My views on the situation aside, the clearest I saw anyone communicate the issues from a global angle was the former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin
Translated here: https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1718201487132885246
Viewed from the angle of the West, I think the message it needs to avoid isolating itself from the world is very unusual for Western media and important.
Quote:
"Westerners must open their eyes to the extent of the historical drama unfolding before us to find the right answers."
And
"This Palestinian question will not fade. And so we must address it and find an answer. This is where we need courage. The use of force is a dead end. The moral condemnation of what Hamas did - and there's no "but" in my words regarding the moral condemnation of this horror - must not prevent us from moving forward politically and diplomatically in an enlightened manner. The law of retaliation is a never-ending cycle."
All correct and yet, what should happen? Israel stops their campaign. And then?
Spend tons of money on iron dome to shoot down the rockets and hope that Hamas won't manage to conduct another massacre, even if "only" half the scope of October 7?
This mess features not one but two parties who currently reject the concept of a cease fire.
And then everyone who wants peace invests lots of money and expertise over a long time to build a modern, prosperous, stable Palestinian society, despite whatever setbacks, attacks, and sabotage occur from within and without.
The only way to have peace is to give people a better option than becoming terrorists.
This is looking at the conflict from western eyes. Religious fundamentalists don't think like that
We could have said this about Germany and Japan after WWII.
Every human no matter their race and religion cares about having food, water, safety, opportunity, live in a law abiding society where their rights are respected and they get “some” choice to vote for their future.
Germany and Japan were conquered and unconditionally surrendered, after massive civilian casualties. Nazis were tried and executed. If Israel is should model itself on those examples, it's doing the right and moral thing in waging war until Hamas is destroyed, or unconditionally surrenders.
This myth that Hamas can be destroyed and that if they are, everything will be alright, is completely disproven by the fact that there is no Hamas in the West Bank and Israeli extremists continue to perpetrate crimes there.
There's also the myth that settlers are responsible for all Palestinian grievances. There are no settlers in Gaza since 2005.
Gaza has been effectively under blockade since then too. Maybe that's a contributing factor? Or maybe there are other common factors?
Hamas is trying to kill as many Israelis as it can, maybe that's a contributing factor to the blockade.
Where are you getting the idea that tbere is no Hamas in the West Bank? There are very much Hamas militants there that would love nothing more than to commit another Oct. 7th.
With the support of IDF collaboration (and funding from private US organizations). Downvoters don’t like the facts I guess.
The point is that it’s possible for relations to improve over time even when previous generations were bitter enemies. There are plenty of other examples in history apart from WW2.
Investing heavily in Palestine is likely Israel’s cheapest option for stability in the long term. They certainly aren’t going to bomb their way to stability.
If they had gone after Hamas leadership specifically with targeted operations while increasing humanitarian aid, rather than terrorizing the entire population of Gaza, they would have had the world and likely a decent percentage of Palestinians on their side. Instead they have utterly and completely botched it and put themselves in a terrible situation strategically.
The aid was going first to fighters, then to stockpiles, then to the people. To the extent it could be traded for weapons it was. Now we’re seeing allegations UNRWA employees participated in the October 7th attacks [1].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/26/world/middleeast/un-aid-i...
So you're telling me they have an easy way to bait Hamas into exposing themselves by using humanitarian aid as a honey pot?
If the humanitarian aid organisations themselves are Hamas, then you could just arrest them.
They're in a different territory that has no Israeli presence. That's like saying the US could've just arrested the members of ISIS..
Even that is non trivial. Money going into Gaza first goes through Hamas. After buying arms and building expensive tunnels, and paying its men, the leftovers go to the rest of the population.
Ethnically cleansing a population is not right or moral in any case whatsoever.
Hamas's stated aim and goal is to destroy Israel and ethnically cleanse Palestine of the jews "from the river to the sea".
When somebody tells you they want to destroy you, over and over for years, and then builds up terror factories and uses it to intentionally target women, children and elderly civilians on Oct 7, maybe -- just maybe, Israel has no choice other than to deal with Hamas as they are.
It’s their prime minister who has no choice. As soon as war ends, he is out.
Oct events could have been prevented by military presence at the border.
<< Israel has no choice other than to deal with Hamas as they are.
Maybe. Recent drone strike in Lebanon suggests that Israel is rather capable to strike surgically if it is so desires. In Gaza, it does not appear to strike surgically suggesting it made that choice for a reason.
There is always a choice and few would fault just plain self-defense. Based on the existing rubble, current situation is closer to overkill, which does not win Israel support.
Something to consider.
Israel has already done that to Palestine, many decades ago, but they failed to do anything like the Marshall Plan to invest in the occupied lands and create a lasting peace.
If we hope to learn from WW2, we should consider the postwar history of Eastern Europe. Like Israel, the Soviets also failed to invest in the lands they occupied, instead trying to suppress rebellions with violence. Now all of those nations are Russia's enemies.
Don't know about Israel, but you definitely know nothing about the Soviets.
Please omit swipes from your comments here, as the guidelines ask. If you know more than someone else, you're welcome to provide correct information, but please don't post putdowns.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
There are two ways to get peace. One is for one side to completely dominate the other at massive cost, and with risk of blowback even after domination. The other is for cooler heads to prevail. Plenty of examples from history of both. And supposedly we had, as a modern world, decided that we prefer the latter path to peace over the former. Hence the United Nations, the Geneva Conventions, etc.
Germany was reduced to rubble, their population submitted to complete and total surrender, and their leaders were all executed. Japan was firebombed into oblivion and then had two atomic bombs dropped on their civilian population. And both were then completely occupied and had their government dismantled and replaced by their conquerors.
What Israel is doing right now seems to be far closer to what happened in Germany and Japan after WW2 than whatever diplomatic solution you are proposing.
And the world decided we didn't want to have wars like that ever again, and gave the defeated countries a path to prosper. Sadly, Palestinians have no such path.
Hamas has spent the aid and all their funds on funding terror. It's no wonder they have no path to prosper. Hamas made it this way.
There's no Hamas in the West Bank and no path to prosper there.
Hamas are active in the West Bank and have significant support and influence. If an election were called (there hasn't been one for more than 18 years) it is overwhelmingly likely that Hamas would win.
Fatah are somewhat less politically extreme than Hamas, but they are scarcely any less corrupt; within the West Bank, the PA is widely viewed as illegitimate.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/29/palestinian-authori...
They support Hamas because they can't see any other potential path to prosperity.
If you want to quell extremism in a country, you have to give them a genuine alternative to extremism. If all of the moderate options get them nowhere, they will reject them.
This is a vital lesson we learned from WWII. Incentives matter.
Prosperity through Hamas? Only for a select few who live in other countries. With the amount of aid and money thrown at Gaza, any third rate politician could have achieved prosperity if only they were genuinely in it for the good of the people.
Hamas didn't, because their priority doesn't lie in the welfare of the Palestinian people but in the eradication of Israel.
(and potentially not even that: there are more billions to amass while living in the safety and comfort of some emirate when the situation on the ground remains volatile and the Palestinian people miserable. In that case, Palestinians don't even have a "way out" of their misery by completing Hamas' mission, because their misery _is_ Hamas' mission.)
You're not very familiar with the history of the countries behind the Iron Curtain, are you?
Germany and japan returned to their pre war borders after the war. Gaza does not have the land or resources to sustain its population. It literally needs to expand to have any amount of stability.
I think the WWII example is really useful here - completion of hostilities and post-war work. Expansion of Gaza may be not necessary at all, looking at Singapore example, not to mention West Bank.
It is unimaginable to me for Gaza to ever resemble singapore. Singapore had massive advantages that took hundreds of years to create and its biggest continues to be its position along the straight of malacca. If singapore was not along the straight theres no doubt in my mind that it would be in a much much worse position today. Singapore actually has long standing hostilities with Malaysia. The only reason it exists today in its current form is the economic advantage given by its location.
Lack of imagination can prevent us from seeing solutions. Gaza certainly has advantages - location, population size and age, attention of the world in XXI century among them.
No they didn't. Germany lost a large chunk of its eastern lands that was "given" to Poland (but in reality conytrolled by the Soviets) and Japan's large prewar empire in northern China and Korea (since the early 1930s) was taken away from the Japanese leaving them only the home islands. A bit of basic historical knowledge is good if one is going to argue.
As for Gaza not being able to sustain its population, i'm doubtful. It's a tiny territory almost devoid of material/natural resources, but then there are many places and enclave countries in the world that are similar in size, heavily populated and with good standards of living. The reason why: They're not unremittingly belligerent with their neighbors, run by a government explicitly dedicated to the erasure of one of those neighbors, and overall allowed to exchange with the rest of the world fully.
With that said, the hardline stance of Netenyahou and those who support him is doing little favors to Israel either, if a path to peace is what Israel wants.
Germany and Japan were occupied after WWII. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/united-states...
Their borders were restored.
Tell that to Prussia. Oh, wait, it's Poland now.
Except where they weren't. The German borders after 1945 or after 1990 are unlike any other shape of any German nation (or collection of German states) before.
If Germany or Japan is your guideline here, maybe Israel should get a Bomber Harris (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Harris#Second_World_War) or a Truman (see nuclear weapons dropped on Japan) on the scene?
People are saying that what Israel is doing right now is a genocide. You have seen nothing yet: With either of them at the helm, there would either be an unconditional surrender by Hamas or no Palestinian alive anymore - and by November 15, last year.
We don't do such things anymore, and for good reason, but that means that these past situations are unsuitable as example for the present.
What Israel is doing right now should be viewed from the point of view of the goal of removing the Hamas threat as such. The logic here is "Hamas should go - what's the best way to make that happen?" and from this POV the situation is not too grim. It's obviously best to avoid casualties as much as possible, but we are far from perfect wars.
I think the allies (largely the US) were able to effect massive cultural changes in Japan and Germany after WWII from aggressive, totalitarian, racist societies committed to military victory by any means necessary to relatively peaceful, even pacifist societies only via:
1) Forcing unconditional surrender on Germany and Japan, whereby virtually every citizen of those countries was convinced that they had lost the war and that resorting to armed struggle for their goals was a complete failure for Germany and Japan, and,
2) A lengthy occupation in those countries that accomplished many things, including the "de-nazification" of educational system.
This only worked because enough was invested into the defeated countries for their populations to prosper. Case in point, after WW1, we got WW2.
The prospects Palestinians are faced with, as proven by the West Bank, are very bleak, making any peace very very unstable.
The notion that the problem is religious fundamentalists is itself propaganda. The people are just people; the problem is a brutal racist occupation that has gone on for far too long.
Were they occupied or was it an open-air prison? Just throw everything out there and see what sticks.
The West Bank and Gaza are two different locations. The West Bank is occupied and "open air prison" doesn't seem like a bad description of Gaza.
Yes people are just people and for some people religion is a big deal. It kinda defines their whole world.
It's not propaganda. It's a dispute about land with each side not willing to give up land because it's a holy land that God bestowed upon them
The "people are just people" argument is rarely (if ever) applied to domestic politics. Democrats and Republicans may often loathe each other, but at least they have enough respect to recognise that their differences in opinion are meaningful and sincerely held.
Many Palestinians are just ordinary people who want to get on with their lives, but some are fanatics. Unfortunately for everyone involved, it is the fanatics who are in charge. Of course, the same could be justifiably argued about the current Israeli government; the crucial difference is that Netanyahu and Smotrich can (and likely will) be removed at the next election.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_I...
Worth pointing out that both sides have extreme religious fundamentalists.
Also worth pointing out that peace was achieved between Egypt/Israel but it took leaders like Carter, Sadat, Begin to transcend the conflict. Sadly, Biden is no Carter. And there are no Sadats or Begins anymore.
Ask Carter what he thinks about that. I think he'd at least admit that Biden has a huge hindsight - the world today is so different from 1970-s.
Carter's approach tells us what he would think. Carter was willing to give the Israelis and the Egyptians massive amounts of aid, conditioned on peace. That is very different than offering one side unconditional support despite that side allowing extremists to formulate and shape plans.
That's rather similar to what we have or going to have. Both Israel and Gaza may receive - keep receiving - external aid. The difference is that peace around Gaza, today's and tomorrow's, is going to be enforced more elaborately.
All major conflicts and wars are fundamentally economic and have been so throughout history
I think the Gaza war doesn't fit you hypothesis for a start. The Gaza residents could have made it into another Dubai but they prefered to follow a route that resulted in the current situation.
Such a statement seems, at best, a controversial view. For example, I’m pretty sure that the religious aspects of the crusades are generally accepted as the primary cause.
I don't think it's too Western-centric to imagine that Palestinians want freedom, which is a universal human desire. Freedom means statehood and self-governance.
Oppression is fertile soil for religious fundamentalists, and radicals of every stripe.
That second bit is a magic variable.
I don't grasp the analogy
And yet, women in Afghanistan were happy going to university until we let the fundamentalists back in.
This is not the approach the West took with ISIS, which involved similarly one-sided fights against terrorist forces [1], nor do I think it's an approach that would have worked. When "everyone who wants peace" doesn't include the people in control of the guns and rockets, who instead want to kill their enemies by any means necessary (and themselves do not respect international law), you can't simply dialogue your way out of it any more than Ukraine could have dialogued their way out of getting invaded by Russia.
The ICJ ruled that Hamas return the hostages unconditionally, but everyone knows that won't happen — Hamas is simply unaccountable. "Everyone who wants peace" can't even get the Red Cross access to the hostages, let alone get them returned. Vague calls for diplomacy with terrorist groups doesn't solve much, which is why people are asking you for specific solutions — it's easy to say Israel should stop fighting, but then: what should it do? How would you actually ensure it doesn't keep getting attacked, repeatedly, as Hamas continues to insist they plan to do?
1: Mosul alone had ~10,000 civilian casualties and that was less densely populated than Gaza City and didn't have tunnels: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/show/thousands-more-civilia...
And it similarly had about 1MM civilians displaced: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/06/world/middleeast/mosul-ir...
And that wasn't the end of the fight against ISIS!
A major problem is that the Gazan people have very legitimate problems with Israel, and this leads to a situation in which enough of them become militant to cause serious problems. Solving that seems like it needs a more wholistic approach than simply trying to get rid of the militants at the cost of causing everyone else to have an even bigger beef with Israel.
Sure, and the people of Iraq had very legitimate problems with NATO. Nonetheless the West dismantled ISIS. People can have legitimate grievances without committing mass murder and rape, and in fact I think the mass murder and rape committed by Hamas have been very counterproductive for the lives of Gazans.
What would you have Israel do, that you think would result in it not getting continually attacked by Hamas? Recall that when Israel dismantled its Gazan settlements and withdrew its own citizens at gunpoint nearly 20 years ago — in the hope that would help solve the problem — that's when Hamas took power...
ISIS-K just carried out the worst terrorist attack in Iran (and it was primarily Iran's Q Solemani who dismantled ISIS; later killed by the US Army). Taliban rules Afghanistan again.
Negotiate, like they did with PLO before?
Yeah, cause settlements are a clear breach of International Law. It was no charity.
Democratically elected, then subsequently undermined and later blockaded.
ISIS was defeated in Iraq by a U.S.-led coalition: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_against_the_Islamic_Stat...
IDK what your point is with the Taliban, since they're a different group in a different country that isn't allied with ISIS. (And are unrelated to Israel and Gaza.)
Negotiate, like they did with the PLO before?
The PLO was willing to negotiate and Hamas is not. Hamas has repeatedly said they are not willing to agree to a permanent peace deal with Israel, and have said that they intend to carry out these attacks repeatedly until Israel is destroyed. In this situation, not a hypothetical one where Hamas wants peace, what exactly do you think Israel can do to prevent being attacked?
Democratically elected...
They won the legislative elections but not the prime ministership and subsequently started a massive civil war with the rest of the PA, which ended up in the PA maintaining control of the West Bank and Hamas controlling Gaza. Which is why Israel and Gaza have gone to war many times, but Israel and Ramallah have not — Israel and the PA mutually recognize each other, albeit with a fair amount of mutual enmity.
Yeah and who defeated them in Syria? There were two coalitions. French/US led and Syria/Iran led.
In 2014, in a meeting in the UAE post war, Hamas encouraged PLO to reach a political arrangement with Israel on 67 borders. Then in 2017, ratified their charter again to make that point clear. In 2021, Hamas offered to join the PLO and conduct elections, which almost happened only for Israel to not let East Jerusalem residents vote.
US and Israel encouraged a coup by Fatah by arming and training the Presidential Guard in opposition to Hamas.
Israel has razed Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nablus just this past month with over 50+ dead.
PA is a puppet with bare minimum control over economy, trade, and security of its own people.
And then to continue the war from these borders. Duh.
The one which opposes recognition of Israel and promises to continue the war?
This isn't true at all. Israeli opposes PA polling stations there. There are other ways to vote (like having the stations inside the EU consulates, or by mail). Which they already used in 2006, so PA is actually fine with this. It's that Abbas will lose to Hamas and everyone knows it, so he needs an lie that uninformed people would swallow.
These cities aren't razed by any normal definition of 'razed'. Some people wanted to start another front and got crushed.
Not a wise move.
I think you're confusing Likud's charter with Hamas'?
Some say Egypt, Jordan, and Israel equally sabotaged the elections: https://carnegieendowment.org/sada/84509
Truly crushed, or rather collective punishment / war crimes were the words you were looking for? https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/01/israel-opt-je...
The entire article is about how nobody buys Abbas' excuses (the other link is similarly not relevant to the discussion).
I'm really not sure why it matters who gets to claim credit in Syria. The point is that the US and its allies used the same tactics as Israel is using in Gaza to defeat ISIS, and I think it's silly to say that the U.S. or Iran or whoever should've just tried dialogue with ISIS. The same is true for Hamas.
In 2014, in a meeting in the UAE post war, Hamas encouraged PLO to reach a political arrangement with Israel on 67 borders. Then in 2017, ratified their charter again to make that point clear. In 2021, Hamas offered to join the PLO and conduct elections, which almost happened only for Israel to not let East Jerusalem residents vote.
None of these things are Hamas willing to make a permanent peace deal with Israel, which they have repeatedly stated they are not willing to do. After being frustrated by your off-topic or entirely inaccurate responses, I realized I remembered your username, and you have previously tried to claim to me that Hamas was willing to make peace deals and continually failed to back up your claims, along with similar unsourced claims and irrelevant debate points as I'm noticing in this back-and-forth. I am not really interested in having this "discussion" again!
Just as then, it is still the case that Abbas cancelled the elections, not Israel, even according to Hamas. I cited Hamas's own public statements, Wikipedia, etc and you are still making this same unsourced assertion that somehow Israel did it. But that's not even relevant! Hamas is very clear that they do not want a permanent peace deal with Israel!
By the way, the "PLO" stopped existing a long time before 2014. It's the PA now.
Israel has razed Jenin...
No, it didn't "raze" Jenin or any other city in the West Bank in "the past month," nor has it razed any city in the West Bank since the end of the Second Intifadah other than its own settlements. It fought a small group of Hamas-aligned terrorists with minimal casualties, agreed upon with the PA.
PA is a puppet with bare minimum control over economy, trade, and security of its own people
The PA is just the reformed PLO, that you were just saying should supposedly be emulated by Israel and Hamas. And objectively it is doing far better on literally all of those axes — economy, trade, and security — for its own people than Hamas.
Anyway, once again I point out: you are unable to say what Israel can actually do to prevent Hamas from repeatedly attacking it, given that Hamas does not want a permanent peace deal with Israel.
Right, Gazans elected a terrorist organization to lead them through the democratic process. They own the result.
Care to divulge more? Seems like you're holding it in.
Israel needs to treat Palestinians as equals. This should start with not blockading Gaza, rolling back settlements in the West Bank, and so on.
Furthermore, supporting those who oppose Hamas instead of playing the dangerous game that now cost tens of thousands of lives.
Also, it's important to note that there are no guarantees. Even if Israel (famous hive mind, of course) did everything right there could have been provocation from/via Iran and whatnot.
Israel dismantled all of its Gazan settlements in 2005 and there had never been a blockade at that point, which is exactly what I just referenced in the post you were responding to. Then Hamas took over Gaza, and Israel and Egypt jointly started blockading it. You can't place the blame for Hamas's rule on the blockade — the blockade (and the settlements) didn't exist when they took power.
Hamas' rule is the result of many factors over decades. Obviously the blockade and every other security measure was, at best, short-term responses to Hamas' radicalization, but overall simply one more blow to the fragile illusion of peace, and simply more heat under the pressure cooker of Gaza.
It is reasonable for adjoining countries to control their borders, e.g. Egypt and Israel's borders with Palestine. Countries get to control their borders.
Israel takes it a step further and blockades Palestinian access to Palestinian sea routes, something which isn't just a declaration of war, it's an act of war.
I fully accept that many Palestinians are motivated to take up arms against the Israelis by a justifiable sense of grievance, but the issue of anti-Semitism long pre-dates the establishment of Israel and exists far beyond the Palestinian Territories. I really don't want to understate this point - from an outside perspective, it is almost impossible to comprehend the depth of hatred against Jews that exists across the Middle East.
Improving the living conditions of Palestinians is almost certainly a necessary precondition to lasting peace, but it is far from sufficient. Unfortunately, we are now stuck in a very stubborn vicious cycle - the Israel-Palestine conflict perpetuates anti-Semitism, which perpetuates the conflict.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_War#...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Arab_world
From your second source that seems to not be the case, at least not in serious degree. "Traditionally, Jews in the Muslim world were considered to be People of the Book and were subjected to dhimmi status. They were afforded relative security against persecution, provided they did not contest the varying inferior social and legal status imposed on them under Islamic rule. While there were antisemitic incidents before the 20th century, during this time antisemitism in the Arab world increased greatly." And later, "The situation of Jews was comparatively better than their European counterparts, though they still suffered persecution." There is more detail at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_under_Musl...
Anecdotally, I've heard that before the establishment of Israel, relations between the two groups were much less hostile. Muslims and Jews would, for example, have their Jewish or Muslim neighbors watch over their kids during holy days when they'd have to go to mosque/temple. There is also a long history of Jews being treated fairly well in the Arab/Muslim world - better indeed than they were in Christian lands where pogroms were much more common (it's astonishing how many times Germany, in a state of high fervor, decided that the most appropriate thing to do would be to massacre the Jews again). Again, anecdotally, the "depth of hatred against Jews" in the Arabs I've spoken with has little to do with Jews and much to do with the actions of the state of Israel and what it does in the name of Jews.
Jews were legal second class citizens and were treated terribly, e.g. being banned from wearing shoes in Morocco, and when the ban was overturned, so many Jews were murdered in riots that the community asked for shoes to be banned again.
https://twitter.com/TaliaRinger/status/1738328128999575931
And it's not just Morocco; Yemen for example had official state policy of kidnapping Jewish orphans to forcibly convert them to Islam. Baghdad massacred Jews starting in the 1820s, long before Israel existed. The Damascus affair was in 1840: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_affair
Dhimmi status is bad! It's not as bad as being pagan in Muslim countries historically, where you could just legally be killed if you didn't convert to Islam. And at times it was better than Europe, which more-frequently murdered its Jews. But it was bad, and it was bad long, long before Israel. There's a reason Mizrahi Jews form the right-wing base in Israel — it's not because it was good.
Except that doesn't seem to the be the case in the context of the time for specifically the Jewish communities living in Muslim-controlled regions? Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhimmi - "Generally, the Jewish people were allowed to practice their religion and live according to the laws and scriptures of their community. Furthermore, the restrictions to which they were subject were social and symbolic rather than tangible and practical in character. That is to say, these regulations served to define the relationship between the two communities, and not to oppress the Jewish population." There's a section on Jews on that page that seems unanimous in the view that while dhimmi status was not as good as being a muslim citizen, it was a better than what they had either before the Muslims took over or what they had available elsewhere. It's weird to label what is generally an improvement in living conditions/social regard as stemming from deep-seated discrimination.
Per atrocities - of course there were atrocities committed against Jews. Just as there were atrocities committed by basically every long-lived group against every long-lived group in their territories. No one is stupid enough to say that Muslims have never persecuted Jews, just as they wouldn't say that Christians have never persecuted Jews, or that Muslims never persecuted Christians, or that Christians never persecuted Muslims, or that those groups never persecuted themselves in schisms and internicine warfare. But the impression that Islam is fundamentally and necessarily opposed to the practice of the Jewish faith is fairly contradicted by even the history of dhimma. As the first paragraph of that Wikipedia page states; 'Dhimmī... is a historical term for non-Muslims living in an Islamic state with legal protection. The word literally means "protected person", referring to the state's obligation under sharia to protect the individual's life, property, as well as freedom of religion, in exchange for loyalty to the state and payment of the jizya tax, in contrast to the zakat, or obligatory alms, paid by the Muslim subjects. Dhimmi were exempt from certain duties assigned specifically to Muslims if they paid the poll tax (jizya) but were otherwise equal under the laws of property, contract, and obligation.'
On the other hand, look at how the Jews were treated during the Islamic Golden Age in Spain; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_age_of_Jewish_culture_i... ("The golden age of Jewish culture in Spain, which coincided with the Middle Ages in Europe, was a period of Muslim rule during which, intermittently, Jews were generally accepted in society and Jewish religious, cultural, and economic life flourished."). It's hard to square that with the idea that there is this deep-seated hatred among Muslims towards Jews as the GP stated.
My point is that conflict between the two sides is not inevitable, nor is this idea of extreme latent anti-Jewish sentiment in the Muslim world really true. Purges and persecution that people bring up are probably not caused by ancestral hatred, but rather the same thing that causes every society to suddenly fall into itself in violence and accusation; uncertain economic conditions, unstable political environments, natural disaster, epidemics, war, idiotic rulership, etc.
Except that doesn't seem to the be the case in the context of the time
I think not being allowed to wear shoes and being murdered in mass riots when the Sultan allows you to wear shoes is bad. To my eyes there is very little difference between the level of hatred then and now, it's just that the power dynamic has changed, so I think blaming the Muslim world's anti-Semitism on Israel's existence (like the OP did) isn't really based in historical fact. There was anti-Semitism long before Israel existed, and it's not like it was getting better prior to its establishment — the stuff in Yemen was happening through the 20th century, under Ottoman rule (and plenty of other bad stuff, e.g. "Dung Gatherer" laws requiring Jews to perform latrine servicing for Muslims).
This does not address any of the points I raised. You're just reiterating what you already wrote. Here's an abbreviated summary of the history;
1. Jews exist in a region.
2. Muslims take over. Conditions improve for the Jews.
3. Time passes.
4. Muslim civilization declines.
5. Internal strife and conflict. Among others, Jews are blamed.
6. Commenters 1000 years later; "This was caused by incipient hatred of Jews by Muslims."
This does not explain why conditions improved when Muslims originally rose to power in various regions. Again, the persecution of minority population is an expected result of the decline of civilizations. From the Wikipedia article your Twitter source is quoting, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Moroccan_Jews: "Morocco's instability and divisions also fueled conflicts, for which Jews were frequent scapegoats. The First Franco-Moroccan War in 1844 brought new misery and ill treatment upon the Moroccan Jews, especially upon those of Mogador (known as Essaouira). When the Hispano-Moroccan War broke out on September 22, 1859, the Mellah of Tetuan was sacked, and many Jews fled to Cadiz and Gibraltar for refuge. Upon the 1860 Spanish seizure of Tetouan in the Hispano-Moroccan War, the pogrom-stricken Jewish community, who spoke archaic Spanish, welcomed the invading Spanish troops as liberators, and collaborated with the Spanish authorities as brokers and translators during the 27-month-long occupation of the city." This is a nation in decline, lashing out at every perceived cause of trouble, like plague-stricken Europeans slaying cats and dogs and flagellating themselves.
Here are some other quotes from that article;
"The golden age of the Jewish community in Fez lasted for almost three hundred years, from the 9th to 11th centuries. Its yeshivot (religious schools) attracted brilliant scholars, poets and grammarians. This period was marred by a pogrom in 1033, which is described by the Jewish Virtual Library as an isolated event primarily due to political conflict between the Maghrawa and Ifrenid tribes."
"The position of the Jews under Almoravid domination was apparently free of major abuses, though there are reports of increasing social hostility against them – particularly in Fes. Unlike the problems encountered by the Jews during the rule of the Almohads (the Almoravids' successor dynasty), there are not many factual complaints of excesses, coercion, or malice on the part of the authorities toward the Jewish communities."
"During Marinid rule, Jews were able to return to their religion and practices, once again outwardly professing their Judaism under the protection of the dhimmi status. They were able to re-establish their lives and communities, returning to some sense of normalcy and security. They also established strong vertical relations with the Marinid sultans. When the still-fanatic mobs attacked them in 1275{note; no source for this on the Wikipedia page, no link; unable to find what this is referring to}, the Merinid sultan Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Abd Al-Haqq intervened personally to save them. The sovereigns of this dynasty benevolently received the Jewish ambassadors of the Christian kings of Spain and admitted Jews among their closest courtiers."
This is not what I would expect of a civilization that is fundamentally racist towards Jews. I would not expect, for example, a Louisiana governor in the 18th century to appoint a black man to be his advisor, yet we see Jews in the position of vizier in Morocco. This does not square.
Racism is not the most useful lens to view this relationship through. The culture of the Middle East is low-trust compared to post-Enlightenment Western societies. There remain sharp social divisions based on old tribal allegiances in even developed nations there (unsurprising, perhaps; there remain living people who remember that this tribe used to be slavers and that tribe killed our uncle and so on). Lashing out at neighbors who one thinks are being treated too favorably has little to do with race or religion, in my experience, and more to do with envy. It is the narcissism of small differences writ large and exacerbated by actual stakes.
Not quite.
“In 638, Palestine came under Muslim rule with the Muslim conquest of the Levant. One estimate placed the Jewish population of Palestine at between 300,000 and 400,000 at the time.[87] However, this is contrary to other estimates which place it at 150,000 to 200,000 at the time of the revolt against Heraclius.[88][89] According to historian Moshe Gil, the majority of the population was Jewish or Samaritan.[90] The land gradually came to have an Arab majority as Arab tribes migrated there. Jewish communities initially grew and flourished. Umar allowed and encouraged Jews to settle in Jerusalem. It was the first time in about 500 years that Jews were allowed to freely enter and worship in their holiest city. In 717, new restrictions were imposed against non-Muslims that negatively affected the Jews. Heavy taxes on agricultural land forced many Jews to migrate from rural areas to towns. Social and economic discrimination caused significant Jewish emigration from Palestine, and Muslim civil wars in the 8th and 9th centuries pushed many Jews out of the country. By the end of the 11th century the Jewish population of Palestine had declined substantially.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_diaspora
You make it sound like they were treated like equals and then only discriminated against many centuries later in a decline. But really, history shows us that they were initially treated well for a few years as they had just been conquered (a classic historical power solidification move) but were then treated terribly the entire rest of the time under Muslim conquest.
Holy shit that's burying the lede. Do you know what happened in Palestine, specifically Jerusalem, at the end of the 11th century?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Crusade
"On 15 July 1099, the crusaders made their way into the city through the tower of David and began massacring large numbers of the inhabitants, Muslims and Jews alike. The Fatimid governor of the city, Iftikhar Ad-Daulah, managed to escape.[16] According to eyewitness accounts the streets of Jerusalem were filled with blood. How many people were killed is a matter of debate, with the figure of 70,000 given by the Muslim historian Ibn al-Athir (writing c.1200) considered to be a significant exaggeration; 40,000 is plausible, given the city's population had been swollen by refugees fleeing the advance of the crusading army.[17]
The aftermath of the siege led to the mass slaughter of thousands of Muslims and Jews which contemporaneous sources suggest was savage and widespread and to the conversion of Muslim holy sites on the Temple Mount into Christian shrines.[18][19]
Atrocities committed against the inhabitants of cities taken by storm after a siege were normal in ancient[20] and medieval warfare by both Christians and Muslims. The crusaders had already done so at Antioch, and Fatimids had done so themselves at Taormina, at Rometta, and at Tyre. However, it is speculated that the massacre of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, both Muslims and Jews, may have exceeded even these standards."
And yes, the various Muslim powers at the time were in steep decline; if they weren't, they should easily have been able to defeat an army as poorly organized as the First Crusade was. The fact that just before the crusaders arrived, every powerful leader in the region died is basically the closest they came to actual divine intervention.
Knowledgeable, level-headed and sensible comment- thanks.
For every Israeli Jewish civilian, there is an equivalent Palestine refugee living in a camp (~7mil). Israeli can only exist as a Jewish majority state as long as the original inhabitants remain displaced. So the Gazans are probably not going to be pro-Israeli any time soon.
I find this argument to be problematic. The world contains an enormous number of descendants of displaced people. I imagine that most of the US population is in this category, for example. (Most people of Native American heritage. The descendants of the Puritans. Most American Jews (displaced from different places, even). The Palestinian-Americans. Descendants of slaves. Many others.)
Yet most of these people do not consider themselves to still be displaced! I certainly feel no particular desire to reconquer the (multiple!) places from which my ancestors were displaced. (There’s a lot of nuance here. Plenty of people, for example, think that Native Americans and their descendants should have better treatment, especially in land that remains Native American.)
But somehow Palestinian refugees, in particular, have unusual, highly politicized issues. The UN agency involved is a different agency than the one that nominally handles every other refugee situation worldwide. There are multigenerational Palestinian refugee camps in countries that do not grant citizenship to the refugees, and there are people who argue that granting citizenship would do them a disservice. (I don’t know whether the people arguing this are doing so in good faith.)
Also…
Stories and written records about the Israel go back a long time. If the stories are all true, essentially all Jews worldwide are the descendants of those displaced from Israel. Control of Jerusalem in particular has changed quite a few times, and there are surely plenty of people around, Jews and otherwise, whose ancestors have been displaced multiple times, hundreds of years apart, from the area. (It’s not just Jews and Arabs. Jesus was killed in Jerusalem. Wars have been fought there repeatedly: the Muslim Conquest of the Levant, the Crusades, etc.)
Trying to keep score of the number of living descendants of the various groups who have been displaced from Israel seems unlikely to give any sensible moral answer for who ought to control what part of it, except insofar as maybe the entire place would be better off with a genuine non-religious government, along the lines of how the US nominally works. Good luck!
Their legitimate problems with Israel stem from their illegitimate problem with Israel: that Arabs rejected a two-state solution at inception and repeatedly tried to wipe Israel off the map. More fundamentally, the whole problem stems from Arabs refusing to want to give up any of the territory they acquired during their wars of conquest in the 700s. Palestine is always going to be a proxy for that. (Which is why Qatar is hosting Hamas leadership.)
Like giving NGOs money which get funneled into overt terrorists groups by the corrupt politicians planted by the same terrorists? Aka the status quo for multiple decades well before Netanyahu was ever prime minister.
It’s notable none of the surrounding Muslim countries want anything to do with being the neutral power brokers to temporarily help run the state because they know as well as everyone else it’s a never ending hornets nest, that they’ll have as little control of it as Fatah and the various other iterations of “stable” Palestinian governance, who had little ability or interest to quell the extreme violent fringes. Which in every other country in history means control via police, courts, or worst case military… not tacit appeasement and turning a blind eye.
Note: ISIS was a bunch of European guys who got radicalized and then travelled to the middle east; Hamas is homegrown and was democratically elected by the people of the region.
No, ISIS wasn't "a bunch of European guys who got radicalized": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State
Marauding terrorist force that lays claim to an area != the people who inhabit that area*
* I understand that they also recruited locally; that doesn't change the fact that there were thousands of Europeans in ISIS' ranks, along with fighters from many other nationalities.
Why did you start off with such strong statements but then retreat to this one after you're challenged? Is ISIS a bunch of European guys or not?
There's no retreating in my comment -- it's a fact that they sourced people from everywhere. I threw an asterisk on there at the last second because I wanted to show good faith; there's nothing nefarious about it.
It was definitely a bunch of European guys, and Asian guys, and American guys, etc... my point was that ISIS was a group of people from around the globe and not an ideology endemic to the region.
See my other comment here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39153097
ISIS is 95% of people of African and Middle-Eastern origins. Then maybe a bit of crazies from Indonesia, Chechnya, etc. As well, ISIS was founded in Iraq itself. How is it a "bunch of European"?
Your 95% figure is incorrect -- approximately 45% of fighters hailed from Africa and the Middle East, with ~31% originating from Europe (East and West combined).
Here's a BBC article https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-47286935 and the report that it sources its data from https://icsr.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Women-in-ISIS-r... if you care to learn more.
I think the parent comment was referring to the idea that the overwhelmingy majority of those "Europeans" we're rather people of MENA/Turkish immigrant background, not "ethnically" European.
I looked at the source. Are you confusing “women and minors as % of total” from a country with % of fighters in IS originating from that country?
Democratically elected by plurality, where the only competition was incompetent, and still only won by plurality… and hasnt had an election in 18 years, which means 50% of the population has never had a democratically exercised opinion because they werent born yet, and of the other 50% not even 50% of the ones that voted had voted for Hamas
people really act like thats a “gotcha”
It's not a "gotcha", it's a factual statement. You can disagree with the mechanisms that brought them to power but it was still a legitimate election.
yes it is accurate and a rhetorical dog whistle for extremist approaches to making Palestinian civilians inseparable from Hamas
it is also accurate that it was 18 years ago
empathy shouldnt be that hard
The prevalence of British and American accents whenever the IDF is interviewed was certainly surprising.
They were trying to present a certain image, I would imagine they put the German terrorists in front of the German TV cameras, the French in front of the French cameras etc.
Mosul had 40k civilian causalties (more than Hamas totals), the coalition just lied about it:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/mosul-m...
Israel needs terms with Palestine, not with Hamas
To nitpick, the court did not rule that, they just "called" for that. It wasn't an order so its not binding. It was just a symbolic statement.
At most it was just a way for the court to acknowledge that the conflict is not one sided.
What makes you think that’s even possible? Name any other Arab country you could plunk down next to Israel that wouldn’t constantly be trying to destroy Israel?
Israel has had peace with Egypt and Jordan, for a long time now.
When Israel left Gaza in 2005 it had no blockade and an airport. Israel blockaded them and bombed their airport because they kept using everything to attack Israel.
If Gaza and the West Bank were given complete independence with no interference, what makes you think it will turn out different and they won't use the open borders to bring in weapons to attack Israel?
Doesn't matter how much people who want peace invest when terrorists who want to continue fighting are in charge. There is no "modern, prosperous, stable Palestinian society" when terrorists are in charge.
They have had better options... and still choose the path they are on.
That’s unlikely to work. Many Palestinians want all of Palestine back. Not some of it, all of it.
You could draw similarities with the Vietnam War. LBJ tried to dangle the carrot of economic development funds in from of North Vietnam, it didn’t work.
There is a core belief that an independent, whole Palestine is the most important thing. More important that economic development. Even more important than Palestinian lives.
Unfortunately , pouring money in gaza while hamas is in power only funnels it to weapons and terror infrastructure.
How do we know it ? We've been doing that for the past 15 years.
Israel must face the reality that is an apartheid state that exists on occupied land. There is no solution until that happens. Just like apartheid South Africa was dismantled, Israel has to face the same fate or forever be locked into warfare and oppressing Palestinians.
Isn't that exactly the view of reality that the Israeli right wing holds? They would agree that the choices are either dismantling the state of Israel, or eternal warfare. Since they don't want to dismantle the state of Israel, they elect for eternal warfare.
It's funny how on some questions, the most extreme people on both sides agree on the answer. Hamas and the Israeli right wing both agree that the only viable solution is for one ethnic group to control all the land from the river to the sea.
No. The Israeli right wing is trying (and succeeding at) making all of the land between the river and the sea exclusive property of the Jewish people. A quick glance at how the borders have evolved since 1948 makes this evident.
Most Palestinians (and thankfully also a good number of Israeli citizens) want a pluralistic solution, without checkpoints and borders, with equal rights and equal representation for all.
A two-state solution was possible 20 years ago, but with the current settlements in the West Bank with 450k or so Settlers and Gaza's total dependence on Israel for water, internet, electricity and many other of life's necessities, all paths towards a two-state solution have been severed.
Now that Gaza has been bombed and bulldozed what possibility is there for a Palestinian state? All records have been destroyed. The courts are gone. The universities are gone. It's all gone.
Israel will accept neither a one-state or two-state solution. By systematically destroying everything Palestinian the question resolves itself. That seems to be the strategy. And if we can take Israeli politicians at their word, this seems to have been the strategy for the past 20 years at least.
A two state solution is still possible. Why do people assume Palestinians want a state of only Palestinians. Palestine had Jews living in it before and a hypothetical future state of Palestine can too. They are not committed to an ethnostate they just want freedom.
Israel has a fairly large Palestinians population and most of them want to stay under Israeli control so maybe they know something that you don't?
Many black Americans chose to stay in the USA rather than emigrate to Liberia in the 1800s when given the opportunity. What can you conclude about the situation for black people in America based on that historical fact?
Seems like a weird comparison given that arab israelis are citizens with equal rights and most likely have much more information as opposed to people in the 1800s.
Not the mention that in the long term living in the USA was the right "bet", and pretty sure that if you ask black americans today if they'd like to emigrate to Liberia i assume 99.9% would say no.
I feel like you’re assuming that everyone thinks the same way you do. I don’t really think the evidence or history bears out “they just want freedom”. There were many obvious opportunities for this in the past.
I know that there are significant numbers who don't think like I do. I am stating a possibility that is ignored as an option. "they just want freedom" is based on every conversation I've ever had with a Palestinian. Did you ask any of them?
I don’t live in Gaza, nor do any of the Palestinians that I’ve known. I don’t think it’s fair to assume that the opinion sample is going to be representative for many reasons.
An interesting current data point for me is that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians support the actions of Hamas on October 7th specifically. If someone “just wants freedom” but doesn’t support the slaughter and kidnap of innocent Israeli citizens, they would actually be in the minority — so I don’t think your characterization is broadly correct. This isn’t even considering other historical events and opportunities for independent statehood.
Where is Palestine state proposal from Palestinians so I can read it? Or is this just fantasy made up by outsiders?
I don't follow what the clowns in Hamas, Fatah, or the PLO say. But I know some people personally.
Have you ever talked to a Palestinian person, megaman821?
Do you also take Palestinian leaders at their word? Because if so their strategy is to drive out Jews by whatever means necessary. None of them are talking about equal rights and representations, that's just not how their society works and they definitely don't want that together with Jews.
Mexico has better chances of winning against the US and driving out the Americans than Hamas has against Israel. Hamas has no advanced military capability.
Palestinians have over the years engaged in many good faith peace talks. Honored their side of many cease-fire agreements. And this is exactly what you would expect. After all, Palestinians stand to gain much more by a sustained peace than Israel does. The status quo (before Oct 7) was pretty great for Israel and terrible for the Palestinians. When actions, words, and incentives all point in the same direction I'm inclined to believe the words. Israel doesn't want a Palestinian state with state rights nor does it want millions of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. Palestinians will gladly take any serious peace deal, even if that deal strongly favors Israeli interests, because the status quo is unbearable. But none of this matters because Israel has refused to engage in peace talks ever since Hamas got elected.
History teaches us that peace is possible between bitter enemies when both parties want peace and stand to gain by it. When one party desperately needs peace and the other party doesn't, there won't be peace.
I disagree. This isn't Hamas alone, Hamas is backed by Iran. Big proxy armies have been built by Iran and are surrounding Israel - mostly in Lebanon and Syria and now also Yemen. Hundreds of thousands of different kinds of rockets - many of them accurate with big warheads. As for moral support - significant parts of the Muslim world and the Western liberal elites are promoting and supporting the idea that Israel should be dismantled (The Muslims mostly see this done by force. The liberal left by sanctions, but are sympathetic to the idea of violent struggle because of 'oppression').
As for the chances of this working out - I don't think it's low at all. With a patient strategy like this it can eventually happen. They've been at it for around 100 years why can't they go on for another 100? But whatever I think about the chances, I'm positive most Palestinians themselves and the resistance axis supporting them are quite confident in their chances and feel religiously compelled to keep it up.
This is a Western approach, not how Palestinians think. You either don't read what the Palestinians are saying or you don't believe them. When they say from the river to the sea - they mean it. It's a big part of their national and religious identity, not something they can give up for a small 1967 border state. Sure, they would have had better GDP and lives had they taken a 67 state with no occupation etc, but that would break their dreams and passions and identities and somewhat their religious beliefs. Those things are more important to them them than safety and GDP, as irrational as it may seem to you. I wish I was wrong about all this but nothing I've seen over the years led me to feel like I'm wrong.
The belief that “the other” is fundamentally unreasonable can be used to justify arbitrary amounts of violence. Lets not forget that Hamas is pretty unpopular in Gaza and that most people just want to live their lives and not see their children get blown up. This is not my biased western perspective.
We have very clear instances from history where the opposite is true. The amount of senseless wars and violence is staggering. Arguably more often than not. I don't think this is different, we are going to disagree on that.
So has Israel
So has Israel
The status quo was partially the result of Israel being repeatedly attacked.
I think that if this was the case, October 7th would not have happened, Hamas would have surrendered, and the hostages would have been returned.
Having said this, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is highly complex.
When Hamas got elected Israel aborted all peace talks and built a fence with gun turrets around Gaza. No peace talks means no peace.
You're correct that the Israeli right wing would really like the entire land to be ruled by the Jewish people. Their "success" since 1967 has really been driven by the Arab countries and the Palestinians. The political violence and the wars they waged pushed the Israeli public to become more extreme and unable to imagine a future where it's possible for everyone to live in peace on the same land. I think this is pretty much fact. Rabin who was trying to make peace was assassinated as a direct result of the heated atmosphere in the wake of Hamas' suicide bombing campaign against Israel, which had the goal of sabotaging the peace process.
I don't think it's correct that most Palestinians want what you say they want (surveys?). And even if it's true, the majority of Palestinians has no means of getting what they want. In areas under their control it's certainly hasn't been "pluralistic with equal rights and representation", it's been more like "I have a gun do what I say or else".
I think the two state solution is impossible but not for the reasons you mention. I don't think we need Gaza's courts or universities. It's also not the dependency on electricity etc. It's impossible for other reasons. On the Israeli side nobody is willing to live with an aggressive entity that wants to destroy it having their own state 5 minute driving distance from all their major cities. Gaza (the withdrawal of Israel and the rise of Hamas and their militarization) to them is proof there's no way that can work. There is no trust that the Palestinians will respect any agreement. On the Palestinian side there's no body that actually represents the Palestinians and there are armed factions that have already said they'll reject any agreement and keep on fighting.
Israel has dismantled settlements in Sinai and in Gaza. I don't think the settlements are the problem. If there was a viable option for real peace Israel would dismantle the settlements (+/- maybe some land exchange around major blocks). Ofcourse the settlements don't help because their existence creates friction and hate and they're sort of illegal.
Maybe external parties will somehow enforce a two state solution. It's kind of hard to see now. Maybe we need enough time to pass so we get social processes that take us somewhere better. Also kind of hard to see right now. Maybe Israel will expel all Arabs from the region eventually (or enough of them that they can annex the occupied territories). Also hard to see. Maybe the Palestinians will unite and reject violence as means of making political progress and that will convince Israelis to let them in as equal citizens. Also hard to see. I.e. no solution. Partly has to do with broader geo-political processes, namely China and Russia's conflict with the west. If that's resolved (also hard to see) maybe progress can be made in the middle east as well.
Not Jewish people, a very select subset of that group: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2784649
I'm not sure why we have to bring the Ethiopian Jews into this discussion. I think a lot has changed in this regard since 1993 when this paper was published. Ethiopian jews are much more integrated into Israeli society. But yes, this statement is more complicated than meets the eye, but I don't think this particular topic is current or relevant. I.e. I don't think your typical religious right-wing settler has a problem with including an Ethiopian Jew into their definition of who they think should control the "god given land of Israel". They're probably happier with them than e.g. with some more "modern" Jewish people from the US.
I should point out to people who might not be as familiar with Israeli history that Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli right wing extremist.
As for the rest, while I appreciate the civil response I don't think we agree enough on the facts to have a fruitful discussion.
I'm curious but I also appreciate the civil discussion. Thanks for the extra context re: Rabin. This topic doesn't lend itself to one liners.
While I mostly agree with you, your point does not seem to contradict at all the point of the comment you are responding to
I don't think it makes sense to talk about what the extremists in a conflict want when one side is a regional superpower and the other side has no army to speak of (that's why Hamas hides in tunnels).
It's about what the parties can actually accomplish. Hamas gambles on international sympathy because they cannot do anything militarily. They have no bargaining leverage either during possible peace talks. I don't approve of antisemitic slogans wishing for the destruction of Israel but the world will never allow it to happen. Never. Zero chance of that happening.
So while extremists on both sides are the same in the abstract, only one side is facing possible extermination.
it makes total sense to discuss this: because in effect by tipping the balance of power you don't really change anything.
If you made Israel as small as Palestine tomorrow, and Palestine as large as Israel: the same (or, some would argue: worse) situation would exist and the same sentiments from the same sorts of extremists.
Thats what we are talking about, power doesn't matter, only sentiment and perspective has been discussed here.
That's certainly not what I want and from what I gather also not what Hamas wants. They just want Palestinians to have full human rights on their land, from the river to the sea. They don't want to eradicate anyone, they just don't want to live as second class citizens. Just like how dismantling South Africa did not require genociding the Afrikaners.
I feel that's an extremely naive view. How many Jews live peacefully and enjoy human rights under Arab rule in the middle east? Zero. How many in Gaza under Hamas? Zero. How many live in the west bank in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority? Zero.
So "Hamas" only wants Tel-Aviv "returned", Jersualem "returned", Haifa "returned", from the river to the sea, but somehow in that vision all the Jewish population lives peacefully and enjoys human rights that don't exist anywhere in the middle east?
The West Bank holds the forth largest Jewish population in the world, after France. Now the West Bank is occupied territory, controlled by Israel, so perhaps that doesn’t count.
According to this Wikipedia article[1] there are around 2-3000 jewish people living in Morocco, 1-2000 in Tunisia, and about 100 in Syria and Lebanon (not including the Golan Heights).
I am aware that there were persecutions in the past in many Arabic countries, but the same is true of Europe. Beirut even restored one of their last Synagogues in 2010 after it was damaged, ironically, in an Israeli airstrike.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population_by_country
My point was specific to Palestinian Authority controlled areas of the west bank.
My second point (maybe not so obvious) was about human rights situations in the Arab world and under Palestinian rule. e.g. the Jews living in Morocco can't elect their government because Morocco is a dictatorship ("Monarchy"), ruled by a king.
I.e. there's no Jews living under Arab rule while meeting those two conditions. Being able to live in a democratic, free, country with human rights, and under Arab or Palestinian rule. I was well aware there is some (tiny) Jewish population in some Arab countries.
You could say the same of Europe prior to 1945. However today hundreds of thousands of Jewish people live in Europe enjoy equal rights and democracy.
What makes you think that Palestine can’t become one of those countries if ever allowed to be democratic and independent?
Would it be democratic if it became independent, though?
Hamas specifically came to power via elections, but hasn't held any elections since then under various excuses, so they clearly aren't champions of democracy.
They have tried to hold election. Last attempt was in 2021. Israel prevented occupied East Jerusalem from participating which was a noop for Abbas who cancelled them. Also notable was that EU asked to observe the election, but Israel did not allow that. There have also been local elections on the West Bank, last one in 2021.
Holding elections with two distinct governments and a third one occupying both is not easy. Even Ukraine has difficulty holding a general election with only a portion of its territory occupied and a single government.
But yeah, I think, and I think most would agree, that an independent Palestine would defiantly be democratic.
This just isn't true. There are even (a few thousand) Jews living in Iran, and the Ayatollahs have come out in defence of Judaism proper.
The main problem for Jews in the region is the fact that the certain Israeli factions aggressively conflates Judaism with Israeli nationalism/Zionism, sacrificing the former to protect the latter. Above all else, that makes it dangerous to be Jewish outside Israel or one of its Western sponsors. And even inside. Because uninformed people, and actual antisemites, buy into that cynical framing.
There were definitely persecutions and ethnic cleansing campaigns following 1948 in the neighboring Arab countries, especially in Iraq, Syria, and following 1967 in Lebanon, which drove a lot of Arab speaking Jews to Israel. Israel’s immigration policy was also very aggressive in inviting Jews from Arabic countries into Israel. Some even believe Israel went as far as stealing people from Ethiopia. So a lot of Jewish communities that once existed outside of Israel have now been absorbed into Israel.
That said, I think it is a mistake—and honestly a bit racist—to claim that Jewish people can’t live and prosper in smaller communities among certain ethno-religous majorities today.
How is it racist ? There are indeed entire areas where Jews can't really live normally due to harassment. Even in Europe.
It is racist to zero in on a specific ethno-religous group and say that they in particular are unable to maintain a functioning democracy accommodating of certain minorities. It is the sort of crap that colonial Europe did to justify the horrors of the colonial period.
There are many places in the world that are not maintaining a functioning democracy, that includes not respecting minorities to Western standards. Blows my mind this is a racist statement to you, but we'll have to disagree then.
Read Hamas' charter, they are open about their goals: to kill or expel Jews from the river to the sea.
This is also in the Likud(Israeli far-right party charter) and actually denotes even more land in the region(Jordan) as property of Israel.
The likud is not far right, it’s just a right wing party. There are other far right parties. Can you link me to that part of the likud charter? Because the one I’ve read mentions none of that.
Bingo
What's the word for word translation of the original slogan again? "From the river to the sea, all land shall be Arab" if my dictionary doesn't fail me...
The charter of Hamas explicitly calls for the eradication of the state of Israel, the death of presumably all Jews, Muslim rule of all of Palestine, the explicit rejection of peace or any negotiated settlement (with explicit condemnation of the Camp David Accords), and Jihad as individual duty in order to achieve the aforementioned goals.
That's certainly what you (and me) would very much like Hamas to want but it is certainly not what Hamas actually wants
You can only ignore who they are if you don't listen to what they say
What about the rights to elections? Free speech? To be gay and not be thrown off a building? They don't even support these basic human rights in the land they rule, for the people they claim as their own.
Hamas certainly doesn't want Palestinians to have full human rights. Regardless of how unjustifiable some Israel's actions are or what one might think about them Hamas is a fundamentalist terrorist organization and they certainly were/are/would be unwilling to extend "full human rights" to Palestinians or anyone living in Gaza or anywhere else.
This is presumably a one-state solution?
The problem here being the Jews would be a minority in this state. Which leads to existential concerns regarding their survival. That can’t be easily brushed aside. Particularly when members of Iran’s Axis sport “death to Israel, a curse upon Jews” [1]. (Hamas and the Houthis sharing a backer isn’t insignificant.)
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slogan_of_the_Houthi_movemen...
I’ve heard this line from people who say the West Bank and Gaza are the occupied land, to those who say all of Israel is occupied land. The former makes sense. The latter is extreme.
South Africa wasn’t as militarised as the Levant has become, unfortunately. As long as Iran seeks the destruction of Israel, itself and through its proxies, any Mandela-type accounting is probably fruitless. (I am open to being convinced otherwise.)
Anyone can go on Google Earth, look at the official UN borders of Israel, then do a search in Hebrew or "synagogue" (obviously not every synagogue is Israeli) or "checkpoint" and very clearly see the Israeli settlements outside Israel's legal borders. Search "Hizma" for a good example [1].
To make it even more obvious, toggle the "street view" layer over one of these areas and see what gets highlighted.
There is a clear apartness between the neatly-planned Israeli settlements, often built on demolished Palestinian villages, and the organic scattering of indigenous, primarily Arab Palestinian villages. With militarized checkpoints in between. Anyone can see it, if they have the will and a web browser.
[1] - https://earth.google.com/web/search/Hizma+checkpoint,+Sderot...
I'm not sure what point are you trying to make here.
Nobody, including Israelis, will argue about the status of Palestinians living outside of Israel's border, in areas that are occupied (a terminology of international law that Israel also agrees to, https://casebook.icrc.org/a_to_z/glossary/occupation ) do not enjoy equal rights to Israelis (Arabs, Jews, Christians and other) living within Israel's borders. During the US occupation of Japan or Germany post WW-II could the Japanese or Germans travel freely to the US? Vote in the US elections? It's true that Americans didn't settle those regions (they built military bases they still maintain so maybe a little).
"often built on demolished Palestinian villages" - I think this isn't generally true in the west bank, if that was what this statement was about. There are certainly demolished villages within Israel's borders (going back to the 1948 war).
Which was a temporary state and certainly didn't last for 50 years.
There are no countries in Europe where US is maintaining military bases without full consent of their governments.
How is this relevant? The people living in the occupied territories do not enjoy equal rights with the illegal Israeli settlers who have taken parts of them over. It's basically colonialism.
If Jordan took back the west bank and Egypt took Gaza back then this also wouldn't last for 50 years. This is a unique situation where the party the land was occupied from doesn't want it back and the party that occupied it doesn't want it and the people living on this occupied land also don't really want it (or at least not willing to make peace in exchange for getting it). Because it's so hard to solve we've been stuck for 50 years. Still the legal status of this territory is the same as occupied Japan or Germany. It's a "temporary state", just a very long one.
In terms of "colonialism" I don't think it quite fits the strict definition of the word. Again it's a bit of a unique situation. If we compare to Europe many of the borders were drawn as a result of war, and this would be no different. The difference is that in Europe the population might have been expelled (e.g. like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Germans_from_Czec... ) and the area annexed. Another interesting history to look at is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_border_change...
The people living on this land wasn't ever offered a credible "this is your land & we leave you alone on it" deal, though. No sovereign country would tolerate a complete blockade of its borders, yet that is seemingly what Israel expected from Palestinians when "giving" them Gaza.
Gaza wasn't blockaded when it was handed to the Palestinians. Only later when Hamas came to power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip
EDIT: Just want to add that the reality is more nuanced. Naturally Israel affects control over its border with Gaza and Egypt affected control over its border. Israel has definitely refused to let Gaza operate an airport or a sea port and so it maintained some amount of control together with Egypt. That said a lot of how this evolved was around choices made by Palestinians and the rise of Hamas led to the official blockade being imposed. I do think this was an opportunity for Palestinians to demonstrate how they can govern territory controlled by them and be peaceful neighbors which ofcourse did not happen.
Nobody in the former Ottoman Empire did.
Plenty of enclave countries exist. The blockade clamped shut when Hamas took power [1]. A coup, mind you, which overthrew Gaza’s fledgling (and flawed) democracy.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip
That's not that obvious considering all the illegal settlements. I'm sure they want the land just not the people living there.
But yes, no clear solution especially considering that the only (non-Hamas) option for self government, the Palestinian Authority/Fatah is thoroughly incompetent and corrupt.
Because the population in neither one enacted a serious of terror campaigns or "Intifadas" against them. If they did it's almost certain that the allies would still occupy Germany and the US Japan.
edit: Also, until the 2+4 treaty, formally known as the "Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany" was signed in 1990 the allies still held part of their occupational rights over Germany. Not 50 years, but 45 at least.
In what way is it not? The state was created by western powers less than 100 years ago and has aggressively pursued European and US immigration since then.
The current state of things is an entirely manufactured situation and it's becoming more and more farcical. There's only so many times you can interview a guy with a British or New York accent talking about his ancestral right to the desert before things start looking a little bit weird.
That's not entirely accurate at all. There was indeed a UN decision to partition the land and to acknowledge Israel, but no one was enforcing it. The Arabs and Jews were left to battle it out in a horrible war. Jews were facing the real possibility of a second extermination only 3 years after the holocaust (I don't think I'm exaggerating the consequences of what defeat would have looked like had the Jews lost that war).
The British policy towards Jews in Palestine was not consistent at all, and at a certain point they sided with the Arabs and banned Jewish immigration to Palestine - even at the height of the holocaust.
It's fair to say that it wasn't directly created by them but their actions in the years prior did lead to the end result. The UK administered the region and had committed to making it a "national home" for the Jewish people. That doesn't necessarily mean a state, but the result was a rapid shift in demographics.
It didn't help that the UK had also made promises of independence to other groups in the region.
I entirely agree with you on the situation that Jews in the region were faced with at the time. One of the depressing things is that despite the proximity to the holocaust, antisemites in allied countries saw the situation as a way to encourage Jews to leave.
I can see how things might have turned out better if there hadn't been so much migration in such a short period of time.
Not enough migration if you asked me, millions of Jews could have been saved from the holocaust. If not in Palestine a real effort should have been made to take them in other places, yet no one was doing it - not in Palestine or anywhere else.
I was referring to the period after the war. To be clear, I don't think that having escaped the holocaust is a negative.
Agreed, the scale of the migration to palestine, even prior to 1945, indicates an abdication of duty by western countries. At the time Palestine was primarily under the control of the UK.
When you mentioned rapid demographic shift, I was assuming you meant the Jewish immigration in the early 20th century that brought bigger numbers of Jews into Palestine and the beginning of the Palestinian rejection of Zionism. There is a popular view that this (or basically Zionism altogether) should have never been allowed to take place because it eventually led to Palestinian displacement.
The early immigration certainly caused issues between two groups and I do think that the decision to support the zionists of the time was incorrect. For many, the purpose seems to have been to reduce their own Jewish populations.
While still a cause of tension, immigration was much lower before the war. The result was just as you said, European Jews were faced with an existential threat a few years after the holocaust.
One of the things I found quite interesting was that Palestine wasn't the only option considered by early Zionists. At some point places like Argentina and Uganda were potential candidates.
I'm not really aware of much European support for Zionism outside the Balfour declaration in those years. The declaration remained a declaration and pretty soon the Brits flipped their policy and banned Jewish immigration. You had tiny movements of Christians Zionists (Churchill was a Zionist for instance) but I'm not aware of any substantial support they gave. After the war the big immigration waves were actually from Middle Eastern Jews, not from Europe. Jews from Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Syria etc etc whose lives became increasingly dangerous. So my main point is its quite unclear if there was any major support for Zionism in the West in those years. Only after the holocaust could you find a majority that supported establishing Israel in the UN.
If you want to dig into this look into where Israel got its weapons from during its war of survival in 48: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_shipments_from_Czechoslov.... From the communists.
I specifically think the mixed use of the word "occupation" to imply that the state of Palestine should include all of the current state of Israel one of the largest trust busting tricks in the modern discourse. I think it is natural to think that the Gaza and West Bank situation is bad and I suspect the majority of even slightly western views would agree.
What shocked me, is that there are some on the far left that fully think all of Israel is an occupation of Palestine. More, they got rather upset when I pointed out that that line of thinking is, ironically, in support of people that have shown genocidal intent.
Curious if you have numbers on how many intentionally refer to all of Israel in this way? (Also curious if my take on that is unfair to folks?)
apartheid is a loaded term of opinion, not of fact. comparing israel to other true apartheid regimes, such as south africa, is hyperbolic. there exist discriminatory policies that ought to be reformed but i do not believe that word is appropriate.
israel does, in fact, exist on some occupied land that she should return, including many west bank settlements. however, there is something to be said for keeping parts as a bargaining chip against those motivated largely by religious and nationalistic fervor mixed with some basic hatred. other parts of her land were obtained legitimately, going all the way back to the first aliyah after the kiev pogroms in which tens of thousands of jews were massacred. many immigrated legally, though the ottoman empire later threw up some barriers to immigration with hopes to limit their numbers. many were later moved legitimately under the authority of the british in mandatory palestine.
legal immigrants are not necessarily "occupiers". there is also a period past which land becomes naturalized, just like most of the world has been taken and settled by force at some point or another. most of the people who are descendants of those ancient conquerors are just as indigenous as those who were there before. i'd venture to say much of israel, while it ought to be shared better, is populated with naturalized inhabitants.
All metaphors are wrong, some metaphors are useful. The word "burn" applies to both first and third degree burns.
Characteristics of apartheid can exist even if it is not at the severity experienced by black south Africans. The analogy here has utility, and racism towards Palestinians is unfortunately a huge problem in Israeli society.
"burn" is commonly applied to a range of conditions. "apartheid" is applied with exceptional rarity, and in common parlance, people associate it with the south african regime. in your analogy, this is equivalent to calling a first-degree burn third-degree
This is a good summary of Islamic radicalization propaganda that seeks to use Palestinian civilians as pawns, with no regard for them. It is this narrative that keeps the Palestinains in prison.
The counterpoint is that you "must" face the reality that this is never going to happen, and that asserting that it will or should is equivalent to damning the Palestinians to the existence that they currently occupy.
Greater Islam does not have an army that can stand against the West, let alone do the Palestinians. All that they have are manipulated terrorists whose actions always cause much more destruction on their side than the inverse.
So I say again, the only realistic and humane view is to take your oppopsite position, recognize the immovable force, and actually attempt to save Palestinian lives via deradicalization and a relocation campaign.
If I knew the answer to that question I would be a high ranked politician. But for me it's important to keep in mind what he is saying here and also in another part explicitly: a diplomatic solution is possible and history proves that. So what I can do is reject the notion that what is happening is unavoidable.
Well, the alternative to diplomatic solution is total annihilation of palestinians in west bank, be it by forcing them off the land which is impossible since they have nowhere to run and other islamic states refuse them (so much for inter-muslim brotherhood, I guess Iran should take them), or murdering them one by one which seems to be going on now. Or what we had till now, which led to what we have now. It doesnt matter that the other side plays dirty, all sides eventually do. It just doesn't matter for statement above.
It doesn't matter a nanofraction of a bit what government(s) publicly say, those are farts in the wind to be polite, I don't understand why people even care about such PR, its like what Putin says, what does it matter when its clearly said for a specific purpose and truth is optional?
I honestly dont understand the resistance to their own state. Yes they will hate Israel, just like till now they did, just like every single its neighbor since its creation. So what? How did we/they move from this utter hate of neighbors to cca peace? Well certainly not by following the path of trying to eradicate the other, history is pretty clear there. Yes its a bit easier to invade and kill if you want compared to invading a foreign state, but preventing it should be a good thing. Also, US is effectively giving them a blank check, just empty words flying around, I really expected a bit more. A room for Russia or China to step up.
Its like counting some destroyed tunnels or killing few brainwashed young guys mattered in long run, in same vein as say counting Vietcong losses and comparing them to US ones didn't matter. That's whats happening now. What's the plan for rest of existence? I dont see that part, I mean 0. But maybe current Israel government likes this situation, I mean the top guy is former special forces guy, so this is not unusual situation and a bit of blood doesn't matter to them and if there is war people don't focus so much on how effectively he erodes democracy.
So what is this, state-sponsored genocide? Because 100% this is not how Hamas disappears for longer than few months (in same vein al qaeda didn't) and I think literally everybody involved realizes that, this will actually make it much stronger long term, think about all those eager volunteers from places like Saudi arabia. Soviet war was what created Osama. US invasion of Iraq is what pointed him to US.
Suffice to say, when doing grocery shopping I don't buy products from Israel these days, we don't need more wars in middle east and massive refugees waves in Europe. Tiny wallet, but its all I have (apart from vacations but for that Israel was very low in the list anyway).
The Palestinian people can oust Hamas, reject Islamic extremism without exception and reform their society to be compatible with a peaceful relationship with their neighbours.
How? They lack the organization and military capability to do so.
And while Hamas hasn't done them any favors, with the way Israel has been behaving, I'm not surprised your average Palestinian in Gaza isn't feeling like helping the Israeli objective, even if it likely would be in their long-term interests as well.
They do it in cooperation with the IDF who are determined to do so.
I addressed that in my very short comment; not sure where I wasn't clear. With Israel itself admitting that they are killing roughly 2 civilians for every Hamas fighter they kill, why would you think any civilian in Palestine would trust Israel or be interested in working with them?
The fact that it might make logical sense to you or I that they should is entirely irrelevant. We're not there, and if we were, I doubt we'd be much driven by logic at this point. Not to mention we wouldn't have had access to the internet or regular communications with anyone for months now, and only see the death and devastation.
<< why would you think any civilian in Palestine would trust Israel or be interested in working with them?
It is not the same, but in a sense this odd naivety was a similar surprised reaction to US withdrawal and quick rollover of 'local' army in Afghanistan.
<< We're not there, and if we were, I doubt we'd be much driven by logic
I think this is worth highlighting. edit: The reason to avoid war is because it is horrific and can remove all sense from a man.
They could. But they’ll never do it as long as it looks like Hamas is the only one fighting for them.
Yes, while their optics is like this, it's hard for them to get to a peaceful solution.
It's not just their optics. It looks that way to the rest of the world as well.
When the IDF kills (at least) two civilians to every combatant, and then drives many others out of their homes and into starvation, it really does make it look like Hamas is the only organization that will fight for them. And Hamas barely even does that (seeing as they are a terrorist organization that uses Palestinian civilians like sacrificial pawns), but they come far closer to it than any other organization in a position to do anything.
If we want Gazans to support an alternative to Hamas, then we need to come up with an alternative to Hamas that supports Gazans better than Hamas does. That should be pretty easy; it's a very low bar.
The average age in Palestine before Oct 7th was 19. You’re asking a nation of kids to be more mature and organized than the Israeli government who is killing them and their families
You're saying Gazans make immature choices because of the population's young age? That's a first time I hear this. They're a nation of kids you say.
It doesn't seem like the Palestinian people are extremist Muslims any more than the Israeli people are extremist Jews.
Why should the Palestinians leave? Palestinians leaving is ethnic cleansing.
I wanted to let you know that I agree with all your comments. Nothing you have said is out of line. Sometimes it is really hard interacting with the HN crowd, when they get things wrong, it hurts, because they should be able to use their big brains to see through the chaos. Take care.
Because there's an anti-terrorism operation turned to city war going on, and to be in the middle of hostilities is dangerous.
It's really, really hard for palestinians today, yet just remain in place and ignore all calls to leave doesn't look like a good approach. Maybe we don't know something big, it's possible, but from all information from the region leaving still looks like a better option.
Because it's a normal outcome of war for territory to shift. It's especially justified if you try to invade another country and then lose spectacularly.
What makes you so certain it's the Palestinians and not the Jews this will happen to? It's the stated goal of the Palestinians and much of the extreme Muslim world surrounding Israel to drive away the Jews and it's not far fetched to see them eventually succeed.
This conflict is taking place in Gaza.
How does history prove any such thing? That's neither how history or proof work. Most of the wars that have been resolved to everyone's benefit have done so by the unconditional surrender of the aggressors, followed by amicable reconstruction.
Because there are Jews living in Germany nowadays?
... after Germany was bombed to the ground and occupied for years. Only after that came the diplomatic efforts.
Well, looks like that box is checked for Gaza; can we jump to diplomacy now?
Box is not checked yet, otherwise IDF wouldn't have any resistance.
We should try diplomacy all the time, but right now the offer of Israel is unconditional surrender or continuation of hostilities. Maybe - maybe - less atrocious to civilians than what it was during March 1945 in Germany. Diplomats will keep their work; of course everybody's abilities are limited.
Are there Jews in Germany today because of diplomacy? Or because those who tried annihilating and enslaving most German Jews were removed from power by force?
After Germany surrendered unconditionally and was amicably reconstructed.
Who is the aggressor here?
Hamas on Oct 7th
Many people would disagree if you look at the history starting from the Nakba.
It provides examples that it happened and thus proves it's possible.
The solution is simple, avoiding the solution in order to create a western military power ally in the middle east is what high ranked politicians do.
The West isn't the one avoiding the solution. If it were up to us, two state would have been sorted decades ago, as evidenced by the repeated peace summits the US has hosted.
Israel believe they can't integrate the bulk of the Palestinian population, and there to afraid of attack to live next to an independent Palestinian state.
If you continually provide missiles and prevent a ceasefire in the UN (a rather unauthoritative body anyways) I would describe you as "avoiding" the solution of not settling/attacking Palestine.
The "We were afraid of the people, they might attack us, we have to do this" line wasn't believable in the 30's and isn't now.
The Israelis would continue the war with Hamas with no US support and a ceasefire in the UN. The US won't sacrifice it's relationship with Israel to try to force a resolution on an intractable issue that doesn't really concern the US, and it's interesting that they would be expected to.
Haven't the Israelis have come under attack from Palestinians since that time for moving on to the land in numbers that made the Palestinians uncomfortable.
Please explain.
Yes, that is exactly what Israel should do. The "dont let gazans interact with Israelis" strategy was icnredibly effective until Israel got soft on border security. Israel easily is capable of ensuring no Gazans ever escape again. The iron dome is largely succesful at keeping Israelis safe, certainly more so than a long term gazan invasion which would open up the Israelis in gaza to terrorist attacks.
"dont let gazans interact with Israelis" is exactly the definition of apartheid though, unless you're advocating recognising Palestine, and giving them autonomy wrt water, electricity and so on. However the comment "ensuring no Gazans ever escape again." Is rather telling, it implies a recognition that Gaza is effectively a prison - dehumanisation like that fosters this sort of conflict, so really this sort of attitude is far less helpful than say learning from lessons in Japan and Germany post WW2, South Africa post-apartheid and so on.
Gaza absolutely is a prison. Keeping Gazans there is the only way to ensure Israelis safety. Is that unfair? Absolutely, but I dont think Israelis are especially interested in fairness here, theyre interested in their security. You cant compare Gaza to post ww2 countries. Gaza has no economy, and a vastly different culture. There is no path toward peace between gaza and Israel. Not even on the 1000 year time span, because that would require gazan quality of life to improve, and they just dont have the land or resources for that to happen.
Why are we more concerned about the safety of Israelis than the safety of Palestinians?
Im concerned with realistic solutions. Israel has all the power here, the reality is that any solution will be one that benefits them, and hopefully palestinians are willing to go along with.
I have spent days researching the history of this. The problem in its entirety is Zionism. The only way for Zionism to remain, is for Israel to be permanently at war. Research Likud, read about Netanyahu, Zionism is the contagion and a Forever War is their answer.
Should the Palestinians have agency and self determination?
It doesnt matter what they "should" have. Israel wont give it to them while they think it would undermine their security, and no one has the ability to force them to.
Of course West has the power. The generational shift in US is very clear - GenZ openly does not want to have anyrhing to do with israel. It will carry on and increase with everry next generation. How are you gonna sustain israel in this kind of enviromnent?
I don't know, it's a good question and it might be unsustainable. Another question is how do you dismantle a country threatened by war and genocidal intentions on all borders , a country that's a nuclear power? What's the end game here - let Israel die and hope the population makes it out OK and that Palestinians happily co exist with Israelis? While some use South Africa as an example where this happened peacefully, there are many more examples where this ended up in a huge massacres - Yugoslavia, Syria, Iraq etc. The realistic best case scenario for Israel is Israel collapsing and the vast majority of the Jews fleeing alive to wherever they can. Other scenarios are Jews getting massacred in huge numbers and even nuclear war.
The way things are going, the earlier West understands/accepts insustainability of current israel, the less bloody will be the end result. israel could even survive as a Jewish state, but that would require massive diplomatic effort of many forces.
I think better plans need to be made for dismantling a country (that's what you're aiming at right?) in such a volatile part of the world. It can already be extremely bloody, as I said there are genocidal threats against Israel on all borders and Israel as a nuclear power can become genocidal too if it feels its own people are at risk of a second holocaust. Simply crippling Israel's economy so it collapses and hoping for the best sounds like a very bad idea to me.
Sure it does! If we can't agree on what should be, we can never make anything happen. And we all do have agency on how the Palestinians are treated. To deny that is to be complicit.
Israel can be forced into concessions just as South Africa was, if external actors - most notably, US - stop bankrolling them, and start applying sanctions instead. It only has all the power because others let it have that power, and even contribute directly to increasing said power.
I disagree. Israel is self sufficient and has a much stronger economy than SA ever did. Israel also now has substantial oil reserves which makes sanctions difficult. Israels military is completely sufficient and would be able to oppress palestine just fine without international support. In my estimation the only thing sanctions would do is push Israel toward its final solution to the palestinian problem as they no longer see a downside to ending the issue once and for all.
Israel has nuclear weapons, its not possible to actually force them to do anything.
We don't have much oil, we do have gas reserves. Whatever you fill up your car with - we don't have. Last I heard we import our oil from Azerbijan - a friendly Muslim country with common enemies. Also most calories e.g food are imported. Most agricultural fertilizers, chips and electronics for missiles, cars etc etc. There is talk now in Israel of becoming more independent - especially in regards to arms, but it's going to take a long time and I'm not positive how well Israel can make it. It's a very small country after all. Israel needs to deal with Iran who is supported by Russia and to a lesser extent by China. How long can Israel make it alone against the world's biggest superpowers without the U.S on its side?
And even if Israel can make it like North Korea, I don't think most Israelis would want that kind of life of being completely isolated from the world. If Israeli existence is reduced to isolation and extreme poverty - most would give up I think.
I've never been to Israel but have friends there. I disagree with 'most', they are very resilient and will not leave their home. I offered my home to one mother with a newborn while they were living in a bunker. They would rather stay at home with rockets hitting them than flee.
Interesting take. We're just speculating here, it's a very extreme scenario so hard to say. The reason I'm skeptic about it is that most Israelis got used to quite high standards of living - comparable to say France or UK (gdp wise). Complete isolation would bring Israel to the standards of living it had in the 50s. But your point is important - some Israelis will certainly not give up no matter what.
Now that's an interesting thought, I hadn't considered that as a consequence of the US pushing too hard.
Israel doesn't doesn't have to use its power for ethnic cleansing and genocide forever.
I agree, any solution that is unpopular to Israelis will be opposed by their democratically elected government that happens to have the military power to prevent it. Even if people elsewhere don't like it
Because the Palestinian government in Gaza kidnaps babies. And they claimed they would do it again and again until all of Israel is Palestine. You haven’t heard anything even remotely as dangerous from Israeli official statements, let alone action.
Erm, https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/11/22/23972908/pales...
Children are detained for years under this law.
https://www.axios.com/2023/03/20/bezalel-smotrich-jordan-gre...
This is incitement.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-67926799
Denying access to water is a war crime, and is acknowledged to have happened here.
There are links here, where are yours to prove your assertions?
What's fair to you then? What's the fair solution?
I think you have a slight misconception about living under Iron Dome.
It's not 100% effective and you still have to run to the nearest shelter. In some areas close to Gaza, you have less than 10 seconds to run to the shelter.
So I wouldn't consider that "normal life" by any standards
There are no 100% effective solutions here. Ive spent a considerable amount of time in Israeli and realize living under the iron dome isnt ideal, but it is the best Israel can do. Long term occupation would lead to more Israeli deaths than a return to the pre october 7th status quo. The only other solution for israel is a legitimate genocide of all Palestinians, and I just dont see that happening in the next century.
Or giving Palestinians full rights and reparations for the land they stole, that is a valid and quite frankly, the best option.
Israel will never give Palestinians full rights, theyre too scared of palestinian terrorism. And for good reason, there is every reason to believe that palestinians will never accept peace with israel. And thats before we even get to the Israeli government believing they have a god given right to the west bank.
Israel stole almost all of the palestinians land. I just cant believe palestinians would ever forget that, I know that I sure wouldnt.
Not with that attitude they won’t. I’m convinced most people in the region would be happy with peace, whatever form it takes, because they just want to live their lives. Of course that’s contingent on not being oppressed
Unfortunately that's not good enough for Israel. If they give Palestinians sovereignty and give up their security control it would only take a small group to commit terrorist attacks against Israel, so they wont do it unless theyre very confident that no one is Palestine will want to do that.
It always takes only a small group to commit terrorist acts. That’s true everywhere across the world. Most countries accept that difficulty as the price of freedom.
You said the only other solution is genocide (which you thankfully say you don't see happening this century). Relenting from their occupation is another solution. I agree with your assessment of their state of mind though.
Happy, fed, employed people do not become terrorists. They have too much to lose.
Too bad gaza has no land or economy to feed and employ themselves.
Doesn't mean they can't build it.
Building land is quite difficult. Building an economy is almost impossible when under a blockade, and Israel has no reason to end it.
Israel is the one who's going to build it. See, the approach is the following: eliminate Hamas, then start a sort of deprogramming the society, similar to what was happening in Germany, with local specifics of course. Such an approach will take years, but the goal is to have the same effects as in Germany.
It's possible to provide food, water, services while keeping a close eye on the Gaza population and ensuring the idea of peaceful cohabitation is dominant. The economy will slowly - or even not so slowly - rebuild, and that's a part of the demonstration of possible and beneficial, from some positions, approach.
It could be argued that Israelis need "deprogramming" - look at the scenes we've seen over the past few days, with hordes of Israeli civilians blocking aid from entering Gaza. Look at the torrent of vileness spewed forth online by many Israelis. Look at the Israeli Telegram groups where they share and laugh at images of dead Palestinian children (actually, don't look; it's just too much).
Religious extremism is not just a "Muslim thing".
If Israel really wanted to wipe the Palestinians off the map they have the resources to do it. But they don't. Based on claims Hamas have made, in their founding charter and other public statements, if they had the resources to wipe the Jews off the map they would do it, without hesitation.
That's the difference.
As I'm sure you know, the Hamas charter no longer says anything like that - it explicitly says their beef is with Zionists and their treatment of Palestinians, not Jewish people or the Jewish faith.
The only people we see killing day after day after day, without hesitation, are the IDF.
It's quite clear that Israel has been doing everything they can to render Gaza uninhabitable - senior officials have even publicly said that's their aim. Furthermore, it's clear the aim is a revenge-fueled massacre of civilians, followed by ethnic cleansing - senior officials regularly call for Gazans to be shipped out to other countries.
Do you believe that people in Gaza will accept that Israel rebuilds it? And for how long? Because I already foresee a minority craving for independence against the old invaders that "enslaved us with money, first took our land, then they tried to buy us out...".
Etc.
The comparison with Germany doesn't stand. Two completely different situations, different histories, different people, different mindsets, different economies. You can't just let them rebuild it and hope that people in Gaza don't plan your destruction again and again.
The Israelis might not have the appetite to administer Gaza themselves. They would want an Arab state to take it but no one wants that headache and they prefer using the Palestinian issue to bash Israel. UN, maybe?
they've tried. I saw this youtube video awhile back about a man from gaza who built an inland fish farm to raise food to feed people because the fishermen were forbidden by isreal fro boing to the areas where the fish were.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxEqXkdJUWY&ab_channel=Insid...
Not if they have more to gain in 'heaven'. Remember, Hamas are religious fanatics.
hamas != palestine
They have to be religious fanatics because that’s all they have to cling to. If I’m going to fight a losing battle against a grossly superior enemy I also want to believe that I’ll end up in paradise for it.
You might note that that brand of fanaticism goes down rapidly in countries that have high standards of living.
That is certainly not true. Exhibit A: Osama bin Laden’s father was literally a multi-billionaire and he himself inherited $30-50 million.
He's not "people", he's a "human". One human could be significantly off from the expected behavior; many people are less so.
You think Osama was happy? The man was clearly very, very angry about something, and I doubt it was inheriting a bunch of money.
It remains a mess, but less of a mess? Look, it's all bad guys running the show in that hell hole of a desert. There are no trusted entities anywhere able to run a government that isn't somewhere between actively antagonistic and actively genocidal toward half the local population.
Nonetheless a status quo with less shooting and death is better than a status quo with more. Hamas killed fewer people than Israel did/is, so... yeah, I guess. An occasional October 7th is a better choice than levelling Gaza is. Incrementally. But none of this is going to get better, likely within our lifetimes.
That's an understatement, Hamas killed less than 1,000 civilians, Israel killed 20,000+
Hamas directly and intentionally targeted civilians. Israel is doing what it can to limit civilian casualties while destroying Hamas. Hamas is making that very difficult by blending in with the population, putting command centers under major hospitals and so on.
You should really read the parent article at the top of the page. It doesn't support this statement and the court ruling was created from a mountain of evidence.
How close does it come to intentionally targeting civilians?
They hunted down, shot, and killed multiple of their own, underwear-clad civilian citizens who were all the while waving white flags and loudly surrendering in hebrew [0]
Imagine the sort of intentional targeting we don't get to see, because the journalists are killed [1] or the internet is cut [2] or the power is cut [3] or because everyone hiding is terrified to even move, knowing anything moving will be shot on sight [4], even surrendering Israeli hostages [0]. What a nightmare.
Known (indeed, willing) indiscriminate killing of civilians (especially in civilian areas, yikes) is as much a war crime [5] as "intentionally targeting civilians", even if one shouts "get out of there!" or "human shields!" or "terrorists!" or "it's comin' right for us!" in a Calvinball-style declaration whilst doing it.
For more detailed analysis of how Israel seems to be ignoring their obligation to protect Palestinian civilians, I recommend consulting the full ruling [6] from the ICJ, the literal judges of this matter.
0: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/04/world/middleeast/israel-h...
1: https://cpj.org/2024/01/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-...
2: https://www.wired.com/story/israel-gaza-internet-blackouts-w...
3: https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-67073970
4: https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/16/middleeast/idf-sniper-gaza-ch...
5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiscriminate_attack#The_1977...
6 (PDF warning): https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192...
If there's a command center under a hospital, then you don't bomb the hospital. The fact that your enemy is using "human shields" doesn't mean that it's justified to bomb and kill everyone, including the shields. Now every relative and friend of the innocent people you killed has a reason to pick up a gun against you.
Obviously this puts you at a disadvantage. Instead of bombing targets on a screen from the comfort of an air-conditioned office in Tel Aviv, you'll have to send special forces in on the ground and probably take a lot of casualties. But you demonstrate to the civilians that you're not just killing them indiscriminately.
All Palestinians deaths are civilians by your measures.
Better for who? For Hamas yes, killing Israelis with impunity would be a boost. But for Israel - I don't know of any democracy that can keep going with an 'occasional' October 7th. A country can't sustain that without collapsing at some point. Think about 9-11 but with 80k killed instead of 3000, and around 10000 kidnapped. And the entity responsible is just around the corner and gonna keep doing it on occasion. Those are the proportions. How many of these would the U.S be able to endure before its economy and society collapsed?
Then we'll deal with that "at some point" I guess? Again, Israel is a bad guy too. It's all bad guys. All options suck. So pick the one with less death and just shuffle along until some unknown event in the far future acts to break the stalemate and produce a peaceful region (or, more realistically, acts to break the equilibrium and we get a genuine demographic disaster that returns the area to a "single ethnicity" state, which sucks even more, but may be unavoidable).
Tough love: Israel can't expect to continue to act as it has in the decades since the fall of the PA. It ultimately depends on international support and that support will eventually run out, c.f. the linked article. It won't happen soon, or all at once, but it will happen and there needs to be a plan for regional coexistence, and as you'd surely agree there really isn't one beyond an imagined (and largely impossible) total military victory.
People said Apartheid South Africa couldn't end without a bloodbath. People said peace in Northern Ireland was impossible. People thought the Cold War would never end. Impossible things are impossible until they aren't. I'm not saying that any of these things are easy - they clearly are not. But history shows us again and again that change is possible when people work towards it in good faith. From a practical point of view, I think that the international community needs to be allowed to help - both to maintain the peace and broker a way forward. The status quo will not reach peace. Israel will never have peace and security until Palestine has peace and security.
Peace could be achieved fairly easily if both sides said they want to live in peace. However only one does. I think that will change eventually.
“Peace while continuing to seize land” is a peculiar-enough type of peace to not really qualify for simply “wants to live in peace” by many people’s definition.
It's tricky but there have been attempts at a normal peace deal like the Camp David Summit. But then the Palestinians say no. So instead you get the other stuff you mention.
Yeah, the “but first X did Y! But before that P did Q!” goes back thousands of years. All that to say it’s not as simple as “one side wants peace and the other doesn’t.” It’s very messy.
The Palestine/Israel conflict is significantly longer than any of the examples you gave.
Which is not to say that its impossible. But the older I get, the less hope I have.
Ethic conflicts all end eventually. A historian: https://archive.is/zADeF
TLDR: the ways they end are:
- partition
- equal representation
- one side driving out/murdering the other
It does seem like a lot of people have given up on the first two, but if it's not one of those then it's the third one. So we have to work towards making it one of the first two.
The ethno-religious conflict in Northern Ireland dates back to the seventeenth century and the question of Irish sovereignty dates all the way back to the twelfth century!
While I'm not a military expert, I think it would be reasonable to rule out the possibility of a similar massacre any time soon, for decades at least. It seems unlikely that Hamas would get away with it a second time? They put everything into a one-day surprise attack. The Israeli defense was caught unprepared despite being warned, but they have much more power and they can learn.
What happens in the wider conflict (with other Iran-backed militias) is another question.
I'm not sure its reasonable. No one in Israel is thinking that way at least, and for good reason imo. The motivation to kill is there, so you have to assume there's a lack of ability. OK maybe for a couple of years Hamas will have to regroup, but how much time does it take to get a couple thousands more guns and grenades and bombs when Iran is giving them for free? It doesn't have to be another attack of this magnitude, even killing "only" 100 Israelis would be a huge blow.
You prevent this type of shit from happening again by being dead serious about countering terror, about deploying sufficient defense and not assuming too much about what the enemy can do because you might not have an accurate picture. Israel has been doing none of that in Gaza in the last decade or more.
Seems like I'm assuming the Israeli defense will learn enough from this attack to prevent anything similar, and you're assuming they won't. Either way it's a guess; we don't know the future.
I see what you mean now, I was under the impression you think Hamas lost all motivation or means to even try it in the future. Yes if Israel does all the right things the chances of this happening again soon are low.
Hamas doesn't get away from it this time already.
Hamas has quite a bit of leadership outside Gaza, and as far as I know, most of them are doing fine. They may even have more political capital than before the attacks. I’m not convinced they didn’t get away with it.
The plan right now could be to deny any remaining Hamas influence to anything in Gaza. Yes, some Hamas members may survive, even politically, outside, but they aren't going to affect anybody in Gaza.
You need an anti Hamas Palestinian force that credibly fights against Hamas and has the support of the Palestinians but it is too late for that now.
How many wars have the US and Japan fought after WWII?
Or France and Germany after WWII?
How many wars have the US Government and Native Americans fought after 1900?
Sometimes a clear, overwhelming victory ends cycles of violence.
Germany and Japan's peaceful modern history are less due to a clear, overwhelming victory than they were due to the recognition of an absolutely horrific chapter in their country's respective histories and a major cultural movement against the possibility of those kinds of atrocities happening again. Either country could easily come up with more than enough military might to win a war if they chose, but the horrors that they perpetrated live on as cultural scar tissue.
The last example is just... horrific. I don't have more to say on it except that we shouldn't use it as a positive example of anything.
You mean, the absolutely horrific military defeat.
No, I mean the slaughter of millions of innocent civilians.
Which they only acknowledged because they lost. Horribly.
Both countries were previously led by extremists totally incapable of any such moral epiphany. Sound familiar?
Once their WW2 militaries were utterly defeated and their leadership was forced into unconditional surrender, followed by Allied occupation and rebuilding.
To say it more succinctly, Axis countries clearly had a lot to gain from peace (namely stable happy lives again) and nothing to gain from further violence.
Whereas you might say that many Palestinians (specifically the ones who joined Hamas) had little to gain from the status quo, and little to lose from violence. When you are born locked in the world's largest prison, becoming a terrorist might seem appealing.
It's true that that's the case today. But it took a while for this transition to occur. Basically, the entire wartime generation had to retire/die out. In the 50s and 60s Germans were still very keen about downplaying the atrocities (even if they of course recognized that they occurred) and especially being very lenient towards war criminal and even protecting them from foreign governments (e.g. Heinrich Boere).
The US Government continues to employ militarized forces to suppress Indigenous resistance to this very day.
Does it? I am open to believing this, but I have not heard it. Can you link to examples?
It’s happening in Canada too
Arguably Canada is worse about it than the US but I didnt feel like it was germane to the specific context of the current conversation. Regardless, the brutality and militant nature of the numerous blockade-busting and protest crushing actions undertaken by the RCMP and other groups in Canada cannot be understated.
There are a variety of examples but the most recent ones relate to high profile pipeline protests. These protests have by and large been about and on land that was illegally annexed. These lands are by and large guaranteed by treaties that have since been illegally broken. Militarized forces from private security forces to federal agencies have been involved in the suppression.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_Access_Pipeline_protest...
Less recent examples include the violence surrounding the AIM movement in the early 60s and 70s. Protesters have been unjustly imprisoned for decades. There was violence from federal agencies on multiple occasions throughout the time period when AIM was most unified and active.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_Movement
Shockingly to many people forced sterilization continued well into the 70s as well, which fits the definition of attempted genocide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterilization_of_Native_Americ...
There are more examples but these are the most documented and high profile.
It is a social war more than a material one. Residential school policy is an example of this. You may have heard the phrase "kill the indian, save the man". This is a policy of longterm cultural genocide and erasure.
Edit: I also forgot to mention another example which is the passive acceptance of the very high rates of missing and murdered indigenous women. The lack of investigation from federal authorities who are supposed to have jurisdiction over these things implies tacit acceptance of the systematic murder of vulnerable indigenous people.
https://mmiwusa.org/
Yea, I think it's pretty odd how little awareness of tribal councils, discussions of self-governance, and resistance from Native Americans there is in the modern America but it feels like the US almost wants to forget it has reservations.
This is intentional. It is a piece of a type of cultural warfare that extends from residential schools to the naming of sports teams. It is the reason the US military uses names of tribal groups for machines of war. It is the reason popular media refers to indigenous people exclusively in the past tense.
That's exactly the point, at least how I'm reading it. Between the US and Japan peace and diplomacy was allowed to rule instead of constant violent retaliation. With France and Germany the same - the two countries have, in a pretty meaningful way, simply merged into a single country along with a lot of the rest of Europe.
When it comes to the US Government and Native Americans it's a far less good example - there have been militarized Native resistance groups at times since the 1900s and there has been open violence (see, for instance, Leonard Peltier and AIM)... in a large way America succeeded with erasing native peoples from their lands - and ditto with Canada - to the point where the groups are too fragmented to form any serious claims at independence. I also think Nixon (yes that Nixon) helped cool things off pretty seriously by, essentially, starting reparation programs to help reinject economic health into reservations - while those have had very underwhelming success at fully solving the problem America has been trying to uplift instead of suppress those communities.
All this stuff is really, really complicated - what defines a culture and a nation is extremely nebulous and subject to heavy revision as time passes. But we're all people and we need to be able to talk about peace even if we have deep historical wounds.
What diplomacy? The US destroyed Japan's military, bombed Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki (the latter two with nuclear weapons), killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. The Japanese surrendered unconditionally.
Then the US occupied Japan while directing the construction of a new Japanese government.
I don't see any diplomacy there.
The diplomacy consists of the fact the Japanese were allowed to rebuild their own country. They weren’t forcibly relocated to Hokkaido to make room for US settlers.
And the diplomacy also consisted of the fact that in revenge for their defeat the Japanese didn't launch a long campaign of violent resistance. The cycle of violence continues as long as people seek revenge and at some point somebody has to be the kinder soul and concede or compromise on the horrors of the past. It's an action that requires participation from both sides but will always place stronger demands on one of them.
This is why I have hope in the middle east - Hamas are fueled by revenge and (IMO) the current Israeli government is also driven by revenge... but the majority of people on both sides have had enough. On the Palestinian side the populace has been denied an election for decades and on the Israeli side there is strong opposition to Netanyahu but terror remains a strong motivator.
Japan was not allowed to have a military for decades after the US occupation ended in 1952. The constitution of Japan, written during US occupation, explicitly makes war illegal! Japan still depends on the US for defense and hosts US military bases.
If Japan isn't an example of brutal war solving problems then nothing is.
Complete nonsense. The majority of Palestinians support Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and prefer escalation. There hasn't been an election in the West Bank since 2021. Do you know why? Everyone knows Hamas would win! So Abbas, the moderate, indefinitely postponed elections.
Agree. The diplomacy that mattered happened aboard the USS Missouri with Japan's unconditional surrender.
Prior to that was a campaign of utter destruction. 80,000 people died in the firebombing of Tokyo alone.
That France and Germany are now good neighbors is a miracle.
It's possible because wise humans on both sides realized that the law of retaliation would cause a never ending cycle.
I worry that this sort of wisdom might be in short supply these days.
It was not because of wise humans as if humans suddenly learned wisdom. It was because they both realized instead of being empires acquiring territory, they had instead been turned into players between the US and the Soviet Union who were both much stronger than either of them and that war would end up completely devastating both of them without any benefits.
Cynicism may sometimes seem smart, in this case it leads you to stupid conclusions.
While another war between France and Germany would have been unlikely for the reasons you state, it absolutely wasn't a given that the countries would develop cordial relations given their shared history. I call that a miracle. It's something we owe to de Gaulle, Giscard d'Estaing, Helmut Schmidt, François Mitterrand, Helmut Kohl and others -- others in their place may very well have chosen a different path.
History is full of examples of countries being hostile to each other even though cooperation might be beneficial in the long run. In fact, it's probably true for the Israel/Palestine war as well.
A few things emerged after WWII that probably helped keep the peace:
* democracy
* capitalism
* US military presence
* common European allies
* a shared dislike of communism
* a need to focus internally to rebuild destroyed infrastructure
No. The fundamental flaw in this reasoning is the assumption that overwhelming victory is what established the current world order.
Rebuilding Europe via the Marshall plan, which involved humanization of individuals who fought on behalf of evil, is why there is peace in Europe. Likewise, the US reconstruction of Japan is why the US and Japan are at peace.
The US held the position of power and chose not to exercise it tyrannically. That is why there is peace.
The native American case is much closer to supporting your argument because genoicdal efforts were made against them and they were forced to submit, and then tyrannical power was exercised over them, maybe even to this day. However again, Native Americans participate in American civil society, there have been (probably insufficient) efforts for reparations, they do have land where they administer their own laws. In some locations native American heritage is celebrated and native American culture is promoted.
There is relative peace with native Americans because we are not particularly tyrannical, and I would say for the most part, modern Americans see Native Americans as humans not "savages."
Seeing your enemies as equally valid humans, who might have done things you would do if you grew up under their conditions, is what creates peace.
Peace is a function of humanization, not a function of victory. Victory without humanization does not end the cycle of violence.
The Marshall plan was only enacted after Germany and Japan had been reduced to rubble, had millions of their civilian population killed through indiscriminate bombing, including the use of two atom bombs, occupied, submit to total surrender, the entirety of their command structure executed, and their governments dismantled and replaced by the Allies.
I think you are skipping over quite a bit of human bloodshed and strife to get to the Marshall Plan.
To add on to that, there wasn’t an immediate rehabilitation. Many, many terrible things happened after the war that are kinda buried in history. See for example: https://www.haaretz.com/2015-12-15/ty-article/.premium/movie...
But overwhelming victory and unconditional surrender were the foundations for that reconstruction. There is really no way that peace could have been achieved with WWII Germany and Japan through giving money or diplomacy (Neville Chamberlain says hi). Once there was overwhelming victory resulting in unconditional surrender, then the rebuilding process started.
EDIT:
In addition, there was no equivalent of the Marshall Plan between the Soviet Union and East Germany, yet there were not wars between them after WWII.
The Marshall Plan and favorable trade agreements the allies gave Japan would never be extended by Israel the way it is and acts now, so there has to be another solution. Destruction didn't turn Germany and Japan around, the ability to uplift themselves did. The very thing which has been denied to Gaza since 2005 at least (and likely much longer)
Germany and Japan did not have anything in their constitutions advocating the destruction of the allies.
Between America and the oil-rich Gulf, I think we can figure it out.
The US has fought many wars since WW2 and has basically failed to win any of them. Again from the interview:
The second thing is a targeted response. Let's define realistic political objectives. And the third thing is a combined response. Because there is no effective use of force without a political strategy. We are not in 1973 or in 1967. There are things no army in the world knows how to do, which is to win in an asymmetrical battle against terrorists. The war on terror has never been won anywhere. And it instead triggers extremely dramatic misdeeds, cycles, and escalations. If America lost in Afghanistan, if America lost in Iraq, if we lost in the Sahel, it's because it's a battle that can't be won simply, it's not like you have a hammer that strikes a nail and the problem is solved. So we need to mobilize the international community, get out of this Western entrapment in which we are.
Well, there are ways to end it. Historically there have been thousands of cyclical conflicts that eventually ended without a diplomatic solution.
In this situation I disagree. The world is overwhelmingly pro Palestine, and the Arab world obviously. They will not go away. Israel will not go away either.
They don't have to go away.
But, I think its reasonable to assert that the Arab world desperately needs to become more secularized. Most of the Arab world is deeply anti-semitic, deeply tribal (even amongst themselves), and deeply backwards in their orientation to what makes a free society possible.
In that sense, the palestinians need a big cultural change.
That might have happened if Israel hadn't interfered to deny Gazans any alternative to Hamas. Presumably they hoped that would cripple Gaza even more.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q...
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/why-netanyahu-bolste...
https://theintercept.com/2023/10/14/hamas-israel-palestinian...
These are all op-eds. Opinions, not facts. That's one. Secondly, for some of the links, if you follow the logic, they are suggesting that Israel should have gone to war with Hamas earlier and eliminated it. Thirdly, what exactly are you suggesting Israel should have done earlier in relation to Gaza and Hamas?
You probably don't know. Neither do I. If we did, other smarter people would have too and it would have probably been implemented already.
Benjamin Netanyahu encouraging the funding of Hamas via Qatar is not an opinion, it's a fact. The situation Israel is dealing with right now is entirely of their own making; it's called blowback.
See...you are taking something that did happen and twisting it to fit your bias.
The money from Qatar had humanitarian goals like paying government salaries in Gaza and buying fuel to keep a power plant running. Obviously, the money was misused and spent on building rockets and missiles. But also a portion was spent on what Qatar intended.
The rationale at the time (this was not a secret deal or anything like that) was that Qatar money is going to make it to Gaza one way or another anyway - it's better if Israel knows about it.
And somehow throwing Netanyahu into the mix is just meant to have some people see red. He was out of power for a year and a half. Surely if it was his personal agenda, the govt that took over after him would stop the payments. They didn't.
But I agree with you that no matter how you twist it, it's definitely a blowback.
If Israel is guilty of a sin, they are guilty of moral appeasement. They need to stop giving sanction to their destroyers.
Ben Gvir, Smotrich were all foaming in their mouths how great Hamas is for israel.
Where are you getting this information? Arab don't "need to become secularized" -- why? To make you happy? Being Muslim doesn't make a person anti-Jewish. It is extremely bizarre that you are calling for an entire group of millions of people to change their culture.
As one source, I'd highly recommend Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam. Yasmine Mohammed provides some first hand experiences here.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/49645708
That's arguable, certainly in the west at least. Even if most people oppose the current war/atrocities that doesn't mean that they generally favour Palestine (or especially Hamas..) over Israel (.e.g. like you didn't have to be pro-Sadam to oppose the war in Iraq).
The world is pro-justice. At the moment, Israel's genocide and the long-term brutal occupation have caused anyone to pay attention to support Palestine.
"Today we are faced with an Islamist cause, led by Hamas. Obviously, this kind of cause is absolute and allows no form of negotiation."
Lost me there, because this is not the framing that matches reality. There were several instances where Hamas was willing to form unity government with Fatah/PLO, to share power, negotiate, to do things like that. It's first and foremost a national liberation movement. The movement itself would not even exist had not been for the occupation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatah%E2%80%93Hamas_reconcilia...
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full
I didn't read further, because assuming lack of negotiation, lack of pragmatism, of being able to participate in politics semi-normally, etc. is just a crucial point.
Especially while not recognizing intense pressure by the West for this political process to not exist, to suppress it, for it to fail. If you suppress politics, you get violent conflict eventually.
Edit: My this comment is being downvoted despite stating just a plain fact. Hopefully the downvoters can do everyone a service by explaining what's wrong with it.
Like you said, HAMAS exists solely for the sake of resisting Jewish occupation [0], from the river to the sea, which also means the extermination of Israel and Jews [1]. And their conviction stems from their religion, Islam, which allows them to persist despite all the opposition on earth because they are hoping for a reward in heaven[2].
And of course Israel won't allow itself to be exterminated ( hopefully this point is clear enough, no citation needed). So how can there be negotiation?
0. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/ha...
1. https://www.ajc.org/translatehate/From-the-River-to-the-Sea
2. https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL03124515/
How come? I don't know, but HAMAS clearly negotiates and does pragmatic things. It's a group of people with moderate and more radical elements like any other largish group.
Quite a jump.
HAMAS pragmatism serves one purpose, the destruction of Israel, as outlined in their charter.
In 2017 they updated their charter to recognize the 1967 border but still not recognize Israel ( apparently anyone can be on other side of the fence except Israel). And lest you harbor any normalization fantasy, they kept up the aggression by fire rocket into Israel from time to time, which finally accumulated in the 10/7 attack.
He says exactly the same. There were in the past, but not today. He says the same thing for Israel - switched from secular to biblical and thus unable to compromise.
I think why Israel's current government will not compromise is very pragmatic. It failed too badly in preventing this escalation, and has little support. Look at those numbers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_I...
Netanyahu is basically done and gone. His only hold on power is continuing the extermination campaign against Hamas and their families, until some miracle reversal in the polling numbers. His only mandate currently is for the "war".
Additionally, Israel doesn't need to compromise, due to large amount of outside support (in the form of material and political (vetoes in UN SC, etc.) support for its extermination campaign, and the sanctions against Hamas), and due to the massive power difference between it and Hamas.
Biblical stuff is largely a smokescreen/justification for pragmatic matters as far as government/politics goes. And maybe some ideological food for non-secular reserve soldiers to be more willing to go get maimed in Gaza.
How did it turn biblical, with 45% of Israeli Jews being secular, and 27% of population not being Jewish?
I think the premise of "the law of retaliation is a moral dead end" is just a high minded pathway to endless violence and anarchy.
israel has already created more terrorists than those it took down. "An eye for an eye" never works
The ideology of Islamic Fundamentlism is responsible for these terrorists. If Israel deserves any blame, its for listening to The West's constant demands for appeasement.
... and on the other pathway, there's no fight because everyone's already dead. We fight because we're alive. It's just how life goes.