Comment by mrangle
1 year ago
The primary problem was always that there are too many parties who have an interest in the existence of Hamas.
Put differently, there are too many parties with an interest in using the Palestinians as pawns. Leaving aside the views of any specific Palestinian. As no serious person can dispute the ease of radicalizing destitute people without educations and with PTSD.
As long as this is the case, the Palestinians, on the whole, will present as radicalized.
The continued goal can't be to use them as pawns. The goal has to be to peacefully save every last remaning Palestinian life, at all costs. In spite of the interests of any of the people who use them.
Accomplishing that goal, at all peaceful costs, will be distasteful to both the people who want to sacrifice the Palestinians for Islamic land interests as well as to the people who see them as, at minimum, legitimate collateral damage.
But that is what will be required to take Palestinian civilians out of the middle of this endless nightmare.
“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas … This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” - Benjamin Netanyahu
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/20/benjam...
The problem is tribalism. The primary goal is exclusive dominion, but a distant secondary goal of political and militaristic domination will suffice in the meantime. These aren’t my thoughts or conclusions but the stated goals of several of Israel’s most senior politicians, saying something to the effect of removing the inhabitants so that they can make the desert blossom.
The problems here can be solved peacefully and permanently if the dominant faction so wished. The most durable solution is to tear down the walls, annex the occupied territories, and make the Palestinian residents full and equal citizens of Israel. Israel has stated as much directly but refuses that solution because they fear their tribal identity will not longer be a numerical majority. Another less durable solution is a two state solution in opposition to military dominance, but Israel does not want that either. Tribalism. The parallels to the conflict in the Balkans, which was ruled a genocide, are many.
Your solution is to make Jews a minority in their own country? The entire reason Israel was created is to have a safe place for Jews to exist and having the power to defend themselves.
Imagining that just “tearing down the walls”, and “why can’t we all just gel along” will work is pretty naive, especially considering history .
The solution is to end tribalism, and nothing more. The rest of your comment imagines and argues against something not stated.
Do you want peace or domination? You can’t have both, and that is not naive.
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I can understand the need for a Jewish state. (Though wouldn't the same apply to other disenfranchised groups? Why not a Roma or a Native American state?)
What I don't understand is why that state had to be erected in a land where people were already living, against the explicit wishes of that population, and in the end pushed through with military force.
Or rather, I do understand: This was how the world powers of the late 19th century were thinking and operating. They thought they had the god-given right to redraw the world map as they saw fit, in Africa in the 19th, and in the middle east in the early 20th century. But this mindset is what everywhere else we renounce as colonialism today - except for some reason here.
I think present-day Israelis do have a valid claim to the land, because they were born there and spent their entire life in that land. Forcing them to move away would amount just as much to expulsion than demanding the same from Palestinians. (Not even speaking of things that would amount to not just expulsion but genocide)
What I don't understand is what would give them the exclusive claim to the land or the right to drive others off it.
Its not Naive, précisely regarding history. Look at how wars stopped in Europe beween or even within countries. People just started to get along after being tired of destroying each other.
The problem that prevents it in this case is religious extremists in both sides. For example there will never be peace as long as the israeli gov support west bank settlements toward the goal of a "great Israel". They are all extremely explicit about it and its not a conspiracy theory.
> dispute the ease of radicalizing destitute people without educations and with PTSD
Using the same broad stroke generalization and similarly de-humanizing moral compass; how do you judge the society these people celebrating child murder, arson, death, riots, mass executions, hateful incitement belong to: https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/17237393892624344...
> But that is what will be required to take Palestinian civilians out of the middle of this endless nightmare
One might say, the chief among requirements is for the occupation of a people who have rejected it every step of the way to end. Everything else is a distraction.
The primary problem has been a brutal occupation, apartheid state, and blockade