Edited title to match articles title.
I’ve been tracking the comments on all of this across various websites to see what people’s thoughts are. This genuinely might be the most contentious issue of our age. There are people who are vehemently pro Palestine and can dismiss the loss of civilian lives as’ what do you expect when people are pushed like this’ . Then others are hugely pro Israel and see this as an unprovoked attack by a terrorist group and any retaliation is justified.
I think everyone’s shitty here. Hamas is a terrorist organization. They use terrorist practices and target civilians. That’s a terrorist organization. There’s no discussion on that point. Israel is a right wing authoritarian state that regularly commits war crimes. The total Palestinian body count far exceeds the death toll from this attack by orders of magnitude so we can’t pretend like Israel was minding its own business and was attacked.
I don’t think you can point to one or the other as being the true hero or the true victim. It’s the greatest grey area of all time.
I absolutely condemn the Palestinians and Hamas for this act. I absolutely condemn the Israelis for their continued mistreatment and violence towards Palestinians. One will say they only act this way because of the behavior of the other. But at this point where does the original blame for all of it start and end.
The only thing that is certain is that there will be far more blood shed and every dead Israeli will be met with 10 dead Palestinians. I suspect this will be the turning point for this ongoing conflict. And in the future there may no longer be a Palestine as we know it. With the US protecting Israel no other Arab countries will dare intervene militarily. If the Israelis occupy Gaza it’s going to quickly become a quagmire with a never ending insurgency. It will be costly and in ten years Israel will be more unsafe then they were today.
There’s no good answers or good parties here. Just disgusting human nature and the consequences of half baked racist geopolitics from the 40s.
But at this point where does the original blame for all of it start
The Brits
Sykes-Picot and the Balfour Declaration basically created the political climate of the Middle East.
Basically, the British and French decided that the Arabs were too stupid to figure out borders and squiggly lines that followed lame things like “shared cultural heritage” and “similar religious beliefs” were far too complicated.
I did some digging today because I was curious on what led to the Balfour Declaration, and what led to that, and so forth. The only thing I have to add here is there were geopolitics involving a separatist Ottoman sultan, and it seems the British wanted to create a sphere of influence for themselves in the area through a Jewish population (Catholic Church gave France influence, Orthodox Church gave Russia influence). Zionists were happy to work with them.
That begs the question then, how did the Zionist goal of a Jewish homeland start? The furthest I could trace it back to was Russian pogroms of Jewish migrants. The pogroms led a Jewish intellectual to contend that the only way for Jews to live freely and respected was an independent Jewish state. There was a zeitgeist of a enlightenment for Judaism at the time as well which asked questions about culture and religion and identity.
I have yet to go back further from there. It seems like oppression and discrimination against Jews during the middle ages could be a significant factor… and that would probably draw us back to the Romans in Jerusalem.
At this point, shit’s just fucked. The idea of a Jewish state, the creation of one, and what led to the originating idea span centuries and several nations. And having a Jewish state is central to this whole issue. I don’t think history has an answer for us here.
That’s a foolish assumption. Plenty of countries have strong reasons to weaken Israel, and plenty of other countries have strong reasons to support them.
Russia and China are spreading as much propaganda about this as the the US and its allies, guaranteed.
Do you have LITERALY any proof for this or is this baseless assumption. I can tell you the PRC through there statements and actions are being PAINFULLY middle of the road in there efforts to remain nutral in the middle east, and I am sorry but russia is no supper power, and it also, as you may or may not know has bigger things to worry about than trying to propogandize over a war over opressed people who have been subjected to a genocide striking out.
Need I remind you the language that Isn’treal is using in relation to the Palistinians, or what they have done for the past decades. No only one side is mobilizing an astroturffed army, and it sure as hell is not the palistinan side.
FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA, PALISTINE SHALL BE FREE
Pretty much the only unbiased take anyone can have. Both sides f*cking suck. I disagree that this is the turning point tho. We’ve been here before and we’ll stay here until both sides come to the table and actually discuss a peaceful resolution to the conflict. It’ll never happen with hamas so they have to go. It’ll never happen with the current Israeli government so they need to be replaced with more diplomatic leaders. Neither is gonna happen tho, the continued conflict just puts more dependence on the bad actors that keep escalating it. Honestly I see hamas cracking before Israel softens but who knows if or when that’ll happen. I wouldn’t be surprised if this conflict continued far beyond my lifetime.
I disagree that this is the turning point tho.
Turning point, no, but I can see this being, in retrospect, an erm fulcrum point. Like what 9/11 did to the US, where the question “why do they hate us”, besides further idiocy, also led to some legitimate insight into how the US’ actions affect the world and provoke reactions, similarly the notion “we bred that monster” might get some more wide-spread traction in Israel.
…and yes this very much is a 9/11 moment for Israel, worse, actually. Caught completely on surprise, the most Jewish deaths and that in a short time-span since the Holocaust, much larger percentage of the population, it’s definitely a defining moment.
This is why I mainly blame the US and Europe at this point.
Both sides in this situation are controlled by the most disgusting kind of sociopath and the only way to stop this is real (with teeth, not just bullshit talk) international pressure on both sides.
Instead there is real pressure on one side only, by declaring Hamas a terrorist organisation (which they are), whilst without pressure on the other side, the boot of Israel on Palestinian necks creates every day new people with nothing to lose, for whom joining an internationally labelled terrorist organisation is an actual step-up from their situation.
So the worst kind of Israelis have nothing to lose from joining the military or colonates and stealing from and murdering Palestinians because there are zero international sanctions on it, the Israeli authorities fully support it and they have overwhelming force, whilst the worst kind of Palestinians have nothing to lose from joining Hamas and murdering Israelis because they have nothing to lose since the actions of the above mentioned Israelis have made their baseline situation be “a life of misery treated as less than human” and even made any organisation that resists Israel (even one as bad as Hamas) be relativelly prestigious and an actual step-up for many in that environment.
Unless the “solution” envisioned by US and European leaders is genocide of the Palestinians, then both sides have to be put in a situation were they do have something to lose by doing what they’ve been doing and that means keeping on the pressure on Hamas and extending the sanctions to the Israeli government.
Why are you blaming just US and Europe? Why do Russia and China get a free pass? Russia gives support to Iran and Iran directly supports Hamas. China deliberately plays both sides while doing nothing to fix the situation. Nobody is actually trying to fix the whole situation but somehow only US and Europe are to blame. I’m not against being critical of the EU and US (there are things to be critical about), but let’s not act like they’re supposed to be the world police. We have other countries who could also work towards a solution, ideally in cooperation with US and EU, but they seem to be more interested in blaming “The west” than actually solving the issue.
It’s because most people on Lemmy are from those US, EU, or “commonwealth” countries, so that’s about all we have influence over. Also Russia and China’s democracies are not looking so hot these days… what kind of pressure is a citizen of one of those countries expected to have anyway.
In my country I can go to a government building and take a huge dump on a picture of our elected leader, and I may get thrown in jail, but I’ll probably be released after a slap on the wrist.
I suspect this will be the turning point for this ongoing conflict.
Agreed.
And in the future there may no longer be a Palestine as we know it.
Yea, I don’t think the two-state compromise is even possible even more. Israel won’t tolerate even letting Hamas stick around, so Gaza will be leveled. As for what will happen to the civilians; I’ve not a clue.
It goes back even further than that when you look into why Zionists wanted a Jewish state in the first place. I did a deep dive today trying to figure out the origin of the conflict and the original victims and aggressors, and I ended up in Revolutionary Russia before calling a quits for the day.
I don’t know what an ideal solution is at this point, nor what an actually viable solution would be. I wonder if it would even be better for the issue to not end instead of continuing on the path it’s on. The way things are going, the only place we’ll end up is with one of the sides completely wiped out. :/
I suspect this will be the turning point of tbe conflict. I don’t know that we are going to walk Israel back from the full on attack.
The reality is as long as there are Palestinians alive there will be a terrorist network operating in their ranks. Israel could offer an olive branch and stop their oppression of the people but that hatred runs deep and it won’t be long before there’s another attack and we are back to where we started.
There’s no good solution at all. There’s only the question of when does a military action in response to a terrorist act swap from righteous retribution to a genocide. Because short of genocide the Israelis can do nothing but occupy the territory and deal with an insurgency which will only breed more terrorists as all the fatherless sons grow up hating Israel and want to enact their revenge.
At this point a forced migration might be the option with the least bloodshed, as repulsive as it is. Then you run into the problem though that Palestinians are still shunned by the Arab world because being them being Muslim isn’t enough to override antisemitism from their nationality.
Ironically I think we might need another mandated “this region is now the home of Palestinians” like with Israel if they’re going to have a peaceful place to live.
For the record I don’t like any of these solutions. But like you said we’re quickly approaching the point where Israel may permanently end the conflict through the genocide of the Palestinians, and that’s the absolutely least desirable outcome.
Which is why the Palestinians need to recognise the writing on the wall decades ago and pushed to settle somewhere else where it isn’t a lost cause. They can’t just keep turning their people into combatants and not expect to be suppressed for it.
Israel isn’t going anywhere, it will take more than the Middle East to force them and even then, they already have nukes.
They can’t just keep turning their people into combatants and not expect to be suppressed for it.
Steps can’t be skipped when they threaten the security of Israel.
Where exactly are the Palestinians supposed to settle? The Israelis took their land, homes, and businesses, so a great many Palestinians are impoverished. Many can’t afford to move. It’s not like the Palestinian government can just purchase land and build new cities elsewhere as it’s poor too. If the Palestinians were to all move to any other country, they’d largely be refugees, reliant on their host country for food and shelter, which is a huge financial drain. Who is going to take and care for all of them?
And if they were to move, Israel would take over the evacuated area. It’ll be enough for awhile, but the population is ever growing. Who will Israel invade next?
Didn’t the Palestinians also “evict” all Jewish people? They went to Israel because they were refugees. It was about the same amount of people who fled from both sides. The only difference is that Palestinians grew from under a million refugees to more than 5 million by now. That is why they want Israel. Where would you have the Jewish people go? The Hamas want all Jews gone.
And if they were to move, Israel would take over the evacuated area. It’ll be enough for awhile, but the population is ever growing. Who will Israel invade next?
That is so bad faith. There is plenty of dessert left to expand into.
Where exactly are the Palestinians supposed to settle? The Israelis took their land, homes, and businesses, so a great many Palestinians are impoverished. Many can’t afford to move.
A great start would be to stop all this militant jihad nonsense and concentrate on stability and engaging with the Israeli economy. If you keep having thoughts of causing harm to Israel, why would anyone on their side want to employ you people.
Quit shooting yourselves in the feet.
Do you think a Palestinian passport makes countries welcome you with open arms?
Israel isn’t going anywhere
Great, they should help out their Palestinian citizens who are obviously suffering.
You know why their passport is weak? Because everywhere they went and got absorbed into the general population, they fermented revolution against the country they were in.
They did it to themselves.
It’s clear that Palestinians are not interested in peace with Israel, so why ask for help?
Ahh, the good old “Ukraine should make territorial concessions for peace” style of “argument”…
Because history has shown that conceding territory to Israel or Russia is such a great way to stop them from coming again later, killing more people and “be willing to stop” for more territory.
