Yeah. They "encroached" on 77% of Palestinian land in 1947.
Since then, they've steadily encroached on 56% of what was left.
Now they're encroaching on 32% of Gaza, which is 4% of the 56% of the 77%. The Palestinians are going from owning the least usable 10.1% of all the land they used to own, to now a 9.7% share. So what's the big deal? Doesn't sound like that much.
By "ancestral", how far back do we go? 200 years? 2,000 years? 20,000 years...? It's somewhat ironic, that that "homeland" has been under "foreign mandate" pretty much all the time.
Native Americans had a way better claim to the land, since in many places they were the first ones to settle there. Can't say the same about Syria Palaestina, or any of the dozens of names you can call it.
"Too bad" some didn't accept a UN Resolution, went to war, and lost.
Don't cite me on that last one, cite Mahmoud Abbas:
Too much emphasis on ancestral not enough on homeland. Despite what may have taken place 200 2000 or 20000 years ago to lead to the settled population being what it was when israel got Wished into existence, there was a population settled there. israel doesnt get to say it has a right to defend itself/right to exist when its defense now and existence in the first place is a function of the displacement of that population.
By the logic israel uses, the native Americans had no claim to the land because manifest destiny. They werent using it correctly either, the land is in much better hands now, gestures broadly. Also, those pesky indians were fighting among themselves so often the land changed hands countless times over the centuries and millennia; who's to say who the rightful owners of the lands really were when the white savior came along and fixed it all up proper? They were wrong to try to defend the land their forefathers had hunted buffalo across, to launch failed wars to retake those lands, to form war councils to lead their people who recommended to commit acts designed to strike terror into the hearts of their oppressors like torture, kidnapping, raping settlers, and sending murderous raiding parties into border towns... Anyway, they couldnt defend it, so what claim can they be said to have had at all?
Now replace native american with palestinian, manifest destiny with zionism, hunted buffalo with farmed dates, war council with hamas, murderous raiding party with O7, and white savior with the 1947 U.N. Palestine Plan. Its just ethnic cleansing by way of genocide in order to take land and increase material wealth. There is no piece of paper that makes the harm done tit for tat for tit for tat going on nigh a century now any the less evil, and no matter how you slice this pie, israel comes out with a greater share of that evil, both for the initial wrong, and for the continued encroachment, coming full circle to the point I was making in my top level comment: Israel was founded by the foreign seizure of already settled lands. Observe in the "1947 U.N. Palestine Plan" UN is the subject and Palestine is quite literally objectified.
israel doesnt get to say it has a right to defend itself/right to exist when its defense now and existence in the first place is a function of the displacement of that population.
Which was 70 fucking years ago! Israel absolutely gets to say it has the right to defend itself. After a certain point, the borders are the borders, and you can't just point to territorial wars from decades past as justification for not recognizing its nationhood.
Israel was founded by the foreign seizure of already settled lands. Observe in the “1947 U.N. Palestine Plan” UN is the subject and Palestine is quite literally objectified.
Which is the story of all nations, actually. How many times has Europe been conquered by other empires and dictatorships? How many native populations have been been displaced by colonialism?
I'm not saying it's right, but it's the bloody history of how our each of our nations have been founded. No matter what soil you stand on, it was subjugated by somebody else.
Entire terrorist groups have been founded on the idea of some territorial subjugation from the 1800s gives them the right to enact violence on the nations of today. So, I don't subscribe to this idea that we should point to the actions of 70 years ago as justification for wars or terrorism or rejecting the sovereignty of a nation.
Israel absolutely gets to say it has the right to defend itself.
Quick question, does Palestine get to say it has the right to defend itself?
Follow-up, is starving Palestinian children part of what you would claim is Israel defending itself? Or is that something Israel doesn’t have a right to do?
Quick question, does Palestine get to say it has the right to defend itself?
Which part? The strip of land west of Israel that was involved in the latest terrorist attacks, or the other strip of land east of Israel? Which one is Palestine? Because it can't be both. And Palestine didn't even agree to both when it had the chance in 1947.
And yes, it does have the right to defend itself. Perhaps they should send their armies into Gaza Strip to defend their country, if they want to lay claim to both the West Bank and Gaza Strip. All they have to do is march their army in the West Bank, cross Israel, and arrive at the Gaza Strip. (Insert Gru four-panel here.)
It's also too bad the PLO/PLA is too in bed with terrorist groups to have a standing army that would be involved in defense, instead of bombing citizens partying at a music festival.
Follow-up, is starving Palestinian children part of what you would claim is Israel defending itself? Or is that something Israel doesn’t have a right to do?
In our bloody history of war over the past several thousand years, I can't recall a war that didn't involve starving children, homelessness, the death of civilians (accidental or otherwise), and all of the other horrors that it entails. War sucks, and it's especially brutal on the defensive side.
Having said all of that, Israel certainly needs to calm down its hard-on for atrocities and police its own warcriming. Israel had some sympathy with the catalyst of the war (the music festival bombing), and quickly lost all of that when it decided to go gung-ho on the whole Gaza populace.
Though, it is especially unfortunate that one side chooses to hide behind terrorism, instead of clearly identifying military over citizens. Maybe if the PLO didn't embrace terrorism, their citizens wouldn't be in this dangerous spot.
And yes, it does have the right to defend itself. Perhaps they should send their armies into Gaza Strip to defend their country
I... what? March them across the intervening Israeli territory, so they can engage with the IDF once they arrive in the Gaza strip? Something tells me that wouldn't be the totally logical and good successful step you seem to be suggesting it would be.
So... getting away from the back and forth, I have a feeling that the underlying thing you're saying, that Hamas is a violent terroristic organization and they shouldn't have killed or raped all those people at the music festival, I agree with completely. Where it breaks down for me is:
Likud has been helping Hamas defeat their less-violent domestic opposition, and elevating the most violent and unreasonable element in Palestinian politics, for years now. Which kinda makes it weird for them to all of a sudden get upset that the Palestinians are acting violent and unreasonable. It's like picking the worst and most dangerous dog to take home to your family, then torturing it on purpose because it's a "bad dog," and then blaming someone else when it mauls one of your children, and saying everyone needs to put you in charge and never question you so you can protect everyone against these dogs and keep torturing the dogs. To me, that shit means you should never be in charge of anything again and should maybe be brought up on charges both for what happened to the dog and what happened to your kid.
Any violence Hamas has done to innocent Israelis, the IDF has done to innocent Palestinians ten times over.
To me, no one should get raped at the music festival and no one should watch their children starve. Both of those seem like straightforward things to believe. Anyone on either side who's for a realistic path for peace is the the ally, and anyone on either side who's justifying atrocities is the enemy (as you seemed to do for deliberately starving children -- saying that it happens by accident sometimes, as a way of excusing Israel doing it on purpose, is deliberately missing the point of what I was saying I think.)
I think Hamas leadership and Likud are both guilty of perpetuating the conflict and killing the innocent, and a good solution would be to get the lot of them out of government, bring them up on charges, and find some people whose solution to "they did an atrocity to us" is something other than "Let's do an atrocity to them*! It is justified and will totally fix things because it'll show them not to do that again."
(* "them" being very loosely defined and including a whole bunch of innocent people)
I… what? March them across the intervening Israeli territory, so they can engage with the IDF once they arrive in the Gaza strip? Something tells me that wouldn’t be the totally logical and good successful step you seem to be suggesting it would be.
You seem to miss my point: A single country cannot be composed of two completely separate regions, because they cannot defend both regions, especially when trying to defend against their aggressor would involve marching across said aggressor's territory. There's only a few solutions to this problem:
Turn both regions into their own countries.
Have a military impressive enough to defend both regions. Only the US and British get to do that with their extra colonies, and even then, there's enough of an argument to give those back or at least turn them into their own states with better representation.
Somehow conquer an area between the two regions, which is laughably unrealistic, considering Israel (or the US) are not going to just let them do that.
Let the problem fester for 70 years until Israel gets tired of their shit and "solves" the problem their own way. Which is how we got here.
Likud has been helping Hamas defeat their less-violent domestic opposition, and elevating the most violent and unreasonable element in Palestinian politics, for years now. Which kinda makes it weird for them to all of a sudden get upset that the Palestinians are acting violent and unreasonable. It’s like picking the worst and most dangerous dog to take home to your family, then torturing it on purpose because it’s a “bad dog,” and then blaming someone else when it mauls one of your children, and saying everyone needs to put you in charge and never question you so you can protect everyone against these dogs and keep torturing the dogs. To me, that shit means you should never be in charge of anything again and should maybe be brought up on charges both for what happened to the dog and what happened to your kid.
Perhaps Palestine shouldn't let foreign powers influence them and clean up their terrorist elements, instead of promoting them.
I'm not saying what Likud is doing is right, but right-wing fuckheads are going to do what right-wing fuckheads do the world over. See also: Nixon and the Korean War peace talks, Reagan and the Iran hostage crisis, Reagan and Iran-Contra, the Bushes and all of their wars, Trump and Afghanistan (or about a million other things), the Tories and their numerous sudden resignations, Putin and every other right-wing leader in Europe and beyond, etc., etc., etc.
Any violence Hamas has done to innocent Israelis, the IDF has done to innocent Palestinians ten times over.
Is that before or after war was declared? I would expect peacetime and wartime numbers to be different, and separated.
I think Hamas leadership and Likud are both guilty of perpetuating the conflict and killing the innocent, and a good solution would be to get the lot of them out of government, bring them up on charges
Seems fine to me, but you and I know that's not going to happen.
and find some people whose solution to “they did an atrocity to us” is something other than “Let’s do an atrocity to them*! It is justified and will totally fix things because it’ll show them not to do that again.”
I see this more of "let's completely annex Gaza Strip, so that it's ours and we get to clean up the area and flush out terrorists ourselves". At that point, if some terrorist group in Gaza Strip decides to bomb another target in Israel, it's entirely Israel's problem and they alone get to deal with it. Because Palestine sure as fuck isn't handling it now.
It's a shit solution, because war always is a shit solution. And again, Israel needs to calm the fuck down with their civilian causalities. But, it is a solution. With an ending. It ends. No more 70 years of debate about Middle East peace talks or whether Gaza Strip is a nation or a part of Palestine or is in this lawless, terrorist-filled region of an in-between state.
I mean, let's look at the US and their wars of aggression against terrorism. They've had a pretty fucking terrible track record, but during the time the US occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, they were better countries than what they were before or afterward. Iraq had free elections. Afghanistan was undergoing a feminist movement. But, the Iraqi military ran like cowards when ISIS invaded, and Trump sold out Afghanistan to the Taliban. I think if the US thought of them as a stepping stone towards allies in the Middle East (like Israel), and less like these short-term military projects, we might still have these countries in their more progressive states.
But, hey, I've already acknowledged that it's a shitty solution, and we're a couple of intelligent people, so instead of "finding some people" for this solution, which is what we've been doing for the past 70 years, let's just talk about what the solution should be. What's really the solution here?
Peace talks? How many are we up to now? I've lost count.
Getting rid of Hamas? How do we do that? Why isn't Palestine themselves capable of getting rid of Hamas? After all, they claim to be the owners of the Gaza Strip, so what the fuck are they doing about it? It's been 70 years. How long do we have to wait?
What else? You've been talking about this "realistic path for peace", right? What's that path look like?
Let the problem fester for 70 years until Israel gets tired of their shit and "solves" the problem their own way. Which is how we got here.
See this is the kind of thing you only ever hear from the "stronger" party in the situation, when their "solution" is some kind of rampant injustice.
Like if the US lost patience with Israel's current government, and got a coalition together, landed UN troops in the West Bank with the support of the whole rest of the world to deport all the settlers back inside the 1993 borders (summarily executing any of them that tried to resist the deportation, and just leaving them dead in the street), and hauled away Netanyahu and half his cabinet to the Hague to stand trial (alongside, yes, Hamas leadership who's guilty of much more numerically minor atrocities), you would never accept that that's justified because they're "solving the problem." Even though that's a lot milder and more measured than what Israel is currently doing to "solve" -- i.e. just carpet-bombing the country and causing a man-made catastrophe of famine destruction that's killing innocent people on an industrial scale.
Any violence Hamas has done to innocent Israelis, the IDF has done to innocent Palestinians ten times over.
Is that before or after war was declared? I would expect peacetime and wartime numbers to be different, and separated.
But, hey, I've already acknowledged that it's a shitty solution, and we're a couple of intelligent people, so instead of "finding some people" for this solution, which is what we've been doing for the past 70 years, let's just talk about what the solution should be. What's really the solution here?
Peace talks? How many are we up to now? I've lost count.
Getting rid of Hamas? How do we do that? Why isn't Palestine themselves capable of getting rid of Hamas? After all, they claim to be the owners of the Gaza Strip, so what the fuck are they doing about it? It's been 70 years. How long do we have to wait?
What else? You've been talking about this "realistic path for peace", right? What's that path look like?
Honestly, in my mind, it has to start with the US stopping providing cover for Israel at the UN. I don't think anyone would say that Hamas should be able to kill innocent people and anyone should let it slide -- so when Israel kills innocent people or breaks international law in some other way, it shouldn't just be let to slide either. Let the UN enact actual solutions, then -- sanctions, military action, legal action against leaders who commit war crimes. Both sides are killing innocents, though not in equal numbers. One, that has to stop, and then two, we have to try to address the root causes that are leading to the killing, and come up with something that is livable.
Ben-Gurion actually touched on this exact point, as far as root causes:
"Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country.
"If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?"
See this is the kind of thing you only ever hear from the “stronger” party in the situation, when their “solution” is some kind of rampant injustice.
Unfortunately, in matters of war, the one with the stronger army wins.
you would never accept that that’s justified because they’re “solving the problem.”
Because that sort of "justice" is only half of the problem. The other half, the harder half, is nation-building, solving for the power vacuums they just created, and making sure the peace is maintained. This is the part that the US keeps screwing up, because elections are a thing and people don't have the patience for problems that take a decade+ to solve.
Honestly, in my mind, it has to start with the US stopping providing cover for Israel at the UN. I don’t think anyone would say that Hamas should be able to kill innocent people and anyone should let it slide – so when Israel kills innocent people or breaks international law in some other way, it shouldn’t just be let to slide either. Let the UN enact actual solutions, then – sanctions, military action, legal action against leaders who commit war crimes. Both sides are killing innocents, though not in equal numbers. One, that has to stop,
I think the problem is that they've been doing this sort of thing for so long that it has fatigued the world in general. The fact that Israel declared war on Gaza is new, which is why there's a lot of protests and attention, but all of the conflict before that has been same repetitive violence for decades. Palestine even had a chance with the Oslo Accords, but Hamas fucked that up soon after.
The UN is not exactly the bastion of justice, either, especially when the usual powers hold veto power (the US included/especially).
"Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country.
“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”
Which is precisely the kind of ancient hatred I'm against here. Israel is a county, and Palestinians need to accept that. The sooner they do that, the sooner the rest of the world would accept Palestine as a country. (One country, not this ridiculous two sets of landmasses. I'll even accept two countries there.) Yeah, I know, they used to be bigger before the formation of Israel, but that identity doesn't need to serve as their identity as a people. Hamas has does more harm for the public image of Palestine than anything else, even as a minority of the population. This is why even small elements of terrorism needs to be squashed, by the host country or by other countries as necessary, as soon as they form.
I mean, if we really want to point at the root cause here, it's Jerusalem. Arabs had it, then they didn't, then they did, crusade after crusade after crusade to take over Jerusalem from the Jews, then the Muslims, then the Jews again. Hell, I don't even care if Israel or Palestine or the old-pre-1947 version of Palestine is owned by the Jews, Muslims, Palestinians, Christians, Jedis, Pastafarians, Satanists, or whoever. I just care that Israel is the latest to hold it, they've held it for decades, and they have a fairly stable government and culture.
If the religious over there are going to continue to believe that this holy place needs to be held by whatever culture doesn't currently hold it, then there is absolutely no hope for them. Religion has a bad habit of clinging to ancient hatred for millennia, as long as it's still written down, and as long as people still recite it. They will never heal because "our God is not theirs".
Because the world is filled with nuance and shitty solutions.
I defend that Israel is a country, and don't defend arguments based on ancient grudges from decades past. I'm not even defending what Israel is currently doing, but what solutions do you think they should be doing in response to a terrorist attack? (Which was the last straw in a series of terrorist attacks.)
Last straw my left nut, this is merely the latest in a series of campaigns committed by both sides in this 80 year mutually-retributive open warfare. "Last straw" he says. This "last straw" is just the next straw- the next provoked "justification" for the next wave of seizure and occupation of every other house on the block, by way of outright murder and starvation and any other means necessary (read: slow-roll ethnic cleansing by way of genocide).
As for what the secular and interested nation of israel- the supposed "Land of the Jews"- should do? They should start, if they were actually motivated by the spirit and not by lucre, by opening the Torah and observing the wisdom from Exodus: An eye for an eye means to restrict compensation/retribution to the exact nature of the loss, and I invite you to figure some of the many nuanced ways that could apply here. They could stop pretending they are the sole victims and not-at-all perpetrators. They could find peace with their neighbors, they could stop murdering and harassing and starving and raping and kidnapping and torturing and pulling their land from their cold, dead hands as was, in point of fact, the ultimate intention of the other atrocities, despite so much peaceful rhetoric. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.
An excellent first step would be calling a truce. An excellent next step would be deposing the current bloody-minded ruling party. An excellent third step would be to make amends and disburse reparations, starting with the schools, hospitals and critical infrastructure they have destroyed, fourth ceding the gradually encroached (to the point of the article) territory. I'm willing to bet for my own (admittedly useless) part that the peoples of Palestine and israel would settle at this point for the two state solution if it meant a lasting peace- if ever two leading parties were morally sane enough to propose it to each other in good faith and bold enough to resist outside pressures against it, "river to sea" notwithstanding. USA & Co. could still keep its slice of Suez pie, even.
Christ, can you imagine it? Jews and Arabs living side-by-side in peace and harmony, except actually, and that across the entire region?
I’m willing to bet for my own (admittedly useless) part that the peoples of Palestine and israel would settle at this point for the two state solution if it meant a lasting peace
You mean the Oslo Accords? Remind me again who fucked that one up?
I seem to recall hardliner elements of both plo and israel being very much involved in fucking that up, to the tune of the mass shooting at the cave of the patriarchs, and israeli militants' assassination of pm rabin, as well as suicide bombings from jihadists and a general feeling among palestinian militant groups that palestine had no real hand in the negotiation feeding a resentment against the proposed peace; however, since the oslo accords did not at all recognize the palestinian state it is emphatically not what I meant by "two state solution."
Which was 70 years ago. We're in this spot because a bunch of people are still bitter about the Seven Day War, and the nationhood of the Gaza strip was never officially declared. After all, how the hell can Palestine lay claim or maintain a territory that is totally disconnected from the West Bank? The short answer is "you can't". You can't police it as a separate entity. You can't ask its citizens to move from one area to another without having to deal with passports crossing over the country. You can't govern it.
Israel was formed. It has its own government, and it is a recognized nation. What is not its own nation, and is a lawless neutral zone that has been actively housing terrorist groups, is Gaza.
This is an extremely pathetic and ignorant take that reveals very little understanding of the history of Palestine. Israel flavored koolaid must take like shit.
From your initial comment it seems like the main misunderstanding is that nation states unilaterally declared by European powers in Africa and Western Asia from the nineteenth century until around the middle of the 20th century have been utterly disastrous to those places rather than being the only source of order in those places. Although these nation states are seen as legitimate by the powers which established them, in the opinion of many of the victims of these European powers whose population is much larger and much more relevant since they are physically present for the consequences of this establishment, tend not to consider them as legitimate and more of an encroachment. Colonization is not a neutral or natural process but an act of aggression by parties with superior military might on parties vulnerable to that might. If your view is that might makes right, then the issue here isn't in historical misunderstanding but more of a moral dissonance. If that isn't your view I'd be willing to entertain a more detailed conversation.
From your initial comment it seems like the main misunderstanding is that nation states unilaterally declared by European powers in Africa and Western Asia from the nineteenth century until around the middle of the 20th century have been utterly disastrous to those places rather than being the only source of order in those places.
Is this the starting volley of an argument that unfair colonization from the 1800s is justification for a nation's lack of sovereignty?
tend not to consider them as legitimate and more of an encroachment.
I thought it was moral dissonance. I'm at least glad that in youger generations mass murder is coming to be seen more universally as evil even when committed against groups who are not white. I'm sorry about whatever happened to you to make you this way.
As I pointed out in another post, using decades- or centuries-old arguments for sovereignty has been used as justification for terrorism. When bin Laden smashed a couple of planes into the Twin Towers, that's exactly the kind of argument he used as justification.
It's not about moral dissonance. It's about how hate spreads through ancient spites and grudges. The decades of failed peace attempts in the Middle East have been brought about by clinging on to these ancient grudges, and it's exactly why Palestine has had much less of a standing in being officially recognized as a nation than Israel has.
What percentage of Palestinians currently don't live in the family home they were born / grew up in, because the place they grew up in has been destroyed or taken by the Israelis during their lifetime? I mean obviously for Gaza, the percentage is pretty near 100% at this point, but I'm curious what you think the number is for all Palestinians put together.
I would say that we happen to be posting in an Internet forum, where we all have access to the Internet, and I could just look that up. But, it's a more nuanced question that isn't as easy to look up. According to Wikipedia, more than half are stateless and 21 percent of Israelis identify as Palestinians.
But, I'm sure you're leading this question into an answer that you already have a page up for, so let's hear it.
You sounded like you were saying that Palestinian grievances were reaching back 70 years ago. My point was that there are large numbers of Palestinians who have much more recent grievances than 70 years -- like dead relatives of all ages, or lost homes, within their lifetime. What percent of them have that, I have no idea, and I'm genuinely curious what you think the percentage is. But honestly the point wasn't needing to dig up an exact number, 4% or 20% or 50% or whatever. Any of those is too many, and you seem to define Palestinian retribution for it as "terrorism" while Israeli retribution is defined as "defense."
My point was that there are large numbers of Palestinians who have much more recent grievances than 70 years – like dead relatives of all ages, or lost homes, within their lifetime.
Which all stem from that original conflict from 1947. A wave of hatred against the Jews who took their country, which spawned more violence, not all of it balanced, which spawns more terrorism, which spawns more violence, until we get to today.
He's doing the classic anti de-colonization argument of, "well sure we got here illegally, but it would be mean to kick us out now, you'd basically be 'colonizing' us in reverse!"
It's like a home invader saying they chased you out, so they live there now, and now it's you invading their home!
And then of course calling 70 years "ancient history" LMFAO. Guess my dad is "ancient history"!
Extremely true - but even that aside, if it really was as long ago as 70 years, it wouldn’t be the pressing ongoing issue that it is.
There are Palestinians who lost their homes forever, and Israelis who ignored the UN telling them stop breaking international law, this week and last week and the week before that.
... The short answer is "They have not been allowed to." The long answer is the paragraph-long metaphor you seem to have missed or skipped over in my other comment. You are pleased to use the devastation and fragmentation and discoordination of a region which used to be connected and prosperous as some sort of gotcha against Palestine's legitimacy- In all ignorance of the fact israel inflicted that devastation and fragmentation, ensured that the only coordination could be underground, with the necessary help of US dollars. You'd be arguing against your propagandistic position and for Palestinian independence, but that I frankly doubt you are able to see what you wrote here as part of the larger narrative of oppression unless I further spell it out for you. Either that or you read the comparison to native americans, understood it, and unironically agreed, in which case I invite you to do the other thing.
israel was formed on the corpses of the people it murdered in the homes of the displaced to take that spot in the first place. It has a government propped up by foreign support and could not possibly exist without it. That support only continues because of the strategic and material advantage of having a hold on Suez shipping; Obviously the nations which prop up and benefit from this corrupt arrangement recognize it. What is not a recognized nation (except, of course, by an overwhelming majority of the world's nations, and me for another one) is that remnant of the ottoman empire, a people with thousands of years of ancestry there, that has seen fit to elect a military organization willing to use terrorist and other guerilla warfare tactics, notoriously effective in holding off a larger and better equipped opponent.
What of the people who already live there, the people who are unquestionably being forced out; what of their right to live in peace and prosperity? What of their rights to defend themselves, their families, their homes, their farms, their peace, their prosperity, defend themselves as israel is so nauseatingly fond of repeating is its right, and that by any means necessary? What of their right to exist? Open war and guerilla war and terrorism- flying planes into skyscrapers: This is what they will take when they are denied the right to exist. Why don't you answer to me about the rights of Palestinians, and not wax propagandistic about how hard israelis have it ( 🥺 ) trying to manage their apartheid- and genocide-fueled ethnic cleansing. "deal with passports" forsooth.
You are pleased to use the devastation and fragmentation and discoordination of a region which used to be connected and prosperous as some sort of gotcha against Palestine’s legitimacy- In all ignorance of the fact israel inflicted that devastation and fragmentation, ensured that the only coordination could be underground, with the necessary help of US dollars.
Which is, again, ancient history. Israel was established as a nation after the Six Day War. It doesn't matter how wrong that war was, or why it was done, or how it was done. It was done, and it was done over 70 years ago. Borders are established most of the time through bloody conflict, so this is not something that is suddenly unique to Israel.
for Palestinian independence
Which is what? Which borders do you agree are Palestine? Is it:
The West Bank? Sound fine to me. Maybe they should start pushing this with the UN and officially ratify it?
The West Bank and Gaza Strip? No. They can't properly manage two separate landmasses like that. And even when they had the chance to accept that accord, they rejected it.
The entirely of Israel, West Bank, and Gaza. Fuck no. This is what I'm talking about when it comes to ancient grudges. They fought a war and lost. It happened. Israel formed. Ancient history.
That support only continues because of the strategic and material advantage of having a hold on Suez shipping
Are you actually serious? You think the entirety of the Israeli independence was because of a shipping lane? Not the fact that Jerusalem is in the center, or that a bunch of displaced Jews wanted to form their own state, or the fact that there have been several crusades to take back Jerusalem for centuries? In fact, I will accept almost any religious-based argument you give me. But, not because of a fucking shipping lane.
And as far as continued support, let's not forget that there's still a bunch of nukes pointed at Russia from Israel. Why do you think the Cuba Missile Crisis happened?
is that remnant of the ottoman empire
I... ummm, I'm going to have to stop right there. The Ottoman Empire ended in 1922. You are, again, using ancient grudges to justify terrorism.
What of their right to exist? Open war and guerilla war and terrorism- flying planes into skyscrapers: This is what they will take when they are denied the right to exist.
Yeah, I shouldn't have read any more. Now you're calling 9/11 a justified act. This conversation is over.
I didn't say it was justified, I said this is why people are doing what they're doing. I believe my exact words were, without looking them up, "This is what they will take when their right to exist is denied." That isn't justification- though I understand to them it would be. I'm saying I understand, sympathize, even empathize with other people. You are saying you don't. You are saying that 77 years is "ancient history" (there are people alive today who can remember back to 1947, you betray the immaturity of your age, and your perfect ignorance of history with that belittling quip) as a way to misrepresent recent history. You are using the words "ancient grudges" to hand-wave the existence of people who are very much alive and suffering today as a footnote to history. The ancient history here, if you want to do that goes back through and past the ottoman empire. The collapse/dissolution of that empire balkanized the region- fuck me You know what, I don't feel like teaching you history, it's goddamned exhausting, and anyway you'll ignore and twist and misunderstand and take out of context and put words in my mouth that I never said, whatever is convenient to your argument, based on the rest of our "conversation" anyway (I'm quite certain I detect the effect of skimming my work in your words, certain marks of a person who has not taken the trouble to understand a person's position before replying to it). My advice: go read wikipedia on palestine/israel instead of the nothing you got in public school and the less-than-nothing you're getting from the news.
It occurs to me upon review that I did not address the point of religion. I do not say that the foundation of israel was irreligious, but rather the continued support by foreign powers of israel is totally secular- Based on the material considerations like that which I pointed out of Suez shipping (extremely underestimated by my interlocutor) and the strategic consideration my interlocutor pointed out of nuclear retaliation.
You can say the same about many so called "recognizer nations" in Africa. Just because some white dude drew a line and called it a country, doesn't make it a correct line. The people of Gaza and Palestine exist and are a Nation.
