1948 is a tricky amount of time.
It’s recent enough that the Palestinians still see the Israelis as recent occupiers, but far enough in the past that the Israelis have had several generations grow up there and see it as their home.
So the Israelis don’t see themselves as occupiers while the Palestinians do.
A 1-state solution is impractical at this point, but a 2-state solution leaves them as bitter enemies with a shared border neither side agrees on.
It’s a hopelessly fucked situation created by people who have been dead for decades, and I don’t think anyone knows a clean way out of it.
The only solutions are for them to share the space, which is pretty much impossible given the hatred, for them to divide the space, which will keep them at way with each other, or to let one side or the other have it all and end up with millions displaced or killed.
But regardless of who is right and wrong and who should be allowed to live there and who shouldn’t, I think we can all agree that murdering innocent civilians is wrong whether Israel is doing it or Hamas.
When Israel commits atrocities, they should be called out. When Hamas commits atrocities they should as well.
All of this brings to question whether or not the West should support Israel as one side. And that’s a hard question to answer. The West created this situation, and really shouldn’t just wash its hands of all responsibility.
As bad as Israel has been, the West can’t really walk away because they would be genocided. It’s been seen time and again that Iran, Hamas, Israel, Jordan, and others are perfectly happy to wipe them out.
I personally think that instead of supplying Israel with weapons the West should have boots on the ground as peacekeeping forces. They should protect Israel AND Palestine from attacks. By supplying Israel, the West is complicit in their attacks on Palestinians and in the establishment of illegal settlements.
Damn, that is heavy and it really doesn’t seem like there’s any way for an eventual good peaceful outcome without a lot of bloodshed leading up to it.
Thank you for taking the time to educate me on the subject instead of getting into a keyboard war. You wear the halo this evening.
