"What have the Romans ever done for us?" is a classic Monty Python bit:
Fittingly, this takes place in Judea, because it's how I view modern-day Judea:
From the Palestinian side: All right, but apart from the 1948 war, the Red Sea blockades, the creation of the PLO, the 1967 war, the 1973 war, the 1987 intifada, the rejection of Camp David, the 2000 intifada, relentless missile attacks, and the October 7 massacre—apart from that, what have we ever done to the Jews?
From the Israeli side: All right, but apart from the Nabka, the Suez war, the military occupation of the West Bank, the settlements, the invasion of Lebanon, the takeover of Arab homes in East Jerusalem, the wall, apartheid-like treatment of non-Israelis, vicious settler violence, and the slaughter of Gazans—apart from that, what have we ever done to the Palestinians?
This is what I mean when I say there are no good guys in the Middle East. There's just a lot of people who all want the same thing and are willing to fight bitterly and endlessly over it.
i won't argue with a good monty python reference.
Who was the good guy? Afrikaners or Africans? English or Irish? Americans or Sioux? according to Kevin, all equally bad, all equally to blame. apparently both a burglar and the homeowner who shoots him are criminals in Kevin’s world.
In this case the burglar and the homeowner who shoots him twenty times and rapes his wife are criminals.
The funny thing is, in both your examples I’m not sure who’s who. Which I guess is Kevin’s point.
I’m sure all the people who died horribly will be glad that you’re here to adjudicate the moral balance.
that ain't the point. both sides point to each other as the bad guy. the problem is they both have dirty hands, and at some point you've to acknowledge that and move on if you ever want peace.
If you shoot a burglar who is not armed and immediately threatening you, you ARE a bad guy. First you try to arrest the burglar and hold him for the police; failing that, you try to get him to run away. Deadly force should be the last resort, not the first.
Thats not how it works in your home. You have obligation to retreat.
You are right. Palestinians had no obligation to retreat from the British/Zionist colonization project.
How is obligation to retreat or lack thereof relevant to attempting to detain a burglar or chase him away?
I assume you mean you have NO obligation to retreat.
I suspect an American activist protesting Israel would quote Trotsky:
"A slave-owner who through cunning and violence shackles a slave in chains, and a slave who through cunning or violence breaks the chains - let not the contemptible eunuchs tell us that they are equals before a court of morality!"
Which sounds great until that activist remembers that their house is on Native American land and they sure as hell ain't giving it back... any Navaho that walks through their front door shooting is a fucking dead man.
“Which sounds great until that activist remembers that their house is on Native American land and they sure as hell ain't giving it back... any Navaho that walks through their front door shooting is a fucking dead man.“
Hey everyone CL is good with a killing a couple hundred Navajo from the Navajo Nation (comparable to the percentage that have been killed in Gaza after the Hamas 10/7 Attack) due to a home invasion by one person that happened to be indigenous, because his hypothetical protestor is doing it wrong in his estimation. Good to know.
Deal!
On behalf of Palestinians I accept your offer of copying America’s one-state solution in Israel-Palestine.
If you are trying to play the hypocrisy game, you need to be way more careful. Now you are stuck with either ending the Jewish state or losing, badly.
America's "one-state solution" was to bulldoze most Native Americans into the Pacific Ocean, and then herd the remaining handful into small camps with token "sovereignty".
Their ancestors are still alive. You're free to undo that injustice any time and hand your property over to its "rightful" owner. I'll hold my breath while you get on that.
And of course if all existing Native American tribes banded together into a militia and started scalping every non-native they come across to free their land I'm sure you'd give the natives your full support. Right?
It is one of this country's eternal shames. ←Mind you, there's an "s."
The point is that it's easy to throw around shame when it costs you nothing personally.
Do you think the world be better off if we'd never colonized and driven out the understandably hostile natives? Do you feel enough shame to unwind the United States and return the land? The previous owners do still exist.
A while back I read a document put out by the National Students For Justice In Palestine which called North America “Turtle Island” and all non-indigenous people living here “colonizers”. Funny thing though, they didn’t indicate a willingness to leave.
Realizing that one's ancestors were brutal and shameless isn't a bad thing. It's waking up from the myth you're taught. It's not changing the past, it's hoping for a better future because you know and still aren't sleepwalking. If your suggestion would be accepted by the nation as a whole, I as a citizen would accept.
Saying that in the comfort that it would never take place.
Isn’t the analogy more like a home invader that takes over the entire house? Then, let’s you sleep on 30% of the concrete in your former garage, and let’s you use the bathroom every Tuesday from 1:00 pm to 2:15 pm only if the home invader doesn’t want to use it during that time?
The commenters to your original comment are really bad at this. It reads like a parody of kindergarteners having a conversation over one kid’s show and tell presentation.
TLDR-When white old man whose almost entire life experience was being the most liberal guy in his Orange Country neighborhood that he knew has a thought, the thought might be a bit half baked and side on the status que that benefits the side he’s always thought was the good guy back when he was the most liberal guy he knew.
Ah, always good to go with ad hominem attacks when you can’t do better.
Esp race and age based ones.
Don’t forget to add in your analogy that the guy with 70% offered to split the house with you 60/40 and you killed his kid rather than negotiate.
Kevin’s indisputable point is that both sides have behaved execrably at various times over the last 60 years. Each can point to terrible stuff done by the other. Revenge here is NOT the path to peace.
Disingenuousness to disguise your thumb on the scale isn’t too helpful either. You can’t help yourself either for someone that claims revenge is not the answer you have to blame the Palestinians latest tit without acknowledging any of Israel’s tats before or after.
Your account is ridiculously pro Zionist. It is not an honest assessment of the history. In the 19th century, Jewish people were a small percentage of the people that lived in the region. Even by 1947, they were only 30% of the population and the UN partition which had no input from Palestinians gave the Jewish people 56% of the land, while giving the Palestinians that made up 70% of the population only 42%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine
At every juncture, the Palestinians have been offered a much smaller piece of the land than would justify if the allocation was based on population. When they have balked (sometimes with horrible violence) at these ridiculous proposals, they have been portrayed as the evil doer. While the violence by Israel is erased or ignored. It’s abuser logic masquerading as reasonable centrism.
I don’t have any answers, but neither do you nor KD. However, any true reconciliation would have to acknowledge the wrongs and rights of each side in how we got here and work from there to attain a sustainable peace. It would take forgiveness and basing land allocation much more closely to population than Israel has been willing to allow at least in this century. There were efforts in the past by more moderate Israeli leaders that got sidetracked by RW Zionist violence and the Israeli electorate turning more rightward.
Yours and KD’s sweeping it all under the rug as bothsiderism is shallow superficiality. It’s a poor subsitute.
Who was the good guy? Afrikaners or Africans? English or Irish? Americans or Sioux?
Conquest was for millennia a widely tolerated way to nation-build and acquire territory. We began to move away from this dynamic in the 17th century, and, mercifully, put it to bed forever after WW2. Israel's 1948 borders (just) made the cut, largely because there had been no nation state in that area, but rather sundry colonial possessions going back more than 2,000 years.
So, while the moral basis of the 1948 border is suspect—and while there's no question that the original UN proposal (close to a 50/50 divide between Jews and Arabs) would have bee more just, I put that in the "It was bad of the English to conquer Wales" category. There's no going to back to write every wrong when it comes to national borders.
But Israeli's 1967 conquests are a different kettle of fish, entirely. Just a blatantly illegal land grab.
For this reason I find the "We don't have a reliable negotiating partner" excuse on the part of Israelis (as to why there can't be a Palestinian state) complete bullshit. A pretty good way to avoid having to negotiate with conquered people you find unreasonable is to refrain from conquering them in the first place!
But you skip over various offers from the Israelis, and two intifadas And on the other side, relentless land grabs by the Israelis.
The path forward isn’t righting yesterday’s wrongs. It’s coming up with a modus vivendi allowing two people to live together peacefully.
But you skip over various offers from the Israelis,
No I don't. it's not up to imperialists to "offer" to give back territory they have illegally conquered, annexed and occupied. Rather, they are required to do so under international law.
Just get the fuck off of land that doesn't belong to you. In other words, unilaterally withdraw.
Don't want nasty blowback from the weak? (It is weak actors, after all, who turn to terrorism. The strong use national armies). Then start obeying international law.
Well said.
Unless Israelis can show a bill of sale, return Israel to 1946 boundaries.
What gives you the idea that would be acceptable to Palestinians? It wasn’t then.
This is very typical. When you finally back an Israeli supporter into acknowledging major consessions from their side are well justified, the response is "well, Palestinians would never accept that."
I call bullshit. There have been numerous statements and offers from all Arab parties in recent decades that they would accept Israel if it withdrew, not even to 1948 lines, but to 1967 lines. Plenty of other issues to sort out, but Israel is the one that (1967 up to this point) will never accept a peace for land offer.
Violence begets more violence and that goes double if it's religiously motivated. Catholics and Protestants slaughtered each other all over Europe for hundreds of years before they finally exhausted themselves. Croatians and Serbs. Sunnis and Shiites. Irish Catholics and Protestants. And so on...
Why would you expect this to be any different?
The history of humans simply reinforces the saying that "…an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind."
"An eye for an eye" was a vast improvement over the traditions of the time, which "modern" Israelis are still practicing: make the rest of the world blind, if anybody takes one of your eyes.
How is 35,000 dead civilians (including over 19,000 childen) in any way comparable or "proportional" to Israel's purported losses? Which are now in question, given their provien lies about beheadings, rapes, and all the other supposed atrocities?
There's a simple answer here: Israel is the bad guy. For three decades (since Olso accords) they've been stealing Palestinian land. Continuously stealing it. It has never mattered what the Palestinians have done or not done. During the peaceful times when the PA and Israel were negotiating "final status", Israel was continuing to steal PA land. It's a *constant* of the history. The PA were trying *hard* to work *with* Israel to keep the peace, to the point where Palestinian security services were branded as collaborators back then. And yet, thru it all, Israel continued to steal Palestinian land.
Israel is the bad guy.
P.S. And note that I'm not talking about the land of Israel proper. I'm talking about *only* the Occupied Territories.
Agree. Many "americans" have no idea the theft that is ongoing.
Everyone with an IQ above 50 knows it is ongoing. Every President has called for it to stop. Ineffectively.
But no, those land grabs don’t justify the Second Intifada, either morally or pragmatically. Suicide bombing teen hangouts and destroying the only political party willing to talk to you wasn’t a great idea.
So, how do you propose fixing it?
Killing three or twelve Palestinians per week doesn't seem to be working, except for giving people reason to commit terrorist acts.
BTW, why is it that Israel pontificates about "hostages" yet refuses to admit they have thousands of hostages in their own jails, some waiting years for the Israeli "judicial system" to work.
You’re right. Neither side wants the other to exist. Both have “river to the sea” aspirations. Israel put the West Bank under constant pressure for the last 50 years with land seizures, “settlers”, and a constant military presence— a little like the pogroms in Russia. And Gaza has been a ghetto for many years and has now it is being destroyed.
Hamas hasn’t wanted to deal with Israel any more than the Israelis with Hamas. Their sporadic attacks were annoyances but Oct 7 was brutal with the slaughter of 1200 people, many non-military and seizure of innocent hostages.
And Israel in its response has lost its mind and lost the sympathy of much of the world and even created a mass protest movement in the states. Quite an achievement given the opinions in October.
At some point maybe there will be a meaningful negotiation but before that Netanyabu has to go as do the leaders of Hamas.
Neither side wants the other to exist? How about the PA?
In its 2017 charter, Hamas hinted at a willingness to accept a two state solution:
This is a starting position for negotiations; it’s not clear how many concessions beyond this Hamas would be willing to make in an actual negotiation. I don't think that Israel and the Palestinians are likely to agree to a two state solution under any circumstances, but I also don't think that the current Hamas leadership is an absolute roadblock to such an agreement. I agree that Netanyahu is an absolute roadblock because he appears to be dead set against any two state solution.
Hamas was elected in 2006. Not certain what "charter" you are talking about.
Have you ever heard of searching the web? kenneth is not your personal Jeeves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Hamas_charter
I thought you were better than this response Bardi. You come across as snide and wrong, Pro-tip, either be wrong or snide, both makes you look like an amateur clown.
I know this puts me in the crazy camp, but what if every adult had the right to vote and everyone there had a guarantee of freedom of religion and a right not to be discriminated against because of religion?
The birth rate among Palestinians is significantly higher than for the Israelis. It won't be long before the Palestinians are a majority. If they had the right to vote...well...you can figure out the rest.
Religious freedom mostly means the freedom to impose my religious views on everyone else.
In Israel, Arabs have the right to vote, they have their own political party, and they even have members of parliament. Not saying this justifies everything else -- or anything else. But it's information that everyone needs if we're going to base our discussion on facts.
Some more facts: the Jewish homeland was "colonized," in my admittedly meager understanding of history by -- in succession -- Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Turks, Arabs, then more Turks, then the British -- did I forget anyone?
In Israel, Arabs have the right to vote, they have their own political party, and they even have members of parliament.
That's nice. Jewish Israelis have had a consensus from the very beginning, kept except for a single 18 month period, that the Arab parties shall not be allowed to join a ruling coalition. Having members of the Knesset with no chance of ever being a part of the government isn't much different than not being allowed to vote.
Also, don't believe anyone who tells you that Arab Israelis have the same rights as Jewish Israelis, because it's not true.
Under the Law of Return, Jewish citizens of Israel are allowed to bring their family members from any other county to Israel and have them granted citizenship. Families of Arab Israelis are generally banned from entry into the country.
About 80% of all of the land in Israel is owned by three quasi-governmental corporations, and is then rented to individuals or businesses. One of them explicitly refuses to lease land to non-Jews, while the other two just make it difficult.
Municipalities in Israel receive subsidies from the national government. Arab towns receive significantly lower per capita subsidies than predominantly Jewish towns do.
There is a law that allows municipalities to prohibit members of specified ethnic groups from taking up residence. In practice, this is used entirely by Jewish communities to prevent them from having to live with Arab neighbors.
Israel's supporters love to go on and on about how Israel tolerates Arab citizens and treats them equally. It's bullshit.
Yeah being an Israeli Palestinian sucks, and being a West Bank Palestinian sucks worse.
Kind of like Jim Crow America. Being Black in the South sucked worse, but it was no picnic anywhere.
And people who trumpet how generous Israel is 'giving' their Palestinian citizens the vote sound to my ears like pious Jim Crow-era prattle about our wonderful democracy.
Arabs in Israel proper can vote. Palestinians in the occupied territories can't, at least in Israeli elections.
That, of course, depends on what you count as Israel. In the land that Israel claims, only a small percentage of the Arabs have a right to vote. Most are kept indefinitely stateless. It is true that within the 1967 borders the level of discrimination that Arabs face is not out of keeping with what minority groups face in other countries. But nowadays when countries try to distinguish between the 1967 borders and the land Israel took in 1967, Israel calls them anti-Semites.
Can't forget the Crusader kingdoms, not that they lasted all that long. Don't know if the Egyptians count as colonizers; they were more like hegemons over a vassal state, unless one counts the Ayyubid and Mamluk Sultanates as Egyptian rather than Arab.
Canaanites.
It won't be long before the Palestinians are a majority.
They may already be a majority. It's notoriously difficult to get reliable population statistics, but my research indicates both the Arab and Jewish communities between the river and the sea each count a hair over seven million souls. Of course, the government ruling that territory denies citizenship rights to something like 2/3rds of the Arabs, so as to avoid being outvoted.
Birth rates tend to be higher in societies under stress.
That is where Peter Beinart ended up. The counter arguments are that it is politically impossible or it won't work, or both.
Thought experiment: Decades from now Israel is a deeply isolated pariah state, (think S. Africa). It is not working. Israelis can't get visas, trade shrinks every year, Israel realizes it has no choice but reform. Would Israel choose a unified state with equal rights for all, or negotiate a soverign Palestinian state?
The latter, I think. It gives up less.
Obviously a separate Palestinian state, because a unified state means that sooner or later the Jews would be demographically overwhelmed and there would be no more state for the Israeli nation. The idea of living as a minority in a Palestinian-Arab run state would rightly be anathema to Israelis.
I.... hate both sides.
Required: https://youtu.be/NUHk2RSMCS8
This Land Is Mine, Nina Paley:
https://youtu.be/8tIdCsMufIY?si=qrClMqUPKkW7nIe5
A brilliant work of art
A lot of the protesters borrow imagery and rhetoric from previous foreign policy campaigns like the anti-apartheid movement and Vietnam war protests.
Which is a good place to compare and contrast.
Even in its most extreme, the African National Congress never called for the whites to be driven out of South Africa.
A lot of the Vietnam protesters naively imagined that if the US was the bad guy, the North Vietnamese must be the good guy and as it turns out, there were no good guys in that fight either.
However much I personally favor a two state solution where Palestinians and Israelis live peacefully side by side, neither Hamas nor Likud seems to want that as their goal.
I can grieve over the suffering and view with horror the slaughter happening but I just can't bring myself to sign on to the goals of either side.
Why do only Hamas and Israel get mentioned when only the PA is willing to deal?
PA willingness to deal is so threatening to Israel that Netanyahu, with breathtaking cynicism, supported Hamas in a divide and conquer strategy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-qatar-money-prop-up-hamas.html#:~:text=The%20payments%20were%20part%20of,of%20a%20large%2Dscale%20attack.
Actually supporting the peace process if you want US aid makes sense, bit by bit the US is getting there.
I excluded the PA because from what I can see, they appear to be marginalized and out of favor with the Palestinian people themselves (which is how Hamas came to power).
I understand fully that Likud helped engineer this, but the fact remains PA hasn't been able to gain the trust and approval needed to be the shot-callers in this situation even apart and separate from Israeli meddling.
I wish it were different! I just don't see any evidence that the bulk of Palestinians are willing to live in peace alongside a Jewish state.
I would love to be proven wrong.
The Viet Cong were the good guys.
Why does 'who is better' matter? You have two peoples on a slice of land, there are two decent choices:
1. Live together in one state with equal rights for all
2. Split up the land reasobnably fairly so each people has their own soverign state.
All peoples have a right to self-determination, it is up to the 14 million people in Palestine/Israel to choose either 1. or 2. What is stopping them?
Hamas, obviously, has a sworn mission to drive Israel out. Israel for twenty years has done all it can to prevent either solution.
Only the hapless and corrupt PLO/Palestinian Authority is willing to actually sit a table and deal in something resembling good faith.
No hands are clean, but if you aren't part of the solution you are part of the problem. If any party deserves US support it is the PA, and in fact we do give them some support. Fundamental US policy is simple: aid only to countries actively working for peace.
The Biden Plan is pretty good. Read recent Tom Friedman (I know it is hard to forgive his Iraq invasion boosterism, but recently on I/P he is really good.) Gift link
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/26/opinion/israel-war-rafah-riyadh.html?unlocked_article_code=1.n00.liXX.SYsZhQldkpE2&smid=url-share
This is a disappointingly simpleminded post for Drum. And yet sadly it is actually a step up from where Drum started on this subject because it seems like it was only a month ago that Drum was going with the premise that until a couple of decades ago Israel was the good guys and the Palestinians were the bad guys, and they have only both been bad recently. It is good to see that Drum now sees the Nakba as bad.
That said, I can't see that Drum would do this kind of simplistic analysis in any other situation. Certainly Hamas is a bad guy. So is the current Israeli government. But Abbas' willingness to sacrifice his popularity with security cooperation in the hopes of getting a deal for his people does not make him a bad guy. He is, of course, no angel. But it is pretty clear that in 2008 he was ready to make a deal which would give the 50% of people who are Israelis 78% of the land and to throw in security guarantees and have the Palestinian state be something evolved into rather than an immediate concession. This does not deserve to be lumped in with the "bad guys".
And as "antiscience" above (or below if your comments come in the opposite order) correctly notes, over the last 25 years, actually more than 30, there has been no balance whatsoever. The Israelis have worked methodically and consistently to prevent the kind of solution that Drum is suggesting good guys would be working for. The Palestinians have not. Today, even Hamas has been suggesting that it would not stand in the way of this kind of division of the land in a way that is very favorable to the Israelis. (This is something they have done before, but it usually gets dismissed for reasons that are a mix of Hamas' fault and defenders of Israel not wanting it to be true).
The point is not that the Palestinians are angels. My brother in law once complained that the Tibetans manage to be peaceful, so why can't the Palestinians. Of course the Tibetans are watching their culture be crushed by a powerful neighbor, which is likely why the Palestinians do not take that as their model. Still I suppose the Tibetans can be called good guys in a way that the Palestinians are not (and Americans never would be under any circumstances).
But the "there are no good guys" level of analysis just works as an excuse to allow Israel to commit atrocities.
Wow. Really good comment!
I think you are right that KD has moved a bit.
Absolutely the PA is in the mix too and is the sole party willing to pursue peace in good faith. It is perverse that the most responsible of the three is ignored.
“This is a disappointingly simpleminded post for Drum.”
I agree with this statement, but it did give us your wonderful response. I am grateful for his half baked post leading to your thoughtful analysis. He is evolving, so we should focus on that positive development.
Hamas has accepted an Israeli state based on the 1967 lines since 2006.
Israel has rejected that since 1967.
Funny how no one mentions either of these.
There is plenty to list on the Palestinian side, but to lump Camp David in there is dumb
people who were there leading negotiations say it should never have happened, so...
https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/07/13/lost-in-woods-camp-david-retrospective-pub-82287
Thanks for sharing that link. I found it very interesting.
This is sad. In the last 30 years, i.e. the lifetime of 50% of the world, Israel is supposed to feel justified in wanton slaughter because:
1. Palestine rejected a peace deal 30 years ago;
2. Various Palestinian terrorist group launched awful missile attacks; and
3. Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist group, launched A brutal terrorist attack.
One of those is literally negotiation. The other two are terrorists groups, not the Palestinians as a whole. And that’s supposed to rationalize Israel’s utter hate for Palestine to the Palestinians?
I can’t empathize with a country trying to destroy a people because some of that people are terrorists, and I’m not a Palestinian facing imminent destruction. I said this earlier, but how is some West Bank farmer supposed to find empathy with Israeli forces trying to displace and kill them.
If anyone but Israel was doing this, we wouldn’t be talking about the occupied group needing to show empathy for the occupiers. It’s Kevin showing a lack of empathy here, not Palestinians.
Probably should mention the 2nd Intifada.
This bit from the Life of Brian is timeless, it could be used to make fun of just about anyone on the modern social-political spectrum:
REG: Right. You're in. Listen. The only people we hate more than the Romans are the fucking Judean People's Front.
P.F.J.: Yeah...
JUDITH: Splitters.
P.F.J.: Splitters...
FRANCIS: And the Judean Popular People's Front.
P.F.J.: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Splitters. Splitters...
LORETTA: And the People's Front of Judea.
P.F.J.: Yeah. Splitters. Splitters...
REG: What?
LORETTA: The People's Front of Judea. Splitters.
REG: We're the People's Front of Judea!
Combatants against state-sponsored terrorism are the good guys. The combatants from the Warsaw Ghetto were good guys. The combatants who assassinated Heydrich were good guys. The militia members who planted IED's against the occupiers of Iraq were good guys. Hezbollah represents the good guys. Soleimani was a good guy. Hamas are the good guys. Occupiers and colonizers can never be the good guys.
And whose land are YOU presently occupying/colonizing?
https://native-land.ca/
I suggest the 1967 war should be transferred from column A to column B. It was started by Israel, which took the opportunity to annex most of the territories which have caused conflict ever since.
This is a gifted link to Kevin...an interview of Salman Rushdie by Ezra Klien in the NYT in case Kevin has not seen it yet, or brushed by the interview in his busyness.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/26/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-salman-rushdie.html?unlocked_article_code=1.oE0.a1KG.nPPFW5zdiwOP&smid=url-share
All of this seems so very important, from the opening story about a man's shadow stealing a a man's life and woman...by Han Christian Anderson, (though of course, the original Grimm's FairyTales are even much more alarming!), to the conclusion on how a young man growing up in Jersey went to South Lebanon and, in truth, that young man never returned to his mother, someone else returned,...a Muslim would be murderer.
Of course the heart of the Interview is with the Amazing Mr Rushdie....and goes to the essence of bravery, (something Kevin already has but it is good to see it in others), and our often not shared enough common humanity.
Bravery, courage, forgiveness, death and why Rushdie should receive the Nobel Prize is all here...and of course the article is free to everyone. Best Wishes, Traveller
It’s a zero sum game (fixed amount of land) and both players have decided they will gain more from competition than cooperation. Israel has organization and technology on their side while Hamas has population and desperation on theirs.
Uh oh… even Arab governments are arresting protesters. Hilarious. So many bad people in the Middle East.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/29/world/middleeast/gaza-arab-protests-crackdown.html
Earlier this month, however, when hundreds of people gathered in downtown Cairo to demonstrate in solidarity with Gaza, Egyptian security officers swooped in, arresting 14 protesters, according to their lawyer. Back in October, the government had organized pro-Palestinian rallies of its own. Yet at those, too, it detained dozens of people after protesters chanted slogans critical of the government. More than 50 of them remain behind bars, their lawyers say.
It was a pattern that has repeated itself around the region since Israel, responding to an attack by Hamas, began a six-month war in Gaza: Arab citizens’ grief and fury over Gaza’s plight running headlong into official repression when that outrage takes aim at their own leaders. In some countries, even public display of pro-Palestinian sentiment is enough to risk arrest.
You do understand that the conflict did not start on October 7?
Conflicts like this inevitably force a decision about choosing a side, because the US has an empire to run and our domestic politics is all tangled up with the opposing sides. For my part, I side with disinvestment in Israel's military as long as Israel is in violation of international law. That seems a pretty clear line - and we have a law to facilitate it, if Biden would just take action to curb Israel's worst violations.
In this both side-ism, one party has always been in the position of power. While having massive influence on and the support of the largest economic and military power in the world. The current political orientation and goals of Israel was by their choice, specifically the zionist faction.
"but apart from the 1948 war, the Red Sea blockades, the creation of the PLO, the 1967 war, the 1973 war, the 1987 intifada, the rejection of Camp David, the 2000 intifada, relentless missile attacks, and the October 7 massacre"
I am not aware of any 1948 war, Red Sea blockade, 1967 war or 1973 war started by the Palestinians. Also, the first intifada was mostly peaceful protest and Camp David was hugely unfair. Blaming Palestinians for all of those, wow. Also, the Suez war was not against Palestinians, so cross one off the Israeli fault list too.
With affection, Kevin, just stay away from this matter.
True, Kevin shows a remarkable tendency to parrot the standard talking points.
1948 war was started by Israel invading Palestine in APRIL. Yes, it is true, look it up.
1967 War was started by Israel. At least two Israeli Prime Ministers have publicly admitted that.
Palestine never blockaded the Red Sea: what are you smoking?
1973? You mean when EGYPT (who is not Palestine) moved to take back ITS OWN LAND?
The creation of the PLO to represent Palestine is hardly an attack on Israel.
The 1987 Intifada started as a non-violent movement to claim their own land back.
Both sides accepted Camp David (yes, look it up) though BOTH side accepted it "with reservatons" (20 pages of them for Israel.)
The 2000 intifada was caused by Israel.
Israel rejected and walked out of the 2001 talks.
Israel rejected and walked out of the 2008 talks.
Israel rejected and walked out of the 2014 talks.
On average, Israel has been attacking Palestine several times PER DAY in the last few years.
Several studies show that it is Israel that breaks cease fires and the Palestinians are only responding. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reigniting-violence-how-d_b_155611 for example.
Israel fires about 20 times more projectiles into Palestine as vice versa.
Thank you for the actual historical data. Also, Israel's projectiles are modern state of the art precision guided and hit their designated targets, unlike the Hamas home made from spent Israeli ordnance projectiles, which have an accuracy and effectiveness of your standard firecracker.
This land is my land!!! But not Gaza. Too Philistine for me.
https://israelmap360.com/old-map-israel
Um ... how is "apart from the 1948 war" included in the Palestinian ledger -- ?
As a fact check, the UN's Palestine Partition Plan was profoundly biased: it essentially maximized the territory allocated to the proposed Jewish state while maintaining a solid Jewish majority. The Plan gave 55% of Mandate Palestine to Israel ... and yet Israel ended up with 78% of the territory, occupying fully half of the territory allocated to the proposed Arab state.
And yet we are supposed to believe that Israel was just "defending itself from invading Arab armies" when it took the additional territory and by the way ethnically cleansed over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs in the process.
If that "history" doesn't ring false to you ... I don't know what to say to you. But it wouldn't be anything complimentary.
I think it is more somplicated than you suggest. Israel formed itself announcing they support the UN Partition Plan, Arabs did not support the partition or a Jewish state. So Israel was defending itself.
I agree with you the UN Partition Plan was unfair to Palestinians. It was not binding, it was a proposal. Arab rejection was sound as a matter in international law. Since the UN Charter has a basic right of self-determination it could not be anything more than a "plan" or a "proposal" and those are in fact the words used. Israel treating the proposal as if it were binding and gave them rights to the territory was worse than shaky as a matter of law but a PR coup. Read Kevin's I/P history and the comments on his I/P posts. Many many people buy into it.
In 2024 endlessly picking over the history is counter-productive. In fact, as a matter of politics I think accepting no one's hands are clean helps, it makes a compromise just by discrediting maximilist claims.
Really, that is what we are seeing on both sides. Both sides have committed plenty of bad acts. Extremists can tell a story of victimhood and claim their maximilist position is what justice demands. (I doubt either Israeli or Palestinian children learn a fair history in grade school) Both Israel and Hamas want full control from the river to the sea, they may successfuly destroy each other. Note: the PA accepts Israel, they are the only responsible party despite their many flaws.
I read a lot of mainstream American media, but it has been hard to figure out what has been going on the Mideast. Now and then, I come across something like
https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/50/1201/487724/AlAhram-Weekly/Egypt/The-cost-of-terrorism.aspx
Did you know that Egypt just finished its war on the terrorists in the Sinai a year ago January? I sure as hell didn't. Apparently, it's been going on since 2013. No wonder Egypt is helping keep Gaza bottled up. They know which side Hamas is on, and the military dictatorship does not want Egypt turned into another Islamic state. There has been a whole war going on that barely seems to get covered by the news media in the US.
Apparently, we're still seeing the fallout from the Arab Spring. It's a lot like Europe in the 1830s and 1840s with brewing rebellions and political instability as forces, old and new, fought for the future.
This is a real "Both sides, right? What are you gonna do? Me, I'm gonna do nothing" post.