Opinion about the Gaza protests at college campuses obviously differs between Muslims and Jews and between Republicans and Democrats. But the key difference is this one:
The experience of older Americans was shaped by an era in which Israel was repeatedly attacked by Arab states (and nonstates) and was forced to defend itself against relentless Palestinian terrorism. It may have since become a brutal, paranoid country, but oldsters understand why it's become that way and therefore retain some sympathy for Israel.
Younger Americans have experienced none of that. They've grown up almost exclusively in the Netanyahu era, during which Israel blockaded Gaza; built up the West Bank in a way deliberately intended to eliminate any possibility of a Palestinian state; and kept Palestinians under harsh military occupation. Palestinians have been (relatively) peaceful over the past 20 years but Israel has nonetheless treated them viciously and oppressively for seemingly little reason.
Of course, old people eventually die, and Israel shows no signs of changing its ways. In another 20 years there will be almost no one left who remembers anything good about the country.
No memories of Oslo and the assassination of Rabinhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Yitzhak_Rabin
No memories of the Northern Ireland "Troubles". By comparison to Israel/Palestine Ulster was a very easy case.
or Munich
or Entebbe
or Deir Yassin
there wasn't a Hollywood movie made about that.
... wonder why?
It should be noted Palestinians' median age is just 19 (shout out to Paul Hardcastle), meaning that the majority of the population being impacted either wasn't alive during or would have no memory of the events they are being punished for.
Not here to take a side, but:
> Palestinians have been (relatively) peaceful over the past 20 years but Israel has nonetheless treated them viciously and oppressively for seemingly little reason.
Maybe, but this statement ignores the actual catalyst for the recent turmoil -- October 7th. There is nothing even remotely "relatively peaceful" about that event. It was searing and is, I think, an adequate explanation -- not an excuse -- for what has transpired.
Does the expression "Mowing the grass" ring a bell?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mowing_the_grass
Yep! Does the expression “the torture and murder of hundreds of Israeli civilians” ring a bell for you?
Stop pretending that you have any sort of principled objection to terrorism. Given your utter refusal to even acknowledge the terrorism against Palestinians that is ongoing in the West Bank, it is clear that you are fine with terrorism. You just don't like Palestinians.
Yep! Does the expression “Illegal settlement” or "Preventative Detention" ring a bell for you?
https://apnews.com/article/politics-israel-government-united-nations-west-bank-5a18fba85f8ba868b2a3b557f6edb61a
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67600015
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/feb/11/israel
Yep! It was all peaches and cream before October 7th. not one single Israeli had done anything to ever harm a Palestinian...
Apparently Total is ignorant that Israel held 8x as many Palestinians in indefinite detention, many women and children, as Israelis died on 10/7.
Can you point to a single Palestinian held in detention who is not a POW and for whom there is not probable cause that he has committed a crime?
In contrast, Hamas is holding babies under a year old.
There is no legal burden to show probable cause. Palestinians lack basic legal rights, who do you think US proptections apply to them. They are not under the jurisdiction of Israeli Courts.
Probable cause has not been shown for most of the detained because there is no need to establish it.
I would flip the question: Can you show that probable cause is established for an appreciable percentage of the detained?
The Israelis frequently refuse to acknowledge who they have detained, let alone what they have been detained for. There are families in Gaza who know only that their relatives have disappeared, but have no idea whether they are buried under rubble or being held in Israel.
It should also be noted that "committed a crime" has been defined down to the point that any decent American should reject it. Making Facebook posts supporting Palestinians is enough to be arrested and held.
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-04-26/ty-article-opinion/.premium/arrested-for-statements-against-zionism-the-worrying-state-of-free-speech-in-israel/0000018f-165b-d361-a3ef-56fb91280000
You remain either deliberately ignorant, or entirely uncaring, about just how dangerous the security forces under Itamar Ben-Gvir are.
Seems pretty clear at this point that this particular experiment has been a failure.
You seem ignorant that in the prior 20 years before 10/7, Israel had officially killed 10x as many Palestinians as Israels had died to Palestinian violence in that period... including 10/7.
Since, Israel has killed 30x the number of Palestinians as all Hamas caused deaths in Israel on 10/7.
On top of the repressive siege that's been their entire lives.
Between 2007 and 10/7, the “score” was 6400 to 300.
Saying that 10/7 was an 'adequate explanation' is again denying any agency to Israel, as though any other government would have reacted by exacting 30 times as many deaths (and counting ...), the large majority non-combatants.
So, either our schools suck at teaching world history or old people hang onto the past too much.
I would have the same theory except for those among the young folks who support Hamas. If righteousness validates violence, murder and rape, our future is bleak.
This is definately where Israel's soldiers and most supporters stand already.
If righteousness validates...
It's the perfect turn of phrase, when hasn't that been used? Aluminum tubes and yellow cake made us righteous. The Maine made us righteous. I could go on but you get the drift...our past, as a species, is replete with examples. And our future will be as well.
Actual polling of young people shows very low support for Hamas. Don't let a few loudmouths in the Ivies lead you astray.
The problem with the young eyes isn’t their view of Israel. It’s accurate. The problem is their view of Palestinians, Hamas, hezbullshit, Islamic jihad, and the whole religion. It makes MAGA look like bleeding heart liberals. They are blind to this despicable ideology of hatred. Islam has bloody borders.
I’m atheist so I have no illusions about who is the enemy. All of them! Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus etc. Every damn one!
Dude, being pro-genocide doesn't make you look good.
So don't fucking lie about how people view Hamas.
Even if you assume Muslims are devils and Jews angels, it should have no bearing on the property dispute that is the core of the conflict.
I should post or link pictures of the barrier walls between the West Bank and mostly Jerusalem...they are high and thick and formidable. Likewise the prisons that are scattered about to hold Palestinian prisoners.
Or the dry desiccated vineyards in the West Bank. The rocky soil that is so far distant than the Kentucky farm dirt I grew up with...Oh, there is the Jezreel Valley under the hilltop gaze of Megiddo, (Armageddon), but by in large, to me, it seemed a harsh land, (aside from the wondrous oasis's that occasionally dot the land).
Tiberius was a fine place for the Crusader Army to be annihilate by smoke and sword.
But I am an Old as the survey notes, and my knowledge of the dirt and the land means little, I am moderately in favor of Israel in most regards, less so to Palestinians, mostly because of their Religion, (if I am being honest...though I have been to the King Fahad Mosque in LA, (a Muslim girlfriend {there is a difficult use of language here, but interesting, labeling a middle aged female a girlfriend implies one thing, calling her a woman friend implies a different form of relationship...ahh, language controls our thoughts!})
I am an Old, I support Israel and hate with a burning passion Hamas, but regret profoundly the deaths of Palestinians that are not Hamas, (note I did not say innocents....maybe yea, maybe nay, I do not know in most instances)...Kevin compels honesty.... Traveller
No easy answers to Israel/Palestinian issue. But I agree that there has to be a better term for "girlfriend/boyfriend" once one gets to a certain age. Life partner, significant other, just don't seem to work. I'm inclined to "my old man/lady", as we used to say in the day.
And I don’t like “in the day”. It’s just a way of saying “the good old days” without sounding like our grandparents.
my old man....ok, different context:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAxKDLiwrhw
How about the one that I love:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8SefO8DpRY
But I agree that there has to be a better term for "girlfriend/boyfriend" once one gets to a certain age...
Many people these days just use "partner" regardless of age.
My aunt (well past 90) explained this to me. "You are his lady friend," she said, "and he is that old man you go around with."
Worked for us.
Drum gives an accurate picture of how people my age or older learned about the conflict. (I think I am about a decade younger than he is, maybe a bit more). And for young people who want to understand where people like Drum, and more importantly Biden, are coming from it is very valuable. But what Drum still misses is how much that picture was based on a kind of residual racism in which Europeans were simply central to the story and Arabs were bit players in the story of the Jews.
We all took it for granted that the Arabs, there are so many of them, should be willing to let Jews move into their territory and take a small country, just the size of New Jersey. And given what Jews have been through, although not at the hands of the Arabs, they deserved it right? But if course we never volunteered to give a New Jersey size piece of Montana to the Jews for their own state. And you can see the furor the right can raise by suggesting that Mexicans want to move to the US and create a little piece of Mexico here. This whole view that the Arabs (and also the fact that we didn't differentiate between the Palestinians and other Arabs) should have been fine with the creation of a Jewish state on land that is important to them religiously is only possible because we had no ability to see things from their perspective.
I find it very ironic that the American conservatives who go on and on and on and . . . about the imaginary horrors of Spanish speaking hordes immigrating to the US in order to take it over, when confronted with a historical case in which the exact thing that they fear actually happened, take the side of the immigrants.
Is that to say that you don’t take the side of the immigrants when it comes to this country? You agree they are trying to replace us?
Wow, that is exactly opposite to the meaning I took. Note that the Donkey said imaginary horrors of immigrants taking over.
Right, but if it is ironic one way, then it’s ironic the other. But, in truth, I don’t see it as a good analogy either way.
Also, if Trump is anointed President next year we will have no room to talk about any other oppressive country. We will out-bad them all.
You need to stop listening to the voices in your head.
We all took it for granted that the Arabs, there are so many of them, should be willing to let Jews move into their territory and take a small country, just the size of New Jersey. And given what Jews have been through, although not at the hands of the Arabs, they deserved it right? But if course we never volunteered to give a New Jersey size piece of Montana to the Jews for their own state.
You're right that we never volunteered to give a New Jersey-sized piece of US land to the Jews. There's a far less compelling case why we should do that. The US is not where the Jewish homeland once was. The US has not always welcomed Jews with open arms, but our treatment of Jews has been in many ways better than their treatment from people in other parts of the globe.
Since you brought it up, I do think that the US is a example worth noting for how to treat a persecuted people. Our treatment of Native Americans has been abysmal over the centuries. One of the things we have done to atone for and help rectify past injustices is give back land to Native Americans. Today, Native American tribes have sovereignty over more than 87,000 square miles within our borders. That's 10 times the size of New Jersey (or Israel). Recently, between 2012 and 2022, under the Land Buyback Program for Tribal Nations, the US returned another 3 million acres (more than half the size of NJ) to Native Americans. That's happened without controversy or fighting.
Maybe not the perfect parallel to the creation of Israel, but it shows progress and peace are possible in addressing past wrongs, even when settlements require transfer of enough land for a small nation.
The idea that the Palestinians should have to give up territory because Jews have a self-serving book that justifies Jews taking the land from the Canaanites is so ridiculous that it is hard to imagine any other situation in which people could bring it up without being laughed at.
Your comment would make sense if you were arguing why Israel should exist in Germany. But you are just illustrating the myopic White perspective I was talking about which makes anyone think it makes sense to say that Europe should make up for its mistreatment of Jews by giving them territory in territory inhabited by the Palestinians.
It's worth pointing out that more than half of the original settlers in Israel were (mostly) Arabic and Persian speakers kicked out of Syria, Morocco, Turkey, Iraq, Iran and other "European" countries in the Middle East and North Africa prior to the war. The actual Europeans survivors didn’t want to remain anywhere near Germany and a large number immigrated to the country with the second largest Jewish population in the world (hint: it’s made up of 50 states, 6 territories and the District of Columbia).
Those are not the original Zionists, who were almost entirely European. The Mizrahim were all kicked out of Muslim countries after the founding of Israel, so their presence there cannot be used to justify its creation.
Dude, you act like the Jews having a home in the land of their origins is the craziest idea on the face of the earth. But giving Jews land in Montana was an idea we should have considered? Sure, that's reasonable.
A few quick points:
a. Mistreatment of Jews has hardly been a European-only problem
b. Palestinians deserve autonomy in their own home, but finding an equitable solution for them requires an equitable solution for Jews too. There is a lot that's negotiable but it means the state of Israel exists in one form or another. The sooner Palestinian interests and the Arab world join countries like Jordan and Egypt in accepting that, the sooner there's hope for the bloodshed to end.
Rather than saying what you want me to say, why not this? I'll say what I want to say and you say what you want to say.
--Joseph Harbin April 26, 2024 at 10:32 am on refusing to answer a question about Israeli atrocities committed on the innocent ... during a discusion of Israeli and Hamas atrocities on the innocent.
You're dishonest to the bone, tosser. And a religous bigot to boot. The worl needs fewer people like you.
It is not that it is the craziest idea in the world. It is that the idea that Europeans could give the Jews a homeland in territory that was inhabited by Palestinians was a racist idea, part and parcel of colonialism.
The idea of giving them territory in Montana was not under consideration since it was not possible to disregard the Montanans would would be displaced by such a move, while in the West it was quite easy to disregard the Palestinians.
Drum subscribes to a childish version of the situation in which the story is told with the Jews as the protagonists and the Palestinians as secondary characters. The argument you are giving here shows that that is not the most childish story that gets told. The one in which the Bible is supposed to justify giving the Jews a homeland where Palestinians live is a even more childish one, and even more racist in the way it simply erases the Palestinians.
Why do you think that an equitable solution requires that Israel exist, but you are puzzled as to what the Palestinians are entitled to? Given that there are more Palestinians that want to live in the region than Jews, if the Jews are entitled to a state in any solution shouldn't the Palestinians be entitled to one of equal size? Israel has rejected peace deals that would give the Palestinians 22% of the territory.
What should be essential is that everybody living in the territory is a citizen of the country in which they live. That is currently true of all of the Jews and a small fraction of the Palestinians. It is certainly not essential that the Jewish minority have an ethnically defined state on the majority of the territory. And amazingly that actually describes the peace plans that Israel rejects because they insist on controlling the entire territory.
Establishing a Jewish Nation in, say, Bavaria at the end of WW2 would be so much more morally justifiable.
The fact that Palestine was occupied by largely uneducated poor people with little political clout was critical. And we can't forget the bible. God wants his people to return.
I understand why Jews after centuries of persecution and then WW2 grabbed the opportunity when it presented itself. But that doesn't erase the fact that the Palestinians were victims. As with Jews so many times in the past Palestinians were poor and powerless and in the wrong place at the wrong time. They got steamrolled.
Today, Native American tribes have sovereignty over more than 87,000 square miles within our borders.
This analogy makes no sense whatsoever as an example of how to treat conquered peoples well. That figure is less than 3% of the land area of the United States. You're saying that it's ok to conquer a territory by force, subjugate the inhabitants via centuries of genocidal warfare, take 97% of the land for yourselves, and, letting them have the remaining 3% means you've done the right thing?
No country on earth has a perfectly clean moral record with respect to national territory and borders, because if you go back far enough, you'll always find the use of force. The difference between most countries and Israel is that the latter's 1967 conquest of Palestinian lands, by occurring after the drafting of the UN Charter, is unambiguously illegal per international law. Indeed, this "difference" can often be heard as a complaint by Israelis: many lament the fact that other countries have gotten away with conquest, and they're being condemned for it. Well yes, they're right! History is unfair, but international law means something, and hasn't been acceptable or legal to wage wars of aggression* since the end of WW2.
*In my view there's a strong argument that Israel was justified for self-defense reasons to engage in a preemptive strike in 1967. The "illegal" part is not relinquishing the resulting, conquered territory. Not even self-defense justifies military conquest under international law.
You must have missed the part where Joseph Harbin said, “Our treatment of Native Americans has been abysmal over the centuries.” He never came near saying the European conquest was ‘ok’. What he was citing as worthy of emulation was recent actions returning land to Native control. As Israel should return the West Bank areas it illegally settled to the Palestinians.
You must have missed the part where Joseph Harbin said...
Nope, I read that part. But he goes on to write this gem:
I do think that the US is a example worth noting for how to treat a persecuted people.
And then goes on to cite how reserving 3% of America's land mass to the people who used to have 100% of it is an example of "how to treat a persecuted people."
Which to me seems wrong. YMMV.
(I mean, giving it all back to them might be an example of that. Or even splitting it 50/50. But 3%? C'mon, man!)
C'mon, man!
Yeah, c'mon. I appreciate your response to things I didn't say or intend, but a little context, if you will.
My comment was a response to Lon saying that it was beyond the bounds of reason to think the vast Arab world could cede land to found a small country for a people who were persecuted and nearly exterminated after World War II.
I raised the example of the US giving land back to Native Americans (a far larger territory, for what it's worth) as a contrast to the idea that it was impossible.
I thought the context was clear. Yes: it is possible and better to give something rather than nothing, as Lon suggested.
I never said we're all even-steven now. What an appropriate repayment would be was outside the scope of my comments. My point, which you seemed to miss, is that returning lands is a worthy and doable act in making amends for past injustice.
My comment was a response to Lon saying that it was beyond the bounds of reason to think the vast Arab world could cede land to found a small country for a people who were persecuted and nearly exterminated after World War II.
If the world wanted Arabs to cede land to the Jews, they should have asked, and been prepared to accept an answer of, "No." But, hey, it's always good when you offer someone else's property as recompense for your own misdeeds.
Hey, they sold Manhattan for twenty bucks fair and square!
"The US is not where the Jewish homeland once was."
Are you ready to generalize this principle?
Irredentism is usually not very helpful in human affairs. When you are talking millenia it is crazy.
Stories in the bible give no one a claim on land. To state it is to refute it, unless you are deep in the mythology.
Which of the tribes hailed from ancient Montana? Let’s assume just for a moment we had made such an offer. Would we have been taken up on it? I’d say there was but half a snowball’s chance in the southern Negev.
You are right. The whole Israel thing is a joke. It is based on a Jewish fairy take book that would not be taken seriously in any other context.
Actually you aren't even right. Russian Jews actually mostly preferred to come to the US. The shift to Israel came when the US decided to close the border to Jewish immigrants. It was Jewish intellectuals in Europe, inspired by Colonialism, who thought the Jewish state should be in the Middle East And the whole concept only made sense because it could be done in territory inhabited by what were considered to be savages under European rule. I would guess most of the Jews who moved to Israel would be happy for a homeland in the US. Although Montana might not have been their first choice.
What are you nattering on about? It is undeniably that the Jewish people originated in the area now called Israel. You obviously don’t have to rely on the Torah. Read Josephus. Suetonius. Tacitus. And it’s equally undeniable that there has been a continuous Jewish presence in the area since biblical times. These historical roots are more than sufficient to explain why Herzl believed Palestine was where a Jewish state should be located. Not whether you believe Jonah was really eaten by a whale.
As for why it was necessary, witnessing persistent anti-semitism, pogroms and the Dreyfuss Affair adequately explains the need for a haven for Jews. Not some urge to colonize.
You are right that the concerns of the Arabs living in Palestine were given short shrift and that where we are now is an enormous mess, but your account of how we got here is as fictional as those biblical stories.
My grandparents immigrated from Germany. Did my people originate from Germany? We all originated from Africa.
Jews feel a connection to the land because of the bible, but how is that a claim on Palestinians?
The idea that anyone has a claim on land because ancestors lived there 2000 years ago is laughable in any other context. The fact they revere a book that says otherwise confers no claim.
What are you nattering on about? Do Josephus, Suetonius, Tacitus claim the Hebrew goods as a matte of physical fact. You do know that Josephus is the only historian who claims that the historical Jesus existed, right? But you go on believing what your crippled mind wants to believe.
I don't think Lon Becker is disputing Jews occupied Palestine 2000 years ago.
2000 years ago all sorts of people occupied all sorts of places, and establishing that historically gives you no claim the in the present day.
The bible is different, the bible is taken seriously by many as the basis for a claim on land now.
On rare occasion I go by the house I grew up in. It was probably the place I was happiest. The idea that I have a right to move into it and take the master bedroom is inane. So is the idea that Jews had a right to move back to land of their ancestors and displace the people living there. The only reason it seemed to make sense at the time was that this was the era when people in the West had tricked themselves into thinking that backwards societies liked to be colonized because Europeans brought civilization with them. Did you know that at one point there was a plan to at least temporarily put the Jewish state in Uganda. If you go to a history museum in Israel they will tell you that the question came up as to whether there were people in Uganda, and the answer they came up with was that there were not a lot, and they would be happy with all of the economic pluses that Jews would bring with them. This was nonsense, but people in the West actually believed it at the time.
The West wanted to provide a place for Jews to go to that was not Britain or the US. The West did not care about the Arabs and so once they controlled the Mandate of Palestine it was natural to send them there. If you think that the West would have given Jews territory it actually cared about best on something as silly as Biblical history you are being childish.
More than half of the Israeli settlers and their descendants were forced out of Syria, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, etc. as well as North Africa. There were pograms and state killings on a much smaller scale in some of those countries. They were mostly Arabic and Persian speakers. More European Jews immigrated to the U.S.
Actually Iran continues to have a Jewish population. The exodus from the Arab countries followed the creation of Israel it had nothing to do with its creation. Israel was created because Europeans didn't want an influx of Jews into Europe, and didn't care what happened to the Palestinians. It is naive to think it was something else.
There was actually a serious plan in the State Department to evacuate Jews to Alaska, which made sense because it was still a territory and this would circumvents immigration quotas. FDR unfortunately shot it down. Michael Chabon wrote an excellent work of historical fiction set in a world where this plan was implemented and that world’s “Israel” was one of the big coastal islands in southern Alaska.
Speaking of old people, Bibi is 74 years old. Israel is capable of change and it could happen rather quickly if Bibi leaves the scene for medical reasons. It would be ironic if the roles reversed 25 years from now. The older Americans THEN would have been raised on Bibi Israel and a new generation of American raised on a nicer Israel and coming to different conclusions as a result.
But most of us will be unemployed because of AI by then...
Israel is capable of change and it could happen rather quickly if Bibi leaves the scene for medical reasons.
Counting on health problems to rid ourselves of bad actors is a mug's game. World leaders generally get the best healthcare money can provide. Castro and Mugabe were both in power into their 90s. Same with Deng, I think. Franco was 83.
I think much more likely is that Bibi is forced out by politics, though I wouldn't count on that, either.
Israel has had right-wing governments for the majority of the last half-century, several PM’s were former terrorists. At that, Netanyahu might be the worst of a bad lot. But supposing that Israeli politics will pivot away from vengefulness, oppression and land theft when Bibi inevitably leaves the scene is optimistic.
Is there some kind of thinking that leads you to believe that if a Bibi sized vacuum appeared in Israel's government things would quickly get better? That does not seem to be a reasonable assumption
I am pretty old but I don't favor Israel. The reason is pretty simple. When Israel conquered the West Bank and the Gaza Strip over 50 years ago they became responsible for the well being of the people living there. Anyone can see that they have not done a good job.
When Britain conquered Palestine in WWI, it also became responsible for the welfare of the people. They deliberately did not do a good job.
"When Britain conquered Palestine in WWI, it also became responsible for the welfare of the people. They deliberately did not do a good job."
Whether they did or didn't is ancient history at this point, they haven't been in power for a long time. Israel is still in charge of the Gaza Strip and West Bank and still ruling them badly.
How depressing that people think that it is a defense of Israel involved in comparing it to past evils like Colonialism.
The SJP calls North America “occupied turtle island”.
I wish someone would explain to me at which point the continuous migration of populations suddenly became colonialism. We could go back to that world map.
First, it is not generally migrations of populations, rather expansions of territory. Secondly, it has always been colonialism, it is just the world has recently agreed that it is not okay to simply move into someone else's home with guns blazing.
There are many things that were ubiquitous in history that we no longer find acceptable. These "well, it used to be fine" arguments are kind of childish when not disengenouos.
It was when the West took control over territories around the world and moved in non-native populations under Colonial rule. Colonialism was actually the name of the policy back when the West was still tricking itself into believing that the "savages" were glad that we were bringing them civilization. The early Zionists considered creating their state, at least temporarily, in Uganda and were convinced that the inhabitants there would not mind having Jews bring civilization to them in this way.
Israel didn’t just wake up one morning in 1973 and decide “What the heck, let’s take over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip today.” Those were parts of Jordan and Egypt respectively and those two countries decided they wanted to fight another war with Israel after their prior one six years before. And just like 1967 the Arab nations once again lost the war. And with it those two pieces of land.
I’d be more than happy to see that land returned to the original countries. (Original being since 1948.) Do Egypt and Jordan want that land back along with the folks living on it? They sure don’t seem to. I wonder why.
"Israel didn’t just wake up one morning in 1973 and decide “What the heck, let’s take over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip today.” Those were parts of Jordan and Egypt respectively and those two countries decided they wanted to fight another war with Israel after their prior one six years before. And just like 1967 the Arab nations once again lost the war. And with it those two pieces of land."
This is mostly wrong. The West Bank and Gaza Strip were conquered in 1967. Jordan didn't want to fight a war in 1973, in fact King Hussein of Jordan secretly flew to Tel Aviv to warn Israel. And it is besides the point anyway. Which is, having conquered the Gaza Strip and the West Bank Israel had a responsibility to provide decent government to those places. Which they have obviously failed to do.
Why would you be happy that Palestinians go from being ruled by Israelis to being ruled by Jordanians and Egyptians. It is not so long ago that countries, particularly ones without democratic aspirations, considered taking territory to be a plus, even when it involved taking over a hostile population. Today Jordan and Egypt have grown up. Israel has not. Israel still wants the land even if it means oppressing the people to hold it.
Above I was talking about the degree to which the pro-Israel picture is based in racism. It would be nice if there was a comment defending Israel that was not. But yours is not that comment.
In the 1920 meeting at San Remo where the Middle East was carved up, Palestinian leaders asked to be part of Syria, consistent with their situation in the late Ottoman era. This entirely reasonable request was denied for purely colonial, racist and religious reasons.
Jordan controlled the West Bank following the 1948 war, and even declared its annexation, which was never recognized internationally, not even by other Arab nations.
When Israel conquered the West Bank and the Gaza Strip over 50 years ago they became responsible for the well being of the people living there. Anyone can see that they have not done a good job.
That's really it in a nutshell. Israel's apologists want the optics to be "Two countries called Israel and Gaza are at war with each other."
But that, of course, isn't so. Gaza is an illegally conquered territory of Greater Israel, just like East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Israel's apologists know that well, and more. Israel's apologisits aren't copping to their real agenda, probably because they know it will expose them for the bigots, religious and otherwise, that they are.
As Kevin has pointed out in previous posts, there are no clean hands here. You can quibble about which side is worse, but that's a pointless exercise. These kind of feuds can go on for many generations (more historical examples that I feel like listing). They generally end only after both sides have thoroughly exhausted themselves.
Eventually it will end badly for all of us:
https://youtu.be/8tIdCsMufIY?si=lK2fHaQ2jVEdQcoc
This is an apologia for letting the stronger side abuse the weaker side. This is not a battle between two neighboring countries that can be left to go their own way. It is a situation in which one people is keeping another people stateless and using its greater military to change facts on the ground to look in that abuse. It is childish to dismiss this as both sides are being bad.
It's not an apologia - it's just a recognition of the facts. Left to themselves, they will NEVER come to a solution. There's too much hatred built up over the years. They're like the Hatfields and McCoys. Consider the situation of the holy sites in East Jerusalem. There's a simple solution - let each religious group have unfettered access to their own sites. But they just can't get there. Too much animosity.
History says there's only two ways this can end:
1. They finally exhaust themselves (could take a very long time), or
2. The situation get bad enough that a solution is imposed on them.
If you're hoping for another solution, history is not on your side.
Yet another troll who refuses to admit that Israel's atrocities against the innocent are far greater and have gone on far longer than Hamas' atrocities against the innocent. Which makes you kind of a horrible human being, what with being down with the sacrifice of human beings to satisfy some tiny dogma script running in your head.
Well in South Africa it was made clear to the White minority that if it continued apartheid they would become economic pariahs. Since the white population did not want to rule a black population as North Korea it ended apartheid.
The problem with Israel is that there is one side abusing the other while prospering, and the world has decided that the most important thing is for Israel not to be made to feel bad for abusing the Palestinians. Shockingly this has not stopped the abuse, it has actually allowed it to grow steadily.
A good example is with ceasefire talks. The US position is that there should be a ceasefire involving the release of hostages and no invasion of Rafah which would be yet another humanitarian nightmare. Hamas' stated opinion is that it would agree to a cease fire in which they give up hostages in return for no invasion of Rafah. The Israeli position is that if Hamas gives up hostages they will put off the invasion of Rafah for a month and then create the humanitarian disaster then. And the US says that the reason that there is no ceasefire is that Hamas is not being reasonable.
So while the people being abused are not angels, it is a defense of the abusers to try to coddle them as we do.
You can quibble about which side is worse, but that's a pointless exercise
No it's not. Defining responsibility and culpability is central to clearly seeing the situation for what it is.
Illegal conquest generally leads to bad outcomes.
The point was that there's plenty of responsibility and culpability on both sides. Quibbling over who is worse is mostly an exercise engaged in to make your side seem superior and lay the blame on the other side. It is, if anything, a barrier to a solution. I refer you again to my Hatfields and McCoys analogy. I can't think of any example from history where determining which side is worse has led to a solution.
The point was that there's plenty of responsibility and culpability on both sides.
I disagree there's "plenty" on both sides. When you illegally conquer/occupy/annex other people's lands, you create the original sin, and as such you own the bulk of the blame.
well said. No hands are clean. Claiming greater virtue makes a peace process harder.
Quibbling over who is worse is mostly an exercise engaged in to make your side seem superior and lay the blame on the other side. It is, if anything, a barrier to a solution.
That's the truth. A common topic in comments at this blog, and elsewhere, is the history of the conflict from one side or the other. It's an endless cycle of grievance and justification for retaliation. The focus on the past leads only to more bloodshed. The way out is to seek agreement not on what happened already but on what needs to happen next. We seem to be a long way from that moment.
Since your solution is ethnic cleasing/genocide, no thanks. And if you think anyone who doesn't share your agenda is picking up what you're laying down ... Or is it simply that they don't count.
I appreciate Kevin's insight. But I am becoming troubled by the fact that the U.S. media is uniformly referring to the protests as "pro-Palestinian" rather than "anti-Israel." As far as I can tell, none of the protestors' demands are pro-anything; they are all about ending support for Israel or any participation in their economy.
Anti-Israel protests may not necessarily be wrong, but I wish the media would use more accurate language. It's not a sporting event.
Where does this kind of myopia come from? People are complaining that the protesters are chanting the slogan "From the River to the Sea, Palestine must be free" and you think this isn't about the Palestinians? I mentioned in a comment above the degree to which the pro-Israel side has always been racist in the sense of thinking of the conflict as just the story of the Jews with the Palestinians reduced to generic Arabs and secondary characters in the story. Here you manage to apply this standard to the protesters despite the fact that you have to ignore pretty much everything they say to do it.
The reason that the media refers to the protesters as pro-Palestinian is because they are not PR reps for Israel. The reason this strikes you as odd is that historical that is pretty much what the media in the US has been.
...unless Israel stops its genocidal war (short term demands) and allows Palestinians self determination (long term demands).
This is why it is not appropriate to characterize it as "anti-Israeli" protests.
The Netanyahu era isn't the only thing that's shaped the views of those in the 44 and younger crowd. I'm not even 40 and it's seemed obvious to me that Israel hasn't wanted a solution, and therefore was in the wrong (even if it was "just" an also-wrong) since I was a teen. I remember the glimmer of hope from the 2000 Camp David Summit, and how it sure seemed like the failure of the summit fell more on Israel than on the Palestinians. And then Ariel Sharon's reign as prime minister really seemed like Netanyahu-lite.
The real question is, is the Middle East important to the US? The world is heading to a post-fossil fuel future, and the US has plenty of oil for its own needs. Drop the the whole region, leave them to their own devices, Israel and Saudi Arabia both. The future of the US is in nuclear power, and wind, sun, and batteries.
I suspect you'd get similar results in a poll about support for any kind of mass protest movement. For example in 2020:
For whatever reasons, people tend to get less tolerant of direct action as they get older.
Obviously there is no love between Palestinians and Israelis and both have reasons to be angry with the other. They each want the other to disappear. “River to the sea” is their common policy.
Over the past 50 years what the Israelis have been doing seems painfully familiar. Their seizing of lands and terrorizing West Bank residents is reminiscent of the Pogroms my grandparents fled at the turn of the 20th century. The destruction of Gaza is painfully similar to what the Germans did to the Jewish Ghetto in Poland.
What’s really amazing is sorting through the propaganda from both sides that’s instantly pushed on social media and our major new sources. Adding to the confusion is the efforts of other parties, influencers if you will, such as political parties, groups that give millions to our legislators, and maybe some foreign actors enjoying the spectacle of the turmoil in America. Lots of big money interests. And truth, is hard to find.
And meanwhile in the background we have a political party openly questioning whether we should have a democracy and touting the benefits (as if there are any to the majority of voters) of indirect election of congress and the president. Sort of the end of American elections as we know them and tossing into the garbage the often referenced “true intentions” of our hallowed founders. And of course our not-so-Supreme Court has already set the stage.
Hopefully our young people will realize all that we have to lose in the next election and don’t go down the rabbit hole of not voting or voting for one of the third party candidates and elect our only too eager fascist-in-waiting. That he is so close in the polls is truly unbelievable and it only took 8 years for it to happen.
I don’t know what else to say to Kevin et al other than F*#k you and F*#k the Left:
“Palestinians have been (relatively) peaceful over the past 20 years”
To say this while 10/7 hostages are still held captive, raped, and impregnated by Hamas terrorists is sickening and barbaric.
And for a prominent Lefty to make this statement under the current circumstances is utterly discrediting.
Kevin should follow up with an apology.
Also, there is nothing.in.this.post which explains why there are so many documented cases of Leftist professors and Leftist campus protestors both a.) specifically and explicitly calling for death to Jews (or “zionists”) and b.) unambiguously voicing support for Hamas (a genocidal terrorist organization).
I’m not particularly happy with Russia right now, for example. They have a terrible leader who launched a vicious and barbaric war of choice; nevertheless,
I do not wish for, let alone publicly muse (on video) about, the death of Russians. Nor do I advocate for them to be raped and murdered by genocidal terrorists.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing excuses the antisemitic horror show that Leftists have put on display. And if we’re going to defeat Trump, we need to call them out.
The reason they’re so unpopular (as indicated in Kevin’s otherwise sickening blog post) is because they’re engaging in a cult-like display of self-destructive mass hysteria, and every adult can recognize it as such.
And the only mature response is to put as much distance between the nihilistic Left and the Dem party as possible (as Biden, to his credit, began to do).
The last thing we need are pathetic blog posts excusing the lunatics shutting down bridges, smashing windows, and vandalizing campus property. They’re motivated by little if anything more than a dysfunctional and hateful desire to burn down the world. They’re not the Batman of this story, they’re the Bomb-throwing Joker.
"a cult-like display of self-destructive mass hysteria"
Look in the mirror.
@RuralHobo:
From my post above: “To say this while 10/7 hostages are still held captive, raped, and impregnated by Hamas terrorists is sickening and barbaric.”
So F*#k you.
Take yourself and your fellow fundies far away where they won't be missed. The rest of us are so sick and tired of your speshullnesss.
Speak for yourself. You are not speaking for "the rest of us" in any way.
You do know that a lot of people are publically on record as not cottoning to Leo, true? Guess you don't. But tell us anyway how you feel about the fundies -- obviously they're lowlife's, right? Scum who see nothing wrong with forcing us to live by their precepts, with themselves at the top of the social order and the rest of us not quite human at best, witting tools in the hands of Satan who deserve extermination if we don't get with the program at worst.
I'm asking because obviously you're not one of them 😉
@ ScentOfViolets:
From my post above: “To say this while 10/7 hostages are still held captive, raped, and impregnated by Hamas terrorists is sickening and barbaric.”
So F*#k you.
Continuing with your comic book references, you seem to be Bizarro.
@painedumonde:
I can’t tell if you’re one of the Leftist bigots or not, and I like comic jokes, so I’ll refrain from a F*#k you …
Kevin sees an earlier admirable Israel and says the young understandably look at the past twenty years.
20 years ago I also admired Israel, but I didn't know about the Nakba.
Netanyahu is worse but there was wrong from the start. My admiration was misinformed.
Exactly. I'm old and I remember well how Israel/Palestine or Israel/Arab used to be framed. Then when - this was after Sabra and Shatila - I started reading more about the issue, I saw how onesided the info had been all along.
It reminded me of how I used to believe D-Day was the moment the dynamics shifted in WW II. The shock when I started reading about the eastern front, mapped the movements and saw that by D-Day, the Red Army had already covered 2/3ds of the distance between Stalingrad and Berlin.
Or how in schools in Holland we were taught Queen Wilhelmina coordinated the resistance. A fiction designed to make people forget the resistance had mostly been led by communists and to prop up the monarchy which had deserted the people in its hour of need.
We old people were subjected to terrific amounts of propaganda masquerading as press freedom. Had coverage been more balanced, we would have known that those valiant zionists (not all Jews) were the biggest troublemakers all along.
It's not social media that changed this - it's the internet itself.
Good point on the internet.I knew from media that ongoing settlements were wrong, but I learned earlier details indirectly from comments right here, particularly Melancholydonkey. Various claims I thought just couldn't be right checked out. It was eye opening.
I end up near Kevin, no hands are clean. The difference is I think no hands were clean earlier on.
Good analogies, by the way.
Whereas I end up at Zionists are scum, and religious scum at that (I should know; I grew up around a lot of that sort of thing.)
Fundamentalists have a lot to answer for.
Fundamentalists of all stripes usually have awful politics.
I hate it when people try to claim most Muslims are fundamentalists. They aren't.
I would love a careful analysis comparing the percentage of fundamentalist Oklahomans (or any bible belt state) against the percentage of fundamentalist Iranians (or Palestinians, or Saudis).
That's exactly right.
This needs to repeated ad infinitum. The framing of the protests is another example. The framing of MLK, the Labor Movement, BLM, hell the very idea of America. Not just myth making but we get the erasure of knowledge too. Ask a young person about Tiananmen. I've read that in China itself the memory is disappearing.
I'm old, and I was raised on the Israel/Palestine stories that inform my generation.
They are largely lies, as I found out in college years and beyond after looking into the matter.
But most Americans never look into the matter very seriously.
The era in which Israel was repeatedly attacked by Arab states was created by media and greatly influenced the young to believe Israel was justified to oppress Palestinians like Europeans did Native Americans. Framing Israel was attacked and a victim by continuous propaganda successfully manufactured consent to impose apartheid and totalitarian terror on the Palestinian population with US military and financial support. This framing is still quite effective.
Yes, it is effective. Kevin Drum, for example, largely subscribes that that narrative.
For me a turning point understanding the Palestinian perspective was reading about the UN Partition Plan. It was called a "plan" or "proposal" because if it was a mandate it would violate self-determination principles in the UN Charter. Even as a plan it violates the Charter, there was no mechanism to include the local people. It was extraordinarily high-handed. And it was not a Security Council esolution, which is required for any binding resolution. I could go on.
Yet many, (including Kevin I think) call it the UN partition without any modifier.
At the time the Arab League refused to accept the proposal because of these flaws and others (giving more and better land to fewer people, a position that Xionists are foreign interlopers, etc). Israel cannily accepted the plan, and the narrative ever since is that the Zionits were reasonable, would accept international law, the formation of Israel was perfectly legtimate, and all those any-semitic Arab States cruelly attacked. David vs. Goliath. Check into it, the story is far more complicated.
No clean hands, from the start.
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" Israel has nonetheless treated them viciously and oppressively for seemingly little reason."
They're not Jews. That's reason enough.