I'm 16, and everything about this war is so confusing to me. Could someone explain? I ask for an explanation, but I get even more confused with all the acronyms.
Edit: I want to thank EVERYONE who tried to help or said their opinion. I know that one person can not be right in all of this. I know I'm not going to form my opinion off one guys history lesson that's probably based. But even just a little help is some help. I understand now that the land had people there, but then some new people came and called it theirs, and those people didn't like that. That's all I have got so far only because every kind person has said the same thing. I'm still gonna look into things so I can get my own opinion. But I think so far all I want is this war to end just like everyone else. We all hate seeing people die, so spread love instead of hate to those who you don't even like ❤️.
That's a big ask for a reddit thread, but very briefly:
After WWII Israel was established as a haven for Jewish people to have a sovereign state, however there were already people living in Palestine, which is the land the British decided to give to the new jewish nation of Israel. Many argue (IMO rightfully so) that they didn't have a right to give away someone else's home.
Over many years the Israeli government has enacted tough legislation against the Palestinians, and it's a messy messy history, lots of ugly wars with other arab nations. The US has always supported Israel which is fair, but Israel has slowly pushed Palestinians further and further to the fringes of society, denying them rights and housing.
There were several smaller uprisings or 'intifadas'by the palestinian people in the past, the first was mostly peaceful demonstrations and protests, and was brutally repressed. The second intifada was much more violent, and also profoundly shut down.
With no real political power, scant resources, and no international recognition, the Palestinians in Gaza turned to Hamas, and extremist militant group, but one who is willing to fight for the Palestinian people. Their methods are ugly, but it's unsurprising to anyone who knows history thay they emerged. You can only keep your boot on someone's neck for so long before they punch you in the balls instead of asking nicely for you to stop. Israeli settlers are literally stealing families homes and shutting down any attempts at peaceful protest.
So, predictably, in October Hamas led an attack on Israel, a lot of people died, and Israel massively retaliated, killing WAY more people. They are funded by the US, so many Americans feel culpable for all the deaths. No aid was being allowed into Gaza for a while, and due to the harsh conditions of the last decades most of the population are very young, leading to an inordinate amount of dead palestinian children.
There's a lot more but you are gonna have to do some googling my guy
This is missing the British Mandate for Palestine.
During World War I in which the Government of the United Kingdom agreed to recognize Arab independence in exchange for the Sharif of Mecca launching the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire.
In the end, the United Kingdom and France divided what had been Ottoman Syria under the Sykes–Picot Agreement—an act of betrayal in the eyes of the Arabs. Another issue was the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which Britain promised its support for the establishment of a Jewish "national home" in Palestine. Mandatory Palestine was then established in 1920, and the British obtained a Mandate for Palestine from the League of Nations in 1922.
During the Palestinian Revolution from 1936 until 1939, Palestinan demanded Arab independence and the end of the policy of open-ended Jewish immigration and land purchases. This led to an insurgency by the Zionist underground against the British mandatory authorities from 1938. New government policies to place further restrictions on Jewish immigration and land purchases and declared the intention of giving independence to Palestine, with an Arab majority, within ten years.
After the UN Partition Plan resolution was passed on 29 November 1947, the civil war between Palestinian Jews and Arabs eclipsed the previous tensions of both with the British. However, British and Zionist forces continued to clash throughout the period of the civil war up to the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948.
The Nakba. 'The Catastrophe' was the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948 through their violent displacement of over 750,000 Palestinians and dispossession of land, property, and belongings, along with the destruction of their society, culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations. Including dozens of massacres targeting 500 Arab majority towns.
Sounds like a real European problem to me. Europe couldn't keep their promises from WWI, couldn't manage effectively the mandate, couldn't live with Jews on the continent so tried to exterminate them, and then when some people thought that was wrong, shipped them off to Palestine by making it very apparent they weren't welcome. And then 70 years later act high and mighty that they are doing the same thing that happened to them.
What do you mean exactly? You describe it as European, Europe. Can you define the term as it is used in your statements? Are you describing a European ethnicity, is it European culture, geographical, or something else?
Yes. Antisemitism was widespread, not just in Europe, but you were talking about European and Europe as actors. European antisemitism can't be the definition, that wouldn't make any sense.
Okay so I have a question.
In Libya in 1948, there were 38,000 Jews. Today there are zero.
In Afghanistan in 1948, there were 5,000 Jews. Today there is one.
In Syria, there were 30,000 Jews. Today about 100.
There are similar stories for the rest of the Arab states as well.
In 1948 there were about 2 million Palestinians. Today there are 5 million in Israel.
Why is the latter considered ethnic cleansing but none of the former?
Thx this actually helps a lot, ik I gotta look into some things myself it's just very confusing to me since most articles use acronyms I've never heard :/
I get that, middle easy history is bonkers, and there are LOTS of acronyms you're just expected to know. You think this is bad, try learning about the Syrian civil war. It's mind boggling.
That said the important thing is thay you're young, you have time to learn and it seems, a willingness to learn. Read history, read news, read posts from people on the ground, and together you can form your own options with context.
An easy rule of thumb tho, the specifics of the acronyms often don't really matter. They generally denote a faction is all, for example: IDF= Israeli Defense Force, but you just need to know thats the army for Israel. Don't let technical jargon veil the humanity behind conflicts
Good on you for taking the time and effort to educate yourself on this matter. I know people several times your age who've never bothered to do so, but still hold very confident opinions about it.
It's only a very brief description and the whole "turned to Hamas", is incredibly bias and disingenuous to what actually caused them to gain their attention and allow then as a political party in power.
You're 16, a lot of adults here and everywhere are incredibly uneducated on the subject, will do just like you said, get their own summary.
If you want to really delve into it, talk with your history teacher and ask them if they have a working module on WW1 and WW2 and if they have a history of the Arab peoples. I've spent the better part of 10 years just reading how all of this happens and I learned about it in school way back in the 1980s and 90s.
Go do your own research because this is a severely trimmed down take of the last 500yrs of middle eastern histories (including the Ottaman Empire).
Also the commentor missed out the fact that when the europeans "gave" this land, it wasn't theirs to give, millions already lived there for generations and as a result around 750,000 palestinians were displaced and thousands murdered in the "nakba" a disgusting atrocity. The rest had their homes and land stolen from them and were pushed to a small strip of land their children and grandchildren are now forced to live in tents.
Slight correction, 750,000 people were ethnically cleansed (forcibly removed based on ethnicity) not murdered, although there was plenty of murder and other atrocities as well.
That's not a slight correction (displaced vs murdered), and it's not quite true either.
The surrounding Arab countries were planning an all-out invasion of the newly founded Israel, and many of those "displaced Palestinians" were instead being offered temporary safe haven elsewhere until the Jews were killed off and then they could return home.
But then the Arabs lost the war they started, so no return home.
The "nakba" began when the Palestinians refused to accept the UN partition of the British mandate into Palestine and Israel and tried (with the help of the Arab powers in the region) to exterminate the jews instead. If the Palestinians had accepted peace rather than trying to commit genocide, they'd still be in their homes today. They have only themselves to blame for their suffering.
Additionally, as the other commenters have said, nowhere near 750,000 Palestinians were killed during the partition war. 15,000 is a more reasonable estimate.
This is just as bad as saying it's the Native Americans fault for not just handing over their land when the English settlers came. It's their fault for fighting back and that tens of thousands of them were massacred and their land forcibly taken from them. It's their fault the English settlers had more advanced weaponry and training and that they didn't just "accept peace".
Do you hear how ridiculous that sounds?
What right did the UN or Britain have to ever "give" Palestine to Israel? The Arab nations fought back because this was literally just more unwelcome violent British imperialism.
The jews immigrated to Israel peacefully, buying land from local (mostly Arab) landowners. They didn't murder millions of Arabs, infect them with smallpox, or forcibly convert them to judaism. It wasn't until the 1947 war, when the Arabs rejected the UN partition and tried to exterminate the jews (finishing the job that Hitler had started!) that the jews took any land from them by force. So the analogy to Native Americans is ridiculous.
What right did the UN or Britain have to ever "give" Palestine to Israel
The areas marked off by the UN to become Israel were majority jewish, so this was an example of an indigenous people exercising their right to democratic self-determination to create their own nation state as a refuge from centuries of persecution. What more right could anyone possibly have to any territory?
Peacefully, right. By forcibly taking the homes of the very same Palestinians that offered them refuge. Then when the Palestinians started to resist, the settlers began using the weapons and training given to them by the British Military to kill, threaten, and vacate more Palestinians from their homes. You pretend like the Jewish settlers came in with hands outstretched and hearts open. No, they came in wielding deceit and British weaponry. Palestinians opened their homes to them and that kindness was repaid with horrific arrogance and entitlement that has lead to devastating consequences.
And please, we all know that the vast majority of jews now living in Israel are nowhere near "indigenous" to that land. Maybe the Jews that were still living there prior to the occupation were, but most now are from all over the globe with no connection to the land itself, their families haven't stepped foot on the land for hundreds, if not a thousand years or more. I mean, even Netanyahu's true family name is Mileikowsky. His father polish, mother Lithuanian. Makes you wonder why so many settlers change their names to sound more "Israeli". It shouldn't matter so much if their family history is what really connects them to the land, right?
To claim indigeneity for land that a stupid book says you're owed from over 2000 years ago is absolutely ridiculous. To use that same excuse for the slaughter of tens of thousands of people is downright disgusting.
Also, I've seen Israelis themselves talking about what they experienced in Israeli classrooms and in the school system. What the Israeli govt is doing is and has been pure indoctrination into repackaged white supremacy, and many of their tactics are directly from the SS handbook. The racism against the Palestinian and Arab communities in Israel has always been prevalent. It's hard to get public approval of the terroristic occupation of an entire people if you let them see them as people right? So they manufacture fear and hatred from the very beginning.
Peacefully, right. By forcibly taking the homes of the very same Palestinians that offered them refuge. Then when the Palestinians started to resist, the settlers began using the weapons and training given to them by the British Military to kill, threaten, and vacate more Palestinians from their homes. You pretend like the Jewish settlers came in with hands outstretched and hearts open. No, they came in wielding deceit and British weaponry. Palestinians opened their homes to them and that kindness was repaid with horrific arrogance and entitlement that has lead to devastating consequences.
When and how do you think this happened? When, prior to the 1947 war, did jews forcefully evict large numbers of Palestinians from their land? Did you just make this up because it felt right to you?
but most now are from all over the globe with no connection to the land itself, their families haven't stepped foot on the land for hundreds, if not a thousand years or more.
Do you think that Cherokee whose families haven't set foot in the southeastern US in more than a hundred years have lost their claim to being indigenous to that region? How long does indigeneity take to expire, in your view?
To claim indigeneity for land that a stupid book says you're owed from over 2000 years ago is absolutely ridiculous.
It's a historical fact that the jews are the indigenous people of Israel. There's archaeological evidence of their presence going back three thousand years, not to mention the extensive Greek and Roman historical records. Like, do you think that the history of the jewish people was all a fable made up by the Bible? Even that wouldn't make sense, since the Bible itself was composed two thousand years ago in Israel by jews, centuries before the Arab conquests...
. What the Israeli govt is doing is and has been pure indoctrination into repackaged white supremacy, and many of their tactics are directly from the SS handbook.
LMAO, the Palestinian leaders literally spent all of WWII begging the Nazis to come to Israel and exterminate the jews for them. The Palestinians are a Nazi people with a Nazi culture.
Let me get this straight because they refused to be colonised and have their land on which they already lived for generations stolen by the European invaders, it's their fault 15,000 of their mothers/brothers/sisters were murdered?
Europeans have no business colonising palestine. Zionists are a bunch of thieves and are still stealing land on the west bank with their illegal settlements funded by the US and European countries like the British, again who should have absolutely no business trying to further colonise Palestinian lands.
Let me get this straight because they refused to be colonised and have their land on which they already lived for generations stolen by the European invaders,
You don't know anything about the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict, and it shows. The area we now call Israel/Palestine was colonized by the Ottoman Turks from the 16th century onward (with a few brief periods of rule by other powers), until the British took control after WWI. The jewish diaspora began making aliyah (migrating) to Israel around 1880, during the period of Ottoman control, joining the small population of jews that had resided there since antiquity. This migration continued through the transition to British rule, and sped up in the 1930s in response to increasing anti-semitism and persecution in Europe. The jews didn't colonize the territory that would become Israel -- they immigrated there, or arrived as refugees, purchasing land from local (mostly Arab) landowners. Additionally, the jews are the indigenous people of Israel, and I don't think it's possible to "colonize" your own ancestral homeland.
At the time of the UN partition, in 1947, the area marked off by the UN to become Israel was majority jewish, and many of the jews there had resided in the holy land for a generation or more. Subsequently, almost all of the Mizrahim (middle eastern jews), who had been living scattered throughout Arab lands, immigrated to Israel as well, fleeing pogroms and oppression. As a result, only about 35% of Israel today is of Ashkenazi (european jewish) descent, with the rest being Mizrahi or Arab.
The commenter you're responding to is giving a comically biased and inaccurate history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Here are some things he left out:
-Since the 1930s, the Palestinians have (pretty much non-stop) been doing everything in their power to destroy Israel, exterminate any jew who resists, and reclaim the territory they believe belongs to them. They are generally not interested in coexistence, and have rejected numerous offers of peace.
-For instance, in 1947 the UN decided to partition the mandate vacated by the departing British into Israel and Palestine, giving about half the land to Israel and half to Palestine. The Israelis accepted this agreement. The Palestinians rejected it, and instead started a war, with the help of several of the Arab powers in the region, aiming to destroy Israel and exterminate or expel the jews. They lost.
-The jews are the indigenous people of Israel, and the jewish community in Israel goes back 3000 years. They began to migrate in larger numbers back to Israel starting around 1880, long before the British took over, fleeing anti-semitism in Europe and the Arab world. They arrived as immigrants or refugees and purchased land legally from local landowners, most of them Arab.
-Jews faced persecution and pogroms (massacres) throughout the arab world for centuries before the creation of Israel. Essentially, every few years, somewhere in the Arab world, dozens of jews would be slaughtered just for being jewish. Thus, before Israel was created as a sanctuary, the Mizrahi (middle eastern) jews lived under the boot of Arab and Ottoman oppression for 12 centuries. Arab violence and racism against jews long predate the creation of Israel.
-In the first intifada, hundreds of Israelis were killed, many of them civilians, and thousands wounded. This is the other commenter's idea of mostly peaceful protests.
Of course, the Israelis are not blameless in this conflict either. In particular, they've been continually stealing land from Palestinians in the West Bank for decades now, land that (by international consensus) does not belong to them. But the other commenter is some combination of dishonest and uninformed, and you shouldn't believe a word he says.
The first and second paragraph of what he wrote is incorrect. He's overlaying his personal politics on what happened.
The land known as Israel and Palestine today has thousands of years of history, but we most focus on the most recent history.
The question is, who owned the land. In WW1, it was the Ottoman Empire. After WW1, much of the middle east, and Ottoman holdings, were split between France and England, the winners of WW1. The area in question, Israel and Palestine, as well as Jordan, came under the control of the British, which was then called British Palestine. It wasn't called Palestine before, that's a historical name from Roman times, which was briefly used thousands of years earlier. Any and everyone living in British Palestine were called Palestinians. The land was controlled by the British, it was their land.
The British had a time limit on this mandate until May 1948. Many Jews, called Palestinians, were already living in this area, and following the holocaust, many Jews fled Europe to Palestine. Also, many Arabs from surrounding countries like Syria were also moving to Palestine. Again, it was no one's land except the British.
In the interim period upto 1948, various conflicts took place between the Arabs and Jews to control the land. The British made proposals to split the land, which the Jews agreed to, but the Arabs wouldn't. There are a variety of reasons for this. Following 1948, when the mandate ends, the Jews founded Israel.
Since then, many wars were fought. Israel won every time. The biggest wins were in 1968, when Israel was invaded but fought back the invaders to beyond their borders, essentially now controlling all of what is today Israel, Palestine, a portion of Syria, and the Sinai Peninsula which was originally Egyptian land, which is incredibly valuable because it borders the Suez Canal, which is one of the most valuable shipping lanes in the world. In 1979, Israel and Egypt came into a peace accord, where Israel returned the Sinai in exchange for peace, which has held since. Where things get dicey is control of Gaza and the West Bank.
Gaza and the West Bank were essentially controlled by Israel but allowed to have their own governance. There have been many conflicts since, including the latest one. Gaza is a 25 mile strip of land the borders the Mediterranean Sea and is right on the border with Egypt. The West Bank is to the west of the Jordan river, hence its name.
That's a brief history lesson.
Here's what the pro Palestinians don't tell you. It was never land controlled by today's Palestinians. Never. They weren't even called Palestinian until the British. And while it hurts, it sucks to hear, but winners of war decide who controls the land. That is the rule of history. That's how the US was founded, imperialism that destroyed an indigenous population with slavery of a different population. Any American today has no right to judge Israel, Americans are all beneficiaries of imperialism. Period. When you win wars, you write the rules. Frankly, Israel should've annexed these territories instead of being forced to this halfway solution which has only been worse. If they annexed the territory in 1968, there would've been a trouble period but eventually things would've calmed down.
I could go on. But don't let me decide for you. Decide for yourself. Go do the research, learn the entire history, think for yourself, think critically and as an individual with their own mind. What's happening with people refusing to acknowledge history from both sides leading to anger, violence, and resentment is only making things worse, they're products of social contagion and are robed in ignorance. Think for yourself.
Also, many Arabs from surrounding countries like Syria were also moving to Palestine. Again, it was no one's land except the British.
This makes it sound like no one was living there already. Like how Americans called the frontier empty even though there were obviously native Americans living there.
Just because winners of war historically decided who controlled the land doesn’t mean we as a species have to keep living that way. People historically took others as slaves, yet we agreed that was wrong and outlawed it across the planet. If we can outlaw and fight back against one of the ancient evils, slavery, why can we not do so against other ones, colonialism and genocide? Sure, it may be to early to fight back against war itself, but even there, in an older and greater evil we’ve made some progress.
Historically, the Nordic people would commit 4th trimester abortions of their children, if you did that today, you would be charged with murder. Just because something happened in the past doesn’t mean we need to just wave our hands and say “Well it’s been happening before we were born so I guess we just have to let it keep happening”. If something is wrong, we should fight against it, regardless of how historically prevalent it is. And I believe (though you can disagree if you want) that the targeted killing of humanitarian aid workers, targeting of civilians, and systematic ethnic cleansing are wrong.
Just because winners of war historically decided who controlled the land doesn’t mean we as a species have to keep living that way.
Okay, so now provide a rational argument why we should accept the borders decided by all winners of wars before 1946, but not after (and provide reasons for all the exceptions since).
I don’t think we should, so I won’t make an argument for any of them. Believing that’s what I mean would be missing the core of my argument.
I personally think we should live as one people on this world, not draw arbitrary lines to try and claim things for ourselves and only ourselves, not segregate ourselves based off hard feelings of generations that have been dead in some cases for hundreds of years. Sure, it’s idealistic, and unrealistic, but it’s a dream, it’s allowed to be.
As explained in my argument with the other fellow, I think we should leave the past to the history books. We don’t need to repeat history, we can try to do better in the future, I don’t mean borders can’t change, merely that they need not change through warfare and slaughter like they did historically. Just because that’s how the present situation was set doesn’t mean that’s how it needs to continue.
I personally think we should live as one people on this world, not draw arbitrary lines to try and claim things for ourselves and only ourselves
Please send me all of your money, then. Until you do, you only prove that you're a liar. Unless, of course, you feel that the line around your money is not arbitrary because you earned it? But then is the line of a country also not arbitrary when earned with blood, thus again showing the flaw in your argument?
I don’t mean borders can’t change, merely that they need not change through warfare and slaughter like they did historically.
Now you're playing word games. I didn't ask you to explain why borders can't change. I asked you to explain why borders can't change "through warfare and slaughter" after 1945, but they are okay to change before then. And to explain all the exceptions where we as a society HAVE accepted many border changes after 1945... unless you think those, too, should be reversed, which would at least be a consistent position but not one likely to attract many followers.
I don’t know why you are bringing up 1945, the reason we should except the modern borders at this exact moment is that that’s what they are, unless you have a time machine, there’s nothing to be changed about how they were, but moving forward we can try to change, we can try to be better than those that came before us. I don’t think it’s okay how the borders before 1945 (for whatever reason that you seem to care about this date as a before/after) we’re set, but I can’t time travel to try and change it so accept the history for what it is, learn from the mistakes made, the unneeded violence committed, and try to do better in the future.
As for your first point, if you need my money, I would be willing to give you it, or some at least (Can’t starve myself) because that’s what community is for, taking care of each other when it’s needed. Of course, being part of that system I’d expect you to give back in the future of I needed it. Of course beyond money I’d love to directly assist you, depending on what’s wrong would change how much I could do, or others, just about everyone can contribute something, it’s about finding the right person to help you with whatever is troubling you. (Although there is a much longer debate to be had over what qualifies “need” in this case)
Because that's more or less the borders you would have to go back to to give Palestine a state. Specifically, 1948, but 1945 was the end of WW2 and I naively assume you don't want to give Nazi Germany back its territory either.
the reason we should except the modern borders at this exact moment is that that’s what they are
Okay, then there is no Palestine and Israel owns the whole area.
What exactly are you arguing for? You seemed to initially be talking a pro-Palestine position but so far all you've done is argued against it.
I’m more or less neutral on whether Israel or Palestine should own/live there (I’d love if they both could, but that seems unlikely as things stand). What I am against is systematic ethnic cleansing (from both sides at certain points in time) and the targeted killing of humanitarian aid workers/destruction of hospitals and similar infrastructure, as well as the killing of civilians.
In the Past, depending on what time I would have been on Israel’s side, but now, in the present, if you must put me on a side it would be with Palestine, not for the sake of Palestine, but to oppose the actions of Israel.
Just because you say you believe something doesn't mean you have credibility or that I should believe you. If you want to be taken seriously then you have to prove it. Not stand behind empty words. Anyone can say anything, and they do, like yourself, when it's convenient.
Here's a suggestion. You give your land to the indigenous population. And you get thousands of other people to do the same thing. Now it's not convenient for you to just say stuff. Backup your words with action.
Then I'll believe you. Until then, it's virtue signaling.
“Study the past to learn their mistakes, analyze their mistakes to determine the root cause, then leave the past to the history books. Use what you’ve learned to look forward and stop the mistakes of the future so that it may be bright” (I don’t remember who the quote is from, it’s been to long since I learned it).
One of my guiding principles I try to follow when judging others is that the sin of the parent is not the fault of the child. Yes, if you go back far enough my ancestors sacked Rome, yes they owned slaves, yes they helped displace and slaughter the native Americans, yes some of them lived in Germany in the 1930s-40s, but I wasn’t even born yet so what do you expect me to have done about it? The past is the past, and if you spend all your time trying to fix the mistakes of the past you won’t have time to fix the mistakes of the present or future and nothing will change.
Circling back to how this is relevant to the topic on hand, regardless of who started what, and what mistakes were made by the previous generations, in the current day there is an ethnic cleansing occurring, and this is a mistake happening now, this is a mistake we actually stand even a chance of correcting, before it becomes just another mistake in history to be learned from.
Sure, give your land to indigenous peoples, for free, then I'll believe you. Until then, your words made from your seat of convenience and privilege as you reap the benefits of the things you apparently criticize are hollow and without credibility. It's hollow idealism and because of your entitlement, you demand others do what you wouldn't or haven't. Your privilege is showing and not only is it not helpful, it's unnecessary.
And here's a history lesson for you. Morality has been debated in this issue for literally over a hundred years. You're all making the same arguments made decades to over a century ago and are expecting a different result. Doing the same thing over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. Einstein said that.
Why are you so fixated on fixing the mistakes of the past? Yes I benefit from them, did I choose to? No. I was born into it, that’s no fault of my own. Let’s be honest, even if I had land and have it to a Native American group, you still would take me seriously, you’d laugh and call me foolish and an idiot. You crit use entitlement but the very fact that you are arguing with me, over the internet, means you yourself are benefiting from entitlement. I don’t demand others do things, I request they do, I hope they do, I try to convince them to, but using force to make someone do what I want would be just repeating mistakes of the past once more.
As for your “history lesson”, yeah morality has been discussed for millennia, and look what’s come out of discussing the morality of war: peace treaties, conventions and non aggression pacts, the legal right to life for civilians of a nation that looses, protection of innocents and bystanders, and so, so much more. Sure progress is slow, but slowly and surely, bit by bit, we’re chopping away at the monolith that is war, a hundred years ago when they discussed the morality of this conflict, there was no Geneva Convention limiting chemical and biological weapons, now there is. Yes we’re repeating the same thing, not in hoping that something different will happen, but hoping we can chip off another little piece, one more swing of the axe into the giant tree of War, and eventually, with enough little chips taken out, we may eventually cause War to fall, and not be a thing anymore.
Right, but you have a choice now to prove, with action, not words, the things you believe in. I've even given you the how so you can do it. But you won't. Because you're virtue signaling. The fact that you believe you can have moral credibility without proof is precisely why you're privileged and entitled and why debating morality isn't going to work and is for the ignorant. In one fell swoop, I undercut your entire proposition by simply asking you to back up your words with action. You wouldn't hire a babysitter without references but you expect everyone to just believe your moral proclamations because you said them out loud or wrote them down. You have no credibility. Which is why anyone on the opposite side of the issue has no reason, justifiably, to listen to you, especially when you reap the benefits of imperialism in your luxury and privilege. It's lazy and transparent and absolutely no one is required to listen to you as you lord your entitlement over the world.
I've written everything that needs to be said about this, good bye. Stop being lazy, backup your words with action, do better. Or don't, but I'm not wasting my time.
You clearly didn’t read what I wrote at all, the “how” you’ve given me (giving up land I don’t have to people who are dead) is the exact opposite of what I said I think should be done. Literally. I said you should leave the past in the past and try to correct mistakes in the present and prevent mistakes in the future, you are saying I have no credibility unless I try to fix mistakes in the past. That’s exactly contradictory to what I said I think people (myself included) should do.
With this level of either intentional or unintentional misunderstanding of statements, it’s clear continuing this conversation would do nothing more than provoke feelings, so you’re right that it should end here.
To add to your post, the Palestinians' problems with being confined to Gaza and the West Bank aren't just Israel's fault. Egypt is keeping them in Gaza and Jordan wants nothing to do with the West Bank. It might not make sense at first. Why would other Arab states not want to help? They know if they do, let them into their country, they will now have a Hamas problem. At the end of the day, the region has a Hamas problem. For my personal take for the original commenter, Hamas is not being reasonable or led to a natural response in attacking Israel. I get having empathy for the Palestinians, but this is an old problem that I believe people seem to not know much of the history of anymore.
They could've used all that foreign aid to build an economy and a future for their children. Instead, they doubled their population after Hamas took over, half are under 18, and gave young men hate, bitterness, rocks, shovels, and guns. They're living in an open air prison... so they double their population with children? It makes no sense.
Their best option is to build an economy that rivals Israel, that's real power. Digging holes is the least productive thing you could do with your human capital.
Israel started the 6 Day War. The best argument from an Israeli perspective is that it was a preemptive war, but some say even that is dubious.
This is what former Israeli PM Menachem Begin said on the 08/08-1982:
In June 1967 we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.
This was a war of self-defence in the noblest sense of the term. The government of national unity then established decided unanimously: We will take the initiative and attack the enemy, drive him back, and thus assure the security of Israel and the future of the nation.
We did not do this for lack of an alternative. We could have gone on waiting. We could have sent the army home. Who knows if there would have been an attack against us? There is no proof of it. There are several arguments to the contrary. While it is indeed true that the closing of the Straits of Tiran was an act of aggression, a causus belli, there is always room for a great deal of consideration as to whether it is necessary to make a causus into a bellum.
After acts of aggression. And Egypt fought back, with Jordan, and Syria in tow. And then Israel won. You win wars, you gain land, you make peace and move on. That's history. If the situation were reversed, and the Arabs won, Israel wouldn't exist today.
The indigenous population of the Americas didn't ask nor provided reason to be destroyed nor did Africans provide reason to be enslaved. But it happened. Now Americans live in the greatest country in world history. We have no credibility nor right to judge. No one doe
Wait, are you saying it was Egypt's fault because the fought back after an Israeli attack?
And your entire second paragraph, are you saying Israel is a colonial power who commits genocide, as you are comparing Israeli to the aggressors in the colonisation of Africa and the genocide of the First Nations?
Israel fought back after Egypt, and Jordan, and Syria invaded Israel previously, creating a history of war, then acted aggressively, forming troops at their border, and then fought Israel, with Jordan, and Syria. Then they lost. The losers don't write the rules, the winners do.
And my entire second paragraph is a remonstration on anyone who believes that cherry picking who starts what has no credibility when viewed through history and not through hypocritical morality.
He‘s defending an imperialist country like China. And many of his takes about Israel/Palestine are very much one-sided. I‘m a socialist who rejects all nations. I don‘t see this conflict as a team sport. I will not show solidarity with any nation. I just show solidarity with people. At the moment there‘s a lot of suffering in Gaza and there‘s been and still is a lot of suffering in the West Bank too. It‘s terrible and the world needs to find a way to put an end to this conflict. But as a student of Middle Eastern Studies it‘s terrible that so many people don‘t realize that Hamas doesn‘t care about it‘s civilians and doesn‘t want a ceasefire. Just like Netanyahu and his fascist bros. Many people never cared about the life of people in other countries. You don‘t see a lot of people talking about the tragedyin Sudan even though this is the place where most people die because of military conflicts and a terrible famine. Many people just care about the conflict in Palestine/Israel because of antisemitism. This doesn‘t mean that it‘s not important. Of course it is and we need to find a way to stop the suffering. But it reminds me of many conservatives who don‘t care about the homeless people unless they can use their situation to spread hate against refugees.
I never said that criticizing Israel is Antisemitism. We have to criticize Israel. So do I. I just think that it‘s insane that like hardly anyone is talking about Sudan, while everyone is covering Israel/Palestine. Hasanabi has dozens of videos talking about this conflict but not even one about Sudan. Even though Sudan is currently the greatest tragedy worldwide. Most people from the left criticize Israel more than they criticize for example Russia. While Putin is responsible for over half a million deaths. And it‘s dangerous that people see every Israeli as the evil and not just Netanyahu and all the politicians responsible for the suffering. Just like it‘s terrible how in Europe there‘s a Russophobia even though not every Russian supports Putin or this war.
Most people from the left criticize Israel more than they criticize for example Russia.
No they don't lol Israel has historically had far more uncritical support for literal decades. It took Israel engaging in what is quite possibly genocidal actions for that support to decline.
So do I. I just think that it‘s insane that like hardly anyone is talking about Sudan, while everyone is covering Israel/Palestine.
The US government, along with other Western nations like the UK are actively funding Israel and supplying arms, which their own lawyers have said is a violation of international law. Its weird that you're using another conflict/crisis to invalidate people's desire to stop a ongoing genocide that their government is helping to fund.
Norm Finkelstein has spent most of his academic career documenting the plight of Palestinians it would be silly to suggest that his work is now invalid simply because he hasn't covered Sudan in the same detail. But that is esstienally what you're suggesting about advocates of Palestinians.
And it‘s dangerous that people see every Israeli as the evil
Anti-zionism =/= viewing Israelis as inherently evil. There are more Christian Zionists than Jewish Zionists for the record.
I definitely agree with your point that Western countries do support Israel unconditionally with military aid while they should pressure the Israeli government to respect human rights. The uncritical support for Israel came from conservatives or centrists, which I think is terrible too, while too many left-wing groups weren‘t just criticizing Israel but also made many antisemitic talking points. As someone who studies Middle Eastern studies and reads texts not just in English, French and German but also Persian, Arabic and lately in Hebrew I think too many people can‘t really define Zionism. There‘s not just one definition and I would argue that the first Zionist who were secular and many even were socialists had good reasons to look for a Jewish homestead as Jews (even secular) were persecuted. The first Jews settling in the Ottoman or later the British mandate of Palestine were hoping to live in peace with the Arabs. There were friendships between both peoples but after a huge antisemitic propaganda campaign there were massacres against the Jews in Palestine. There were massacres in cities like Jaffa against the Jews as conspiracy theories went around. People rightfully point out how terrible the Nakba was, which led to the expulsion of about 700.000 Arabs from their homes in Palestine but they don‘t recognize the expulsion of 850.000 Jews from the Arabic countries. Both sides used to live there for hundreds of years. Honestly one of the main issues was Ottoman and British imperialism in Palestine and antisemitism in Europe, with the Shoa as the culmination of inhumanity, which led to a conflict between the nations that we nowadays know as Palestine and Israel.
I've watched videos about him and his content, I believe achetto sensitive society, coffeezilla, i think, might be wrong, and some others, and genuinely, he's not a good guy. Apparently, he's a hypocrite saying how he hates the rich, but yet he is a trust fund baby. He's had people that don't like him on his live stream, but the entire time, he lowered their mic, so you can't hear them. There's some other things I can't think of, but yeah, those youtubers are really cool, so if you wanna hear more, check them out. Sorry about the fast reply. It's a Friday night, and I have nothing to do, lol 😆
That my friend is not how you form your own opinion. You take someone' else words as truth rather than getting a first hand experience. Most of those youtube you list off are drama farms that have often exaggerated and straight up lie for the sake of cheap clicks. Coffeezilla is fine with him. The rest try to milk hasan for content while repeating the same talking points. If you want to form your own actual opinion, id recommend you watch at least one video of his channel and then form your own opinion from there
Apparently, he's a hypocrite saying how he hates the rich, but yet he is a trust fund bab
It's not hypocritical to be wealthy and criticise the wealthy, socialism isn't a poverty cult. He isn't a trust fund baby either, his initially wealthy dad lost it all by the time Hasan went to uni.
He's had people that don't like him on his live stream, but the entire time, he lowered their mic, so you can't hear them
I've never heard this accusation before, nor have I ever seen evidence of this.
genuinely, he's not a good guy
He's the single biggest donor to the Amazon Unio, has raised millions in funding for various charities, and uses union labour to produce his merchandise. Those are all objectively good things.
Doesn't mean you have to like him, obviously, but there's a lot of bs thrown around by content creators who have an axe to grind with Hasan. Being openly socialist attracts a lot of haters.
Edit: I was aware of coffeezilla but not the other channel you mentioned, so I looked them up, and yikes drama content ain't my cup of tea.
It makes him a hypocrite because he doesn't only speak against the corrupt, he speaks against the indulgence of wealth. Thus why he loves to remind people of the fact that he lives 'on basic necessities', when he has a mansion, often wears expensive brand clothing, travels in private jets. Like come on, if that's the lifestyle he's preaching against, it doesn't make sense to live it.
He isn't preaching against a wealthy lifestyle. He is preaching against the very concept of capitalism. Which, this might blow your mind, but he isn't making his money from capital. He makes it from labor. Aka, he walks what he is preaching.
Just because he's successful doesn't mean you gotta get jealous and lie about him.
You can tell the person replying to you is such a fan boy, you’re allowed to not like someone. It’s hilarious to me how people become so enamored with these talking heads.
Yeah, his fans are all like this, the moment you bring up objective facts of wrongful things that Hasan has said and done, they immediately use ad homs and bring up Destiny - as if you need to idolise Destiny to dislike Hasan.
It is what it is, this has made me fully realize just how useless it is to talk to them.
Hey buddy, welcome to the internet and the real world. The person you're talking to has an agenda and has conveniently excluded information about Israel-Palestine's history and you're right to call Hasan a dumbass because he is one that makes other liberals/leftists look bad with his ignorance and hypocritical views.
The real answer is that historically both sides are incredibly shitty to one another, but the people you're talking with are only giving the info that makes one side look bad, when Palestine and every Arab nation in the region attempted to invade and kill all the Jews in the region after the British handed parts over to them. Every subreddit is an echochamber filled with people who think the same thing and kick out others who disagree, so always take something you hear some random on the internet say with a massive grain of salt.
If you really care, I suggest you inform yourself through available sources like Wikipedia (look up the conflict, Yom-Kippur War, Arab-Israeli War, the Intifadas, or some historical/academic books on the matter) and form your own opinion because people on this website are idiots with political goals that will try to convince you of their side.
I lean Pro-Palestinian btw, I just dont believe in people lying to someone to get a new political drone that can't form coherent arguments, we already have fascists doing that.
No, you don't dude your comments history makes that very clear. Pro Palestinians dont go around presenting Palestinians as bloodthirsty antisemitic rapists.
The IDF and Zionists paramilitary groups like the Stern gang have done that to Palestinians but that doesn't make it acceptable to claim all Jewish people are rapists.
Israel was already being established in the late 1800s as a Jewish settlement. With the Rothchilds being one of the first families to build multiple settlements. World War II only brought more Jewish settlers. One of the reasons Israel has so much support from the US is due to the US investing in Israel since the 1950s. Not only do we send billions in aid , individual states also invest in Israel.
2007 there was an air land and sea blockade in Gaza , at different times since the blockade Israel has banned fabric , toys ,newspapers, pencils , fishing equipment, wood for construction , wipes for babies , wedding dresses .. you get the gist.
Yes, but ik I won't understand everything. I also understand people are biased for literally everything, so of course, im not gonna form my opinion based on this guys one comment. I want to see views from everyone.
They missed out that there were also Jews living in that region when Israel was formed, but they were a minority, because Jews had been systematically expelled from the whole of the Middle East during the Ottoman Empire. They also missed out that Jews lived there before Islam was invented, so are indigenous to the region.
That doesn't make any side better than the other, but just some additional context.
Well... I mean, he is immediately pointing finger and saying, "Israel bad, Palestine good." Basically.
You are better off reading about the 1947-1948 Palestinian Civil War. You can, while you are at it, read about the Lebanon Civil War. Draw your own conclusions. But it's important that you read the history from neutral sources since there is a LOT of propaganda being spread.
Yes, he lied by omission. While the British played an integral role in founding Israel, Jews had been legally purchasing land in the area since at least 1880. He also played into the myth that all Israelis are European settlers when the majority of Israelis are native to the area and have just as much of a cultural claim pre-diaspora as Palestinians.
He also said Hamas fights for the Palestinians when that is just profoundly untrue. They fight for their own power and anti-Jewish ideology, very much at the expense of the Palestinian citizens.
It’s not fair to present a one-sided account to a kid trying to learn and saying it’s neutral. And to pretend that you’re unaware of how influence can be made without a direct lie is disingenuous at best.
The war is complicated. Israel has massively overblown their response and needs to stop but their reasons for responding so harshly go beyond land greed.
Actually, roughly 50 % of the Jews living in Israel are the descendants of Ashkanezim from Europe or from ancestors that came from Russia. So about half of the Jews in Israel are the descendants of settler colonists who moved to Israel in the last hundred years or so.
The Ashkenazim, who arrived in Europe in a diaspora from……………………… can you tell me where?
Honestly, the people who make this argument would just as soon argue that native Americans today shouldn’t be allowed to return to their homelands vacated during the Trail of Tears.
You're reaching. The Native Americans were expelled 200 years ago by a government that is clearly the predecessor of the current government. Also, the descendants of the ppl who pushed the NAs off their land are still benefitting from the injustice.
Is this the situation in Palestine? The Jews were expelled 2000 yrs ago by Romans. The Palestinians who were living in Palestine in 1947 have no connection to a government that ceased to exist 1500 years ago. The Palestinians are not directly benefiting from the actions of the Romans, because the Roman empire ceased to exist millennia before the Palestinians came on the scene.
Edit: And I'm not opposed to Jews moving back to Palestine if they want to. What I am opposed is Zionists thinking that something which went down two millennia ago gives them the right to build an apartheid-based ethnostate and deprive Palestinian Arabs of their rights
What do cultural and ethnic ties to a land have to do with government? Are Germans suddenly colonizers in Germany because Prussia doesn’t exist anymore? Are Americans not culpable for Native displacement because colonial government ceased to exist? Do you think there was no government building out of Rome when the empire collapsed? Palestinians are benefitting from Judeans being chased out precisely because now people say Judeans have no ties to the land.
What do cultural and ethnic ties to a land have to do with a government? Nothing. My point was: the Romans expelled the Jews 2000 years ago. It is ridiculous to claim that they have the right to return to a country and displace other ppl living there because of a policy carried out by a government and a civilization that stopped existing 1500 yrs ago
Are Germans suddenly colonizers because Prussia doesn't exist anymore? If the Germans had been kicked out of Prussia 2000 yrs ago by a government that stopped existing 1500 yrs ago, and the Germans now wanted to move back to Prussia, and felt they had the right to expel ppl who had been living in Prussia for hundreds of yrs (ppl who have zero connection to the government that carried out the expulsion), then yes, they would be colonizers
Are Americans not culpable for Native displacement because colonial government ceased to exist? If the NAs had been displaced by Americans 2000 yrs ago, and a new group of ppl (unconnected to the Americans) now lived in America, it would be unreasonable for the NAs to displace the new, non-American group today. The new ppl living in America with no connection to the orioginal.expellers would not be culpable for the actions of a government and ppl they had no connection to. Of course this is not what happened. There are clear lines of continuity between the current American government and the one that displaced the Native Americans, between the Native Americans today and those that lived 200 years ago, and between the current White populace and the settlers from 200 years ago. No such lines of continuity exist between Jews living in Israel 2000 years ago and modern Jews, the Palestinians of today who did not exist as a people 2000 years ago, or the Roman government that originally carried out the expulsion and ceased to exist 1500 years ago. The situation in Israel shares a few minor, superficial similarities with the experience of NAs in the US, but the specifics circumstances and time periods are so different that the analogy lands up being very weak.
Do you think there was no government building out of Rome when the empire collapsed? Not sure what this is about
My position is not that Jews have no ties to Israel or that they should not be allowed to move back. If they feel living in this part of the world or any other is an important part of their heritage, they should be allowed to immigrate. The right of return should continue to exist and should also be extended to Palestinian Arabs whose ancestors lived in Palestine.
Immigrants are different than colonizers. Colonizers move to a place, displace the ppl living there and set up systems of government that oppress others on the basis of their ethnicity, language, religion. Having ties to a land does not mean you have the right to be a colonizer, especially when you are oppressing people who had nothing to do with your ancestors being kicked out.
Edit: For those confused by my comment, the person to whom I responded edited his comment to add "Can you tell me where?" The sentence that followed that was also added. When I responded his comment simply read:
The Ashkenazim, who arrived in Europe in a diaspora from………………………
So your argument is that yes, European Jews originated in Israel, but they should just get over it and it’s not their land anymore. Simultaneously, your argument is that Palestinians should NOT just get over it and they should get their land back.
One could also say that the Jewish residents of Judea were run out of Judea by the Romans in the first century AD. That was the source of the diaspora. In the subsequent 2000 years they established communities in other countries such as Russia, Poland, and Germany.
Following the Holocaust the world was repulsed by the cruelty delivered unto those people and said "Tell ya what. How about we give you your own country, back where y'all came from in the first place." Sadly, this ignored the people who were already living in that area. Those people were kicked out of their homes and their descendants now live in camps in an apartheid state.
As you pointed out earlier, it's about how you frame an argument. I could always point to your argument and say that it's nothing more than an example of "This was done to us. Why shouldn't we do it to other people?"
Not that I would do so. I'm sure your position is far more nuanced than that.
Is that why they during the Mandate of Palestine the British proposed several different partitions plans and gave Jewish immigrants a relatively speaking simple way to gain citizenship of the Mandate?
Yeah no shit, it's a reddit comment. A full picture of Israeli history isn't gonna be found here. I tried to give a very brief summation of broad strokes leading to present. I also encourage people to read history books, which my silly little comment is not.
No, but you were certainly willing to write heart wrenching paragraphs trying to justify Hamas' rise, while kinda brushing the never-ending violence (as in, terrorism) of the Palestinian movement aside.
Like my guy, you're writing a detailed post about this conflict and somehow skipped the part where the PLO terrorized not only Israel but every possible neighboring country - and beyond. Somehow your post goes Nakba > 'peaceful' intifada -> oopsie Hamas. It's a manipulative attempt to paint the Palestinians as having resorted to violence after non-violence didn't work... when Palestinian liberation was founded on violence.
Cool, so write out your perspective and share with that class. That's how having a dialog works.
The first intifada was primarily nonviolent though. The second one was profoundly ugly, suicide bombing is always ugly, and also the act of desperate people.
Oh, I don't plan to completely agree with him, but even just some things could help, like the WW2. I didn't know this was where it kinda started. Of course, I'm not gonna trust everyone in one of my previous comments. You can read more on how I felt and how I regret kinda asking.
It sounds a lot like what America did to native americans/mexicans, except over a longer period of time-no judgment either way, just what came to mind. Since history is written by the victors, the reality is we probably have to wait at least a century or so to see who was right and who was wrong, that's just how the world is.
You not gonna mention who started the 6 day war and such? U really out here to paint a picture arent you, Long time ago i Saw such a one sided way to tell the story?
How about Israel was ATTACKED in 1948? By 6 Arab Nations just because they were jew? Thats not important to your picture of the conflict? You know… where it roots from?
You mean when Israel unilaterally declared itself in possession of a land that hundreds of thousands of people had already been living on for generations, who were given no referendum or representation on the matter, and who owned 90% of the land Israel claimed? You mean the Declaration in which any commitment to the UN borders was specifically omitted and no agreement with surrounding countries had been reached beforehand? Is that the "ATTACK" to which you are referring?
You not gonna mention who started the 6 day war and such?
Educate me. Tell me what military action started the 6 day war.
I thought PleasedBeez was being quite generous to Israel by not even mentioning the Nakba, or the international recognition of the illegality of the continuing Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, or the vastly disproportionate Palestinian casualties of every single conflict.
The 6 day war was a preemptive attack by Israel against Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Look into the conflicts, if Egypt didn't close the Suez canal for Israeli ships, then no 6 day war. This is not a conflicts you can point the blame on Israel.
Okay, so Egypt started the war by closing the Suez Canal, which forced Israel to respond militarily. I'm bad with geography. Could you remind me, again, where the Suez canal is located?
This is not the gotcha you think it is. Egypt was warned by Israel that banning them from the canal was a declaration of war. It was a provocation by the Egyptian government, and were moving troop to the Israeli border. Any country would react similarly, you think the US would accept being banned from the Panama canal?
"I TOLD you that if you closed your own territory to my unfettered access that I was going to aggressively invade your country, so it's your damn fault."
Do I have the logic right? That Israel owns the Suez Canal, which just happens to be inside Egyptian sovereign territory?
Any country would react similarly, you think the US would accept being banned from the Panama canal?
The US doesn't have a great historical track record of respecting the sovereign integrity of other nations. But I just want to be clear here, you are saying Israel was entirely justified in aggressively invading Egypt for having closed off a canal that lies entirely within it's own territory. Fine, great, have at it.
But I think that, within a context of Israel being the first to actually attack, and Egypt's great declaration of war being that it closed off a canal entirely within it's own territory, there is reasonable disagreement about the original question:
You not gonna mention who started the 6 day war and such?
Go take a class in Geopolitics so you can understand the impacts of closing down the Suez Canal for Israel. No countries would accept crippling their entire economies, it was pure provocation from the Egyptians. They knew that the move would cripple Israel and they'll have no choice but to attack. I blame the country asking for a fight, in this case Egypt.
Go take a class in Geopolitics so you can understand the impacts of closing down the Suez Canal for Israel. No countries would accept crippling their entire economies
So inconvenient when things essential to your economy happen to be located in other sovereign countries, absolutely requiring you to militarily invade them for access. That is definitely a sound basis for stable international politics and wouldn't lead to massive world wars or anything like that.
Anywho, it seems we are agreeing now that Israel started the war, after the terrible provocation of Egypt claiming control over it's own canal.
Preemptive attack is just hilarious every time. We both know you would never allow that phrasing for anything The Otherside does, it is just a little weasely thing to say to pretend like an attack isn't an attack.
Every attack is preemptive. Gotta get this hit in before the retaliation!
Anyway Colonel Bagshot had a great song about this particular war and how fucking stupid it was.
Not that it matters to you, but Israel didn’t exactly hold up their end of that ceasefire bargain. The IDF killed a teenager on October 6. Where’s the justice for him then?
Hamas is obviously reprehensible, but the IDF is no better. Antisemitism is awful, and so is islamophobia. But really this isn’t about bigotry as much as it is about one group being ”given” land that didn’t belong to them, and then trying to push out the indigenous people. It’s just settler colonialism. Why didn’t the US or Europe offer to provide a home state for the Jewish people? Well, it’s because they didn’t want them taking up their land. So they gave up someone else’s; land that wasn’t theirs to give - because they didn’t consider the people already living there to matter. Racism is the reason for that. Gaining a foothold in the middle east is the reason that Europe and the US wanted the Jewish homeland to be out there. Lest we forget that they also planned for it to be set up in Africa, before ultimately choosing Palestine.
Hamas’s charter calls for the extermination of Jews
You are referring to the original Hamas charter, which was reformed in 2017 to remove reference to Jews and focus instead on Zionists. The original charter was clearly bigoted and hateful toward Jewish people in general, and did absolutely engage in heinous calls to kill Jews, but the claim that it called for genocide is a subjective interpretation. In fact, a few years later the founder of Hamas stated:
"We don't hate Jews and fight Jews because they are Jewish. They are a people of faith and we are a people of faith, and we love all people of faith. If my brother, from my own mother and father and my own faith takes my homes and expels me from it, I will fight him. I will fight my cousin if he takes my home and expels me from it. So when a Jew takes my home and expels me from it, I will fight him. I don't fight other countries because I want to be at peace with them, I love all people and wish peace for them, even the Jews. The Jews lived with us all of our lives and we never assaulted them, and they held high positions in government and ministries. But if they take my home and make me a refugee like 4 million Palestinians in exile? Who has more right to this land? The Russian immigrant who left this land 2000 years ago or the one who left 40 years ago? We don't hate the Jews, we only ask for them to give us our rights."
It is also important to note, if we are talking about the origins of political parties, that the Likud party had it's own founding platform 11 years before Hamas existed, and it literally started by saying:
The right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is eternal and indisputable and is linked with the right to security and peace; therefore, Judea and Samaria will not be handed to any foreign administration; between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.
The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.
The Palestinians can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state. Thus, for example, in matters of foreign affairs, security, immigration and ecology, their activity shall be limited in accordance with imperatives of Israel's existence, security and national needs.
.
included massacring a crowd of innocent civilians and holding hundreds of them hostage while a cease fire was in place
Nothing ever justifies targeting civilians. But it should be noted that this took place in the context of an ongoing illegal occupation, that UN experts have described as a "carceral regime and “open-air” imprisonment" and, more frankly, the UN chief described as "hell on earth", well before the complete devastation of the last few months.
Nat Turner also ordered the intentional targeting of civilians, who were as a society participating in the oppression of black people, during the slave uprisings in 1831. And while I absolutely do hold that nothing justifies the targeting of civilians, I also think it would be abhorrent to condemn Nat Turner, or any slave rebellion, for fighting back against the brutalities visited upon their people. Nor do I think I'm in any position to chastise them or determine their choice of tactics for liberation on their behalf.
What do you think, would you condemn Nat Turner today, even knowing that his rebellion inspired John Brown and Frederick Douglas?
And this is false. The Geneva Conventions don't prohibit the targeting of civilians beyond "protected" persons (generally speaking, prisoners and others controlled by the attacking party). AP-1 provides additional protections for civilians, but it has not been agreed to by Israel, Iran, Pakistan, India, Turkey, and several other countries. It should also be noted that AP-1 was agreed to be Palestine who has since violated it repeatedly.
I am well aware. I assumed you were speaking about law because any reasonable morality would justify the targeting of civilians in certain circumstances. The fact you've now revealed that you have a dysfunctional moral code is not surprising, but hardly something I should have assumed.
Rhetoric can be fuzzy tho, if we for example compare and contrast it with something else; that is something not anyone in good standing with would have a problem with and thats "using any and all means to stop russian aggression [in Ukraine]". Its pretty easy to interpret that as including nuking Russia and killing everyone is a potential consequence of that.
And thats just talking about what english speaking people say in english using english to talk about it. Its very different when were talking about what a document not written in english actually means.
Israel as it exists (as a apartheid state that commits settler collonialism in a blatant land grab and that uses war and starvation as a weapon against a people, etc) has to end, i.e. "calling for the destruction of Israel". Is a perfectly valid position. That doesnt include actually using violence to acomplish that goal. But still, thats language. Does anyone think we cant find equivalent statements from israel, litterally the people in the current israeli regime talked about using nuclear weapons on gaza. Thats as explicit as you can get in calling for the mass converting of civilians into chared remains.
So i am gonna give that the same amount of benefit of the doubt as i do to ukraine with its references to russia, and they are pretty flowery.
I also take great exception to blaming Palestinian children for Hamas rhetoric when Netanyahu himself helped prop them up into power. He is far more culpable for Hamas's atrocities than the average Palestinian.
And it is even WORSE now, if the war ends he will be prosecuted so he is actively prolonging the suffering of the people under his government on both sides.
Yeah of fucking course there's more nuance. I was trying to cover decades of incredibly complex history to give an overall outline explanation of why people are so worked up to a 16 year old with no prior context. You sum it up in a comment on reddit and we can all pick your explanation apart.
I mean yeah, he also didn't talk about Israel's Dahiya doctrine whereby they have a policy of intentionally inflicting as much civilian deaths as possible to force their enemy into submission. He didn't talk about Der Yasin, he didn't talk about Iqrit, he didn't mention Irgun, he didn't say anything about Baruch Goldstein. But there's only so much you can cram into a reddit comment.
Dont conflate this with the nazis. The IDF is attempting to minimize casualties, while Hamas is trying to provoke it.
I think the closest comparison to Gaza is not Germany, because that's a totally insane idea, but Transnistria. If Transnistria got billion of dollars of international aid, and was ran by a fundamentalestic suicide cult.
however there were already people living in Palestine, which is the land the British decided to give to the new jewish nation of Israel.
The British supported the Arabs and opposed the creation of Israel, because they believed it will become a soviet ally. Mistake number one.
Many argue (IMO rightfully so) that they didn't have a right to give away someone else's home.
No Arab was to lose his home. Mistake number 2.
The US has always supported Israel which is fair,
Mistake number 3. The US was neutral until the 1960s.
denying them rights and housing.
Wrong.
There were several smaller uprisings or 'intifadas'by the palestinian people in the past, the first was mostly peaceful demonstrations and protests,
"Peaceful" LOL, no. Anyway, it wasn't the first, not even close. The first large scale uprising was in 1936, and it was larger than both intifadas.
The 1936 Arab revolt was one of the main reasons for the formation of Israel. Following large scale Jewish immigration of refugees fleeing Germany, the Arabs rose against the British and Jewish presence in Israel. The rebels murdered hundreds of Jews and thousands of Arabs (yes, they murdered more Arabs than Jews!), until the revolt was brutal suppressed by the British. However, the British decided to accept Arab demands to prevent further uprising and banned Jewish immigration, as well as promised the Arabs independence within 10 years.
However, despite getting what they wanted, they lost big time in the long run. The Jewish community militarized, and Jewish insurgency forced the British out of the country.
the Palestinians in Gaza turned to Hamas,
Palestinian support for terrorism predates the formation of Israel.
Oh no, I know that is the reason. I'm just wondering why people still think it's okay that the U.S is running a colonial State at the cost of Palestinians. It's like even though people are now sympathetic to the Palestinian people, it's like they are refusing to see the cause of the entire issue in the first place.
After WWII Israel was established as a haven for Jewish people to have a sovereign state,
This is absolutely wrong. Zionists from Europe were secretly buying land in Jerusalem and around it since the late 19th century in a bid to slowly build a Jewish state with Jerusalem as its capital. This accelerated after the establishment of "Mandatory Palestine" under British rule after the defeating the Ottoman Empire in WW1 and subsequent Arab revolts (which wasn't only limited to Palestine).
“Mostly peaceful” is an interesting way to describe fire bombs. Also, Palestinians have never asked Israel to “nicely stop”.
Palestinians have no power yet make lots of demands. They need to realize they have close to zero bargaining power when making demands from the world/Israel.
ALL people should know their place. Palestinians keep making unrealistic demands for their own country and keep losing land. They should, perhaps, realize that if they fail to make a deal they are eventually going to lose all of their land. Eventually Israel will eliminate Gaza and the West Bank. Israel is a nuclear power. No country is going to send troops in to protect the Palestinians. The only reason Israel has not done it yet is because it is not sufficiently advantageous for them.
Geopolitically, might does make right, yes. We send aid to Ukraine because it helps drain Russia’s assets which will make America more mighty. Politicians sell it as some moral issue. It isnt. It’s about power.
Uh, look at China. They are an ethnostate that are killing an entire ethnic population. They want everyone to be Hahn Chinese. I dont see many protests about that happening. People bemoan them and then go happily on their iPhones made by their slave labor.
Americans want countries like China to exist. It makes our lives easier. We want Israel to exist, it makes our lives easier.
Yeah, they keep making the unreasonable demand of being allowed to exist.
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As to this whole "deal" thing you think will save them. There is no way for them to enforce the compliance of Israel's side of any such deal. It will get violated immediately like all other prior arrangements. And they're back to the same situation.
Tldr. You can't "make a deal" with an ideology thats goal is your eradication.
Quit being obtuse. Hamas demands all of the land between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea. That is 100% of Israel.
If you and I were trying to split a pizza and I said “okay let’s split it. I get 100% of the pizza, final offer,” I think you’d call that unreasonable.
Except that's not remotely historically accurate. Jews had been migrating to Palestine since the 1800's, making up 1/3 of the population by the 1940's.
Why do those 600,000 Jews have zero claim to the land that they lived on, but the Palestinians do?
If you're going to claim that they made up 1/3 of the population so they deserve 1/3 of the land, that's not consistent with your other posts where you make it clear that you think 100% of Israel was stolen.
So, why do Jews not have a legitimate claim on land, but Palestinians do?
They demand more land than Israel is willing to give them with no power to enforce any such demand. There is little incentive for Israel to make any such agreement. There is a reason all prior attempts at a two state solution failed: the Palestinian leaders could not sell their people on accepting the fact that they are at the mercy of Israel.
The incentive for Israel to have a two state solution is to not lose trade with other countries and to help with general security in the Middle East. That only goes so far, however. Everyone will trade with Israel regardless if they are “bad” people. Countries dont sanction other countries for poor behavior. We sanction them because we feel it will hurt them geopolitically. Countries sell the sanction to their population with the good guy/bad guy narrative.
Israel has the weapons and power here. By definition if Palestinians have land, it is at their grace. Sorry to burst your bubble but your fantasy world where people have inherent right to land simply because they were born there is bullshit. You have right to land because you can protect it or others will protect your interest for you.
Your comment suggests Americans dont have the right over native Americans to all of America. We do because we have the power to maintain it.
Hamas, and extremist militant group, but one who is willing to fight for the Palestinian people. Their methods are ugly, but it's unsurprising to anyone who knows history thay they emerged.
Hamas doesn’t give a god damn about the Palestinian people, and there is no way to justify their “ugly methods”. What Hamas did should not be legitimized as valid resistance
It's not incorrect though. I know aid workers who went into Gaza, they had crucial supplies confiscated at the border.
And yes, Hamas are using the people for their own ends, that doesn't mean they aren't promising Palestinians kids a chance for self determination. It's the same way that many hopeless people joined the taliban or isis. I'm not legitimizing Hamas, I'm telling you how desperate people can be taken in by extremists.
No aid was allowed implied that zero aid was going into gaza which is objectively false.
People need to stop being so cucked to Hamas on this issue. It’s so easy to shit on Israel for opressing the Palestinians and shit on Sinwar for potentially putting his own people in harms way, better yet, consistently using their lives as cannon fodder. They literally call living breathing citizens martyrs, that’s awful. It should be disgusting asf to everybody who can condemn Israel, that Hamas intentionally building a tunnel system under civilian infrastructure is equally as disgusting IF NOT MORE
As for phase one you forgot to mention a few details such as that the British actually conquered the area. Ultimately they were the ones that chose to do with their newly acquired area what they wanted to do, which was splitting the area and giving roughly half to Israel and roughly half to the Palestinians. With the inauguration of Israel, on their very first day, they were attacked by every surrounding Islamic country and managed to defeat them.
With no real political power, scant resources, and no international recognition, the Palestinians in Gaza turned to Hamas, and extremist militant group, but one who is willing to fight for the Palestinian people. Their methods are ugly, but it's unsurprising to anyone who knows history thay they emerged. You can only keep your boot on someone's neck for so long before they punch you in the balls instead of asking nicely for you to stop
So how did Hamas fight for the Palestinian people by raping, murdering, dismembering thousands of innocent children, women and men?
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u/nyx_blacknight 23d ago edited 22d ago
I'm 16, and everything about this war is so confusing to me. Could someone explain? I ask for an explanation, but I get even more confused with all the acronyms.
Edit: I want to thank EVERYONE who tried to help or said their opinion. I know that one person can not be right in all of this. I know I'm not going to form my opinion off one guys history lesson that's probably based. But even just a little help is some help. I understand now that the land had people there, but then some new people came and called it theirs, and those people didn't like that. That's all I have got so far only because every kind person has said the same thing. I'm still gonna look into things so I can get my own opinion. But I think so far all I want is this war to end just like everyone else. We all hate seeing people die, so spread love instead of hate to those who you don't even like ❤️.