this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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[–] [email protected] 173 points 1 year ago (47 children)

I’ve been tracking the comments on all of this across various websites to see what people’s thoughts are. This genuinely might be the most contentious issue of our age. There are people who are vehemently pro Palestine and can dismiss the loss of civilian lives as’ what do you expect when people are pushed like this’ . Then others are hugely pro Israel and see this as an unprovoked attack by a terrorist group and any retaliation is justified.

I think everyone’s shitty here. Hamas is a terrorist organization. They use terrorist practices and target civilians. That’s a terrorist organization. There’s no discussion on that point. Israel is a right wing authoritarian state that regularly commits war crimes. The total Palestinian body count far exceeds the death toll from this attack by orders of magnitude so we can’t pretend like Israel was minding its own business and was attacked.

I don’t think you can point to one or the other as being the true hero or the true victim. It’s the greatest grey area of all time.

I absolutely condemn the Palestinians and Hamas for this act. I absolutely condemn the Israelis for their continued mistreatment and violence towards Palestinians. One will say they only act this way because of the behavior of the other. But at this point where does the original blame for all of it start and end.

The only thing that is certain is that there will be far more blood shed and every dead Israeli will be met with 10 dead Palestinians. I suspect this will be the turning point for this ongoing conflict. And in the future there may no longer be a Palestine as we know it. With the US protecting Israel no other Arab countries will dare intervene militarily. If the Israelis occupy Gaza it’s going to quickly become a quagmire with a never ending insurgency. It will be costly and in ten years Israel will be more unsafe then they were today.

There’s no good answers or good parties here. Just disgusting human nature and the consequences of half baked racist geopolitics from the 40s.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (4 children)

But at this point where does the original blame for all of it start

The Brits

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

"In the beginning, some old British guy drew some lines on a map. This had made many people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move." - The first line to the history of many regional conflicts across the globe

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sykes-Picot and the Balfour Declaration basically created the political climate of the Middle East.

Basically, the British and French decided that the Arabs were too stupid to figure out borders and squiggly lines that followed lame things like "shared cultural heritage" and "similar religious beliefs" were far too complicated.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I did some digging today because I was curious on what led to the Balfour Declaration, and what led to that, and so forth. The only thing I have to add here is there were geopolitics involving a separatist Ottoman sultan, and it seems the British wanted to create a sphere of influence for themselves in the area through a Jewish population (Catholic Church gave France influence, Orthodox Church gave Russia influence). Zionists were happy to work with them.

That begs the question then, how did the Zionist goal of a Jewish homeland start? The furthest I could trace it back to was Russian pogroms of Jewish migrants. The pogroms led a Jewish intellectual to contend that the only way for Jews to live freely and respected was an independent Jewish state. There was a zeitgeist of a enlightenment for Judaism at the time as well which asked questions about culture and religion and identity.

I have yet to go back further from there. It seems like oppression and discrimination against Jews during the middle ages could be a significant factor... and that would probably draw us back to the Romans in Jerusalem.

At this point, shit's just fucked. The idea of a Jewish state, the creation of one, and what led to the originating idea span centuries and several nations. And having a Jewish state is central to this whole issue. I don't think history has an answer for us here.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Which was influenced largely by the antisemitism of the West and the rise of Zionism for Jewish people which is partly radicalization as a response to thousands of years of oppression. But Brits were still in power with colonialism in full force.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Pretty much the only unbiased take anyone can have. Both sides f*cking suck. I disagree that this is the turning point tho. We've been here before and we'll stay here until both sides come to the table and actually discuss a peaceful resolution to the conflict. It'll never happen with hamas so they have to go. It'll never happen with the current Israeli government so they need to be replaced with more diplomatic leaders. Neither is gonna happen tho, the continued conflict just puts more dependence on the bad actors that keep escalating it. Honestly I see hamas cracking before Israel softens but who knows if or when that'll happen. I wouldn't be surprised if this conflict continued far beyond my lifetime.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

I disagree that this is the turning point tho.

Turning point, no, but I can see this being, in retrospect, an erm fulcrum point. Like what 9/11 did to the US, where the question "why do they hate us", besides further idiocy, also led to some legitimate insight into how the US' actions affect the world and provoke reactions, similarly the notion "we bred that monster" might get some more wide-spread traction in Israel.

...and yes this very much is a 9/11 moment for Israel, worse, actually. Caught completely on surprise, the most Jewish deaths and that in a short time-span since the Holocaust, much larger percentage of the population, it's definitely a defining moment.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

This is why I mainly blame the US and Europe at this point.

Both sides in this situation are controlled by the most disgusting kind of sociopath and the only way to stop this is real (with teeth, not just bullshit talk) international pressure on both sides.

Instead there is real pressure on one side only, by declaring Hamas a terrorist organisation (which they are), whilst without pressure on the other side, the boot of Israel on Palestinian necks creates every day new people with nothing to lose, for whom joining an internationally labelled terrorist organisation is an actual step-up from their situation.

So the worst kind of Israelis have nothing to lose from joining the military or colonates and stealing from and murdering Palestinians because there are zero international sanctions on it, the Israeli authorities fully support it and they have overwhelming force, whilst the worst kind of Palestinians have nothing to lose from joining Hamas and murdering Israelis because they have nothing to lose since the actions of the above mentioned Israelis have made their baseline situation be "a life of misery treated as less than human" and even made any organisation that resists Israel (even one as bad as Hamas) be relativelly prestigious and an actual step-up for many in that environment.

Unless the "solution" envisioned by US and European leaders is genocide of the Palestinians, then both sides have to be put in a situation were they do have something to lose by doing what they've been doing and that means keeping on the pressure on Hamas and extending the sanctions to the Israeli government.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why are you blaming just US and Europe? Why do Russia and China get a free pass? Russia gives support to Iran and Iran directly supports Hamas. China deliberately plays both sides while doing nothing to fix the situation. Nobody is actually trying to fix the whole situation but somehow only US and Europe are to blame. I'm not against being critical of the EU and US (there are things to be critical about), but let's not act like they're supposed to be the world police. We have other countries who could also work towards a solution, ideally in cooperation with US and EU, but they seem to be more interested in blaming "The west" than actually solving the issue.

[–] pomodoro_longbreak 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's because most people on Lemmy are from those US, EU, or "commonwealth" countries, so that's about all we have influence over. Also Russia and China's democracies are not looking so hot these days... what kind of pressure is a citizen of one of those countries expected to have anyway.

In my country I can go to a government building and take a huge dump on a picture of our elected leader, and I may get thrown in jail, but I'll probably be released after a slap on the wrist.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sure, but if the goal is to actually influence something then the wording shouldn't be "I blame mainly US and EU."

[–] pomodoro_longbreak 1 points 1 year ago

You raise a good point, but I guess I do mainly blame my leaders, personally.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I suspect this will be the turning point for this ongoing conflict.

Agreed.

And in the future there may no longer be a Palestine as we know it.

Yea, I don't think the two-state compromise is even possible even more. Israel won't tolerate even letting Hamas stick around, so Gaza will be leveled. As for what will happen to the civilians; I've not a clue.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It goes back even further than that when you look into why Zionists wanted a Jewish state in the first place. I did a deep dive today trying to figure out the origin of the conflict and the original victims and aggressors, and I ended up in Revolutionary Russia before calling a quits for the day.

I don't know what an ideal solution is at this point, nor what an actually viable solution would be. I wonder if it would even be better for the issue to not end instead of continuing on the path it's on. The way things are going, the only place we'll end up is with one of the sides completely wiped out. :/

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I suspect this will be the turning point of tbe conflict. I don’t know that we are going to walk Israel back from the full on attack.

The reality is as long as there are Palestinians alive there will be a terrorist network operating in their ranks. Israel could offer an olive branch and stop their oppression of the people but that hatred runs deep and it won’t be long before there’s another attack and we are back to where we started.

There’s no good solution at all. There’s only the question of when does a military action in response to a terrorist act swap from righteous retribution to a genocide. Because short of genocide the Israelis can do nothing but occupy the territory and deal with an insurgency which will only breed more terrorists as all the fatherless sons grow up hating Israel and want to enact their revenge.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

At this point a forced migration might be the option with the least bloodshed, as repulsive as it is. Then you run into the problem though that Palestinians are still shunned by the Arab world because being them being Muslim isn't enough to override antisemitism from their nationality.

Ironically I think we might need another mandated "this region is now the home of Palestinians" like with Israel if they're going to have a peaceful place to live.

For the record I don't like any of these solutions. But like you said we're quickly approaching the point where Israel may permanently end the conflict through the genocide of the Palestinians, and that's the absolutely least desirable outcome.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago
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