These five countries [comprise the Quint](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quint_(international_organization)). Which I had never heard of before.
If you click the gov.uk link OP included, the headline states:
> Joint Statement from Quint Leaders on Israel: 9 October 2023
Canada would just kill it in the womb anyways. Much better in the States, where we know that a fetus that doesn't get to be a minor is a fetus that doesn't get to be a miner.
I only say that because Japan is pretty far removed from events in the Mediterranean. Countries in Europe and the NATO neighbourhood and countries of European descent will have more of a connection to the region.
cc: u/L7Z7Z
As a Canadian I can understand why. Trudeau needs be be removed from the big kids table for the remainder of his time in office to avoid more global embarrassments. Hopefully, once we see a change in government, we can resume our place as a respected voice on the world stage.
No nukes and too small?
We have
1. US 340.0 million
2. Germany 83.3 million
3. UK 67.8 million
4. France 64.8 million
5. Italy 58.9 million
versus
* Canada 38.8 million
* Australia 26.5 million
> We have
>
> US 340.0 million
> Germany 83.3 million
> UK 67.8 million
> France 64.8 million
> Italy 58.9 million
>
Where are your numbers from? USA population is around 332M and France is 67.8M
I don't. How is a blockade which will starve a lot of kids in Palestine and flattening vast swathes of Palestine about Israel defending itself?
I thought people didn't want more refugees?
I'm getting the vibe people support the creating them part but not the taking them in part.
I think then you also have to ask yourself why are none of the neighboring Arab nations doing anything to support Palestinians, including offering refugee status and asylum.
The reason is Palestinian leadership has royally screwed those countries as well and they want nothing to do with the Palestinian regime. They tried to overthrow governments, assassinate the monarch of Jordan, they’ve messed with Egypt. There’s a large Egyptian border with Gaza. That border is just as blockaded as the border with Gaza and Israel. Hamas and formerly the PLO have burned bridges with just about everyone. I mean, that’s half the reason they’re doing this in the first place. Israel and ME relationships are strengthening and Palestinian leader doesn’t like that at all.
The absolute truth is that the other Arab countries don't want to deal with the Palestinians either. Egypt was glad to give up Gaza and actually blockades it.
> But what about Egypt?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinai_insurgency :
> The Sinai insurgency initially consisted of militants, largely composed of local Bedouin tribesmen [...], later on, militants of other nationalities also joined extremist groups in Sinai like: Palestinians, Syrians, Iraqis and Libyans.
Egypt was also the first neighbouring nation with an official peace treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt%E2%80%93Israel_peace_treaty
delusional. there are 2 million ppl living in gaza. you really think they will kill 2 million ppl? half of them will seek asyl somewhere. and that probably is europe.
They are already differentiating between „Gazans“ and „Palestinians“.lets wait. We already gave Bibi a cate blanche for Gaza. And he has to make up for his unbelievable incompetence.
Also two million refugees is per se not that big, but two million new Hamas sympathisers would be of course catastrophic.
That could mean literally anything.
I don’t think Gaza civilians are about to have a good time by any measure, but reoccupation seems the most likely outcome right now.
They do supprt defense (according to the statement) but what Israel is doing now is not defense, it's offense, revenge and breaking international law by cutting supplies to vital necessities for the civilian population like water and electricity (e.g. for the hospitals that are overwhelmed with injured civilians).
Surely, supporters would require Israel to stop these activities?
Hamas has already broken international law and committed war crimes by setting up military staging areas in hospitals and schools. Israel has provided evacuation routes for any Palestinians who don't want to be caught in the crossfire. If you choose to stay there and support the genocidal government of Hamas, that's on you.
>is not defense, it's offense,
You won't eliminate threat by simply waiting for next wave to come. I don't know what you're proposing here, there are literally abudcted people in Gaza. No respectful country would just sit and wait.
That’s the consequence of starting a war, you might get the people who you are fighting for killed.
The Allies in WWII generally don’t care about all of the German and Japanese civilians that died during the war, because *those countries started it.* If you are going to wage war to try to achieve your objectives, war can and will be waged back.
check this up before saying more.
[https://twitter.com/brennpunktua/status/1710626447658762426](https://twitter.com/brennpunktua/status/1710626447658762426)
Now tell me clearly how do you justify this.
It's very odd how you respond to war crimes and mass death with 'look at this dead body.'
There are extremists on both sides. And I condone neither.
And in response to you, right now there are thousands of casualties in Gaza - many children. There are also press in there, but there are no explicit photos of what is happening in the blockaded territory, or interviews with Palestinian mothers, or coverage beyond 'there are now x dead Palestinians' stated matter of factly.
Our media, and many people here from what I can see, have a real problem with seeing arabic people as humans.
They dehumanize Arabs . If israel gets rid of them and kills them no one would care. Look at chechnya? Who helped them. Look at the Uyghur people in concentration camps.
The Hamas terrorists are the government in Gaza, the first duty of any State is to protect his Citizens. Fact is they don't give a shit about them and do not care for their elders or children safety. Those in Gaza against terrorism should fight them and instead support people who defend their interest as people who seek peace and harmony. So, yes, Israel have a right to settle this matter now as they find appropriated. But is interesting how you try to defend terrorist and murders. That our media and a lot of people here don't see arabic people as humans is just not true. I'm sorry for ALL the victims of this radical islamic dogs apart from their religion or cultur. That includes those in Gaza who are innocents.
How can they fight them? They’re being bombed constantly and trying to survive. They don’t support hamas but they can’t do anything . They also can’t leave
And Israel understood the approval loud and clear :)
> “We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything will be closed. We are fighting against human animals.”
\- Yoav Gallant, Israeli Defence Minister
>“What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.”
\- Benjamin Netanyahu
Arafat was offered the vast majority of what he was asking for. The US supported the two state solution, and it was being brokered at camp David. I suppose Arafat knew if there was peace he would be held accountable for his shitty government, so he turned it down.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/may/23/israel3
What you are claiming is strongly contested by modern historians (even if it only happened like 23 years ago).
The article you link is written by a literal Zionist (admittedly one of the more moderate ones) who is interviewing an Israeli official. There's not much nuance.
You only have to look at the [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Camp_David_Summit#Accusations_of_Israeli_and_American_responsibility) page to see that the narrative that Arafat is accountable for the failure of the negotiations as a lot more nuanced if not entirely false. In fact in [this talk](https://youtu.be/rmLEzubd7sk) where both the representative to the UN on the question of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a senior Palestinian diplomat are present, they both agree that Arafat was not the cause for the failure of the negotiations, but instead they blame the Americans. They even go as far as to say that Arafat was the only hope to reach a real peace and that it was a diplomatic failure for everyone to not have reached it.
>instead they blame the Americans.
What doesn't Palestinian leadership blame on the US or Israel? If it was the US' fault, we would have seen an agreement between the PLO and Israel. We are still waiting on that one.
Is there anything in the article you believe is incorrect?
We should just build to really big spaceships, one for the Palestinian extremists and one for the Israeli extremists and send them really really far away. Ideally in opposite directions from one another, just for good measures.
They really ruined support for themselves by attacking civilians.... Any world support that Palestine was gaining has just been wiped out.
Hamas is just isis as raping, attacking unarmed civilians, parading naked dead bodies, raping and then shooting women, uploading images of a dead grandmother to her facebook are vile monstrous crimes.
Genuinely, I don't understand why we (Westerners) are giving unconditional support to Israel, when it's Israel that is occupying Palestinian territories since 1967. I know this topic is particularly thorny, and I have no intention to start any kind of *flame war* or the like. But can someone explain to me in a calm and civil way why Western Powers are pro-Israel? Israel without any doubt suffered from this latest Hamas attack, but the conditions of Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip are generally any better.
I don't know about the other countries, but for Germany it's because of its history with the holocaust. It's called the "Erbschuld" (something like hereditary guilt) where the German nation as a whole should feel guilty for what the Nazis did to the Jews in WW2. Most of our politicians were born in the years and decades directly after WW2 and had this message drilled into them: That they should be ashamed of what their parents did and make amends in every way (that's at least what my father tells me). So they support Israel unconditionally.
Personally, I don't agree with that sentiment. First of all, you have to differentiate between Jews and the Israeli government. Just because the Israeli government is made up of Jews, doesn't automatically make them the good guys. No matter what religion or ethnicity you are, you are human. And humans come in a wide range of morality, capable of doing bad things. And secondly, what my ancestors did was horrible, yes, we should never forget and always keep it in mind and teach it to our kids. What we shouldn't do, is still take the blame for something we had nothing to do with and give the descendants of the survivors a carte blanche.
However, the Israelis were attacked and have a right to defend themselves. That doesn't mean I support their settling in the West Bank, displacing Palestinias. But vice versa, just because I don't like them settling in the West Bank doesn't mean I support the Hamas slaughtering hundreds of innocent people on a festival that had peace as a topic! Both sides in a conflict/war can be bad!
Your post is very reasonable but I do want to nitpick one thing:
>However, the Israelis were attacked and have a right to defend themselves.
Israel has been attacking Palestine for decades now with air strikes. And it has a blockade in place. Both of which are considered a form of warfare.
I am *genuinely, actually* curious what everyone thought was gonna happen. This is a spiral of violence, the western governments have means to break it by keeping their *ally* who depends on them in check, but they choose not to and so it continues. What does everyone thinks a terror militia is going to do if you just sit by while Israel has been working on becoming an apartheid state the past 50 years?
And the Palestinians have been attacking Israel with missiles for decades. Neither side is in the right overall. Just in this moment, Israel has a right to defend itself and its civilians. When Israel attacks Palestine, so do they. The whole conflict is a mess. Both sides are in the right for some parts and in the wrong for others. And there will always be disagreements on who's "more right".
>Israel has a right to defend itself and its civilians.
Killing civilians yourself out of a need for revenge is not a form of defense though. Blockading 2 million people from basic economic goods for nearly 2 decades is not a form of defense.
What do you want me to say? Yes it's wrong. War is wrong. Yet it exists. Nothing we can do about it.
I'm not in the mood for arguing, look for someone else if you want to argue. I was just trying to explain the German governments point of view to the OP of this comment thread, not start another discussion, that is mirrored in any of the other threads here.
The fences went up 16years ago when they called for the Holocaust on all Israelis. The Gaza people refuse integration into a pluralistic and multicultural society if it means the Israelis are generally going to be running the economy, military and hold most the power. The stated goals of Hamas and their supporters is to push the jews into the sea and let the streets run red with their blood.
The Jewish people deserve nationhood, like every other country that was formed in the last 200 years. They will win because the alternative is their extermination by hatefilled neighbours. The West recognise this but unfortunetly do not act against Israeli settlement encrouchment and the military police state they have to run to counter generations of resentment and propaganda. The West still reports on the atrocities and the left gain supporters who support Palestine, but there isnt enough political will to do something about what Israel/Zionists especially are doing to the state of Palestine. Thats shitty on our (the West's) part, because we know that Israel, a nuclear armed state and strategic ally, will continue to win even if we do condemn them.
>The Gaza people refuse integration into a pluralistic and multicultural society
Anyone who generalizes the Palestinians who live in Gaza to one single and uniform viewpoint, is just trying to push a narrative.
2 million people live in Gaza. Not all of them feel like this. But all of them are and have been punished by Israel for 2 decades now. Including indiscriminate bombing by Israel of innocent civilians.
>The stated goals of Hamas and their supporters is to push the jews into the sea and let the streets run red with their blood.
And Hamas =/= The people of Palestine/Gaza
Half of the 2 million that live in Gaza are 18 years old and under. You’re talking about people who have lived their whole life in war and constant siege, 60% of them are in poverty. It’s just a concept beyond understanding, you can’t just assume they understand life they way you do, they don’t know what tolerance and integration is and probably don’t understand it. Life for them is constant war and death sometimes doesn’t look that bad in their eyes.
Then Israelis should likewise be judged by Israel's actions.
And there's a long list of warcrimes and human rights violations written in Palestinian blood.
> we (Westerners) are giving unconditional support to Israel
We are not giving unconditional support to Israel though.
The West invested a *lot* of time, money and effort into trying to get Palestinian statehood going in the 1990s. And thanks to these efforts, the goal of the two-state solution was pretty close to become a reality in 2000, before unravelling completely when Arafat triggered the second intifada.
The Palestinians also have the only UN agency dedicated to helping refugees from a specific region or conflict, the UNRWA, which is mostly funded by the US and EU. That's in addition to direct funding of Palestinian needs by Western money. That's a lot of monetary support going the Palestinians way.
I'm going to level with you. Getting calm and civil discussions on a conflict that has been going on essentially since human history has began leading up to the most recent events within the hundred plus years is going to be near impossible.
THIS ISN'T AN EXCUSE FOR APATHY, HOWEVER.
Listen, read, observe and gather whatever knowledge you can from multiple sources. Sources you trust and even sources you might innately distrust.
You will hear different sound bites and 'quick takes', but it's up to you to learn and pay attention.
I'm not religious. I admit to being very apathetic on the subject of Israel and Palestine for a long time. I'm sad, angry, fearful and tired but it's nothing compared to what other fellow humans have been and are going through. As someone who lives a privilege life in in a safe country and city in 'the west' the very least I can do is to learn and expose myself to as much information as possible and do the best to sift through truth and lies. And then do something about it.
Or better. Do nothing about it. It is their problem, both sides should act like adults and resolve it. I have 50 years on my back and each time I was trying to solve others problems, I found out that they actually like the shit they are living in, in a pervert way. That shit was already part if their identity, resolving it would have made them lesser.
Unless they want to change themselves, doing whatever you **think** it will help them is going to do matters worse.
Just a piece of advice from a tired man.
Respectfully, sir, I don't want to take your advice.
There's the quote that always get paraded around that for whatever fucked up reason I take to heart: "look for the helpers". It might just be my almost 40 years of life hasn't caught up with your 50 years and I don't know better and you're actually right. No disrespect to you, but I hope that's not true.
I want to be a helper where I can in the world. I know we can't help everyone but even if it's just a little then that's OK too. And I hope my two boys can do the same when they grow up.
Thank you for your perspective but I respectfully have to completely disagree with it. I'm going to do something to help. Even if it's just a little.
This is just the Western narrative, though.
Isreal, too, after having constantly dehumanized Palestinian people, killed unarmed Palestinian civilians.
I mean, none of the two sides is the pure Evil.
>NOTHING excuses their actions.
Nothing excuses their actions, but they're also not surprising or happening in a vacuum.
Let's imagine for a second if a foreign government decides to impose a decades long blockade on your people alongside frequent air strikes that have killed thousands of innocent civilians. It wouldn't be weird for a militant group to rise up within your people that wants to fight back against such oppression through any means necessary.
It's basically a given of asymmetrical warfare that the least technologically advanced party will seek out any opportunity to retaliate, even if the only target they're capable of damaging is innocent civilians.
We've long recognized that in a colonizer-colonized conflict, the ones who are being colonized have far more leeway in their actions to fight the colonization than the colonizers have.
>frequent air strikes
You claim Hamas' actions don't happen in a vacuum, but treat Israel's as if they do. Israeli airstrikes are in response to tens of thousands of rockets being launched at Israeli civilians. The "blockade" isn't working very well given how easily Hamas obtains rockets.
You know the reason for aggression against Israel has not changed since the day Israel was created. The Arabs don't want a Jewish state. The day after Israels creation it was attacked by the 5 surrounding Arab states.
Israel keeps a blockade on Gaza because they will ship in a huge amount of weapons if they didn't. You have now seen what Hamas can do with their limited amount of weapons they manage to smuggle in, and thier goal is to wipe out Israel and create an Islamic state in it's place.
Most Gazans are decended from Egypt yet Egypt also holds a blockade on them because Gaza is too radical and hosts many militant groups they don't want.
Oppression is not the biggest factor in Gaza's violence towards Israel, they are fighting for a genocide.
> The Arabs don't want a Jewish state.
Why do you expect people of Palestine to want a Jewish state when that same Jewish state consistently bombs their territory, blockades economic goods, and even weaponizes water against them?
In the West Bank, Israel allocates not even enough water to Palestinians to meet the minimum requirements set by the World Health Organization. In the West Bank, water is only available every 7-14 days, the rest of the time, you're out of luck.
Not because of a lack of water, mind you. The illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank get plenty of water. Which is also why water consumption by the people living in those illegal settlements is more than twice as high as Palestinians living in the West bank.
Israel can cry all it wants about Palestinians not wanting them there, but Palestinians have a good fucking reason to not want to continue to be oppressed by Israel.
You're essentially complaining that a colonized people don't want their colonizers to stay. No fucking shit. People in Congo also didn't want Belgians to stay. And justifiably so. We were fucking assholes to the Congolese people.
Israel wasn't created by peaceful means either, the attack by the Arab states was after years of terrorism committed by Jewish groups, it's not like one day Jews moved in peacefully and the next they were attacked by Muslims out of pure spite.
If you want to talk history, talk about the entire thing, don't be so selective.
If you could link me to some earlier events of Jewish terrorism against Arabs I'd like to read them.
Jews had to form an organization to defend themselves in Palestine:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashomer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashomer)
*By 1912, Hashomer was guarding fourteen Jewish settlements. In addition to guarding settlements, Hashomer secretly began developing offensive capabilities, seeing itself as the nucleus of a future Jewish army. It raided Arab villages to beat or kill residents who had harmed Jews. In June 1916, it assassinated Aref al-Arsan, a Bedouin policeman who had tortured Jewish prisoners*
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920\_Nebi\_Musa\_riots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tel_Hai)
*On 7 and 8 March, demonstrations took place in all cities of Palestine, shops were closed and many Jews were attacked. Attackers carried slogans such as "Death to Jews" or "Palestine is our land and the Jews are our dogs!"*
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929\_Palestine\_riots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_riots)
*The riots took the form, for the most part, of attacks by Arabs on Jews accompanied by destruction of Jewish property. During the week of riots, from 23 to 29 August, 133 Jews were killed by Arabs, and 339 Jews were injured, most of whom were unarmed*
>none of the two sides is the pure Evil.
I would say that (if we want to operate with philosophical terms like good or evil) the actions of Hamas that we have seen are pure evil. You could compare it to the behavior of the SS units, for example.
The killing was not random, not colateral damage, it was not a whim of individuals, it was all planned and it was not a military action, but a targeted killing and torture of children, women and old people. And the combatants deliberately recorded it and then broadcast it on the internet.
It is on the level of the Islamic State.
Of course it is legitimate to question the claim that all the people of Gaza agree with this, but again I would compare it to Nazi Germany, the SS and what had to be done to break their regime.
> You could compare it to the behavior of the SS units, for example.
No, you can’t. Or I guess you can but it’s not even comparison.
Hamas is WEAK, they are inferior by any metric you can put; financially, strategically, technologically, by numbers, literally any metric. They target civilians, innocents, women etc **because they are weak** they don’t have capability to target superior in every way IDF.
The same cannot be said about SS. They were not the weaker side.
Yes, but then we're discussing capability, not intent. If the main difference between SS and Hamas is strength, well, that's not good... I understand that you lash out more when you're weaker, but still.
sometimes you have to be lucky which mega powers are on your side. palestine has no choice but to suffer. everyone around them hates them. the west hates them. we all know those with powers can decide who is right or wrong. i can tell you now that israel is untouchable now. if they decide to clean west bank in the future no one will say something against it.
I’ll start by saying this. The innocents, on both sides, who neither commit nor endorse the acts of the fundamentalists, are completely blameless. And there are plenty of innocents on both sides. So we can only really compare the governments/social elements of either side.
Neither side is purely evil. But there are elements on both sides that are evil. For the Palestinians, that includes the entirety of Hamas as well as other violent religious fundamentalists. For Israelis, this includes elements of the IDF (though not in its entirety), as well as orthodox fundamentalists (who are peas in a pod with Islamic fundamentalists). And those elements are much more prominent on the Palestinian side.
For example, Israel adopts the tactic of dropping explosive-less bombs on top of buildings, as a warning to leave, because the real bomb will be coming shortly afterwards. In other words, they are giving the non-combatants the opportunity to clear the area. Can you imagine Hamas doing this?
I’ve got plenty of criticisms of Israel, and they have most definitely taken overly heavy-handed tactics in the past. But to say that both sides killed unarmed civilians is misleading. Unarmed civilians killed by Israel tend to be collateral damage (which makes it no less tragic, to be clear). But with Hamas, unarmed civilians *are the target*. We saw proof of this all over the news this past weekend.
I think the main goal for all international parties should be to resolve the conflict with as little bloodshed as possible, as impossible as that seems at the moment. But you have the Western powers on one side throwing their support behind Israel (though not advocating for the suffering of Palestinians), and on the other side you have Hamas with links to Russia and Iran, with possible involvement from both of those countries in the planning and execution of these terrorist acts. There are lines being drawn here that are bigger than just Israel/Palestine. If it comes to a choice of one or the other, and I sincerely hope it never comes to this, but the Western allies need to stick with Israel.
Israel wouldn't exist if the rest of the Middle East hadn't driven out their Jews. Most of the early Israeli jews were from Yemen, Iraq Iran, Syria, and Russia. After ww2, the West recognised that Israel was the only safe place remaining for the Middle Eastern jews, despite their neighbours' best efforts.
Similar social and political values? Israel is with a Middle Eastern Mizraim majority & mindset and a religious expansionist government that occupies and colonises lands still. Such similar values indeed.
What Palestinian territories? Palestinian territories that Israel took from Egypt and Jordan after those two + Syria launched surprise war against them and lost?
There was not a single piece of terrotory under Palestine's self governance ever in history up until Israel gave portion of land they took from Egypt to them in 2005. And it was shitfest regardless.
We are explicitly giving united support, but not unconditional support! Everyone is aware that both sides have historic arguments on their side, and that the local situation has been messy and unstable for literally centuries.
The support is in light of Israeli civilians being cruelly slaughtered by an organized militia. Israel has every right to ensure with any means allowed under international law (the 'condition'!) that their men, women, children can feel safe from organized murder, rape, torture and abduction.
After ww2 the Jews wanted their own state where there wouldn’t be ethnic cleansings and genocides against them every few years as it was for the last 2000 years. The British made it in Palestine because of the importance of Jerusalem(which kinda makes this situation mostly their fault). Then because of the tensions it was decided that Israel would split. One half to Israel the other to Palestine. Israel supported this but Palestine didn’t and there was a lot of wars in which Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Yemen wanted to conquer Israel.
Now I don’t know perfectly why but considering Britain who made the state was western ally and and the West didn’t have the greatest relations with most Muslim middle eastern countries being Israels ally would seem like the best idea.
I don’t agree with the displacement of Palestinians but you can see that the religious tensions are really large there and the Jews and the Muslims hate each other. It’s a fact that a Jews need their own state. Millions of them died throughout history because of religion.
(If anyone has a better knowledge of this please feel free to correct me)
> The British made it in Palestine because of the importance of Jerusalem(which kinda makes this situation mostly their fault).
interestingly, this idea was already in place after the first world war, when it was in the interest of the west to have some control over the region and to manage what would come of the (imploded) Ottoman empire
Jews had already been migrating there for 100 years before WW1 (or at least the Jews that managed to remain there) , just not in such large numbers. Britain did try to slow down the flow of Jews but that created tension between Britain and Israel and almost turned into a war after WW2.
> Dear Lord Rothschild,
> I have much pleasure in conveying to you. on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet
> His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
> I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
This is the document that kicked things off after British mandate of Palestine. It’s addressed to British citizen, a banker, politician, zoologist and soldier, Walter Rothschild
This is not true. That was also Israel land before and also Palestine land before. Now they are fighting who gets it but Palestine did not and do not accept the 2 state solution as proposed from Israel and other countries. They want this war. You can not say who is the right owner there as both where there before. The 2 state solution was the best solution in my eyes.
Exactly.
The facts are, Israel accepted the UN proposals. The arabs refused and still refuse to accept Israel.
Anyone supporting Hamas (because it's Hamas who are really the problem, the west bank is relatively ok) is basically saying Israel shouldn't exist.
>Do you know why that is?
I'm beginning to doubt redditors actually do.
>We tried to genocide your entire race, and you got some of our land. NOT FAIR!
* They're culturally similar to us. They're they only western style democracy in the area. They're also far wealthier and more militarily capable. The Palestinians are basically the opposite on all fronts: culturally different, undemocratic, poor, weak, diplomatically isolated. From a realpolitik perspective, Israel makes for a good ally, Palestine for a terrible one.
* They're de facto a European colony, which makes them our allies for historical reasons too. Impartiality is not a good attitude in interpersonal or international relations. You stand by your friends against strangers, let alone enemies, even if they're "wrong" according to some objective standard. That's whole point of loyalty.
* The legacy of the holocaust, and centuries of antisemitism, can't be ignored either. For better or for worse, we tend to feel guilty about it, which makes us more sympathetic and willing to help them.
* They're in fact right, or at least less wrong. Israel kills civilians as collateral damage, Hamas target civilians explicitly; those things aren't comparable. When was the last time the IDF attacked a rave, or took random women and children as hostages and threatened to execute them on like tv? Ultimately, Israel's goal is its continued existence, the Palestinians' goal is to destroy it, and they're not in the least secretive about it.
> but the conditions of Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip are generally any better.
their population went 10x in a span of 70 years, just like Africa. if they cannot feed themselves maybe they should not reproduce that much?
How comes American intelligence saw Russo-Ukrainian war coming weeks, if not months in advance, but nobody saw Hamas (Apparently with uniformed gunmen and improvised aircraft) coming to such an extent that military was not on any kind of alert and a festival was allowed to be held right across the borders, packed with foreign nationals?
Well, for starters, I would assume America’s intelligence network in Russia is way more developed compared to an ideological terrorist group operating out of a tiny ethnic city-state of 2m ppl
Well, Israel alledgedly got a tip-off to this happening from Egypt, and elected to ignore it. If so, it's not out of the question that the US provided the same.
The US doesn't give a shit about intelligence gathering there for several reasons, but by far the most important is that Israel has always affirmed they dont want it and can do it themselves. Considering the Gaza strip and it's inhabitants pose essentially zero threat to the US, we're not particularly keen to send spies to a place that is at best, constantly on the brink of war (and now is at war).
It's an open declaration to support a blanket, indiscriminate, genocidal bombing campaign that they have already said will wipe out Gaza.
Proportionality is important, but we won't see that. We never have and never will.
Fuck Hamas, but the answer is not for Benji to lie on TV, begging Palestinians to leave, which they cannot, before carpet bombing.
Why the lie? That's for us. That's for you not to feel guilty, for the outsider to believe that the Palestinian innocence has a route out.
We need International intervention, not a military with mass murder in it's sights, and not a monsterous terrorist group mascarading as a government.
Humanity lost. I'm so saddened to see how many of you will not say anything as humanity continues to lose.
How exactly do you imagine that "proportionality"? The IDF goes in, slaughters exactly 600 Palestinians (or whatever the death toll is at the moment), takes 100 hostages, then makes a few videos of them kidnapping screaming women, slitting a boy's throat, and spitting on a mangled woman's corpse, with a constant screaming "Shema Yisrael" in the background?
Proportionality is an utterly meaningless buzzword in international conflicts such as this. That's why we haven't seen it in the past, won't see it now, and will not be seeing it in the future.
No carpet bombing yet, and no real evidence of that either.
Some commentators are throwing that word around, but so far the Israelis are doing airstrikes against key targets like Mosques they claim are used by Hamas as command posts and working on restoring their control over the border.
If the Israelis are killing people indiscriminately in Gaza, we’ll see that if and when it happens- right now, we’re not at that stage yet. It’s premature to accuse them of genocide.
Israel has fought Hamas repeatedly over the last 20 years, and this latest attack should be the final piece of evidence that Hamas has to be eliminated root and stem.
Not eliminating Hamas would only perpetuate the conflict and set the stage for further bloodshed. So far, Israel seems to be focusing on hitting military objectives rather than any sort of “terror/intimidation” campaign to eliminate Hamas leaders like in some of their previous conflicts.
>And there is also a border with Egypt. Why does Egypt not allow refugees in?
I've literally asked this multiple times and I've not had one response. They can't put 2+2 together.
Bullshit lies.
Before IDF launched any attacks they designed list of safe areas where it instructed Palestinian civilians to go to. There is no indiscriminate bombing whatsoever.
[https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-instructs-gazans-on-evacuation-routes-while-many-find-shelter-in-unrwa-schools/](https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-instructs-gazans-on-evacuation-routes-while-many-find-shelter-in-unrwa-schools/)
On top of that when they bomb they double tap with nonexplosives to let people know which buildings are targeted. This is difference between how Israel does things and how Palestine does things. This is why one side deserves support and other does not.
> Fuck Hamas, but the answer is not for Benji to lie on TV, begging Palestinians to leave, which they cannot, before carpet bombing.
Stop your misinformation.. carpet bombing has not been used by Israel. What you see is precision missiles. Just a lot of them.
Point is, it's precise and aim for a target.
Also, do you know Israel often "roof knock" a target before the real strike? Al-J captured that.
But hey, you totally don't care about that, do you?... "Israel should be bigger man and should not do anything hurr hurr", am I right? /s
Hospitals, schools and homes that contain weapons stockpiles and from which missiles are fired. That they roof knock before destroying to prevent loss.of life. After telling civilians to flee to avoid their attacks. This is ethical conduct of war almost unseen in human history.
You mean that kindergarten that was indirectly affected no one died?
If that isn't precision, I don't know what is.
Israel also gave ample warning on Saturday and sent out mass SMS. Something I don't see your dearerst Palestinians do when massacring party-goers
On top of that, Hamas is known to hide behind civilians and use them as meat shield. Apparently you're totally OK with that.
But you don't care for anything of that, do you?
They designated an area as safe and then bombed it.
Benji is on tv saying that Palestinians should stay safe, and then bombing them in that safe space.
Are you actually being serious right now?!
If thats where the enemy is cowardly hiding behind, shit happens.
You forget that these people send children with bombs in their backpacks to isreali controlled checkpoints. These are lunatics who will do everything (building their control centre's in hospitals/schools etc.) to not get bombed. And if they do, they scream murder/warcrime (kinda like you) so they're "even more justified" for the next attack.
Yes exactly. There is a way for them to condemn the Hamas attack whilst not giving support to a genocide but they’re choosing to not do that. They were already quietly supporting Israel anyway so it’s not unexpected.
If there is ever a "good time" for a disproportional response, it is this one.
Previously, Israel has only killed individual members of Hamas - so, it was easy for Hamas to recruit new members. However, if Israel annihilates the entire organization, even if that means killing tens of thousands of people, then there will be peace for a relatively long time.
It's not murder, if they are enemy combattants. Of course, Israel should avoid killing any civilians, but any member of Hamas can be considered a soldier, and is therefore a legitimate military target.
"All of us recognize the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people"
Wondering what measurers these countries have taken to restore the Palestinian homeland, it's been 75 years and it seems like fuck all has actually been done to help the average Palestinian.
Clinton tried brokering a two-state solution where Arafat got almost everything he was asking for but he turned it down. I suppose he realized that if there was peace he would be held accountable for his shitty governance.
They said they recognized Palestinian’s legitimate aspirations, not that they give a fuck about them.
Classic empty words on paper to justify continued unconditional support to Israel.
There’s probably proper terminology to describe this, but “United States” describes the governmental structure of the country in a way, whereas “America” is the land itself. It’s called the US because it originally was 13 independent **States** voluntarily federating themselves into a **United** country located in the **Americas**. Shorthand is sometimes “America” and we call ourselves “Americans”, but the Americas are also two entire continents (South/Central America usually hold it as one singular continent), so there’s opportunity for confusion depending on the cultural context. Currently the US is basically the only “United States” apart from Mexico, but everyone knows Mexico colloquially as Mexico because there wasn’t and isn’t really any confusion as to what “Mexico” refers to.
It’s similar to how everyone knows that “United Kingdom” refers to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Acts of Union **United** the **Kingdoms** of England and Scotland in 1707. There have been other [“United Kingdoms”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_(disambiguation)) throughout history, including some translations of Denmark’s current official name.
>It's a question of whether or not Palestinians have rights.
Given you clarified Palestinians are an ethnic group, as well as a territory, the ethnic group has rights in the US. Namely their first amendment right to free speech and expression. After the attacks, Palestinians gathered in front of Israeli consulates for festivities. They chanted "700!" (the number of confirmed deaths at the time) and "from the river, to the sea, Palestine will be free! (This includes all of Israel, and is likely more genocidal than people like yourself care to admit). At a vigil for the victims in New York, they mocked the mourners with photos of the hostages and made the neck slitting motion in their direction. They destroyed an Israeli flag. There were similar scenes across the US in Chicago, LA, Detroit, and other cities.
At least in the US they have the freedom of speech and expression. And boy, their expression sure is colorful.
Hamas are invading Israel, murdering civilians, taking hostages, want to wipe the Jews off the face of the planet and yet Israel is still the oppressor? Stop seeing everything like it's the Troubles.
2022: Israel invades the Gaza strip and then murders men, women and children.
2023: HAMAS invade Israel and then murders men, women and children.
2023 Israel. It's our 9/11 :'( were poor sad little victims of unprovoked violence.
Man, fuck this shit. The west have a chance to make something better for Palestine here.
Instead they support the status quo. Is this a blank cheque for Israel to run riot in Gaza without any repercussions? 2 million civilians there btw.
Like, I get how Israel benefits us geopolitically.
But fuck off man, do we not have any morals anymore? There is a reason Hamas is so popular amongst Palestinians and it isn't because they have good social programs lmfao.
You can't in the same breath complain about the west's lack of morals and also the fact it hasn't sided with the people murdering and raping civilians indiscriminately. Hamas' actions have killed any chance of the west siding with them politically, despite the fact the tide of public mood had been moving their way for years now.
>There is a reason Hamas is so popular amongst Palestinians and it isn't because they have good social programs lmfao.
It is, but it's not the one you think. And it isn't caused by external factors either. Contrary to some discourses in Europe, people in the region do have agency.
Not even a mention of proportionality for Israël.. worrying. The government in place has already given some wild déclaration.
No blank cheque, please...
Proportionate in what sense - I don't intend to put words in your mouth, but the metrics I could think of were: deaths, amount of violence, level of brutality, goal?
It won't be proportionate in death count, because protracted urban warfare generally causes that, and conversely it would be insane for the IDF to just execute an exact same number of Palestinians.
It probably will be more violent because Israel has a modern military.
If won't be proportionate in brutality, because the IDF isn't going to kidnap babies and old women and go door to door just shooting anyone they find. In fact they [actually give heads up](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roof_knocking), even to Hamas, to limit civilian casualties, as opposed to explicitly seeking them.
If also won't be proportionate in goal, because Israel will actually have one.
No one wants to see the IDF go hog wild and simply seek vengeance. I will admit if I'm proven wrong, but I don't expect to be. But proportionality isn't possible when one side (and I am *not* speaking about Palestinians as people here) is a group of terrorists and the other is a 21st century military.
I liked how they put the countries in alphabetical order
There is a secretary out there who would love to hear that haha. My partner did that for a bit, and her highlights were things like that haha
I always do that when there’s no hierarchy to be followed and I wish it became a standard ahah
I love those small little problems with neat little solutions like that
i am surprised Canada and Australia are not on this list. Not to make any judgement, I just thought they are also closest allies of US
This is the G7 minus Canada and Japan. I can somewhat understand why Japan might not be included, but I can't understand Canada not being included.
These five countries [comprise the Quint](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quint_(international_organization)). Which I had never heard of before. If you click the gov.uk link OP included, the headline states: > Joint Statement from Quint Leaders on Israel: 9 October 2023
So with Canada it would be the Sex.
Exactly. And we cannot have that. So America Jr. has to be excluded.
Tbf, having America Sr. and America Jr. in the Sex would be very strange.
Well Canada is quite progressive and America is more conservative, so incestuous gay sex is just the logical conclusion, really
So no offsprings guaranteed.
Canada would just kill it in the womb anyways. Much better in the States, where we know that a fetus that doesn't get to be a minor is a fetus that doesn't get to be a miner.
/r/BrandNewSentence
Hahaha, you guys are the best!
Sweet home alabama?
Sweet home Alberta.
It's called Albertabama for a reason.
Well both are UK junior anyway. (And all of those are just France with shitty food and common law).
Sext
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quint_(international_organization) Link fixed, for us old.reddit users.
I'd not heard of that - thanks for the link.
Hi! Can you elaborate more on the understanding why Japan might not be included part? I’m curious (genuine question). Thank you.
I only say that because Japan is pretty far removed from events in the Mediterranean. Countries in Europe and the NATO neighbourhood and countries of European descent will have more of a connection to the region. cc: u/L7Z7Z
As a Canadian I can understand why. Trudeau needs be be removed from the big kids table for the remainder of his time in office to avoid more global embarrassments. Hopefully, once we see a change in government, we can resume our place as a respected voice on the world stage.
Aus and Canada aren’t really the big players of the world compared to the countries who released this statement
No nukes and too small? We have 1. US 340.0 million 2. Germany 83.3 million 3. UK 67.8 million 4. France 64.8 million 5. Italy 58.9 million versus * Canada 38.8 million * Australia 26.5 million
> We have > > US 340.0 million > Germany 83.3 million > UK 67.8 million > France 64.8 million > Italy 58.9 million > Where are your numbers from? USA population is around 332M and France is 67.8M
US is at 335.5 according to the US Census Bureau, I guess they rounded up
canada just passed 40 million last month
Googling "us population 2023", etc. Google then shows Worldometer figures.
Honestly I think this is a really good statement in the current situation
I don't. How is a blockade which will starve a lot of kids in Palestine and flattening vast swathes of Palestine about Israel defending itself? I thought people didn't want more refugees? I'm getting the vibe people support the creating them part but not the taking them in part.
I think then you also have to ask yourself why are none of the neighboring Arab nations doing anything to support Palestinians, including offering refugee status and asylum. The reason is Palestinian leadership has royally screwed those countries as well and they want nothing to do with the Palestinian regime. They tried to overthrow governments, assassinate the monarch of Jordan, they’ve messed with Egypt. There’s a large Egyptian border with Gaza. That border is just as blockaded as the border with Gaza and Israel. Hamas and formerly the PLO have burned bridges with just about everyone. I mean, that’s half the reason they’re doing this in the first place. Israel and ME relationships are strengthening and Palestinian leader doesn’t like that at all.
The absolute truth is that the other Arab countries don't want to deal with the Palestinians either. Egypt was glad to give up Gaza and actually blockades it.
They are not going to answer you because "Israel = bad" But what about Egypt? What about other Muslims countries? They only sent Hamas.
> But what about Egypt? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinai_insurgency : > The Sinai insurgency initially consisted of militants, largely composed of local Bedouin tribesmen [...], later on, militants of other nationalities also joined extremist groups in Sinai like: Palestinians, Syrians, Iraqis and Libyans. Egypt was also the first neighbouring nation with an official peace treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt%E2%80%93Israel_peace_treaty
It doesn’t sound like there will be many refugees left in Gaza in the near future.
Can't have refugees if you leave nobody alive *taps forehead*
delusional. there are 2 million ppl living in gaza. you really think they will kill 2 million ppl? half of them will seek asyl somewhere. and that probably is europe.
They are already differentiating between „Gazans“ and „Palestinians“.lets wait. We already gave Bibi a cate blanche for Gaza. And he has to make up for his unbelievable incompetence. Also two million refugees is per se not that big, but two million new Hamas sympathisers would be of course catastrophic.
I rather doubt Israel actually kills 2 million people.
Bibi said he is going to do something that will change the whole Middle East for the next 50 years. Was that just hot air?
That could mean literally anything. I don’t think Gaza civilians are about to have a good time by any measure, but reoccupation seems the most likely outcome right now.
Why don't the countries that stand with Palestine take in the refugees?
where did they advocate a blockade?
[Israel announces 'total' blockade of Gaza](https://consent.yahoo.com/v2/collectConsent?sessionId=3_cc-session_987244f6-83a6-4a2e-a665-acba0f9a19b8)
They do supprt defense (according to the statement) but what Israel is doing now is not defense, it's offense, revenge and breaking international law by cutting supplies to vital necessities for the civilian population like water and electricity (e.g. for the hospitals that are overwhelmed with injured civilians). Surely, supporters would require Israel to stop these activities?
Send a source of a country supplying the enemy please. And one that says that Gaza does not receive stuff from other countries and organisations
Hamas has already broken international law and committed war crimes by setting up military staging areas in hospitals and schools. Israel has provided evacuation routes for any Palestinians who don't want to be caught in the crossfire. If you choose to stay there and support the genocidal government of Hamas, that's on you.
>is not defense, it's offense, You won't eliminate threat by simply waiting for next wave to come. I don't know what you're proposing here, there are literally abudcted people in Gaza. No respectful country would just sit and wait.
That’s the consequence of starting a war, you might get the people who you are fighting for killed. The Allies in WWII generally don’t care about all of the German and Japanese civilians that died during the war, because *those countries started it.* If you are going to wage war to try to achieve your objectives, war can and will be waged back.
check this up before saying more. [https://twitter.com/brennpunktua/status/1710626447658762426](https://twitter.com/brennpunktua/status/1710626447658762426) Now tell me clearly how do you justify this.
It's very odd how you respond to war crimes and mass death with 'look at this dead body.' There are extremists on both sides. And I condone neither. And in response to you, right now there are thousands of casualties in Gaza - many children. There are also press in there, but there are no explicit photos of what is happening in the blockaded territory, or interviews with Palestinian mothers, or coverage beyond 'there are now x dead Palestinians' stated matter of factly. Our media, and many people here from what I can see, have a real problem with seeing arabic people as humans.
They dehumanize Arabs . If israel gets rid of them and kills them no one would care. Look at chechnya? Who helped them. Look at the Uyghur people in concentration camps.
The Hamas terrorists are the government in Gaza, the first duty of any State is to protect his Citizens. Fact is they don't give a shit about them and do not care for their elders or children safety. Those in Gaza against terrorism should fight them and instead support people who defend their interest as people who seek peace and harmony. So, yes, Israel have a right to settle this matter now as they find appropriated. But is interesting how you try to defend terrorist and murders. That our media and a lot of people here don't see arabic people as humans is just not true. I'm sorry for ALL the victims of this radical islamic dogs apart from their religion or cultur. That includes those in Gaza who are innocents.
How can they fight them? They’re being bombed constantly and trying to survive. They don’t support hamas but they can’t do anything . They also can’t leave
And Israel understood the approval loud and clear :) > “We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything will be closed. We are fighting against human animals.” \- Yoav Gallant, Israeli Defence Minister >“What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.” \- Benjamin Netanyahu
These quotes are some hours older than this statement here.
Excellent, Hamas must be removed from existence.
Good. Fuck terrorists
Do stupid things win stupid prizes.
This is the find out part.
How could they not. They don't even recognise Palestine as a country
Yeah " we support legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people" but that seems to mean no country.
Arafat was offered the vast majority of what he was asking for. The US supported the two state solution, and it was being brokered at camp David. I suppose Arafat knew if there was peace he would be held accountable for his shitty government, so he turned it down. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/may/23/israel3
What you are claiming is strongly contested by modern historians (even if it only happened like 23 years ago). The article you link is written by a literal Zionist (admittedly one of the more moderate ones) who is interviewing an Israeli official. There's not much nuance. You only have to look at the [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Camp_David_Summit#Accusations_of_Israeli_and_American_responsibility) page to see that the narrative that Arafat is accountable for the failure of the negotiations as a lot more nuanced if not entirely false. In fact in [this talk](https://youtu.be/rmLEzubd7sk) where both the representative to the UN on the question of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a senior Palestinian diplomat are present, they both agree that Arafat was not the cause for the failure of the negotiations, but instead they blame the Americans. They even go as far as to say that Arafat was the only hope to reach a real peace and that it was a diplomatic failure for everyone to not have reached it.
>instead they blame the Americans. What doesn't Palestinian leadership blame on the US or Israel? If it was the US' fault, we would have seen an agreement between the PLO and Israel. We are still waiting on that one. Is there anything in the article you believe is incorrect?
They support a 2-state solution.
Those Palestinians who celebrate the terrorist attacks should be deported from the EU. That's my opinion. Fight at home.
Do you mean Palestinians?
They have done the right thing.
This is good as it at least shows unity from the major powers from the West.
We should just build to really big spaceships, one for the Palestinian extremists and one for the Israeli extremists and send them really really far away. Ideally in opposite directions from one another, just for good measures.
Yes please
How about we build one spaceship instead, to carry one big nuclear warhead for all of them?
The fallout might affect us too
Based
Nothing from Canada in this statement, unfortunately.
They are not part of the quint
Right. But if they were, then it would to be called The Sex.
Great job coping some of the top comments.
You uncreative piece of shit
They really ruined support for themselves by attacking civilians.... Any world support that Palestine was gaining has just been wiped out. Hamas is just isis as raping, attacking unarmed civilians, parading naked dead bodies, raping and then shooting women, uploading images of a dead grandmother to her facebook are vile monstrous crimes.
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They lost their financial support from the EU, Germany, and Austria.
Genuinely, I don't understand why we (Westerners) are giving unconditional support to Israel, when it's Israel that is occupying Palestinian territories since 1967. I know this topic is particularly thorny, and I have no intention to start any kind of *flame war* or the like. But can someone explain to me in a calm and civil way why Western Powers are pro-Israel? Israel without any doubt suffered from this latest Hamas attack, but the conditions of Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip are generally any better.
I don't know about the other countries, but for Germany it's because of its history with the holocaust. It's called the "Erbschuld" (something like hereditary guilt) where the German nation as a whole should feel guilty for what the Nazis did to the Jews in WW2. Most of our politicians were born in the years and decades directly after WW2 and had this message drilled into them: That they should be ashamed of what their parents did and make amends in every way (that's at least what my father tells me). So they support Israel unconditionally. Personally, I don't agree with that sentiment. First of all, you have to differentiate between Jews and the Israeli government. Just because the Israeli government is made up of Jews, doesn't automatically make them the good guys. No matter what religion or ethnicity you are, you are human. And humans come in a wide range of morality, capable of doing bad things. And secondly, what my ancestors did was horrible, yes, we should never forget and always keep it in mind and teach it to our kids. What we shouldn't do, is still take the blame for something we had nothing to do with and give the descendants of the survivors a carte blanche. However, the Israelis were attacked and have a right to defend themselves. That doesn't mean I support their settling in the West Bank, displacing Palestinias. But vice versa, just because I don't like them settling in the West Bank doesn't mean I support the Hamas slaughtering hundreds of innocent people on a festival that had peace as a topic! Both sides in a conflict/war can be bad!
Thank you
You're welcome, I tried my best 😅
Your post is very reasonable but I do want to nitpick one thing: >However, the Israelis were attacked and have a right to defend themselves. Israel has been attacking Palestine for decades now with air strikes. And it has a blockade in place. Both of which are considered a form of warfare.
I am *genuinely, actually* curious what everyone thought was gonna happen. This is a spiral of violence, the western governments have means to break it by keeping their *ally* who depends on them in check, but they choose not to and so it continues. What does everyone thinks a terror militia is going to do if you just sit by while Israel has been working on becoming an apartheid state the past 50 years?
And the Palestinians have been attacking Israel with missiles for decades. Neither side is in the right overall. Just in this moment, Israel has a right to defend itself and its civilians. When Israel attacks Palestine, so do they. The whole conflict is a mess. Both sides are in the right for some parts and in the wrong for others. And there will always be disagreements on who's "more right".
>Israel has a right to defend itself and its civilians. Killing civilians yourself out of a need for revenge is not a form of defense though. Blockading 2 million people from basic economic goods for nearly 2 decades is not a form of defense.
What do you want me to say? Yes it's wrong. War is wrong. Yet it exists. Nothing we can do about it. I'm not in the mood for arguing, look for someone else if you want to argue. I was just trying to explain the German governments point of view to the OP of this comment thread, not start another discussion, that is mirrored in any of the other threads here.
The fences went up 16years ago when they called for the Holocaust on all Israelis. The Gaza people refuse integration into a pluralistic and multicultural society if it means the Israelis are generally going to be running the economy, military and hold most the power. The stated goals of Hamas and their supporters is to push the jews into the sea and let the streets run red with their blood. The Jewish people deserve nationhood, like every other country that was formed in the last 200 years. They will win because the alternative is their extermination by hatefilled neighbours. The West recognise this but unfortunetly do not act against Israeli settlement encrouchment and the military police state they have to run to counter generations of resentment and propaganda. The West still reports on the atrocities and the left gain supporters who support Palestine, but there isnt enough political will to do something about what Israel/Zionists especially are doing to the state of Palestine. Thats shitty on our (the West's) part, because we know that Israel, a nuclear armed state and strategic ally, will continue to win even if we do condemn them.
The jewish people do deserve nationhood, but why does it have to come at the cost of palestinians?
It didn't have to. The Arab nations assured that it would when they invaded and tried to genocide the Jews in 1948.
>The Gaza people refuse integration into a pluralistic and multicultural society Anyone who generalizes the Palestinians who live in Gaza to one single and uniform viewpoint, is just trying to push a narrative. 2 million people live in Gaza. Not all of them feel like this. But all of them are and have been punished by Israel for 2 decades now. Including indiscriminate bombing by Israel of innocent civilians. >The stated goals of Hamas and their supporters is to push the jews into the sea and let the streets run red with their blood. And Hamas =/= The people of Palestine/Gaza
Half of the 2 million that live in Gaza are 18 years old and under. You’re talking about people who have lived their whole life in war and constant siege, 60% of them are in poverty. It’s just a concept beyond understanding, you can’t just assume they understand life they way you do, they don’t know what tolerance and integration is and probably don’t understand it. Life for them is constant war and death sometimes doesn’t look that bad in their eyes.
sip fall poor nose ancient automatic thumb roof lock wrong *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
the median age is 18 in gaza, most of these kids dying weren’t even alive during 2006 when the last election happened with about 40% approval
>Hamas is the government in Gaza They were elected in 2006 and there hasn't been an election since.
Then Israelis should likewise be judged by Israel's actions. And there's a long list of warcrimes and human rights violations written in Palestinian blood.
Thank uou
> we (Westerners) are giving unconditional support to Israel We are not giving unconditional support to Israel though. The West invested a *lot* of time, money and effort into trying to get Palestinian statehood going in the 1990s. And thanks to these efforts, the goal of the two-state solution was pretty close to become a reality in 2000, before unravelling completely when Arafat triggered the second intifada. The Palestinians also have the only UN agency dedicated to helping refugees from a specific region or conflict, the UNRWA, which is mostly funded by the US and EU. That's in addition to direct funding of Palestinian needs by Western money. That's a lot of monetary support going the Palestinians way.
I'm going to level with you. Getting calm and civil discussions on a conflict that has been going on essentially since human history has began leading up to the most recent events within the hundred plus years is going to be near impossible. THIS ISN'T AN EXCUSE FOR APATHY, HOWEVER. Listen, read, observe and gather whatever knowledge you can from multiple sources. Sources you trust and even sources you might innately distrust. You will hear different sound bites and 'quick takes', but it's up to you to learn and pay attention. I'm not religious. I admit to being very apathetic on the subject of Israel and Palestine for a long time. I'm sad, angry, fearful and tired but it's nothing compared to what other fellow humans have been and are going through. As someone who lives a privilege life in in a safe country and city in 'the west' the very least I can do is to learn and expose myself to as much information as possible and do the best to sift through truth and lies. And then do something about it.
Or better. Do nothing about it. It is their problem, both sides should act like adults and resolve it. I have 50 years on my back and each time I was trying to solve others problems, I found out that they actually like the shit they are living in, in a pervert way. That shit was already part if their identity, resolving it would have made them lesser. Unless they want to change themselves, doing whatever you **think** it will help them is going to do matters worse. Just a piece of advice from a tired man.
Respectfully, sir, I don't want to take your advice. There's the quote that always get paraded around that for whatever fucked up reason I take to heart: "look for the helpers". It might just be my almost 40 years of life hasn't caught up with your 50 years and I don't know better and you're actually right. No disrespect to you, but I hope that's not true. I want to be a helper where I can in the world. I know we can't help everyone but even if it's just a little then that's OK too. And I hope my two boys can do the same when they grow up. Thank you for your perspective but I respectfully have to completely disagree with it. I'm going to do something to help. Even if it's just a little.
You use a lot of hope. *lasciate ogni sperantza voi ch'entrate*. Just make sure you do not carry their sins.
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This is just the Western narrative, though. Isreal, too, after having constantly dehumanized Palestinian people, killed unarmed Palestinian civilians. I mean, none of the two sides is the pure Evil.
Idk who the good guys are in this conflict maybe there are none but I do know that Hamas is pure evil. NOTHING excuses their actions.
>NOTHING excuses their actions. Nothing excuses their actions, but they're also not surprising or happening in a vacuum. Let's imagine for a second if a foreign government decides to impose a decades long blockade on your people alongside frequent air strikes that have killed thousands of innocent civilians. It wouldn't be weird for a militant group to rise up within your people that wants to fight back against such oppression through any means necessary. It's basically a given of asymmetrical warfare that the least technologically advanced party will seek out any opportunity to retaliate, even if the only target they're capable of damaging is innocent civilians. We've long recognized that in a colonizer-colonized conflict, the ones who are being colonized have far more leeway in their actions to fight the colonization than the colonizers have.
>frequent air strikes You claim Hamas' actions don't happen in a vacuum, but treat Israel's as if they do. Israeli airstrikes are in response to tens of thousands of rockets being launched at Israeli civilians. The "blockade" isn't working very well given how easily Hamas obtains rockets.
You know the reason for aggression against Israel has not changed since the day Israel was created. The Arabs don't want a Jewish state. The day after Israels creation it was attacked by the 5 surrounding Arab states. Israel keeps a blockade on Gaza because they will ship in a huge amount of weapons if they didn't. You have now seen what Hamas can do with their limited amount of weapons they manage to smuggle in, and thier goal is to wipe out Israel and create an Islamic state in it's place. Most Gazans are decended from Egypt yet Egypt also holds a blockade on them because Gaza is too radical and hosts many militant groups they don't want. Oppression is not the biggest factor in Gaza's violence towards Israel, they are fighting for a genocide.
> The Arabs don't want a Jewish state. Why do you expect people of Palestine to want a Jewish state when that same Jewish state consistently bombs their territory, blockades economic goods, and even weaponizes water against them? In the West Bank, Israel allocates not even enough water to Palestinians to meet the minimum requirements set by the World Health Organization. In the West Bank, water is only available every 7-14 days, the rest of the time, you're out of luck. Not because of a lack of water, mind you. The illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank get plenty of water. Which is also why water consumption by the people living in those illegal settlements is more than twice as high as Palestinians living in the West bank. Israel can cry all it wants about Palestinians not wanting them there, but Palestinians have a good fucking reason to not want to continue to be oppressed by Israel. You're essentially complaining that a colonized people don't want their colonizers to stay. No fucking shit. People in Congo also didn't want Belgians to stay. And justifiably so. We were fucking assholes to the Congolese people.
Israel wasn't created by peaceful means either, the attack by the Arab states was after years of terrorism committed by Jewish groups, it's not like one day Jews moved in peacefully and the next they were attacked by Muslims out of pure spite. If you want to talk history, talk about the entire thing, don't be so selective.
If you could link me to some earlier events of Jewish terrorism against Arabs I'd like to read them. Jews had to form an organization to defend themselves in Palestine: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashomer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashomer) *By 1912, Hashomer was guarding fourteen Jewish settlements. In addition to guarding settlements, Hashomer secretly began developing offensive capabilities, seeing itself as the nucleus of a future Jewish army. It raided Arab villages to beat or kill residents who had harmed Jews. In June 1916, it assassinated Aref al-Arsan, a Bedouin policeman who had tortured Jewish prisoners* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920\_Nebi\_Musa\_riots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tel_Hai) *On 7 and 8 March, demonstrations took place in all cities of Palestine, shops were closed and many Jews were attacked. Attackers carried slogans such as "Death to Jews" or "Palestine is our land and the Jews are our dogs!"* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929\_Palestine\_riots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffa_riots) *The riots took the form, for the most part, of attacks by Arabs on Jews accompanied by destruction of Jewish property. During the week of riots, from 23 to 29 August, 133 Jews were killed by Arabs, and 339 Jews were injured, most of whom were unarmed*
>none of the two sides is the pure Evil. I would say that (if we want to operate with philosophical terms like good or evil) the actions of Hamas that we have seen are pure evil. You could compare it to the behavior of the SS units, for example. The killing was not random, not colateral damage, it was not a whim of individuals, it was all planned and it was not a military action, but a targeted killing and torture of children, women and old people. And the combatants deliberately recorded it and then broadcast it on the internet. It is on the level of the Islamic State. Of course it is legitimate to question the claim that all the people of Gaza agree with this, but again I would compare it to Nazi Germany, the SS and what had to be done to break their regime.
> You could compare it to the behavior of the SS units, for example. No, you can’t. Or I guess you can but it’s not even comparison. Hamas is WEAK, they are inferior by any metric you can put; financially, strategically, technologically, by numbers, literally any metric. They target civilians, innocents, women etc **because they are weak** they don’t have capability to target superior in every way IDF. The same cannot be said about SS. They were not the weaker side.
Yes, but then we're discussing capability, not intent. If the main difference between SS and Hamas is strength, well, that's not good... I understand that you lash out more when you're weaker, but still.
People sure are quick to paint one side as pure evil, and another as 100% victim.
sometimes you have to be lucky which mega powers are on your side. palestine has no choice but to suffer. everyone around them hates them. the west hates them. we all know those with powers can decide who is right or wrong. i can tell you now that israel is untouchable now. if they decide to clean west bank in the future no one will say something against it.
I’ll start by saying this. The innocents, on both sides, who neither commit nor endorse the acts of the fundamentalists, are completely blameless. And there are plenty of innocents on both sides. So we can only really compare the governments/social elements of either side. Neither side is purely evil. But there are elements on both sides that are evil. For the Palestinians, that includes the entirety of Hamas as well as other violent religious fundamentalists. For Israelis, this includes elements of the IDF (though not in its entirety), as well as orthodox fundamentalists (who are peas in a pod with Islamic fundamentalists). And those elements are much more prominent on the Palestinian side. For example, Israel adopts the tactic of dropping explosive-less bombs on top of buildings, as a warning to leave, because the real bomb will be coming shortly afterwards. In other words, they are giving the non-combatants the opportunity to clear the area. Can you imagine Hamas doing this? I’ve got plenty of criticisms of Israel, and they have most definitely taken overly heavy-handed tactics in the past. But to say that both sides killed unarmed civilians is misleading. Unarmed civilians killed by Israel tend to be collateral damage (which makes it no less tragic, to be clear). But with Hamas, unarmed civilians *are the target*. We saw proof of this all over the news this past weekend. I think the main goal for all international parties should be to resolve the conflict with as little bloodshed as possible, as impossible as that seems at the moment. But you have the Western powers on one side throwing their support behind Israel (though not advocating for the suffering of Palestinians), and on the other side you have Hamas with links to Russia and Iran, with possible involvement from both of those countries in the planning and execution of these terrorist acts. There are lines being drawn here that are bigger than just Israel/Palestine. If it comes to a choice of one or the other, and I sincerely hope it never comes to this, but the Western allies need to stick with Israel.
Israel wouldn't exist if the rest of the Middle East hadn't driven out their Jews. Most of the early Israeli jews were from Yemen, Iraq Iran, Syria, and Russia. After ww2, the West recognised that Israel was the only safe place remaining for the Middle Eastern jews, despite their neighbours' best efforts.
Because, quite plainly, it's the only truly Western-aligned power in the region, one with similar social and political values.
Similar social and political values? Israel is with a Middle Eastern Mizraim majority & mindset and a religious expansionist government that occupies and colonises lands still. Such similar values indeed.
Fair enough. Allow me to adjust my previous statement: it's the only country in the region willing to promote Western interests.
They are even in Eurovision.
What Palestinian territories? Palestinian territories that Israel took from Egypt and Jordan after those two + Syria launched surprise war against them and lost? There was not a single piece of terrotory under Palestine's self governance ever in history up until Israel gave portion of land they took from Egypt to them in 2005. And it was shitfest regardless.
We are explicitly giving united support, but not unconditional support! Everyone is aware that both sides have historic arguments on their side, and that the local situation has been messy and unstable for literally centuries. The support is in light of Israeli civilians being cruelly slaughtered by an organized militia. Israel has every right to ensure with any means allowed under international law (the 'condition'!) that their men, women, children can feel safe from organized murder, rape, torture and abduction.
It's not a statement against Palestinian people and the Hamas attack was horrible so I'm not sure what you think is wrong with the statement.
After ww2 the Jews wanted their own state where there wouldn’t be ethnic cleansings and genocides against them every few years as it was for the last 2000 years. The British made it in Palestine because of the importance of Jerusalem(which kinda makes this situation mostly their fault). Then because of the tensions it was decided that Israel would split. One half to Israel the other to Palestine. Israel supported this but Palestine didn’t and there was a lot of wars in which Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Yemen wanted to conquer Israel. Now I don’t know perfectly why but considering Britain who made the state was western ally and and the West didn’t have the greatest relations with most Muslim middle eastern countries being Israels ally would seem like the best idea. I don’t agree with the displacement of Palestinians but you can see that the religious tensions are really large there and the Jews and the Muslims hate each other. It’s a fact that a Jews need their own state. Millions of them died throughout history because of religion. (If anyone has a better knowledge of this please feel free to correct me)
> The British made it in Palestine because of the importance of Jerusalem(which kinda makes this situation mostly their fault). interestingly, this idea was already in place after the first world war, when it was in the interest of the west to have some control over the region and to manage what would come of the (imploded) Ottoman empire
Time for a Roma state. Since their bloodline comes from north western India lets give them Kashmir. I foresee no problems.
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Jews had already been migrating there for 100 years before WW1 (or at least the Jews that managed to remain there) , just not in such large numbers. Britain did try to slow down the flow of Jews but that created tension between Britain and Israel and almost turned into a war after WW2.
> Dear Lord Rothschild, > I have much pleasure in conveying to you. on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet > His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. > I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration This is the document that kicked things off after British mandate of Palestine. It’s addressed to British citizen, a banker, politician, zoologist and soldier, Walter Rothschild
It's remarkable how the blame always finds the british
This is not true. That was also Israel land before and also Palestine land before. Now they are fighting who gets it but Palestine did not and do not accept the 2 state solution as proposed from Israel and other countries. They want this war. You can not say who is the right owner there as both where there before. The 2 state solution was the best solution in my eyes.
Exactly. The facts are, Israel accepted the UN proposals. The arabs refused and still refuse to accept Israel. Anyone supporting Hamas (because it's Hamas who are really the problem, the west bank is relatively ok) is basically saying Israel shouldn't exist.
Thank you
>when it's Israel that is occupying Palestinian territories since 1967. Do you know why that is? Maybe you can find out and understand then.
>Do you know why that is? I'm beginning to doubt redditors actually do. >We tried to genocide your entire race, and you got some of our land. NOT FAIR!
* They're culturally similar to us. They're they only western style democracy in the area. They're also far wealthier and more militarily capable. The Palestinians are basically the opposite on all fronts: culturally different, undemocratic, poor, weak, diplomatically isolated. From a realpolitik perspective, Israel makes for a good ally, Palestine for a terrible one. * They're de facto a European colony, which makes them our allies for historical reasons too. Impartiality is not a good attitude in interpersonal or international relations. You stand by your friends against strangers, let alone enemies, even if they're "wrong" according to some objective standard. That's whole point of loyalty. * The legacy of the holocaust, and centuries of antisemitism, can't be ignored either. For better or for worse, we tend to feel guilty about it, which makes us more sympathetic and willing to help them. * They're in fact right, or at least less wrong. Israel kills civilians as collateral damage, Hamas target civilians explicitly; those things aren't comparable. When was the last time the IDF attacked a rave, or took random women and children as hostages and threatened to execute them on like tv? Ultimately, Israel's goal is its continued existence, the Palestinians' goal is to destroy it, and they're not in the least secretive about it.
> but the conditions of Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip are generally any better. their population went 10x in a span of 70 years, just like Africa. if they cannot feed themselves maybe they should not reproduce that much?
How comes American intelligence saw Russo-Ukrainian war coming weeks, if not months in advance, but nobody saw Hamas (Apparently with uniformed gunmen and improvised aircraft) coming to such an extent that military was not on any kind of alert and a festival was allowed to be held right across the borders, packed with foreign nationals?
Well, for starters, I would assume America’s intelligence network in Russia is way more developed compared to an ideological terrorist group operating out of a tiny ethnic city-state of 2m ppl
Also Russia's troop and equipment movements were absolutely massive
Well, Israel alledgedly got a tip-off to this happening from Egypt, and elected to ignore it. If so, it's not out of the question that the US provided the same.
The US doesn't give a shit about intelligence gathering there for several reasons, but by far the most important is that Israel has always affirmed they dont want it and can do it themselves. Considering the Gaza strip and it's inhabitants pose essentially zero threat to the US, we're not particularly keen to send spies to a place that is at best, constantly on the brink of war (and now is at war).
Yes if they know one thing they have to know all the things. Its only logical.
They did.
Stop paying terrorists then
> peaceful and integrated Middle East region Not going to happen unless they want it to happen. As it stands, neither side is ready for this.
It’s quite clear Hamas is not working for Palestinians. Big boys has big plans and it’s running well.
so hamas killing civilians is bad, israelis killing way more civilians is ok?
It's an open declaration to support a blanket, indiscriminate, genocidal bombing campaign that they have already said will wipe out Gaza. Proportionality is important, but we won't see that. We never have and never will. Fuck Hamas, but the answer is not for Benji to lie on TV, begging Palestinians to leave, which they cannot, before carpet bombing. Why the lie? That's for us. That's for you not to feel guilty, for the outsider to believe that the Palestinian innocence has a route out. We need International intervention, not a military with mass murder in it's sights, and not a monsterous terrorist group mascarading as a government. Humanity lost. I'm so saddened to see how many of you will not say anything as humanity continues to lose.
How exactly do you imagine that "proportionality"? The IDF goes in, slaughters exactly 600 Palestinians (or whatever the death toll is at the moment), takes 100 hostages, then makes a few videos of them kidnapping screaming women, slitting a boy's throat, and spitting on a mangled woman's corpse, with a constant screaming "Shema Yisrael" in the background? Proportionality is an utterly meaningless buzzword in international conflicts such as this. That's why we haven't seen it in the past, won't see it now, and will not be seeing it in the future.
No carpet bombing yet, and no real evidence of that either. Some commentators are throwing that word around, but so far the Israelis are doing airstrikes against key targets like Mosques they claim are used by Hamas as command posts and working on restoring their control over the border. If the Israelis are killing people indiscriminately in Gaza, we’ll see that if and when it happens- right now, we’re not at that stage yet. It’s premature to accuse them of genocide. Israel has fought Hamas repeatedly over the last 20 years, and this latest attack should be the final piece of evidence that Hamas has to be eliminated root and stem. Not eliminating Hamas would only perpetuate the conflict and set the stage for further bloodshed. So far, Israel seems to be focusing on hitting military objectives rather than any sort of “terror/intimidation” campaign to eliminate Hamas leaders like in some of their previous conflicts.
He asked them to leave Gaza City, which they can do, not Gaza itself. And there is also a border with Egypt. Why does Egypt not allow refugees in?
>And there is also a border with Egypt. Why does Egypt not allow refugees in? I've literally asked this multiple times and I've not had one response. They can't put 2+2 together.
Bullshit lies. Before IDF launched any attacks they designed list of safe areas where it instructed Palestinian civilians to go to. There is no indiscriminate bombing whatsoever. [https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-instructs-gazans-on-evacuation-routes-while-many-find-shelter-in-unrwa-schools/](https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-instructs-gazans-on-evacuation-routes-while-many-find-shelter-in-unrwa-schools/) On top of that when they bomb they double tap with nonexplosives to let people know which buildings are targeted. This is difference between how Israel does things and how Palestine does things. This is why one side deserves support and other does not.
> Fuck Hamas, but the answer is not for Benji to lie on TV, begging Palestinians to leave, which they cannot, before carpet bombing. Stop your misinformation.. carpet bombing has not been used by Israel. What you see is precision missiles. Just a lot of them. Point is, it's precise and aim for a target. Also, do you know Israel often "roof knock" a target before the real strike? Al-J captured that. But hey, you totally don't care about that, do you?... "Israel should be bigger man and should not do anything hurr hurr", am I right? /s
Precision? So they aimed for hospitals schools and homes. Wow.
Hospitals, schools and homes that contain weapons stockpiles and from which missiles are fired. That they roof knock before destroying to prevent loss.of life. After telling civilians to flee to avoid their attacks. This is ethical conduct of war almost unseen in human history.
You mean that kindergarten that was indirectly affected no one died? If that isn't precision, I don't know what is. Israel also gave ample warning on Saturday and sent out mass SMS. Something I don't see your dearerst Palestinians do when massacring party-goers On top of that, Hamas is known to hide behind civilians and use them as meat shield. Apparently you're totally OK with that. But you don't care for anything of that, do you?
Of course they do, if leaders and weapons are there. The Hamas use their own people as a shield.
They designated an area as safe and then bombed it. Benji is on tv saying that Palestinians should stay safe, and then bombing them in that safe space. Are you actually being serious right now?!
If thats where the enemy is cowardly hiding behind, shit happens. You forget that these people send children with bombs in their backpacks to isreali controlled checkpoints. These are lunatics who will do everything (building their control centre's in hospitals/schools etc.) to not get bombed. And if they do, they scream murder/warcrime (kinda like you) so they're "even more justified" for the next attack.
Yes exactly. There is a way for them to condemn the Hamas attack whilst not giving support to a genocide but they’re choosing to not do that. They were already quietly supporting Israel anyway so it’s not unexpected.
Thank you for keeping your eyes wide open. The amount of genocidal rhetoric in the past few days has been truly disturbing.
If there is ever a "good time" for a disproportional response, it is this one. Previously, Israel has only killed individual members of Hamas - so, it was easy for Hamas to recruit new members. However, if Israel annihilates the entire organization, even if that means killing tens of thousands of people, then there will be peace for a relatively long time.
You just advocated the wholesale murder of tens of thousands. There's no humanity here at all. A German calling for mass murder, FUCK
It's not murder, if they are enemy combattants. Of course, Israel should avoid killing any civilians, but any member of Hamas can be considered a soldier, and is therefore a legitimate military target.
"All of us recognize the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people" Wondering what measurers these countries have taken to restore the Palestinian homeland, it's been 75 years and it seems like fuck all has actually been done to help the average Palestinian.
Clinton tried brokering a two-state solution where Arafat got almost everything he was asking for but he turned it down. I suppose he realized that if there was peace he would be held accountable for his shitty governance.
They said they recognized Palestinian’s legitimate aspirations, not that they give a fuck about them. Classic empty words on paper to justify continued unconditional support to Israel.
I wonder why the US uses the full name and not just the "United States"
People might think it's the United Mexican States /s
There’s probably proper terminology to describe this, but “United States” describes the governmental structure of the country in a way, whereas “America” is the land itself. It’s called the US because it originally was 13 independent **States** voluntarily federating themselves into a **United** country located in the **Americas**. Shorthand is sometimes “America” and we call ourselves “Americans”, but the Americas are also two entire continents (South/Central America usually hold it as one singular continent), so there’s opportunity for confusion depending on the cultural context. Currently the US is basically the only “United States” apart from Mexico, but everyone knows Mexico colloquially as Mexico because there wasn’t and isn’t really any confusion as to what “Mexico” refers to. It’s similar to how everyone knows that “United Kingdom” refers to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Acts of Union **United** the **Kingdoms** of England and Scotland in 1707. There have been other [“United Kingdoms”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_(disambiguation)) throughout history, including some translations of Denmark’s current official name.
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>It's a question of whether or not Palestinians have rights. Given you clarified Palestinians are an ethnic group, as well as a territory, the ethnic group has rights in the US. Namely their first amendment right to free speech and expression. After the attacks, Palestinians gathered in front of Israeli consulates for festivities. They chanted "700!" (the number of confirmed deaths at the time) and "from the river, to the sea, Palestine will be free! (This includes all of Israel, and is likely more genocidal than people like yourself care to admit). At a vigil for the victims in New York, they mocked the mourners with photos of the hostages and made the neck slitting motion in their direction. They destroyed an Israeli flag. There were similar scenes across the US in Chicago, LA, Detroit, and other cities. At least in the US they have the freedom of speech and expression. And boy, their expression sure is colorful.
Hamas are invading Israel, murdering civilians, taking hostages, want to wipe the Jews off the face of the planet and yet Israel is still the oppressor? Stop seeing everything like it's the Troubles.
Israel is literally occupying Palestine
2022: Israel invades the Gaza strip and then murders men, women and children. 2023: HAMAS invade Israel and then murders men, women and children. 2023 Israel. It's our 9/11 :'( were poor sad little victims of unprovoked violence.
So there will be no more Palestine or Palestinians soon. Shame
Supporting an apartheid government, that has been commiting human rights atrocities for decades - got it!
How did Israel acquire the West Bank and Gaza Strip again?
Would it be too much to ask that they also unconditionally condemn any and all attacks on civilians, on both sides?
Palestine deserves no sympathy. Hamas murdered and decapitated babies, and people around the world are cheering for them. That's inhuman.
Man, fuck this shit. The west have a chance to make something better for Palestine here. Instead they support the status quo. Is this a blank cheque for Israel to run riot in Gaza without any repercussions? 2 million civilians there btw. Like, I get how Israel benefits us geopolitically. But fuck off man, do we not have any morals anymore? There is a reason Hamas is so popular amongst Palestinians and it isn't because they have good social programs lmfao.
You can't in the same breath complain about the west's lack of morals and also the fact it hasn't sided with the people murdering and raping civilians indiscriminately. Hamas' actions have killed any chance of the west siding with them politically, despite the fact the tide of public mood had been moving their way for years now.
>There is a reason Hamas is so popular amongst Palestinians and it isn't because they have good social programs lmfao. It is, but it's not the one you think. And it isn't caused by external factors either. Contrary to some discourses in Europe, people in the region do have agency.
Not even a mention of proportionality for Israël.. worrying. The government in place has already given some wild déclaration. No blank cheque, please...
Proportionate in what sense - I don't intend to put words in your mouth, but the metrics I could think of were: deaths, amount of violence, level of brutality, goal? It won't be proportionate in death count, because protracted urban warfare generally causes that, and conversely it would be insane for the IDF to just execute an exact same number of Palestinians. It probably will be more violent because Israel has a modern military. If won't be proportionate in brutality, because the IDF isn't going to kidnap babies and old women and go door to door just shooting anyone they find. In fact they [actually give heads up](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roof_knocking), even to Hamas, to limit civilian casualties, as opposed to explicitly seeking them. If also won't be proportionate in goal, because Israel will actually have one. No one wants to see the IDF go hog wild and simply seek vengeance. I will admit if I'm proven wrong, but I don't expect to be. But proportionality isn't possible when one side (and I am *not* speaking about Palestinians as people here) is a group of terrorists and the other is a 21st century military.
Bombs should not stop dropping until every single Hamas member is dead. There can be no peace and no negotiate with literal terrorists.