Comment by dijit
2 years ago
1) thats politically a dead end,
nobody will immediately make friends after a massacre and mass rape. Especially after decades of tensions and double especially when the muslim world once descended on Israel at once.
2) Quiet reminder that there are 1B followers of Islam and there has always been a wish (especially from Iran) to end the existence of Israel: the Palestinian people are unfortunately a pawn in that game. - Winning over the palestinians wont actually win you over anything. Instead you will have terrorist attacks by “palestinians” until the tensions are stoked again.
>nobody will immediately make friends after a massacre and mass rape
Certainly, Israel has seen to it that it will be much more difficult. Which would be my point.
>Quiet reminder that there are 1B followers of Islam and there has always been a wish (especially from Iran) to end the existence of Israel: the Palestinian people are unfortunately a pawn in that game.
As a black American, I understand the Israeli hypersensitivity to even the whiff of anti-Semitic violence as the harbinger of a possible repeat of history that should never be repeated. I also understand that lashing out at every perceived slight as the harbinger of a possible repeat of history that should never be repeated is a great way to make allies unsympathetic, as they get caught in the crossfire. The real enemy is the war you want.
I would like Israel to reach a state where it doesn't constantly fear for its existence. The road there passes through, "Not doing another Nakba."
> Winning over the palestinians wont actually win you over anything.
Establishment of a Palestinian State with a stake in peace and stability would win you something.
> Instead you will have terrorist attacks by “palestinians” until the tensions are stoked again.
One of the things this would win you is someone with interest and capacity to respond to this where the occupation/colonialism/ethnic-/religious-conflict narrative would not be applicable.
I would love to sit here and write a comment about how youre absolutely right.
But, I empathise fully with Israel and also with the Palestinian people.
On Israels side you have what amounts to a large motivated but not universal contingent of people who will literally slaughter themselves to make you look bad on the world stage, pulling out long protracted altercations where the intent is clearly to provoke the most disgusting outcome and whom have a history of invading, slaughtering and rioting. Sometimes bringing in half the Muslim world to do it.
I would be fucking terrified.
But for the Palestinians, you have an interloper, stealing the best of your ancestral lands, relegating you to tiny torrid stretches of impoverished city because they claim that they “don't trust you” based on nothing but your accident of birth. living every day knowing that this tiny population of privileged people who dont look like you at all and are so heavily financed that they live significantly better lives on your land. Meanwhile hearing constantly that they continuously kill your countrymen. For all you know: for the crime of existing.
I’d be pissed too, and I wouldn't let up either.
Both sides feel like the victim, its easy for us to sit here half a world away and conjure up idealised scenarios. But Israel is scared of the entire middle east and having an irate and catastrophically motivated population bent on its eradication and tries to handle it the best it can.
Palestine is scared of being obliterated and is outright hateful towards what it considers oppressors.
Trust is hard earned and fragile, and there are external actors involved that would like this tension to go on indefinitely.
You're once again taking a western/American view. Israeli jews largely look exactly the same as the Palestinians in gaza because guess what? Many come genetically from the same place. Gaza
Lets also not pretend that 141sq miles is tiny. It's small sure, but there are many other countries that have and do make do with it.
Beyond that, "ancestral homeland" is stupid. Jordan is their ancestral homeland and the Jordinians keep them in camps as second class citizens. The impoverished city thing is self inflicted too. They receive bilions in aid.
The real issue is that the Palestinians cause has been hijacked by Iran and other governments that hate israel in order to engage a proxy war. Other than that, other muslim countries want nothing to do with the Palestinians
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