Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/5185724
Original link is here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/israel/gaza-war/63691/alan-rusbridger-gaza-war-israel-hamas
You can point out back and forth violence going into the 1800s. Nobody has clean hands in this conflict.
The big thing is the Hamas attack wasnt the start of all this. It wasnt Israel minding their own business and Hamas invading for the glory of Islam. The warning cries of a humanitarian crisis were going off long before this recent war, from international humanitarian agencies like Unicef. Gaza was being militarily oppressed by Israel, blocking humanitarian aid, international trade, even denying access to their own waters for fishing.
Civilians were dying off already as a result of Israel, and Israel ignored the warnings, the international community ignored the warnings, and then its shocked pikachus all around as a dying people fight back for survival.
They did a little more than simply “fight back.” They also engaged in widespread and utterly gratuitous acts of violence and torture in ways that can only have been calculated to trigger an overreaction on the part of Israel. They knew exactly what they were doing and what would happen. They obviously don’t give a fuck about their own people.
Where you getting torture from?
I do agree the Hamas attack wasn’t the start of this. However tactically it was incredibly silly, honestly what did they think would happen?
They gave Netanyahu, who was finally fumbling at the reigns after almost thirty years aan excuse to execute his wet dreams and all of Israel uniting behind him.
I see no way how they could have thought the attack would benefit their cause.
I dont think people are appreciating the context of Gazans dying off. It wasnt a stable situation that was fine to continue as it was going, imagine youre locked in a room with a lunatic with a knife trying to kill you. Youre not likely to beat the lunatic, but youre gonna try, you dont have any other options.
Waiting didnt work, protests didnt work, pleading with the international community didnt work, they cant leave. Everyone keeps saying they shouldnt have fought back, but what should they have done? Nothing is not available as an option.
I appreciate that and I have equated the current war to the Warsaw ghetto uprising. I’m not an apologist.
However, as Sun Zu said, you must not interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake. Netanyahu’s might was failing. Israeli youth was rising up against him.
It’s not like they absolutely needed to do this right now, and they could’ve quite easily understood what the response would be (maybe not the entire extent).
Tactically it was stupid.
What authority was netanyahu losing? Or are you just referring to there being some chance of him losing an election? Because Gaza did wait and see for several elections. He was just reelected in 2022. So apparently he’s not being voted out.
The meddling with the court system had many Israelis protesting last spring.
It became apparent to many how corrupt he was and trying to cement his position in anti constitutional measures.
Sure, but it wasn’t saving any Palestinians lives in the process OR the goal. Most Israelis weren’t opposing Netanyahu because they were against the Israeli genocide of Palestinians, they just didn’t like what he was doing to prevent punishment for his corruption. They wanted to replace him, but it would just be with another genocidal guy.
I don’t know. I remember both Rabin and Sharon, who briefly gave some hope in the nineties. It never materialized but it’s hope I must cling to. Just like the Irish managed to put their para military ways aside.
The sad part of this attack is that that hoe is pushed back even further.
So call me naive or a fool, but I keep hoping for a new generation that distances itself from the spiral of violence. It’s a feint hope, that got even more so due to this new horrible episode.
Israeli youth was rising up against him.
“Rising up” insomuch as they were protesting his proposed changes, not in that they were contemplating actually removing him from power, or even trying to oust/disband/etc Likud.
Don’t you think that, however small, some action must take form?
When I was small there were two conflicts that dividend public opinion and were sure to last centuries, those bring the Israel-Palestine conflict and the Irish one.
I think that disengaging the murder spiral makes things better. Both the resentment of the Israeli youth against their more and more fascist government was an incredibly worthwhile step.
Hamas and Likud alle don’t like any two state proposals, that’s why this is happening.
If I came into your house and drove you by force into the garage, I don’t think you’d want a “2-house solution” that allows you to live there, either.
And no, I don’t think that essentially saying, “why don’t the Palestinians wait around being killed quietly, to see if the youths protesting today will massively change Israel’s trajectory when they get into politics in 20 years?” is a reasonable, measured, or humane stance.
Should they have protested instead? How about in the land of the free?
Why doesn’t Egypt open the border?
Because Israel will never let them back in if they leave. That is not hypothetical; it happened to thousands of Palestinians during the 6-day war, and their families are still stuck in Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon today.
It’s also because Hamas has its origins in the Muslim Brotherhood which for obvious reasons means that Egypt is very leery of accepting Palestinians from Gaza.
I’m not defending their position, just explaining it; Egypt is basically a military dictatorship at this point and the Muslim Brotherhood is enemy number one for them.
They don’t want them either.
All the Arab world may be united in it’s hatred of Israel, but that doesn’t mean they like each other…
@Blackmist it’s not about “like” it’s about realpolitik.
2 million refugees into Egypt would be like suddenly allowing 6 million refugees into the US. Political suicide for anyone that did it.
Especially if it meant you were likely going to get a border war with a notoriously land-stealing nation as well.
Why doesn’t Israel stop doing things that require other countries to intervene
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Israel occupies that border too https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphi_Route
@FaulerFuffi assuming that’s a genuine question there are a bunch of reasons and one is they don’t want to open themselves up to being attacked by Israel.
Why Egypt Won’t Open The Border To Its Palestinian Neighbours.
500 people came through recently iirc.
It all started when Israel showed up on the block and forcibly removed 700000 Palestinians from their homes. There’s no history before that worth discussing as it is archeological records, not history.
Areas that were once 90% Palestinian, suddenly became 90% Jewish. Those people are still fighting to get their homes back, and Israel is continuing to evict Palestinians daily.
The first step to a solution is to recognize that Israel’s goals are to ethnically cleanse the area and then work from there.
This is a false equivalence. Most of the rhetoric I’ve seen about Hamas is that it’s an inevitable consequence of Israel’s treatment of restricting the Palestinian people to an open-air prison. Saying “We can’t support either Hamas or Israel” ignores the fact that most people in favor of Palestine are in favor of the civilians, the people who did nothing and are still bombed and tortured and executed. Not to say that Hamas deserves to be bombed and tortured, they’re citizens as well that shouldn’t be in this situation in the first place, but the large majority of support is in favor of the Palestinian people more broadly that are just unfortunate enough to be adjacent to the conflict and are forced to deal with the consequences of Israel’s bloodlust
to be clear: I do think Palestinians have a right to fight for their own freedom. But with the amount of disinformation at play here i don’t know how many atrocities are actually committed by Hamas and how many are the result of Israeli misinformation campaigns. But the amount of any of that doesn’t change how I feel – Innocent civilians should never die in a conflict like this. I don’t care if Hamas is doing it [edit: or not. The purpose of this statement is to show that I don’t care if Hamas is doing something abhorrent and Israel isn’t, or vice versa because it’s irrelevant to the broader point. Just to clarify, my language was unclear], Israel is very clearly ALSO doing it, and it’s abhorrent and gross no matter who. But in terms of the conceptual “high ground” the west likes to bandy around, Palestinians have a right to fight for its freedom from an occupying colonial force.
Ok, so if I just take quite exactly your argument and say: I don’t care if Israel is doing it, but Hamas is using violence, and THAT is abhorrent. Then what?
Sorry, but this abstraction and contextualisation is exactly wrong. This conflict is never ever going to be resolved if people do obviously wrong things for some abstract justification from A past they conceive.
Also your conspiracy take which makes you simply discard large chunk of information based on your gut feeling is just crazy. I find it quite audacious to say stuff like that and still fake a reasonable argumentation.
I don’t care who is doing it because it’s abhorrent from both ends, regardless of the frequency or scale. It’s bad no matter what.
But the ends don’t justify the means in either case, so in stead we need to evaluate what’s being fought for in the first place for context, because both sides are commiting atrocities on various scales so you can try to one up whichever side you disagree with so we need to look at the context of the fight and what’s being fought for. Under that lens, israel is an occupying colonial force by any metric and was given it’s current territory by other colonial, imperial forces. It’s claim to the state of Palestine is tenuous at best and isn’t even consistent with the Jewish faith, where Jews see themselves as perpetually in exile until their Messiah comes. Israel leverages it’s position as a colonial ethnostate to make people correlate support of the Jewish faith with support of their apartheid ethnostate, which is also a false equivalence. None of this is a conspiracy theory, it’s rooted in fact and also agnostic to which side is committing more atrocities. I’m not saying Hamas is doing nothing wrong, I’m saying relative to this point it doesn’t matter if they are or not. Hamas are Palestinians that had their homes robbed from them, Israelis are not.
Your view, if I’m parsing this correctly, is that because Palestinians were wronged 75 years ago by the creation of Israel, the Israeli state should not exist - and that while violence is wrong, Palestinians inherently have a more legitimate right to violence - is that an accurate framing of your view?
If I have that right, is there a point in time, or a number of generations of living on the land, that grants Israelis rights or determination or legitimacy to the land, in your view?
No, there’s no point in time that would grant Israel legitimacy. The same way America/Canada has to confront their colonial past over Native Americans, or Australia with the Aboriginiees, or any other number of colonial nations, despite the time that’s passed since. I’m sympathetic to the plight of Israelis that were born into an apartheid system and now feel they have a claim to the land and a life there, but by saying they have equal claim by nature of being born there you let time erode the culture and heritage of the Palestinian people that were also born into that space, but into a different and much more unfair system. That concept of time granting increasing legitimacy to Israel as a state is exactly what Israel needs, the longer it’s able to commit these atrocities to enable further existence of the state of Israel, the more and more ridiculous “why not just give it back?” Seems as an argument.
Palestinians do have more of a right to violence, but I don’t think that violence should be directed at those of whom don’t have power within that system (civilians). Violence is a tool of the oppressed to fight back against the oppressor. The child who was born into Israel and hasn’t even been able to grow enough to form an opinion on the system they were born into isn’t an oppressor in the same way the Israeli government is, the same way the idf is, the same way other facets of the system that serve to squash Palestinians are, and as a result should not be a target of that violence. That’s abhorrent. But Palestine’s very existence, these people’s lives are at stake if they don’t fight back. Ignoring how unfair a two state solution even is to people whose homes were robbed from them in 1947, Israel hasn’t even been so much as willing to come to the table regarding that solution, so Palestine needs to fight for its continued right to exist outright, and that’s a natural consequence of Israel trying to weaponize the passage of time to further legitimize it’s existence as a state, and giving them that is dangerous for the lives of those Israel has a vested interest in murdering.
You got a lot wrong about how Israel and Palestine were created. And it was Palestine which refused a two state solution several times. That’s the sole reason why they are still not a state. Perhaps they want that now, after they saw that Israel will just continue to grow and snatch land from them. But at least Hamas will only accept if Israel is gone completely.
Israel and Palestine did not exist before and “Palestinian” was an ethnonational name for some of the Arabic people living there, mixed with all the other groups like Jews, other Arabic people like the Bedouins, some Christians, etc.
Since Arabic countries also exiled and killed Jews and of course World War 2, the British Empire thought it would be a good idea to create an official state for Jewish people. And the area (at that time called Transjordan) is the only place with native Jewish people. There were also growing conflicts already then, between Arabs and Jews (and Christians, but they were just moving away I guess).
To find a supposedly fair solution for both major groups in the area the British Empire in their infinite wisdom did what was totally hip at the time and tried to divide the land into to countries: Palestine and Israel.
But you had Arabs on one side who didn’t want an influx of Jews to the area, they wanted all the land and have a Muslim state. And on the other hand you had more and more Jewish refugees and of course Zyonists coming there who wanted all the land and have a Jewish state.
At that time Palestine refused multiple times to agree to the two-state-solution out of greed. And Israel started stealing land out of greed.
Out of guilt and because there are really few Jews on earth the west equipped Israel with weapons to defend against the Arabic countries who didn’t want them there. Israel flourished and some of the Arabic countries thought: how nice to have a rich neighbour in the area. And totally forgot about the not so rich neighbour which were the Palestinians, still hoping to somehow get a better deal for a country.
it was Palestine which refused a two state solution several times.
I thought there was a trial period of the 2SS but it failed because the PLO leadership was corrupt - Palestinians shamed two ministers into quitting but Arafat refused to quit.
That was my takeaway from the Wikipedia entry anyhow.
However I did watch a documentary once about Shin Bet (interviewing many ex Shin Bet leaders) which gave the impression that the 2SS failed because of Jewish religious zealots who assassinated one of the 2SS architects: Rabin.
Can someone clarify please?
Israel and Hamas are on the same side. That side is war. They’re both the bad guys. The good guys are the civilians.
Nothing justifies bombing children. Noone’s ‘right to defend themselves’ should include this.
Hamas also killed children and fires at Israel, so is Libanon. That children die is a consequence of the bombing. People pretend as if Israel is explicitly targeting groups of children to throw bombs at them. What you are saying is that people should not be at war and I agree.
“Your honor, I know it might seem oddly coincidental that I mostly shoot at criminals that are standing next to schools, but I assure you that the large number of child casualties is not my intent. In fact, it’s the kids’ fault that they let the criminals stand next to them!”
I agree.
Except Hamas aren’t solely fighting for freedom, they specifically want ALL of Israel gone and ALL Jews killed, they literally want a theocratic dictatorship under Islam. And they won’t stop until they get it.
IDF and netanhayu are real dirty here, but Hamas and the (maybe) majority Palestinians that support them are like the anti thesis to a free society. Plus they’re violent homophobes that stone LGBTQ people to death.
That tips me to Israel’s side in this, minus the far right Jewish extremists that literally killed an Israeli prime minister because he was succeeding in brokering peace.
You forgot about the third side of the conflict again. The innocent civlians Israel (and Hamas) are killing are the good guys. The two theocratic pro-genocide states are exactly the same and both on the same side. That side is war and death.
Even the misinformation is very one-sided.
Who is on Hamas’s side? There are plenty of people on Palestine’s side, but no one really wants to be on Hamas’s side
I’ve seen plenty of contrarian tankies who are pro Hamas. Often the same “anti imperialists” who hate the West so much they think supporting Ukraine is bad.
Personally I’m of the opinion that both sides are genocidal and anybody with a clear idea what to do there is lying, but I’ve been banned from [email protected] as “genocide denial” for agreeing with Biden that we should be suspicious of the claimed death numbers coming out of Palestine because both sides have a history of lying about violent acts in their conflict.
I know a few people in real life who are referring to them as freedom fighters.
Idunno, I don’t fuss about that because I’m perfectly capable of thinking that they’re both terrorists and freedom fighters.
They’re fighting for the freedom of Gaza… but they use terrorism tactics, refuse to abide by ceasefires, and have genocidal beliefs.
Those don’t seem mutually exclusive for me.
We all contain multitudes.
But that said, somebody who goes to “freedom fighter” as their first noun for them, that’s kind of a red flag.
I’m perfectly capable of thinking that they’re both terrorists and freedom fighters.
It’s not just that they “can” be both, it’s more that they “have to” be both.
“Freedom fighter” is a term reserved for the underdog, the one who can’t use sheer military power to terrorize a whole region (like a couple US Carrier Strike Groups with nukes) or some surrounding countries (like a US funded Israeli military with some nukes of their own). Established democracies and recognized states, can use their “military” to terrorize a whole population by just threatening to bomb the living shit out of the civilians, while “freedom fighters” can only terrorize through surprise attacks and extreme brutality… aka, by being “terrorists”.
Bottom line: all “freedom fighters” need to be “terrorists”, otherwise they’d be called “a military”.
somebody who goes to “freedom fighter” as their first noun for them, that’s kind of a red flag.
That’s a bit harsh, what if they understand the two are synonyms? 🤷
Terrorism is a tactic, so no, not all “freedom fighters” are terrorists. There are and have been throughout history many guerrilla groups that don’t use terrorism tactics but that could still be called “freedom fighters.”
Hm… can you give an example?
Off the top of my head, all I can come up with associated with “freedom fighters”, is using both guerrilla tactics and terrorism to fight against some superior enemy. The next closest thing, are non-terrorist “freedom movements” like Gandhi’s (which comes with a separate can of worms).
The last part of what you said was what I was hoping to get at. To a few people I know, theyre freedom fighters and rebels before terrorists.
A problem with Lemmy (and a bigger one with Reddit) is that conversations can include context and nuance, while mods don’t always can or want to take them into account, so you better make each comment stand on its own, or you can get the boot “out of the blue”.
I would agree, but there are people here on Lemmy and elsewhere who don’t distinguish between Palestinian people and the Hamas. It’s like a ‘tankie’ versus ‘anti-tankie’ game, ‘us and them’, and nothing in between. If you don’t choose, each side accuses you of being the enemy.
Addition:
Just watched this interview (video + transcript). A journalist tells about his visit of tbe occupied territories in Palestine. At some point he arrives at one of the many checkpoints.
And I was walking to the checkpoint, and an Israeli guard stepped out, probably about the age of my son. And he said to me, “What’s your religion, bro?” And I said, “Well, you know, I’m not really religious.” And he said, “Come on. Stop messing around. What is your religion?” I said, “I’m not playing. I’m not really religious.” And it became clear to me that unless I professed my religion, and the right religion, I wasn’t going to be allowed to walk forward. So, he said, “Well, OK, so what was your parents’ religion?” I said, “Well, they weren’t that religious, either.” He says, “What were your grandparents’ religion?” And I said, “My grandmother was a Christian.” And then he allowed me to pass.
So there, even as you just walk around, you seem to be checked ‘to whom you belong’.
The selective outrage is also very telling. Palestinian civilians killed by indiscriminate bombing? Apoplectic red-faced spittle-flying fury!
Ukrainian civilians or even Syrian civilians killed by the same? Relative silence even though in both cases it was even less provoked. What’s really going on here? And I don’t mean that as a rhetorical question either; I honestly don’t know. I have a theory, but I’m not entirely confident in it just yet.
The problem is very simple. Israel and their neoliberal allies want you to think the only sides are Israel and Hamas. But you and I support the third side, the civilians. You simply have to redefine the argument. You tell them, “I am against Israel. And I’m against Hamas too. I’ve picked my side, and it’s the innocents”.
People like that: https://lemm.ee/comment/5671897
I pick the “innocent Gazan civilians just trying to live their lives but keep getting murdered by disproportionate force from the IDF” side.
Fuck Hamas. Fuck the IDF.
Yeah, but siding with Israel here is the logical equivalent of siding with Andrew Jackson and supporting the Indian Removal Act as he committed genocide against the native people.
The power imbalance and how Israel has used it is what makes it imperative that Israel be held accountable by the international community.
I’m glad you bring up the power imbalance. The “both sides have been doing horrible stuff” only works if both sides have equal footing, which they clearly do not. This does not negate the crimes commited by Hamas, but extremism doesn’t come from nowhere and Israël has a responsibility in that.
Also disproportionate use of force is a war crime. We see Israel doing this in every war with Palestine since the Nakba.
Not a fan of the framing here, ‘were’ vs ‘would be’ as if the later is just a hypothetical rather than the reality of civilians in Gaza.
Yikes. Tons of neo-lib shit takes in this comment section.
Tons of neo-lib shit takes in this comment section.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
Could you elaborate about which economic takes you’d want to criticize in this comment section, or did you mean to use a different term?
Slavoj Zizek gave a compelling speech along these lines. The reaction from the crowd and the heckling are really revealing about how divorced even progressive audiences have become from humanity.
Yeah, I thought the default opinion would be that killing is bad. The pearl-clutching at the idea of not killing, it’s fucked up
I actually never picked sides in that conflict. Both sides are nuts, the Hamas are terrorists, the IDF commits war crimes, they are both evil.
I propose putting a wall around the whole area and wait for the noise to stop, either by them getting their acts together, or by having killed each other.
No one ever wants to try it, but I say instead of the US giving Israel money for military aid we instead give Jordan money to host the world’s largest fried chicken festival, everyone loves fried chicken. We get Israel and Palestine empty and we give them all “I ❤️ NY” shirts so no one knows where anyone else is from. While they’re all gone we completely fucking glass the “holy land.” Nuke it all so no one can live there for 200+ years.
Maybe by then the people that exist as Israeli and Palestinians can stop with their religious war bullshit over a plot of land and maybe just get on with living a “good” life.
glass the “holy land.” Nuke it all so no one can live there for 200+ years.
Maybe by then […]
Not long enough.
Conflict in the area has been going on for anywhere between 4000 and 200,000 years (lower paleolithic). Since the invention of writing, people of different origins have been able to transmit their religious claims to the region for thousands of years.
200 years would barely put a dent on it.
If we do that, they’ll still kill unaligned civilians
Aside from brainwashing them all into forgetting about their religions, what other solution is there?
Ending apartheid, giving the common everyday civilian a future they can build toward, hope for, and participate in. Give people no hope, and they will lash out.
Having a secular government in the region, not a theocratic one, would go a long way to maintaining equality and joint prosperity.
Nothing buys forgiveness like mutual economics.
Forever war. Back in the day, the stronger side would just kill everyone in a march to the sea, salt the earth, and nothing would grow there for 300 years until humans finally scraped the dirt and made a small community again. It’s been happening over every religious war, every empire, and every tribe for all time.
Now, we don’t do that. But that means bad blood and prolonged conflict essentially forever, in a long simmering he said/she said involving beheadings and rockets. Best thing we can hope for is either a Korea situation, or some sort of “we’ll make this area into a national park where everyone can visit”, but neither side wants to live anywhere else, and hell will freeze over before all the Palestinians or Israelis are welcomed into the neighboring countries with open arms, lol.
My last bit of hope died when I learned that Hamas executed one of their generals on the rumor that he might have had sex with a guy. The fact that they stripped someone of their 1,000 person command, whipped him, forced him to not sleep, and then shot him three times over something so trivial is a really, reallllly bad sign for any hint of a two state solution. Or worse, cohabitation in a host country. They hate each other to an extreme I didn’t think was possible.
Religious conflict has only taken hold in the Middle East because SOME PEOPLE overthrew all of the (more) secular left-wing governments and replaced them with right-wing theocratic regimes.
Other than completely eradicate one side off the face of the earth, I guess nothing.
Israel and Palestine (+Muslim world) hate each others.
The article opens with “what about America’s response to 9/11?”. JFC, what a shitty justification. America was clearly wrong to war crime all over Iraq just as Israel is in the wrong for warcriming all over Palestine. I refuse to “both sides” imperialists and their victims. Frankly, “both sides” is the trap one should avoid.
Iraq
Afghanistan, Iraq was later and about fake WMDs.
Iraq was also a consequence of 9/11. It would never have happened without it.
Arguable, Iraq was Bush Jr. finishing what his father started in the late 80s. It may well have happened even without 9/11. Afghanistan however was a direct consequence of 9/11, and is a more apt metaphor for what Israel is doing now.
Yes, first was Afghanistan. But the Iraq invasion was still under the “war on terror”. Besides, I was simply referring to the author’s argument:
But he added that we had to consider what the US did when attacked on 9/11: it invaded Iraq, with 200,000 [his figures] killed in three years.
Iraq may well have been invaded even without 9/11, as it was Bush Jr. finishing what his father started in the late 80s.
The direct consequence of 9/11 was Afghanistan, and thus is a more apt metaphor for what is happening with Israel right now.
There’s no point raising a metaphor in the first place. A metaphor doesn’t justify anything. It’s just a rhetorical tool that is supposed to help deliver a point. However, all it does in this instance is mess and draw confusion.
Except jews, christians and muslims lived pretty much peacefully together during ottoman rule. The violence worsened when britian controlled palestine and then became a lot worse during the nakba and israeli occupation. It’s not about ‘having clean hands’. It’s about stopping genocide and understanding that occupation and colonialism leads to violent pushback. It always has and always will.
Wasn’t the Ottoman period occupation/colonialism too? Not that I am in favour of imperialism but you do raise a fascinating point I wasn’t aware of.
The Ottomans took control of palestine after a war with the Mamluk empire. Palestine hasn’t been and independent country for much of it’s history. It’s still a form of occupation but if you were muslim, christian or jewish you still had access to certain rights (unless you were a slave). Mostly if you were muslim.
I dont know anything about this. We’re they all living in the same neighborhoods or we’re they in different neighborhoods in the same city or like different towns in the same Provence?
Just curious how closely bound their networks were. In my home town folks of different faiths are neighbors and mostly go to the same schools and share a government. There’s not much segregation at all. Sure, there’s racism among all groups, but it gets much weaker and much less frequent with each generation.
Oh yeah and fuck the ole British state. Bunch of tossers meddling all about so they can exploit everyone’s resources. Their emancipated colony, all-grown-up now, isn’t much better.
israeli government and hamas both want never-ending war anyways. i never understood how anyone could think hamas is one valid side in this.
the goal should always be complete non-violence.
The organizations are the ones that can fuck off. It’s the people that are suffering.
