However, if you actually want peaceful coexistence in the long term, the only possible solution is to stop oppressing these people, and instead to build a better world for them. The Israelis won: they built their country, they got international recognition, they defended it from their neighbors. However justified this may have been given the horrors of the Holocaust, it is also undeniable that this was to a large extent to the detriment of many people who previously lived there. They now need to ensure those people can be content with the life that is left for them.
But the reality is that Israeli leaders (and a significant minority of the population) do not want that. They don't view the Palestinians as full human beings (as many in the Knesset have compared them time and time again to cockroaches and other pests), and they believe Israel has a right to even those small territories left to the Palestinians. They are continually illegally annexing more land in the West Bank, and some are preparing to do so in Gaza as well.
Netanyahu has been very open about funding, or at least supporting, Hamas as a means to ensure that moderate Palestinians don't get a voice and a two-state solution is never allowed to happen. He has said these things openly. Of course, a one state solution is also unacceptable, as it would threaten the Jewish character of Israel to have such a signficant (and growing) Muslim Arab population. Making them officially second-class citizens is also unacceptable as it would deny Israel's claims of being a democracy. Killing them all would be a bad look internationally.
So, what was happening before October 7th was in fact the ideal state according to Netanyahu and his ilk: the Palestinians are de facto second class Israeli citizens with almost no rights, they act as a convenient boogie man to scare the populace, and they are weak enough to be no more than a nuisance. October 7th was an embarrassment to the authorities on many levels (and of course a horrific crime), so they have to punish the cockroaches of Gaza to ensure they don't have the courage to try another October 7th anytime soon, and to prove their strength to their own population, then return to the status quo. Of course, if Hamas is destroyed, they will also have to find a new militant anti-Israeli organization to lead Gaza, lest they end up with credible peace attempts that could make their position difficult.
The population of British Palestine was 31% Jewish, 9% Christian and 60% arab in 1946 UN Survey. Jews got more land after partitioning but a huge chunk of that was the Negev desert. Arabs rejected partitioning and the Arab nations started a war to destroy Israel. You can confirm this from any source you like.
dang: can you kill this article? The article has biased language (Israel is fighting Hamas not “bombing Palestinians” as if the war is on the civilian population) and the conversation here is political advocacy.
Of course, the war started because surrounding Arab nations didn't accept the UN plan of splitting up that territory - with both good and bad intentions to be sure. But even if you think the intentions of those nations were entirely mosntruous, my point is that the Arab population of Mandatory Palestine were victims of this whole war, and they (and their descendants) are the people who today live in ghettos of Gaza and the West Bank. And it is understandable that they would bear malice on those who caused them or their parents or grandparents to lose their homes, especially when they now live in squalor. And it is also to be expected, though sad, that some of them will turn to terrorism and hurt other innocents in their own turn.
But the existence of terrorists among a population does not give one carte blanche to attack that population.
That the narrative of Israel stealing land is false.
Israel encouraged arabs within their partition that were not resisting the new nation to stay. You can find many references to this, and it was Hertzl’s origin intention is his writing. This is why the 2M Israeli arabs - that have more freedom that in any arab nation - exist. Pity the arabs that left.
> is understandable that they would bear malice on those who caused them or their parents or grandparents to lose their homes
They don’t though. They have no malice towards their leaders that constantly started wars trying to destroy Israel and resulted in their losing their homes. They just hate Jews.
> But the existence of terrorists among a population does not give one carte blanche to attack that population.
Yes agreed. This is why the war is on Hamas rather than Gazans (even though Gazans overwhelmingly support the slaughter of their Israeli neighbours) at the cause of a great many Israeli lives.
> They don’t though. They have no malice towards their leaders that constantly started wars trying to destroy Israel and resulted in their losing their homes.
Of course, they are living under propaganda and they are being actively oppressed by Israel, not by other Arab nations.
> They just hate Jews.
This is just false and racist.
> Yes agreed. This is why the war is on Hamas rather than Gazans (even though Gazans overwhelmingly support the slaughter of their Israeli neighbours) at the cause of a great many Israeli lives.
If this were true, than the population of Gaza would not be starved, with aid being trickled in such low quantities that even the USA under Biden is trying to go around Israel's official quotas and provide aid separately. And if this were true than the IDF would not be deliberately targetting aid workers, hospitals, nurseries and so on.
And for every Palestinian happy to see an Israeli killed, there is at least one Israeli happy to see Palestinians killed. Both sides have their disgusting extremists. The difference is that one has access to every weapon on Earth and is currently rampaging and killing tens of thousands of civilians, while the other side has killed a few hundred civilians in the worse attack they have ever mounted. And flaunting every international law they can find, such as recently bombing an embassy in a different country.
Yes. That doesn’t prove that the arabs were driven away by Jews though.
> they are being actively oppressed by Israel
No. As we’ve discussed Arabs tried to destroy Israel 3 times and lost. If you have a response to this historical fact then post it, otherwise it’s fairly clear who is causing misery to the arab Palestinians.
>> They just hate Jews. >This is just false and racist.
No. Firstly Gazans and west bank Palestinians are not a race, Arabs are. Secondly accusing others of being racist is not racist. Finally you can easily look up opinion polls in support of the massacre in Gaza to confirm that Gazans hate Jews.
> if this were true, than the population of Gaza would not be starved
Yes exactly! The starvation is another myth. You can look up obesity statistics in Gaza to confirm this yourself. Or watch videos posted by Gazans enjoying their open markets posted every day, or other Gazans throwing away their rations because they don’t like M&Ms. Like the nakba or the MrFAFO videos a huge amount of what you see is simply fake.
> The difference is that one has access to every weapon on Earth and is currently rampaging and killing tens of thousands of civilians
No. Rampaging would be running around torturing people in front of their families. You don’t know how many civilians are killed in the fighting between Israel and Hamas. Your only source is Hamas and they don’t distinguish between fighters and civilians, they also increased the number by the same amount every day for a month before they realised it looks bad.
Given that the region was majority Arab, and that Israel was never going to be a majority Arab nation, the only logical possibility is that Israeli authorities always intended to drive out a large number of Palestinian Arabs from their land. That the Arabs realized this and opposed the formation of a state that would drive them out is not that surprising.
> As we’ve discussed Arabs tried to destroy Israel 3 times and lost. If you have a response to this historical fact then post it, otherwise it’s fairly clear who is causing misery to the arab Palestinians.
Even if the ultimate fault for their current state lied entirely with Arab leaders (which it doesn't) that doesn't change one iota the fact that it is Israel forcing Palestinians in Gaza to live in an open-air prison (as UN rapporteurs call it) for the past 60 years, and currently committing genocide against them. And you forget that it's even Israeli officials supporting Hamas as the rulers of Gaza, as Netanyahu has bragged.
> The starvation is another myth. You can look up obesity statistics in Gaza to confirm this yourself. Or watch videos posted by Gazans enjoying their open markets posted every day, or other Gazans throwing away their rations because they don’t like M&Ms. Like the nakba or the MrFAFO videos a huge amount of what you see is simply fake.
I don't need to look at propaganda videos or cherry picked social media. Serious news organizations and the UN have been investigating this, and unanimously discuss the fact that Gaza is very close to starvation and that rations are nowhere near enough. Even Israeli officials actually acknowledge that there is not enough aid going into Gaza (though of course they don't admit their role in making sure of this).
Or that, as history tells us, that Arabs refused to accept partitioning and tried to destroy Israel 3 times and lost. I’m not sure why you would ignore well documented events in favour of deciding something else is the only logical explanation.
> I don't need to look at propaganda videos or cherry picked social media
Gazan obesity stats aren’t produced by Israel, nor are the social media accounts of Gazans.
> is Israel forcing Palestinians in Gaza to live in an open-air prison
The only open air prison with open fields and malls and luxury cars. Forced by Israel and Egypt which I gather you think is also secretly controlled by Israel.
What does one have to do with the other? The moment that the partition plan was announced, some Arabs were going to be expelled from the territory of Israel regardless of anything else that would have happened. They chose to fight this, and obtained support from those around them. They lost, and now Israel exists, is larger than the original plan, and they are forced to live in squalor. These people are angry that history turned out this way, and they are turning all that anger on their current oppressors, and will continue to do so as long as they are oppressed, all the more so when they are slaughtered by the thousands and starved as they are now.
> Gazan obesity stats aren’t produced by Israel, nor are the social media accounts of Gazans.
Are you seriously claiming that, despite the overwhelming evidence that they are being starved since this war started, Gazans are actually getting fatter? This is beyond ridiculous.
> The only open air prison with open fields and malls and luxury cars.
The existence of a handful of rich people doesn't mean anything. All objective thrid parties assessors have come to the same conclusion, that the people of Gaza are living under oppression.
> Forced by Israel and Egypt which I gather you think is also secretly controlled by Israel.
Egypt is complicit, but they only control a tiny part of the border, and have explicit agreements with Israel about what to allow to pass through there.
You keep claiming Gazans are poor because they are oppressed by Israel. I keep referring to history and the choices of arab leaders as the basis for their poverty.
> Are you seriously claiming that Gazans are actually getting fatter?
I am not claiming Gazans are getting fatter. The data says they were obese before they started the war, giving the lie to the open air prison fallacy. If you want to refute that, or claim that the videos produced by your fellow pro Hamas accounts showing markets open and food being thrown away are false, you are welcome to do so.
> The existence of a handful of rich people doesn't mean anything.
Not just rich people, the malls are for everyone as are the wide open spaces. It proves your claims about an open air prison are false. No reasonable person would describe that as a prison.
> Egypt is complicit
You didn’t write that Egypt is oppressing gaza.
You also didn’t take back your spurious claim that it was racist (?) to point out that Gazans hate Jews as evidenced by their overwhelming support for the massacre.
> The data says they were obese before they started the war, giving the lie to the open air prison fallacy.
You brought that up in the context of the starvation to which Israel is currently subjecting them. Neither I, nor others, claimed Gaza was starving before the current genocide. The fact that it's an open air prison is related to the way Israel, and to some extent Egypt, are controlling access into and out of Gaza, not to obesity.
> It proves your claims about an open air prison are false. No reasonable person would describe that as a prison.
And yet every UN rapporteur that has investigated has reached the same conclusion. Almost as if they know some reality that you don't.
> You didn’t write that Egypt is oppressing gaza.
Yes, Egypt is also oppressing Gaza. That's what complicit means.
> You also didn’t take back your spurious claim that it was racist (?) to point out that Gazans hate Jews as evidenced by their overwhelming support for the massacre.
You are the one who claimed two million+ people are each and every one antisemitic. And also the one who seems not to know what it's called when you smear a whole ethnic/cultural group like this.
No, according to polls only 70% support the brutal murder of Israelis, as previously discussed.
Israel has been sabotaging peace talks and applying divide et impera politics in the region since it was created.
Sheikh Yassin, the paraplegic spiritual leader of the Hamas movement was quite clear that their beef wasn't with the jews, but with the occupation and apartheid. He was assassinated by Israel in 2004. In hindsight Hamas was correct in not trusting the israelis in the Oslo talks.
It's more like 700000 jews that would definitely need to move, i.e. the illegal settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Yes it does, it’s in the previous sentence.
There are no illegal settlements, Israel won wars the Arab nations started in 48 and 67 and 73.
Do you demand that France and Poland return the land they won from Germany in World War II?
I suspect you don’t and I suspect we both know the answer why.
The original Hamas charter (that was never revoked) calls for the murder of Jews. If Jews moved out of the west bank, the muslims that want to to murder Jews at the end of time per their hadiths would still wish to do so. They don’t want a second Arab State, they want there to be no Jewish state.
If the israelis are allowed to breach the Geneva conventions, as understood by the UN according to numerous resolutions, so are the palestinians and syrians. 'They won' probably isn't the argument you think it is.
What do you mean, "revoked"? How would that be done? Would it be enough if Ahmed Yassin said on record that jews aren't the issue, the occupation and apartheid is? And how should the 2017 charter be understood, unless it replaces any previous charters?
No, this is not how logic works. I have pointed out the between the river and the sea is Israel. You do not get to refute the point with zero supporting arguments.
The UN is stacked with countries that have fought to destroy Israel and lost. UN resolutions have become meaningless. One UN organisation literally exist to aid Hamas. We know what the UN supports, denouncement from it means nothing.
By revoked, I mean, the 2017 charter made to appease Western Hamas supporters like yourself does not officially replace the existing charter that calls for the destruction of Jews worldwide.
Now, will you answer the question about why you don’t call on Poland and France to return Germany’s land? Why is it specifically you do not believe Jews are allowed to win a war whereas French and Polish people are?
Will you also address the point that giving arabs more land will not make them stop wanting to destroy Jews?
I'd address that point by noting that one of Hamas's likely goals in the Oct 7 attack was to prevent the upcoming Saudi diplomatic recognition of Israel. https://www.politico.eu/article/saudi-arabia-israel-deal-tat... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67922238
You're doing a lot of conflating Jews with Israel/Zionism/Netanyahu, and Arabs/Muslims/Palestinians with Hamas. There's a reason no one reputable is calling this the "Arab-Jewish War".
OK, so you also disagree with the Fourth Geneva Convention, then? You'd be fine with Syria joining forces with Hezbollah and iraqi militias to take Golan and north of Israel by force and expelling or subduing through apartheid whatever population they come across? I have a feeling that e.g. the small groups of circassians that still exist and live in northern Israel might disagree with you and prefer another international legal order.
I don't think it's made to appease "Western Hamas supporters". They've clarified that the enemy is zionists, which is a much larger group than "the Jews", as the previous charter put it. Some, like you, seem to interpret "the Jews" in the old text as 'all the jews in the world', while Hamas leaders have said that they meant the jews of Israel. Ahmed Yassin has said, on camera, that his movement doesn't have a problem with jews, but with occupiers, and that if a muslim stole his land he would resist that too.
A problem with your interpretation is that many palestinians aren't aware that there are jews elsewhere in the world, or that zionism is a predominantly christian project rather than a jewish one, so when they are refering to 'the jews' one needs to figure out whether they mean israeli jews or jews in general.
Has the UN demanded that Poland and France do so? Are Poland and France states imposing apartheid on germans, or have they ethnically cleansed these areas?
Kinda weird racist remark about arabs being inherently genocidal at the end there. Maybe edit it and make it less weird?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/09/world/middleeast/israel-s...
"Israel’s Supreme Court on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a 2017 law that would have allowed for the retroactive legalization of thousands of Jewish homes built on occupied West Bank land privately owned by Palestinians, a law so provocative that few believed when it was passed that it would survive judicial review."
"Those homes — already viewed as illegal by most of the world under international law, for having been built in occupied territory — will now remain illegal under Israeli law as well, and Palestinian landowners will be able to proceed with lawsuits seeking to evict the people living in them and recover their property."
> The original Hamas charter (that was never revoked) calls for the murder of Jews.
And the original charter of Netanyahu's political party says "between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty".
Yes. Arabs got all of Jordan. That you see Likud’s charter stating Jews want a smaller version of their historical homeland as being comparable to Hamas charter calling for the murder of all Jews says more about you than it does about Likud.
During the Oslo peace process, when Israel was trying to address this in the way you propose, Hamas launched a suicide bombing campaign against Israeli civilians:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_suicide_at...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords
You can be critical of everything Israel does, in this war or ever - fine. But the Palestinians have no other accepted settlement other than shipping ~8 million Jews to Europe or killing them.
The people who suddenly developed this simplistic understanding of occupation/resistance/occupier have no idea what they're talking about. Often quite literally in the sense they don't even understand the meaning of what they're saying, not to mention the history of Israel or the middle east. EDIT: I realize this last statement can feel offensive but this is still my take based on two decades of interactions with a fairly random sample of people trying to explain wth is going on in this tiny piece of the middle east. The complexity of the situation doesn't yield itself to simplistic narratives (from neither side really, though my statement refers to one of those narratives the Israeli side simplistic narrative is also insufficient/inaccurate).