Comment by tptacek
1 year ago
This did happen and I don't think there's a lot of prevarication to be done about how bad it was, but if we're talking about it as a way of imputing original sin to the citizens of Israel, it's worth keeping in mind that most of them are descendants of Arab Jewish people who were counter-Nakba'd --- chased from their homes across the Middle East and North Africa by pogroms.
I get why you'd respond to the previous comment, though, which reads as if it's an attempt to deny the events of the Palestinian Nakba. You're right to do that. All I'm here to say is that the 20th century history of that region is complicated and no simple narrative will get anybody to where we are today.
In many ways I agree with you. I'm not promoting any original sin.I'm simply responding the narrative that "Hamas started all this on October 7th, so as conclusion, all of what Israel is doing is justified."
Sure. It's easy to accept both arguments though: Hamas must be destroyed, but no matter how diabolical Hamas' tactics are, you still can't fight them primarily through an air war that kills tens of thousands of innocent Gazans.
Either way, my only stake in this little subthread is to stick up for the complexity of the history of the region, which both sides of the argument have a tendency to flatten to the point of unrecognizability.