this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2023
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[–] [email protected] 123 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Israel is partly to blame for supporting Hamas to undermine Fatah. And, of course, for the general tension caused by the occupation and blockade.

Simultaneously, Israeli civilians should not be the victims, and their blood remains on Hamas's hands.

Both things are true. Though I somehow doubt the Saudis and Iran are out here condemning the rise of Hamas.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean I doubt it would've even come this far if Israel would've quit killing Palestinian civilians.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Honestly, once Hamas was ascendant, I don't think even stopping the killing of Palestinian civilians would've prevented further terrorist attacks. Like, the last serious chance for peace in the near-future was when Fatah was the only game in town and willing to negotiate. That opportunity was wasted because the Israeli establishment thought they could play divide and conquer and squeeze a better deal out of the already-oppressed.

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

You make good points and I’m not disagreeing but just think about it for a second: what a huge change it would require for Israel to stop killing Palestinian children. It would take a massive and concerted effort, policy changes, deployment changes, and an amount of care and restraint the world has never seen.

I think it would change Israel 110% if they absolutely, positively had to stop killing children. Everything they do is fundamentally built around it. So really stopping it actually might change everything.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

They didn’t know how good they had it with Fateh. But hey they fucked around and are finding out. Yassar Arafat is laughing in his grave.

[–] [email protected] 66 points 1 year ago (8 children)

When you treat people like shit for years, don't be surprised if they fight back.

Israel has constantly held these people under the heel. Which is a bit rich when you think about all the wringing hands and what have you when anyone mentions the holocaust and the hard time Jews got in Europe before WWII.

I used to think Israel was the hard done by party here, over the last 30 odd years I've come to realise Israel are not the shining example of perfection they'd like us all to believe.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

Israel is an apartheid state. They are reaping what they have sown.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (3 children)

While the creation of Israel on already-peopled land is obviously the "original sin" of this conflict, at this point both groups believe that their existence is at stake and neither are just going to go away or surrender. There will never be peace between them.

In Punic Nightmares, Dan Carlin quotes an ancient proverb to the effect that a war is not over until the losing side admits defeat. That is why the Allies in WW2 insisted on unconditional surrender from Germany and Japan. Maybe the Israelis and Palestinians need to fight it out until one side surrenders unconditionally and accepts the other as the legitimate government.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Fight it out until one side surrenders unconditionally" my dude you are out here calling for millions of deaths, you can't be serious. Genocide is not the only path to peace.

Maybe listen to Dan Carlin's "Logical Insanity" episode to get an idea of how your proposed solution would spiral out of control.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm not calling for genocide. You made that up and should apologize. Did the Allies genocide Germany and Japan? No, they did not.

Obviously, war is horrific. Israel and Palestine have been in a low-level war for many decades now. No peace plan, foreign mediation, or negotiation has settled it. What's your genius solution that no one else in the world has thought of?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My preferred solution is not novel or genius, it is the international consensus: A two state settlement on the international border (green line) with mutually agreed upon land swaps. This is the solution with consistant and overwhelming international support, just look at the UN votes on the subject over the past 5 decades.

Unfortunately due to their overwhelming military superiority, Israel will not agree to this in the short term. This military superiority is a gift from the world superpower: having a client state in the middle east is very valuable to US economic interests. This is why you often see votes in the UN with a result of something like 161-2 (Israel + US vs. the rest of the world).

So I believe the larger question is how to stop the United States military industrial complex. And I'm sorry but I don't have a solution for that. Just like we are willing to fight Russia to the last Ukranian life, we are willing to turn a blind eye to Palestinian death as long as Israel keeps spending billions a year on helicopters, tankers, naval guns, and so much more.

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

I think the point they were trying to make is that this solution is great in theory, but due to the reasons you have pointed out does not actually work in practice. What happens in practice is everything that has led us to this point. They were not intentionally calling for genocide IMO, but misguidedly floating the idea of a less protracted end to the conflict.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think there was a failure to demonstrate that lack of protraction and I think glossing over the allies dropping two atomic bombs on Japan and killing half a million people speaks to the weakness in justifying it with that comparison.

That's not to say there's no substance to it at all, but this isn't the right case for it.

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

The Allies definitely genocided the Germans. It’s not popular to talk about but between the Russian advancement and the massive displacement projects following the war it would be disingenuous to not call it ethnic cleansing.

Edit: apparently downvoters don’t think displacing millions, leading to the deaths of millions, based on their ethnicity, isn’t ethnic cleansing. Okay

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (5 children)

There is no surrendering here. You’re talking about a region where these “two” peoples have been fighting for three thousand years. If they were capable of sharing or conceding, they might have found a way to manage in the last couple millennia.

Israel feel like it’s their rightful land, which can be up for debate depending on who you are, but Muslims in the area also feel that it is their rightful land. Israel refuses to share the land, but then can you blame them when the Muslims (particularly Hamas) have a goal of eradicating them. I’m black and that’s much like asking me to “just get along” with the Nazis next door who constantly advocate for the US to be a white ethnostate. On the flip side of that, is it fair for me to completely segregate anyone who doesn’t look like me or worship like me just because there’s an amount of “them” who might be Nazis?

There’s a way that they could both live in the land, but it’s going to take a major change in leadership (seriously, why is Netanyahu still there?) and a change in the minds for “both” sides that accepts that either they share or they’ll both be destroyed in the end.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

No, until the rise of the modern Zionist movement, there wasn't a lot of sectarian conflict. (Well, since the Crusades.) There are Palestinian Jews(and Christians) that were living in British Palestine. 1927 coin in English, Arabic, and Hebrew https://www.etsy.com/listing/1538377183/1927-and-1942-palestine-2-mils-israel?gpla=1&gao=1&=&utm_custom1=_k_c2d52efd97041940710b4bded98150ab_k_&utm_custom2=319339185&msclkid=c2d52efd97041940710b4bded98150ab

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

The way that most civilized nations have multiple peoples living under the same nation is a clear seperation of church and state. What Muslim is going to live under Jewish rule? What Jew is going to live under Muslim rule? Or even if the split the land down the middle and run each side independently, there is still the threat of conflict.

Theoretically they should be able to live under one nation as long as the state passes no laws that prohibit religious freedom. Works for the rest of the world.

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

I actually largely agree with you, including the fact that Netanyahu is a turd, but I think you are wrong that there is a way for these two states to live on the same land.

The end-point that most experts say is inevitable is a two-state solution with both sides agreeing on the others' right to exist. So, how do we get there? Well, why did Germany and Japan surrender at the end of WW2 rather than continue to fight forever? What would recreate the conditions that allowed WW2 to end?

At the end of the day, Israelis and Palestinians need two things: first, they both need somewhere viable to live under their own government, and second, they both need to be so sick of war that they are willing to compromise. Neither side is anywhere near that point.

Some people just reflexively say no to war, no matter what. However, since you brought it up, the black experience in the US is actually appropriate to raise. The US did, in fact, fight a civil war to end slavery, and it was the most intense conflict the US has ever fought. Without protracted suffering, I do not believe that Israel or Palestine will summon up the willpower to choose better leaders and compromise. Do you disagree?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Could you give me a source on your assertion of a two state solution? I’ve very rarely seen any actual geopolitical experts suggest it. It almost always comes from the Israelis. Palestinians by and large are adamant that there needs to be a single state. I mean, of course they are. How would some embassies help anything.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

One might argue that WW2 might have not happened if Germany was treated better after the Versailles treaty.

So you can't really expect a reconciliation while you treat your neighbour like in an open air prison.

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

The region was nowhere near this unstable until this century. This started with the partition of the Ottoman Empire and the gift of Palestine to the political zionists.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I am wondering to what extent Hamas represents the Palestinians.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago

Hamas represents all Palestinians the way Israel and the IDF represent all jews.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

FWIW, Hamas won the last election that the Palestinian Authority held in 2006 (!) Fatah pretty much kept the West Bank, denying Hamas the victory, but couldn't stop Hamas from taking over in Gaza. My understanding of PA politics was that negotiation with Israel was seen as a dead end and that any party with negotiations as a primary tactic was going to lose. And Israel is responsible for that perception.

[–] jscummy 1 points 1 year ago

Hamas was elected in 2006 but has held on to power since. A poll from a few years back showed 52% support still, but I would hope that's had a steep crash now

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Pretty sure Hamas is to blame for Hamas attack.

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

I mean, they aren't the only ones. A lot of people, including myself, say that. The better part of a century of oppression, and people are surprised that Palestinians are turning to a fundamentalist religious group to save them? You can only poke a cornered animal for so long before it turns and attacks you. I've got no sympathy for Israel, and I wish nothing but misery on them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Heartbreaking: the worst countries you know...

[–] CookieJarObserver 1 points 1 year ago

I see three dictatorships being pro terrorism in a Democracy...

Pretty obviously the Democracy wins.

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

This is the best summary I could come up with:


The governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Iran appeared to back Hamas in its escalating conflict with Israel on Saturday.

The Palestinian militant group launched a mass attack on Israeli forces and settlements, killing at least 100 people in Israel and about 200 in Gaza early Saturday.

While leaders in the U.S. and Europe quickly denounced the attack and gave support for Israel, the three Middle Eastern nations criticized the country over its treatment of Palestinians.

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is closely following the developments of the unprecedented situation between a number of Palestinian factions and the Israeli occupation forces, which has resulted in a high level of violence on several fronts there,” the country’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the conflict a “war” in a public address early Saturday.

The U.S. has vowed to support Israel, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin saying the government will ensure the country “has what it needs to defend itself.”


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