You would think not living in a permanent state of armed conflict would be an incentive.
Thing is, up until last week's events, most Israelis haven't in recent years. Between Iron Dome and the land theft wall Palestinian resistance has been almost completely neutered, allowing Israelis to enjoy a pretty comfortable status quo, at the cost of teenagers spending a couple of years taking potshots at kids throwing stones. It's hard to avoid concluding that it was only the threat of retaliation from Palestinians that gave Israel any incentive to seek peace (in the absence of any willingness from its allies in the west to force it to the table).
Comparisons are onerous, of course but it could be argued that it was easier to negotiate with hardline Irish Nationalists and Ulster Unionists than it would be with the likes of Hamas.
Then there the hard-right Israelis who are also xenophobic. No 'give' there either.
That's not to say that brutal Irish Republican or Loyalist terrorists and paramilitaries were any less barbaric than Islamist ones. Barbarism is barbarism from wherever it comes.
A single Palestinian state with Israelis as joint citizens would very likely see the kind of discrimination against Jews as there's been against Palestinians - including Palestinian Christians it has to be said. But then the Greek Orthodox hierarchy (other brands are available) itself discriminates against Palestinians ...
The BBC are suggesting that there may be some significance that the US is urging Israel to show some restraint in its response - whilst supporting its right to defend itself. There's a suggestion that as Israel's closest friend it has seen the invasion plans and thought,'Yikes! Steady on!'
The US lost a great deal of international credibility when its atrocities in Vietnam were broadcast into everybody's living rooms at tea time.
It clearly doesn't want to see a backlash against Israel as it pulverises Gaza with extreme prejudice.
Yeah, yeah but that's the hand-wringing liberal media for you apologists will say.
And yes, Hamas will capitalise on that when it happens. We couldn't expect otherwise.
There's also the very real prospect of course of attacks on Jews anywhere and everywhere. There have been instances already.
I really don't know what the solution is and it is in the interests of the hardliners on both sides to polarise reactions. 'Look, look, the West is condoning attacks on Muslims!' 'Look, look, those nasty lefties and liberals are condoning attacks on Jews!'
Putin doesn't need an excuse to bombard civilians. But he could turn round and say, 'Well, the West condone it when it suits them ...'
As Gsndhi said, 'An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.'
But what's the solution? How do we avoid condemning ourselves by what we approve?
Sometimes I really feel like saying "a plague on both your houses".
They don't want equality. They want the other to cease to exist.
Who is "they"?
This is really important. Seeing a group as homogeneous is the first step towards dehumanisation, demonisation and ultimately atrocities.
When I heard the Israeli leadership talk about "animals" in connection with besieging all of Gaza I saw down a long road that ends in genocide.
*They* in this context could be the malevolent old men who seem to be responsible for so many of the world's ills. An opinion piece in the Guardian yesterday explored this idea:
Long term, the job is to get the run-of-the-mill Palestinians to accept that (a) Israel is a legitimate state, and (b) the Jews have a right to live there unharmed. Given there have been 75 years of young Palestinians being taught that neither of these two are valid viewpoints, I'd say the prospects, both short and long term, are bleak.
This makes it sound rather like the real problem is the temerity of the Palestinians who refuse to accept the right of other people to partition their land and then later drive them off it.
An ideal time to try and reach a settlement would have been before the start of the first intifada in 1987, however Israeli politicians were possibly lulled into a false sense of security by the relative quiet, the benefits of cheap Palestinian labour along with the ability to gradually annex bits of the West Bank appealed to politicians of both left and right for different reasons and the pain of deliberate de-development of Gaza and the West Bank had yet to bite.
More recently, post Oslo every Israeli government which allowed the settlements to expand did so in the full knowledge that it made an eventual peace harder. Simultaneously the situation in Gaza had become intolerable - the reason for the young population is that life expectancy is low, unemployment is incredibly high, especially among the young, and Oxfam calculated that due to the blockade it would take around 170 years for enough material to reach Gaza to get it back to the level of infrastructure it had in 2014. These are not the kinds of circumstances to breed either stable institutions or long term thinking. It's not surprising then that around 40% of Gazan's are clinically depressed (citations from Sara Roy's book on Gaza's Economy). The idea that Gaza would magically turn into Singapore - which I've seen floated a few times - is patently ludicrous on multiple levels.
Short of genocide, there's no record of using violence to solve these situations, and people without a hope or future for either themselves or their children are going to end up acting in increasingly desperate and horrific ways.
Has Egypt actually said why, or is it just "no, not doing that"?
From the Guardian link:
Cairo has said the expulsion of so many Palestinians from their homes would be in breach of international law, and a national security risk for Egypt that is liable to bankrupt the country’s ailing economy.
Three reasons why, I suppose, although how valid they might be is another matter...
Egypt is in a rather precarious place economically and politically, with very high inflation, a parliament that is increasingly restive, and the president using every excuse to keep the emergency powers he got under Covid.
Besides which, I suspect that at least some of them would be influenced by Palestinian fears that they wouldn't be allowed to return, and so being allowed to leave is tantamount to being ethnically cleansed from Gaza.
Sometimes I really feel like saying "a plague on both your houses".
They don't want equality. They want the other to cease to exist.
Who is "they"?
This is really important. Seeing a group as homogeneous is the first step towards dehumanisation, demonisation and ultimately atrocities.
When I heard the Israeli leadership talk about "animals" in connection with besieging all of Gaza I saw down a long road that ends in genocide.
That road is not a long one. About the distance from Tel Aviv to Gaza City in an Israeli warplane, and it's already happening. The goal of the Israeli government is the destruction of the Palestinian people. Not necessarily by killing them all, but by forcing them from their land, destroying their towns and villages and farms, and eliminating the Palestinian identity as distinct from "Arab". Zionist rhetoric has long denied the national identity of Palestinians, and making the "facts on the ground" fit their view of reality has been Israeli policy for a quarter century or more.
Incidentally, judging from what I'm seeing on social media, Islamophobia (particularly directed at Sadiq Khan and Humza Yousuf but also at Muslim descendants of immigrants in the UK in general) seems to be more prevalent than anti-semitism (though I've seen more than enough of the latter to unsettle the stomach for a while). What's also disturbing is the number of paid pro-Israel propaganda ads popping up in my feeds. Someone is putting a lot of money into the propaganda war.
Incidentally, judging from what I'm seeing on social media, Islamophobia (particularly directed at Sadiq Khan and Humza Yousuf but also at Muslim descendants of immigrants in the UK in general) seems to be more prevalent than anti-semitism (though I've seen more than enough of the latter to unsettle the stomach for a while). What's also disturbing is the number of paid pro-Israel propaganda ads popping up in my feeds. Someone is putting a lot of money into the propaganda war.
Yes, I've noticed some pro-Israel ads when visiting YouTube. No pro-Palestine ads, of course.
Can I remind people of the 'own voice' aspect of Epiphanies? Rather than posting UK and US bloggers there are people actually living in Gaza and Israel who are on the sharp end of the situation. It would be good if we could centre more of these sources.
As an example which won't be to everyone's taste but it's a source of people from both communities commenting is 972 an online magazine run by a group of Palestinian and Israeli journalists
Sometimes I really feel like saying "a plague on both your houses".
They don't want equality. They want the other to cease to exist.
Who is "they"?
(From Bishop's Finger:)
*They* in this context could be the malevolent old men who seem to be responsible for so many of the world's ills.
Yes. The ones who are running the show. I'm aware that there are ordinary people on either side who don't share their views, but they don't have the influence.
What's also disturbing is the number of paid pro-Israel propaganda ads popping up in my feeds. Someone is putting a lot of money into the propaganda war.
I don't doubt this for a moment but what social media platforms are you seeing these on? I left Twitter in August but can quite believe there's a lot of that sort of thing going on there. I haven't seen any of these myself elsewhere.
@Louise makes a fair point about input from people who actually live in Israel or Gaza, or who have close links.
I do know one person whose father is Jewish (living in England), so will be interested to hear what she might have to say, when I see her on Tuesday. I don't think it would be fair or right for me to quiz her, but she may mention the war off her own bat, as it were, during our meeting.
Meanwhile, I'm keeping an eye on our local news as to any incident relating to our beautiful and historic local Synagogue, which has had some nasty vandalism issues to contend with recently (desecration of graves, mostly, though that happened before the war started). Nothing so far, apparently - perhaps the Police are present in the area, to ward off any would-be malefactors.
I've not heard of any incidents affecting our several local Mosques, either.
I don't doubt this for a moment but what social media platforms are you seeing these on? I left Twitter in August but can quite believe there's a lot of that sort of thing going on there. I haven't seen any of these myself elsewhere.
Mostly on X ne Twitter, yes, though I think on Facebook too.
Meanwhile, I'm keeping an eye on our local news as to any incident relating to our beautiful and historic local Synagogue, which has had some nasty vandalism issues to contend with recently (desecration of graves, mostly, though that happened before the war started). Nothing so far, apparently - perhaps the Police are present in the area, to ward off any would-be malefactors.
The Oxford one is opposite a Lebanese restaurant. It's a mark of this country that the two buildings seem to have co-existed without friction since starting up there, despite the graffiti that sometimes gets left on the synagogue wall by third parties.
Meanwhile, I'm keeping an eye on our local news as to any incident relating to our beautiful and historic local Synagogue, which has had some nasty vandalism issues to contend with recently (desecration of graves, mostly, though that happened before the war started). Nothing so far, apparently - perhaps the Police are present in the area, to ward off any would-be malefactors.
The Oxford one is opposite a Lebanese restaurant. It's a mark of this country that the two buildings seem to have co-existed without friction since starting up there, despite the graffiti that sometimes gets left on the synagogue wall by third parties.
Our Synagogue is on what was once a main street, but is now something of a backwater - many of the shops and various nearby restaurants are closed and boarded up, although the Council and other local bodies are trying hard to revitalise what is quite an historic part of the town. The Jewish cemetery at the rear of the Synagogue is secluded, and not really overlooked by anyone.
Our local Mosques are all in much more prominent main road positions, though that hasn't saved them from anti-Muslim incidents in the past.
Yes, the anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim incidents occurring just now are a sad reflection on how intolerant England seems to be...at least in parts.
In the long term, is there any mileage in a Good Friday style solution, where you have two states but you are a citizen of both or either as of right ?
Perhaps with Jerusalem run a as shared religious city Mini-state like the Vatican.
Just to reiterate, Hamas does not recognise the right of Israel to exist at all and nor does it recognise the right of Jews to live; as far as Hamas is concerned they'd prefer that Jews be wiped from the face of the earth, but in the meantime they're committed to making what we currently call Israel Jew-free. And those views are not confined just to Hamas - they are fairly widespread among the general Palestinian population. How on earth do you think there can be two states with that mind-set?
I don't think there is any mileage in the two state idea, and this is why: My late aunt was born in Hebron in 1921, forced out of there the family moved to Gaza when she was about 5, then firebombed out of there when she was in her late teens, so she and the remaining family moved to Jerusalem because they are/were Jews. They were never "settlers", they're some of the Jews who've been there from before the creation of Islam. Technically, they were Palestinian, and my cousins are Anglo-Palestinian.
You suggest that Jerusalem become a shared city: Do you honestly think that would be achievable? Personally, I sometimes think the best thing would be to demolish all of it and upset everyone equally - its only stones.
In the long term, is there any mileage in a Good Friday style solution, where you have two states but you are a citizen of both or either as of right ?
Perhaps with Jerusalem run a as shared religious city Mini-state like the Vatican.
Just to reiterate, Hamas does not recognise the right of Israel to exist at all and nor does it recognise the right of Jews to live; as far as Hamas is concerned they'd prefer that Jews be wiped from the face of the earth, but in the meantime they're committed to making what we currently call Israel Jew-free. And those views are not confined just to Hamas - they are fairly widespread among the general Palestinian population. How on earth do you think there can be two states with that mind-set?
I think negotiations are possible, with following attitudinal change. It’s been done after long bloody conflicts all over the world. It’s not perfect but it happens.
I don't think there is any mileage in the two state idea, and this is why: My late aunt was born in Hebron in 1921, forced out of there the family moved to Gaza when she was about 5, then firebombed out of there when she was in her late teens, so she and the remaining family moved to Jerusalem because they are/were Jews. They were never "settlers", they're some of the Jews who've been there from before the creation of Islam. Technically, they were Palestinian, and my cousins are Anglo-Palestinian.
I have Jewish heritage on my father’s side, I heard from my grandparent’s generation about the people they lost. Our part of the family ended up in the UK fleeing the Russian pomgroms at the end of the 19th century - but others died in europe during WW11. Conversely, I spent about half my childhood in the Middle East owing to my Dad’s job. He was a diplomat and I have grown up hearing about this conflict literally all my life, he was kidnapped by terrorists in Lebanon at one point - fortunately only for 24hrs. We had Palestinian family friends, on the other hand I went to sixth form at an international college with some folk who had spent part of their childhood in a kibbutz.
One of the things my Dad has always said is that westerners don’t tend to get how bargaining and rhetoric work in the Middle East, and this causes long term problems in international diplomacy. In other words, just because Hamas say that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to negotiate with them or their position couldn’t change.
You suggest that Jerusalem become a shared city: Do you honestly think that would be achievable? Personally, I sometimes think the best thing would be to demolish all of it and upset everyone equally - its only stones.
I’d suggest it becomes a religious capital - for two states - maintaining their political capitals in a second city each. Because it’s the symbolic and religious idea of Jerusalem that is the problem - rather than which street you have your welfare ministry or education department on.
And those views are not confined just to Hamas - they are fairly widespread among the general Palestinian population.
Is there any reliable evidence that this is the case?
How do you gather "reliable" evidence? Surely the fact that Hamas have had a safe base in Gaza for years gives some indication that there is at least acceptance?
[I could quote a shocked friend's conversation with young Palestinian professionals in London last weekend giving outright support but I wasn't there myself.]
@Doublethink You say "I’d suggest it becomes a religious capital - for two states - maintaining their political capitals in a second city..." Which is precisely what didn't work up to the time of the Six Day War in 1967.
The daughter of one of my close friends was evacuated from Ramallah over the weekend. I know she did not want to leave her friends there. She felt guilty for being able to leave while her friends were left behind--they have nowhere else to go. But I know her parents were very relieved she was able to return to the States.
And those views are not confined just to Hamas - they are fairly widespread among the general Palestinian population.
Is there any reliable evidence that this is the case?
How do you gather "reliable" evidence? Surely the fact that Hamas have had a safe base in Gaza for years gives some indication that there is at least acceptance?
<snip>
But that's the problem - the acceptance you refer to may be due to pragmatism, rather than conviction.
I'm sure you know more about it all than I do, but I read today that 40% of the population of Gaza is under 15 years old. If that is so, and if the majority of those children truly desire the deaths of all Jews, then there is no hope.
While I've no doubt that genocidal views are alive and well in Hamas (their actions last weekend attest to that) there have also been signs in the past of willingness to change. Their 2017 charter is considerably more nuanced than the 1988 version (enough that Netanyahu had to denounce it as a lie rather than condemn the content).
As an example which won't be to everyone's taste but it's a source of people from both communities commenting is 972 an online magazine run by a group of Palestinian and Israeli journalists
In this spirit, I'd point to an essay by Peter Beinart who himself experienced a change of views on Israel/Palestine in recent years: https://archive.ph/fts5T
As he says:
"Hamas whose authoritarian, theocratic ideology could not be farther from the A.N.C.’s, has committed an unspeakable horror that may damage the Palestinian cause for decades to come. Yet when Palestinians resist their oppression in ethical ways — by calling for boycotts, sanctions and the application of international law — the United States and its allies work to ensure that those efforts fail, which convinces many Palestinians that ethical resistance doesn’t work, which empowers Hamas."
The OP asks how "we can discuss this"? What is there to discuss?
1. That Israel was invaded by Hamas terrorists who proceeded to multilate and butcher hundreds (numbers are still to be confirmed as more bodies are being found), and took back to Gaza to face pretty well certain death? What is there to discuss about this? It happened, it was an act of unspeakable barbarity, it was an invasion, the hostages are missing, the dead are there to be seen.
2. That the Israelis have declared their wish to punish those who invaded and perpetrated the atrocities? I cannot imagine any other sovereign state having to answer questions about a desire to punish those who invade their territory and massacre their citizens. The settlements destroyed are not on disputed land but within the bounds of Israel as agreed and ratified by the UN back in 1948. The vast majority of the people killed were non-combatants. What is unique about Israel that their entirely understandable (and natural) wish to avenge their slaughtered citizens is seen as unreasonable?
If it weren't you, TO, I'd say this was brutally disingenuous. As if one thought that what Israel is doing is punishing Hamas, and not punishing every single Palestinian in Gaza. Punishing the many for the sins of the few is what Israel has been doing since 1967 (at least), and it's interesting you haven't noticed it either in the past or now.
Has Egypt actually said why, or is it just "no, not doing that"?
I suspect that they do not wish to have the Hamas Terrorists resident in Egypt. Note that I do not state that all Palestinians in Gaza are terrorists but if they open the border, how could they tell the difference ?
The OP asks how "we can discuss this"? What is there to discuss?
1. That Israel was invaded by Hamas terrorists who proceeded to multilate and butcher hundreds (numbers are still to be confirmed as more bodies are being found), and took back to Gaza to face pretty well certain death? What is there to discuss about this? It happened, it was an act of unspeakable barbarity, it was an invasion, the hostages are missing, the dead are there to be seen.
2. That the Israelis have declared their wish to punish those who invaded and perpetrated the atrocities? I cannot imagine any other sovereign state having to answer questions about a desire to punish those who invade their territory and massacre their citizens. The settlements destroyed are not on disputed land but within the bounds of Israel as agreed and ratified by the UN back in 1948. The vast majority of the people killed were non-combatants. What is unique about Israel that their entirely understandable (and natural) wish to avenge their slaughtered citizens is seen as unreasonable?
If it weren't you, TO, I'd say this was brutally disingenuous.
Meaning?
As if one thought that what Israel is doing is punishing Hamas, and not punishing every single Palestinian in Gaza.
Nobody is saying that the innocent aren't suffering unjustly, and certainly not me. But the answer surely is for serious efforts to be made by Palestinians to rid themselves of Hamas or, if that isn't possible, at least make some meaningful objection to their land being used as a jumping-off point for Hamas to wage a proxy guerilla war on behalf of their Iranian paymasters.
Punishing the many for the sins of the few is what Israel has been doing since 1967 (at least), and it's interesting you haven't noticed it either in the past or now.
Or put it another way and say that the Jews of Israel have been defending themselves from terrorist attack. I think everyone agrees that Jews are well versed in the reality of being unjustly persecuted and killed.
Look, I know this is relatively ancient history, but surely there are questions that have to be asked: Where did the world expect the displaced survivors of the Shoah to go after WWII? What about the Jews who were subsequently expelled from Morocco, Libya, Iraq, etc? And why is anti-semitism still so rife, especially among people - Christians and Muslims - who are also "people of the Book"?
Where did the world expect the Palestinians to go after the niqba? Why is anti-Muslim thought and action still so rife, especially among Jews and Christians?
Nobody is saying that the innocent aren't suffering unjustly, and certainly not me. But the answer surely is for serious efforts to be made by Palestinians ...
A nation backed by the most powerful nation in the world is causing innocent people to suffer, and the onus falls on those innocents to do something about it? No.
If it weren't you, TO, I'd say this was brutally disingenuous.
Meaning?
Meaning this is being presented in a way that denies reality and distorts the narrative.
As if one thought that what Israel is doing is punishing Hamas, and not punishing every single Palestinian in Gaza.
Nobody is saying that the innocent aren't suffering unjustly, and certainly not me. But the answer surely is for serious efforts to be made by Palestinians to rid themselves of Hamas or, if that isn't possible, at least make some meaningful objection to their land being used as a jumping-off point for Hamas to wage a proxy guerilla war on behalf of their Iranian paymasters.
These are people being kept like cattle in subhuman conditions with no political power, no voice, no hope. What do you want them to do, have neighborhood watch meetings?
Punishing the many for the sins of the few is what Israel has been doing since 1967 (at least), and it's interesting you haven't noticed it either in the past or now.
Or put it another way and say that the Jews of Israel have been defending themselves from terrorist attack.
1. Killing innocent people isn't "defending themselves from terrorist attack." It IS terrorist attack, simpliciter.
2. The imposition of the State of Israel on the Palestinian lands was itself a terrorist attack, ongoing to this day.
I think everyone agrees that Jews are well versed in the reality of being unjustly persecuted and killed.
Which is why it's so enraging that they turn right around and do it to others. Of all people you think they'd know better.
Look, I know this is relatively ancient history, but surely there are questions that have to be asked: Where did the world expect the displaced survivors of the Shoah to go after WWII? What about the Jews who were subsequently expelled from Morocco, Libya, Iraq, etc?
Not sure how revisiting this helps now, except as an archly ironic counterpoint to the question of where the Palestinians are to go, expelled from Jerusalem, Golan, Gaza, yada, name any place in Israel (pretty much the whole country) that Palestinians have been evicted from.
And why is anti-semitism still so rife, especially among people - Christians and Muslims - who are also "people of the Book"?
Anti-semitism was baked into Christianity at the very start. "Where the apostles were hiding for fear of the Jews." "His blood be on our heads and our children's"
The pain runs deep. Positions have become harder and harder. Those with power and influence (which includes some Palestinians, and there are many Israelis that have none) don't want the situation to change.
The pain runs deep. Positions have become harder and harder. Those with power and influence (which includes some Palestinians, and there are many Israelis that have none) don't want the situation to change.
Both Hamas and the Israeli hard liners are, it seems, living in Psalm 137.
All of it, including the troublesome last couple of verses.
What it's also doing is escalating the potential for conflict around the world as people on either side express outrage. It's not exactly going to help diminish anti-Semitic feelings some factions, including neo-Nazis, already have.
What the Israeli government is doing, and has been doing for some time, is making its long term security worse not better.
I think it is worth remembering that Israel is a militarised society - in the sense that almost everyone* has to serve in the military for several years.
This almost inevitably means that decisions are made with a military focus and with the understanding that there are few friends and multiple enemies who want to destroy you.
Hence I think one really has to understand decisions that Israel's governments have made - right back to before 1967 - in that light.
Outside it is fairly easy to say that this and that makes security worse in the long term. But that isn't how a militarised political class thinks.
I was struck by mousethief's point that those who are persecuted and killed often do it to others. Well, the "often" is mine. You can call it ironic, or tragic, but it seems to operate. Is there any way to stop it? I suppose people get exhausted, but then Israel seems to have the Western world egging them on. Colonialism redux.
I was struck by mousethief's point that those who are persecuted and killed often do it to others. Well, the "often" is mine. You can call it ironic, or tragic, but it seems to operate. Is there any way to stop it? I suppose people get exhausted, but then Israel seems to have the Western world egging them on. Colonialism redux.
Israel will stop when it is forced to, which requires western support to end.
Another thing to remember is the sense that Palestinians are a political football for other Arab nations.
Palestinian civilians have been unwanted in most Arab countries for decades. In Syria and Lebanon, they've been languishing in slums - laughingly and falsely described as refugee camps - prevented from fully integrating, banned from certain jobs and universities. Elsewhere they've been kicked around and given low-paid unstable jobs until the next wave of even cheaper migrants became available and they've been thrown away.
Palestinians militants and paramilitaries by contrast have been lauded and rewarded by these regimes.
@mousethief You say "The imposition of the State of Israel on the Palestinian lands was itself a terrorist attack, ongoing to this day.
Are you suggesting that the UN vote of 1947 was illegitimate?
And I repeat: Where were the displaced Jewish survivors of the Shoah meant to go?
I'm sorry to answer a question with a question, but how much of current Israel (including the settlements) exists outside of that allowed in the 1947 UN partition?
Palestinians have several times over the decades implicitly accepted a Palestinian state based on the 1947 green line - however that doesn't fly very well in Israel given how much of the population lives outside of it.
@mousethief You say "The imposition of the State of Israel on the Palestinian lands was itself a terrorist attack, ongoing to this day.
Are you suggesting that the UN vote of 1947 was illegitimate?
And I repeat: Where were the displaced Jewish survivors of the Shoah meant to go?
You're eliding the difference between Jewish people moving to Palestine and them setting up a religiously and racially discriminatory state while expelling much of the indigenous population. The UN in 1947 was a creature of the allied powers, and as such was enacting colonialist policies that imposed "solutions" without recourse to the local population. It's no surprise that it was happy to create a colonial state in a world where the British Empire spanned much of the globe, Residential Schools were thriving in Canada, White Australia was national policy, the US was colonising the Pacific, and the USSR was merrily engaged in Russification.
@mousethief You say "The imposition of the State of Israel on the Palestinian lands was itself a terrorist attack, ongoing to this day.
Are you suggesting that the UN vote of 1947 was illegitimate?
Whether the result was in some sense 'correct' or not, had it been run 20 years later then arguments about national self determination would have played a much more prominent role than they did.
Nobody is saying that the innocent aren't suffering unjustly, and certainly not me. But the answer surely is for serious efforts to be made by Palestinians to rid themselves of Hamas or, if that isn't possible, at least make some meaningful objection to their land being used as a jumping-off point for Hamas to wage a proxy guerilla war on behalf of their Iranian paymasters.
As one Jewish commentator (*) I've recently read has pointed out, the majority of people only support violent measures when non-violent measures are seen to have no chance of success. The commentator points out that in South Africa Mandela was able to keep such tight discipline on violence by the ANC and other groups because peaceful solutions were bearing fruit.
The Israeli government has been systematically thwarting peaceful solutions to the Palestinians' problems since Rabin was assassinated. It's not surprising that some Palestinians don't see much reason to reject violence.
One thing that we see repeatedly is that violence never intrinsically lessens a population's will to resist. (**) Terror bombing the Ukraine has not advanced Russia's cause; terror attacks on Israel has not weakened Israeli resolve. State military terror bombing of Gaza won't persuade the inhabitants of the merits of peace.
It's doubly unreasonable to expect inhabitants of Gaza to reject Hamas when as per chrisstyles' link to Haaretz, the Israeli government has been tacitly propping Hamas up.
I don't think it's fair to cite the whole context for the Israelis going back to the reasons Israel was founded, without also citing the context for the Palestinians. Considering every act of violence against Israelis and other Jews as part of a single phenomenon while considering every act of violence by the Israeli state or illegal but state supported settlers as a one-off does not help understanding.
(**) it sometimes persuades populations that their government is resisting incompetently.
(*) I think I must have found the link in this thread but I can't see where.
One point I saw that I thought was well made is that the Israeli government and their allies have worked hard to undermine non-violent tactics in support of Palestinian right, including branding the BDS movement as anti-semitic.
Comments
Thing is, up until last week's events, most Israelis haven't in recent years. Between Iron Dome and the land theft wall Palestinian resistance has been almost completely neutered, allowing Israelis to enjoy a pretty comfortable status quo, at the cost of teenagers spending a couple of years taking potshots at kids throwing stones. It's hard to avoid concluding that it was only the threat of retaliation from Palestinians that gave Israel any incentive to seek peace (in the absence of any willingness from its allies in the west to force it to the table).
They don't want equality. They want the other to cease to exist.
Who is "they"?
This is really important. Seeing a group as homogeneous is the first step towards dehumanisation, demonisation and ultimately atrocities.
When I heard the Israeli leadership talk about "animals" in connection with besieging all of Gaza I saw down a long road that ends in genocide.
Then there the hard-right Israelis who are also xenophobic. No 'give' there either.
That's not to say that brutal Irish Republican or Loyalist terrorists and paramilitaries were any less barbaric than Islamist ones. Barbarism is barbarism from wherever it comes.
A single Palestinian state with Israelis as joint citizens would very likely see the kind of discrimination against Jews as there's been against Palestinians - including Palestinian Christians it has to be said. But then the Greek Orthodox hierarchy (other brands are available) itself discriminates against Palestinians ...
The BBC are suggesting that there may be some significance that the US is urging Israel to show some restraint in its response - whilst supporting its right to defend itself. There's a suggestion that as Israel's closest friend it has seen the invasion plans and thought,'Yikes! Steady on!'
The US lost a great deal of international credibility when its atrocities in Vietnam were broadcast into everybody's living rooms at tea time.
It clearly doesn't want to see a backlash against Israel as it pulverises Gaza with extreme prejudice.
Yeah, yeah but that's the hand-wringing liberal media for you apologists will say.
And yes, Hamas will capitalise on that when it happens. We couldn't expect otherwise.
There's also the very real prospect of course of attacks on Jews anywhere and everywhere. There have been instances already.
I really don't know what the solution is and it is in the interests of the hardliners on both sides to polarise reactions. 'Look, look, the West is condoning attacks on Muslims!' 'Look, look, those nasty lefties and liberals are condoning attacks on Jews!'
Putin doesn't need an excuse to bombard civilians. But he could turn round and say, 'Well, the West condone it when it suits them ...'
As Gsndhi said, 'An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.'
But what's the solution? How do we avoid condemning ourselves by what we approve?
Orwell suggested in '1984' that a permanent state of armed conflict was exactly what kept competing power blocs going.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/15/antisemitic-incidents-on-the-rise-since-hamas-attack-says-bury-council-leader
The report also mentions a large increase in the number of anti-Muslim incidents, so it's not one-sided...
*They* in this context could be the malevolent old men who seem to be responsible for so many of the world's ills. An opinion piece in the Guardian yesterday explored this idea:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/14/angry-old-men-set-the-middle-east-ablaze-the-young-will-pay-the-price-israel-gaza
(BTW, I apologise for quoting the Guardian so much, but their reports and opinion pieces do appear to be even-handed. I don't watch TV...).
This makes it sound rather like the real problem is the temerity of the Palestinians who refuse to accept the right of other people to partition their land and then later drive them off it.
An ideal time to try and reach a settlement would have been before the start of the first intifada in 1987, however Israeli politicians were possibly lulled into a false sense of security by the relative quiet, the benefits of cheap Palestinian labour along with the ability to gradually annex bits of the West Bank appealed to politicians of both left and right for different reasons and the pain of deliberate de-development of Gaza and the West Bank had yet to bite.
More recently, post Oslo every Israeli government which allowed the settlements to expand did so in the full knowledge that it made an eventual peace harder. Simultaneously the situation in Gaza had become intolerable - the reason for the young population is that life expectancy is low, unemployment is incredibly high, especially among the young, and Oxfam calculated that due to the blockade it would take around 170 years for enough material to reach Gaza to get it back to the level of infrastructure it had in 2014. These are not the kinds of circumstances to breed either stable institutions or long term thinking. It's not surprising then that around 40% of Gazan's are clinically depressed (citations from Sara Roy's book on Gaza's Economy). The idea that Gaza would magically turn into Singapore - which I've seen floated a few times - is patently ludicrous on multiple levels.
Short of genocide, there's no record of using violence to solve these situations, and people without a hope or future for either themselves or their children are going to end up acting in increasingly desperate and horrific ways.
Egypt is in a rather precarious place economically and politically, with very high inflation, a parliament that is increasingly restive, and the president using every excuse to keep the emergency powers he got under Covid.
Besides which, I suspect that at least some of them would be influenced by Palestinian fears that they wouldn't be allowed to return, and so being allowed to leave is tantamount to being ethnically cleansed from Gaza.
That road is not a long one. About the distance from Tel Aviv to Gaza City in an Israeli warplane, and it's already happening. The goal of the Israeli government is the destruction of the Palestinian people. Not necessarily by killing them all, but by forcing them from their land, destroying their towns and villages and farms, and eliminating the Palestinian identity as distinct from "Arab". Zionist rhetoric has long denied the national identity of Palestinians, and making the "facts on the ground" fit their view of reality has been Israeli policy for a quarter century or more.
Yes, I've noticed some pro-Israel ads when visiting YouTube. No pro-Palestine ads, of course.
As an example which won't be to everyone's taste but it's a source of people from both communities commenting is 972 an online magazine run by a group of Palestinian and Israeli journalists
https://www.972mag.com/
I'm sure folk can think of others while making sure to avoid sources of misinformation or poor reporting.
Thanks!
L
Epiphanies Host
(From Bishop's Finger:)
Yes. The ones who are running the show. I'm aware that there are ordinary people on either side who don't share their views, but they don't have the influence.
I don't doubt this for a moment but what social media platforms are you seeing these on? I left Twitter in August but can quite believe there's a lot of that sort of thing going on there. I haven't seen any of these myself elsewhere.
I do know one person whose father is Jewish (living in England), so will be interested to hear what she might have to say, when I see her on Tuesday. I don't think it would be fair or right for me to quiz her, but she may mention the war off her own bat, as it were, during our meeting.
Meanwhile, I'm keeping an eye on our local news as to any incident relating to our beautiful and historic local Synagogue, which has had some nasty vandalism issues to contend with recently (desecration of graves, mostly, though that happened before the war started). Nothing so far, apparently - perhaps the Police are present in the area, to ward off any would-be malefactors.
I've not heard of any incidents affecting our several local Mosques, either.
Mostly on X ne Twitter, yes, though I think on Facebook too.
The Oxford one is opposite a Lebanese restaurant. It's a mark of this country that the two buildings seem to have co-existed without friction since starting up there, despite the graffiti that sometimes gets left on the synagogue wall by third parties.
No-one comes to mind, but even if there is such a person, it seems unlikely that Hamas and Netanyahu would be willing to meet with them.
Our Synagogue is on what was once a main street, but is now something of a backwater - many of the shops and various nearby restaurants are closed and boarded up, although the Council and other local bodies are trying hard to revitalise what is quite an historic part of the town. The Jewish cemetery at the rear of the Synagogue is secluded, and not really overlooked by anyone.
Our local Mosques are all in much more prominent main road positions, though that hasn't saved them from anti-Muslim incidents in the past.
Yes, the anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim incidents occurring just now are a sad reflection on how intolerant England seems to be...at least in parts.
Just to reiterate, Hamas does not recognise the right of Israel to exist at all and nor does it recognise the right of Jews to live; as far as Hamas is concerned they'd prefer that Jews be wiped from the face of the earth, but in the meantime they're committed to making what we currently call Israel Jew-free. And those views are not confined just to Hamas - they are fairly widespread among the general Palestinian population. How on earth do you think there can be two states with that mind-set?
I don't think there is any mileage in the two state idea, and this is why: My late aunt was born in Hebron in 1921, forced out of there the family moved to Gaza when she was about 5, then firebombed out of there when she was in her late teens, so she and the remaining family moved to Jerusalem because they are/were Jews. They were never "settlers", they're some of the Jews who've been there from before the creation of Islam. Technically, they were Palestinian, and my cousins are Anglo-Palestinian.
You suggest that Jerusalem become a shared city: Do you honestly think that would be achievable? Personally, I sometimes think the best thing would be to demolish all of it and upset everyone equally - its only stones.
And those views are not confined just to Hamas - they are fairly widespread among the general Palestinian population.
Is there any reliable evidence that this is the case?
I think negotiations are possible, with following attitudinal change. It’s been done after long bloody conflicts all over the world. It’s not perfect but it happens.
I have Jewish heritage on my father’s side, I heard from my grandparent’s generation about the people they lost. Our part of the family ended up in the UK fleeing the Russian pomgroms at the end of the 19th century - but others died in europe during WW11. Conversely, I spent about half my childhood in the Middle East owing to my Dad’s job. He was a diplomat and I have grown up hearing about this conflict literally all my life, he was kidnapped by terrorists in Lebanon at one point - fortunately only for 24hrs. We had Palestinian family friends, on the other hand I went to sixth form at an international college with some folk who had spent part of their childhood in a kibbutz.
One of the things my Dad has always said is that westerners don’t tend to get how bargaining and rhetoric work in the Middle East, and this causes long term problems in international diplomacy. In other words, just because Hamas say that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to negotiate with them or their position couldn’t change.
I’d suggest it becomes a religious capital - for two states - maintaining their political capitals in a second city each. Because it’s the symbolic and religious idea of Jerusalem that is the problem - rather than which street you have your welfare ministry or education department on.
How do you gather "reliable" evidence? Surely the fact that Hamas have had a safe base in Gaza for years gives some indication that there is at least acceptance?
[I could quote a shocked friend's conversation with young Palestinian professionals in London last weekend giving outright support but I wasn't there myself.]
@Doublethink You say "I’d suggest it becomes a religious capital - for two states - maintaining their political capitals in a second city..." Which is precisely what didn't work up to the time of the Six Day War in 1967.
Kissinger wasn't respected universally: there were many in the Middle East who automatically distrusted him because he is Jewish.
But that's the problem - the acceptance you refer to may be due to pragmatism, rather than conviction.
I'm sure you know more about it all than I do, but I read today that 40% of the population of Gaza is under 15 years old. If that is so, and if the majority of those children truly desire the deaths of all Jews, then there is no hope.
In this spirit, I'd point to an essay by Peter Beinart who himself experienced a change of views on Israel/Palestine in recent years: https://archive.ph/fts5T
As he says:
"Hamas whose authoritarian, theocratic ideology could not be farther from the A.N.C.’s, has committed an unspeakable horror that may damage the Palestinian cause for decades to come. Yet when Palestinians resist their oppression in ethical ways — by calling for boycotts, sanctions and the application of international law — the United States and its allies work to ensure that those efforts fail, which convinces many Palestinians that ethical resistance doesn’t work, which empowers Hamas."
As well as the work of Jewish Currents, which has featured progressive voices from both communities: https://jewishcurrents.org/we-cannot-cross-until-we-carry-each-other
If it weren't you, TO, I'd say this was brutally disingenuous. As if one thought that what Israel is doing is punishing Hamas, and not punishing every single Palestinian in Gaza. Punishing the many for the sins of the few is what Israel has been doing since 1967 (at least), and it's interesting you haven't noticed it either in the past or now.
Look, I know this is relatively ancient history, but surely there are questions that have to be asked: Where did the world expect the displaced survivors of the Shoah to go after WWII? What about the Jews who were subsequently expelled from Morocco, Libya, Iraq, etc? And why is anti-semitism still so rife, especially among people - Christians and Muslims - who are also "people of the Book"?
A nation backed by the most powerful nation in the world is causing innocent people to suffer, and the onus falls on those innocents to do something about it? No.
Meaning this is being presented in a way that denies reality and distorts the narrative.
These are people being kept like cattle in subhuman conditions with no political power, no voice, no hope. What do you want them to do, have neighborhood watch meetings?
1. Killing innocent people isn't "defending themselves from terrorist attack." It IS terrorist attack, simpliciter.
2. The imposition of the State of Israel on the Palestinian lands was itself a terrorist attack, ongoing to this day.
Which is why it's so enraging that they turn right around and do it to others. Of all people you think they'd know better.
Not sure how revisiting this helps now, except as an archly ironic counterpoint to the question of where the Palestinians are to go, expelled from Jerusalem, Golan, Gaza, yada, name any place in Israel (pretty much the whole country) that Palestinians have been evicted from.
Anti-semitism was baked into Christianity at the very start. "Where the apostles were hiding for fear of the Jews." "His blood be on our heads and our children's"
Doublethink, Admin
(Shipmates may wish to read this before posting.)
Both Hamas and the Israeli hard liners are, it seems, living in Psalm 137.
All of it, including the troublesome last couple of verses.
I think it is worth remembering that Israel is a militarised society - in the sense that almost everyone* has to serve in the military for several years.
This almost inevitably means that decisions are made with a military focus and with the understanding that there are few friends and multiple enemies who want to destroy you.
Hence I think one really has to understand decisions that Israel's governments have made - right back to before 1967 - in that light.
Outside it is fairly easy to say that this and that makes security worse in the long term. But that isn't how a militarised political class thinks.
* there are a few, weird exceptions
Israel will stop when it is forced to, which requires western support to end.
Palestinian civilians have been unwanted in most Arab countries for decades. In Syria and Lebanon, they've been languishing in slums - laughingly and falsely described as refugee camps - prevented from fully integrating, banned from certain jobs and universities. Elsewhere they've been kicked around and given low-paid unstable jobs until the next wave of even cheaper migrants became available and they've been thrown away.
Palestinians militants and paramilitaries by contrast have been lauded and rewarded by these regimes.
In general they're exhausted.
Are you suggesting that the UN vote of 1947 was illegitimate?
And I repeat: Where were the displaced Jewish survivors of the Shoah meant to go?
I went to med school back in the 70s with their offspring.
I'm sorry to answer a question with a question, but how much of current Israel (including the settlements) exists outside of that allowed in the 1947 UN partition?
Palestinians have several times over the decades implicitly accepted a Palestinian state based on the 1947 green line - however that doesn't fly very well in Israel given how much of the population lives outside of it.
You're eliding the difference between Jewish people moving to Palestine and them setting up a religiously and racially discriminatory state while expelling much of the indigenous population. The UN in 1947 was a creature of the allied powers, and as such was enacting colonialist policies that imposed "solutions" without recourse to the local population. It's no surprise that it was happy to create a colonial state in a world where the British Empire spanned much of the globe, Residential Schools were thriving in Canada, White Australia was national policy, the US was colonising the Pacific, and the USSR was merrily engaged in Russification.
Whether the result was in some sense 'correct' or not, had it been run 20 years later then arguments about national self determination would have played a much more prominent role than they did.
The Israeli government has been systematically thwarting peaceful solutions to the Palestinians' problems since Rabin was assassinated. It's not surprising that some Palestinians don't see much reason to reject violence.
One thing that we see repeatedly is that violence never intrinsically lessens a population's will to resist. (**) Terror bombing the Ukraine has not advanced Russia's cause; terror attacks on Israel has not weakened Israeli resolve. State military terror bombing of Gaza won't persuade the inhabitants of the merits of peace.
It's doubly unreasonable to expect inhabitants of Gaza to reject Hamas when as per chrisstyles' link to Haaretz, the Israeli government has been tacitly propping Hamas up.
I don't think it's fair to cite the whole context for the Israelis going back to the reasons Israel was founded, without also citing the context for the Palestinians. Considering every act of violence against Israelis and other Jews as part of a single phenomenon while considering every act of violence by the Israeli state or illegal but state supported settlers as a one-off does not help understanding.
(**) it sometimes persuades populations that their government is resisting incompetently.
(*) I think I must have found the link in this thread but I can't see where.
Probably the Peter Beinart piece in the NYT which I linked to here.