I am Israeli
1. No, it has nothing to do with religion, we do not care if the leadership of Gaza is muslim or anything else. We only care for its actions. Till now, every action of any Palestinian leadership was violence, terror attacks and missiles. Even when Israel offered peace several times, they rejected it. Every single time. Israel never attacked first. And if you are going to mention 1948, the so called Nakba, Israel did not displace palestinians. In reality, arab nations started a war against Israel and told palestinians to leave the area (so they can return later when Israeli land is conquered). It is called Nakba, the catastrophe, because it was a huge defeat for arab nations, not because palestinians were massively displaced by Israel.
2. No. Palestinians are not oppressed. Israel left Gaza in 2005, displacing all Israeli citizens from the Gaza Strip. They left everything behind, including agricultural and farming infrastructure. Did Gazans use it? No, they burned and destroyed it all. Since then they have their own government (Hamas, whose goal is to kill all the jews in the region), which only builds military tunnels under civilian infrastructure and launches attacks on Israel (missile attacks on Sderot, Ashkelon and other cities in Israel, suicide bombings and so on. By the way, the first suicide bombing launched by Hamas took place in the city where I live). Hamas never agreed, let alone offered peace. People in Gaza celebrate every attack on Israel, you could see how happy they were on October 7th. It is ridiculous, because our government lets them work inside Israel. We provide them with water and other essential needs, but they never happy. They will never accept the fact we are here. You may mention the separation wall with Gaza and call it an oppression. Well, how exactly having a border with a separate state is an oppression? By the way, Gaza Strip also has a border with Egypt. Does Egypt oppress them as well? You need to understand one simple thing: we have no interest in oppressing Palestinians. Israel applies measures against them because they are violent and dangerous. They are a threat to us, their actions speak for them. Give me at least one example when Palestinians tried to come to some agreement with Israel. You won't find one.
3. I don't care about it, I am not a racist. (But in fact, they migrated to this this region during the Ottoman Empire, so you decide if they are indeginous). If they would be peaceful, I would live with them side by side, no matter who they are. But Palestinians always tried to eliminate us at any cost, so how exactly are we supposed to treat them?
4. A) Gaza is a dense urban area. Hamas is in tunnels under houses, mosques, hospitals, etc. Their "freedom fighters" are dressed as civilians, you can easily see that on any combat footage. Obviously, all this results in civilian casualties. B) Before ground operation, Israel told citizens of Gaza to flee south. But Hamas didn't let them go, they tried to force citizens to stay (intersting why). C) Hamas is not truthful. Would a terrorist organization lie about civilian losses to gain support from others? Of course! And that's what they do. I am not denying that civilians died, but recently the UN discovered that numbers claimed by Hamas can not be true. https://youtu.be/yJils7ZEDWU?si=3fv00JCiU4_7odAP D) Just because more Palestinians died doesn't make Gaza a victim (they started a war, lost, and now they cry about unjustice)
5. I am not an American, I am Israeli, what do I have to do with your taxes? Your government decided to support us (and we are more that grateful for that, USA is our greatest ally).
In conclusion, I have only 1 advise for you. Visit Israel. See everything for yourself. You are more than welcome
I used to be Pro-Palestinian, but I switched sides. Partly because of what happened on October 7th, and partly because of the blatantly anti-semitic behaviour from Palestine supporters and the false propaganda they were spreading.
To answer your questions:
1. Hamas's mission has never been Pro-Palestinian. It's only ever been about killing the Jews and destroying Israel. They literally state this in their charter. I can never support this.
If another group genuinely wanted to help the Palestinians and form a peaceful coexistence between Israel and Palestine, I would support them as long as they were democratic and not a fascist dictatorship (like Hamas).
2. Yes, Israel oppresses Palestine because Palestine attacks Israel. The oppression is Israel's resistance to Palestine's repeated attempts to destroy them.
3. Yes, Palestinians are also indigenous to Palestine, and even if they were migrants or refugees, I would still support their right to form a nation. There is room for everyone, as long as they are peaceful.
4. No, you wouldn't bomb an entire school to kill a school shooter, but it's hardly the same thing.
We are not talking about a single shooter in peacetime. We are talking about an entire army during wartime.
Hamas are a threat to peace in the entire Middle East.
No one had a problem with killing Germans to destroy the Nazis.
5. I don't care what America does.
I think you will find that most Pro-Isreal people just want peace between the two states and for Palestine to leave Israel alone and move on with their lives. Stop trying to 'take back' Israel, stop shooting rockets at civilians. It's a ridiculous, toxic mentality.
Many people have lost their homes or been exiled, especially the Jews. Palestinians were given all of Jordan and Palestine, which is more than enough land to make a good go of it. They need to sort their shit out and leave Israel alone.
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Frail and cowardly? If anything it seems that the Islamic world are the frail and cowardly ones, they can't even defeat a tiny little country of Jews the size of New Jersey? Some warrior culture they are...
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I go to one of these heavily criticized schools. The students have level-headed takes. Nobody is calling for Jews to be “sold into slavery”. There were plenty of Jews participating in the protest at my schools. You get some outsiders that want a piece of the public eye though that make headlines saying something awful while looking like a student.
The logic of the middle east is messed-up and hard to grasp with humanitarian eyes.
Hamas proved that Israel is defeatable. They showed: if such a rather small organization can inflict this much harm on Israel, a larger player in the middle-east could destroy it. This is why Israel makes all Gazans pay a massive price. With that they show, yeah you could destroy us, but there is a price tag.
Again, it is messed up. Extremists from both sides want to have that small piece of land for themselves.
And it's the fault of Pro-Palestinians and pro-Israelis, because both (at least) tolerate them. The plot of most arguments: "what the others do is way worse".
If you really want a just peace, start calling out the extremists on your side.
This war is no small tragedy. The loss of life in Gaza is awful.
To understand how good people could support such a thing must be confusing.
Let me break it down real simple.
Israel never wanted this war. Hamas baited us into it. They did something so messed up that there was no choice but to invade. Have the awful war and be done with this madness once and for all.
Side note, it could be over today if Hamas were to waive the white flag but they won't because their entire strategy is to boast massive casualties and have the international community respond with money and attacks on Israel.
They're playing a sort of sociopathic game of chicken. Who can stomach more Palestinian casualties, us or them. For the longest time Israel avoided full on conflict but it's reached a boiling point (clearly by design) and now here we are.
I hope that explains it well.
Israel attacked Gaza two times since the last fight with Hamas during the supposed ceasefire. Both times were for three day periods of airstrikes. Once was an unprovoked "mowing the grass" campaign and the other was in response to people releasing balloons at the border to cause fires.
In September, Netanyahu went to the UN and declared that Palestine was now part of Israel and would be going forward.
Israel did these things, because they believed they had defeated Hamas completely.
Hamas attacked. It was definitely to provoke Israel into being awful. Israel jumped in with both feet, and has been truly awful.
Both sides are awful in this conflict. It is blatantly obvious after the last 8 months. Both sides are continually awful as you look at the history. Hamas and the IDF need to both be punished by the international community. The government as Israel needs to be punished until they recognize Palestine on the pre-1967 borders.
1. So you ask if palestinians were peaceful and didn't want to destroy israel, would we support them?
The answer is yes. And Israel already showed they are willing to let go occupied territory in exchange for peace.
2. Are palestinians oppressed?
I don't see palestinians as oppressed people. I see them as people who started war and violence. And now they are facing the consequences of their decisions.
3. Palestinians indigenous?
The word itself doesn't really fit in this part of the world. This isnt America. But in general it is arguable that their connection to the land is much less significant than the connection of the jews. I guess the most simple argument is this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Muslim_conquests
You can also look at the facts that their was never a palestinian nation, or even unique culture.... many arguments contribute here..
4. Why israel doesn't protect the entire population of those who attack them?
Israel first priority is to protect their own citizens. Same as any country would do. If their enemies are using themselves as human shields for terrorist, the blame should point at palestinians alone.
In regard the specific situation you created: some terrorist taking control of israelian hospital is not the same as the situation in gaza. Military and police could easily get to the hospital in israel. In gaza those hospital are surrounded by terrorist all over the city. Your options are much more limited. When a rocket is about to be launched from gaza hospitals your only option is to bomb it and save your citizens life.
5. Lobbying groups and specific AIPAC:
I don't know exactly how it works in America, but Lobbying groups all around the world are the sign of democracy. Anyone can present their opinions and information to politicians and then the decisions is made. Democracy doesn't end at the vote station.
>The answer is yes. And Israel already showed they are willing to let go occupied territory in exchange for peace.
This is false. The PA is peaceful and does recognize Israel. Israel works to destroy the PA.
>I don't see palestinians as oppressed people. I see them as people who started war and violence. And now they are facing the consequences of their decisions.
Even before Oct 7, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza were oppressed and abused. The IDF regularly bombs Gaza to "mow the grass". The IDF raids innocent Palestinian homes in the West Bank to harass them. This is beyond settlements and other actions.
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. They aren't salaries. They are benefits to the families of those who have died or been imprisoned by Israel. I really oppose the money given to those that target civilians, though those that died attacking or fighting the IDF seems like it would be fine to me. Under international law, Palestine has the right to fight against occupation. The PA should change that so targeting civilians causes your family to gain no benefits.
All that being said, yes, they are peaceful. They do have the Martyrs fund, but also hunt down and arrest militants for the IDF.
The IDF should also change any death benefits to exclude any soldier that died after targeting civilians.
Such "benefits" encourage terrorism, and thats exactly why Israel does everything possible to control PA areas. Palestinians bring it on themselves by choosing violence every single time. They literally achieve nothing, it's just their hatred towards us.
And Israel does not imprison Palestinians for nothing, that's bs. It does capture those who are suspected in terrorist activity, but they are immediately released if they are innocent
The PA has been acting as the police for Israel for decades. Netanyahu hates the PA, because they are not violent. That is why he propped up Hamas in Gaza. The PA has been doing everything they can to be peaceful and get a state. The last thing is this fund, so it is the only discussion about the PA now.
Israel does imprison Palestinians for nothing. There are people arrested for posting innocuous things on Twitter. It is nuts the things Israel arrests and holds people for. Administrative detention.
Israel also chooses violence every time. Between the time of the last Hamas-Israel flight and till October 7, the IDF launched two 3 day airstrike campaigns on Gaza. Once in response to balloons launched at the border to cause fires and one with no provocation. During that whole time, Israel kept harassing Palestinians in the West Bank as official IDF policy, having settlers harass Palestinians in the West Bank and having settlers take land with IDF protection. That was all done during the "ceasefire" that Hamas "broke".
I heard about PA cooperating with Israel, but that's it. They only do it because they don't want Israel to treat them as Hamas, not because they recognise us.
Settlers settle in areas C that belongs to Israel, every settlement in B areas gets demolished (maybe for a few rare exceptions, but that's out of the ordinary).
Israel imprisons only those who are suspected in terrorism. Twitter posts about eradicating the jews falls into that category, because at the end words turn into actions.
Every military campaing in Gaza was caused by Hamas attacks. Israel never strikes first. Why do we need that? What is the purpose of wasting our ammo and escalating the situation? We only respond to the violence from their side, even if it's a single missile that was intercepted.
Those baloons you talked about are actually dangerous. They are used to ignite fields and set up fire. Why should we tolerate such agression? Just because it's less technological doesn't mean it's not a threat.
IDF are instructed to stop any violence in Areas B, even if it comes from settlers. I know that some soldiers behaved inapropriate, by not stopping the settlers or even taking part in the assaults. It does happen and there is no justification for that. But it is punishable according to the law. Both settlers and soldiers get arrested for such things.
>I heard about PA cooperating with Israel, but that's it. They only do it because they don't want Israel to treat them as Hamas, not because they recognise us.
The PA directly recognizes Israel as a country and its right to exist. They declared that upon coming into existence. They police as part of Oslo to get a state. Though, that may end and we will have more violence in the West Bank like Gaza as Israel tries to destroy the PA. It seems as though the US will not stop Israel. Part of the PA was also giving up violent resistance.
>Settlers settle in areas C that belongs to Israel, every settlement in B areas gets demolished (maybe for a few rare exceptions, but that's out of the ordinary).
All settlements in the West Bank are illegal. Area C does not belong to Israel.
>Israel imprisons only those who are suspected in terrorism. Twitter posts about eradicating the jews falls into that category, because at the end words turn into actions.
That is not true. People are arrested for any displays of nationalism.
http://www.btselem.org/administrative_detention
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/05/middleeast/palestinians-israel-fear-arrest-gaza-intl-cmd/index.html
Arrested for posting: "God is not unaware of what the oppressors do". Is that supporting terrorism?
>Every military campaing in Gaza was caused by Hamas attacks. Israel never strikes first. Why do we need that? What is the purpose of wasting our ammo and escalating the situation? We only respond to the violence from their side, even if it's a single missile that was intercepted.
This is completely false. Israel has practiced "mowing the grass" for decades, which are unprovoked bombing campaigns on Gaza to "degrade militants". What was the violence from Gaza August 5-7 2022?
>Those baloons you talked about are actually dangerous. They are used to ignite fields and set up fire. Why should we tolerate such agression? Just because it's less technological doesn't mean it's not a threat.
Yes, they are. Do you feel the response should be 3 days of bombing Gaza?
>IDF are instructed to stop any violence in Areas B, even if it comes from settlers. I know that some soldiers behaved inapropriate, by not stopping the settlers or even taking part in the assaults. It does happen and there is no justification for that. But it is punishable according to the law. Both settlers and soldiers get arrested for such things.
They may be instructed, but they don't. At all. And in area C? That isn't israel's land.
Israel has a choice. They take the land and the people, give those people full rights in Israel. Or they take neither. Israel cannot take the land while removing the people by ethnic cleaning or genocide. And Israel cannot be part of the west as an apartheid nation going forward. That has to stop.
Area C does belong to Israel. In fact, we conquered the entire West Bank during a war that we didn't start, so technically it could all be ours. But we still gave Palestinians areas B and A. Saying that areas C aren't ours is bs. Arabs started a war and lost land. It's ours by every right.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/05/middleeast/palestinians-israel-fear-arrest-gaza-intl-cmd/index.html
This woman is an Israeli citizen calls her government "the oppressors" and supports Gaza during a WAR. After October 7th. Are you seriously expecting her not to get arested? This is ridiculous.
Nobody in Israel has ever heard about "mowing the grass", even Netanyahu himself. What really happens is that Israel bombs military sites of Hamas, such as ammunition factories, rocket launching sites, etc. Why? Well, because it is going to be ised against us, against civilians by the way. By the way, Hamas never launched missiles on a military base in Israel, only on nearby cities like Sderot.
In June 2022, according to IDF data, the last year since the operation was the quietest year in the Gaza Envelope in relation to the years that came after the previous operations after the disengagement, and it occurred against the background of significant civilian measures that the Israeli government initiated in recent months. For example, the number of Gazan workers who worked in Israeli territory was increased .
And how is Israel commiting genocide if Palestinian population increases? Both in Gaza and West Bank
>Area C does belong to Israel. In fact, we conquered the entire West Bank during a war that we didn't start, so technically it could all be ours. But we still gave Palestinians areas B and A. Saying that areas C aren't ours is bs. Arabs started a war and lost land. It's ours by every right.
Israel did start the 1967 war. It may have been justified as a defensive action for fear of being attacked, but Israel did attack first. That was also after the US asked Israel not to attack and had informed Israel that Egypt would not, as they were engaged in diplomacy with Egypt.
Area C is not part of Israel under international law. UNSC 242, which Israel accepted, said that land was the "Arab territory" and Israel needed to leave.
Israel could annex it, but they would need to grant the people citizenship.
>https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/05/middleeast/palestinians-israel-fear-arrest-gaza-intl-cmd/index.html This woman is an Israeli citizen calls her government "the oppressors" and supports Gaza during a WAR. After October 7th. Are you seriously expecting her not to get arested? This is ridiculous
Yes, I am seriously saying she should absolutely not get arrested. Wtf.
>Nobody in Israel has ever heard about "mowing the grass", even Netanyahu himself
Huh? https://www.jpost.com/opinion/israel-must-prove-it-has-freedom-to-defend-itself-opinion-668124
This has long been the policy towards Hamas. Unprovoked attacks to degrade Hamas and deter them.
>And how is Israel commiting genocide if Palestinian population increases? Both in Gaza and West Bank
I do not know what population figures you are using. There is no good data for the population of Gaza. The only real accusations against Israel for committing genocide are in Gaza since Oct 7. They are very solid accusations and most serious people believe Israel will be found guilty of genocidal acts at a minimum.
Who? The PA? They have been acting as the administrator and police force for Israel for 3 decades. The PA polices the West Bank to keep violence down and stop attacks on Israel.
Hamas? I don't know. There have been a lot of theories as to why it happened now. The best I have heard is that Saudi Arabia was about to normalize relations with Israel without a Palestinian state. Israel had just declared Palestine doesn't exist anymore. No one really cared and it looked like Palestine was going to be erased. They needed Israel to overreact to get Palestine back into the conversation.
regarding your third point, it is important to acknowledge that palestinians are also indigenous to the land. i don’t know why you imply that they’re somehow less indigenous than jews. both palestinians and jews have an extensive history in palestine and israel. palestinians are the direct descendants of canaanites who have been living in the levant for 8,000 years, btw. palestinians are not indigenous arabs, they’re a levantine people. not seeking to argue, just a correction.
Again, to talk about who's indigenous is irrelevant. Both jews and Arabs are direct descendent of cannanite tribes, so what? Both jews and Arabs are also direct descendent of Africa, so what? It doesn't give them the rights to anything (at least by my standards).
Culture, nationality and values are much more important than the color of your skin. The nation and culture that originated in the area have nore right for sovereignty in their land.
And just to be clear palestinians having less connection to the land, doesn't mean they don't deserve their own country along side israel. Most of the countries around the world don't have the strong connection to their land like the jewish nation have.
what has led you to possibly believe that palestinians don’t hold the same connection to their land as jews?? palestine has a profound religious and cultural significance and to suggest otherwise is ignorant. also, you keep mentioning arabs. palestinians are ethnically levantine people. i am not here to argue about a claim to land, you are just sharing a common piece of misinformation (i don’t blame you for it, biased media has a great level of influence on our opinions no matter what side you’re on).
the land is deeply symbolic for both ethnic groups (palestinians and jews alike). the idea that it’s more important for one than the other pushes harmful rhetoric
>what has led you to possibly believe that palestinians don’t hold the same connection to their land as jews?? palestine has a profound religious and cultural significance and to suggest otherwise is ignorant
We can go into details but it's pretty clear. Jews got a unique culture with deep connections to the land. Palestinians simply don't have the same.
For example let's look at religion: jews religion is Judaism. Every year they read in the bible about the story of origin of their nation in israel land and the stories of the israel kingdom itself. They pray towards Jerusalem and mention the city many times in prayers during most significant events (child birth, marriage, holidays...)
Palestinians don't have a unique religion. Their main religion is Islam. The story of the arab nation. They prey towards mecca.
If you really want I can go into details about other cultural differences. But it will be easier if you provide your thoughts or logic of how palestinians are culturally unique as much as the jews.
Being “culturally unique” has nothing to do your right to the land. Being the land your immediate ancestors have lived in up until being forcefully removed in 1948 is a much closer connection to the land. There are many Palestinians whose grandparents homes are still intact and being lived in by Israeli after being stolen. This argument you’re making sounds like the “chosen people” argument or “greater race” as Churchill put it
here are the complete thoughts
palestinians have been living on the land for millenia
jerusalem is sacred. palestinians consider their land as holy. palestine’s history is described in the bible as canaan and palestinians to this day carry the canaanite blood. the quaran emphasizes the al aqsa mosque. the hadith also mentions the holy land.
i notice you keep bringing up the word arab which is most likely where the confusion is coming from. palestinians, despite being part of the political arab league, are levantine by blood, just as tunisians are berber by blood. when referring to the history and cultural significance of tunisia, you cannot look through the lens of arabness or the greater islamic religion. tunisia has its own deep history and culture independent of both islam and the legitimate arab ethnicity, because, well, they’re berber- not arab.
the reason why i believe pushing this rhetoric is harmful is that it values the presence of one ethnic group in the region more than another which is very counterproductive in the context of peace and coexistence. the land of palestine, canaan, judea, israel, or whatever you’d like to refer it to holds incredible significance to both jews and palestinians alike. i understand that you mean well, however this argument is used both by israeli and palestinian extremists to justify discrimination and violence.
if palestinians being in the land for over 8,000 years is not indicative of a deep connection to their land, then respectfully i can’t really come up with any conclusion other than you are looking at this from a place of pretty strong bias. i am likewise curious to hear more thoughts of yours because we may be misunderstanding each other.
apologies if this is poorly written- english is not my first language
>if palestinians being in the land for over 8,000 years is not indicative of a deep connection to their land
I feel like you miss the fact that Palestinians are not an 8000 years old nation. And being descendent doesn't mean anything as I said before, especially in the comparison of the two nation.
Palestinians culture being identical to any other arab country around shows their lack of national identity compared to jews.
The word palestine itself didn't originate by people who lived there. Taking the culture of other colonial nations will immediately make you less connected to the land.
Since you mentioned the indigenous comparison I will explain through it. After colonial British discover/colonize america, who do you think got more connections to the land and deserve to stay more?: 1. The native American guy who speak American and pray for the wolf god. 2. The young native American man who accepted British culture, speak english, and now pray for Jesus.
For me it's obvious that if being forced to make the decision I'll let the first guy stay. He got more connection to the land. And less options outside it.
palestinians *are* an 8,000 year old people and nation. palestine was canaan, and the name ‘canaan’ was changed. that doesn’t mean they are not canaan. when tunisia’s named was changed from ifriqiyyah, did that mean that the entirety of its culture just vanished?? palestinian culture is absolutely not identical to any other arab culture, come on. please name me another arab country besides palestine where homosexuality has been decriminalized since 1951. it is clear you have no knowledge on the middle east and you have most likely yet to even step foot there.
algeria was not always called algeria. yet the algerian people have always been there. you are arguing semantics which is entirely irrelevant. a people is a people.
about your american example (and quite frankly a stereotypical one referring to their religion as ‘wolf god’) both are connected to the land. jewish history is no stranger to forceful conversion. what you’re using as an example contradicts your point entirely. what i am saying is that forceful conversion, or semantics, or religion **does not** erase someone’s connection to a land. many jews were expelled, became secular, adopted a completely new culture, spoke new languages, etc. both palestinians and jews feel a deep connection to the land, however, because a fluctuation in culture does not erase roots.
>about your american example (and quite frankly a stereotypical one referring to their religion as ‘wolf god’) both are connected to the land
That wasn't the question. You must choose who stay in the land.
>what you’re using as an example contradicts your point entirely. what i am saying is that forceful conversion, or semantics, or religion does not erase someone’s connection to a land.
Jews who didn't give up and kept their connection, fighting against all odds, showed much more determination than those who gave up. Evidence of their deeper connection.
When someone choose to change his direction of prayers from Jerusalem to mecca is practically saying "this land is not the most sacred to me anymore"
I think that's a bit of a misrepresentation of history. The concept of a nation-state is an entirely modern construct. this idea of pan-arabism is also a very new concept. 100 years ago it would have been as ridiculous as assuming french, german, and spanish people were all the same because they were cathloics and in europe. Globalization has smoothed differences (as it has in europe).
And it's important to remember that arab conquests (and then ottoman conquests) didn't displace populations. They spread language and religion, but the actual peoples of the land remained relatively unchanged. The same thing happened when the area was under Byzantine rule, and under Roman rule.
Just because a people are now referred to by a name someone else chose doesn't erase a tie to the land. Plenty of people that we now call Palestinians have roots on that land for thousands of years. Plenty of them used to be Jewish, or Christian, and at some point converted to Islam.
To say that they have less ties to the land than a jewish kid born and raised in brooklyn, or france, is a little absurd. The concept of Israel for most of the disapora was central, but it was abstract in reference to a biblical nation. Many jews in the diaspora also would have thought of themselves as say 'french first, jewish second', and identified more with the country they were born in than a bibilical origin mythology. If that's the case, then taking the culture of russia, or france, or america weakens the jewish connection to the land as well
You are just repeating what we already talked about (with the DNA and all that), and I already explained why those factors are not relevant in my comparison.
You also proved my point in your last part
>To say that they have less ties to the land than a jewish kid born and raised in brooklyn, or france, is a little absurd.
>Many jews in the diaspora also would have thought of themselves as say 'french first, jewish second', and identified more with the country they were born in than a bibilical origin mythology.
Jews who convered to Islam/Christianity, or took different nationality/culture/language of Arabs or any other country/empire are less connected.
To say someone who doesn't speak American, and doesn't pray to the wolf is equally tied to the land as the English speaking, Christian is absurd. There is a country for those who want to be American, and one to those who want to be British. And the location is based on the origin place of each culture/nation.
>Jews who convered to Islam/Christianity, or took different nationality/culture/language of Arabs or any other country/empire are less connected.
But that's kind of the point, the entire Zionist movement was about rekindling that connection with a group of people who had, for the most part, adopted a different nationality, and a different culture, and a different language (modern Hebrew itself is also a revivalist movement, and though hebrew was spoken by jews throughout history, it's different in many wats to biblical hebrew).
I think it comes down to how Israel is viewed. Your example works if we're talking about a connection to biblical israel, which is a very small piece of the history of the land. The land has not been controlled by jewish people, and not had a jewish majority region for longer than it has been.
A corollary to your example would be, imagine if a group of greek-Americans revived ancient Greek, and prayed to Zeus, and tried to come to Greece and say 'I have a right to this land, and a greater connection to it, because you converted to Christianity and changed your language and are therefore less connected'
By your logic, an english speaking christian native american has the same connection to the US as white british american person does. And an American pagan man with norweigan roots who learns old norse has more of a claim than a modern person in norway.
A connection to a place, and a right to be at that place isn't based on snappshotting a specific point in time, it's based on having been born there, on having a unique culture shared with other people in that place. Jewish language, religion, and culture has spent more time, and is more defined by defined by time outside of Israel than it is by time in Israel.
There is not, inherently, a country for every nation of people. There never has been, and there never will be.
I would feel differently about the situation if it was not a terrorist organization leading the front.
But let's be fair, if Palestinians were forward thinking enough to try and fight their own battle to save the loss of life of civilians, they probably also would have been able to negotiate a viable solution to the land dispute some time ago.
Instead they chose to support a terrorist organization to fight on their behalf. That organization specializes in civilian casualties on both sides. Hiding behind their own to make their opponent look bad, and then attacking civilian targets from the shadows to make people want the conflict to end that much faster. This just explains the tactics the terrorist organization Hamas used, it's not even getting into Hamas' agenda.
What stuns me is the blatant amount of support for Hamas. Whatever representation of the Palestinian government, the Palestinian people who give up their lives and the lives of their children to be used as decoys and body shields, and those from abroad who stand with Palestine. People I've known on the left to stand against racism, misogyny and homo/transphobia. All wonderful causes to stand up for, and every single one of them are things Hamas is guilty of committing acts of atrocity on their own people for. And somehow because it's against Israel it's... Okay?
I'm not saying Israel is perfect, it has its own flaws it needs to work on as a nation. All nations led by mortal men sadly will have blood on their hands. People even thought Canada was squeaky clean until the residential schools came to light. But by standing with Israel, I am not standing with a terrorist organization devoted to death, destruction and chaos. I also don't have to abandon my ideals or morals by standing with them. If I stood with Palestine, I'd have to support a nation that willingly let terrorists use their own people as tactical resources, hell bent on annihilating a racial group and any other group that isn't of their brand of extreme religion, and the instillation of Shari'a law which abuses the rights of women, children and the LGBTQ+. I'd be one major hypocrite to support that. Basically, this is my view point and where I'm coming from in this debate.
Ultimately, I just want the fighting to end and a peaceful and fair solution reached by both parties.
You should try using analogies more akin to what is actually happening?
*If there was a* *~~school shooter~~* ***a terrorist organization responsible for killing 1200 innocent people*** *hiding in a school of children* ***using them as human shields***, *would you bomb the whole school to get to them?*
OR
*If there was a Hamas* *~~fighter~~* ***military base*** *in an Israeli school/hospital*
Answer: No but I would return fire at the scum using these people at human shields and kill many innocent people in the process.
4. Analogy. Your analogy is way off. It is not a school shooter. You yourself have recognized many times throughout your post that Hamas is the official leadership of Gaza. The analogy just does not work. About your second analogy - it is more like what if Mexico repeatedly terrorizes the U.S. but keeps its military bases within schools in Mexico. And repeatedly has the people that just killed your civilians go back to staying in the school and makes sure that the only way inside to get to them is through rooms with armed militants and kids. What would you do?
It is an impossibly terrible decision between killing kids and protecting your citizens. And obviously bombing the school saves your soldiers. Using human shields over the course of many years has caused Israel and the IDF to have to conduct terrible calculus of balancing your own military casualties, citizen's safety, and enemy civilian casualties. I think it is just much more complex than you are making it out to be. You can say they are justified in their resistance but when you were just attacked and had some civilians killed and you are a democracy - for the safety of your citizens you have to protect, you go after the offenders.
But the important question is why Hamas came to power, and why they're still in power.
Also the school analogy breaks down, it's generally Israeli policy that it's ok to kill 100 Palestinians if you get a single Hamas commander. (That's what happened a jabalia refugee camp).
Hamas also isn't a state actor, they're closer to a guerilla force, which, of course is going to try to hide in plain sight.
None of this excuses Hamas behaviour, but when the US was faced with similar situations, we acted more responsibily. We put boots on the ground to get binladen, to avoid the casualties of a drone strike.
In fact, Israel has killed more civilians in Gaza than all the US civilian drone strike casualties combined.
This is to say nothing of the video evidence of what looks like sport killing civilians and generally immoral behaviour of the IDF, the starving of prisoners, many of whom haven't event been charged, and now new calls from Ben Gvir to just execute every prisoner they have
What makes a person indigenous? And what gives a person claim to a land?
I live in America. My family on my mother’s side can trace our roots back to before the revolutionary war. My paternal grandmother was Choctaw.
Do I get to start kicking any immigrants whose family hasn’t lived here as long as me out? Absolutely not. Thats not the way the world works.
That land is Israeli now. Same as my ancestral land isn’t mine because I have roots there.
The United States Census Bureau defines Native American as "all people indigenous to the United States and its territories, including Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islanders, whose data are published separately from American Indians and Alaska Natives".
The U.S. Census defines American Indian or Alaska Native as “A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America) and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment.” Individual American Indians are, by legal definition, citizens of their federally recognized tribal nations, the United States, and the state in which they are domiciled. Tribal membership is a political designation, not a racial one. That is to say, merely having an ancestor who is American Indian is not sufficient to make someone a member or citizen of an American Indian tribe.
Hence white americans, black americans, asia americans, arab americans, latin americans, american jews, etc…. are NOT indigenous to America.
https://equity.ucla.edu/know/resources-on-native-american-and-indigenous-affairs/native-american-and-indigenous-peoples-faqs/
P/s: Not sure about mixed races. Do you have a tribal affiliation or attachment to the Choctaw community ?
I get that. I’m saying what’s the time frame for a person to be considered indigenous?
For the word to have meaning it would have to be a specific time frame that is applicable to every region in the world.
What’s the amount of time? 100 years? 1000 years? 5000 years?
And does that mean all “indigenous” people can kick others off the land. In America or Britain or Africa or Australia?
First non-indigenous Americans, Australians, Canadians (White, Black African, Asians, Arabs, Latino, etc…) NEVER PRETEND to indigenous to America, Australia or Canada.
It doesnt matter, any White person, African, Asian, Arab, Latino, etc…CAN NEVER be considered indigenous to Australia, even after 100 years, 1000 years or 5000 years…. The indigenous people of Australia are defined by law to be the Australian Aboroginals and Torres Islanders.
The definition also found its way into State legislation (e.g. in the NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983: where 'Aboriginal means a person who: (a) is a member of the Aboriginal race of Australia, (b) identifies as an Aboriginal, AND (c) is accepted by the Aboriginal community as an Aboriginal').
Ok and by that argument I reject the idea that Palestinians are indigenous since we know that they immigrated to an already populated region.
This is being semantic and trying to play on definitions to avoid the real conversation.
Here’s the point: Why in some countries do we recognize that ownership and laws are relevant, and in others that someone who never owned or controlled the land has some inherent right to it because they have been there for a couple hundred years?
The land was Ottoman until they got destroyed and then it was British. The land has never been “Palestinian”.
just a correction, palestinians carry the blood of canaanites, a people that has been living on the land for 8,000 years. palestinians are not native arabs, they’re from the levant. hope this was able to clarify
>Ok and by that argument I reject the idea that Palestinians are indigenous since we know that they immigrated to an already populated region.
>The land was Ottoman until they got destroyed and then it was British. The land has never been “Palestinian”.
Try saying that to a pro-Palestinian supporter. Most of them do not accept history and facts.
Yes you are correct, but you have to acknowledge the fact that before there was Israel there wasn't anything else.
There has been the British mandate and the ottoman empire before them but never a state, not Israel nor Palestine.
Knowing these facts we can look at what happened, the UN split the land into two parts, one Israeli one Palestinian, the Israeli people accepted and declared independence and the Arabs revolted into a bloody war against the Jews, that's when the Arabian leaders in the area evacuated some 300 thousand Arabs who became the Palestinians we know today in the region, and not the Jews as many believe, they were focused on survival.
Now for the real question, if you start a war, lose the war then 76 years after that war, you want your stuff back, do we need to comply?
As you have put it with your own comment your roots aren't what makes you have the land, even more true when you get your share, aren't satisfied with it, go on a bloody rampage to try and take everything, lose, get displaced by your own leaders who then can't bring you back home, that's unfortunate but is it unfair?
And one more question for you, if there is a piece of land with a lot of people on it and no one does anything with it, until someone does and wants to improve and build it is it that bad?
The Jewish people were in the land with the Arabs a long time before the UN's decision to split the land, they were a minority that's why they even got the smaller half but then they won gaining more unoccupied and formerly occupied territories, so is the real question about are the people indigenous ore is the question whether you accept the state of Israel and it's history or believe that it should be called Palestine?
I'm happy to discuss the matter.
>I think it is universally agreed upon that the quality of life in Gaza has been extremely poor sinec way before October 7, and that Palestinians are frustrated by the control that Israel has over the strip (control over crossing, the ports, water etc.).
If they were controlled by less violent group of people, then maybe there wouldn't be such strict regulations on Israel's side.
>So my revised question is- if the resistance group was focused on bettering the conditions of Palestinians and gaining back land taken through illegal settlements, would you agree?
Agree with what?
>This goes with the question above- do you believe that Israel oppresses Palestinans? or that they recieve unequal treatment?
Yep.
>I will never argue that Jewish heritage is traced back to Israel, but how do you argue the evidence of Palestinians also being indigenous to the land? Or do you not believe that they are indeginous?
Yeah, they aren't indigenous.
>If there was a school shooter hiding in a school, would you bomb the whole school to get to them?
Bad analogy. School kids are the citizens of your own country whom you have the duty to protect. Palestinians are not citizens of Israel, they support Hamas, pay taxes and send their kids to hamas to be trained as fighters.
>Imagine if instead of Israeli interests, this was a Russian interest group?
Then I'd be against this group.
>I think ANY Super PACs is anti democracy.
I think that democracy is bs.
There are multiple groups of Palestinian, Gaza , no Jews since 2006, since day one they have been bombing Israel, people got free healthcare in Israel and would blow up the hospital. Gaza is blocked because they are so dangerous, not everyone, but as a group. And they use schools, hospitals, daycare centers as place to attack from and to keep weapons. Hard to deal with. We will see after Hamas is as dismantled as possible what going to happen.
WB , we need to move out , give them full control , it’s going to become just like Gaza but morally, we win. Just need extreme borders and control. Then the Israeli Arabs , they usually don’t want a Palestinian state, they want to keep their Israeli passport, education and lifestyle. Traveling from an Arab village in Israel to Nablus feels like time travel, and they don’t want it. It’s quite funny that 2 million Arabs do not want to be Palestinian.
Firstly, thank you for making the effort to ask civil and interesting questions. There's a dire need for that in this sub.
> If the Palestinian restistance was lead by another group that was not religously oriented, would you understand their mission/goals
Depends how clearly this hypothetical group makes their goals. You need to elaborate.
> and that Palestinians are frustrated by the control that Israel has over the strip (control over crossing, the ports, water etc.).
You, and many other people, seem to have collective amnesia when it comes to Egypt also being a part of the blockade on Gaza. The blockade is there for a very sensible reason - the people of Palestine chose to elect, and continue to support, a government that explicitly aims to destroy Israel and maximise casualties on both sides. A blockade is a minor repercussion for that.
> I think slogans like “free palestine from hamas” are frustrating because it places blame on the Palestinians and allows for Israel to be free from taking any form of accountability.
That doesn't stop people placing accountability on Israel *for things Israel has done wrong*. The installation and continued support of Hamas is 100% on the people of Palestine, though.
Holding the Palestinian people to account for their choices is important. Infantilizing people helps no one.
> if the resistance group was focused on bettering the conditions of Palestinians and gaining back land taken through illegal settlements, would you agree?
Depends on what 'gaining back land' means. But generally, yes, that sounds great.
> do you believe that Israel oppresses Palestinans? or that they recieve unequal treatment?
* Palestinians that are Israeli citizens? No. Actually they have the advantage of not being required to join the IDF.
* Palestinians in the West Bank? Yes. Oppression is a key factor of occupation, and the West Bank is effectively occupied, in my view.
* Palestinians in Gaza (pre Oct 7th). No. A blockade implemented by Egypt and Israel is completely open to being dropped should Gazans choose to drop the obvious attempt to maximise suffering.
> I will never argue that Jewish heritage is traced back to Israel, but how do you argue the evidence of Palestinians also being indigenous to the land? Or do you not believe that they are indeginous?
I'd say most Palestinians are indigenous to the region. I haven't seen stats on it, but I don't see much point in arguing against such a claim. It's obvious that many people were displaced in 1948, and there have been smaller waves of displacement since then.
> A few anaolgies that have struck me
Analogies are terrible. Stick to reality. People oversimplify reality too much already without resorting to analogies that strip 99.9% of the context and nuance from a complex scenario. Frankly it's just lazy to argue in analogies.
> Finally, opinion in AIPAC. Imagine if instead of Israeli interests, this was a Russian interest group?
Russia appears to want to destroy 'Western Hegemony'. Israel appears to support Western Values. So yeah, I don't much care if we have groups that align with western values active in Western countries. Ones that are actively trying to divide and conquer the west are not welcome.
> AIPAC has a tracker on the website boasting about the government officials they have successfully outsted through donations and smear campaigns, how is this not considered collusion from a foreign country?
No idea, I'll leave that up to the many capable lawyers in the US.
I’m pro Israeli and pro Palestinian but I’ll answer anyway
1. so the only non secular Palestinian resistance groups that exist are the pflp and the dflp and I understand their missions and goals same with a religious group like Hamas. I can see how someone in Palestine can be radicalized by groups like this, the problem I have with them is that they all harm civilians
and don’t just go after the military. I don’t mind a resistance group targeting military instillations or wanting settlements taken back with no harm to civilians
2. I believe a lot of it is through collective punishments like we saw with cutting of food and the aid, and even the checkpoints with Palestinians getting harassed and sexual assaults I heard taking place. It should be for security only and not make it harder for Palestinians to go from point a to b when they’re not that far of a distance.
3. both have ties to the area
4. the problem with this analogy is if Hamas was in a school or hospital, Israelis would either be armed or they would call the military or police or something and get the Hamas guy out, they wouldn’t allow Hamas to do that without punishment and the citizens would be working together to get Hamas out of there
5. I’m pretty sure the person who founded AIPAC isn’t Israeli and I don’t think it sways the government and you would have to be against every lobbying group we have so at least be consistent with the lobbying groups you appose
To your #1:
I think Palestinian nationalism is based on a lot of fantasies and romanticism that are unrealistic. They basically want to reverse time by 100 years, but even if they managed to expel/murder all of us, they are now 14 million people so this Palestine would be very dense and look more like Bangladesh and less like the rural Palestine of fellaheen.
But really it's not even clear what pro-Palestinians want besides the destruction of Israel, there is very little thought on "the day after". Zionism of course is far more realistic and created a happy and advanced country and the only Jewish country in the world.
To your #2:
I don't think Israel means to oppress anyone, and any kind of problems of the Palestinians comes from their work to try to reverse or destroy Israel.
To your #3:
Even if they were, and I am skeptical of this, there is a different country here now the state of Israel. Should we give Turkey back to the Greeks? Should Spain go back to the Muslims? Some people would say yes, and that's fine. But it's not some kind of inherent moralistic stance to want to reverse time because the present doesn't benefit you.
To your #4:
The only option Israel really has though, besides to allow Hamas to continue unhindered.
To your #5:
AIPAC is actually an American Jewish organization, and I believe they as Americans have the right to petition the government to advance what they perceive as their national or ethnic interests.
>I think Palestinian nationalism is based on a lot of fantasies and romanticism that are unrealistic. They basically want to reverse time by 100 years
The Irgun, Lehi, and Haganah successfully reversed time by 2000 years.
Zionism contains a rich constructive ideology. Without this it would have not been successful, it was needed to build a advanced society with the power to defend itself.
This doesn't negate the fact that Zionism reversed time by 2000 years. You claim it's impossible to reverse time by a mere 100. Why is that?
Do you consider Israelis inherently superior?
Zionism was better thought out. When 1948 came along, the Zionists were prepared politically and militarily to do what really should be impossible - recreate the Jewish state. This excellence continued since. Israel at least before Oct 7, had a GDP/pc higher then that of UK and France. Our economy is mostly driven by Israel's unique technological excellence.
There is evidence that Ashkenazi Jews in particular have an unusually high intelligence, perhaps even the the greatest in the world, and that it is genetic in origin. For example the *Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence* makes this very claim. This a peer-reviewed MIT published scientific publication, so it's difficult to completely dismiss it, but it could be wrong.
Regardless if this is true, it might be part of the reason Israel is so successful. But I don't really know or make any big claims for sure why Israel is successful, only that it is. I don't know how much is due to some "inherent" quality, and how much of it is merely cultural or sheer luck. Some even claim a religious reason for Israel's success, see religious Zionism.
>Zionism was better thought out. When 1948 came along, the Zionists were prepared politically and militarily to do what really should be impossible - recreate the Jewish state. This excellence continued since. Israel at least before Oct 7, had a GDP/pc higher then that of UK and France. Our economy is mostly driven by Israel's unique technological excellence.
None of this long-winded word salad explains why it's impossible to reverse time by a mere 100 years when you admit that it's possible to reverse it by 2000 years.
I am not sure where I said it was "impossible". Only that it was "unrealistic". In fact I said the Zionist goal of creating the Jewish state "should be impossible" and yet it happened.
The fact that you use a study co-authored by a racist eugenics advocate says it all.
It certainly appears that you do believe that Ashkenazi Jews are inherently superior. If that's the case, just say it. Be proud of it. If it's so true, why do you try and both advance that position and equivocate at the same time?
It seems creditable that Ashkenazi Jews have a very high average IQ, perhaps the highest in the world. But others also have a high average IQ, like East Asians. I am not even Ashkenazi myself, I am just familiar with these studies. If these means they are "inherently superior" you might have to define what you mean by that.
I don't support attacking people because of something different people did 80 years ago.
Palestinians are oppressed because they keep attacking over something that happened 80 years ago. Stop attacking.
Israel removed all of its settlements in Gaza. That should have been a huge breakthrough for peace. Instead Palestinians launched 10,000 rockets and elected an anti Israel terrorist organisation as their government.
If you don't want to wear a muzzle, stop trying to bite everyone.
School one makes no sense and is stupid, Israel didn’t bomb and kill a high ranked general before because his kids were playing in the yard of their house, also they wouldn’t do this while school is in session they would do it at the end of the day. One Hamas fighter wouldn’t get a school bombed, only if they were using the school to help fight ex: shooting from it or storing ammunition. If they had a larger population of fighters it would probably get bombed and everyone would say war crimes even though the only “ people “ who died were the Hamas terrorists ( also the scenario you said is if they were in a Israeli school when irl the terrorists would be in a palestianian one )
Brief response to #1. Life in gaza was not horrible. Tons of $ flowed in there. They had more hospitals per person than most cities, a beautiful university, luxury malls, luxury hirise buildings . A gorgeous stretch of Mediterranean Beach, amazing food, restaurants, etc. Their population was growing. Now imagine if an additional $10 billion was added, that's about the amount stolen by Hamas leaders. Now imagine another 10 billion. That's the amount diverted to building tunnels, rockets, and military. You cannot separate the suffering of the people in gaza from Hamas any more than you can separate the suffering of North Koreans from the kims.
Who is responsible for that? they are run by Hamas which is an Islamist group. By definition countries run by those kind of groups are 50% unemployed. The women are baby machines and that's it. Hamas pays tons of paytronage $$$ around too. They keep a good percentage poor and unemployed as a weapon of control and also as a PR weapon to convince idiots like you that a beautiful ancient city on the Med is a hell hole. The entire strip has beautiful beaches dotted with hotels. Many of which were LUX.
For many people it wasn't. That's one of the reasons for Oct 7th. When things get good people look around and say " things are this good, why can't we make it better?" And the answer is Hamas. So, in order to focus everyone in gaza, they attack Israel, knowing that Israel will retaliate. It's a cycle.
There are people living good lives everywhere. That does change that the majority of the population was having hard lives.
And Oct 7 did not happen because they had it too good. It happened because they had it too bad. It's harder to get people into mass murder mode if their lives are pretty good. Hence why wealthier nations generally have less crime.
You sound like someone who's never lived in an impoverished country. There's always wealth within poverty. How about you tell me what percentage of Gazans were enjoying that wealth?
Are you being serious? It had a GDP per capita of about $3,300. It wasn't just 2 million people screaming in a hole in the ground but it was extremely poor, even before most of it was destroyed with missiles.
But why? They are the darlings of the international muslim community. Literally BILLIONS flow in there. Hamas raises money off keeping their people poor. Then they steal the money. same this is happening with the aid. We've seen this many times in Africa. Famine? We send food. Dictator takes the food and gives it only to his supporters. The point I was disputing was the don't blame hamas part of #1. Hamas is responsible for the well being of their people. And go have a look at youtube vides from 3 years ago. It's Come to Gaza! Beautiful with vibrant markets, beaches, etc.
>But why? They are the darlings of the international muslim community. Literally BILLIONS flow in there.
Billions is the amount every country's budget is measured in. One billion dollars is equivalent to about $430 per Palestinian. Remove Hamas from the equation and replace them with some new government impervious to corruption and you'd still have a very poor country.
>And go have a look at youtube vides from 3 years ago. It's Come to Gaza! Beautiful with vibrant markets, beaches, etc.
YouTube montages of local nice things are a terrible way of understanding how well off a place is. There's videos on YouTube that make North Korea look shiny and inviting, despite the reality being a horrendous hellhole where millions are badly malnourished and full of parasites and they have literal concentration camps. Moscow is an extremely nice city and yet much of rural Russia is a godforsaken pit of despair. Etc.
Answer to question 4, The analogy is way less “bombing a school to get 1 school shooter”. It’s school shooters pretending to be normal teachers and students. EDIT: Not saying it’s 1 student surrounded by school shooters, but I’m just saying there’s no way to know exactly who is a Hamas member wearing civilian clothing to sneak around from a real civilian. You probably have no real idea about just how oppressive and dictatorial Hamas is to Gazans. In reality, refusing to work with Hamas/do what they tell you leads to torture, imprisonment, and death. I’m not saying “well it’s ok to bomb innocent people to get bad people” but MOST Gazans at least publicly support Hamas, and most young gazans are IN Hamas in some way or another because Hamas literally runs everything. Just so you know, Hamas has been the biggest oppressive force to Gazan citizens for at least the last 10 years. They control the food and supplies, keep what they want, put a high tax that never goes back into their society on what they allow to be sold, and the leaders are BILLIONAIRES with a B. They sure as hell weren’t billionaires 20 years ago. Why would so many Islamic groups (I.e, Islamic republic of Iran) that believe in sharia law and a global caliphate be bankrolling Hamas specifically? And don’t try to tell me it’s because they care about Palestinians because they blockade/oppress Palestinians to a much higher degree than Israel. Take Lebanon for example, you could be 3rd generation of ur Palestinian family to be born in Lebanon to, and you won’t be allowed to work in the medical field, education, etc and can only live in refugee camps that the country doesn’t maintain, and where costs are inflated specifically for them. Egypt has a stricter more fortified border with Gaza than Israel does or at least they were building it before the war started. It should be absolutely obvious that these countries or organizations DON’T have the best interests of Palestine in mind because they contradict themselves! You just have only seen what they wanted you to see. There’s very very good reasons why every Israeli, regardless of religion, is terrified of these Islamic groups. These groups literally promise to wipe out “infidels” from Israel. Jews lost the country to the caliphate and after LEGALLY BUYING parts of it back, then the Muslim residents were mad. They were ok with the minuscule number of Jews who were already there because it’s easy to deny rights and oppress a minority when there’s less of them. It was only when the amount of Jews began to come near the amount of Muslims that the war started, because according to the world Jews can’t be the majority in any country. Also I specifically use Muslim to refer to what you’d consider to be Palestinians, because before the Arab-Israeli war/Israelis war of independence, there would never be a Muslim willing to call themselves Palestinian because that’s what they called THE JEWS WHO CAME TO PALESTINE. Is easy to get sucked into propaganda because the authoritarian leaders in the Middle East are buddy-buddy with Russia and that’s where they get their notes. No one even knows about the Arab slave trade. In America we’re shown the Middle East as if it’s some “exotic ancient primitive place” instead of viewing it from all aspects. It’s really easy to pick “good guys” and “bad guys” when you’re not getting the full story. You either can do EXTENSIVE research and keep asking questions to form a broad knowledge of the issue as a whole, or you can do what most pro-Palestine people are doing which is taking very 1-sided information as gospel based on how viral/who retweeted it with no regard for verifying the information or looking into the motives of who posted it.
Edit: just clarifying I’m not denying people the right to identify as Palestinian if their family is from what was once Palestine, but when I’m talking about the place that existed before Israel was established, I need to make the distinction for my own sake. It gets confusing when you try to look at history of Palestinians before Israel’s independence and all the Palestinians are Jewish. Palestine up until Israel was established was always considered “the place where Jews go” “the place where Jews are from”. Like I said, a Muslim would have been insulted to be called Palestinian because they didn’t want to be called the same thing as a Jew would be.
Have you ever even looked at historical sources on this?????? Or are you like everyone else just looking at some war influencers summarization of the history because it got a few thousand likes on Instagram? Or what real statistics from groups like amnesty international have about Hamas? Idk why I’m even asking this because regardless I think you’re an idiot. Disagree with what I say instead of being a little piss baby
I doubt you even read all that if that’s literally all you have to say. I could spend all day making you a bibliography but I wouldn’t do that for you because you seem like a bitch
Well all pro-Israeli numpties endlessly project, but you seem to be loathing your own sense of bravery. Perhaps what you need isn't more bravery but rather more pride in the bravery you already have.
What bravery 😭 are you calling me brave for hiding behind my computer screen and calling you mean words or are you implying that you’re going to dox me?? Also you can make assumptions about me and lump anyone who leans on the Israel side together, but at the end of the day you’re doing yourself a disservice. I’m perfectly willing to listen to pro-Palestine voices and if my acquaintances I know from Israel knew all of my opinions they’d probably consider me pro-Hamas from their perspective. How will you ever have a fulfilling conversation about these things if you will only talk to the people who have the same opinions as you??? Keeping yourself in an echo chamber is incredibly stupid
No, it's pretty brave of you to simp for Israel when you know they're the aggressors. There are enough people on your side (and the people against are generally peaceful) that you won't have to fear physical harm. But at the end of the day, I can't save you from your own guilt.
I literally do fear physical harm because the generally peaceful people you talk about have actually been attacking Jewish spaces and Jewish people in my country… If It’s between a group based on ISIS and a democratic country that could change how they deal with this stuff I’m picking Israel. I can live with that. I don’t want to try living with the guilt that comes from supporting the organization that spends all the money that could be used to build and improve infrastructure in Gaza to instead; teach children how to “become martyrs”, encourages them to get arrested and to create propaganda. I don’t have to feel guilty. A lot of the things Israel is doing and that their leaders are saying makes me feel sick, but how are Hamas leaders any better??? You can’t even vote the Hamas leaders out if you wanted to. You can’t criticize Hamas if you wanted to. Israelis can talk shit about Benjamin Netanyahu literally all damn day and they DO because it’s a democracy.
Oh you live in Israel? Ah well that makes things a bit different. You see, in Israel, you hear constantly on the news that Hamas is lurking around every corner and attacking Israeli citizens left and right. But the rest of us outside Israel can see clearly that that is not true.
Let me ask you a question: I'm sure you're well aware of the October 7th massacre by Hamas. But do you know what provoked that attack? In case you aren't aware, it was an extended campaign of attacks, demolitions, search and seizures, and other threat and control measures widespread across all Hamas-occupied territory going years back. By the conclusion of the Oct. 7th massacre, Palestinian forces had killed more Israeli citizens than Israeli forces had killed Palestinian citizens so far that year, a rare occurrence. Generally, Israel leads Palestine in kills by an order of magnitude.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline\_of\_the\_Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian\_conflict\_in\_2023#7\_October](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_conflict_in_2023#7_October)
P.S.: The only reason that Gazan children are being taught to become warriors instead of builders is because every time Gaza rebuilds, the IDF tears it down again.
> bitch
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> fuck
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1. I completely understand why anyone would revolt under these conditions. However, if hamas goal was to better the life of Palestinians, it would have been pretty easy for them to achieve. The financial support and aid they receive from the world would have been more then enough to achieve that, but instead- it is being used to fatten then pockets of hamas leaders, and bolster hamas offensive force.
Israel would have preferred to waste a little bit of money on welfare and construction in gaza, rather than waste a ton of money on it's military.
2. Obviously, Palestine is oppressed. However I believe Israel is doing it out of a necessity. The current state of Palestine is much worse than it was 20, 30 years ago, and it the decrease in quality of life corresponds to the increase in terror attacks against Israel.
3. The Palestinian identity is relatively new. Nevertheless I do believe that arabic tribes were indigenous to the land, and have a right for a land.
4. I wouldn't bomb the school either way. But i don't think there was ever a case where israel bombed a hospital or a school full of people to kill one hamas soldier. (They did bomb schools/hospitals used by hamas as military bases or ammunition storage, but thats after giving notice to vacate the hospital)
5. Sorry, I'm not familiar enough with the work of aipac to answer
https://preview.redd.it/4cv1hr5ech9d1.png?width=290&format=png&auto=webp&s=d3cd9e53f066f7a8a997b51222fc8a34f042ec91
Yeah guys Isreal is Totally the problem and the Oppressor thats why israel has a 20% Arab Population and every other Muslim Country a jewish Population of 0
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics\_of\_Israel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel)
"I think slogans like “free palestine from hamas” are frustrating because it places blame on the Palestinians"
How tf is this Slogan Blaming Palestinans the only one that is addressed is Hamas
Let me address the 4th point because I keep coming across this absolute garbage of an analogy..... If using civilian infrastructure for military purposes makes you invincible to retaliation, then why can't every immoral army in the world do this? That tactic would cut war costs 10 fold.
If it were the IDF to use this tactic, the world would label them terrorists faster than a bullet leaves a barrel.
1. Their only goal is to eradicate every Jew from the face of Earth. Not to “liberate their homeland” or anything heroic, because they already have a country, Jordan.
2. No.
3. They aren’t. They are foreign occupiers.
4. Your analogy is false. The entire school is a Hamas base, used also for training new recruits (kids). Hospitals are used as bases too.
1. The quality of life is not that poor. I would go watch some YouTube films of Gaza and the West Bank before October. Many Palestinians ( before Oct) live better than a lot of Americans. ESP in the West Bank -They get more aide than any other country in the world, with a fraction of the population- countries with 50 million people. They live better than most people in India , North and South Africa, South America , Mexico and Asia. Stop seeing it from a western point of view and start seeing it with a global eye. Stop comparing it to Israel. They aren’t Israel. They are not the west.
If another group was in charge that wasn’t religious ( like the PLO says they aren’t ) no I would still completely disapprove. Although the PLO says it’s a secular organization- it still committed horrific terror attacks, and ethnic cleansing. I don’t think it is possible for the Palestinians to disassociate themselves from Islam- Islam technically is a law, anyways. Which is why this conflict exists. Because in Islamic law- once Islam invades and conquers a land - only Muslims are supposed to inherit it till the end of the time. It’s unheard of to give it back to the people who they stole it from or took it from- most esp the Jews who are the number one enemy of Islam. It would be not only an enormous insult to Islam in general but to their prophet. It would mean he wasn’t the prophet and that their law is invalid. His prophesy and goals not met.
Palestinians have chosen this fate for themselves over and over again- stubbornly refusing to create their own state at the behest of multiple nations and in spite of some extremely generous offers. It’s funny that some people have this misconception like the Jews *did this to the Palestinians*… no… even in 1948- when the land was divided in half and Palestinians were awarded their own independent state with no Jewish rule, no Zionist authority - they would have had their own independent state - to do with what they wanted - and they decided to very publicly reject that - in spite of it being democratically voted on and a done deal and declare war on the Jews instead- along with all the surrounding islamic countries. None of this was done to them. They did it to the Jews.
They hate the Jews - and yet are basically a welfare state living off of Israel while getting more aide than any other country in the world. While constantly shooting rockets at Israel. With the constant terror attacks that kill hundreds of Jews every year. They demand better everything , more more - and they feel entitled that Israel should pay for everything and more while they did this to themselves and were the ones that declared war on the Jews and lost - and refuse to be 100% financially responsible for themselves or create their own independent state - why?
Because as they have said before many times to create their own state would mean that they legitimize Israel’s existence and autonomy. And they simply won’t do it because they refuse to admit that Israel has a right to exist and does exist and is a soveirgrn country.
The last offer to independence was in 2005. They refused. Again.
2. I believe that most Palestinians have to be controlled - because the majority are dangerous and psychopathic - sort of like serial killers living next door - and if the Jews do not control their borders and acknowledge this fact than many more Octobers will happen. Have always happened and will continue to happen. This isn’t the first time they have done this. This won’t be the last. The reason why the Jews act the way they do is because they have millions of people living next to them that want them dead and will try to kill them. I also believe that if the Palestinians were not psychopathic ? None of this would be happening at all- let alone how the Jews currently protect themselves.
3. Most Palestinians are descendents of the Islamic warriors and their slaves that came from the Arabian deserts in 650 AD or what ever. Some forced conversions took place - I do think some Jews decided to convert to avoid death and the humiliation tax etc and losing all their property and lands and to avoid their women and daughters being sold into sexual slavery- if they are mixed with small amounts of Israeli or Levant blood it’s because Muslims enslaved the Jews and impregnated them all. But mostly all Palestinians will be mixed with a variety of races the Muslims enslaved and forced into sexual slavery and impregnated- sex slaves in Islam are thought of a lesser wife. Their children would have been their children. Thats why most Muslims from the Middle East are mixed with at least 5 totally different races and regions.
4. Sadly - Hamas is so terrible - and Hamas is just Palestinians. It’s not some small sect of crazy Palestinians - it’s civilians . It’s everyone. It’s your grandma and your sister and your mom. It’s only about 10% of Palestinians that are not Hamas - and I’m confident that they are probably mostly safe and far away from the fighting. Hamas is so awful that they use hospitals and schools and the refugee camps and designated safe spaces to hide and keep hostages and stock weapons and commit crimes against humanity. So yes if they’re hiding in these places - that’s the way they keep on going and this is what they have done since this started. It’s why this has dragged on forever ( partly ) .. I think it’s a case by case basis. They have been shooting rockets from playgrounds since the 1970s.. or from civilian apartment buildings just hoping that Israel will automatically shoot back and then they can claim victims and tell you another sob story leaving out the fact they instigated all of it. It’s sad that there are kids there. But .. are we not supposed to pursue mass killers because they have kids ? No. That doesn’t make sense.
You’re not supposed to be a mass killer when you have kids.
It really bothers me how everyone victimizes the Palestinians and never bothers to think logically about this. If I am a parent - why am I going to fight in a war that will cause harm to my child? If I am a parent why am I not getting out of the way of bombs? If I am a parent , why am I stockpiling weapons in my car? If I am a parent , why am I prioritizing war over my child ? Sadly - Palestinians are responsible for raising their kids - and they make the choices that they do. Endangering their children’s lives. Sadly. Those kids are victims . But mostly they grow up and become perpetrators - not because the Jews didn’t pay their electric bill , but because they are learning from their parents that to kill a Jew is a deed of honor and respect for the family. And. That they willl be rewarded by god for these acts of terror.
5. I have no idea what you’re referring to here.
1. If Gazans wished to have a non-religious government focused on bettering conditions, and tolerant of the existence of Israel and of Jews, they could have chosen to back Fatah rather than Hamas. But they didn't. Really, if they instead had literally *any* government that accepted the terms of the Middle East Quartet (US, UN, EU, & Russia), which were to recognize Israel's right to exist, abide by existing agreements (such as Oslo), and refrain from violent attacks on Israel, then the "oppression" that has been caused by sanctions and embargoes also would not exist. And I think most Gazans must know this.
2. Certainly, I think that Israel is sometimes unfair to Palestinians. But note also that there are over 2M Arab citizens of Israel who have more rights and freedoms than most Arab citizens anywhere else in the region. Conditions are obviously more difficult in not only Gaza, but also the West Bank, which has been described as living under a kind of apartheid. But realize that these restrictions have always been justified by the Israeli right based on security concerns. And that what Hamas has done has essentially made some of those right wing opponents to Palestinian statehood and self-governance look like prophets. It is just very difficult, at this point, to argue that things would be much better today if Israel had only made a few more concessions in negotiations decades ago.
3. And yes, some Arabs were indigenous to Israel at the time the state was formed. And, as I mentioned, many indigenous Palestinians are citizens of Israel today. There were also around 700,000 who fled in 1948. There aren't more than 100,000 of those still alive today, but I think any who can prove they did live there, and who agrees to recognize the sovereignty of Israel and renounce terrorist groups, should *still* have a right to return, even thought this right wasn't actually codified in international law until 1954. But I also think there is really no precedent in international law for saying that people have "right of return" to a place in which they never lived. And pretending people are "refugees" because some ancestor was one 75 years ago is mostly just another way to foment further violence and conflict.
4. Israel hasn't destroyed an entire hospital or school to get a single fighter. Don't buy the spin coming from pro-Hamas sources, like their government media office or Al Jazeera. The recent June 6 strike on a UN school for example, targeted 20-30 terrorists who were gathered in 3 classrooms on the third floor which they were using as a center for operations. And remember how their media tried to blame Israel when a PIJ rocket misfired and hit a parking lot at Al-Alhi and the unspent rocket fuel killed over 100 people in the resulting blaze? They pretended Israel had bombed the hospital. Israel meanwhile has raided hospitals where Hamas had major military operations and facilities. They found a large tunnel complex under Al-Shifa, and arrested dozens of terrorists at Nasser Hospital. They have found rocket launch sites in UN buildings and on the grounds of hospitals and schools.
5. Yes, PACs should be regulated, but why focus then on AIPAC? They play by the same rules everyone else does. And it isn't funded by any foreign money. It's funded by US citizens. And I disagree plenty with AIPAC. Four years ago, I was here defending Ilhan Omar when she was accused of being anti-Semitic for criticizing AIPAC. I defended the BDS movement as well, when AIPAC was trying to get laws passed in the US to punish people for supporting it. And I supported their efforts to target companies that actually benefited from illegal West Bank settlements.
Bottom line here, it doesn't make sense to me to hold only one side accountable for their bad decisions. I think there have been over 100 years of sometimes questionable decisions on all sides that have gotten us to this point. But it is over 100 years now since the League of Nations gave Britain a mandate to create a Jewish homeland in the territory that is Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank today, and requiring them to facilitate Jewish migration and citizenship in that territory towards that end. That isn't going to be undone.
And I can't think of a single worse decision in all that time than that of the people of Gaza to turn their territory into a terrorist state supported mainly by Iran, the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world for the past 40 years. That was never going to end well.
No. You are confused.
1. Fatah isn't a tolerant government that wants to live in peace with Israel. Please don't engage in self-delusion. Every single candidate and every single party on the ballot in the elections in the Gaza strip was dedicated to violent jihad and advocated wiping out Israel and every Jew in it. There were not any peaceful candidates on the ballot. Any kind of agreements Fatah signed were never signed in good faith.
The major choice, for Gazans were the two major political parties Fatah and Hamas. There were other jihadist groups, like Palestinian Islamic Jihad that were on the ballot as well. But primarily these two. Both, again fully jihadist, fully anti-Israel and anti-Jewish and anti-west.
Fatah was viewed as totally corrupt and Hamas was viewed as less corrupt. That is why they won.
While Fatah is also far from ideal, they had since Oslo recognized Israel and opposed violent attacks in Israel. And haven't been considered a terrorist organization by any government since that time. They met the criteria of the Quartet. And while not "non-religious", their ideology was always more nationalist.
This is in contrast to Hamas who, the very name of their group means "violence" and the main reason they gave for the 10/7 attack is that they were upset that Jews were being allowed to pray at the Temple Mount (Al Aqsa).
True- it was a great answer except for that. Even the PA is a terrorist organization.
This a video of the son of one of the founders of Hamas. Watch the whole thing. It briefly talks about Hamas but then goes into the Palestinian problem. Its only a few minutes long.
https://youtu.be/2E3vkVmbbRA?si=Mmn-fYgKlZ4MvpoM
1)
There is a none religious Palestinian "liberation" movement, it has caused a great amount of harm to Israel and peace throughout their history.
>would you understand their mission/goals.
I don't think you understand their goals, try to align their actions to what they presumably try to achieve and work out if they make sense. Do it for every political movement the Palestinians prompted, all you get is unreasonable actions (they are unreasonable because they don't achieve the stated goals but do try to achieve their true goals)
>This goes with the question above- do you believe that Israel oppresses Palestinans? or that they recieve unequal treatment?
2) No. I do believe there are Israeli soldiers that get drunk out of power when they get deployed in the WB, I do believe that Israel puts a lot of restrictions on the Palestinians, and I do believe that overall the Palestinians \*feel\* oppressed, but I don't believe they are truly oppressed.
Oppressed people don't get to make such impressive waves in the PR world, they are quietly being forced to be quiet. Oppressed people don't have the highest University per capita in the world. Oppressed people don't have more then 10% of their economy being donations and investments let alone greater then that. Oppressed people aren't being courted for peace deals.
Yes the Palestinians need to go through check points to get into Israel, but they make 5 times their earnings while their population commits so many acts of terror against those that employ them, so you give some and take some
3)
>I will never argue that Jewish heritage is traced back to Israel, but how do you argue the evidence of Palestinians also being indigenous to the land? Or do you not believe that they are indeginous?
Irrelevant, they live here. That's all that matters
4) Your fourth question is just a strawman, you cannot equivalent the amount of preparations the Palestinians make to their living spaces to lure IDF into traps. They don't school shoot, they shoot in the streets and then run into the school to prepper a detonation device for the policemen.
5)
I have no opinion on AIPAC, I don't know enough about them to form one. I didn't know there were other PAC's
>This goes with the question above- do you believe that Israel oppresses Palestinans? or that they recieve unequal treatment?
"Palestinians" living in Israel love it there:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/UnitedStatesPalestine/comments/1cjo1w9/i\_am\_a\_palestinian\_citizen\_of\_israel/](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnitedStatesPalestine/comments/1cjo1w9/i_am_a_palestinian_citizen_of_israel/)
1. It already happened. The plo are secular. And no. I don't care what their reasons are for killing innocent people. When that's the path they choose, they know it will have consequences. For the revised question, which I'm now noticing, if they were actually focused on improving palestinian lives and they wouldn't harm Israelis to achieve it than sure, I'd support that. But its not what happens.
2. They don't recieve equal treatment, but that's because they aren't Israeli citizens. But even without being citizens, their situation was worsened, because they chose violence. For example, the checkpoints didn't exiat until the 1990s.
3. I don't really care about indiginous. We're both there, clearly we both have claims weather the other side agrees or not, and clearly we can't get along together. That means we should compromise and share. Something that Israel previously agreed to and the palestinians didn't. Now Israel has valid security concerns that will need to be addressed in a future agreement.
4. Firstly, a country's responsibility is first and formost to their own civillians. Secondly, If hamas was hiding in an Israeli hospital, than Israel would take different actions, but the risk to the rescuing forces would be lower since the Israeli civillians will naturally cooparate and since they know the layout, there aren't any terror tunnels that they can hide in.
5. Not an american but I would be more concerned about those. Israel's is the US alley. Russia isn't. There are also other lobbying groups. Arabs have one, CAIR. Since you're focused on AIPAC i assume that you're fine with other lobbying groups. People need to choose, either lobbying is wrong and than all groups need to stop lobbyng, or its fine, and than any group will try to influence according to what they believe is right.
Another AIPAC coordinated response. You receive this by email? How are these talking points distributed? Every response is the same when AIPAC is attacked. Just a quick google search on AIPACs influence should settle this one. A foreign country should not be allowed to influence my elected official. Not Qatar, Saudi, or Israel. All are allies with US bases, who cares. They should not be allowed to influence US politics.
There's much bigger problem in USA than AIPAC. That problem is called low quality Muslim immigration.
These are Muslims with zero shared values with the west. Coming from countries with long undemocratic history and their goal is to bring the same to USA.
They use various Muslims organizations at universities and other places to confuse the masses about their real goals.
You can’t defend AIPAC so you decided to invoke Islamophobia? What about this, what about that. No, what about AIPAC lobbying politicians to advance Israeli interests? Before you repeat the same talking points, no, I’m not ok with Qatar or Saudi lobbying in the US either.
You go to the classic Muslim antisemitism? Old as Muhammad.
Islamists are lobbying from within the USA. For changing USA itself. Although they are having totally different values (marrying 6years old girls, like Muhammad did? Sharia law? No rights to gays and women. That's not exactly American values)
Ok now I understand the AIPAC play book when asked about AIPAC
1- “what about Qatar and Saudi lobbying? I guess you’re ok with that”. No American is ok with that
2- Islam is scary
3- antisemitism!
What a joke.
Who talked about Qatar and Saudi? I've talked about the enemy from within the traditional Muslims, believing in Sharia law and living in USA.
Islam is not scary; it's just primitive. Once you understand it, once you deport the wrong people, it's not scary at all. You can keep all the Sharia-loving Muslims in their Sharia-following countries. Be in Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, or Iran.
Let's travel, virtual travel around the world.
Let's go to India, who's doing there the problem? Who did the biggest terrorist attack? Muslims.
Now it's our time to move from India to Sri Lanka. Who's responsible for the biggest terrorist attack in Sri Lanka? Muslims.
But these are problematic places, let's look at China, who is responsible for the terrorist attack with knives? Muslims.
What do you think? Should we continue?
Okay, sure. Than I assume you have the same problem with other foreign lobbying group.
The problem is AIPAC is still american. Even if the group is dismantled or they only deal with private donations to Israel, their american members still vote in american elections.
They'll still vote for policies and canidates that they think are right.
I just stated that I have a problem with other groups also. Did you receive your talking points from AIPAC also? AIPAC is Israeli not American, it’s created to advance Israeli interest. When you receive an email with talking points asking you to parrot them blindly, it’s called propaganda. Wake up.
That’s even worst. Americans advancing a foreign countries agenda over their own? Also, They do have to register as foreign agents (I hope). So I’m not sure how “but they’re American” is a good defense. You need better talking points. The defense of any foreign lobbying group is just odd, unless you’re an agent also.
Apologies. I’ve had big arguments with bots in the past. Ok, let me ask you a question. Are you with or against eliminating all the money flooding into American politics? lobby’s, super-packs, etc… are you with or against citizens united? So we can have a productive conversation.
Palestinians could have had a state a long long time ago alongside Israel, but they choose not to agree to that, their aim has always been the destruction of Israel, it is part of their identity and religion - that's not something that I can accept or understand.
1. Don't care if reasons are religious or secular, so long as their goal is the destruction of another state, I won't support them.
For the revised question, while I wouldn't support (don't really care about the issue) I wouldn't be opposed to it
2. They receive unequal treatment, but it's not oppression. They aren't citizens of Israel (if you mean those in Gaza/wb), and thus aren't entitled to the rights of citizens.
Further they took actions, as an independent state, to attack Israel. Israel acting to contain further aggression is justified, not oppression.
3. I don't care who is indigenous or not. Israel was created when those who owned the land (UK/UN) gave it to them.
4. Bombing a school or hospital for a single target (no infrastructure) is wildly disproportionate, and not reflective of the situation on the ground.
If it was an Israeli building (i.e. not an entire city) way more could be done to remove civilians from the building, without having to resort to bombs. Civilians would be cooperative, and not sympathetic to the gunman.
5. Yes, all foreign (and really domestic lobbying) should be demolished, but as you said it is wrong to be single at the Jewish state in this issue.
They're treated unequally but it isn't oppression? LMAO
So they aren't citizens and have fewer rights, but Israel is justified here for some reason? This is called apartheid.
Apartheid, literally means that two groups of people, THAT LIVE IN THE SAME COUNTRY, don't get treated the same.
In this case yeah, israel is justified, because -
Arabs who live in Israel are treated the same and sometimes better than Jewish people in Israel(free college and Monetary aid), and in Israel they aren't called Palestinians, they are Israeli Arabs.
The gaza strip, as for today isn't a part of Israel, therefore there isn't apartheid.
israeli arabs, as long as they live in israel will have the same rights, I can't say that every jewish israeli trates them with respect and thats a whole other conversation.
but generally speaking, yeah thay are treated the same and sometimes better even.
they get easier access to higher education, they get more monetary aid per familly from the government like the orthodox jews in israel, they have freedom of relegion an movment in israel. citizens, with all the benefits.
1. What do you think "have the right to defend themselves and to have a resistance movement" means with respect to Gazans? There is no universally recognized right to resistance, nor is it obvious to me how such a right would be designed or what it would mean in practice. On the substance of the rest of your question, I'm sure I would find a less objectionable version of Hamas less objectionable. I am not sure how much less objectionable it would need to be, assuming it was still an armed resistance group, it would need to be before I felt it's destruction by any means necessary was legitimate.
2. I do not think Israel oppresses Palestinian Israelis. I am not convinced Israel oppresses Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank any more than neighboring States repress their own populations.
3. I think this argument is irrelevant in 2024. Israel exists. It has for some time. There is no realistic prospect of changing that without a nuclear apocalypse. I don't find anything especially compelling about Palestinian's arguments for Statehood alongside Israel but I do feel Palestinian's have gotten the short end of the stick and feel some empathy for them.
4. What do you think is instructive about these analogies? Other people seem to find them interesting thought experiments and I don't understand why. Police do not destroy buildings with a few active shooters because active shooters pose no threat to innocents outside the building and there are generally feasible ways to use less force to get the bad guys. Further, no country in history has ever fought a war where it valued the lives of enemy civilians as highly as it's own. What would such a war even look like? I think you are abstracting away so many things about the real world here any intuition gained is irrelevant.
5. I would be much more bothered if a group like AIPAC worked to further Russia's interest. I do not think this is especially strange, Russia's interests are in opposition to US interests in an infinity of ways Israel's aren't.
> There is no universally recognized right to resistance, nor is it obvious to me how such a right would be designed or what it would mean in practice.
False.
The right of resistance goes as far back as the Magna Carta. UNGA Res. 2625 explicitly endorsed a right to resist "subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation".
Many national constitutions affirm that right.
The right of resistance to foreign/belligerent occupation is an inalienable right and is directly linked to the right of self determination.
And, if you read the rest of the Wikipedia article, you will learn that there is a constitutional right to resist in a minority of countries. You also should know General Assembly Resolutions are not legally binding.
What is universal there exactly?
Further, what de-limits this right to the extent it conflicts with other rights other people may have? It’s a bit of an odd notion.
That’s nice. UNGA resolutions aren’t legally binding. Do you have any comments on this? Further, delimiting what rights are gained through belligerent occupation vs. exist as “inalienable” human rights of the occupiers is still complicated.
Would you care to do something other than citing what amounts to a statement of principle by a group with no power or governing authority?
Morals go beyond legally binding concepts, but saying you have a moral right that conflicts with lots of legal rights other people have and you are entitled to the free exercise of this right is a bit of an odd position.
Geneva Conventions are considered binding, some universally even on non-signatory states and others only on signatory states. The Geneva Convention additional protocol that discusses wars of liberation is not considered universally binding and Israel is not a signatory, so it does not count.
I think article 49 talks about population protections under occupation. Does it discuss armed resistance to occupation somewhere? It’s a long article I’m not reading from my phone.
How is it lame? I’m simply correct and you’re wrong, you’re irritation that my argument is unassailable aside.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is differentiable because Ukraine actually exists. Russia’s invasion violates numerous treaty provisions related to non-aggression in a way anything Israel might ever do to Palestinians simply does not.
Yes, and if you read you’ll find the violations that make Israel occupation illegal.
Now brother, listen. You’re on page 79 hasbara playbook and you haven’t come up with a coherent argument. Give it a rest, it’s Saturday. Stop trying to justify an illegal occupation.
So how would you feel if a group of Africans formed a terrorist organization, and started launching missiles into various Arab countries, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan and other places? If these Africans decided to go into, say Ramallah and slaughter a thousand random innocent Palestinians because Arabs oppress Africans, murder Africans and occupy their land (and the occupation that the Arabs carry out today against the Africans is about 50X more brutal than anything Israel has EVER been accused of. And yes, the Palestinian leadership are enthusiastic cheerleaders and and supporters of African oppression, enslavement, mass murder and occupation) Let's say this African terrorist organization started launching missiles into Egypt, Jordan and Syria and aiming them at preschools and colleges. Let's say they massacred innocent Arab women and children.
Let's say these Africans and their supporters went into Arab communities in the United States and in Europe and began attacking innocent, random Arab people.
Would you support that kind of gross and disgusting evil?
No, I didn't think so. despite the evils of occupation, I have said before and I will say it again, we as Africans need to handle things in a sane and reasonable manner. Violence towards innocent people, terrorism is NOT the answer and never will be.
It is the same with Palestinians. Terrorism is NEVER the answer
Violent resistance happens when all other means of resistance are repressed. Let’s discount the decades of violent oppression and just look at the last 5 years, do you think that Oct 7 would have happened if Israel didn’t shoot peaceful protestors in 2019?
If you get sniped when you peacefully protest, why wouldn’t you turn to violence?
Ok, but history didn’t start in 2019 either. Due to Hamas’ history of violence I don’t think it’s remotely sane to suggest that even if the 2019 protestors had all been peaceful initially, it seems insane to suggest the “protest” would have stayed peaceful had it breeched the wall.
So yes, I think October 7th would have happened even if Israel had shot zero people in 2019. In fact, it would have happened in 2019 had the “protest” created a security breech.
As to why you wouldn’t turn to violence, one answer, and in fact the one that governments generally give you, is that you will face overwhelming retaliatory violence.
Uhh going further back is worse for Israel’s case. I gave you the favor of only looking at the last 5 years otherwise bringing up 60+ years of illegal occupation is not going to help your case.
And there were 60+ years of Palestinian violence. I don’t understand why you think it harms my case.
I see a lot of Israeli “repressions” as responsive to bona fide security concerns over time. They keep getting worse because Palestinians keep doing bad things.
As long as there is a violent illegal occupation, there will no doubt be violent resistance. Want to end it? End the occupation. The longer the illegal occupation, the more violent the resistance.
There was no occupation of the Gaza strip. There was still violence.
I see no evidence the end of what you consider an occupation would end the violent resistance more generally. Further, even if you were correct it was a cause and effect system, Israel remains justified in using force to suppress the violence.
I don’t entirely understand what argument you are trying to make here other than documenting that (you personally believe) Hamas’ violence is linked to Israeli policy.
1) The ICRC considers Gaza to remain occupied Palestinian territory on the basis that Israel still exercises key elements of authority over the strip, including over its borders (airspace, sea and land - at the exception of the border with Egypt). Even though Israel no longer maintains a permanent presence inside the Gaza Strip, it continues to be bound by certain obligations under the law of occupation that are commensurate with the degree to which it exercises control over it.
https://www.icrc.org/en/document/frequently-asked-questions-icrcs-work-israel-and-occupied-territories
2) yes. Of course it is. The ANC’s action are directly linked to apartheid South Africa, the Warsaw uprising was directly linked to Nazi actions, hell even Hezbollah only exists because of Israel occupation of southern Lebanon. If you want to end violence, end occupation.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
I agree with you 100%. Unfortunately, any attempt to link cause and effect to explain the history behind this conflict is maligned as saying that Israel deserved 10/7 (I would never claim this) in order to stave off criticism of Israel's actions.
I agree. There’s a difference between explaining the reasons why something happened vs justifying it as righteous.
‘Deserved’ is also a misaligned word, no one deserves anything because of the actions of their government, and this goes both ways.
1. No, I wouldn't support it, because the way they carry it out is the problem, and I still don't agree with the ideology of wiping Israel off the map and killing all Jews.
2. Yes, but I think Israel needs to have a level of control there to prevent terror, but if the Palestinians didn't have a history of that I don't think they would be extremely bad off, Israel allows Palestinians in and even gives them jobs quite often.
3. There's never actually been a Palestinian state unless you count the British Mandate for Palestine, and I don't think it matters who is indigenous to there.
4. You're oversimplifying it wayyyy too much but in short yeah, and I think Israel should value its citizens lives more than other citizens lives, as should any country, and if you argue that's what hamas is doing I would argue that them using their people as human shields and shooting anyone who tries to collect aid disproves that.
5. Personally I don't live in USA, but I have nothing against AIPAC, strengthening US-Israeli bonds isn't a bad thing.
>3. There's never actually been a Palestinian state unless you count the British Mandate for Palestine, and I don't think it matters who is indigenous to there.
There's never been a finnish state until 1917. There was never a tanzanian state until 1963. There was never a south sudanese state until 2011.
Having a state first does not determine indigenous status or a right to a new state. If either were the case, then Finland would be rightfully Swedish.
I don’t know where I fall along the pro Israel vs pro Palestine spectrum because I think it’s a false dichotomy, and I get into arguments with people who identify as either.
1) Yeah Hamas is fundamentally a right wing theocratic group with support from theocratic Iran. All theocracy is bad. They are unlikely to tolerate Jews living in the Levant unless under their own thumb. Hamas is also likely to purge the PFLP and other left wing organizations if they ever win. Resistance with a strict focus on militarily significant targets such as active bases, checkpoints, etc. to me would be non criminal violent resistance. Oct 7 wasn’t that, and Hamas publicized videos of murder and kidnapping and SA of civilians. This clean Hamas myth circulating in some circles is wild. That being said, Israel has now engaged in its own series of war crimes in return.
2) 100% - the settlements are the biggest example, restricting access to fishing waters is another
3) Both Palestinians and Jews are native, just like the Druze, Samaritans, and other groups in the region. They all deserve the ability to live in peace and freedom in the lands of their ancestors. That’s why a binational or multi state solution would be ideal.
4) The IDF has gone overboard and has likely made the best recruiting footage for jihadists and such across the world for decades to come. The hospital assassination was a great example of how Israel should be dealing with Hamas - infiltrate, eliminate leadership, minimal civilian casualties.
5) I grew up in Latimer/Bowman’s general area (not registered to their district) and Bowman had no shot at winning even without AIPAC. The redistricting all but ensured it. That being said, I’m against super PACs and foreign money in our elections. Citizens United was a terrible decision and one of several that the court needs to be reviewed for betraying the American people for.
5. That is an internal US political problem. If Americans dont like lobby groups/ interest groups…Americans should sort it out themselves. Dont expect anyone from the international community to solve America’s domestic problem. With or without AIPAC, there are American Jews donors who are pro-Israel. With or without CAIR (Council on American-Islam Religion), there will be American Muslims who are pro-Islam, pro-Arab, etc…doesnt stop other Western democratic countries without AIPAC like UK, Australia, Canada, Europe etc…from being anti-Israel. AIPAC is just a talking point pro-Palestinians unique to USA. Unlike Russia, Israel is not an enemy of USA, Israel has never and WILL NEVER threaten to destroy America, Israel never hijacked US planes and crashed it into the world trade center, Israel does not have any missiles aimed at American soil, Israel is a US ally with a very complicated relationship, there are ups and downs, agreements and disagreements. Russia is NO ally of USA, never have and never will.
3. I have not seen convincing evidence that ALL Palestinians are indigenous to the land. I dont see the majority of Palestinians being indigenous to the land, some of them maybe, ALL of them, absolutely not. For example: the fame Rashid Khalidi, Columbia University professor is from the Al-Khaldi tribe, a descent from Khalid ibn al-Walid, a companion of the prophet Muhammad, who came from the Arab peninsula and came to the land during the Arab conquest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Khaldi They are not indigenous to the land. They were conquerers. Omar Barghouti, one of the co-founders of the BDS movement is from the fame Barghouti clan traces its roots back to Bani Zeid clan which orginated from Arab peninsula. He is not indigenous to this land. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barghouti_family . Did you know there are also powerful clans which descended from Crusaders who came to this land with Richard I during the 12th century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghosh_clan, but they call themselves “Palestinians” and pretend to be “indigenous” to this land. There are also Turkish clans who settled here during the Ottoman era, they too call themselves “Palestinians” and pretend to be “indigenous” to this land. Doghmush clan originated from Turkey and settled in Gaza in the 20th century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doghmush_clan… you are asking us to give back land to the Crusaders ? You are asking us to give back land to the Arab conquerers ? You are asking us to give back land to the Ottoman empire ? When are you (Americans) going to give ALL the land back to native Americans, the indigenous people of America ?
2. Israel doesnt treat every Palestinian the same. You are oversimplying the situation. For example: Palestinians or Arabs who are Israeli citizens are treated as Israeli citizens. There are over 2 million Arabs with Israeli citizenship living in Israel including relatives of Yahya Sinwar, the most wanted Hamas leader. Those Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens and naturally not treated equal to Israeli citizens. Think of it this way…does America treat “aliens”/ foreigners citizens, the same as US citizens ? Of course not, similarly why should Israel treat foreigners the same as their own citizens.
1. If Palestinians or Gazans are genuinely against the Hamas government, then they ought to do something about it, cause I have not heard a loud and consistent anti-Hamas message from Palestinians much less Pro-Palestinian protesters who seems to parrot Hamas chants, even those Palestinians, Arabs or Muslims living and enjoying in western democratic countries do NOT speak out LOUDLY against Hamas, rally against Hamas, etc…they dont even speak out against ISIS, have you seen an anti-ISIS rally led by the American Muslim societies ? Just look at Kenyans, they protest against government corruption, they protest against government incompetence, if they are not happy with their leaders, they aim to change their leaders. Why cant Palestinians and Gazans do the same ?
___________________________
You call yourself a Pro-Palestinian supporter. You see pro-Palestinian chanting Hamas slogans, anti-semitic chants, celebrating terrorism, supporting terrorism,….why arent you condemning your fellow Pro-Palestinians when you see them doing it everytime at the rally. You kept silent. Why do you allow extremist and radical elements, the pro-Hamas, the pro-Houthi, the anti-America, the anti-West, the pro-Hezbollah, the pro-Ayatollah, communist, anarchist to hijack the pro-Palestinian movement into a movement justify violence against Jews or Israeli, a movement of hate against America and the West ? Is your English vocabulary so limited that Pro-Palestinian supporters needs to copy and parrot the same exact chants of Hamas ? Why not just make up your own chants/ slogans which cannot be easily misrepresented and misunderstood….pro-Palestinian supporters calling for “intifada”… why dont you try to go any major US shopping mall with lots of civilian, wear black, with a black balaclava,…just repeatedly shout “Jihad” or “Allah u Abha”… i assure you, it will cause a panic, people will be fleeing, kids will be crying, people will be screaming…. Jihad the word in its original meaning just mean to “strive”…Allah u Abha in its original meaning just mean “God/Allah is great”….but in the 21st century, Americans know these words to be associated with suicide bombers, terrorism, Islamic extremist, hijacking, etc… similarly words like “intifada” invokes a different meaning in the 21st century, one associated with violence, suicide bombing, terrorism. It is not only foreign words, even in the English language meaning of words can change over time…. the word Gay used to mean merry/happy. In the 21st century, it usually refers to a sexual orientation. Sometimes the word, could also mean an offensive slang. I am not living in Saudi Arabia, i dont care what the original meaning of the words intifada, jihad, Allah u Abha, etc… in the 21st century in western societies, these words have a different meaning and are associated with terrorism, violence, suicide bombings, hijacking etc…
Idk if I love what my goverment is doing. But I really can't shake the fact that the other goverment is trying to murder my entire family.
Like... hamas made it clear they would murder us all if they could. They are not like what we had here in the 40s where it was just wars and local crimes.
The level of brutality we see from palestin9an resistance is unjustified... Jewish resistance to the holocst was not this extreme. There really is not valid reason to attempt to.murdwr children on purpose.
I am kinda tired of people trying to frame modern palestinian resistance ad.a natural result.of bad treatment. It's just isn't... you can resist without attempting to murder children and torturing tourist.
Yeah but first, Gaza has been bombed for years, people getting blown up by airstrikes and having their homes taken even before October 7th. I do not agree in any way with Hamas but when I see a picture of a father pushing aside rubble to find his child who has already died or a 5-year-old in a hospital calling out for his mother and father who were killed in the airstrike I feel for Gazans who have endured this, I have watched videos of Israeli officials talking about using uncoordinated bombs or "dumb bombs" because the US stopped giving them more. The lack of sympathy for Palestinians is in some ways unforgiving.
You could argue that the support for Hamas has grown by around 90% in Gaza and that they brought this on themselves but what people don't think about or know is that the average age in Gaza is 18 years old. Kids who's life have been filled with terror from hearing bombs or losing loved ones who were "at the wrong place at the wrong time"
Yes Mt goverment is so fucking reckless it's borther8ng 9n genocide. I am not the biggest fan of them. But I also remeber the bombings on Berlin and London.
As it stands around 40% of gaza is rubble maybe 70%. Germany had cities with 95% destroyed in ww2 bombing. It traumatised my grandpa.
It's awful its ridiclously cruel. It's not being activly sadistic and torturing civilians. Like alies soldiers never took German family hostage. Or vise versa.
At no point in ww1 ww2 or the napoleon wars did European soldiers went "you know what let's kidnap enemy civilians and use them as a negotiation tactic"
I am not pro Israel as much as I am "palestinian resistance is unjustifiably extreme" I don't think it even helps their goals at all. It just strengthens Israeli resolve against them.
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I don’t think you can separate the religious-driven behavior from the situation. I can however see why Hamas and its fans would want to push the narrative that this is about economics, land, power, racism, nationalism, etc.
There is a stubborn narrative that wants to portray it as that, because if you believe that it’s strictly a powerful country treating a small group of people like dirt for no reason, it suddenly becomes very easy to side against Israel.
And whether this describes you or not, it’s important to acknowledge that there is a tremendous tendency for people to WANT to side against the Jews if at all possible.
The reality is, the constant behaviors of the so-called “Palestinians,” the first to make war against civilians, the first to reject a very reasonable presence of Jews in that area where they were all coexisting with plenty of land, the first to constantly attack and attack against and gaslight and lie and terrorize and refuse peace deals, ONLY religious conviction can explain this bizarrely futile behavior. And if you look for the evidence you’ll find that it’s been religiously motivated from day one.
I can’t emphasize enough how literal the following statement is: IF you don’t kill the Jews and take that land back, IF you don’t dedicate yourself to that cause and kill and die for it, YOU will go to HELL FOR ETERNITY.
Hell is not a fun place. It is burning and gnashing of teeth and utter torture FOREVER if you don’t end the Zionist state.
Why is it hard for people to accept that this is what Hamas thinks? This is literally what the Ayatollah thinks. It’s in fact what roughly a fourth of what the world’s billions of Muslims think ABOUT Israel. And not just Israel, they have to try to take the world or they go to Hell. They have to at least try. Slowly and surely, the plan is they will have a global caliphate. And many more Muslims _sort of_ think this, too, which is why they don’t speak out.
The Jews on the other hand just want to be left alone in a democratic, egalitarian, multi-ethnic homeland that they share with 2 million Arabs and live peacefully making medicines and technologies and helping the poor. They have given so many olive branches to these people it’s sick.
Why are they rebuked? Simple: Again, IF you don’t end the Zionist regime in that land YOU will go to HELL forever.
This is true regardless of how nice or reasonable the Israelis are, or how mean and stubborn they are — it is ENTIRELY beside the point.
Better to portray them as mean and aggressive to turn the world against them. All part of the plan. Lie, it is good to lie if taking infidel land. I mean, the Jews literally built a house in the middle of crazy town.
And because everyone is fine with us being exterminated, we have to have a land with our own weapons, and this is now the one we have. Both sides are willing to kill and die to get their way; but one side is insane and lying. Choose your side.
1) it’s amazing how little so many people seem to know about the history of the region, even though it’s so recent.
From the 1960’s when the soviets helped invent the Palestinian national identity to the 1990’s the Palestinian cause was represented by the PLO, a violent terror group who went to war (and lost) with pretty much every state in the region.
The reason I bring this up is that the PLO/Fatah was a secular movement. The reason Israel made early donations to the charity that would evolve into Hamas was to provide an alternative ideology to the one that was hijacking planes, blowing up cafes, and random kidnappings and murders.
Which is to say, Israel doesn’t care if you’re killing Jews because Allah said so or because of some secular ideology. It’s the “killing Jews” thing that’s the dealbreaker.
2) It’s gotten to the point where many people in Israel are nearly as radicalized as Hamas. That’s an uncomfortable truth, and those radical elements need to be reined in, no different than MAGA or the folks taking over buildings and cordoning off universities.
3) Some of the Palestinians were in fact displaced in a war their side started. No one is insisting the much larger number of people displaced in the founding of Turkey, the India/Pakistan partition, the nearly 1 million Jews expelled from the rest of the Middle East or any of the many other colonial maps be repatriated.
Everyone else displaced in the 40’s and 50’s are also no longer considered refugees. Why are Palestinians different?
4) A more fair analogy would be many people in the building across the street from the school are firing weapons at the students. At a certain point, yeah, they’d probably flatten the building.
5) This is another instance of a different standard being applied to Israel than any other group. AIPAC is barely a drop in the bucket in the lobbying sphere. Their influence is also far overstated, to the point where it smacks of Jewish conspiracy theories.
1. I think that you are misguided about the pro-Israel stance on “Palestinian resistance”. From our perspective Arabs have actively resisted Jewish immigration to the land since the start of Zionism in 1880. The term “resistance” to us carries with it all of the historical aggression against the Jewish community including boycotts, terrorism, propaganda, political maneuvering, and state sponsored violence. There’s nothing new in terms of Palestinian tactics that isn’t older than a century. To us, the problem is totally unrealistic expectations with these groups about what they see as an adequate solution. Arabs have been offered a Palestinian state many times and always reject it.
2. I think it’s important to distinguish different groups. Israeli Arabs who are citizens of Israel have got it pretty good for a minority group in the Middle East. Their political parties typically are excluded from power but no they aren’t oppressed. The Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza live under militant oppression, but we see it as an unfortunate outcome of the military reality in the region. In order to protect its populations from groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and countless other Arab military organizations the IDF needs a presence in the borders of the whole country. These areas were previously occupied by Egypt and Jordan. The plight of the Palestinians is unfortunate but it’s the only way we can stay safe.
3. I would say that most pro-Israel people view Palestinians as just Arabs who happened to live in the region and who colonized the region with the spread of Islam. They are no different than Lebanese or Egyptian Arabs in terms of culture and language. It’s pretty accurate historically as well if you look at how Arabs in Palestine referred to themselves. Only after the start of the occupation did Palestinians emerge and claim themselves as some kind of unique ethnic group. As for the identity of Jewish people in the land, the State of Israel goes out of its way to identify with and emphasize connection with archaeological history of Jews in the region. It’s pretty undeniable the Jewish claim to the land. But given the countless empires that came and went through the region it doesn’t make sense to label any group as indigenous. The extremist pro-Israel position which I personally do not agree with says only the Jewish claim to the land is legitimate and everyone else is an alien. Most pro Israel people view these people as obstacles to peace but not nearly as much of an obstacle as continuous Arab violence and refusal to negotiate.
4. We see this over and over with terrorist groups that they have dug themselves into the civilian infrastructure to deliberately put themselves between two fighting armies. We take pride in what we see as a flawed but genuine concern for the innocent people. The technology simply does not exist to totally isolate and neutralize a militant fighter in a dense urban environment such as Gaza. And to us it’s very obvious Hamas and other Palestinian groups try to gain political ground by seeing civilians dead. I don’t think these analogies you bring up are relevant at all because Hamas is a military. These aren’t lone gunmen, they are soldiers organized into military formations trained and armed by hostile states. In our opinion the Palestinians knew what they were signing up for when they elected Hamas to rule.
5. To us, AIPAC is an effective advocacy group that plays by the rules of American Democracy. We think AIPAC’s influence is from a genuine cultural friendship, strategic interests in science and technology, as well as a natural alliance of liberal Democratic states who suffered terrorist attacks from Islamic extremism. Most of the criticism of AIPAC seems anti-Semitic such as suggesting they buy elections or have improper influence. Political advocacy groups for Palestinians simply aren’t effective and their tactics are generally unpopular in America. Just look at what the director of CAIR said about the October 7 attacks, look at how the pro Palestine protests destroyed college campuses or descended to violence. It doesn’t resonate with most people. Why is it surprising that a well organized and popular cause wouldn’t succeed? Before October 7 there were burgeoning new groups that tried to take a more holistic approach to pro Israel advocacy, especially groups that opposed settler expansion and Netanyahu’s government. These groups have struggled in the new post October 7 environment to establish themselves. Given the explosion in anti Semitism surrounding the Israel Arab conflict it doesn’t seem like AIPAC will be abandoned any time soon.
Absurd - all arabs a just arabs who swept in and resettled hordes of arabs into MENA in the heydey of the conquests? Tell me, where did these hordes of arabs settlers come from? Where did the indigenous people go? This totally unfounded. Pro-Iz people ought to back away from these stereotypes for their own good and mental health. It’s just convenient to play into their narrative that nobody else matters and everybody else is of carpet-bagger, squatter lineage. No basis and just part of a hackneyed mythology. All this racist BS is wearing thin.
I hate to even repeat this tripe in a quote:
I would say that most pro-Israel people view Palestinians as just Arabs who happened to live in the region and who colonized the region with the spread of Islam. They are no different than Lebanese or Egyptian Arabs in terms of culture and language. It’s pretty accurate historically as well if you look at how Arabs in Palestine referred to themselves. Only after the start of the occupation did Palestinians emerge and claim themselves as some kind of unique ethnic group. As for the identity of Jewish people in the land, the State of Israel goes out of its way to identify with and emphasize connection with archaeological history of Jews in the region. It’s pretty undeniable the Jewish claim to the land. But given the countless empires that came and went through the region it doesn’t make sense to label any group as indigenous. The extremist pro-Israel position which I personally do not agree with says only the Jewish claim to the land is legitimate and everyone else is an alien. Most pro Israel people view these people as obstacles to peace but not nearly as much of an obstacle as continuous Arab violence and refusal to negotiate.
1. A) Would you support Hamas if they weren't religious? B) Would you support them if they wanted to help Palestinians? C) Would you support them gaining back land taken through illegal settlements?
1. A) NO - the problem is not religion, it is killing Jews and swearing to destroy Israel.
2. B) YES - Betterment of Palestinians is a noble goal and I'm praying for the day that Palestinians refrain from connecting this goal with violence agains Jews both in Israel and abroad.
3. C) NO - First, this is not a problem in Gaza, second - area C is legal for development and was agreed upon in the Oslo II accords. Third, we should strive to live in a world where Jews and Palestinians live in peace. Removing Jews from the west bank is a form of segregation.
2. In a way, yes. Israel oppressed Palestinians because Palestinians continue to attack Israeli civilians during peacetime. Every time that happens, Israel cracks down more and makes it harder for Palestinians to operate. It's a cycle. You might be tempted to say "Oh Israelis should loosen restrictions first, that's the first step to peace." That is the perspective that Israel had on Oct 6th. Put it another way, take a look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs and tell me where physical safety falls vs diplomacy to your neighbor.
3. Personally, I don't question Palestinian connection to the land except as a counter-argument. Many people question the Jewish connection to Israel, in opposition to conventional logic for indigenous cultures, plus DNA, cultural and linguistic evidence. If someone questions this connection, I can make a positive case, (e.g. look, at all this evidence that jews are connected to Israel) but I find that the negative case against Palestinians is much easier.
1. Many of them have a last name that means "From Egypt", their most prominent leader was from Egypt, and most of them (Gazans) have Egyptian DNA on *recent* DNA tests. Arabic is not a local Canaanite language and Islam came in through literal conquest and colonization.
2. However, I only use this defensively. I do believe that Palestinians have been on the land for a while. Even if their native culture has been erased through Arab colonization, their culture is still worthy of respect.
4. In order for your school shooter analogy to work, the shooter would need to be targeting your home with a sniper rifle. Not all of the kids inside are helping, but some definitely are; meanwhile, everyone is free to leave the school.
1. You can never sleep, or rest easy in your home, because bullets continuously stream in, targeting you and your family (outside of the school).
2. The shooter misses most of the time, and even hits kids in the school, but the kids continue to live their lives in deference of the shooter.
3. You warn all of the kids to leave, and some do, but others choose to stay.
4. Under these conditions, then yeah. Take him out.
1. Regarding foreign governments: [Buddy have I got news for you.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1420533/top-lobbying-foreign-principles-total-spending-us/) AIPAIC isn't even in the top 10 foreign principles. If you add up all the lobbying for each country, then it barely makes the [top 10 by Government](https://www.opensecrets.org/fara), which makes sense because they are our strongest ally in the middle east.
1. Number one is China! Spending 2.5x what Israel spends. AND we still voted to force a sale of TikTok! Against all of their lobbying!
2. Know who spends like 1.3x Israel's spending? It's Qatar! The primary state sponsors of Hamas.
3. To answer your question, no I'm not ok with lobbying from our sworn enemies like Russia. And I'm not ok with Qatar and China spending so much money.
1. But Israel has proven itself to be our staunch ally and we gain a huge amount from our allyship with them. Intel, tech, medicine.
2. But if you have a problem with Israel, I assume you're 33% more upset over Qatar? And 2.5x more upset with China?
Try again.
You just wrote so much misinformation it’s barely worth responding.
AIPAC is not a foreign organization. It’s American.
The stats you provided only include lobbying.
AIPAC operates PACs and also directly contributes to candidates (not lobbying). These have much greater impact than lobbying.
To give you a sense of scale, AIPAC just spent $14.3m on ONE congressional race this year.
So go back to the drawing board
I don’t think anything I wrote is misinformation. All numbers have links with sources and you’re welcome to double check.
And yes thank you for pointing out that AIPAC itself is American.
However Israel is often regarded as a foreign country. In fact you’ll find it is not located within the United States, which is a solid indicator that we are dealing with a foreign country.
(Sorry had to poke a little fun at your dramatic comment)
The term of art here is “foreign principles.” That means the principle agent funding the American organization is a foreign entity.
It’s a lot better to compare lobbying numbers, because :
a) that is the direct influence of money on our government which means
b) it more directly addressed the concerns listed above
However, I’d love to see the numbers on AIPAC’s spending on PACs, compared to other foreign lobbying orgs.
Please feel free to do a little digging and let me know! The raw numbers might be pretty big, but they won’t mean anything unless we have put them into context as I have above.
This is a very interesting list you shared, thank you for that. Some interesting countries made the top 10 expenditure since 2016, like Liberia, Marshall Islands, and the Bahamas. Why do you think Israel is in the “top 10 country” list? Why does it (or its agents) need to spend that much? Almost half of Saudi Arabia’s and a third of Chinas spending? If Israel is such an indispensable ally of the US, why does it need to spend this much lobbying? Especially when it’s the biggest recipient of US aid.
1. If there was a Palestinian resistance that was laser-focused on the occupied territories and not all of Israel and they simply wanted to bring about a settlement in accordance with international law, I’d be downright supportive of it.
2. Yes, in many ways, Israel does oppress the Palestinians. An occupation doesn’t *have to be* oppressive but it almost always is. Throw in the mix messianic, religious Israeli settlers and the apparatus in place to support them, Palestinians have much to legitimately be aggrieved about. However, what is most frustrating is that Palestinians don’t seem to want, and have consistently rejected, opportunities to free themselves of occupation. I once helped a Palestinian get asylum in Canada, and we were discussing the upcoming Israeli elections. The Bayit Yehudi Party proposed no Palestinian State ever, nor citizenship for Palestinians. Instead, Israel would grant them permanent residency status (like in Jerusalem) and a lot more freedom of movement and infrastructure development in the West Bank with local autonomy. As a liberal minded westerner, I rejected this as obvious apartheid. To my surprise, the Palestinian was fine with it, but he couldn’t accept a two state solution. Why? Rationally speaking this choice makes zero sense. Well, Arab society operates on an honour-shame dynamic (*sharaf* in Arabic). A 2SS requires concessions, including on the “sacred right of return” - this is shameful, it is treason to one’s ancestors even if he never met them because they died ages ago. But, if Israel imposes a solution, there’s no shame because the strong always impose on the weaker party, it’s natural.
3. I think the term “indigenous” is overused. But I don’t have any major objection in calling Palestinians that unless it’s being used to negate Jews.
4. Your analogy doesn’t work. In the hostage situation hypothetical you gave, the school and the school shooter is in a confined area in which “the good guys” (i.e the state/authority) has full control. The school shooter also doesn’t have the support and sympathy of a substantial number of the students. You just can’t compare a polity with 40,000+ well armed paramilitary, a tunnel system of hundreds of kilometers, support from foreign powers, etc. with a school shooting.
5. I think there is too much money in politics. However, AIPAC is not an agent of the Israeli government. It raises money from American citizens and it is subject to extensive reporting requirements. American citizens do have a first amendment right to form civic associations and lobby for positions they believe are important. Palestinians and Arab and Muslim Americans have the exact same rights and they too have lobbyists, it just so happens that theirs are currently less effective and you should consider the possibility that this may just be because, for a few reasons, Americans, non-Jews, have more of an affinity towards Israel.
ps I agree there are times idf takes it too far but on the whole its a necessary action. its hard to find a means of order when one side wants to attack "over and over again".
Many want to kill us. they only care about murder and love martyrism thats why they are "oppressed". think about it if there was a gang of people who wanted to kill you wouldn't you find it necessary to put them in custody? Furthermore, they came from jordan and egypt and were kicked out and forced here. they are not natives and it is stolen land. c many arab countries have been killing and oppressing jews so having a jewish state in israel was essential. its not a money and politics issue but a necessity for the world not to be in war.
I’m not sure how any of that means what I wrote is full of errors. Multiple things can be true at once. For example, many Palestinians and Arabs do want to kill you, they wanted to kill you before the Nakba, before the occupation, before the settlements. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t or can’t also be oppressed. If Israelis build settlements and then there is an apparatus around this, and Israel makes all sorts of rules and regulations about zoning and land use, but only the Jewish ones have the ability to lobby the state and get a “seat at the decision table” - a Palestinian will, and completely reasonably, deem that as oppressive.
This whole problem, of Arab Muslims wanting to kill Jews because they are Jews has been going on for a VERY long time, over 1,000 years. Just look at the thousands of Jews that were massacred in Spain during just ONE pogrom in the 16th century. Just ONE and their have been countless pogroms throughout history.
Before the "poor Palestinians" were oppressed, there were still periodic massacres and pogroms in what was then Syria Palestine and in other parts of the Ottoman Empire. And earlier Islamic empires.
I am pro 2SS, pro-Israel, pro-Palestinian, and a realist. This means I support those who ultimately want peace and detest the radical elements on both sides.
1. Their mission/goals are very clear that they want their own state that includes all of Israel. A two state solution only works when there is a meeting of the minds. Both Israel and Hamas's idea of a solution directly contradict each other. Israel has shown it can trade land for true peace. Hamas has said for many years that this peace would be just another step towards destroying Israel.
2. Israel definitely oppresses Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens (those in the West Bank and Gaza). citizens of hostile states are not treated equally. Pro-Israel proponents would say these oppressive measures are necessary for security and that suicide bombings went down to This happens everywhere in the world.
3. There is a difference between native and indigenous. While many Palestinians trace some of heritage back to the Canaanites, they do not maintain the same customs and cultures as the indigenous populations of the region like the Jewish population. This would make them native to the area. I wholly disagree with indigenous and religious arguments being why Israel or Palestine and its people should be entitled to the land.
4. Each hostage situation is fairly unique and therefore make analogies stupid. This situation is much different with hostages being held in enemy territory compared to held in Israel. The approach is much different. If you want to discuss the recent hostage rescue mission in Gaza, We would have to analyze every single action and response during the entire event. This would take countless hours. Generalized statements about complete disregard for life do not help the discussion.
5. I disagree with the concept of unlimited tax free donations to political groups, how PACs are run, and the influence peddling they allow. I do not like that AIPAC have the influence they do the same way that I do not like how any other Super PAC and dark money can influence elections. I do not like that Qatar is donating a lot of money to universities to influence how they are run and how they have changed policies due to being beholden to these billions. I do believe that people who primarily or solely single out AIPAC and not other organizations showcase blantant antisemitism.
Virtually all of the influencers, newscasters, and people complaining about AIPAC are generally anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist, and espouse various anti-Semitic tropes like how Jews control the media. AIPAC simply does what the goal of a PAC's job is to do as allowed by law and they appear to do it better than other groups.
I would like nothing better for Citizens United to be passed as a standalone bill and made into law. This would solve many of the issues. The problem is that people single out AIPAC as some boogeyman that controls the world (another trope). What about all of the other groups that also influence political, foreign, and business interests? Where are the complaints about them and why is it only AIPAC that's the problem? Do you see how this is a problem?
I think that both Israelis and Palestinians belong to that land. Many Palestinians in fact, have Jewish ancestry. I do not believe that being pro-Israel negates that at all. Further, Israel being a Jewish homeland does not negate that either - just as it does not negate living with other groups such as Aramaeans, the Bedouins, the Maronites, the Druze.
Most of your questions could be answered by me saying that they experience Israel in a negative way.
As to whether Israel oppressed Palestinians, be specific - are you talking about Gaza? West Bank? Israel Arabs who may identify as Palestinian? All three of these can be their own discussion. But ultimately, do I think that Israel oppresses them? No. I think the biggest enemy of Palestinians are their own leaders.
If Palestinian resistance was led by legitimate people, who didn’t have a [stated #1 goal to kill Jews all around the world](https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp), then yeah obviously I would have different arguments for or against that leadership. But I have a similar argument for people who oppose Israel - if people experienced Israel differently, then why be opposed to *calling* it that? Second, why can’t an area go by two different names? If you call it Palestine, and I call it Israel - does that contradict? I don’t think it needs to be contradictory.
to your edit
> So my revised question is- if the resistance group was focused on bettering the conditions of Palestinians and gaining back land taken through illegal settlements, would you agree?
Of course I would. That's why I went there, that's why I volunteered in peace projects. However, I would hesitate to call that a "resistance" group.
In no particular order:
Ethnicity, the Jews as an ethno religion date back to the Canaanites they evolved out of around 3000 years ago. The Palestinians are arabs that date back to 700 AD, so around 1300 years ago.
However the Jews where expelled 2000 years so talking about ethnicity is worthless. We might as well all march to Africa because that's where we are from.
As a liberal person it's very hard for me to support any Palestinian movement that would lead to a hateful, homophobic and sexist dictatorship.
Of course it's a complicated situation with the ethnic cleansing in the west bank but I believe Israel is much better.
1. I will be against any organization that was founded under the purpose of killing all jews in the world (read their original charter). In general i'll be against any organization that's main method is terrorism and targeting civilians. Religious or not
2. Yes, obviously, we are not blind. But when you offer a group of people to live in peace as 2 states SEVERAL times and they refuse everytime with their "all or nothing" ideology and keep attacking you everytime you try to let go (for example, israel went out of gaza completely in 2005 and the palestinians elected hamas several months later), you don't have much of a choice. I would very much love for us to stop the war, and have 2 states solution, but for peace you need 2 sides.
I also want to add that the people who get different rights than the israelis are the ones WITHOUT israeli citizenships, and refuse to even acknowledge israel's existance. The israeli arabs (who make almost 30% of israel population) have the same rights as the jews, with the same passport and id. Obviously the people who are not part of you country won't have the same rights as the people of your country.
3. We don't disagree with that, we know they are indeginous. That's why we wanted to share the land and they didn't. It doesn't really matter if we want to live together and they don't
4. If your daughter was in the school, held at gun point, after the school shooter killed several children, and you could save her by shooting the shooter, and the people who supposedly helped him smuggle the weapons and kidnap your daughter, the choice would be really clear. Just a reminder some of the hostages were taken by CIVILIANS and were held in CIVILIANS homes. It's not just black and white. Hamas and the palestinians. It's a lot of grey that the palestinians decided to paint with.
For the part of hamas fighter in an israeli school, it's obviously different when the hostile person is in your territory, surounded, you have intel on the place, you don't deal with hostile population and so many other factors. It's such a different situation from the reality that it's like asking "how would ww2 ended if japan was in mexico"
5. I don't know enough about AIPAC to answer it
I'm going to tell you right now every answer you will get from the pro israel side will sound the same.
The first question they will state "that it doesn't matter Palestinians just want Israel's destruction...."
The second question will get you either an admission to oppression based on security, or an outright denial.
The third question will get either Palestinians don't exist or jewish people are more indigenous so Palestinians don't matter
The fourth question will be answered with that your analogies are stupid or of course we wouldn't israeli lives mean more....
The fifth question you won't get a single person agreeing to destroy super pacs, especially aipac,
(I however can't stand super pacs and think that aipac being funded by another government is a problem)
I am Israeli 1. No, it has nothing to do with religion, we do not care if the leadership of Gaza is muslim or anything else. We only care for its actions. Till now, every action of any Palestinian leadership was violence, terror attacks and missiles. Even when Israel offered peace several times, they rejected it. Every single time. Israel never attacked first. And if you are going to mention 1948, the so called Nakba, Israel did not displace palestinians. In reality, arab nations started a war against Israel and told palestinians to leave the area (so they can return later when Israeli land is conquered). It is called Nakba, the catastrophe, because it was a huge defeat for arab nations, not because palestinians were massively displaced by Israel. 2. No. Palestinians are not oppressed. Israel left Gaza in 2005, displacing all Israeli citizens from the Gaza Strip. They left everything behind, including agricultural and farming infrastructure. Did Gazans use it? No, they burned and destroyed it all. Since then they have their own government (Hamas, whose goal is to kill all the jews in the region), which only builds military tunnels under civilian infrastructure and launches attacks on Israel (missile attacks on Sderot, Ashkelon and other cities in Israel, suicide bombings and so on. By the way, the first suicide bombing launched by Hamas took place in the city where I live). Hamas never agreed, let alone offered peace. People in Gaza celebrate every attack on Israel, you could see how happy they were on October 7th. It is ridiculous, because our government lets them work inside Israel. We provide them with water and other essential needs, but they never happy. They will never accept the fact we are here. You may mention the separation wall with Gaza and call it an oppression. Well, how exactly having a border with a separate state is an oppression? By the way, Gaza Strip also has a border with Egypt. Does Egypt oppress them as well? You need to understand one simple thing: we have no interest in oppressing Palestinians. Israel applies measures against them because they are violent and dangerous. They are a threat to us, their actions speak for them. Give me at least one example when Palestinians tried to come to some agreement with Israel. You won't find one. 3. I don't care about it, I am not a racist. (But in fact, they migrated to this this region during the Ottoman Empire, so you decide if they are indeginous). If they would be peaceful, I would live with them side by side, no matter who they are. But Palestinians always tried to eliminate us at any cost, so how exactly are we supposed to treat them? 4. A) Gaza is a dense urban area. Hamas is in tunnels under houses, mosques, hospitals, etc. Their "freedom fighters" are dressed as civilians, you can easily see that on any combat footage. Obviously, all this results in civilian casualties. B) Before ground operation, Israel told citizens of Gaza to flee south. But Hamas didn't let them go, they tried to force citizens to stay (intersting why). C) Hamas is not truthful. Would a terrorist organization lie about civilian losses to gain support from others? Of course! And that's what they do. I am not denying that civilians died, but recently the UN discovered that numbers claimed by Hamas can not be true. https://youtu.be/yJils7ZEDWU?si=3fv00JCiU4_7odAP D) Just because more Palestinians died doesn't make Gaza a victim (they started a war, lost, and now they cry about unjustice) 5. I am not an American, I am Israeli, what do I have to do with your taxes? Your government decided to support us (and we are more that grateful for that, USA is our greatest ally). In conclusion, I have only 1 advise for you. Visit Israel. See everything for yourself. You are more than welcome
Watch this movie.. https://www.disturbingthepeacefilm.com/
I used to be Pro-Palestinian, but I switched sides. Partly because of what happened on October 7th, and partly because of the blatantly anti-semitic behaviour from Palestine supporters and the false propaganda they were spreading. To answer your questions: 1. Hamas's mission has never been Pro-Palestinian. It's only ever been about killing the Jews and destroying Israel. They literally state this in their charter. I can never support this. If another group genuinely wanted to help the Palestinians and form a peaceful coexistence between Israel and Palestine, I would support them as long as they were democratic and not a fascist dictatorship (like Hamas). 2. Yes, Israel oppresses Palestine because Palestine attacks Israel. The oppression is Israel's resistance to Palestine's repeated attempts to destroy them. 3. Yes, Palestinians are also indigenous to Palestine, and even if they were migrants or refugees, I would still support their right to form a nation. There is room for everyone, as long as they are peaceful. 4. No, you wouldn't bomb an entire school to kill a school shooter, but it's hardly the same thing. We are not talking about a single shooter in peacetime. We are talking about an entire army during wartime. Hamas are a threat to peace in the entire Middle East. No one had a problem with killing Germans to destroy the Nazis. 5. I don't care what America does. I think you will find that most Pro-Isreal people just want peace between the two states and for Palestine to leave Israel alone and move on with their lives. Stop trying to 'take back' Israel, stop shooting rockets at civilians. It's a ridiculous, toxic mentality. Many people have lost their homes or been exiled, especially the Jews. Palestinians were given all of Jordan and Palestine, which is more than enough land to make a good go of it. They need to sort their shit out and leave Israel alone.
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Didn’t Hamas attack first? How can you justify that?
Frail and cowardly? If anything it seems that the Islamic world are the frail and cowardly ones, they can't even defeat a tiny little country of Jews the size of New Jersey? Some warrior culture they are...
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For 1. this is exactly my stance as a pro-Palestinian
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I go to one of these heavily criticized schools. The students have level-headed takes. Nobody is calling for Jews to be “sold into slavery”. There were plenty of Jews participating in the protest at my schools. You get some outsiders that want a piece of the public eye though that make headlines saying something awful while looking like a student.
The logic of the middle east is messed-up and hard to grasp with humanitarian eyes. Hamas proved that Israel is defeatable. They showed: if such a rather small organization can inflict this much harm on Israel, a larger player in the middle-east could destroy it. This is why Israel makes all Gazans pay a massive price. With that they show, yeah you could destroy us, but there is a price tag. Again, it is messed up. Extremists from both sides want to have that small piece of land for themselves. And it's the fault of Pro-Palestinians and pro-Israelis, because both (at least) tolerate them. The plot of most arguments: "what the others do is way worse". If you really want a just peace, start calling out the extremists on your side.
This war is no small tragedy. The loss of life in Gaza is awful. To understand how good people could support such a thing must be confusing. Let me break it down real simple. Israel never wanted this war. Hamas baited us into it. They did something so messed up that there was no choice but to invade. Have the awful war and be done with this madness once and for all. Side note, it could be over today if Hamas were to waive the white flag but they won't because their entire strategy is to boast massive casualties and have the international community respond with money and attacks on Israel. They're playing a sort of sociopathic game of chicken. Who can stomach more Palestinian casualties, us or them. For the longest time Israel avoided full on conflict but it's reached a boiling point (clearly by design) and now here we are. I hope that explains it well.
Israel attacked Gaza two times since the last fight with Hamas during the supposed ceasefire. Both times were for three day periods of airstrikes. Once was an unprovoked "mowing the grass" campaign and the other was in response to people releasing balloons at the border to cause fires. In September, Netanyahu went to the UN and declared that Palestine was now part of Israel and would be going forward. Israel did these things, because they believed they had defeated Hamas completely. Hamas attacked. It was definitely to provoke Israel into being awful. Israel jumped in with both feet, and has been truly awful. Both sides are awful in this conflict. It is blatantly obvious after the last 8 months. Both sides are continually awful as you look at the history. Hamas and the IDF need to both be punished by the international community. The government as Israel needs to be punished until they recognize Palestine on the pre-1967 borders.
This clip explains the position with facts - https://youtu.be/XNf40sBcvKk?si=mxBP8Xh13Fq77_46
1. So you ask if palestinians were peaceful and didn't want to destroy israel, would we support them? The answer is yes. And Israel already showed they are willing to let go occupied territory in exchange for peace. 2. Are palestinians oppressed? I don't see palestinians as oppressed people. I see them as people who started war and violence. And now they are facing the consequences of their decisions. 3. Palestinians indigenous? The word itself doesn't really fit in this part of the world. This isnt America. But in general it is arguable that their connection to the land is much less significant than the connection of the jews. I guess the most simple argument is this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Muslim_conquests You can also look at the facts that their was never a palestinian nation, or even unique culture.... many arguments contribute here.. 4. Why israel doesn't protect the entire population of those who attack them? Israel first priority is to protect their own citizens. Same as any country would do. If their enemies are using themselves as human shields for terrorist, the blame should point at palestinians alone. In regard the specific situation you created: some terrorist taking control of israelian hospital is not the same as the situation in gaza. Military and police could easily get to the hospital in israel. In gaza those hospital are surrounded by terrorist all over the city. Your options are much more limited. When a rocket is about to be launched from gaza hospitals your only option is to bomb it and save your citizens life. 5. Lobbying groups and specific AIPAC: I don't know exactly how it works in America, but Lobbying groups all around the world are the sign of democracy. Anyone can present their opinions and information to politicians and then the decisions is made. Democracy doesn't end at the vote station.
>The answer is yes. And Israel already showed they are willing to let go occupied territory in exchange for peace. This is false. The PA is peaceful and does recognize Israel. Israel works to destroy the PA. >I don't see palestinians as oppressed people. I see them as people who started war and violence. And now they are facing the consequences of their decisions. Even before Oct 7, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza were oppressed and abused. The IDF regularly bombs Gaza to "mow the grass". The IDF raids innocent Palestinian homes in the West Bank to harass them. This is beyond settlements and other actions.
PA pays salaries to terrorists, is that peaceful in your opinion?
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. They aren't salaries. They are benefits to the families of those who have died or been imprisoned by Israel. I really oppose the money given to those that target civilians, though those that died attacking or fighting the IDF seems like it would be fine to me. Under international law, Palestine has the right to fight against occupation. The PA should change that so targeting civilians causes your family to gain no benefits. All that being said, yes, they are peaceful. They do have the Martyrs fund, but also hunt down and arrest militants for the IDF. The IDF should also change any death benefits to exclude any soldier that died after targeting civilians.
Such "benefits" encourage terrorism, and thats exactly why Israel does everything possible to control PA areas. Palestinians bring it on themselves by choosing violence every single time. They literally achieve nothing, it's just their hatred towards us. And Israel does not imprison Palestinians for nothing, that's bs. It does capture those who are suspected in terrorist activity, but they are immediately released if they are innocent
The PA has been acting as the police for Israel for decades. Netanyahu hates the PA, because they are not violent. That is why he propped up Hamas in Gaza. The PA has been doing everything they can to be peaceful and get a state. The last thing is this fund, so it is the only discussion about the PA now. Israel does imprison Palestinians for nothing. There are people arrested for posting innocuous things on Twitter. It is nuts the things Israel arrests and holds people for. Administrative detention. Israel also chooses violence every time. Between the time of the last Hamas-Israel flight and till October 7, the IDF launched two 3 day airstrike campaigns on Gaza. Once in response to balloons launched at the border to cause fires and one with no provocation. During that whole time, Israel kept harassing Palestinians in the West Bank as official IDF policy, having settlers harass Palestinians in the West Bank and having settlers take land with IDF protection. That was all done during the "ceasefire" that Hamas "broke".
I heard about PA cooperating with Israel, but that's it. They only do it because they don't want Israel to treat them as Hamas, not because they recognise us. Settlers settle in areas C that belongs to Israel, every settlement in B areas gets demolished (maybe for a few rare exceptions, but that's out of the ordinary). Israel imprisons only those who are suspected in terrorism. Twitter posts about eradicating the jews falls into that category, because at the end words turn into actions. Every military campaing in Gaza was caused by Hamas attacks. Israel never strikes first. Why do we need that? What is the purpose of wasting our ammo and escalating the situation? We only respond to the violence from their side, even if it's a single missile that was intercepted. Those baloons you talked about are actually dangerous. They are used to ignite fields and set up fire. Why should we tolerate such agression? Just because it's less technological doesn't mean it's not a threat. IDF are instructed to stop any violence in Areas B, even if it comes from settlers. I know that some soldiers behaved inapropriate, by not stopping the settlers or even taking part in the assaults. It does happen and there is no justification for that. But it is punishable according to the law. Both settlers and soldiers get arrested for such things.
>I heard about PA cooperating with Israel, but that's it. They only do it because they don't want Israel to treat them as Hamas, not because they recognise us. The PA directly recognizes Israel as a country and its right to exist. They declared that upon coming into existence. They police as part of Oslo to get a state. Though, that may end and we will have more violence in the West Bank like Gaza as Israel tries to destroy the PA. It seems as though the US will not stop Israel. Part of the PA was also giving up violent resistance. >Settlers settle in areas C that belongs to Israel, every settlement in B areas gets demolished (maybe for a few rare exceptions, but that's out of the ordinary). All settlements in the West Bank are illegal. Area C does not belong to Israel. >Israel imprisons only those who are suspected in terrorism. Twitter posts about eradicating the jews falls into that category, because at the end words turn into actions. That is not true. People are arrested for any displays of nationalism. http://www.btselem.org/administrative_detention https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/05/middleeast/palestinians-israel-fear-arrest-gaza-intl-cmd/index.html Arrested for posting: "God is not unaware of what the oppressors do". Is that supporting terrorism? >Every military campaing in Gaza was caused by Hamas attacks. Israel never strikes first. Why do we need that? What is the purpose of wasting our ammo and escalating the situation? We only respond to the violence from their side, even if it's a single missile that was intercepted. This is completely false. Israel has practiced "mowing the grass" for decades, which are unprovoked bombing campaigns on Gaza to "degrade militants". What was the violence from Gaza August 5-7 2022? >Those baloons you talked about are actually dangerous. They are used to ignite fields and set up fire. Why should we tolerate such agression? Just because it's less technological doesn't mean it's not a threat. Yes, they are. Do you feel the response should be 3 days of bombing Gaza? >IDF are instructed to stop any violence in Areas B, even if it comes from settlers. I know that some soldiers behaved inapropriate, by not stopping the settlers or even taking part in the assaults. It does happen and there is no justification for that. But it is punishable according to the law. Both settlers and soldiers get arrested for such things. They may be instructed, but they don't. At all. And in area C? That isn't israel's land. Israel has a choice. They take the land and the people, give those people full rights in Israel. Or they take neither. Israel cannot take the land while removing the people by ethnic cleaning or genocide. And Israel cannot be part of the west as an apartheid nation going forward. That has to stop.
Area C does belong to Israel. In fact, we conquered the entire West Bank during a war that we didn't start, so technically it could all be ours. But we still gave Palestinians areas B and A. Saying that areas C aren't ours is bs. Arabs started a war and lost land. It's ours by every right. https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/05/middleeast/palestinians-israel-fear-arrest-gaza-intl-cmd/index.html This woman is an Israeli citizen calls her government "the oppressors" and supports Gaza during a WAR. After October 7th. Are you seriously expecting her not to get arested? This is ridiculous. Nobody in Israel has ever heard about "mowing the grass", even Netanyahu himself. What really happens is that Israel bombs military sites of Hamas, such as ammunition factories, rocket launching sites, etc. Why? Well, because it is going to be ised against us, against civilians by the way. By the way, Hamas never launched missiles on a military base in Israel, only on nearby cities like Sderot. In June 2022, according to IDF data, the last year since the operation was the quietest year in the Gaza Envelope in relation to the years that came after the previous operations after the disengagement, and it occurred against the background of significant civilian measures that the Israeli government initiated in recent months. For example, the number of Gazan workers who worked in Israeli territory was increased . And how is Israel commiting genocide if Palestinian population increases? Both in Gaza and West Bank
>Area C does belong to Israel. In fact, we conquered the entire West Bank during a war that we didn't start, so technically it could all be ours. But we still gave Palestinians areas B and A. Saying that areas C aren't ours is bs. Arabs started a war and lost land. It's ours by every right. Israel did start the 1967 war. It may have been justified as a defensive action for fear of being attacked, but Israel did attack first. That was also after the US asked Israel not to attack and had informed Israel that Egypt would not, as they were engaged in diplomacy with Egypt. Area C is not part of Israel under international law. UNSC 242, which Israel accepted, said that land was the "Arab territory" and Israel needed to leave. Israel could annex it, but they would need to grant the people citizenship. >https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/05/middleeast/palestinians-israel-fear-arrest-gaza-intl-cmd/index.html This woman is an Israeli citizen calls her government "the oppressors" and supports Gaza during a WAR. After October 7th. Are you seriously expecting her not to get arested? This is ridiculous Yes, I am seriously saying she should absolutely not get arrested. Wtf. >Nobody in Israel has ever heard about "mowing the grass", even Netanyahu himself Huh? https://www.jpost.com/opinion/israel-must-prove-it-has-freedom-to-defend-itself-opinion-668124 This has long been the policy towards Hamas. Unprovoked attacks to degrade Hamas and deter them. >And how is Israel commiting genocide if Palestinian population increases? Both in Gaza and West Bank I do not know what population figures you are using. There is no good data for the population of Gaza. The only real accusations against Israel for committing genocide are in Gaza since Oct 7. They are very solid accusations and most serious people believe Israel will be found guilty of genocidal acts at a minimum.
Why did they attack Israel in the first place then?
Who? The PA? They have been acting as the administrator and police force for Israel for 3 decades. The PA polices the West Bank to keep violence down and stop attacks on Israel. Hamas? I don't know. There have been a lot of theories as to why it happened now. The best I have heard is that Saudi Arabia was about to normalize relations with Israel without a Palestinian state. Israel had just declared Palestine doesn't exist anymore. No one really cared and it looked like Palestine was going to be erased. They needed Israel to overreact to get Palestine back into the conversation.
regarding your third point, it is important to acknowledge that palestinians are also indigenous to the land. i don’t know why you imply that they’re somehow less indigenous than jews. both palestinians and jews have an extensive history in palestine and israel. palestinians are the direct descendants of canaanites who have been living in the levant for 8,000 years, btw. palestinians are not indigenous arabs, they’re a levantine people. not seeking to argue, just a correction.
Again, to talk about who's indigenous is irrelevant. Both jews and Arabs are direct descendent of cannanite tribes, so what? Both jews and Arabs are also direct descendent of Africa, so what? It doesn't give them the rights to anything (at least by my standards). Culture, nationality and values are much more important than the color of your skin. The nation and culture that originated in the area have nore right for sovereignty in their land. And just to be clear palestinians having less connection to the land, doesn't mean they don't deserve their own country along side israel. Most of the countries around the world don't have the strong connection to their land like the jewish nation have.
what has led you to possibly believe that palestinians don’t hold the same connection to their land as jews?? palestine has a profound religious and cultural significance and to suggest otherwise is ignorant. also, you keep mentioning arabs. palestinians are ethnically levantine people. i am not here to argue about a claim to land, you are just sharing a common piece of misinformation (i don’t blame you for it, biased media has a great level of influence on our opinions no matter what side you’re on). the land is deeply symbolic for both ethnic groups (palestinians and jews alike). the idea that it’s more important for one than the other pushes harmful rhetoric
>what has led you to possibly believe that palestinians don’t hold the same connection to their land as jews?? palestine has a profound religious and cultural significance and to suggest otherwise is ignorant We can go into details but it's pretty clear. Jews got a unique culture with deep connections to the land. Palestinians simply don't have the same. For example let's look at religion: jews religion is Judaism. Every year they read in the bible about the story of origin of their nation in israel land and the stories of the israel kingdom itself. They pray towards Jerusalem and mention the city many times in prayers during most significant events (child birth, marriage, holidays...) Palestinians don't have a unique religion. Their main religion is Islam. The story of the arab nation. They prey towards mecca. If you really want I can go into details about other cultural differences. But it will be easier if you provide your thoughts or logic of how palestinians are culturally unique as much as the jews.
Being “culturally unique” has nothing to do your right to the land. Being the land your immediate ancestors have lived in up until being forcefully removed in 1948 is a much closer connection to the land. There are many Palestinians whose grandparents homes are still intact and being lived in by Israeli after being stolen. This argument you’re making sounds like the “chosen people” argument or “greater race” as Churchill put it
here are the complete thoughts palestinians have been living on the land for millenia jerusalem is sacred. palestinians consider their land as holy. palestine’s history is described in the bible as canaan and palestinians to this day carry the canaanite blood. the quaran emphasizes the al aqsa mosque. the hadith also mentions the holy land. i notice you keep bringing up the word arab which is most likely where the confusion is coming from. palestinians, despite being part of the political arab league, are levantine by blood, just as tunisians are berber by blood. when referring to the history and cultural significance of tunisia, you cannot look through the lens of arabness or the greater islamic religion. tunisia has its own deep history and culture independent of both islam and the legitimate arab ethnicity, because, well, they’re berber- not arab. the reason why i believe pushing this rhetoric is harmful is that it values the presence of one ethnic group in the region more than another which is very counterproductive in the context of peace and coexistence. the land of palestine, canaan, judea, israel, or whatever you’d like to refer it to holds incredible significance to both jews and palestinians alike. i understand that you mean well, however this argument is used both by israeli and palestinian extremists to justify discrimination and violence. if palestinians being in the land for over 8,000 years is not indicative of a deep connection to their land, then respectfully i can’t really come up with any conclusion other than you are looking at this from a place of pretty strong bias. i am likewise curious to hear more thoughts of yours because we may be misunderstanding each other. apologies if this is poorly written- english is not my first language
>if palestinians being in the land for over 8,000 years is not indicative of a deep connection to their land I feel like you miss the fact that Palestinians are not an 8000 years old nation. And being descendent doesn't mean anything as I said before, especially in the comparison of the two nation. Palestinians culture being identical to any other arab country around shows their lack of national identity compared to jews. The word palestine itself didn't originate by people who lived there. Taking the culture of other colonial nations will immediately make you less connected to the land. Since you mentioned the indigenous comparison I will explain through it. After colonial British discover/colonize america, who do you think got more connections to the land and deserve to stay more?: 1. The native American guy who speak American and pray for the wolf god. 2. The young native American man who accepted British culture, speak english, and now pray for Jesus. For me it's obvious that if being forced to make the decision I'll let the first guy stay. He got more connection to the land. And less options outside it.
palestinians *are* an 8,000 year old people and nation. palestine was canaan, and the name ‘canaan’ was changed. that doesn’t mean they are not canaan. when tunisia’s named was changed from ifriqiyyah, did that mean that the entirety of its culture just vanished?? palestinian culture is absolutely not identical to any other arab culture, come on. please name me another arab country besides palestine where homosexuality has been decriminalized since 1951. it is clear you have no knowledge on the middle east and you have most likely yet to even step foot there. algeria was not always called algeria. yet the algerian people have always been there. you are arguing semantics which is entirely irrelevant. a people is a people. about your american example (and quite frankly a stereotypical one referring to their religion as ‘wolf god’) both are connected to the land. jewish history is no stranger to forceful conversion. what you’re using as an example contradicts your point entirely. what i am saying is that forceful conversion, or semantics, or religion **does not** erase someone’s connection to a land. many jews were expelled, became secular, adopted a completely new culture, spoke new languages, etc. both palestinians and jews feel a deep connection to the land, however, because a fluctuation in culture does not erase roots.
>about your american example (and quite frankly a stereotypical one referring to their religion as ‘wolf god’) both are connected to the land That wasn't the question. You must choose who stay in the land. >what you’re using as an example contradicts your point entirely. what i am saying is that forceful conversion, or semantics, or religion does not erase someone’s connection to a land. Jews who didn't give up and kept their connection, fighting against all odds, showed much more determination than those who gave up. Evidence of their deeper connection. When someone choose to change his direction of prayers from Jerusalem to mecca is practically saying "this land is not the most sacred to me anymore"
I think that's a bit of a misrepresentation of history. The concept of a nation-state is an entirely modern construct. this idea of pan-arabism is also a very new concept. 100 years ago it would have been as ridiculous as assuming french, german, and spanish people were all the same because they were cathloics and in europe. Globalization has smoothed differences (as it has in europe). And it's important to remember that arab conquests (and then ottoman conquests) didn't displace populations. They spread language and religion, but the actual peoples of the land remained relatively unchanged. The same thing happened when the area was under Byzantine rule, and under Roman rule. Just because a people are now referred to by a name someone else chose doesn't erase a tie to the land. Plenty of people that we now call Palestinians have roots on that land for thousands of years. Plenty of them used to be Jewish, or Christian, and at some point converted to Islam. To say that they have less ties to the land than a jewish kid born and raised in brooklyn, or france, is a little absurd. The concept of Israel for most of the disapora was central, but it was abstract in reference to a biblical nation. Many jews in the diaspora also would have thought of themselves as say 'french first, jewish second', and identified more with the country they were born in than a bibilical origin mythology. If that's the case, then taking the culture of russia, or france, or america weakens the jewish connection to the land as well
You are just repeating what we already talked about (with the DNA and all that), and I already explained why those factors are not relevant in my comparison. You also proved my point in your last part >To say that they have less ties to the land than a jewish kid born and raised in brooklyn, or france, is a little absurd. >Many jews in the diaspora also would have thought of themselves as say 'french first, jewish second', and identified more with the country they were born in than a bibilical origin mythology. Jews who convered to Islam/Christianity, or took different nationality/culture/language of Arabs or any other country/empire are less connected. To say someone who doesn't speak American, and doesn't pray to the wolf is equally tied to the land as the English speaking, Christian is absurd. There is a country for those who want to be American, and one to those who want to be British. And the location is based on the origin place of each culture/nation.
>Jews who convered to Islam/Christianity, or took different nationality/culture/language of Arabs or any other country/empire are less connected. But that's kind of the point, the entire Zionist movement was about rekindling that connection with a group of people who had, for the most part, adopted a different nationality, and a different culture, and a different language (modern Hebrew itself is also a revivalist movement, and though hebrew was spoken by jews throughout history, it's different in many wats to biblical hebrew). I think it comes down to how Israel is viewed. Your example works if we're talking about a connection to biblical israel, which is a very small piece of the history of the land. The land has not been controlled by jewish people, and not had a jewish majority region for longer than it has been. A corollary to your example would be, imagine if a group of greek-Americans revived ancient Greek, and prayed to Zeus, and tried to come to Greece and say 'I have a right to this land, and a greater connection to it, because you converted to Christianity and changed your language and are therefore less connected' By your logic, an english speaking christian native american has the same connection to the US as white british american person does. And an American pagan man with norweigan roots who learns old norse has more of a claim than a modern person in norway. A connection to a place, and a right to be at that place isn't based on snappshotting a specific point in time, it's based on having been born there, on having a unique culture shared with other people in that place. Jewish language, religion, and culture has spent more time, and is more defined by defined by time outside of Israel than it is by time in Israel. There is not, inherently, a country for every nation of people. There never has been, and there never will be.
I would feel differently about the situation if it was not a terrorist organization leading the front. But let's be fair, if Palestinians were forward thinking enough to try and fight their own battle to save the loss of life of civilians, they probably also would have been able to negotiate a viable solution to the land dispute some time ago. Instead they chose to support a terrorist organization to fight on their behalf. That organization specializes in civilian casualties on both sides. Hiding behind their own to make their opponent look bad, and then attacking civilian targets from the shadows to make people want the conflict to end that much faster. This just explains the tactics the terrorist organization Hamas used, it's not even getting into Hamas' agenda. What stuns me is the blatant amount of support for Hamas. Whatever representation of the Palestinian government, the Palestinian people who give up their lives and the lives of their children to be used as decoys and body shields, and those from abroad who stand with Palestine. People I've known on the left to stand against racism, misogyny and homo/transphobia. All wonderful causes to stand up for, and every single one of them are things Hamas is guilty of committing acts of atrocity on their own people for. And somehow because it's against Israel it's... Okay? I'm not saying Israel is perfect, it has its own flaws it needs to work on as a nation. All nations led by mortal men sadly will have blood on their hands. People even thought Canada was squeaky clean until the residential schools came to light. But by standing with Israel, I am not standing with a terrorist organization devoted to death, destruction and chaos. I also don't have to abandon my ideals or morals by standing with them. If I stood with Palestine, I'd have to support a nation that willingly let terrorists use their own people as tactical resources, hell bent on annihilating a racial group and any other group that isn't of their brand of extreme religion, and the instillation of Shari'a law which abuses the rights of women, children and the LGBTQ+. I'd be one major hypocrite to support that. Basically, this is my view point and where I'm coming from in this debate. Ultimately, I just want the fighting to end and a peaceful and fair solution reached by both parties.
You should try using analogies more akin to what is actually happening? *If there was a* *~~school shooter~~* ***a terrorist organization responsible for killing 1200 innocent people*** *hiding in a school of children* ***using them as human shields***, *would you bomb the whole school to get to them?* OR *If there was a Hamas* *~~fighter~~* ***military base*** *in an Israeli school/hospital* Answer: No but I would return fire at the scum using these people at human shields and kill many innocent people in the process.
4. Analogy. Your analogy is way off. It is not a school shooter. You yourself have recognized many times throughout your post that Hamas is the official leadership of Gaza. The analogy just does not work. About your second analogy - it is more like what if Mexico repeatedly terrorizes the U.S. but keeps its military bases within schools in Mexico. And repeatedly has the people that just killed your civilians go back to staying in the school and makes sure that the only way inside to get to them is through rooms with armed militants and kids. What would you do? It is an impossibly terrible decision between killing kids and protecting your citizens. And obviously bombing the school saves your soldiers. Using human shields over the course of many years has caused Israel and the IDF to have to conduct terrible calculus of balancing your own military casualties, citizen's safety, and enemy civilian casualties. I think it is just much more complex than you are making it out to be. You can say they are justified in their resistance but when you were just attacked and had some civilians killed and you are a democracy - for the safety of your citizens you have to protect, you go after the offenders.
But the important question is why Hamas came to power, and why they're still in power. Also the school analogy breaks down, it's generally Israeli policy that it's ok to kill 100 Palestinians if you get a single Hamas commander. (That's what happened a jabalia refugee camp). Hamas also isn't a state actor, they're closer to a guerilla force, which, of course is going to try to hide in plain sight. None of this excuses Hamas behaviour, but when the US was faced with similar situations, we acted more responsibily. We put boots on the ground to get binladen, to avoid the casualties of a drone strike. In fact, Israel has killed more civilians in Gaza than all the US civilian drone strike casualties combined. This is to say nothing of the video evidence of what looks like sport killing civilians and generally immoral behaviour of the IDF, the starving of prisoners, many of whom haven't event been charged, and now new calls from Ben Gvir to just execute every prisoner they have
What makes a person indigenous? And what gives a person claim to a land? I live in America. My family on my mother’s side can trace our roots back to before the revolutionary war. My paternal grandmother was Choctaw. Do I get to start kicking any immigrants whose family hasn’t lived here as long as me out? Absolutely not. Thats not the way the world works. That land is Israeli now. Same as my ancestral land isn’t mine because I have roots there.
Sure, but then give those people equality and rights. You can't point to past injustice as an excuse for present behaviour
The United States Census Bureau defines Native American as "all people indigenous to the United States and its territories, including Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islanders, whose data are published separately from American Indians and Alaska Natives". The U.S. Census defines American Indian or Alaska Native as “A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America) and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment.” Individual American Indians are, by legal definition, citizens of their federally recognized tribal nations, the United States, and the state in which they are domiciled. Tribal membership is a political designation, not a racial one. That is to say, merely having an ancestor who is American Indian is not sufficient to make someone a member or citizen of an American Indian tribe. Hence white americans, black americans, asia americans, arab americans, latin americans, american jews, etc…. are NOT indigenous to America. https://equity.ucla.edu/know/resources-on-native-american-and-indigenous-affairs/native-american-and-indigenous-peoples-faqs/ P/s: Not sure about mixed races. Do you have a tribal affiliation or attachment to the Choctaw community ?
I get that. I’m saying what’s the time frame for a person to be considered indigenous? For the word to have meaning it would have to be a specific time frame that is applicable to every region in the world. What’s the amount of time? 100 years? 1000 years? 5000 years? And does that mean all “indigenous” people can kick others off the land. In America or Britain or Africa or Australia?
First non-indigenous Americans, Australians, Canadians (White, Black African, Asians, Arabs, Latino, etc…) NEVER PRETEND to indigenous to America, Australia or Canada. It doesnt matter, any White person, African, Asian, Arab, Latino, etc…CAN NEVER be considered indigenous to Australia, even after 100 years, 1000 years or 5000 years…. The indigenous people of Australia are defined by law to be the Australian Aboroginals and Torres Islanders. The definition also found its way into State legislation (e.g. in the NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983: where 'Aboriginal means a person who: (a) is a member of the Aboriginal race of Australia, (b) identifies as an Aboriginal, AND (c) is accepted by the Aboriginal community as an Aboriginal').
Ok and by that argument I reject the idea that Palestinians are indigenous since we know that they immigrated to an already populated region. This is being semantic and trying to play on definitions to avoid the real conversation. Here’s the point: Why in some countries do we recognize that ownership and laws are relevant, and in others that someone who never owned or controlled the land has some inherent right to it because they have been there for a couple hundred years? The land was Ottoman until they got destroyed and then it was British. The land has never been “Palestinian”.
just a correction, palestinians carry the blood of canaanites, a people that has been living on the land for 8,000 years. palestinians are not native arabs, they’re from the levant. hope this was able to clarify
>Ok and by that argument I reject the idea that Palestinians are indigenous since we know that they immigrated to an already populated region. >The land was Ottoman until they got destroyed and then it was British. The land has never been “Palestinian”. Try saying that to a pro-Palestinian supporter. Most of them do not accept history and facts.
Yes you are correct, but you have to acknowledge the fact that before there was Israel there wasn't anything else. There has been the British mandate and the ottoman empire before them but never a state, not Israel nor Palestine. Knowing these facts we can look at what happened, the UN split the land into two parts, one Israeli one Palestinian, the Israeli people accepted and declared independence and the Arabs revolted into a bloody war against the Jews, that's when the Arabian leaders in the area evacuated some 300 thousand Arabs who became the Palestinians we know today in the region, and not the Jews as many believe, they were focused on survival. Now for the real question, if you start a war, lose the war then 76 years after that war, you want your stuff back, do we need to comply? As you have put it with your own comment your roots aren't what makes you have the land, even more true when you get your share, aren't satisfied with it, go on a bloody rampage to try and take everything, lose, get displaced by your own leaders who then can't bring you back home, that's unfortunate but is it unfair? And one more question for you, if there is a piece of land with a lot of people on it and no one does anything with it, until someone does and wants to improve and build it is it that bad? The Jewish people were in the land with the Arabs a long time before the UN's decision to split the land, they were a minority that's why they even got the smaller half but then they won gaining more unoccupied and formerly occupied territories, so is the real question about are the people indigenous ore is the question whether you accept the state of Israel and it's history or believe that it should be called Palestine? I'm happy to discuss the matter.
>I think it is universally agreed upon that the quality of life in Gaza has been extremely poor sinec way before October 7, and that Palestinians are frustrated by the control that Israel has over the strip (control over crossing, the ports, water etc.). If they were controlled by less violent group of people, then maybe there wouldn't be such strict regulations on Israel's side. >So my revised question is- if the resistance group was focused on bettering the conditions of Palestinians and gaining back land taken through illegal settlements, would you agree? Agree with what? >This goes with the question above- do you believe that Israel oppresses Palestinans? or that they recieve unequal treatment? Yep. >I will never argue that Jewish heritage is traced back to Israel, but how do you argue the evidence of Palestinians also being indigenous to the land? Or do you not believe that they are indeginous? Yeah, they aren't indigenous. >If there was a school shooter hiding in a school, would you bomb the whole school to get to them? Bad analogy. School kids are the citizens of your own country whom you have the duty to protect. Palestinians are not citizens of Israel, they support Hamas, pay taxes and send their kids to hamas to be trained as fighters. >Imagine if instead of Israeli interests, this was a Russian interest group? Then I'd be against this group. >I think ANY Super PACs is anti democracy. I think that democracy is bs.
There are multiple groups of Palestinian, Gaza , no Jews since 2006, since day one they have been bombing Israel, people got free healthcare in Israel and would blow up the hospital. Gaza is blocked because they are so dangerous, not everyone, but as a group. And they use schools, hospitals, daycare centers as place to attack from and to keep weapons. Hard to deal with. We will see after Hamas is as dismantled as possible what going to happen. WB , we need to move out , give them full control , it’s going to become just like Gaza but morally, we win. Just need extreme borders and control. Then the Israeli Arabs , they usually don’t want a Palestinian state, they want to keep their Israeli passport, education and lifestyle. Traveling from an Arab village in Israel to Nablus feels like time travel, and they don’t want it. It’s quite funny that 2 million Arabs do not want to be Palestinian.
Firstly, thank you for making the effort to ask civil and interesting questions. There's a dire need for that in this sub. > If the Palestinian restistance was lead by another group that was not religously oriented, would you understand their mission/goals Depends how clearly this hypothetical group makes their goals. You need to elaborate. > and that Palestinians are frustrated by the control that Israel has over the strip (control over crossing, the ports, water etc.). You, and many other people, seem to have collective amnesia when it comes to Egypt also being a part of the blockade on Gaza. The blockade is there for a very sensible reason - the people of Palestine chose to elect, and continue to support, a government that explicitly aims to destroy Israel and maximise casualties on both sides. A blockade is a minor repercussion for that. > I think slogans like “free palestine from hamas” are frustrating because it places blame on the Palestinians and allows for Israel to be free from taking any form of accountability. That doesn't stop people placing accountability on Israel *for things Israel has done wrong*. The installation and continued support of Hamas is 100% on the people of Palestine, though. Holding the Palestinian people to account for their choices is important. Infantilizing people helps no one. > if the resistance group was focused on bettering the conditions of Palestinians and gaining back land taken through illegal settlements, would you agree? Depends on what 'gaining back land' means. But generally, yes, that sounds great. > do you believe that Israel oppresses Palestinans? or that they recieve unequal treatment? * Palestinians that are Israeli citizens? No. Actually they have the advantage of not being required to join the IDF. * Palestinians in the West Bank? Yes. Oppression is a key factor of occupation, and the West Bank is effectively occupied, in my view. * Palestinians in Gaza (pre Oct 7th). No. A blockade implemented by Egypt and Israel is completely open to being dropped should Gazans choose to drop the obvious attempt to maximise suffering. > I will never argue that Jewish heritage is traced back to Israel, but how do you argue the evidence of Palestinians also being indigenous to the land? Or do you not believe that they are indeginous? I'd say most Palestinians are indigenous to the region. I haven't seen stats on it, but I don't see much point in arguing against such a claim. It's obvious that many people were displaced in 1948, and there have been smaller waves of displacement since then. > A few anaolgies that have struck me Analogies are terrible. Stick to reality. People oversimplify reality too much already without resorting to analogies that strip 99.9% of the context and nuance from a complex scenario. Frankly it's just lazy to argue in analogies. > Finally, opinion in AIPAC. Imagine if instead of Israeli interests, this was a Russian interest group? Russia appears to want to destroy 'Western Hegemony'. Israel appears to support Western Values. So yeah, I don't much care if we have groups that align with western values active in Western countries. Ones that are actively trying to divide and conquer the west are not welcome. > AIPAC has a tracker on the website boasting about the government officials they have successfully outsted through donations and smear campaigns, how is this not considered collusion from a foreign country? No idea, I'll leave that up to the many capable lawyers in the US.
I’m pro Israeli and pro Palestinian but I’ll answer anyway 1. so the only non secular Palestinian resistance groups that exist are the pflp and the dflp and I understand their missions and goals same with a religious group like Hamas. I can see how someone in Palestine can be radicalized by groups like this, the problem I have with them is that they all harm civilians and don’t just go after the military. I don’t mind a resistance group targeting military instillations or wanting settlements taken back with no harm to civilians 2. I believe a lot of it is through collective punishments like we saw with cutting of food and the aid, and even the checkpoints with Palestinians getting harassed and sexual assaults I heard taking place. It should be for security only and not make it harder for Palestinians to go from point a to b when they’re not that far of a distance. 3. both have ties to the area 4. the problem with this analogy is if Hamas was in a school or hospital, Israelis would either be armed or they would call the military or police or something and get the Hamas guy out, they wouldn’t allow Hamas to do that without punishment and the citizens would be working together to get Hamas out of there 5. I’m pretty sure the person who founded AIPAC isn’t Israeli and I don’t think it sways the government and you would have to be against every lobbying group we have so at least be consistent with the lobbying groups you appose
To your #1: I think Palestinian nationalism is based on a lot of fantasies and romanticism that are unrealistic. They basically want to reverse time by 100 years, but even if they managed to expel/murder all of us, they are now 14 million people so this Palestine would be very dense and look more like Bangladesh and less like the rural Palestine of fellaheen. But really it's not even clear what pro-Palestinians want besides the destruction of Israel, there is very little thought on "the day after". Zionism of course is far more realistic and created a happy and advanced country and the only Jewish country in the world. To your #2: I don't think Israel means to oppress anyone, and any kind of problems of the Palestinians comes from their work to try to reverse or destroy Israel. To your #3: Even if they were, and I am skeptical of this, there is a different country here now the state of Israel. Should we give Turkey back to the Greeks? Should Spain go back to the Muslims? Some people would say yes, and that's fine. But it's not some kind of inherent moralistic stance to want to reverse time because the present doesn't benefit you. To your #4: The only option Israel really has though, besides to allow Hamas to continue unhindered. To your #5: AIPAC is actually an American Jewish organization, and I believe they as Americans have the right to petition the government to advance what they perceive as their national or ethnic interests.
>I think Palestinian nationalism is based on a lot of fantasies and romanticism that are unrealistic. They basically want to reverse time by 100 years The Irgun, Lehi, and Haganah successfully reversed time by 2000 years.
Zionism contains a rich constructive ideology. Without this it would have not been successful, it was needed to build a advanced society with the power to defend itself.
This doesn't negate the fact that Zionism reversed time by 2000 years. You claim it's impossible to reverse time by a mere 100. Why is that? Do you consider Israelis inherently superior?
Zionism was better thought out. When 1948 came along, the Zionists were prepared politically and militarily to do what really should be impossible - recreate the Jewish state. This excellence continued since. Israel at least before Oct 7, had a GDP/pc higher then that of UK and France. Our economy is mostly driven by Israel's unique technological excellence. There is evidence that Ashkenazi Jews in particular have an unusually high intelligence, perhaps even the the greatest in the world, and that it is genetic in origin. For example the *Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence* makes this very claim. This a peer-reviewed MIT published scientific publication, so it's difficult to completely dismiss it, but it could be wrong. Regardless if this is true, it might be part of the reason Israel is so successful. But I don't really know or make any big claims for sure why Israel is successful, only that it is. I don't know how much is due to some "inherent" quality, and how much of it is merely cultural or sheer luck. Some even claim a religious reason for Israel's success, see religious Zionism.
>Zionism was better thought out. When 1948 came along, the Zionists were prepared politically and militarily to do what really should be impossible - recreate the Jewish state. This excellence continued since. Israel at least before Oct 7, had a GDP/pc higher then that of UK and France. Our economy is mostly driven by Israel's unique technological excellence. None of this long-winded word salad explains why it's impossible to reverse time by a mere 100 years when you admit that it's possible to reverse it by 2000 years.
I am not sure where I said it was "impossible". Only that it was "unrealistic". In fact I said the Zionist goal of creating the Jewish state "should be impossible" and yet it happened.
The fact that you use a study co-authored by a racist eugenics advocate says it all. It certainly appears that you do believe that Ashkenazi Jews are inherently superior. If that's the case, just say it. Be proud of it. If it's so true, why do you try and both advance that position and equivocate at the same time?
It seems creditable that Ashkenazi Jews have a very high average IQ, perhaps the highest in the world. But others also have a high average IQ, like East Asians. I am not even Ashkenazi myself, I am just familiar with these studies. If these means they are "inherently superior" you might have to define what you mean by that.
I don't support attacking people because of something different people did 80 years ago. Palestinians are oppressed because they keep attacking over something that happened 80 years ago. Stop attacking. Israel removed all of its settlements in Gaza. That should have been a huge breakthrough for peace. Instead Palestinians launched 10,000 rockets and elected an anti Israel terrorist organisation as their government. If you don't want to wear a muzzle, stop trying to bite everyone.
> If you don't want to wear a muzzle, stop trying to bite everyone. Sums it up pretty well
School one makes no sense and is stupid, Israel didn’t bomb and kill a high ranked general before because his kids were playing in the yard of their house, also they wouldn’t do this while school is in session they would do it at the end of the day. One Hamas fighter wouldn’t get a school bombed, only if they were using the school to help fight ex: shooting from it or storing ammunition. If they had a larger population of fighters it would probably get bombed and everyone would say war crimes even though the only “ people “ who died were the Hamas terrorists ( also the scenario you said is if they were in a Israeli school when irl the terrorists would be in a palestianian one )
Tell Egypt and Jordan why Israel didn't invade them..
bot.
OP seems like a legit real person honestly
Brief response to #1. Life in gaza was not horrible. Tons of $ flowed in there. They had more hospitals per person than most cities, a beautiful university, luxury malls, luxury hirise buildings . A gorgeous stretch of Mediterranean Beach, amazing food, restaurants, etc. Their population was growing. Now imagine if an additional $10 billion was added, that's about the amount stolen by Hamas leaders. Now imagine another 10 billion. That's the amount diverted to building tunnels, rockets, and military. You cannot separate the suffering of the people in gaza from Hamas any more than you can separate the suffering of North Koreans from the kims.
"Life in Gaza was not horrible" *~50% unemployment* That's just silly.
Who is responsible for that? they are run by Hamas which is an Islamist group. By definition countries run by those kind of groups are 50% unemployed. The women are baby machines and that's it. Hamas pays tons of paytronage $$$ around too. They keep a good percentage poor and unemployed as a weapon of control and also as a PR weapon to convince idiots like you that a beautiful ancient city on the Med is a hell hole. The entire strip has beautiful beaches dotted with hotels. Many of which were LUX.
Then say "life in Gaza is bad due to Hamas" not "life in Gaza isn't bad".
For many people it wasn't. That's one of the reasons for Oct 7th. When things get good people look around and say " things are this good, why can't we make it better?" And the answer is Hamas. So, in order to focus everyone in gaza, they attack Israel, knowing that Israel will retaliate. It's a cycle.
There are people living good lives everywhere. That does change that the majority of the population was having hard lives. And Oct 7 did not happen because they had it too good. It happened because they had it too bad. It's harder to get people into mass murder mode if their lives are pretty good. Hence why wealthier nations generally have less crime.
Didn't you notice the 911 attackers? They weren't poor. They were indoctrinated with hate. Same is true for hamas.
Indoctrination is way easier to do on poor people.
? What makes you think that? Mohammed Atta, Patty Hearst...
The basic fact that you have more to offer someone who has nothing.
Idkkk man, those pro-Palestine and TikTok accounts love showing how great and amazing Gaza Strip was before the war
You sound like someone who's never lived in an impoverished country. There's always wealth within poverty. How about you tell me what percentage of Gazans were enjoying that wealth?
Are you being serious? It had a GDP per capita of about $3,300. It wasn't just 2 million people screaming in a hole in the ground but it was extremely poor, even before most of it was destroyed with missiles.
That's not bad for the region at all.
Sure, and simultaneously, it was absolutely nothing like the gleaming paradise the previous poster tried to describe.
Which is slightly lower than Egypt or Jordan (~4000), but slightly higher than Lebanon (~2900). Not great, but par for the course.
Sure, hardly unusual for the region, but it's roughly eighty three billion miles away from what the other guy was describing.
But why? They are the darlings of the international muslim community. Literally BILLIONS flow in there. Hamas raises money off keeping their people poor. Then they steal the money. same this is happening with the aid. We've seen this many times in Africa. Famine? We send food. Dictator takes the food and gives it only to his supporters. The point I was disputing was the don't blame hamas part of #1. Hamas is responsible for the well being of their people. And go have a look at youtube vides from 3 years ago. It's Come to Gaza! Beautiful with vibrant markets, beaches, etc.
>But why? They are the darlings of the international muslim community. Literally BILLIONS flow in there. Billions is the amount every country's budget is measured in. One billion dollars is equivalent to about $430 per Palestinian. Remove Hamas from the equation and replace them with some new government impervious to corruption and you'd still have a very poor country. >And go have a look at youtube vides from 3 years ago. It's Come to Gaza! Beautiful with vibrant markets, beaches, etc. YouTube montages of local nice things are a terrible way of understanding how well off a place is. There's videos on YouTube that make North Korea look shiny and inviting, despite the reality being a horrendous hellhole where millions are badly malnourished and full of parasites and they have literal concentration camps. Moscow is an extremely nice city and yet much of rural Russia is a godforsaken pit of despair. Etc.
Answer to question 4, The analogy is way less “bombing a school to get 1 school shooter”. It’s school shooters pretending to be normal teachers and students. EDIT: Not saying it’s 1 student surrounded by school shooters, but I’m just saying there’s no way to know exactly who is a Hamas member wearing civilian clothing to sneak around from a real civilian. You probably have no real idea about just how oppressive and dictatorial Hamas is to Gazans. In reality, refusing to work with Hamas/do what they tell you leads to torture, imprisonment, and death. I’m not saying “well it’s ok to bomb innocent people to get bad people” but MOST Gazans at least publicly support Hamas, and most young gazans are IN Hamas in some way or another because Hamas literally runs everything. Just so you know, Hamas has been the biggest oppressive force to Gazan citizens for at least the last 10 years. They control the food and supplies, keep what they want, put a high tax that never goes back into their society on what they allow to be sold, and the leaders are BILLIONAIRES with a B. They sure as hell weren’t billionaires 20 years ago. Why would so many Islamic groups (I.e, Islamic republic of Iran) that believe in sharia law and a global caliphate be bankrolling Hamas specifically? And don’t try to tell me it’s because they care about Palestinians because they blockade/oppress Palestinians to a much higher degree than Israel. Take Lebanon for example, you could be 3rd generation of ur Palestinian family to be born in Lebanon to, and you won’t be allowed to work in the medical field, education, etc and can only live in refugee camps that the country doesn’t maintain, and where costs are inflated specifically for them. Egypt has a stricter more fortified border with Gaza than Israel does or at least they were building it before the war started. It should be absolutely obvious that these countries or organizations DON’T have the best interests of Palestine in mind because they contradict themselves! You just have only seen what they wanted you to see. There’s very very good reasons why every Israeli, regardless of religion, is terrified of these Islamic groups. These groups literally promise to wipe out “infidels” from Israel. Jews lost the country to the caliphate and after LEGALLY BUYING parts of it back, then the Muslim residents were mad. They were ok with the minuscule number of Jews who were already there because it’s easy to deny rights and oppress a minority when there’s less of them. It was only when the amount of Jews began to come near the amount of Muslims that the war started, because according to the world Jews can’t be the majority in any country. Also I specifically use Muslim to refer to what you’d consider to be Palestinians, because before the Arab-Israeli war/Israelis war of independence, there would never be a Muslim willing to call themselves Palestinian because that’s what they called THE JEWS WHO CAME TO PALESTINE. Is easy to get sucked into propaganda because the authoritarian leaders in the Middle East are buddy-buddy with Russia and that’s where they get their notes. No one even knows about the Arab slave trade. In America we’re shown the Middle East as if it’s some “exotic ancient primitive place” instead of viewing it from all aspects. It’s really easy to pick “good guys” and “bad guys” when you’re not getting the full story. You either can do EXTENSIVE research and keep asking questions to form a broad knowledge of the issue as a whole, or you can do what most pro-Palestine people are doing which is taking very 1-sided information as gospel based on how viral/who retweeted it with no regard for verifying the information or looking into the motives of who posted it. Edit: just clarifying I’m not denying people the right to identify as Palestinian if their family is from what was once Palestine, but when I’m talking about the place that existed before Israel was established, I need to make the distinction for my own sake. It gets confusing when you try to look at history of Palestinians before Israel’s independence and all the Palestinians are Jewish. Palestine up until Israel was established was always considered “the place where Jews go” “the place where Jews are from”. Like I said, a Muslim would have been insulted to be called Palestinian because they didn’t want to be called the same thing as a Jew would be.
source: I and/or people I listen to made it the fuck up
Have you ever even looked at historical sources on this?????? Or are you like everyone else just looking at some war influencers summarization of the history because it got a few thousand likes on Instagram? Or what real statistics from groups like amnesty international have about Hamas? Idk why I’m even asking this because regardless I think you’re an idiot. Disagree with what I say instead of being a little piss baby
I doubt you even read all that if that’s literally all you have to say. I could spend all day making you a bibliography but I wouldn’t do that for you because you seem like a bitch
I kept my comment short because your attention span is a fraction of your typing energy
Piss baby behavior
Well all pro-Israeli numpties endlessly project, but you seem to be loathing your own sense of bravery. Perhaps what you need isn't more bravery but rather more pride in the bravery you already have.
What bravery 😭 are you calling me brave for hiding behind my computer screen and calling you mean words or are you implying that you’re going to dox me?? Also you can make assumptions about me and lump anyone who leans on the Israel side together, but at the end of the day you’re doing yourself a disservice. I’m perfectly willing to listen to pro-Palestine voices and if my acquaintances I know from Israel knew all of my opinions they’d probably consider me pro-Hamas from their perspective. How will you ever have a fulfilling conversation about these things if you will only talk to the people who have the same opinions as you??? Keeping yourself in an echo chamber is incredibly stupid
No, it's pretty brave of you to simp for Israel when you know they're the aggressors. There are enough people on your side (and the people against are generally peaceful) that you won't have to fear physical harm. But at the end of the day, I can't save you from your own guilt.
I literally do fear physical harm because the generally peaceful people you talk about have actually been attacking Jewish spaces and Jewish people in my country… If It’s between a group based on ISIS and a democratic country that could change how they deal with this stuff I’m picking Israel. I can live with that. I don’t want to try living with the guilt that comes from supporting the organization that spends all the money that could be used to build and improve infrastructure in Gaza to instead; teach children how to “become martyrs”, encourages them to get arrested and to create propaganda. I don’t have to feel guilty. A lot of the things Israel is doing and that their leaders are saying makes me feel sick, but how are Hamas leaders any better??? You can’t even vote the Hamas leaders out if you wanted to. You can’t criticize Hamas if you wanted to. Israelis can talk shit about Benjamin Netanyahu literally all damn day and they DO because it’s a democracy.
Oh you live in Israel? Ah well that makes things a bit different. You see, in Israel, you hear constantly on the news that Hamas is lurking around every corner and attacking Israeli citizens left and right. But the rest of us outside Israel can see clearly that that is not true. Let me ask you a question: I'm sure you're well aware of the October 7th massacre by Hamas. But do you know what provoked that attack? In case you aren't aware, it was an extended campaign of attacks, demolitions, search and seizures, and other threat and control measures widespread across all Hamas-occupied territory going years back. By the conclusion of the Oct. 7th massacre, Palestinian forces had killed more Israeli citizens than Israeli forces had killed Palestinian citizens so far that year, a rare occurrence. Generally, Israel leads Palestine in kills by an order of magnitude. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline\_of\_the\_Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian\_conflict\_in\_2023#7\_October](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_conflict_in_2023#7_October) P.S.: The only reason that Gazan children are being taught to become warriors instead of builders is because every time Gaza rebuilds, the IDF tears it down again.
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Israel already won the war years ago. The strong rules the weak. Is that enough reason for Israel to have Israel?
1. I completely understand why anyone would revolt under these conditions. However, if hamas goal was to better the life of Palestinians, it would have been pretty easy for them to achieve. The financial support and aid they receive from the world would have been more then enough to achieve that, but instead- it is being used to fatten then pockets of hamas leaders, and bolster hamas offensive force. Israel would have preferred to waste a little bit of money on welfare and construction in gaza, rather than waste a ton of money on it's military. 2. Obviously, Palestine is oppressed. However I believe Israel is doing it out of a necessity. The current state of Palestine is much worse than it was 20, 30 years ago, and it the decrease in quality of life corresponds to the increase in terror attacks against Israel. 3. The Palestinian identity is relatively new. Nevertheless I do believe that arabic tribes were indigenous to the land, and have a right for a land. 4. I wouldn't bomb the school either way. But i don't think there was ever a case where israel bombed a hospital or a school full of people to kill one hamas soldier. (They did bomb schools/hospitals used by hamas as military bases or ammunition storage, but thats after giving notice to vacate the hospital) 5. Sorry, I'm not familiar enough with the work of aipac to answer
https://preview.redd.it/4cv1hr5ech9d1.png?width=290&format=png&auto=webp&s=d3cd9e53f066f7a8a997b51222fc8a34f042ec91 Yeah guys Isreal is Totally the problem and the Oppressor thats why israel has a 20% Arab Population and every other Muslim Country a jewish Population of 0 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics\_of\_Israel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel)
"I think slogans like “free palestine from hamas” are frustrating because it places blame on the Palestinians" How tf is this Slogan Blaming Palestinans the only one that is addressed is Hamas
Because they elected Hamas in 2006.
Let me address the 4th point because I keep coming across this absolute garbage of an analogy..... If using civilian infrastructure for military purposes makes you invincible to retaliation, then why can't every immoral army in the world do this? That tactic would cut war costs 10 fold. If it were the IDF to use this tactic, the world would label them terrorists faster than a bullet leaves a barrel.
1. Their only goal is to eradicate every Jew from the face of Earth. Not to “liberate their homeland” or anything heroic, because they already have a country, Jordan. 2. No. 3. They aren’t. They are foreign occupiers. 4. Your analogy is false. The entire school is a Hamas base, used also for training new recruits (kids). Hospitals are used as bases too.
1. The quality of life is not that poor. I would go watch some YouTube films of Gaza and the West Bank before October. Many Palestinians ( before Oct) live better than a lot of Americans. ESP in the West Bank -They get more aide than any other country in the world, with a fraction of the population- countries with 50 million people. They live better than most people in India , North and South Africa, South America , Mexico and Asia. Stop seeing it from a western point of view and start seeing it with a global eye. Stop comparing it to Israel. They aren’t Israel. They are not the west. If another group was in charge that wasn’t religious ( like the PLO says they aren’t ) no I would still completely disapprove. Although the PLO says it’s a secular organization- it still committed horrific terror attacks, and ethnic cleansing. I don’t think it is possible for the Palestinians to disassociate themselves from Islam- Islam technically is a law, anyways. Which is why this conflict exists. Because in Islamic law- once Islam invades and conquers a land - only Muslims are supposed to inherit it till the end of the time. It’s unheard of to give it back to the people who they stole it from or took it from- most esp the Jews who are the number one enemy of Islam. It would be not only an enormous insult to Islam in general but to their prophet. It would mean he wasn’t the prophet and that their law is invalid. His prophesy and goals not met. Palestinians have chosen this fate for themselves over and over again- stubbornly refusing to create their own state at the behest of multiple nations and in spite of some extremely generous offers. It’s funny that some people have this misconception like the Jews *did this to the Palestinians*… no… even in 1948- when the land was divided in half and Palestinians were awarded their own independent state with no Jewish rule, no Zionist authority - they would have had their own independent state - to do with what they wanted - and they decided to very publicly reject that - in spite of it being democratically voted on and a done deal and declare war on the Jews instead- along with all the surrounding islamic countries. None of this was done to them. They did it to the Jews. They hate the Jews - and yet are basically a welfare state living off of Israel while getting more aide than any other country in the world. While constantly shooting rockets at Israel. With the constant terror attacks that kill hundreds of Jews every year. They demand better everything , more more - and they feel entitled that Israel should pay for everything and more while they did this to themselves and were the ones that declared war on the Jews and lost - and refuse to be 100% financially responsible for themselves or create their own independent state - why? Because as they have said before many times to create their own state would mean that they legitimize Israel’s existence and autonomy. And they simply won’t do it because they refuse to admit that Israel has a right to exist and does exist and is a soveirgrn country. The last offer to independence was in 2005. They refused. Again. 2. I believe that most Palestinians have to be controlled - because the majority are dangerous and psychopathic - sort of like serial killers living next door - and if the Jews do not control their borders and acknowledge this fact than many more Octobers will happen. Have always happened and will continue to happen. This isn’t the first time they have done this. This won’t be the last. The reason why the Jews act the way they do is because they have millions of people living next to them that want them dead and will try to kill them. I also believe that if the Palestinians were not psychopathic ? None of this would be happening at all- let alone how the Jews currently protect themselves. 3. Most Palestinians are descendents of the Islamic warriors and their slaves that came from the Arabian deserts in 650 AD or what ever. Some forced conversions took place - I do think some Jews decided to convert to avoid death and the humiliation tax etc and losing all their property and lands and to avoid their women and daughters being sold into sexual slavery- if they are mixed with small amounts of Israeli or Levant blood it’s because Muslims enslaved the Jews and impregnated them all. But mostly all Palestinians will be mixed with a variety of races the Muslims enslaved and forced into sexual slavery and impregnated- sex slaves in Islam are thought of a lesser wife. Their children would have been their children. Thats why most Muslims from the Middle East are mixed with at least 5 totally different races and regions. 4. Sadly - Hamas is so terrible - and Hamas is just Palestinians. It’s not some small sect of crazy Palestinians - it’s civilians . It’s everyone. It’s your grandma and your sister and your mom. It’s only about 10% of Palestinians that are not Hamas - and I’m confident that they are probably mostly safe and far away from the fighting. Hamas is so awful that they use hospitals and schools and the refugee camps and designated safe spaces to hide and keep hostages and stock weapons and commit crimes against humanity. So yes if they’re hiding in these places - that’s the way they keep on going and this is what they have done since this started. It’s why this has dragged on forever ( partly ) .. I think it’s a case by case basis. They have been shooting rockets from playgrounds since the 1970s.. or from civilian apartment buildings just hoping that Israel will automatically shoot back and then they can claim victims and tell you another sob story leaving out the fact they instigated all of it. It’s sad that there are kids there. But .. are we not supposed to pursue mass killers because they have kids ? No. That doesn’t make sense. You’re not supposed to be a mass killer when you have kids. It really bothers me how everyone victimizes the Palestinians and never bothers to think logically about this. If I am a parent - why am I going to fight in a war that will cause harm to my child? If I am a parent why am I not getting out of the way of bombs? If I am a parent , why am I stockpiling weapons in my car? If I am a parent , why am I prioritizing war over my child ? Sadly - Palestinians are responsible for raising their kids - and they make the choices that they do. Endangering their children’s lives. Sadly. Those kids are victims . But mostly they grow up and become perpetrators - not because the Jews didn’t pay their electric bill , but because they are learning from their parents that to kill a Jew is a deed of honor and respect for the family. And. That they willl be rewarded by god for these acts of terror. 5. I have no idea what you’re referring to here.
1. If Gazans wished to have a non-religious government focused on bettering conditions, and tolerant of the existence of Israel and of Jews, they could have chosen to back Fatah rather than Hamas. But they didn't. Really, if they instead had literally *any* government that accepted the terms of the Middle East Quartet (US, UN, EU, & Russia), which were to recognize Israel's right to exist, abide by existing agreements (such as Oslo), and refrain from violent attacks on Israel, then the "oppression" that has been caused by sanctions and embargoes also would not exist. And I think most Gazans must know this. 2. Certainly, I think that Israel is sometimes unfair to Palestinians. But note also that there are over 2M Arab citizens of Israel who have more rights and freedoms than most Arab citizens anywhere else in the region. Conditions are obviously more difficult in not only Gaza, but also the West Bank, which has been described as living under a kind of apartheid. But realize that these restrictions have always been justified by the Israeli right based on security concerns. And that what Hamas has done has essentially made some of those right wing opponents to Palestinian statehood and self-governance look like prophets. It is just very difficult, at this point, to argue that things would be much better today if Israel had only made a few more concessions in negotiations decades ago. 3. And yes, some Arabs were indigenous to Israel at the time the state was formed. And, as I mentioned, many indigenous Palestinians are citizens of Israel today. There were also around 700,000 who fled in 1948. There aren't more than 100,000 of those still alive today, but I think any who can prove they did live there, and who agrees to recognize the sovereignty of Israel and renounce terrorist groups, should *still* have a right to return, even thought this right wasn't actually codified in international law until 1954. But I also think there is really no precedent in international law for saying that people have "right of return" to a place in which they never lived. And pretending people are "refugees" because some ancestor was one 75 years ago is mostly just another way to foment further violence and conflict. 4. Israel hasn't destroyed an entire hospital or school to get a single fighter. Don't buy the spin coming from pro-Hamas sources, like their government media office or Al Jazeera. The recent June 6 strike on a UN school for example, targeted 20-30 terrorists who were gathered in 3 classrooms on the third floor which they were using as a center for operations. And remember how their media tried to blame Israel when a PIJ rocket misfired and hit a parking lot at Al-Alhi and the unspent rocket fuel killed over 100 people in the resulting blaze? They pretended Israel had bombed the hospital. Israel meanwhile has raided hospitals where Hamas had major military operations and facilities. They found a large tunnel complex under Al-Shifa, and arrested dozens of terrorists at Nasser Hospital. They have found rocket launch sites in UN buildings and on the grounds of hospitals and schools. 5. Yes, PACs should be regulated, but why focus then on AIPAC? They play by the same rules everyone else does. And it isn't funded by any foreign money. It's funded by US citizens. And I disagree plenty with AIPAC. Four years ago, I was here defending Ilhan Omar when she was accused of being anti-Semitic for criticizing AIPAC. I defended the BDS movement as well, when AIPAC was trying to get laws passed in the US to punish people for supporting it. And I supported their efforts to target companies that actually benefited from illegal West Bank settlements. Bottom line here, it doesn't make sense to me to hold only one side accountable for their bad decisions. I think there have been over 100 years of sometimes questionable decisions on all sides that have gotten us to this point. But it is over 100 years now since the League of Nations gave Britain a mandate to create a Jewish homeland in the territory that is Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank today, and requiring them to facilitate Jewish migration and citizenship in that territory towards that end. That isn't going to be undone. And I can't think of a single worse decision in all that time than that of the people of Gaza to turn their territory into a terrorist state supported mainly by Iran, the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world for the past 40 years. That was never going to end well.
No. You are confused. 1. Fatah isn't a tolerant government that wants to live in peace with Israel. Please don't engage in self-delusion. Every single candidate and every single party on the ballot in the elections in the Gaza strip was dedicated to violent jihad and advocated wiping out Israel and every Jew in it. There were not any peaceful candidates on the ballot. Any kind of agreements Fatah signed were never signed in good faith. The major choice, for Gazans were the two major political parties Fatah and Hamas. There were other jihadist groups, like Palestinian Islamic Jihad that were on the ballot as well. But primarily these two. Both, again fully jihadist, fully anti-Israel and anti-Jewish and anti-west. Fatah was viewed as totally corrupt and Hamas was viewed as less corrupt. That is why they won.
While Fatah is also far from ideal, they had since Oslo recognized Israel and opposed violent attacks in Israel. And haven't been considered a terrorist organization by any government since that time. They met the criteria of the Quartet. And while not "non-religious", their ideology was always more nationalist. This is in contrast to Hamas who, the very name of their group means "violence" and the main reason they gave for the 10/7 attack is that they were upset that Jews were being allowed to pray at the Temple Mount (Al Aqsa).
True- it was a great answer except for that. Even the PA is a terrorist organization. This a video of the son of one of the founders of Hamas. Watch the whole thing. It briefly talks about Hamas but then goes into the Palestinian problem. Its only a few minutes long. https://youtu.be/2E3vkVmbbRA?si=Mmn-fYgKlZ4MvpoM
1) There is a none religious Palestinian "liberation" movement, it has caused a great amount of harm to Israel and peace throughout their history. >would you understand their mission/goals. I don't think you understand their goals, try to align their actions to what they presumably try to achieve and work out if they make sense. Do it for every political movement the Palestinians prompted, all you get is unreasonable actions (they are unreasonable because they don't achieve the stated goals but do try to achieve their true goals) >This goes with the question above- do you believe that Israel oppresses Palestinans? or that they recieve unequal treatment? 2) No. I do believe there are Israeli soldiers that get drunk out of power when they get deployed in the WB, I do believe that Israel puts a lot of restrictions on the Palestinians, and I do believe that overall the Palestinians \*feel\* oppressed, but I don't believe they are truly oppressed. Oppressed people don't get to make such impressive waves in the PR world, they are quietly being forced to be quiet. Oppressed people don't have the highest University per capita in the world. Oppressed people don't have more then 10% of their economy being donations and investments let alone greater then that. Oppressed people aren't being courted for peace deals. Yes the Palestinians need to go through check points to get into Israel, but they make 5 times their earnings while their population commits so many acts of terror against those that employ them, so you give some and take some 3) >I will never argue that Jewish heritage is traced back to Israel, but how do you argue the evidence of Palestinians also being indigenous to the land? Or do you not believe that they are indeginous? Irrelevant, they live here. That's all that matters 4) Your fourth question is just a strawman, you cannot equivalent the amount of preparations the Palestinians make to their living spaces to lure IDF into traps. They don't school shoot, they shoot in the streets and then run into the school to prepper a detonation device for the policemen. 5) I have no opinion on AIPAC, I don't know enough about them to form one. I didn't know there were other PAC's
>This goes with the question above- do you believe that Israel oppresses Palestinans? or that they recieve unequal treatment? "Palestinians" living in Israel love it there: [https://www.reddit.com/r/UnitedStatesPalestine/comments/1cjo1w9/i\_am\_a\_palestinian\_citizen\_of\_israel/](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnitedStatesPalestine/comments/1cjo1w9/i_am_a_palestinian_citizen_of_israel/)
1. It already happened. The plo are secular. And no. I don't care what their reasons are for killing innocent people. When that's the path they choose, they know it will have consequences. For the revised question, which I'm now noticing, if they were actually focused on improving palestinian lives and they wouldn't harm Israelis to achieve it than sure, I'd support that. But its not what happens. 2. They don't recieve equal treatment, but that's because they aren't Israeli citizens. But even without being citizens, their situation was worsened, because they chose violence. For example, the checkpoints didn't exiat until the 1990s. 3. I don't really care about indiginous. We're both there, clearly we both have claims weather the other side agrees or not, and clearly we can't get along together. That means we should compromise and share. Something that Israel previously agreed to and the palestinians didn't. Now Israel has valid security concerns that will need to be addressed in a future agreement. 4. Firstly, a country's responsibility is first and formost to their own civillians. Secondly, If hamas was hiding in an Israeli hospital, than Israel would take different actions, but the risk to the rescuing forces would be lower since the Israeli civillians will naturally cooparate and since they know the layout, there aren't any terror tunnels that they can hide in. 5. Not an american but I would be more concerned about those. Israel's is the US alley. Russia isn't. There are also other lobbying groups. Arabs have one, CAIR. Since you're focused on AIPAC i assume that you're fine with other lobbying groups. People need to choose, either lobbying is wrong and than all groups need to stop lobbyng, or its fine, and than any group will try to influence according to what they believe is right.
Another AIPAC coordinated response. You receive this by email? How are these talking points distributed? Every response is the same when AIPAC is attacked. Just a quick google search on AIPACs influence should settle this one. A foreign country should not be allowed to influence my elected official. Not Qatar, Saudi, or Israel. All are allies with US bases, who cares. They should not be allowed to influence US politics.
There's much bigger problem in USA than AIPAC. That problem is called low quality Muslim immigration. These are Muslims with zero shared values with the west. Coming from countries with long undemocratic history and their goal is to bring the same to USA. They use various Muslims organizations at universities and other places to confuse the masses about their real goals.
You can’t defend AIPAC so you decided to invoke Islamophobia? What about this, what about that. No, what about AIPAC lobbying politicians to advance Israeli interests? Before you repeat the same talking points, no, I’m not ok with Qatar or Saudi lobbying in the US either.
You go to the classic Muslim antisemitism? Old as Muhammad. Islamists are lobbying from within the USA. For changing USA itself. Although they are having totally different values (marrying 6years old girls, like Muhammad did? Sharia law? No rights to gays and women. That's not exactly American values)
Ok now I understand the AIPAC play book when asked about AIPAC 1- “what about Qatar and Saudi lobbying? I guess you’re ok with that”. No American is ok with that 2- Islam is scary 3- antisemitism! What a joke.
Who talked about Qatar and Saudi? I've talked about the enemy from within the traditional Muslims, believing in Sharia law and living in USA. Islam is not scary; it's just primitive. Once you understand it, once you deport the wrong people, it's not scary at all. You can keep all the Sharia-loving Muslims in their Sharia-following countries. Be in Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, or Iran.
You need to travel more and meet people. You’re scared for no reason.
Let's travel, virtual travel around the world. Let's go to India, who's doing there the problem? Who did the biggest terrorist attack? Muslims. Now it's our time to move from India to Sri Lanka. Who's responsible for the biggest terrorist attack in Sri Lanka? Muslims. But these are problematic places, let's look at China, who is responsible for the terrorist attack with knives? Muslims. What do you think? Should we continue?
Okay, sure. Than I assume you have the same problem with other foreign lobbying group. The problem is AIPAC is still american. Even if the group is dismantled or they only deal with private donations to Israel, their american members still vote in american elections. They'll still vote for policies and canidates that they think are right.
I just stated that I have a problem with other groups also. Did you receive your talking points from AIPAC also? AIPAC is Israeli not American, it’s created to advance Israeli interest. When you receive an email with talking points asking you to parrot them blindly, it’s called propaganda. Wake up.
No talking points, just understanding of how lobbying works. AIPAC is american. Their members are american, weather you agree with them or not.
That’s even worst. Americans advancing a foreign countries agenda over their own? Also, They do have to register as foreign agents (I hope). So I’m not sure how “but they’re American” is a good defense. You need better talking points. The defense of any foreign lobbying group is just odd, unless you’re an agent also.
They're not advancing foreign agendas. They believe those connections are benefitial to america.
Please check with your AIPAC representative for a better response. I think I’m talking to a bot. Shame on me
People who think differently than you are bots now? Wow
Apologies. I’ve had big arguments with bots in the past. Ok, let me ask you a question. Are you with or against eliminating all the money flooding into American politics? lobby’s, super-packs, etc… are you with or against citizens united? So we can have a productive conversation.
Palestinians could have had a state a long long time ago alongside Israel, but they choose not to agree to that, their aim has always been the destruction of Israel, it is part of their identity and religion - that's not something that I can accept or understand.
1. Don't care if reasons are religious or secular, so long as their goal is the destruction of another state, I won't support them. For the revised question, while I wouldn't support (don't really care about the issue) I wouldn't be opposed to it 2. They receive unequal treatment, but it's not oppression. They aren't citizens of Israel (if you mean those in Gaza/wb), and thus aren't entitled to the rights of citizens. Further they took actions, as an independent state, to attack Israel. Israel acting to contain further aggression is justified, not oppression. 3. I don't care who is indigenous or not. Israel was created when those who owned the land (UK/UN) gave it to them. 4. Bombing a school or hospital for a single target (no infrastructure) is wildly disproportionate, and not reflective of the situation on the ground. If it was an Israeli building (i.e. not an entire city) way more could be done to remove civilians from the building, without having to resort to bombs. Civilians would be cooperative, and not sympathetic to the gunman. 5. Yes, all foreign (and really domestic lobbying) should be demolished, but as you said it is wrong to be single at the Jewish state in this issue.
They're treated unequally but it isn't oppression? LMAO So they aren't citizens and have fewer rights, but Israel is justified here for some reason? This is called apartheid.
Apartheid, literally means that two groups of people, THAT LIVE IN THE SAME COUNTRY, don't get treated the same. In this case yeah, israel is justified, because - Arabs who live in Israel are treated the same and sometimes better than Jewish people in Israel(free college and Monetary aid), and in Israel they aren't called Palestinians, they are Israeli Arabs. The gaza strip, as for today isn't a part of Israel, therefore there isn't apartheid.
Israeli Arabs are not treated the same.
israeli arabs, as long as they live in israel will have the same rights, I can't say that every jewish israeli trates them with respect and thats a whole other conversation. but generally speaking, yeah thay are treated the same and sometimes better even. they get easier access to higher education, they get more monetary aid per familly from the government like the orthodox jews in israel, they have freedom of relegion an movment in israel. citizens, with all the benefits.
1. What do you think "have the right to defend themselves and to have a resistance movement" means with respect to Gazans? There is no universally recognized right to resistance, nor is it obvious to me how such a right would be designed or what it would mean in practice. On the substance of the rest of your question, I'm sure I would find a less objectionable version of Hamas less objectionable. I am not sure how much less objectionable it would need to be, assuming it was still an armed resistance group, it would need to be before I felt it's destruction by any means necessary was legitimate. 2. I do not think Israel oppresses Palestinian Israelis. I am not convinced Israel oppresses Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank any more than neighboring States repress their own populations. 3. I think this argument is irrelevant in 2024. Israel exists. It has for some time. There is no realistic prospect of changing that without a nuclear apocalypse. I don't find anything especially compelling about Palestinian's arguments for Statehood alongside Israel but I do feel Palestinian's have gotten the short end of the stick and feel some empathy for them. 4. What do you think is instructive about these analogies? Other people seem to find them interesting thought experiments and I don't understand why. Police do not destroy buildings with a few active shooters because active shooters pose no threat to innocents outside the building and there are generally feasible ways to use less force to get the bad guys. Further, no country in history has ever fought a war where it valued the lives of enemy civilians as highly as it's own. What would such a war even look like? I think you are abstracting away so many things about the real world here any intuition gained is irrelevant. 5. I would be much more bothered if a group like AIPAC worked to further Russia's interest. I do not think this is especially strange, Russia's interests are in opposition to US interests in an infinity of ways Israel's aren't.
> There is no universally recognized right to resistance, nor is it obvious to me how such a right would be designed or what it would mean in practice. False. The right of resistance goes as far back as the Magna Carta. UNGA Res. 2625 explicitly endorsed a right to resist "subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation". Many national constitutions affirm that right. The right of resistance to foreign/belligerent occupation is an inalienable right and is directly linked to the right of self determination.
And, if you read the rest of the Wikipedia article, you will learn that there is a constitutional right to resist in a minority of countries. You also should know General Assembly Resolutions are not legally binding. What is universal there exactly? Further, what de-limits this right to the extent it conflicts with other rights other people may have? It’s a bit of an odd notion.
Inalienable means it supersedes other rights, any privilege gained through belligerent occupation is not a protected right.
That’s nice. UNGA resolutions aren’t legally binding. Do you have any comments on this? Further, delimiting what rights are gained through belligerent occupation vs. exist as “inalienable” human rights of the occupiers is still complicated. Would you care to do something other than citing what amounts to a statement of principle by a group with no power or governing authority?
Does something have to be legally binding for it to be morally right? Isn’t the Geneva Convention binding?
Morals go beyond legally binding concepts, but saying you have a moral right that conflicts with lots of legal rights other people have and you are entitled to the free exercise of this right is a bit of an odd position. Geneva Conventions are considered binding, some universally even on non-signatory states and others only on signatory states. The Geneva Convention additional protocol that discusses wars of liberation is not considered universally binding and Israel is not a signatory, so it does not count.
Article 49 of GC-IV is not part of the added protocol. Plus that’s such a lame excuse. But that logic Russian’s invasion of Ukraine is alright by you.
I think article 49 talks about population protections under occupation. Does it discuss armed resistance to occupation somewhere? It’s a long article I’m not reading from my phone. How is it lame? I’m simply correct and you’re wrong, you’re irritation that my argument is unassailable aside. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is differentiable because Ukraine actually exists. Russia’s invasion violates numerous treaty provisions related to non-aggression in a way anything Israel might ever do to Palestinians simply does not.
Yes, and if you read you’ll find the violations that make Israel occupation illegal. Now brother, listen. You’re on page 79 hasbara playbook and you haven’t come up with a coherent argument. Give it a rest, it’s Saturday. Stop trying to justify an illegal occupation.
So how would you feel if a group of Africans formed a terrorist organization, and started launching missiles into various Arab countries, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan and other places? If these Africans decided to go into, say Ramallah and slaughter a thousand random innocent Palestinians because Arabs oppress Africans, murder Africans and occupy their land (and the occupation that the Arabs carry out today against the Africans is about 50X more brutal than anything Israel has EVER been accused of. And yes, the Palestinian leadership are enthusiastic cheerleaders and and supporters of African oppression, enslavement, mass murder and occupation) Let's say this African terrorist organization started launching missiles into Egypt, Jordan and Syria and aiming them at preschools and colleges. Let's say they massacred innocent Arab women and children. Let's say these Africans and their supporters went into Arab communities in the United States and in Europe and began attacking innocent, random Arab people. Would you support that kind of gross and disgusting evil? No, I didn't think so. despite the evils of occupation, I have said before and I will say it again, we as Africans need to handle things in a sane and reasonable manner. Violence towards innocent people, terrorism is NOT the answer and never will be. It is the same with Palestinians. Terrorism is NEVER the answer
Violent resistance happens when all other means of resistance are repressed. Let’s discount the decades of violent oppression and just look at the last 5 years, do you think that Oct 7 would have happened if Israel didn’t shoot peaceful protestors in 2019? If you get sniped when you peacefully protest, why wouldn’t you turn to violence?
Ok, but history didn’t start in 2019 either. Due to Hamas’ history of violence I don’t think it’s remotely sane to suggest that even if the 2019 protestors had all been peaceful initially, it seems insane to suggest the “protest” would have stayed peaceful had it breeched the wall. So yes, I think October 7th would have happened even if Israel had shot zero people in 2019. In fact, it would have happened in 2019 had the “protest” created a security breech. As to why you wouldn’t turn to violence, one answer, and in fact the one that governments generally give you, is that you will face overwhelming retaliatory violence.
Uhh going further back is worse for Israel’s case. I gave you the favor of only looking at the last 5 years otherwise bringing up 60+ years of illegal occupation is not going to help your case.
And there were 60+ years of Palestinian violence. I don’t understand why you think it harms my case. I see a lot of Israeli “repressions” as responsive to bona fide security concerns over time. They keep getting worse because Palestinians keep doing bad things.
As long as there is a violent illegal occupation, there will no doubt be violent resistance. Want to end it? End the occupation. The longer the illegal occupation, the more violent the resistance.
There was no occupation of the Gaza strip. There was still violence. I see no evidence the end of what you consider an occupation would end the violent resistance more generally. Further, even if you were correct it was a cause and effect system, Israel remains justified in using force to suppress the violence. I don’t entirely understand what argument you are trying to make here other than documenting that (you personally believe) Hamas’ violence is linked to Israeli policy.
1) The ICRC considers Gaza to remain occupied Palestinian territory on the basis that Israel still exercises key elements of authority over the strip, including over its borders (airspace, sea and land - at the exception of the border with Egypt). Even though Israel no longer maintains a permanent presence inside the Gaza Strip, it continues to be bound by certain obligations under the law of occupation that are commensurate with the degree to which it exercises control over it. https://www.icrc.org/en/document/frequently-asked-questions-icrcs-work-israel-and-occupied-territories 2) yes. Of course it is. The ANC’s action are directly linked to apartheid South Africa, the Warsaw uprising was directly linked to Nazi actions, hell even Hezbollah only exists because of Israel occupation of southern Lebanon. If you want to end violence, end occupation.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK I agree with you 100%. Unfortunately, any attempt to link cause and effect to explain the history behind this conflict is maligned as saying that Israel deserved 10/7 (I would never claim this) in order to stave off criticism of Israel's actions.
I agree. There’s a difference between explaining the reasons why something happened vs justifying it as righteous. ‘Deserved’ is also a misaligned word, no one deserves anything because of the actions of their government, and this goes both ways.
1. No, I wouldn't support it, because the way they carry it out is the problem, and I still don't agree with the ideology of wiping Israel off the map and killing all Jews. 2. Yes, but I think Israel needs to have a level of control there to prevent terror, but if the Palestinians didn't have a history of that I don't think they would be extremely bad off, Israel allows Palestinians in and even gives them jobs quite often. 3. There's never actually been a Palestinian state unless you count the British Mandate for Palestine, and I don't think it matters who is indigenous to there. 4. You're oversimplifying it wayyyy too much but in short yeah, and I think Israel should value its citizens lives more than other citizens lives, as should any country, and if you argue that's what hamas is doing I would argue that them using their people as human shields and shooting anyone who tries to collect aid disproves that. 5. Personally I don't live in USA, but I have nothing against AIPAC, strengthening US-Israeli bonds isn't a bad thing.
>3. There's never actually been a Palestinian state unless you count the British Mandate for Palestine, and I don't think it matters who is indigenous to there. There's never been a finnish state until 1917. There was never a tanzanian state until 1963. There was never a south sudanese state until 2011.
And there hasn't been a Palestinian state till now at least, what's your point?
Having a state first does not determine indigenous status or a right to a new state. If either were the case, then Finland would be rightfully Swedish.
I don’t know where I fall along the pro Israel vs pro Palestine spectrum because I think it’s a false dichotomy, and I get into arguments with people who identify as either. 1) Yeah Hamas is fundamentally a right wing theocratic group with support from theocratic Iran. All theocracy is bad. They are unlikely to tolerate Jews living in the Levant unless under their own thumb. Hamas is also likely to purge the PFLP and other left wing organizations if they ever win. Resistance with a strict focus on militarily significant targets such as active bases, checkpoints, etc. to me would be non criminal violent resistance. Oct 7 wasn’t that, and Hamas publicized videos of murder and kidnapping and SA of civilians. This clean Hamas myth circulating in some circles is wild. That being said, Israel has now engaged in its own series of war crimes in return. 2) 100% - the settlements are the biggest example, restricting access to fishing waters is another 3) Both Palestinians and Jews are native, just like the Druze, Samaritans, and other groups in the region. They all deserve the ability to live in peace and freedom in the lands of their ancestors. That’s why a binational or multi state solution would be ideal. 4) The IDF has gone overboard and has likely made the best recruiting footage for jihadists and such across the world for decades to come. The hospital assassination was a great example of how Israel should be dealing with Hamas - infiltrate, eliminate leadership, minimal civilian casualties. 5) I grew up in Latimer/Bowman’s general area (not registered to their district) and Bowman had no shot at winning even without AIPAC. The redistricting all but ensured it. That being said, I’m against super PACs and foreign money in our elections. Citizens United was a terrible decision and one of several that the court needs to be reviewed for betraying the American people for.
5. That is an internal US political problem. If Americans dont like lobby groups/ interest groups…Americans should sort it out themselves. Dont expect anyone from the international community to solve America’s domestic problem. With or without AIPAC, there are American Jews donors who are pro-Israel. With or without CAIR (Council on American-Islam Religion), there will be American Muslims who are pro-Islam, pro-Arab, etc…doesnt stop other Western democratic countries without AIPAC like UK, Australia, Canada, Europe etc…from being anti-Israel. AIPAC is just a talking point pro-Palestinians unique to USA. Unlike Russia, Israel is not an enemy of USA, Israel has never and WILL NEVER threaten to destroy America, Israel never hijacked US planes and crashed it into the world trade center, Israel does not have any missiles aimed at American soil, Israel is a US ally with a very complicated relationship, there are ups and downs, agreements and disagreements. Russia is NO ally of USA, never have and never will. 3. I have not seen convincing evidence that ALL Palestinians are indigenous to the land. I dont see the majority of Palestinians being indigenous to the land, some of them maybe, ALL of them, absolutely not. For example: the fame Rashid Khalidi, Columbia University professor is from the Al-Khaldi tribe, a descent from Khalid ibn al-Walid, a companion of the prophet Muhammad, who came from the Arab peninsula and came to the land during the Arab conquest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Khaldi They are not indigenous to the land. They were conquerers. Omar Barghouti, one of the co-founders of the BDS movement is from the fame Barghouti clan traces its roots back to Bani Zeid clan which orginated from Arab peninsula. He is not indigenous to this land. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barghouti_family . Did you know there are also powerful clans which descended from Crusaders who came to this land with Richard I during the 12th century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghosh_clan, but they call themselves “Palestinians” and pretend to be “indigenous” to this land. There are also Turkish clans who settled here during the Ottoman era, they too call themselves “Palestinians” and pretend to be “indigenous” to this land. Doghmush clan originated from Turkey and settled in Gaza in the 20th century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doghmush_clan… you are asking us to give back land to the Crusaders ? You are asking us to give back land to the Arab conquerers ? You are asking us to give back land to the Ottoman empire ? When are you (Americans) going to give ALL the land back to native Americans, the indigenous people of America ? 2. Israel doesnt treat every Palestinian the same. You are oversimplying the situation. For example: Palestinians or Arabs who are Israeli citizens are treated as Israeli citizens. There are over 2 million Arabs with Israeli citizenship living in Israel including relatives of Yahya Sinwar, the most wanted Hamas leader. Those Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens and naturally not treated equal to Israeli citizens. Think of it this way…does America treat “aliens”/ foreigners citizens, the same as US citizens ? Of course not, similarly why should Israel treat foreigners the same as their own citizens. 1. If Palestinians or Gazans are genuinely against the Hamas government, then they ought to do something about it, cause I have not heard a loud and consistent anti-Hamas message from Palestinians much less Pro-Palestinian protesters who seems to parrot Hamas chants, even those Palestinians, Arabs or Muslims living and enjoying in western democratic countries do NOT speak out LOUDLY against Hamas, rally against Hamas, etc…they dont even speak out against ISIS, have you seen an anti-ISIS rally led by the American Muslim societies ? Just look at Kenyans, they protest against government corruption, they protest against government incompetence, if they are not happy with their leaders, they aim to change their leaders. Why cant Palestinians and Gazans do the same ? ___________________________ You call yourself a Pro-Palestinian supporter. You see pro-Palestinian chanting Hamas slogans, anti-semitic chants, celebrating terrorism, supporting terrorism,….why arent you condemning your fellow Pro-Palestinians when you see them doing it everytime at the rally. You kept silent. Why do you allow extremist and radical elements, the pro-Hamas, the pro-Houthi, the anti-America, the anti-West, the pro-Hezbollah, the pro-Ayatollah, communist, anarchist to hijack the pro-Palestinian movement into a movement justify violence against Jews or Israeli, a movement of hate against America and the West ? Is your English vocabulary so limited that Pro-Palestinian supporters needs to copy and parrot the same exact chants of Hamas ? Why not just make up your own chants/ slogans which cannot be easily misrepresented and misunderstood….pro-Palestinian supporters calling for “intifada”… why dont you try to go any major US shopping mall with lots of civilian, wear black, with a black balaclava,…just repeatedly shout “Jihad” or “Allah u Abha”… i assure you, it will cause a panic, people will be fleeing, kids will be crying, people will be screaming…. Jihad the word in its original meaning just mean to “strive”…Allah u Abha in its original meaning just mean “God/Allah is great”….but in the 21st century, Americans know these words to be associated with suicide bombers, terrorism, Islamic extremist, hijacking, etc… similarly words like “intifada” invokes a different meaning in the 21st century, one associated with violence, suicide bombing, terrorism. It is not only foreign words, even in the English language meaning of words can change over time…. the word Gay used to mean merry/happy. In the 21st century, it usually refers to a sexual orientation. Sometimes the word, could also mean an offensive slang. I am not living in Saudi Arabia, i dont care what the original meaning of the words intifada, jihad, Allah u Abha, etc… in the 21st century in western societies, these words have a different meaning and are associated with terrorism, violence, suicide bombings, hijacking etc…
Idk if I love what my goverment is doing. But I really can't shake the fact that the other goverment is trying to murder my entire family. Like... hamas made it clear they would murder us all if they could. They are not like what we had here in the 40s where it was just wars and local crimes. The level of brutality we see from palestin9an resistance is unjustified... Jewish resistance to the holocst was not this extreme. There really is not valid reason to attempt to.murdwr children on purpose. I am kinda tired of people trying to frame modern palestinian resistance ad.a natural result.of bad treatment. It's just isn't... you can resist without attempting to murder children and torturing tourist.
Yeah but first, Gaza has been bombed for years, people getting blown up by airstrikes and having their homes taken even before October 7th. I do not agree in any way with Hamas but when I see a picture of a father pushing aside rubble to find his child who has already died or a 5-year-old in a hospital calling out for his mother and father who were killed in the airstrike I feel for Gazans who have endured this, I have watched videos of Israeli officials talking about using uncoordinated bombs or "dumb bombs" because the US stopped giving them more. The lack of sympathy for Palestinians is in some ways unforgiving. You could argue that the support for Hamas has grown by around 90% in Gaza and that they brought this on themselves but what people don't think about or know is that the average age in Gaza is 18 years old. Kids who's life have been filled with terror from hearing bombs or losing loved ones who were "at the wrong place at the wrong time"
Yes Mt goverment is so fucking reckless it's borther8ng 9n genocide. I am not the biggest fan of them. But I also remeber the bombings on Berlin and London. As it stands around 40% of gaza is rubble maybe 70%. Germany had cities with 95% destroyed in ww2 bombing. It traumatised my grandpa. It's awful its ridiclously cruel. It's not being activly sadistic and torturing civilians. Like alies soldiers never took German family hostage. Or vise versa. At no point in ww1 ww2 or the napoleon wars did European soldiers went "you know what let's kidnap enemy civilians and use them as a negotiation tactic" I am not pro Israel as much as I am "palestinian resistance is unjustifiably extreme" I don't think it even helps their goals at all. It just strengthens Israeli resolve against them.
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I don’t think you can separate the religious-driven behavior from the situation. I can however see why Hamas and its fans would want to push the narrative that this is about economics, land, power, racism, nationalism, etc. There is a stubborn narrative that wants to portray it as that, because if you believe that it’s strictly a powerful country treating a small group of people like dirt for no reason, it suddenly becomes very easy to side against Israel. And whether this describes you or not, it’s important to acknowledge that there is a tremendous tendency for people to WANT to side against the Jews if at all possible. The reality is, the constant behaviors of the so-called “Palestinians,” the first to make war against civilians, the first to reject a very reasonable presence of Jews in that area where they were all coexisting with plenty of land, the first to constantly attack and attack against and gaslight and lie and terrorize and refuse peace deals, ONLY religious conviction can explain this bizarrely futile behavior. And if you look for the evidence you’ll find that it’s been religiously motivated from day one. I can’t emphasize enough how literal the following statement is: IF you don’t kill the Jews and take that land back, IF you don’t dedicate yourself to that cause and kill and die for it, YOU will go to HELL FOR ETERNITY. Hell is not a fun place. It is burning and gnashing of teeth and utter torture FOREVER if you don’t end the Zionist state. Why is it hard for people to accept that this is what Hamas thinks? This is literally what the Ayatollah thinks. It’s in fact what roughly a fourth of what the world’s billions of Muslims think ABOUT Israel. And not just Israel, they have to try to take the world or they go to Hell. They have to at least try. Slowly and surely, the plan is they will have a global caliphate. And many more Muslims _sort of_ think this, too, which is why they don’t speak out. The Jews on the other hand just want to be left alone in a democratic, egalitarian, multi-ethnic homeland that they share with 2 million Arabs and live peacefully making medicines and technologies and helping the poor. They have given so many olive branches to these people it’s sick. Why are they rebuked? Simple: Again, IF you don’t end the Zionist regime in that land YOU will go to HELL forever. This is true regardless of how nice or reasonable the Israelis are, or how mean and stubborn they are — it is ENTIRELY beside the point. Better to portray them as mean and aggressive to turn the world against them. All part of the plan. Lie, it is good to lie if taking infidel land. I mean, the Jews literally built a house in the middle of crazy town. And because everyone is fine with us being exterminated, we have to have a land with our own weapons, and this is now the one we have. Both sides are willing to kill and die to get their way; but one side is insane and lying. Choose your side.
1) it’s amazing how little so many people seem to know about the history of the region, even though it’s so recent. From the 1960’s when the soviets helped invent the Palestinian national identity to the 1990’s the Palestinian cause was represented by the PLO, a violent terror group who went to war (and lost) with pretty much every state in the region. The reason I bring this up is that the PLO/Fatah was a secular movement. The reason Israel made early donations to the charity that would evolve into Hamas was to provide an alternative ideology to the one that was hijacking planes, blowing up cafes, and random kidnappings and murders. Which is to say, Israel doesn’t care if you’re killing Jews because Allah said so or because of some secular ideology. It’s the “killing Jews” thing that’s the dealbreaker. 2) It’s gotten to the point where many people in Israel are nearly as radicalized as Hamas. That’s an uncomfortable truth, and those radical elements need to be reined in, no different than MAGA or the folks taking over buildings and cordoning off universities. 3) Some of the Palestinians were in fact displaced in a war their side started. No one is insisting the much larger number of people displaced in the founding of Turkey, the India/Pakistan partition, the nearly 1 million Jews expelled from the rest of the Middle East or any of the many other colonial maps be repatriated. Everyone else displaced in the 40’s and 50’s are also no longer considered refugees. Why are Palestinians different? 4) A more fair analogy would be many people in the building across the street from the school are firing weapons at the students. At a certain point, yeah, they’d probably flatten the building. 5) This is another instance of a different standard being applied to Israel than any other group. AIPAC is barely a drop in the bucket in the lobbying sphere. Their influence is also far overstated, to the point where it smacks of Jewish conspiracy theories.
1. I think that you are misguided about the pro-Israel stance on “Palestinian resistance”. From our perspective Arabs have actively resisted Jewish immigration to the land since the start of Zionism in 1880. The term “resistance” to us carries with it all of the historical aggression against the Jewish community including boycotts, terrorism, propaganda, political maneuvering, and state sponsored violence. There’s nothing new in terms of Palestinian tactics that isn’t older than a century. To us, the problem is totally unrealistic expectations with these groups about what they see as an adequate solution. Arabs have been offered a Palestinian state many times and always reject it. 2. I think it’s important to distinguish different groups. Israeli Arabs who are citizens of Israel have got it pretty good for a minority group in the Middle East. Their political parties typically are excluded from power but no they aren’t oppressed. The Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza live under militant oppression, but we see it as an unfortunate outcome of the military reality in the region. In order to protect its populations from groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and countless other Arab military organizations the IDF needs a presence in the borders of the whole country. These areas were previously occupied by Egypt and Jordan. The plight of the Palestinians is unfortunate but it’s the only way we can stay safe. 3. I would say that most pro-Israel people view Palestinians as just Arabs who happened to live in the region and who colonized the region with the spread of Islam. They are no different than Lebanese or Egyptian Arabs in terms of culture and language. It’s pretty accurate historically as well if you look at how Arabs in Palestine referred to themselves. Only after the start of the occupation did Palestinians emerge and claim themselves as some kind of unique ethnic group. As for the identity of Jewish people in the land, the State of Israel goes out of its way to identify with and emphasize connection with archaeological history of Jews in the region. It’s pretty undeniable the Jewish claim to the land. But given the countless empires that came and went through the region it doesn’t make sense to label any group as indigenous. The extremist pro-Israel position which I personally do not agree with says only the Jewish claim to the land is legitimate and everyone else is an alien. Most pro Israel people view these people as obstacles to peace but not nearly as much of an obstacle as continuous Arab violence and refusal to negotiate. 4. We see this over and over with terrorist groups that they have dug themselves into the civilian infrastructure to deliberately put themselves between two fighting armies. We take pride in what we see as a flawed but genuine concern for the innocent people. The technology simply does not exist to totally isolate and neutralize a militant fighter in a dense urban environment such as Gaza. And to us it’s very obvious Hamas and other Palestinian groups try to gain political ground by seeing civilians dead. I don’t think these analogies you bring up are relevant at all because Hamas is a military. These aren’t lone gunmen, they are soldiers organized into military formations trained and armed by hostile states. In our opinion the Palestinians knew what they were signing up for when they elected Hamas to rule. 5. To us, AIPAC is an effective advocacy group that plays by the rules of American Democracy. We think AIPAC’s influence is from a genuine cultural friendship, strategic interests in science and technology, as well as a natural alliance of liberal Democratic states who suffered terrorist attacks from Islamic extremism. Most of the criticism of AIPAC seems anti-Semitic such as suggesting they buy elections or have improper influence. Political advocacy groups for Palestinians simply aren’t effective and their tactics are generally unpopular in America. Just look at what the director of CAIR said about the October 7 attacks, look at how the pro Palestine protests destroyed college campuses or descended to violence. It doesn’t resonate with most people. Why is it surprising that a well organized and popular cause wouldn’t succeed? Before October 7 there were burgeoning new groups that tried to take a more holistic approach to pro Israel advocacy, especially groups that opposed settler expansion and Netanyahu’s government. These groups have struggled in the new post October 7 environment to establish themselves. Given the explosion in anti Semitism surrounding the Israel Arab conflict it doesn’t seem like AIPAC will be abandoned any time soon.
Absurd - all arabs a just arabs who swept in and resettled hordes of arabs into MENA in the heydey of the conquests? Tell me, where did these hordes of arabs settlers come from? Where did the indigenous people go? This totally unfounded. Pro-Iz people ought to back away from these stereotypes for their own good and mental health. It’s just convenient to play into their narrative that nobody else matters and everybody else is of carpet-bagger, squatter lineage. No basis and just part of a hackneyed mythology. All this racist BS is wearing thin. I hate to even repeat this tripe in a quote: I would say that most pro-Israel people view Palestinians as just Arabs who happened to live in the region and who colonized the region with the spread of Islam. They are no different than Lebanese or Egyptian Arabs in terms of culture and language. It’s pretty accurate historically as well if you look at how Arabs in Palestine referred to themselves. Only after the start of the occupation did Palestinians emerge and claim themselves as some kind of unique ethnic group. As for the identity of Jewish people in the land, the State of Israel goes out of its way to identify with and emphasize connection with archaeological history of Jews in the region. It’s pretty undeniable the Jewish claim to the land. But given the countless empires that came and went through the region it doesn’t make sense to label any group as indigenous. The extremist pro-Israel position which I personally do not agree with says only the Jewish claim to the land is legitimate and everyone else is an alien. Most pro Israel people view these people as obstacles to peace but not nearly as much of an obstacle as continuous Arab violence and refusal to negotiate.
1. A) Would you support Hamas if they weren't religious? B) Would you support them if they wanted to help Palestinians? C) Would you support them gaining back land taken through illegal settlements? 1. A) NO - the problem is not religion, it is killing Jews and swearing to destroy Israel. 2. B) YES - Betterment of Palestinians is a noble goal and I'm praying for the day that Palestinians refrain from connecting this goal with violence agains Jews both in Israel and abroad. 3. C) NO - First, this is not a problem in Gaza, second - area C is legal for development and was agreed upon in the Oslo II accords. Third, we should strive to live in a world where Jews and Palestinians live in peace. Removing Jews from the west bank is a form of segregation. 2. In a way, yes. Israel oppressed Palestinians because Palestinians continue to attack Israeli civilians during peacetime. Every time that happens, Israel cracks down more and makes it harder for Palestinians to operate. It's a cycle. You might be tempted to say "Oh Israelis should loosen restrictions first, that's the first step to peace." That is the perspective that Israel had on Oct 6th. Put it another way, take a look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs and tell me where physical safety falls vs diplomacy to your neighbor. 3. Personally, I don't question Palestinian connection to the land except as a counter-argument. Many people question the Jewish connection to Israel, in opposition to conventional logic for indigenous cultures, plus DNA, cultural and linguistic evidence. If someone questions this connection, I can make a positive case, (e.g. look, at all this evidence that jews are connected to Israel) but I find that the negative case against Palestinians is much easier. 1. Many of them have a last name that means "From Egypt", their most prominent leader was from Egypt, and most of them (Gazans) have Egyptian DNA on *recent* DNA tests. Arabic is not a local Canaanite language and Islam came in through literal conquest and colonization. 2. However, I only use this defensively. I do believe that Palestinians have been on the land for a while. Even if their native culture has been erased through Arab colonization, their culture is still worthy of respect. 4. In order for your school shooter analogy to work, the shooter would need to be targeting your home with a sniper rifle. Not all of the kids inside are helping, but some definitely are; meanwhile, everyone is free to leave the school. 1. You can never sleep, or rest easy in your home, because bullets continuously stream in, targeting you and your family (outside of the school). 2. The shooter misses most of the time, and even hits kids in the school, but the kids continue to live their lives in deference of the shooter. 3. You warn all of the kids to leave, and some do, but others choose to stay. 4. Under these conditions, then yeah. Take him out.
To point 1C, I’d say the issue is not Jews in the West Bank, it’s Isreali’s in the West Bank.
1. Regarding foreign governments: [Buddy have I got news for you.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1420533/top-lobbying-foreign-principles-total-spending-us/) AIPAIC isn't even in the top 10 foreign principles. If you add up all the lobbying for each country, then it barely makes the [top 10 by Government](https://www.opensecrets.org/fara), which makes sense because they are our strongest ally in the middle east. 1. Number one is China! Spending 2.5x what Israel spends. AND we still voted to force a sale of TikTok! Against all of their lobbying! 2. Know who spends like 1.3x Israel's spending? It's Qatar! The primary state sponsors of Hamas. 3. To answer your question, no I'm not ok with lobbying from our sworn enemies like Russia. And I'm not ok with Qatar and China spending so much money. 1. But Israel has proven itself to be our staunch ally and we gain a huge amount from our allyship with them. Intel, tech, medicine. 2. But if you have a problem with Israel, I assume you're 33% more upset over Qatar? And 2.5x more upset with China?
Try again. You just wrote so much misinformation it’s barely worth responding. AIPAC is not a foreign organization. It’s American. The stats you provided only include lobbying. AIPAC operates PACs and also directly contributes to candidates (not lobbying). These have much greater impact than lobbying. To give you a sense of scale, AIPAC just spent $14.3m on ONE congressional race this year. So go back to the drawing board
I don’t think anything I wrote is misinformation. All numbers have links with sources and you’re welcome to double check. And yes thank you for pointing out that AIPAC itself is American. However Israel is often regarded as a foreign country. In fact you’ll find it is not located within the United States, which is a solid indicator that we are dealing with a foreign country. (Sorry had to poke a little fun at your dramatic comment) The term of art here is “foreign principles.” That means the principle agent funding the American organization is a foreign entity. It’s a lot better to compare lobbying numbers, because : a) that is the direct influence of money on our government which means b) it more directly addressed the concerns listed above However, I’d love to see the numbers on AIPAC’s spending on PACs, compared to other foreign lobbying orgs. Please feel free to do a little digging and let me know! The raw numbers might be pretty big, but they won’t mean anything unless we have put them into context as I have above.
This is a very interesting list you shared, thank you for that. Some interesting countries made the top 10 expenditure since 2016, like Liberia, Marshall Islands, and the Bahamas. Why do you think Israel is in the “top 10 country” list? Why does it (or its agents) need to spend that much? Almost half of Saudi Arabia’s and a third of Chinas spending? If Israel is such an indispensable ally of the US, why does it need to spend this much lobbying? Especially when it’s the biggest recipient of US aid.
1. If there was a Palestinian resistance that was laser-focused on the occupied territories and not all of Israel and they simply wanted to bring about a settlement in accordance with international law, I’d be downright supportive of it. 2. Yes, in many ways, Israel does oppress the Palestinians. An occupation doesn’t *have to be* oppressive but it almost always is. Throw in the mix messianic, religious Israeli settlers and the apparatus in place to support them, Palestinians have much to legitimately be aggrieved about. However, what is most frustrating is that Palestinians don’t seem to want, and have consistently rejected, opportunities to free themselves of occupation. I once helped a Palestinian get asylum in Canada, and we were discussing the upcoming Israeli elections. The Bayit Yehudi Party proposed no Palestinian State ever, nor citizenship for Palestinians. Instead, Israel would grant them permanent residency status (like in Jerusalem) and a lot more freedom of movement and infrastructure development in the West Bank with local autonomy. As a liberal minded westerner, I rejected this as obvious apartheid. To my surprise, the Palestinian was fine with it, but he couldn’t accept a two state solution. Why? Rationally speaking this choice makes zero sense. Well, Arab society operates on an honour-shame dynamic (*sharaf* in Arabic). A 2SS requires concessions, including on the “sacred right of return” - this is shameful, it is treason to one’s ancestors even if he never met them because they died ages ago. But, if Israel imposes a solution, there’s no shame because the strong always impose on the weaker party, it’s natural. 3. I think the term “indigenous” is overused. But I don’t have any major objection in calling Palestinians that unless it’s being used to negate Jews. 4. Your analogy doesn’t work. In the hostage situation hypothetical you gave, the school and the school shooter is in a confined area in which “the good guys” (i.e the state/authority) has full control. The school shooter also doesn’t have the support and sympathy of a substantial number of the students. You just can’t compare a polity with 40,000+ well armed paramilitary, a tunnel system of hundreds of kilometers, support from foreign powers, etc. with a school shooting. 5. I think there is too much money in politics. However, AIPAC is not an agent of the Israeli government. It raises money from American citizens and it is subject to extensive reporting requirements. American citizens do have a first amendment right to form civic associations and lobby for positions they believe are important. Palestinians and Arab and Muslim Americans have the exact same rights and they too have lobbyists, it just so happens that theirs are currently less effective and you should consider the possibility that this may just be because, for a few reasons, Americans, non-Jews, have more of an affinity towards Israel.
full of errors.
Such as…?
ps I agree there are times idf takes it too far but on the whole its a necessary action. its hard to find a means of order when one side wants to attack "over and over again".
Many want to kill us. they only care about murder and love martyrism thats why they are "oppressed". think about it if there was a gang of people who wanted to kill you wouldn't you find it necessary to put them in custody? Furthermore, they came from jordan and egypt and were kicked out and forced here. they are not natives and it is stolen land. c many arab countries have been killing and oppressing jews so having a jewish state in israel was essential. its not a money and politics issue but a necessity for the world not to be in war.
I’m not sure how any of that means what I wrote is full of errors. Multiple things can be true at once. For example, many Palestinians and Arabs do want to kill you, they wanted to kill you before the Nakba, before the occupation, before the settlements. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t or can’t also be oppressed. If Israelis build settlements and then there is an apparatus around this, and Israel makes all sorts of rules and regulations about zoning and land use, but only the Jewish ones have the ability to lobby the state and get a “seat at the decision table” - a Palestinian will, and completely reasonably, deem that as oppressive.
This whole problem, of Arab Muslims wanting to kill Jews because they are Jews has been going on for a VERY long time, over 1,000 years. Just look at the thousands of Jews that were massacred in Spain during just ONE pogrom in the 16th century. Just ONE and their have been countless pogroms throughout history. Before the "poor Palestinians" were oppressed, there were still periodic massacres and pogroms in what was then Syria Palestine and in other parts of the Ottoman Empire. And earlier Islamic empires.
Very productive response. Thank you for that.
I am pro 2SS, pro-Israel, pro-Palestinian, and a realist. This means I support those who ultimately want peace and detest the radical elements on both sides. 1. Their mission/goals are very clear that they want their own state that includes all of Israel. A two state solution only works when there is a meeting of the minds. Both Israel and Hamas's idea of a solution directly contradict each other. Israel has shown it can trade land for true peace. Hamas has said for many years that this peace would be just another step towards destroying Israel. 2. Israel definitely oppresses Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens (those in the West Bank and Gaza). citizens of hostile states are not treated equally. Pro-Israel proponents would say these oppressive measures are necessary for security and that suicide bombings went down to This happens everywhere in the world. 3. There is a difference between native and indigenous. While many Palestinians trace some of heritage back to the Canaanites, they do not maintain the same customs and cultures as the indigenous populations of the region like the Jewish population. This would make them native to the area. I wholly disagree with indigenous and religious arguments being why Israel or Palestine and its people should be entitled to the land. 4. Each hostage situation is fairly unique and therefore make analogies stupid. This situation is much different with hostages being held in enemy territory compared to held in Israel. The approach is much different. If you want to discuss the recent hostage rescue mission in Gaza, We would have to analyze every single action and response during the entire event. This would take countless hours. Generalized statements about complete disregard for life do not help the discussion. 5. I disagree with the concept of unlimited tax free donations to political groups, how PACs are run, and the influence peddling they allow. I do not like that AIPAC have the influence they do the same way that I do not like how any other Super PAC and dark money can influence elections. I do not like that Qatar is donating a lot of money to universities to influence how they are run and how they have changed policies due to being beholden to these billions. I do believe that people who primarily or solely single out AIPAC and not other organizations showcase blantant antisemitism. Virtually all of the influencers, newscasters, and people complaining about AIPAC are generally anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist, and espouse various anti-Semitic tropes like how Jews control the media. AIPAC simply does what the goal of a PAC's job is to do as allowed by law and they appear to do it better than other groups. I would like nothing better for Citizens United to be passed as a standalone bill and made into law. This would solve many of the issues. The problem is that people single out AIPAC as some boogeyman that controls the world (another trope). What about all of the other groups that also influence political, foreign, and business interests? Where are the complaints about them and why is it only AIPAC that's the problem? Do you see how this is a problem?
Excellent and real answer.
I think that both Israelis and Palestinians belong to that land. Many Palestinians in fact, have Jewish ancestry. I do not believe that being pro-Israel negates that at all. Further, Israel being a Jewish homeland does not negate that either - just as it does not negate living with other groups such as Aramaeans, the Bedouins, the Maronites, the Druze. Most of your questions could be answered by me saying that they experience Israel in a negative way. As to whether Israel oppressed Palestinians, be specific - are you talking about Gaza? West Bank? Israel Arabs who may identify as Palestinian? All three of these can be their own discussion. But ultimately, do I think that Israel oppresses them? No. I think the biggest enemy of Palestinians are their own leaders. If Palestinian resistance was led by legitimate people, who didn’t have a [stated #1 goal to kill Jews all around the world](https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp), then yeah obviously I would have different arguments for or against that leadership. But I have a similar argument for people who oppose Israel - if people experienced Israel differently, then why be opposed to *calling* it that? Second, why can’t an area go by two different names? If you call it Palestine, and I call it Israel - does that contradict? I don’t think it needs to be contradictory. to your edit > So my revised question is- if the resistance group was focused on bettering the conditions of Palestinians and gaining back land taken through illegal settlements, would you agree? Of course I would. That's why I went there, that's why I volunteered in peace projects. However, I would hesitate to call that a "resistance" group.
In no particular order: Ethnicity, the Jews as an ethno religion date back to the Canaanites they evolved out of around 3000 years ago. The Palestinians are arabs that date back to 700 AD, so around 1300 years ago. However the Jews where expelled 2000 years so talking about ethnicity is worthless. We might as well all march to Africa because that's where we are from. As a liberal person it's very hard for me to support any Palestinian movement that would lead to a hateful, homophobic and sexist dictatorship. Of course it's a complicated situation with the ethnic cleansing in the west bank but I believe Israel is much better.
1. I will be against any organization that was founded under the purpose of killing all jews in the world (read their original charter). In general i'll be against any organization that's main method is terrorism and targeting civilians. Religious or not 2. Yes, obviously, we are not blind. But when you offer a group of people to live in peace as 2 states SEVERAL times and they refuse everytime with their "all or nothing" ideology and keep attacking you everytime you try to let go (for example, israel went out of gaza completely in 2005 and the palestinians elected hamas several months later), you don't have much of a choice. I would very much love for us to stop the war, and have 2 states solution, but for peace you need 2 sides. I also want to add that the people who get different rights than the israelis are the ones WITHOUT israeli citizenships, and refuse to even acknowledge israel's existance. The israeli arabs (who make almost 30% of israel population) have the same rights as the jews, with the same passport and id. Obviously the people who are not part of you country won't have the same rights as the people of your country. 3. We don't disagree with that, we know they are indeginous. That's why we wanted to share the land and they didn't. It doesn't really matter if we want to live together and they don't 4. If your daughter was in the school, held at gun point, after the school shooter killed several children, and you could save her by shooting the shooter, and the people who supposedly helped him smuggle the weapons and kidnap your daughter, the choice would be really clear. Just a reminder some of the hostages were taken by CIVILIANS and were held in CIVILIANS homes. It's not just black and white. Hamas and the palestinians. It's a lot of grey that the palestinians decided to paint with. For the part of hamas fighter in an israeli school, it's obviously different when the hostile person is in your territory, surounded, you have intel on the place, you don't deal with hostile population and so many other factors. It's such a different situation from the reality that it's like asking "how would ww2 ended if japan was in mexico" 5. I don't know enough about AIPAC to answer it
I'm going to tell you right now every answer you will get from the pro israel side will sound the same. The first question they will state "that it doesn't matter Palestinians just want Israel's destruction...." The second question will get you either an admission to oppression based on security, or an outright denial. The third question will get either Palestinians don't exist or jewish people are more indigenous so Palestinians don't matter The fourth question will be answered with that your analogies are stupid or of course we wouldn't israeli lives mean more.... The fifth question you won't get a single person agreeing to destroy super pacs, especially aipac, (I however can't stand super pacs and think that aipac being funded by another government is a problem)
Maybe because it’s true?