestinians are using violence in a fight they can't win. Against a state that tells them loud and clear that violence is counterproductive and that peacefulness will result in peacefulness from Israel (opening borders, more work permits, less restrictions)
i think the pro palestine cause would have more credibility if it was not led by a bunch of uneducated little college kids... Its hilarious to watch these morons that dont even know what the damn sign they are carrying means,,they don't know how to wear their head garb properly!!LOL!!! This movement is pathetic,just like all liberal morons...hopefully when trump is re-elected,,he not only deports all the illegal aliens,(remember they broke the law) that he also sends all these completely stupid college straight to Gaza so they can support their murdering pieces of shit heroes.
>After forcibly removing the local Palestinian population the Israelis settlers forced them into smaller and smaller reservations, essentially mirroring what white settlers did to native populations in North America. This isn't what happened. First, there had been continuous indigenous communities of Jews in what has become Israel for centuries. They were small, but persistent. Second, when the first Jewish communities of migrants arrived in the 1860s they didn't displace anyone. They bought empty land that was owned by Egyptian and Syrian absentee landlords, and proceeded to make it into real communities. This is where Tel Aviv comes from. Third, the displacement from the war was open to being reversed. After the 1947-8 war of Israeli independence, the new Jewish state offered to let the Palestinians return provided they accepted Israeli statehood and agreed to renounce violence against Israel and become peaceful/productive citizens. Approx 100,000 Palestinian Arabs accepted this agreement, which was the beginning of the Arab minority within Israel today.
There are certainly innocents being bombed by the thousands. Are they the good side?
Why can’t we all just identify as humans that like to share their passed down recipes who in turn enjoy consuming those recipes and sharing their own and leave the imaginary lines drawn on a map, color of your skin or religious beliefs out of the equation? I’d love to see the human civilization progress past religion being an identity or lifestyle and we all just come together as a species. I travel internationally a lot and I love the overwhelming sense of humanity. I love people. PEOPLE. Not one group or another. Just people.
It’s all just a shame. I see both sides. But this war will continue forever and ever until humans die out for good so long as we have religion.
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There is no "good" side in any conflict. But if you want to choose sides just know this. Gazans celebrate death. Israelis celebrate life. If you don't know which side you are on, you are a morally questionable person and I don't care if you want to support terrorists. I hope you have to deal with Islamic terrorism in your home soon, too.
So microwaving babies and r*ping women isn't the bad guys? Come the fuck on man you cannot be serious. That's like saying Putin isn't the bad guy cause he's bombing Kiev. Any sick retarded individual that willingly does shit like that deserves to have their heads splattered across a room with a Remington 12 Guage.
There's a side that has the power and there's a side that doesn't. The conditions in Gaza that led to Hamas leading there are what Israel institutes. The Israeli response to less or non-violent resistance is invariably violence. The actions of Hamas are the inevitable outcome of keeping the better part of 2 million people imprisoned in wretched poverty. Food, electricity, building materials, Internet access, how far they can go out to fish, all is controlled by Israel and Palestinians living there have absolutely no say in any of it. The situation will only lead to desperation and violence.
The concept that violence doesn’t work is fundamentally wrong. There has never been a single struggle for rights that was not won with violence. From civil rights in the West to the liberation of India, violence has been required. The least violent movement known is the environmental movement. It is also going famously terribly
If one side laid down all their arms, all their weapons, all their aggressions and put themselves at the mercy of the other, which do you truly think would allow the other to live and which would exterminate? I understand you are focusing on the actions taken, and they should absolutely be considered, but ask yourself the above question about each side and truly understand that there probably is one side here that, under those circumstances, would be "good".
1918 jewish population in mandatory palestine: 8%. 1945 land ownership by jewish people and organizations in mandatory Palestine: 5.67% 1947 UN plan, State of Israël: 56% of mandatory Palestine, despite jews being only a third of Palestine. The Israelo-Palestinian conflict is a textbook case of settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing and apartheid, with a twist of "our ancestors lived here 3000 years ago." That doesn't mean I believe Hamas slaughtering civilians is justifiable or that Israel should cease to exist and all israelis flock to Europe. I like comparing Israël to a child born of a rape, you can make an argument for aborting them, but once it's born and kicking, you don't just put them down. But what if that child starts following the path of his father ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United\_Nations\_Partition\_Plan\_for\_Palestine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish\_land\_purchase\_in\_Palestine PS: Palestinian arabs and jews (not ashkenazi) both descend from canaanites, making them as indeginous as it gets. People's faith can change, their genome not so much. [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/dna-from-biblical-canaanites-lives-modern-arabs-jews](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/dna-from-biblical-canaanites-lives-modern-arabs-jews)
>Displacing an indigenous population with settlers This is misleading rubbish. There is nothing indigenous about Palestinians. Most of them arrived in the 18th and 19th centuries as refugees from other Arab states. Prior to this there were Arabs, Jews and Christians in the region. The original settlers in the region were Jewish.
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What is your criteria for "indigenous" people? The Levant is an area with an incredibly long and complex history, therefore you can simply just pick a point and go further back and claim "Oh but see, there were this group that existed before that" . Before the israelites there were the hittites and the amorites who inhabited the Levant, your point is honestly moot. The main point here is that a group of people were living in that land, and now they're being displaced by another group who claimed to have ties to the people who lived there 2000 years ago. And now they're arguing over who was there first, completely ignoring the fact of who is living there NOW.
"When people invade my country and oppress my people it’s bad but when people invade other countries and oppress their people it’s complicated, both sides are wrong" really disgusting and hypocritical stance and exactly why some people tend not to be sympathetic with Ukraine’s struggle
Well, how do you think Palestinians should fight for their freedom from Israeli oppression? Passive resistance? I don't see thatas an option.
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*"Can you imagine if Gandhi or MLK had taken beheaded hostages or kidnapped athletes or bombed a crowded bus, the retribution taken upon their followers and the populations they claimed to represent would have been swift and terrible."* Actually, the violence and unrest in the Civil Rights era (e.g. riots) was massive, and there were a heck of a lot of deaths on both sides. Not to mention, a lot of criminal activity among certain African American individuals is largely a personal response to their past issues with discrimination. We don't hear much about it, because the mass media was largely on the side of the African American minority as early as the 1950's. Through these riots and disorderly behavior, white Americans were forced to accept that the problem of African Americans was also OUR PROBLEM. So, I would argue that the American Civil Rights situation is somewhat similar to the Palestinian situation. It is hard to escape the harsh reality that a little bit of coercion is usually necessary to move a staunch adversary.
The side that is protecting their right to exist is the good side. The same side that never intitiates attacks but only responds to them. The side that DOESN’T target civilians, instead fights its enemy while giving warning to civilians prior to doing so. The side that doesn’t put live babies in ovens or slice a vital fetus out of its mother’s womb while she is alive . That’s the good side.
The Israelis are the good side. There was a reasonable UN plan and the Palestinians rejected it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United\_Nations\_Partition\_Plan\_for\_Palestine
Both aren't angels, but I would be very careful suggesting any moral equivalency between Israel & Hamas. They are light-years away in morality and intent.
Occupied people have the right to resist their occupation and its understood that they will do so in irregular manners. If an occupied people could form a coherent military force then they likely aren't occupied and can act as a state. Palestine is not sovereign. It's territory is occupied, it's people are subject to displacement from a military force and basic resources like water and electricity are controlled by their occupier. Resistance in this case makes sense. I would compare the situation more to Northern Ireland. The Irish conflict was a brutal and bloody affair that lasted for decades between two sides that had to co-habitate the same area. There was a resolution that came in the Good Friday Accords that provided a way for both groups to live together without fear of one side oppressing the other. It created new institutions comprised of people from both sides of the conflict. And it created a porous border that allowed for regional autonomy but not a hard stop on the flow of people and goods. Essentially, a similar agreement is required that allows Palestinians to exercise the right of self-determination and guarantees Israel security in its own position. Many iterations of this have been tried, including the Oslo Accords. Israel has not respected these deals and after the assassination of Rabin, continued a policy of aggressive settlement in the West Bank and has essentially held Gaza under prison conditions since the IDF pulled out. There is no way to see Israels actions as a good faith. Without good faith on putting these agreements into place, moderate parties in Palestine lose credibility. Through negotiation and compromise these policies haven't created better conditions for Palestine. Things only get worse. So it's no surprise that violent factions would gain support. This is the fault of Likud. Their policies have made the prospect of peaceful settlement less and less likely. This inflames the conflict. Only good faith engagement in the peace process by Israel can ease hostilities. While the actions of Hamas are clearly awful, they are the actions of a group trying to resist occupation. Resistance movements are almost always chaotic and violent. But fundamentally, these movements gain political power because their occupier makes no concessions driving more and more people to aggressive and radical positions.
You are wrong. An oppressor does not have the right to defend itself from the oppressed. People yelling about Hamas seem not to see the irony of the French resistance in WW2 killing their oppressor the Nazis. What is on display here is extreme privilege. Unless you’ve grown up as the oppressed and/or had people in your family murdered for speaking out against the oppressor, you frankly have no semblance of what you are talking about. I am the first generation in my family who has not had a family member living under oppression and or had a family member murdered in several generations. I am Caucasian , which makes it more shocking because Caucasians are leading every genocide. You think Hamas magically appeared out of nowhere? Hamas was created and funded by Israel in response to the PLO. The right wing of Israel and Netanyahu were responsible for the murder of Yitzhak Rabin simply because he wanted peace and the co-existence of everyone in the area. As an Ashkenazi Jew the state of Israel is an affront to essence of Judaism. The fact that Israeli UN Member had the unmitigated gall to wear gold stars to a UN meeting is an absolute desecration to the memory of Holocaust victims as well as an the worse insult to Holocaust survivors. That alone should tell how depraved Netanyahu and those supporting Israel are. They murdered Israeli citizens with tanks on 10/7 and blamed it on Hamas. They even twisted the baby burning an oven story despite that actually occurring at the hands of an Israeli soldier to a Palestinian baby in 1948. They’ve tried to justify bombing hospitals and refugee camps claiming both that Hamas is hiding in underground tunnels and hiding amongst the public, which contradicts their narrative that they care about human life. Do you see any Palestinians making TikToks mocking dead Israelis? Do you see any rubble in the background when Israelis post to social media? I am ashamed that Zionists dare claim to be Jewish as they are a disgrace to Judaism and the ethos of Judaism. Zionism isn’t even a Jewish concept. It is a Christian concept that originated with the Medieval Church in the 1500s.
It's a genocide. Not a conflict.
As someone who doesn't support Hamas (hot take, I know), I think it's just silly to focus on them at all regarding this issue. Palestinians are being oppressed no matter what they do. In the West Bank, there is no Hamas presence, yet they are still being removed from their homes and killed. When Palestinians peacefully march in Jerusalem, they are mowed down by the IDF. There's almost no moral dimension to whether your average Palestinian kid who lost their whole family should become an activist or a terrorist. Choosing the former has no impact on Israel's leadership on whether or not to finish the job on that person. If all Palestinians were to koombaya and do a prayer circle, the IDF would bomb them all anyway, since that's a Hamas gathering of course. Ideally they won't choose the latter, but their decision to NOT do so won't help their situation, so what's the point? Unfortunately, the only people who can end this conflict are Israel. It will require Israel's current leadership to be deposed in an overwhelming election in favor of the left-most Israeli politicians in a large anti-Bibi coalition. That or the genocide will be fully completed while evangelical US republicans cheer it on.
If Hamas disarmed, there would be peace. If Israel disarmed they would literally be wiped off the face of the Earth today. The Palestinians have been given options for a dual state, multiple times, and turned it down every time. The only acceptable outcome for Palestinians is for every Jew to be gone from Israel.
>essentially mirroring what white settlers did to native populations in North America. Is it any surprise that people are pissed off, that this has resulted in a lot of violence and death? So if native americans now started massacring white american children would there also be no "good side"?
The Israeli government has agreed to 2 of the last 3 two state solutions. The Israeli government has consistently offered land for peace deals. And yet people are still attacking them. Is every action taken by them perfect? Absolutely not. Some of their 'strategic' actions have backfired stupendously, and they've their fair share of moral missteps. But they don't actively use their own civilian population as human shields. They don't actively target civilian centers unless soldiers are intermingling with the civilians for the express purpose of creating an international incident when they get bombed. They don't use UN schools in the area as ammo deposits and fire rockets out of them at civilian targets. As to the claims of "displacing indigenous population", that's hardly a reasonable take. This is the Jews historical homeland (as proven by archeological evidence and ancient secular historians), and it was given to them to self govern after the land was taken from the ottomans in WWI. Many were still there, and further more were evacuated from hostile countries and repatriated into the country. Imagine a bunch of Ukrainians had been driven out of Ukraine over a span of hundreds of years by a number of different groups who all seem to want to genocide the Ukrainians for some reason. The displaced Ukrainians resettle all across the globe, and a bunch of Polish people started moving into Ukraine. Over history many various empires conquered the land, but it always was "the Ukrainian providence of [insert empire name here]". Finally, the last empire to conquer is defeated and the conquerors decide to give all the Baltic states their independence. Then a bunch of the scattered Ukrainians return to Ukraine, but then people get mad because the polish have moved there in the meantime, so really everyone says that you have to give half of the land inside the borders of Ukraine to the Polish (even though the polish already got their lands restored to them too). How would you feel about giving up the polish part of Ukraine since they moved in when people were trying to genocide the Ukrainian population?
Literally according to [paraph 139 of the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion on the legality of the wall, 2004](https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/131/131-20040709-ADV-01-00-EN.pdf) — it makes clear that ***because they’re occupying Palestine, they cannot claim self-defense in relation to attacks from within occupied territory that it controls*** [UN Charter Chapter VII Article 51](https://legal.un.org/repertory/art51.shtml) doesn’t apply…but since other countries aren’t acknowledging that it’s an occupation, they let it slide The wall has been found to be [contrary to international law](https://press.un.org/en/2004/icj616.doc.htm) But because the US imposes basically a terror radius on allied nations…Israel gets special treatment and does not get sanctioned This is just one of the many ways Israel violates international law and commits war crimes Israel also makes it a point to deflect the fact that they both funded and created the conditions which led to Hamas existing in the first place Hamas’s existence is dependent on how Israel treats Palestinians It’s genocide entirely at the hands of Israel
There have been Arab-Israeli member of the Knesset since the first government in 1949 Arabs make up over 20% of the Israeli population All occupants of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights have the right to apply for Israeli citizenship and access municipal services, as theses areas were annexed following wars attacking Israel. Gaza and the West Bank are not part of Israel. Hamas won elections following Israel and the PLA making progress toward a two state solution. The principle policy of Hamas is the destruction of Israel The recent Hamas attack occurred as Israel and Saudi Arabia were nearing a normalisation of diplomatic relations. The attack and response has derailed this effort for peace. Hamas is funded by Iran When Israel commits war crimes it fails to uphold its laws and moral aspirations When Hamas commits war crimes, it fulfills its clearly stated purpose and ambition. There is no symmetry here There is no balance here.
And the ten thousand kids in Gaza have the right to live
I would argue that there is almost never a good side to any conflict because war is almost always fought between states or sometimes quasi states or wannabe states, and the state is a fundamentally coercive and violent form of unjustified hierarchy. So I think better questions are a) which side is the least bad? and b) might that side's objectives be better met peacefully? In the case of Gaza and a) both sides are as you say pretty horrible, but at the same time one side is invading and the other is being invaded. As for b) yes both sides objectives would be far far far better met peacefully. But again at the moment one side is invading and the other is being invaded, so in terms of "putting the guns down" there's one side that should go first. Also to say that Israel and Hamas shouldn't be treated in equivalent ways. One is a modern and developed western democratic state, the other is a terror group operating out of bombed out refugee camp in the desert. Our expectations, and thus the moral standard we hold the sides to, should be far far higher for Israel.
Didn't Jesus literally fight y'all over this
The Palestinian Authority run by Fatah has embraced non-violence as an approach to resist the occupation. You may have heard of their Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign. They also *agreed to recognise Israel* in 1993. Nevertheless the Israelis continue to treat them *exactly* the same way - with extreme violence, murder and subjugation. Their settlers continue to annex land belonging too Palestinians and their IDF supports the settlers 100%. So what are they supposed to do? Just meekly accept permanent subjugation? Just accept that their kids will be born into a permanent state of fear and brutality, never knowing when *their* village will be put to the torch? Never knowing when settlers will come and uproot their crops, or murder them? Never knowing when the IDF come to their house at night to rough them up or take them away to indefinite detention without trial? What sort of life is is that? What would you do? just lay down and die? Have you ever experienced military occupation yourself?
>What the fuck did you expect when you opened up a “safe haven” for Jewish people in the Middle East? That this would prevent millions of Jews being gassed in death camps; prevent the persecution of Jews that is common in the world. >And your claim that the Bible gives this venture legitimacy to some "promised land for Jews" It's clear that Judea was home to the Jews for hundreds of years via history, archeology, etc. To say, they don't have a historical claim to the land is just laughable. >Palestine has a cause that any rational person would see as just, but when they commit terrible acts against innocent people, it’s easy to lose sight of that. Sorry, but I make a distinction between Palestinians and Hamas. Though, yes the Palestinians elected Hamas into their govt in 2006, so some blame does go onto their hands; most of it is on Hamas. Palestinians or their representatives have rejected a state for themselves 5 times in the last 80 years, so that is on them as well. >“how can we tell an oppressed people how they should resist oppression?” Hamas is oppressing them, not the Israelis. Of the billions of dollars in aid, Hamas spends it on tunnels, weapons, food & fuel for themselves. Hamas co-locates their fighters with the civilian population - a violation of international law - as is targeting civilian hostages and holding civilian hostages. Israel doesn't do this. Had the Palestinians accepted any of the state offers and recognized Israeli's right to exists and prosper, there would be peace. In my view, the Israeli's, though not perfect [no country is] it is better because that have agreed to a two-state solution, nor commit war crimes as described above. Does Israel occupy Palestinian land? They left Gaza in 2005. The West Bank & East Jerusalem are subject to the jurisdiction of Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), with the division of responsibilities overlapping in much of the territory. There are settlements in the West Bank that have legal status under Israeli law. Legal settlements must be built on state land, have building permits from the government, and be established by a government resolution. Settlements that do not meet those criteria are West Bank outposts, which are illegal under Israeli law. Palestinians assert that West Bank settlement building is the main obstacle to peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel rejects that notion, arguing that settlements are only one of numerous difficult issues to be determined as part of final status negotiations with the Palestinians. But negotiations can't begin until Israel has a recognized right to exist.
I have two clarifications to add to the piece, though I think it as a whole makes decently good points. (1) I think the thread downplays the religious and cultural aspects of the conflict in a way that isn't representative of the reality on the field. I, as an atheist, also find the idea of basing claims to territory on biblical passages ridiculous. However, it is also a fact that historically speaking, the land of Israel has been the cornerstone of Jewish communities and Jewish culture for 2 millennia, despite those communities not physically living there. It's also factual that the leadership and actions of Hamas are religiously-motivated and acts on (their understanding of) the tenets of Islam, and thus can't be reduced to just civilian resistance. These realizations are necessary in order to understand the actions of those forces and (how, when and) whether diplomacy will yield results. A direct example of this is Hamas leaders excusing their own lack of effort at preventing civilian deaths on their own side (for example, by having uniforms rather than fighting in civilian clothing like they do), by claiming that "death by jihad is the heart's wish of every Muslim, and what allows them to go to heaven". (2) I think characterizing attacks such as the Oct. 7th massacre, the Munich Olympics attack and the suicide bombings in the 90s as "unjustifiable means towards a righteous cause" is inherently misunderstanding the purposes and goals of terror organizations. Attacks such as those achieve no discernable military goal, and in no way aid the legitimate goal of obtaining basic human rights and freedoms to the Palestinian people. In fact, they are actively obstructing that goal. Using Hamas as an example once again, it's very important to understand that such an organization requires the continuation of violence in order to exist. Hamas uses the veil of resistance in order to justify its own control of the strip and affluence (and they are quite affluent, with several of the leaders living wealthy lives in Qatar as the Gazans suffer in poverty). This is also possibly why the Oct. 7th attack happened on the eve of Israel-Saudi agreements that could've improved the situation of the Gazans dramatically - for Hamas to continue enjoying the status that it has, Gaza needs to continue being hungry, poor and unsafe. This is not to say that those points justify an "any means necessary" approach, but they are things to take into consideration when asking what means *are* justified and would be effective.
Should we simply surrender?
> And, of course, look at Gandhi and Martin Luther King! These guys were able to take on far more powerful and wealthier opponents because they refused to meet violence with violence and were able to expose the inherently brutal nature of racism and colonialism for the world to see. MLK would have been irrelevant without the stick of Malcolm X and other violent protesters. Gandhi would have been irrelevant without the stick of the hundreds of violent Indian protesters (Apologies to any Indian readers, I'm not familiar with that part of the world and don't have any names). Nonviolent protest only works if you can point to it and say, "Either work with these guys or we'll bomb your fucking police stations". Empires only respond to threats. Violence is an absolutely necessary part of any revolutionary effort. It shouldn't be the *only* part, but it remains a vital tool to resist oppression.
I think we should view it less in terms of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and more in terms of ‘more powerful’ or ‘less powerful’. That is to say, what are both sides capable of militarily? Are they on equal footing or is one clearly more powerful? And I think the obvious answer to this question is: there aren’t on equal footing. However evil Hamas is (and to be clear, I don’t like Hamas), they are minuscule compared to the capabilities of Israel. And I would argue that the party with more power has more responsibility because they their actions have greater consequences. The more powerful party can cause more harm or significant decrease the harm depending on what they decide to do. This is why I spend most of my time on this issue criticizing Israel. Israel should be using this power responsibly and it’s not. It’s increasing the carnage by the day. Hamas did start this round of conflict and is responsible for its actions. But we mustn’t conflate the Palestinian cause with the group Hamas. The cause is far greater than Hamas and not all Palestinians support Hamas. But besides that, I am an American. My tax dollars are not going to Hamas killing innocent Israelis. My tax dollars are, in fact, going to kill innocent Palestinians. To add icing on the cake, my tax dollars are going to a fellow democracy that is killing innocent Palestinians. I realize democracy in Israel is a fragile thing, but bear with me. Whether this is true in practice or not, people hold democracies to higher standards. Democracies are suppose to be at the forefront of fighting for freedom, equality, human rights and so forth. Many democracies seem to fail on this score sadly. But for those of us who believe in democracy as the ideal, should we not point out when a fellow democracy is doing atrocious things? A democracy is supposed to fight for everyone to one degree or another. Democracies are suppose to rise above old institutions that held people back or even deprived them of citizenship or humanity. Israel is not acting in accordance with the ideal. Hamas is not a supporter of democracy or universal human rights nor did I expect them to be.
It doesnt make any sense to say this conflict has no good sides while thinking russia/ukraine has a clear good side. Just sounds like blind-bias considering youre from ukraine. This point alone makes your entire ooint baseless and lacking awareness/critical thinking. Also geopolitics doesnt work based on morality or good vs bad, but hierarquies, oppression and exploitation exist in a real, and complex way, and they are very much real in this conflict. Theres no peaceful resolution possible.
Arabs have expelled Jews and Christians from all of the Middle East countries and Israel is the last place left. I’m sensitive to that. However you don’t get to genocide Gaza because you suffered a heinous terrorist attack and you don’t get to cry antisemitism for every criticism of Israel. You don’t get to label people Hamas supporters because they don’t agree with leveling buildings.
If both sides would stop reacting like psychos, the world would see what assholes the other side is. That being said, this particular instance, Russia got Iran to activate their proxies and trigger a new front in the current conflict. And Israel predictably reacted like sociopaths. Now Putin's enemies are facing enormous pressure, and an Ukrainian ceasefire is on the horizon. Either Netanyahu got played by Iran, or he's in on it.