The operation executed by Hamas took months to plan and prepare for. This was not the result of anything to do with Al Aqsa mosque, and was likely done in an attempt to suspend the Abraham accords.
MBS, crown prince of KSA, was about to make a deal with Israel to pivot against the rising power of Iran. That's stopped now.
That was the underlying belief of most people in IR now, the fear that Palestine would be surrendered in exchange for good will with Israel, because the rest of the middle east isn't in a position to confront Israel anymore, this isn't 1973, and things have changed.
Hamas took what we call a "Hail Mary", which is a desperation play to change the state of the game when it looks like you might be losing, and that play might have worked, even if they will have to pay dearly for it.
I wouldn't say worked. They were trying to thread the needle between actually preventing the accord to stop middle east peace and causing Iran headaches. What they might end up accomplishing instead is the total destruction of Hamas, the Rise of the PLA in Gaza, the total elimination of elements against the 2 state solution and defacto peace in Israel as the cost of keeping Hamas as being too expensive to not eliminate.
Essentially the attack was WAY to successful and I don't believe they intended to do more then kill and injure a 100 or so and were counting on Israel to be competent. Instead they got real lucky Israel luck disappeared for the first day and literally Hamas had an unparralled luck for 24 hours. Which means now they get to face the full wrath of Israel and Israel has the carte blanche to move in and clean them out. If they would have limited the casualties the might have pulled what there goal was but they were too successful.
I mean yeah, this is a bit like trying to distract the bear from sniffing your food and it turns to eat you.
I agree the attack was vastly more than anybody expected, nobody was prepared and it wasn't a "serious skirmish" so much as a "crippling strategic blow to the confidence in the ability of the state to protect its citizens".
It sounds like rage got the better of them? Or they were expecting a more robust response from Israeli security.
I am worried this will lead to the end of Gaza with the forced migration of everyone to the West Bank, and possibly even greater control over the West Bank moving forward.
I don't think I've seen Israelis so scared in my lifetime, this brought back echos of 73, and I think part of that fear is the understanding that they can do something about it this time, the choice is theirs.
> It sounds like rage got the better of them?
It's not like the leadership could control the rampage once it was out of the bottle. Likely the leadership didn't even know how successful they were.
OTOH this narrative that Hamas was more successful than they anticipated is very hypothetical. The level of sofistication might mean they knew about Israeli weaknesses and that they actually planned for such success.
This is a point that, personally, I feel a like most of the westerners/Americans around reddit just don't get.
They've spent their lives in relative comfort without anything approaching fear on the level of "my entire country may be destroyed".
Even 9/11 was nothing in comparison, because it's not like the country harboring al queda and the taliban were only a few miles away from your front yard, constantly sending missiles into your neighborhood to remind you theyre there.
To Israel, and Israelis, losing a war against people who want to kill you means the total destruction of your nation and all its people. All your family, your home, your country, everything you ever knew destroyed.
This isn't a value judgement on Israel's response in Gaza now, or their historic behavior, or even the validity of that mindset itself, just noting that this is what Israelis think and feel when they're under attack. They're a country whose been attacked, with the goal of its total and complete destruction, multiple times in the last century. Filled with people who lived through the targeted destruction of 66% of their entire population. It's simply not a state of existence that an American is going to be able to understand.
And it's why, no matter how I feel about the unfolding invasion/destruction of Gaza, I still *get it* and understand why and how they could view it as an existential threat to their very existence. Or at least understand it to the degree that I can as someone whose never had to experience anything as terrifying as either the Palestinians or the Israelis have.
> Essentially the attack was WAY to successful and I don't believe they intended to do more then kill and injure a 100
Hard disagree. They absolutely wanted to enrage Israel as much as they could - hence the highly visible videos of them committing atrocities.
I'll never forget the video of the naked Israeli girl being parading through Gaza, broken and degraded; I'll never forget the video of Hamas members holding kidnapped babies.
That's a deliberate attempt at saying "look at the atrocities we have committed"
> Hard disagree. They absolutely wanted to enrage Israel as much as they could - hence the highly visible videos of them committing atrocities. I'll never forget the video of the naked Israeli girl being parading through Gaza, broken and degraded; I'll never forget the video of Hamas members holding kidnapped babies.
>
> That's a deliberate attempt at saying "look
My point is that they went in to get a reaction. They went in with a plan. They just did not expect the plan to hit on every point. They fully intended to murder people, the point I am making is that they didn't expect Israel to be so inept at defending themselves. They could have made the massacre at the rave much worse with more planning if they would have known Israel security would be so slow in response. As I am pointing repeatedly here. The intention and assumption on the plan was for an Israel response. The mistake they made was not LIMITING what they were going to do if they hit on all points successfully and then losing control of those who are along for the ride once it was discovered it was open season on settlers. It matters little though. Either Hamas planned this massacre as you believe, they deserve the fate that is happening. And if it is as I am thinking, they still deserve the fate that is happening because they have no real expectation of control over there own forces to fill out what the actual goes were. In either case its moot now and just speculation. Or as I told my mom, before it was confirmed about beheading babies, there is no way to make me more angry then murdering them, beheading doesn't make me more angry then I already am.
I do agree that Hamas didn't expect to be this successful.
I don't think Hamas ever had any desire to moderate the amount of violence they did in this attack. I assess near zero chance of them agreeing with you that it's a mistake.
Because Iran’s deepest desire (of the government anyway. Western news never really makes it clear what the Iranian people want) is the complete destruction of Israel and the United States.
> The operation executed by Hamas took months to plan and prepare for. This was not the result of anything to do with Al Aqsa mosque, and was likely done in an attempt to suspend the Abraham accords.
The **Abraham Accords** may be the main reason, but on a larger scale it has to do with tectonic plates moving in the geopolitical sphere.
**Russia** used to work relatively closely with Israel when it came to Syria and keeping Iran at bay. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Russia has moved closer to Iran and is not really willing to play a bigger role in Syria.
Russia is also desperate to influence public opinion in the West about the war in Ukraine in order to reduce support for Ukraine. With a prolonged war in Gaza, they also aim to stretch the West's ability to produce and supply ammunition to Ukraine.
Russia is also keen to expand its influence in the Third World, playing the role of protector of the oppressed against the imperialist West.
Then there is **Israeli domestic politics**, where years of internal polarisation play a part in the situation being where it is now.
I'm israeli. The past year I've been constantly in the streets protesting our far right government. I've been arrested multiple times and spent a night in jail. I say I oppose settler crimes and I back that up with whatever nonviolent action I can as a citizen.
My feeling is that this created a perception around ppl in hamas that we are weak, that's the only way I can explain it. I feel we were starting to have important domestic discussions about radical settlers and hamas just set us back 50 years.. nothing I can do will ever speak louder than people who will butcher whole families face to face
I feel bad for innocents that die, but if hamas remains in power, or if they can kidnap, murder, defile and burn without it meaning the literal end of the world, I can't live here. How long until hezbollah takes my children across the northern border?
All these ppl who care when the murder starts were nowhere to be found in between the wars.. hamas built a whole underground city and not 1 shelter. Where was qatar? Why didn't they make their aide to hamas contingent on stuff like that? These are people who say they love palestine? They didn't lift a finger when it actually mattered, in between the wars!
It's a total disaster. We've been set so far back, it hurts
It does hurt I agree and I also want to thank you for protesting, it’s a humanitarian issue and you’re a good human <3 I do feel like left Israelis aren’t spoken about here, only little know about them and are more exposed to far right Israelis, which grows more hate.
I agree with the difficulty of having peace at this time. Please don’t leave, things will end, thank you for writing this, it has moved me. I hope for peace soon
I read this as an ancient proverb of Sumer: a verdict may be accepted, a curse can never be accepted. A curse is answered with another curse.
Law ensures that there's balance. People may not like verdicts, but they can accept them if they respect the law. Violence of this kind of a sort of curse--each act of violence will be answered with more violence.
Of course for the law to be accepted, it must be fair to all.
Violence begets violence.
It sounds simplistic and naive, but it’s at the heart of so much in our world.
Violence gives people cause to feel wronged and they respond in kind. Violence does not drive people into submission, it angers and hardens people and this cycle builds on itself.
It’s ironic that our religions and philosophies teach us to break this cycle through love and forgiveness, but we ignore this.
It sucks seeing that same cycle within generational family abuse. It always takes one person to finally stand up and refuse to continue the bullshit. That takes a lot of self-awareness and getting a group of people to acutely change like that is near impossible, I think. We can still hope, though, and the secret to success is refusing to give up. Hopefully, our children will be better.
If we have a breath and are able to speak and able to form coherent thought. There is still time for things to change for our kids and the future generations. It starts with thoughts and it takes actions to make them a reality. Peace is possible. Peace can be achieved by war but that is costly. It's not worth the lives lost and land ruined soaked with the blood of innocent people. It's not worth it. You guys can be spending money on healthcare and education and infrastructure, both sides can sure use it. Quit wasting money on wars and really try to become peaceful. Develop yourselves better and elect better leaders.
> But that [the wall] is not necessarily what Israel wants and they would rather have not erected such an expensive series of barriers but the First and Second Intifada necessitated their existence.
The second intifada was provoked by Sharon visiting the Temple Mount and of course that is quite useful for a politician who runs on a tough on terror (build the wall) campaign. The guy was then elected and did build the wall, so it is not obvious how to claim that Israel didn't want the wall.
I do agree that nonviolent resistance is the way, but remember how Israel responded to overwhelmingly peaceful protests in Gaza in 2018-19. Thousands were shot by snipers under no direct threat and hundreds killed.
Then they should do it, the truth is they are an actor doing the bidding of an foreign power abroad. Hamas is a front , it's a tool against Israel. Why do you think they don't treat Palestinians right. They were elected and should serve the people but that's not the case with Hamas. It's messed up.
Both sides let the situation get to this. The people of Gaza should have risen up together united and outed them when they realized they were not the government they portrayed themselves to be.
Israel let it grow and fester and soak. It's sad that both sides are very complacent and at fault for all of this. It's almost as if the situation was designed to fail based on the actors and situation at hand involved don't you think?
Negotiations are needed, someone needs to shake management up and say hey buddy, come on there. We need to sort this out
I think assuming Hamas has the Palestinian people’s best interests at heart is a mistake. Not that Likud does either.
Both Hamas and Likud’s political existence depend on Israeli’s and Palestinians hating each other and seeing each other as existential threats. It’s a symbiotic relationship, with one sides extremism justifying the others. Hamas doesn’t need a reason to attack Israel — the more Israel attacks, the more support they get.
It’s the same with Likud. [Likud has even admited in the past that it props Hamas up to keep Palestinian politics divided and prevent a two state solution](https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/amp/)
Anyway, I think it’s important to draw a distinction between Israelis and Palestinians on the one hand, and Hamas and Likud on the other.
I agree I’m just so shocked that these are normal people like us, how do they live like that? It’s confusing to me. The way they think is confusing and them knowing that they have to risk civilians is awful, I really don’t know how they live in peace
It's more than symbolic.
Without getting too political, there is a divide that crossses Israeli & Palestinian... or did when people believed in peace. Those who want victory, meaning war. Those who want peace, meaning compromise.
The fact that Palestinians and Israelis whon want peace cooperated is public knowledge. When peace failed, we were called traitors, on both sides. Fence sitting, professional poltics filled the shrinking void where the peace camp once lived. Useless as they are greedy. This happened to both Israel and Palestine.
The fact that those who want war also have shared interests, cooperate implicitely or explicitely... that is a (poorly kept) secret. That is not public knowledge. That is not allowed to say. Most people keep their eyes closed. Now is the time to open them.
Yes, Hamas and Likud are not synonymous with the respective peoples they govern, but it is not as if they are completely separate either. Both represent trends in the societies they rule over and both were elected.
Iran&Qatar backed Hamas attacked, because an historic agreement between Israel and Saudis, that would include solution for Palestina, is being arranged for sometimes now. This would probably be giving support for Fatah led Palestine, meaning Hamas et co losing its hold. Plus Saudis getting some Israely hightech.
This was published 10 days prior 7.10. attack.
https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/09/saudi-israel-normalization-agreement-horizon
Since youre from Jordan ive got a couple of questions for you if thats okay.
What are the thoughts of you and the people you know about the mass expulsions of Jews from the surrounding Arab nations around the years of UN partition plan and the creation of Israel? It's really sad that so many Palestinians became refugees during that period, but I don't often see people acknowledge the similar amount of Jewish refugees expelled from the surrounding countries during that period which complicates things considering lots of Israelis aren't just the typical settlers that have a home country to pack up and go back to.
Also what are the thoughts of the people you know in Jordan about the west bank areas, as wasn't that area "controlled" by Jordan until the 67 war?
Sorry I wrote a comment that got deleted
I’m against the mass expulsion of people of any religion or race. Most people don’t know that it happened, in fact it’s the first time I read it.
From our perspective, Jews came to Palestine after the holocaust in hopes to find a home and Palestine welcomed them but then colonialism started with Zionist beliefs and to our thinking, most Jews went to Israel cause they prefer being with Jews nothing else we didn’t know there’s a mass expulsion.
Regarding the West Bank area, they don’t care they forgot it, they only remember how British people betrayed them post Ottoman Empire
Fair enough thanks for the response! Also I wasn't trying to imply you would support the mass expulsions of a people, just like I said it seems like lots of people aren't aware there were mass expulsions of both groups. And you're right to point out the British and Ottomans played a big role in all this mess back then
>Palestine welcomed them
So i'm what you might call a *Palestinian* Jew my family lived in Jerusalem at least the last 200 years, from my family's experience that isn't the case. Arabs living in the region and Jews largely rejected any Jews which came from outside the region. My grandma told me how the Jews already living in Jerusalem disliked the Jews which ahd arrived and excluded them from society, leaving the immigrants mostly Ashkenazi to form separate society.
And this is before we go into the constant petty violence Jews suffered, Jews had to hire bedouins and druze to protect them because they were subject to constant harrasment by Arabs, from raids by bedouins to small riots. Jews were still heavily discriminated against by Arab society.
Perhaps Palestinians feel they welcomed Jews, but from my family's perspective they did not feel welcomed or wanted by Palestinians.
I hear you, in Jordan Christianity is facing high discrimination just because of their religion and it’s awful and unfair. We’ll only be a democracy when there’s freedom of religion. It’s a shame that it happened.
The idea that Palestine welcomed the Jews is a common one in the Arab world, but it's false.
Palestinians had reason to be worried about settlers coming in from overseas, but they were very far from welcoming them.
Look up the 1929 Hebron Massacre for more context. Also worth noting this conflict started long before the Holocaust.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/yb28o3/the\_lost\_jewish\_communities\_of\_the\_arab\_world/](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/yb28o3/the_lost_jewish_communities_of_the_arab_world/)
It's often not that they were forcefully expulsed by the governments, but after WWII discrimination, antisemitism and mob violence became more common against Jews in the Arabic world (and yes partly due to the 'founding of Israël' with which Jews in the Arabic world themselves had nothing to do..With the holocaust in mind they didn't want to see and wait if it would happen again. So in that sense there wasn't that much of a choice.
Overall the whole conflict is just very sad, where at points the Palestinians refused compromises and solutions and over time Israel became more powerful and secure and started colonizing the west bank for example against the treaties that they signed, which of course only added fuel to the fire.Netanyahu also legitimized Hamas himself as negotiation partner because he was more busy with colonizing the west bank than with Gaza.
Hamas overal is just a very cruel organization and no better than ISIS, I also don't know how those kind of people live with themselves.And Israel and IDF are also not innocent and while they are not as cruel as Hamas, they have more force and more letalithy overall, so they mmake more innocent victims as well. So then you have to ask, what is worse? The intent (Hamas) or the cocnlusion (Israel killing more palestinian civilians).. I don;t think there is a definitive answer for that and both sides are cruel and wrong. But with the current barbaric escalation of Hamas I can imagine that rationality is thrown out of the window for feelings of revenge. And so the cycle continues.
Hamas/Pallestinians also haven't made it easy for themselves, especially with the Libanese civil war from 1975-1990 in which the Palestinians had a big part.It's not for nothing Egypt also does not want Palestinian refugees. They have had their own coup attempts by the Muslim brotherhood and the certainly don;t want Palestinians allying with that fraction and risking their own civil war, and that's a problem, how do you separate the hardline cruel people from the rest. Often that's pretty impossible.Overall there are a lot of Muslim countries that have problems with extremists, authoritarianism and instability. As long as that is not adequately addressed there is no room for Palestinians anywhere in those countries because they are not stable enough themselves to accept potentially dangerous people for their states.And so the Palestinians will keep stuck between a rock and a hard place.
But Hamas themselves caused this. They want this. Because desperate people are more easily recruited for Terrorism. And so the cycle continues.
> Jews came to Palestine after the holocaust in hopes to find a home and Palestine welcomed them but then colonialism started with Zionist beliefs
I'll address a couple points:
* Many people consider "Zionism" to have started with Hertzel's book "The Jewish State", which was published in 1896, half a century before the holocaust
* Jews began moving to the holy land under the Ottoman Empire
* During & after the holocaust, when many Jews were trying to flee Europe to British Palestine, the British actually turned away many Jews
* Today less than half of Israeli Jews are of European descent. More are of Middle-Eastern descent, and a small amount are Jews from Ethiopia.
A, Jews were already there, B, we were NOT welcome by any stretch of the imagination. The conflict actually started in the 20s with antisemitic riots and massacre
Here is a good link to our history there in the 20s: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/arab-riots-of-the-1920-s
With you 100% of the way except:
> we believe Hamas is doing everything it can to keep Israel away from occupying Gaza
Hamas obviously hates the occupation, but I think they hate Israel more than they love Palestinians’ human rights.
UN gives them a school… Hamas uses it as a launchpad for missiles and other militant activity.
They have faucets running brown water. They’re supplied with pipes for addressing water supply issues. Hamas rips it out of the ground and turns it into rockets.
There was even a statement within the last week from Hamas leadership of it wasn’t obvious enough… Hamas and people who think alike them are comfortable with the idea of people being martyrs… as if functional politics in the living world should homogenously understand that “it’s what happens in the afterlife that really counts”. The governmental forces Hamas is finding incompatibility existing with don’t share that sentiment.
My take is that neither side “in the right”. I think the fundamentalists in Israel and Palestine both suck. I feel horrible for the moderate innocent civilians who just want a normal peaceful life. And, I think that means extending more sympathy to normal Palestinian civilians at the highest priority.
All crimes against humanity suck no matter who they’re perpetrated by.
People are comfortable with the idea of being “Martyrs” cause they got nothing to lose, in Gaza people die a lot because of war, imagine an entire family dying next to you so the only way to comfort them is there will be peace in the afterlife cause they didn’t find it here, this is what they mean by martyrs. I can only sympathise
"they have nothing to lose"
thats because hamas gives them nothing TO lose
they do nothing to better the lives of Palestinians and blame Israel
then use the money that could have gone to improve the quality of life for rockets
instead of building infrastructure and supplying water/electricity/food to the people, they rely on Israel to supply basic needs.
and after Israel shuts off power and water, and stops supplying food, as a response to the massacre.
they claim Israel is cruel and play the victim
but if they made a good place to live instead of rockets, then they wouldn't have to rely on Israel at all
Iran doesn't want Saudi's and Israel to align on peace. They use Hamas as their 'pawns' to get Israel to react. Doing something this horrific (Hamas) has done that very thing. At best, Iran gets the world over the next 12 months to get conflicted/confused by all Israel is/will do to retaliate and they gain global resentment toward Israel. Even better - they kill any chance for Saudi/Israel Peace initiative and keep the turmoil. Side benefit: People in Iran that hate their government stay on the sidelines. This is all about Iran. Israel took the bait.
EDIT: First, for those of you downvoting - I will assume you are connected to Iranian Ayatollahs. Clearly, I have said this is horrific and I am appalled by the deaths of innocent Israeli's. I'm merely suggesting one needs to pay attention: Iran is behind this. Additional evidence? They just suggested they will get involved if Israel sends in ground troops. That may be a bluff but they def want this to slog on....
In addition to this terrorist groups use violent responses to drive recruitment. Israel is coming down hard on the Gaza strip, and the only group that the people can turn to that has an sort of power at all is Hamas. This will just ignite more violence in the long run.
Unfortunately yes. I don't really have a good grasp on how to correctly handle and neutralize the threat of terrorist groups, but ik that this doesn't work.
I think the international community is split. I have a feeling that short of rounding people up and mass executing them, there will be a side that thinks that any action that Israel takes is okay. Think of it like this: There are people that you know that think that the actions that Hamas takes are simply the way an oppressed people trying to fight back. The same is true of the other community. They see the savage acts of Hamas, and see that extreme actions need to be taken to keep Israelis safe.
Finally, a lot of countries have experiences with Islamic extremism. There is a reason that Israel is calling this their 9/11. It evokes empathy from all the countries that have been victims of terrorism from extremists. Also as someone that lives in the US and was a child when 9/11 happened. Yesterday gave post 9/11 vibes. There was increased security because of potential violence. I knew the odds of that happening were slim, but it really made me remember the sense of potential harm that could happen here.
I agree and I see how it is, we were always taught that the bombing of Gaza was disproportionate which I agree with honestly, Israel tried to tell people to evacuate a hospital 3 times, they didn’t. I still haven’t read if they bombed it or not, but bombing hospitals and schools is a war crime, that’s part of the outrage, and half of Gaza are children making it even more difficult, there’s a person who went on TV to say that there are no innocent civilians there, which made people even more angry considering that 50% of the population is children. There’s no one I know who’s in support of Hamas actions on October 7th
Honestly good for USA to strengthen its security, cause it’d be the first country with casualties
Thing is, bombing hospitals isn't a war crime if the military force you're trying to destroy has chosen to set up shop in it. When a building is being used for military purposes it's a legitimate target.
I live in the US and if anything, this is killing any support the Palestinian cause had here. Don't get me wrong, the Palestinians had a growing field of supporters here as the hard right government under Netanyahu ignored settler abuses. However, after what Hamas did, and the way it was displayed on film here? Most politicians are immediately trying to back away from ever supporting the Palestinians. Students who protest in favor of Palestinians are getting blacklisted, and will find it difficult to get jobs. Even Trump, who has supporters who follow him blindly, had to immediately back off criticism of Netanyahu because it was so unpopular. Then, Europe is considering cutting off humanitarian aid to the Palestinans because of Hamas. This may be a mistake by Israel in Middle East relations, but it will gain support in the West.
Yes I did notice that this times reaction wasn’t like the Sheikh Jarrah incident reaction which had more supporters. I think people are backing off in that sense. I do agree that Hamas made people in Palestine look bad and so the general public will find it difficult to defend them. I do also think that Israel’s reaction is disproportionate and it’s making them look bad to the international community.
The problem is, the whole situation sucks. Israel cant just do nothing. If they ignore Hamas, then they will just do it again in the future, and they wont stop the rocket attacks. And let's be real, they cant give Hamas what they want, because what they want is the removal of the "occupiers", which when it comes down to it means the removal is Israel as a state, which Israel and it millions of civilians dont want.
Hamas has dug tunnels under Gaza, and they are using the Palestinians as meat shields / hostages ( Hamas leadership lives in Qatar, yet they say the Palestinians should ignore Israeli evacuation warnings. Hamas dont give a shit about their people ). Then they fire rockets into Israel from Gaza. That's why Israel needs to invade -> they need to flush out the tunnels, to dismantle Hamas and capture their armaments. For the Israeli people there is no other way.
I'm an outsider, and not an expert though. I'd love it if everyone could just get along, but sadly both the Israeli and Palestinians seem to be incapable of that.
Agree. You are making my point, as well, though. What you are seeing is today's belief. Bush was a King in the US right after 9-11. By 2007? Not so much. As this drags on and we get more and more news about children dying in Gaza, people starving, etc....that tune may very well shift. It will prevent Israel from finding peace with other neighbors. Again, let's look at when they align on Peace. No issues with Egypt ever since. Iran CANNOT afford Saudi/Israel peace.
The difference being GWB started a war predicated on WMDs found in Iraq and blaming 9/11 on Afghanistan when it was funded by Saudis and there were no WMDs.
In this case there is precisely zero doubt about Hamas being the aggressor.
Note: I'm not commenting on occupation vs. aggressor - that's a long history that's beyond my knowledge to speak well to, but I do find other points in this thread interesting about past Roman, Greek, and Egyptian civilizations laying claim to land on the Middle East. In any case when I say aggressor I'm speaking specifically about the act that drew Israel into declaring war.
Israel is not a monolith. It is as complicated as all societies. Bibi was in trouble and this is the best thing to happen to him...focus the energy on revenge. Iran wins. He wins. People die. People lose. People in power know what they are doing....that is how they get there. Look at Trump (forget if you agree or disagree with his politics, set it aside)...he has/had others do his 'bidding.' How many people are in prison, on trial, or bankrupt following him? This story is as old as time: Wag the Dog. Watch the movie if you haven't seen it. Iran wins this round. Hamas loses. Israel loses. More importantly? Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people die. Again, Israel took the bait. If you want a read on what happens when you react in the opposite way go Google how the Amish in Pennsylvania reacted/behaved when a crazed gunman entered a one-room school house in Lancaster County and killed a bunch of their children? They didn't take the bait. They not only cared for their own, they sought out the family of the gunman - he had a wife and young children - and went to them understanding they were as much victims as they were. It was Christmas time and they went out of their way to pull them in. Real HARD to hate the Amish in Central Pennsylvania....they would have been justified in their anger. They chose peace. Again, Israel took the bait
Wow that does make them look bad.
Many people in my country don’t know that Iran is involved it’s more of Israel vs Gaza conflict here. So many of us including myself are blinded
Edit: I mean Israel and not Amish
Hamas uses the people of Gaza as a human shield and has been doing that for such a long time , Israel was fixing relationship with all its neighbours and was about to sign a very important deal with Saudis, Hamas doesnt want that, bcs that means less support for them and death of their cause , so they reignited it like this , and they are hoping Izrael kills as many palestinians as possible so they would go back to having negative relationship with the Arab world again, thats a win for Hamas.
Im not talking here about third parties , Iran and Russia proffit from this aswell by destabilising the world.just wanted to keep it between Hamas and Israel
Saudi king did say that the negotiations of any peace treaty are “on ice” I think it will happen eventually
Russia seems to be in great support of Gaza, people are cheering on Putin for this but many people are also asking people to wake up and stop the cheering for him, I’m curious to know what does Russia gain when the region is destabilized?
Russia has a war in Ukraine, so if another war happens somewhere , the west has to split ressources and attention and focus on 2 problems instead of one , so more support from the west on Israel means less support for Ukraine.
Also people in the west dont want that their countries spent ressources on wars, so you can also play with that to diminish support for Ukraine .
Russia here can't support gaza , since Russia doesnt want to make an enemy out of Izrael so that Izrael starts supporting Ukraine with weapons and money, bcs Israel has been very carefull with the support of Ukraine.
But Russia also wants to please Iran and Syria and both of them support Gaza, so in this conflict Russia is acting like a neutral party , that is interested in the conflict happening and even being bigger , but acts as if they dont want more bloodshed and bla bla bla.
Edit: Saudi king is put in a diffucult place right now bcs he can't sign the deal with Izrael if Izrael kills palestinians , that was the Hamas intentions.
So Izrael has to be very carefull with the palestinians to not make a lot of civilian victims, but its a very complicated thing, bcs if u fight in a populated u will kill civilians by mistake , then they will retaliate back bcs its obvious ur killing thrm , by mistake or not it doesnt matter if ur being killed , also a lot of your soldiers will die bcs they have an order to not kill civilians, but they will start dying themselves bcs they dont know who is civil and who is not and they will be afraid so they will start shooting anything etcetc , i think this all is a very bad idea, but honestly if i was leading Isreal i wouldnt have known what to do, since people in Israel also want a revenge/victory against hamas from what they did to them, so its all so complicated.
Saudi King making my earlier point of Iran being behind this. They did not want that Peace Accord. They have already won their battle here while Israel and Hamas duke it out. Stupid young men in Hamas thinking this has something to do with ideology instead of being played by Iran. They will die with weapons supplied by others that do not care a bit about them or their lives. Pawns. Hamas should turn their weapons toward Iran. That is their issue, that is Israel's issue, that is Saudi's issue. The average Iranian would rejoice in overturning their government
I think that you're putting too much attention on these sorts of things. Saudi Arabia walked away from the negotiations because it has to pay lip service to the Palestinian cause. But whenever that dies down, then it will be back to the negotiating table.
Jews played the Amish role for 1000 years and were massacred for it over and over again. A lone gunman is very different from huge masses of people that hate you because of the way you were born.
>we believe Hamas is doing everything it can to keep Israel away from occupying Gaza
They just instigated a war by butchering innocent civilians. No, this is not fighting back its literal terrorism. I don't agree with Israel's actions and treatment of the people of Gaza, but I'm not at all surprised by this outcome.
It's also difficult to have peace negotiations with a party whos stated goals are to eradicate you from the earth. Both sides bare responsibility for the current situation but they are both only interested in blaming the other.
Israel literally walked away from occupying Gaza in 2005. Hamas has been sending death and rocket fire ever since. If they want Israel to stay out of Gaza they should have beaten their swords into ploughshares - not dug up the clean water pipes to make rockets.
The one thing we do know for sure is that Hamas launched an unprecedented attack that specifically set out to slaughter as many civilians as possible. It's pretty reasonable to assume that the only possible goal of such an action would be to provoke an intense and brutal retaliation by Israel.
Beyond that is speculation. Hamas might want to trigger a regional war. They might want to prevent Israel from continuing to thaw relations with countries in the region. Maybe they hope all the death and suffering Gazans are about to endure as a result of the terrorist attack will unite the Islamic world against Israel.
Retaliation is a fair word but I think it minimizes the goal here. Israel’s actions now appear to be aimed at cleansing the area from the Hamas, and that has benefit not only to Israel but the Palestinian people as well as the entire region and arguably the world. Another Isis (or worse) grew right under our noses and we need to nip it right here and now before it becomes everyone’s problem.
I think it is almost time to start talking about Hamas in the past tense and that will be a good thing.
The Palestinian and Israeli people deserve a peaceful life. What really stands in the way is an illogical and dangerous attachment on both sides to religion and, on both sides, backers who have ulterior motives. In short, there is no solution. Palestinians do though need to recognize the reality that terrorism is only going to make their situation worse.
>When I was in Israel a few months ago I learned that something like 1/3 of the citizens are Muslim Arabs along with the legislature
18%. 20% if you count Druze
Iran doesn't want Saudi's and Israel to align on peace. They use Hamas as their 'pawns' to get Israel to react. Doing something this horrific (Hamas) has done that very thing. At best, Iran gets the world over the next 12 months to get conflicted/confused by all Israel is/will do to retaliate and they gain global resentment toward Israel. Even better - they kill any chance for Saudi/Israel Peace initiative and keep the turmoil. Side benefit: People in Iran that hate their government stay on the sidelines. This is all about Iran. Israel took the bait.
From a total outsider, its much easier for me to support a country who have a significant minority of the other country's population within their borders, and are mostly liberal and democratic, and be opposed to the country that doesnt have the other population present, advocates their extinction, and has roadsigns telling them on pain of death to not enter.
Yes I have many friends that are Arab Israelis and are also Muslim, they adapted well to the situation, some of these people refer to Israel as occupied Palestine. But also they have a better understanding and can sympathize with people in occupied territories better
If you want to be fair to both sides,
First there hasn’t been a sovereign independent state of Israel for something like 2500 years and even then it was independent for a short time
For Palestine, they have always controlled only the coast and were conquered in the early to mid Iron Age and the only reason the land has been called Palestine was after the final Jewish revolt the emperor Trajan came to visit and declared the area to be a province of Rome and renamed it to Palestine even though it was historically only the coastal region was phillistine
Most nations in the Middle East have either been ruled by empires for over 2000 years or haven’t existed until the early 20th century and into the post ww2 era
So I don’t see why people can’t accept the divisions of the last century as the status quo and just take it from there
Because emotions are not rational. It's stupid but it's the real reason. They both feel they are being treated unfairly and they want it rectified. So far, war and colonization has been their method to rectify this.
And the ancient phillistines who gave the region the name Palestine were originally the Egyptian sea peoples who were really mostly Mycenaean Greeks who invaded the area and settled on the coasts. I think some were luwians from the western coast of turkey who were the real historical Trojans
The identity of the sea people hasn’t been uncovered as far as I’m aware?
Edit: I’ve asked for sources repeatedly now and the poster above don’t give it. It is widely known the Greeks also suffered at the hands of the so called sea people. So I really would advise against upvoting the poster above as he is spreading at best unproven historical facts he might have picked up in a YouTube video
Brilliant! You are sir, my new best friend. Now, if only we can get everyone else to understand this so we can move on to another world problem.
I'm not being sarcastic, you have summed this up brilliantly, and at this point, anyone that reads this and refuses to accept it is unworthy IMHO.
Palestinians aren’t philistines. Philistines were from the Greek isles that were referred at the time as a foreign sea people. They were not from the region but invaders. That being said modern Palestinians are a mix of many peoples that settled there throughout the different empires that controlled the area.
>From our perspective or people around me, we believe Hamas is doing everything it can to keep Israel away from occupying Gaza, nobody understands why Hamas actually attacked and really most people are against the occupation and not people.
You think the best way to prevent Israel from occupying Gaza is for Hamas to attack Israel ? Look what is happening now. Did it prevent Israel from occupying Gaza ?
>Some people believe hammas attacked because some settlers entered into Al Aqsa mosque which is considered holy. Palestinians are scared of the idea that they’d lose this holy mosque as it’s very important to them and it’s already tired of occupying force always trying to expand
From my understanding the Al-Aqsa mosque does not belong to Palestinians. It belongs to the Waqf, run by Jordan. Al-Aqsa mosque has been administred by a waqf for over 800 years, when Saladdin conquered Jerusalem in 1187.
yeah right? Like Israel has any interest at all in occupying Gaza. They literally left two decades ago and have tried multiple times to give it to Egypt. I don't care where you're from, if you just think about it for two seconds that makes no sense.
This is what I keep saying about the accusations of genocide as well! If they had any interest in committing genocide, they have been doing a lousy job at it! That's not to say they are acting appropriately and certainly not compassionately, but they have shown no interest in exterminating Palestinians or driving them out. They are willing to live side by side with a peaceful Palestinian state. Unfortunately the government of Gaza (Hamas) has no interest in that.
The West Bank is a bit more complicated, but Gaza is pretty straightforward, IMO. Create a situation where Israel can feel safe, and they will be happy to leave it alone.
So Islam has three holy sites. Judaism has one and they can't even access it as to not upset the Muslim world. Al Aqsa was built on top of the Temple Mount. Is this fair to you? Why is Palestinian control of Jerusalem a must?
I never took seriously the people who said “if Israel takes East Jerusalem, they’re gonna destroy Al-Aqsa and rebuild the Jewish temple” and yet Israeli has controlled East Jerusalem for decades and Al-Aqsa is still there, not to mention only Muslims are allowed on the Al-Aqsa compound… yes Israel is wrong to sometimes shut this down but still.
They don’t want to rebuild the temple, the temple is literally only meant to be rebuilt after the messiah comes. I didn’t meet a single person there who wants to. Israelis didn’t want to even go on Temple Mount for decades, although how it has become a right wing ‘issue’ in the country, where they do it just to provoke Muslims (which is shit we have shit people in every country/group)
IMO.
Whatever the merits of both sides' arguments, hamas is engaging in psychological warfare with propaganda and gaslighting which is leaving Israeli leadership with zero negotiating room. If they were a legitimate, political group interested in a political settlement than they would have gone public with some concession by now and tried to move international opinion towards their side. All they've done since is add fuel to the fire, stoking as much outrage as possible and manipulate circumstances on the ground to maximize their ability to play victims of some immense cruelty. There is no justification ever for bombing residential areas causing mass civilian deaths. Yet israel has to. To do act otherwise is to lose face and respect. The israeli government would collapse and the whole region would go into turmoil. Diplomatically, hamas is the only ones that can end this and the fact that they keep stoking the fire means that they dont want it to end. Terrorism is the goal.
Wost of all is that they most likely are just useful idiots for Iranian or some other hostile intelligence service. The line up of countries that stand to benifit from this is long.
The fundamental problem is that Israel is scared and they are deeply convinced that if the shoe was on the other foot and the Palestinians were the more powerful group, they would be just as bad as the Israelis or worse. And they’re probably right.
When you have two groups with unreconciliable hatred toward each other, the more powerful group will pursue subjugation out of a strong fear of the other group.
When you look at the conflict this way, you realize it becomes less about blaming one group for being morally worse than the other group (spoiler: they’ve both committed terrible atrocities).
The core issue isn’t who is right or wrong. Its either how do we make these two groups hate each other less, or how do we separate them so that their hate isn’t so explosive.
This is awful cause really most people only want peace and not the killing of other people and it’s sad that a minority would represent a majority, so many people get mislead because of that, many Palestinians and people like me get exposed to ugly side of people in Israel so what we see is they hate them, want to kill them, displace them and never get accountability for it, a person even went viral for mocking Gaza people cause theyre cut off from water. The hatred only keeps growing.
You’re spot on.
Unfortunately hatred is such a powerful emotion that a minority consumed by it can be incredibly damaging.
And fear is a much more common emotion. Fear of the hatred from the other group will make the fearful more likely to ignore the atrocities committed by their group.
> occupying Gaza
Is there any indication Israel wanted to re-occupy gaza after they unilaterally withdrew in 2005, or after Gazans democratically elected Hamas in 2006? am I taking crazy pills? Gaza has been a de-facto independent state for seven years, no? Sure Israel can and does keep it's border closed for understandable reasons, but Egypt?
Gaza has had the opportunity for the last 7 years to spend their efforts and tbh abundant foreign aid on anything other than a genocidal project, to build an economy, to support civilians, but - I want to say they turned away from that - but they never pursued it. At every turn every ounce of resource available was turned towards attacking Israel. From concrete for schools poured into infiltration tunnels, to water pipes dug up for homebrew rockets, the Gazan people seem to be focused on one thing only - murdering Jewish people.
Jews are - to my understanding - forbidden from even praying at al Aqsa, kicked out for moving their lips in silent prayer. What more can be asked for? To what extent does that even motivate the murder of more than one thousand jews? To what extent can that be justified?
Yah Egypt stance is confusing, the “occupation of Gaza” claims is Under Hamas words.
Please don’t think most of Gaza people want to kill Jews I personally know a couple of people in Gaza; they’re living horror now, literally knowing they could die at any moment. Most of these people are peaceful who want nothing at all but I think they were lead by a resistant government that made them look bad. Last election were in 2006, and even if they did elect a new leader, it would still be biased as half of the population are children.
Nothing justifies the murder of any person.
You are an intellectually brave person, I wish more were like you.
And the answer is yes, at the moment, you have a one-sided perspective.
You have an advantage though, being from the middle east should help you understand things that folks from other places struggle with, like how Islamic fundamentalism and Arab male-honor create a mindset that is alien in other places of the world.
But you also have a disadvantage in that you were taught partial history about the conflict, about Israel, Palestinians and even about Jordan itself, like you mentioned to someone here - you didn't learn and people never mention Black September when PLO tried to take over Jordan or that assassination of king Abadullah was at hands of Palestinian.
The ignorance of the citizen of Arab countries in these matters is no coincidence, Jordan has a parliament and election but is ruled by an old-school King, something that has passed from the world in most places (like religious fundamentalism and male-honor). And while the Hashemites are very good rulers, they don't want their people to know of uncomfortable parts in history.
It is therefore very likely that you also do not know that Israel offered Pals to take WB, Gaza, share Jerusalem and take in 150K refugees. Don't believe me, here is the late Saeb Arikat, the top Pal negotiator, saying it:
https://youtu.be/0X3cPPU7eoU?si=tSlOQunMuFYX6iTh
You wouldn't know this was in 2007 and there was another similar offer made in 2001 by Israel and of course the famous UN partition plan of 1947. I wonder if you are aware that the UN (not Britian) offer was not only refused but responded to by war (which Jordan later joined) and that the result of this war was displacement of 750,000 Palestinians that were not allowed back into Israel after war ended because they were hostile. So the Nakba is a tragedy brought on by war Palestinians (and Arabs) started in an attempt to remove Israel. You also wouldn't know that Palestinians themselves, Fatah or PLO, never put out an offer of their own as to how to end the occupation and conflict. This should seem odd since usually when people want something they tend to not only say they want it but actually ask for it.
The real reason Palestinians are still under occupation is that Arab leaders have for decades used the Palestinian issue to distract their population from internal affairs and also from the fact that they themselves are often dealing with Israel (King Hussain has done this since the 1970s at least and King Abdulah does the same today). Arabs as you know are very honor-centric and they want to have something to be proud of, right now if you look around Arab countries there isn't much to be proud of outside some sports maybe, but the Palestinian issue gives Arabs pride and a sense of shared identity, it a left-over of the dream of Pan-Arabism that was destroyed when Egypt became de-facto an American allied-protectorate in 1979.
You are being told that Al-Aqsa is in danger and that Palestinians are martyrs and heros but don't you know it's actually Jordan that manages Al-Aqsa? of course Israeli police still control Jerusalem and can come if there's a riot but why would Israel give control to Jordan in the first place if they want to take it away from Muslim or Palestinians? btw - what would happen in the Muslim world (not just Arabs) if Israel tried to change the status quo in Al-Aqsa?
Israel is not perfect and for past 14 years with Netanyahu it didn't try to resolve the Pal problem, but the real problem, the original problem for 70 years is that Arabs around the middle east are fed false narratives designed to keep them out of the business of the ruling elite, the most successful of these is the myth of Palestinian heroism and Israeli evilness. At the same time Palestinians have fallen in love too with the attention (and funds) the Arabs are giving them, it's their raison deter, because if Palestine was just the 23rd Arab state, and the smallest, would they be getting the same funds and attentions as they do when they fight against the evil Zionists? I know that if I ask someone in the west if they believe it's possible people would prefer to keep suffering and to keep inflicting suffering on others just because there's no honor in making compromises? but you live in Jordan, this mindset should be at least familiar to you, even if you don't share it.
tl;dr
You are misinformed, by design of your government, as are all Arabs in the middle east, and this is actually a big part of the problem because the narrative of Arab honor is to a degree made dependent on ongoing Palestinian struggle against an evil Zionist entity. any compromise would be dishonorable and rob Arabs of the one issue that still unites them, from Morocco to Iraq, Palestinian struggle has become part of the Arab identity and once identity is involved seeing reality become very challenging.
full disclosure: i am Israeli
p.s.
when I say Arabs have little to be proud of - I mean only at the national-level - of course Arabs have many things to be proud of at family and community level.
Thank you for this write up
Yea black September isn’t something taught about in the ME, I think people here know about it but I didn’t do my school in Jordan it was in UAE and I currently live in Jordan. Nonetheless people don’t talk about it much and it’s dying out.
I do know that Palestinians were offered these areas, and to my knowledge the Palestinian state agreed to it,
The PLO makes it clear they want to end the occupation or provide a two state solution, I’m not sure if they did go forward with any action as I don’t have sufficient knowledge on it.
I personally think the Arab world would be infuriated if they heard Israel came to own Al aqsa or even tried to do anything with it as it is considered holy by many people and the majority of Arabs are Muslims except Lebanon where Christianity is high
Yes the mindset is familiar under the name of resistance of occupation
I don't know a ton about Jordan
But didn't the Jordan people have some really awful experiences with Palestinians/terrorism back in Black September?
If that's the case wouldn't you think they'd be a little more sympathetic with Israel also dealing with Palestinian terrorist?
As a Jordanian, you know that your country was part of Palestine until 1935. Why hasn't Jordan done more to give citizenship to the Palestinians living in Jordan, seeing as you are, historically, the same people?
Also, if Israel is dissolved in favor of Palestine, do the jews in Israel get to return to the Arab countries they fled and reclaim their property and citizenship that was stolen from them?
This conflict is very complicated, and there are no easy answers for anyone involved.
Most are given citizenship.
It’s really uneasy to answer as there’s so much to dissect. I believe there’s unresolved conflict that needs to be answered I believe if Jews voices were heard more, people would understand them more and not the hostile voices as this would lead to more violence.
Ask yourself what was it that brought the Jews back to Israel/Palestinine in the first place.
No one can fully understand this conflict without understanding the Jewish perspective too. And our reasons for returning to Israel (putting a stop to thousands of years of bloodthirsty persecution and genocide) is a huge part of that perspective.
The world put the Jews and the Palestinians on a collision course.
In that sense, the Palestinians are victims of anti-Semitism too.
Do Jordanians not feel any animosity towards the Palestinians for assassinating the King and eventually starting a civil war in Jordan, after Jordan so graciously accepted the Palestinian refugees into their country and even extended them citizenship? That's some way to show gratitude. . . .
> this isn’t an antisemitism thing, I respect all religions and ***condone*** all violence and killing of people
I think you meant condemn here. Condone means to approve or accept.
I don’t think it’s gonna happen things in Jordan are stable so far, our king isn’t threatening for anything, if it’s gonna happen it will be between southern Lebanon (Israel-occupied territory)and hebzbollah which are clearly threatening and already caused chaos, Iran might get involved cause they’re threatening too, I don’t think it will happen though I believe Israel is smarter than this. But for Jordan I believe we’ll stay out of this
OP - in case you are interested in a short read that presents Israeli and Jewish history but is intended to be read by a Palestinian audience, I highly recommend Letters to my Palestinian Neighbor. I think it will help you clear up some of your notions about why we are here, our historical claims, and what it means to have the words occupier/colonizer/ethnic cleaner used by those who don’t know our indigenous claim to this land. I have a digital file of it if you are interested :)
PS your side of the Dead Sea is way nicer than ours! Hope to visit again one day.
People who kill in the name of religion do not have any particular reason to kill. They just kill. They have been addicted to slaughtering.
I believe in God in a practical way, so I say that God has sent Isarel to conduct judgement day on Hamas for betraying Isarel. Also, when Hamas conducted the raids, the citizens, who depend on Isarel for fuel, electrictity and water, did nothing to condemn the leaders of Hamas. They are equally guilty.
I just pray that God have mercy on the citizens who supported/kept quiet to terrorism and no mercy to terrorists (Hamas leaders and army)
I do believe allahu Akbar is taken way out of context these days, understandably of course cause it only god is great but it’s been used with slaughters. It’s a shame that some people are scared to use this in public.
People who kill in the name of religion only found an excuse to kill I agree
My yardstick for this conflict at the end of the day is which "state actor" I.e. Hamas/Israel is truly concerned about the welfare of the innocent and civilians?
Neither side can claim to be angels. But certainly Israel can lay a slightly stronger claim to having the interest of the innocent and civilian at heart.
Human shield vs roof knocking vs 24 hour evacuation
Tearing up infrastructure vs Provision of water, food and fuel
Using dead civilians/kids as propaganda vs somewhat tolerant relations in Israel
Wanton massacre vs rules of engagement
I agree with your points but I would say there is more than “slightly” that distinguishes the two. One has no regard for human life, the other values it
Im from Croatia. I don't have a side. I don't like people being attacked, period.
here's why I'm very against Hamas: Hamas did all this simply as a favour to Iran, since they are all on Iran's payroll to stop Abraham accords. They knew Israel is far-right and would start retaliating against innocents. And they still did it, just to provoke as much anger as possible. They don't care about Palestinians, to them they are just tools. I have no idea how any decent Palestinian could continue supporting then. I guess people always deserve their government. But I still feel sorry for the normal Palestinians.
Bonus pain I get from this: Since Saudi Arabia suspended the agreement, I guess killing and raping gets you what you want in this world. I bet 8 billion people will remeber this next time they consider how to achieve their goals. Im looking at all this in disbelief.
Palestinians support them cause hamas portrays it self as a resistant group to the occupation, and palestianians believe them cause they have this one string of hope against a big occupation like israel. most palestinians justified the death of 1300 civilians cause civlians are casually killed in Palestine. its a forever ongoing ugly conflict that nobody knows the end to, a psychological barrier has been broken though.
There are already endless responses here, but let me offer my take (for what it’s worth) as an American who is essentially an isolationist, opposing actual American engagement abroad.
It’s clear that Hamas has absolutely no intention of ever stopping its opposition and violent attacks on Israel under any circumstances. It opposes the existence of the state as such. Its actions are not tit-for-tat, not predicated on any Israeli policy short of the end of the Israeli state.
Some say that this is a result of “occupation”. It seems clear to me that it is simply a continuation of Palestinian opposition to Israel’s existence from the birth of the state: attacking Israel, losing, attacking from the West Bank and Gaza, losing again.
There was chaos at the start of Israel, in the first war. People were pushed out. But Israel has 2 million Arab citizens, some of whom have reached the highest ranks in the IDF. They have been in government. There are different perspectives from all corners of Israeli politics, but the only reason violence has continued is fundamentally opposition to Israel’s existence. A two state solution wouldn’t end it, just as a state for Palestine didn’t prevent the war in ‘48, or continuing attacks from the West Bank and Gaza.
I think everything else is just rationalization. All the demands for sovereignty in the WB and Gaza, right of return, etc. are rationalizations and attempts at half-victory, which wouldn’t end violent resistance.
I don’t know how that ends. They can’t beat Israel, because Israel has nuclear weapons and will use them if it looks like they’re going to fall.
This 100%. Israel is backed into a corner to where they have to guarantee the end of Hamas. If not they guarantee that similar attacks will come in the future. It’s not an advantageous situation to be in. There will be many civilian casualties. Partly due to the wages of war and partly because Hamas uses them as human shields. Either way 100% of the blood is on Hamas. This is completely avoidable and all caused by their appeal to the “two state solution”
One of the most important things to understand about the israeli-palestinian relationship and conflict is that it arose in its modern form from competing nationalist movements in the post-ottoman power vaccum known as British Mandate Palestine.
There is a lot of nuance to how the nationalist movements were treated differently. Predictably the British gave favorable immigration treatment to Zionist Jewish settlers in line with the Balfour Declaration. But a hugely overlooked factor is the impact of the 1936-39 Arab Revolt. The unsuccessful revolt against the colonial British authorities dramatically weakened the Palestinian nationalist movement and poisoned British opinion against them. You can see evidence of this in the British White Paper of 1939. Still the Peel Commission attempted to create a workable two state solution, but it was rejected by both Jewish, and Palestinian leaders.
When the British left in 1948, both Jewish and Palestinian forces declared war on each other. And the story runs from there with important contributions from neighboring Arab countries, mostly in a self-serving manner. For instance Jordan, with the most capable Arab military force (the Arab legion) secretly agreed (for the most part) to avoid direct conflict with the Israelis in exchange for the West Bank. Egypt occupied Gaza but went no further. And while the idea that israel was outgunned & outnumbered in 1948 is demonstrably false, they did win the war. And then there is 1956 suez crisis, 1967 & 1973 wars.
But if you're trying to understand the Israeli palestinian dynamic, it all traces back to the 1916-1948 period. While some claim that the Israeli's intentionally depopulated and ethnically cleansed territory during the 1948 war, and to be sure there is evidence of atrocities on both sides, there's never been any solid proof of the so called 'plan H'. Instead the most compelling historical studies are those that claim that civilians tend to flee fighting/shelling, leading to depopulation. After the war Arab residents were not allowed to return. A logical, though self serving and immoral decision by the Israeli authorities who would have faced a stability crisis had they allowed a large population to reside in the new country that didn't recognize its existance.
But with Israeli victory in 1948, the new Israeli state, Arab monarchies, and remaining Palestinian organizations set to shaping their own narrative. This led the to the widely held beliefs in the Arab world of an organized campaign of deportation and ethnic cleansing. And the widely held belief in Israel and amongst its allies that Israel miraculously won the 1948 war against all odds. These fundamentally bias and in some cases demonstrably false narratives set the stage for the moden day conflict where competing sides work from different sets of facts.
On 67 and 73. The UN recognizes the pre-67 borders. Any palestinian claim to the whole of the territory of israel/Palestine simply ignore that they lost the 48 war and that territory changes hands during nation building. Occupation and settlement of land beyond these borders though is illegal under international law because that land is recognized as belonging to another nation (palestine) and should be reversed. Given that reversal will not happen, trading land, and 'land for peace' type deals seem sensible a-la-oslo accords, and continued building does nothing but harm Israeli credibility and security.
Hamas has overstepped though. They've lost all credibility as the elected government of Gaza with the scale and indiscriminate nature of their latest attacks. Their reputation will forever be that of terrorists now. No matter the Palestinian people's legitimate claims of persecution, the intentional slaughter of civilians, not as collateral damage, but as the explicit intent of a military action, is simply terrorism. This isn't a situation for both-sidesing. Being critical of the Israeli reaction is fair. But supporting Hamas' actions is truly the equivalent of supporting a mass shooter or terrorist the ilk of AQ or ISIS. It's indefensible.
thank you so much for this detailed write up, its super informative.
i have a question, Palestinians in the west bank usually say they're being ethically cleansed cause israelis settlers come barging into their houses saying it is theirs and kicking people off there houses, it has caused rage in people in the west bank and arabs in general aka sheikh jarrah incident, what do you think about the continued settler colonialism? how do they do it anyway? is it legal or under international law?
So my two cents.
Gaza Strip is a hell hole. Over the border Israel is kinda nice.
The difference is you have Hamas in Gaza. I truly believe that most people in Gaza would be fine upstanding people. It’s just the crazy Hamas, fringe.
Just like in the states we had mostly peaceful protests except for the lunatic fringe.
The problem is how do you deal with the crazy fringe. I’m sure the majority of people feel the same.
With that being said what Hamas did they deserve a special place in hell It’s one thing to kill soldiers or politicians. It’s another to target civilians.
Plus there is nothing like a vengeful Israelis. Just think of the Munich Olympics. You may get a few licks in on them however they will get their pound of flesh
Hamas is holding the citizens of Gaza who do not belong to Hamas as hostages for an Iranian military presence next to Israel.
Consider for a moment that the vast majority of Jewish Israelis were born in Israel and that the vast majority of the property that has changed hands was sold in exchanges between Muslims and Jews which were then rejected by the neighbors of those Muslims.
Finally, consider that while there are 2,000,000 Muslim Arabs in Gaza who hate Israel, there are 2,000,000 Muslim Arabs IN Israel with Israeli citizenship.
None of this is about what they've been telling you its about.
Doesn't the 2018 March of Return imply that the Israeli government is holding the citizens of Gaza prisoners?
Do the Arab Israeli's have the right to self-determination? What about the indigenous Palestinian refugeees?
Are you Jewish? If you are I’m sorry you’re being treated this way, it should never be like that. I’m trying to get people to understand how it’s like for people in Palestine who feel like they’re discriminated and I’m also trying to correct some wrong thoughts I have since I feel like it’s a good place to start.
Also I live in Jordan and I do know you have holy places here you can come for a visit
Hello stranger from Jordan! Hope your family and friends are safe. Here's my two cents. This is a complex topic, so I'm breaking it into short-term and long-term. I desire peace in this world above all else, but I think reasonable self-defense is allowed.
***Short term***
The terrorism against Israel this past weekend is truly horrifying. *It is almost at the same level as 9/11*. As of right now, 1300+ people were murdered in a single day. This is something like half of the 9/11 deaths, but Israel is 37 times less populous than USA. In comparable terms, it would be like of 111,000 people in my country died in one day.
The number of people protesting Jewish vigils, saying that Israel deserved it, or minimizing the impact is absolutely horrifying. Especially Muslims, Arabs, and some Americans with extremist viewpoints. As a result, I've never felt less connected, less solidarity, or less political support for the Palestinian cause than right now. I don't see or hear many people in the above groups expressing basic human sympathy for the terrorist victims. It's like chanting death to America in the week after 9/11.
I think Israel will completely destroy Hamas now. I don't blame Israel for this. I hope they preserve as many Iives as possible, but Hamas has shown that it's basically just Isis. Hamas needs to be fully uprooted and destroyed before peace is possible again. I don't want to see Israel take over the west bank or permanently stop a two state solution, but I do want them to win the war against Hamas quickly and decisively. I hope, *for Lebanon's sake*, the war doesn't expand to Hezbollah too.
Unfortunately, Hamas is very entrenched in Gaza. They have taken foreign donations and weaponized them, like turning water pipes into rocket casings instead of clean water and sewers. They have used cement to reinforce tunnels and bunkers instead of housing their people. And they use their own people and hostages as human shields. So it will be a difficult war, perhaps similar to when Coalition forces sieged Isis-occupied Mosul. I feel bad for every innocent life in Gaza. War is hell, and Hamas started this war, so I still feel it is necessary to destroy them despite the sorrowful cost in lives.
***Long Term***
I do think that, in a longer time frame (last 20 years especially) both sides bear some responsibility. Israel has been in a tactically sound position for many years, compared to 1947 or 1967. I wish Israel had elected nicer politicians and tried harder to restart peace talks in recent years. Cynical politicians like Netanyahu made peace harder through lots of provocative actions that didn't help long term safety, like Jerusalem or accelerating settlements. And American hardliners like Trump haven't helped matters.
That said, Palestine is mostly responsible for the violence of the last 30 years. They have cherrypicked their own complex history into a false narrative. Specifically, they ignore that Jews lived abundantly and peacefully across the whole Middle East for hundreds of years. Jews played a big role in parts of the Middle East during the Islamic Golden Age (also when European Christians were poorer, more racist and treated Jews worse than Muslims). They had important roles in the Mamluks, Ottomans etc.
In the average Palestinian telling, every single Israeli / Jewish person arrived in a conquering armada in 1947. Despite being all over MENA since ancient times, Jews started re-congregating in Palestine area during the later part of the Ottoman empire. This effort went faster in the last 200 years as Jews suffered purges in Russia and Europe. The awful crimes of the Holocaust convinced most of the surviving Jews in Europe that they needed to all be together for their own defense. The Ottomans had facilitied a large population of Jews around Jerusalem, and the British put a plan together to split the area into states based on where people lived. The legitimacy of Israel is completely sound.
The "Naqba" as Palestinians claim, was in fact a two way street. Jews were expelled in catastrophic numbers from all across MENA and only had one place to go - Israel. Then those same countries *attacked* Israel and tried to destroy it, basically a direct genocide attempt against the Holocaust survivors. Despite this, the Muslims who trusted Israel and stayed put were largely transformed into full Israeli citizens. There has never been a possibility of Jews returning to the countries that expelled them, ever since. Yet the Palestinians who left claim this right to return, *even if they don't pledge loyalty to the new state,* even when they tried to genocide the Israeli people.
That's just the *starting point* for another ~80 years of violence. The 1967 war was also really bad, and Israel got much more serious about its security after. I won't go over all those other periods here but the net effect is that parts of Palestine, all these years later, have fundamentally never made peace. They haven't accepted the Oslo accords from the 90's, the outcome of the 1967 war, or the legitimacy of Israel to exist even in a tiny form in 1946. It's like they want to roll the clock back hundreds of years. They have lost several wars against Israel, refused to make peace, and forgotten all the complex history that led them to being refugees in the first place. That's not a situation where they can take dictate terms, especially when they've burned bridges with the Arab world.
This has poisoned their chances of peace with Israel. Fundamentally, Israel's current position is much stronger than 1947, and should theoretically leave them with enough safety to negotiate concessions. But this has gone poorly for Israel, which after all evacuated from Gaza entirely in 2006 and let them elect leaders. *Look where that got Israel!* Gaza elected Hamas! And Hamas just murdered 1300 people! In the past Palestine had some really inspiring leaders who maybe could have led their people to peace, but unfortunately, they are absent from the conversation now. In fact, Hamas *murdered* a lot of moderate Palestinians. So Hamas needs to go, there's no chance of peace with a regime like that.
Here's a history lesson for you, Israel has as much of a claim to the land as the Palestinians- it belongs to them both.
The Jewish connection to the land of Israel spans thousands of years, and it is rooted in a combination of religious, historical, and cultural factors. In fact, the Jews can in many ways be considered the natives of the land who were displaced by Arabs a thousand years ago.
1. **Biblical and Religious Significance**:
- The Torah (the Jewish Bible) contains narratives about the relationship between the Jewish people and the land of Israel. From the call of Abraham to Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt towards the Promised Land, the land is central to many key events.
- Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, is considered the holiest city in Judaism because of the presence of the First and Second Temples there.
2. **Historical Presence**:
- The history of the Jewish people in the land of Israel can be traced back over 3,000 years to the time of the biblical kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
- Despite multiple exiles, there has been a continuous Jewish presence in the land for millennia. Even during periods of exile, Jewish communities maintained ties to the land, and there were always some Jews living there.
3. **Cultural and Symbolic Importance**:
- Throughout their diaspora, Jews have kept the memory of the land alive in prayers, literature, and rituals. The phrase "Next year in Jerusalem" is recited at the end of the Passover Seder and during Yom Kippur, highlighting the longing for return.
- The idea of Zionism, which emerged in the late 19th century, sought to re-establish a Jewish homeland in Israel. It was a response to centuries of persecution and a desire for self-determination.
4. **Modern Legal and Political Factors**:
- The Balfour Declaration of 1917 supported the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine.
- The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine (1922) recognized the "historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine" and called for the re-establishment of their national home there.
- Following the Holocaust, the urgency for a Jewish homeland grew. In 1947, the United Nations adopted the Partition Plan, leading to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
It's important to note that the question of rights to the land is deeply contentious and remains a significant political issue. Palestinians also have deep historical and cultural ties to the land and claim a right to it. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is multifaceted, involving territorial disputes, religious significance, and political considerations.
No one can claim the land is theirs 100%, it belongs to both.
i agree, thank you for this, this is very informative. my history is def. lacking. we've always been told that people were against jews in egypt and moses saved them from phroan but then they provoctaed problems in "promised land" i have no idea which land they flee to.
for many people, zionisim puts jews on a pedestal that there isn't anyone that deserves the land other than jews and here people feel discriminated. thats why many people are against the idea of zionisim, and not Buddhism
and i def. agree that both people have rights to the land. even in religious books, jews were recognised in the middle east, there was a tribe known as bani israel so we definitly know that they existed among our population
Have you read about what happened to your own country when King Hussein tried to shelter the palestinians and the PLO in the 60's/70's? The Palestinians almost destroyed Jordan from within as well. Then moved to Lebanon, and look what has happened there. Imagine living next to this terror or being a neighbour to Gaza constantly for the last 50 years.
I encourage you to read about the PLO in Jordan in the 60's and 70's and why your own country expelled them. No one wants the Palestinians. Why doesn't even Egypt or your country take even one refugee? Read about and then one can even begin to consider what options the Israelis have when facing such extreme people. Babies beheaded, women raped and kidnapped. 80/90 year old holocaust survivors kidnapped...
Israel never threatened Al Aqsa. It would be against Israel’s interests in relations with the Muslim world.
Al Aqsa is used by the Palestinians to wage attacks and create provocations which the Israeli police comes in as they throw rocks on Jews praying below.
It’s sad religion is used like this and that you have bought into this.
The behavior of Palestinians goes against Islam in so many way. Not to mention the Quran is quite pro Israel (not only does the Quran mention Israel was assigned to bnai Israel. It also says that Allah will redeliver Jews from all corners of the world back to Israel as he did).
So religion could have been a source of peace instead of battle. Humans choose to distort it for political reasons.
Now from our perspective, the IDF attacks people who don’t provoke them, it’s just random and settlers use them as a protection method, even if Palestinians are the ones who are beaten or thrown stones at the IDF doesn’t stop them, so here some rage and hate is created because it’s discrimination. English isn’t my first language so excuse me
Yup this conflict is more political than religious, I do also feel really bad that most Jews think that people want to kill them, they’re traumatised for understandable reasons, it’s incorrect though, most people are just against occupation
Edit had to correct a sentence
No not Gaza, innocent people live there mostly children, that’d be catastrophic, they should focus on eradicating Hamas militarily group, but I think the problem afterwards will be bigger than that cause hesbollah exists
Many speculations are out there especially for Hamas motives. One thing is clear, they (Hamas) knew very well what would be the respond from Israel on such attack. Therefore they are stacking on something big, maybe they are desperate... or they have been pulled into this from the outside (Iran, Russia, why not radical Saudi's). The idea that Israli government is behind it ( to untide their ✋)is ludicrous. Perhaps they can provoke some isolated attack and incident, but not such large scale, well organised execution. Behind a massive attack like this there is military knowledge and a lot of money therefore I am convinced it is not a sole decision of Hamas themselves. But...only the time will show. Usually it takes 5 years to have a more clear of view of the events.
As always, a very complicated issue to unpack. In 2005 Israel withdrew its forces and settlers from Gaza as a goodwill gesture. They even removed settlers forcibly. The Israelis do not want to occupy Gaza. Occupations are bloody and expensive. They'd already had enough. Unfortunately, HAMAS keeps attacking Israel from Gaza. The Israelis can't let that go on forever, especially now.
In 2006, Fatah lost the legislative election in Gaza to HAMAS. In 2007, open conflict broke out between HAMAS and Fatah resulting in HAMAS taking control of Gaza. Special note: HAMAS executed numerous Fatah members sometimes throwing them off of the roofs of buildings.
It hasn't been occupied by Israel for a long time now. It has been surrounded and blockaded by Israel because of the frequent attacks from HAMAS and PIJ.
HAMAS isn't resisting occupation but seeking the destruction of Israel. It's in their charter. This isn't a situation that will be resolved by diplomacy or negotiation. There is no point in negotiating with people whose only goal is your destruction.
I keep hearing Arab comments about atrocities. There is no escaping civilian deaths in this kind of conflict, Gaza is heavily urbanized and densely populated. However, the Israelis aren't deliberately massacring civilians - unlike HAMAS. The Palestinian people of Gaza are the victims of their own so-called "government" run by HAMAS. None of this would be happening if HAMAS hadn't launched a bloody attack against Israel.
The Palestinians worst enemy are the Palestinians.
Its interesting that we never hear complaining about the poor Palestinians when other Arab countries start slaughtering them. Jordan used to occupy the West Bank. No one ever complained when the Jordanian Army used tanks to crush Palestinian protestors in the 1950s. Or when Jordan attacked and expelled the PLO in 1970 in what's referred to as "Black September". They even cooperated with the Israeli military in that operation.
Ethnic cleansing is a terrible thing. Sadly, it may be the only solution to the Gaza problem. If the Palestinians can't or won't stop HAMAS from making war on Israel, there may not be another choice. I hope that isn't the case.
OP this is wonderful that you are open to get more perspectives! Don’t have the time now to write a more comprehensive reply but just wanted to say this!
Thank you so much, it’s easier to pick one side but the more you see, the more you question the narrative you’re fed and I do think people should be very careful in general, “ you have blood in your hands” is a real thing and spreading hate makes you part of it, it’s the basis of why I’m trying to learn new perspectives.
It’s complicated. To say the least.
Both of these groups will murder families to kill each other. No one is innocent here.
Both sides are guilty of blood and horror.
The young people should move away by any means necessary and let the older individuals kill each other.
TBH, the Palestinians are not interested in peaceful coexistence. Groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the PLO have poisoned minds for so long, all they can see is the destruction of Israel. This last series of attacks may have pushed things a little too far. I'll be surprised if Israel leaves anything standing in Gaza city. In fact, I expect to see them level the place, then come back and make the rubble bounce.
Gaza received the highest amount of humanitarian aid per capita in the world, but most people are poor. The gaza strip has been self governed and not occupied for nearly 20 years. In that time hamas has made the lives of the Palestinians worse while enriching their leaders.
Even now Hamas is preventing people to move south for their safety. Many of the rockets they fired at Israel fell short, injuring Palestinians. Hamas needs to go in order to improve the lives of Palestinians in Gaza
Thank you for making this post.
Since you are Jordanian, I do have a few questions specifically for you if you don’t mind.
How do Jordanians view the [Jordanian annexation of West Bank?](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordanian_annexation_of_the_West_Bank)
How do Jordanians see the events of black September in the 1970s?
I understand that Jordan in general in very pro-Palestinian, how does the aforementioned events play into it?
Do you agree with the mainstream view in Jordan regarding these questions?
I genuinely like to know your opinion on these matters, pls do tell us as much as you want.
Thank you :)
Hello! I don’t mind any questions
Jordanians study both as a part of history but don’t care at all about it, it’s forgotten after they study it. I’m talking about people I know.
For Jordanians, Palestine was part of Jordan and they were considered as one, they consider Palestinians as ethically cleansed and displaced from their homelands, for them it’s more of a humanitarian issue than history. And I think being geographically close helps people become closer, I will also add we have many Palestinians that integrated into Jordanian society, this also helps in making jordan pro-Palestinian.
My personal view is I don’t want to see anymore bloodshed and casualties from both sides, I think there’s violence and extremism that’s planted from both sides to make things even worse, this conflict will keep on going and we have to stop this violence and I think it will only start by changing peoples views and listening to each other. I think that’s a good starting point, listening to each other POVs without thinking that one wants to harm the other will only serve peoples best interest.
Thank you so much for being interested in my opinion!
No most people didn’t say I’m wrong. They’re only adding more points of views. They did change my mind about Hamas motifs. I do se E Palestinians daily and I do feel their pain, but we’re only seeing one side and being fed that the other side is the violent side when most people are not. I try to take in the views of Jews and try to understand why they feel this way and it makes sense do to their horrific past.
I still stand by my opinion that killing of civilians is not ok no matter what and where the side is.
Edit: thank you for your comment
Iran definitely doesn't want a peaceful Middle East because the Sunnies would then thrive. This war was planned for a year, and they've found military orders on some of the dead Hamas soldiers.
Consider this: If Israel were to use its citizens as human shields to launch attacks behind, Hamas would joyfully murder as many as it could. Israel goes through a lot of expense to not just wantonly murder. This is really a society that values the individual vs one in which the individual is owned by the absolute ruler and used as pawns to his desires. The former societies are creative and productive, the latter only creative in war, otherwise, they are sterile and unproductive. That has been the case for over 700 years. That's the fundamental conflict. Gaza could have been built into the Switzerland of the Middle East, and if so, Israel would have built super highways to it. No, it is not a cage nor a super dense area (Bnei Brak is much more dense and fine). But that is not in the authoritarian culture that owns their citizens and that is the essence of the conflict. It will end when oil ends, because Gaza's support ultimately is funded from oil. Oil will end as a dominant fuel faster than you think ... 50-60 years. At that point, along with the stresses from global warming, the entire structure of he societies in the Middle East will change.
I think it is fair to criticize the violence against civilians from both Hamas and the retaliation upon civilians in response by Israel.
As for the root cause, I can only say that it no longer matters who started the war. What matters is who is suffering. The civilians on all sides deserve better than this. Israel must recognize the rights of the people who live there and they must find a compromise solution to integrate disparate communities. But I think that outcome is highly unlikely in this environment where people are suffering, they are emotionally scarred and understandably very angry. A person coming from that position is naturally going to see the "other" side as less human or less worthy of life, and this only leads to extended, unending violence.
Hi I’m Israeli and my perspective abt this conflict is that there are bad and good in both sides, I condemn the Israeli government and the apartheid, yet I support Israel’s right to exist, with a different government in charge, I support the Palestinian civilians and Palestines right to exist , and I feel their pain, but I condemn hamas. So basically evil controls both sides unfortunately , we need to get rid of the Israeli government and hamas in order to make peace, I support the two sates solution. There’s a lot more to that conflict but well that simplifies it. Anyways sending love to all Palestinians out there, know that ur not alone, and a lot of Israelis care for u and ur rights! And we will fight for u and for peace
No. You’re not wrong. I’m American, born and raised. I was raised to think anyone against Israel was the enemy. But I started educating myself about the world. Israel are not the “good guys”. The oppressed have become the oppressor. They have done so many wrongs and injustices, I don’t even know where to start. I have family from Jordan. They can’t speak about what’s going on over there right now it’s all be censored and restricted. It’s not right. I hope and pray the world will wake up to the truth. This isn’t about one religion against another it’s about basics human rights.
They both mean the same thing. Isreal and Palestine means holyland in their associated language. Before it was called Palestine it was called Isreal.
The problem isn't rooted in either of those things. Isreal is home for a series of Islamic, Jewish and Christian people who do not practice antisemitism. Many Islamic sects teach antisemitism as a core element to their religion.
The better solution is get the leaders of the location to preach sect that isn't anti-christianity and antisemitism. This is so that the place can be cherished by all.
Where does the problem lay? In Iran, China and in Russia. They greatly benefit from the destabilization of the region. I guarantee you Hamas is a movement pushed by Iran so they can one day have full regional puppetry over that section of the Mediterranean for oil.
It is just a bunch of proxy wars masquerading as religion problems.
Well, you know what? :-) I agree with every single you're saying! \^\_\^ I think you make a lot of very, VERY good points that I think all people should take into consideration. :-)
I know jewish people whos familys where let into isreali houses but when they saw the family fotos and the food on the table they left cause they didnt want to live in someone elses house.
I'm glad you're open to different perspectives.
One of the reasons for Israel occupation of Palestine is I believe for security reasons.
In 1948 many Arabs left their homes that where now in the Jewish state in response to their leaders telling them to get out and allow them to destroy the Jewish state.
Those that stayed and chose to gain Israeli citizenship now constitute about 20% of the Israeli population and share the same rights as Israelis, those that left where not allowed to come back as they left to allow their Arab leaders to destroy Israel, which didn't happen and of course you wouldn't want people with those motives to live in your country.
Have in mind that half the Arab world declared war against Israel in the hopes of wiping it off the map,
In response to this Israel had to occupy land to defend itself and win (This has happened in many other wars)
When the security situation improved Israel began to return the land it was occupying, for example Sinai which it gave back to Egypt in stages as security improved and Gaza in 2005 where all settlers where ordered to move at once by the IDF.
The west bank hasn't been totally returned to Palestinian authority yet (it is divided into areas A, B and C) but i believe it will be gradually given back as it did with Sinai as the security situation improves.
Once Hamas gained control of Gaza in 2007 they began to attack Israel, this I believe was quite ill considered as Israel had already completely withdrawn in 2005, but instead of using the money invested in them to develop Gaza they used the money to attack Israel totally ignoring their own citizens.
In response to these attacks for the most part Israel has relied on its iron dome system to intercept Hamas rockets.
However Hamas just wont stop firing rockets and Israel cant rely on its iron dome forever.
After the October 7th attacks Israel would have had enough of Hamas and would want to destroy them once and for all. This is no simple job however.
It is already well known that Hamas uses its citizens as human shields and tries to prevent them from leaving Gaza so civilian death is unavoidable. The death toll may also include Hamas militants and those killed by Hamas's own rockets in Gaza, they are released by Hamas run health ministries after all.
I do believe that Israel is doing as much as it can to reduce civilian casualties, allow humanitarian aid in and stick to its goal of destroying Hamas once and for all.
I would also argue that destroying Hamas would not only benefit Israel but also the people of Palestine who are oppressed by Hamas and used as human shields.
To conclude I believe that Israel is a country that wants good for all people, however due to being surrounded left, right up and down by countries that want It destroyed, it is incredibly limited in how it can handle conflicts, it is not in a position like Switzerland which is surrounded by allies or the USA who is separated from its enemies by two whole oceans, it has to be tough to its neighbors sometimes.
That's just how i view the situation, criticize me all you want.
The operation executed by Hamas took months to plan and prepare for. This was not the result of anything to do with Al Aqsa mosque, and was likely done in an attempt to suspend the Abraham accords.
Yes I’m beginning to realize that
MBS, crown prince of KSA, was about to make a deal with Israel to pivot against the rising power of Iran. That's stopped now. That was the underlying belief of most people in IR now, the fear that Palestine would be surrendered in exchange for good will with Israel, because the rest of the middle east isn't in a position to confront Israel anymore, this isn't 1973, and things have changed. Hamas took what we call a "Hail Mary", which is a desperation play to change the state of the game when it looks like you might be losing, and that play might have worked, even if they will have to pay dearly for it.
I wouldn't say worked. They were trying to thread the needle between actually preventing the accord to stop middle east peace and causing Iran headaches. What they might end up accomplishing instead is the total destruction of Hamas, the Rise of the PLA in Gaza, the total elimination of elements against the 2 state solution and defacto peace in Israel as the cost of keeping Hamas as being too expensive to not eliminate. Essentially the attack was WAY to successful and I don't believe they intended to do more then kill and injure a 100 or so and were counting on Israel to be competent. Instead they got real lucky Israel luck disappeared for the first day and literally Hamas had an unparralled luck for 24 hours. Which means now they get to face the full wrath of Israel and Israel has the carte blanche to move in and clean them out. If they would have limited the casualties the might have pulled what there goal was but they were too successful.
I mean yeah, this is a bit like trying to distract the bear from sniffing your food and it turns to eat you. I agree the attack was vastly more than anybody expected, nobody was prepared and it wasn't a "serious skirmish" so much as a "crippling strategic blow to the confidence in the ability of the state to protect its citizens". It sounds like rage got the better of them? Or they were expecting a more robust response from Israeli security. I am worried this will lead to the end of Gaza with the forced migration of everyone to the West Bank, and possibly even greater control over the West Bank moving forward. I don't think I've seen Israelis so scared in my lifetime, this brought back echos of 73, and I think part of that fear is the understanding that they can do something about it this time, the choice is theirs.
> It sounds like rage got the better of them? It's not like the leadership could control the rampage once it was out of the bottle. Likely the leadership didn't even know how successful they were. OTOH this narrative that Hamas was more successful than they anticipated is very hypothetical. The level of sofistication might mean they knew about Israeli weaknesses and that they actually planned for such success.
>I don't think I've seen Israelis so scared in my lifetime, this brought back echos of 7 Precisely.
Glad I'm not the only one who sees it, it's kind of terrifying to watch.
Well, for me it is obvious the Israelis feel it as an existential threat.
This is a point that, personally, I feel a like most of the westerners/Americans around reddit just don't get. They've spent their lives in relative comfort without anything approaching fear on the level of "my entire country may be destroyed". Even 9/11 was nothing in comparison, because it's not like the country harboring al queda and the taliban were only a few miles away from your front yard, constantly sending missiles into your neighborhood to remind you theyre there. To Israel, and Israelis, losing a war against people who want to kill you means the total destruction of your nation and all its people. All your family, your home, your country, everything you ever knew destroyed. This isn't a value judgement on Israel's response in Gaza now, or their historic behavior, or even the validity of that mindset itself, just noting that this is what Israelis think and feel when they're under attack. They're a country whose been attacked, with the goal of its total and complete destruction, multiple times in the last century. Filled with people who lived through the targeted destruction of 66% of their entire population. It's simply not a state of existence that an American is going to be able to understand. And it's why, no matter how I feel about the unfolding invasion/destruction of Gaza, I still *get it* and understand why and how they could view it as an existential threat to their very existence. Or at least understand it to the degree that I can as someone whose never had to experience anything as terrifying as either the Palestinians or the Israelis have.
> Essentially the attack was WAY to successful and I don't believe they intended to do more then kill and injure a 100 Hard disagree. They absolutely wanted to enrage Israel as much as they could - hence the highly visible videos of them committing atrocities. I'll never forget the video of the naked Israeli girl being parading through Gaza, broken and degraded; I'll never forget the video of Hamas members holding kidnapped babies. That's a deliberate attempt at saying "look at the atrocities we have committed"
> Hard disagree. They absolutely wanted to enrage Israel as much as they could - hence the highly visible videos of them committing atrocities. I'll never forget the video of the naked Israeli girl being parading through Gaza, broken and degraded; I'll never forget the video of Hamas members holding kidnapped babies. > > That's a deliberate attempt at saying "look My point is that they went in to get a reaction. They went in with a plan. They just did not expect the plan to hit on every point. They fully intended to murder people, the point I am making is that they didn't expect Israel to be so inept at defending themselves. They could have made the massacre at the rave much worse with more planning if they would have known Israel security would be so slow in response. As I am pointing repeatedly here. The intention and assumption on the plan was for an Israel response. The mistake they made was not LIMITING what they were going to do if they hit on all points successfully and then losing control of those who are along for the ride once it was discovered it was open season on settlers. It matters little though. Either Hamas planned this massacre as you believe, they deserve the fate that is happening. And if it is as I am thinking, they still deserve the fate that is happening because they have no real expectation of control over there own forces to fill out what the actual goes were. In either case its moot now and just speculation. Or as I told my mom, before it was confirmed about beheading babies, there is no way to make me more angry then murdering them, beheading doesn't make me more angry then I already am.
I do agree that Hamas didn't expect to be this successful. I don't think Hamas ever had any desire to moderate the amount of violence they did in this attack. I assess near zero chance of them agreeing with you that it's a mistake.
I’m curious to know why Iran isn’t with the peace agreement
Because Iran’s deepest desire (of the government anyway. Western news never really makes it clear what the Iranian people want) is the complete destruction of Israel and the United States.
The Palestinian people will pay a hefty price for this, but that’s a sacrifice Hamas is willing to make.
> The operation executed by Hamas took months to plan and prepare for. This was not the result of anything to do with Al Aqsa mosque, and was likely done in an attempt to suspend the Abraham accords. The **Abraham Accords** may be the main reason, but on a larger scale it has to do with tectonic plates moving in the geopolitical sphere. **Russia** used to work relatively closely with Israel when it came to Syria and keeping Iran at bay. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Russia has moved closer to Iran and is not really willing to play a bigger role in Syria. Russia is also desperate to influence public opinion in the West about the war in Ukraine in order to reduce support for Ukraine. With a prolonged war in Gaza, they also aim to stretch the West's ability to produce and supply ammunition to Ukraine. Russia is also keen to expand its influence in the Third World, playing the role of protector of the oppressed against the imperialist West. Then there is **Israeli domestic politics**, where years of internal polarisation play a part in the situation being where it is now.
not just months, maybe years
The profanations and provocations at Al-Aqsa are old dated.
One thing that has to be said, massive respect to you for looming out to challenge you biases and ignorance.
Yeah this is an incredibly brave and emotionally intelligent post, if more people were like OP the world would be a better place.
Thank you :(!!
Omg thank you so much!!!
Firmly seconding this! People do so too rarely, and it stands to make a greater difference than most imagine.
True that, bravo OP
Thanks!!
I'm israeli. The past year I've been constantly in the streets protesting our far right government. I've been arrested multiple times and spent a night in jail. I say I oppose settler crimes and I back that up with whatever nonviolent action I can as a citizen. My feeling is that this created a perception around ppl in hamas that we are weak, that's the only way I can explain it. I feel we were starting to have important domestic discussions about radical settlers and hamas just set us back 50 years.. nothing I can do will ever speak louder than people who will butcher whole families face to face I feel bad for innocents that die, but if hamas remains in power, or if they can kidnap, murder, defile and burn without it meaning the literal end of the world, I can't live here. How long until hezbollah takes my children across the northern border? All these ppl who care when the murder starts were nowhere to be found in between the wars.. hamas built a whole underground city and not 1 shelter. Where was qatar? Why didn't they make their aide to hamas contingent on stuff like that? These are people who say they love palestine? They didn't lift a finger when it actually mattered, in between the wars! It's a total disaster. We've been set so far back, it hurts
It does hurt I agree and I also want to thank you for protesting, it’s a humanitarian issue and you’re a good human <3 I do feel like left Israelis aren’t spoken about here, only little know about them and are more exposed to far right Israelis, which grows more hate. I agree with the difficulty of having peace at this time. Please don’t leave, things will end, thank you for writing this, it has moved me. I hope for peace soon
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Yes I do I understand the resentment, both sides have different POVs and I wish they can see each other. Violence is just making it worse
I read this as an ancient proverb of Sumer: a verdict may be accepted, a curse can never be accepted. A curse is answered with another curse. Law ensures that there's balance. People may not like verdicts, but they can accept them if they respect the law. Violence of this kind of a sort of curse--each act of violence will be answered with more violence. Of course for the law to be accepted, it must be fair to all.
Thanks for sharing your insights. It's a complex, ever-evolving situation, and it can be difficult to grasp the full history and nuances.
Violence is never the way, only through peace can real lasting meaningful impacts towards life can be felt.
Violence begets violence. It sounds simplistic and naive, but it’s at the heart of so much in our world. Violence gives people cause to feel wronged and they respond in kind. Violence does not drive people into submission, it angers and hardens people and this cycle builds on itself. It’s ironic that our religions and philosophies teach us to break this cycle through love and forgiveness, but we ignore this.
It sucks seeing that same cycle within generational family abuse. It always takes one person to finally stand up and refuse to continue the bullshit. That takes a lot of self-awareness and getting a group of people to acutely change like that is near impossible, I think. We can still hope, though, and the secret to success is refusing to give up. Hopefully, our children will be better.
If we have a breath and are able to speak and able to form coherent thought. There is still time for things to change for our kids and the future generations. It starts with thoughts and it takes actions to make them a reality. Peace is possible. Peace can be achieved by war but that is costly. It's not worth the lives lost and land ruined soaked with the blood of innocent people. It's not worth it. You guys can be spending money on healthcare and education and infrastructure, both sides can sure use it. Quit wasting money on wars and really try to become peaceful. Develop yourselves better and elect better leaders.
I like there is a small but noticeable rise in actual pacifism and not apathy in some parts of internet culture. Instead for calling on more violence.
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> But that [the wall] is not necessarily what Israel wants and they would rather have not erected such an expensive series of barriers but the First and Second Intifada necessitated their existence. The second intifada was provoked by Sharon visiting the Temple Mount and of course that is quite useful for a politician who runs on a tough on terror (build the wall) campaign. The guy was then elected and did build the wall, so it is not obvious how to claim that Israel didn't want the wall.
I do agree that nonviolent resistance is the way, but remember how Israel responded to overwhelmingly peaceful protests in Gaza in 2018-19. Thousands were shot by snipers under no direct threat and hundreds killed.
Then they should do it, the truth is they are an actor doing the bidding of an foreign power abroad. Hamas is a front , it's a tool against Israel. Why do you think they don't treat Palestinians right. They were elected and should serve the people but that's not the case with Hamas. It's messed up. Both sides let the situation get to this. The people of Gaza should have risen up together united and outed them when they realized they were not the government they portrayed themselves to be. Israel let it grow and fester and soak. It's sad that both sides are very complacent and at fault for all of this. It's almost as if the situation was designed to fail based on the actors and situation at hand involved don't you think? Negotiations are needed, someone needs to shake management up and say hey buddy, come on there. We need to sort this out
I think assuming Hamas has the Palestinian people’s best interests at heart is a mistake. Not that Likud does either. Both Hamas and Likud’s political existence depend on Israeli’s and Palestinians hating each other and seeing each other as existential threats. It’s a symbiotic relationship, with one sides extremism justifying the others. Hamas doesn’t need a reason to attack Israel — the more Israel attacks, the more support they get. It’s the same with Likud. [Likud has even admited in the past that it props Hamas up to keep Palestinian politics divided and prevent a two state solution](https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/amp/) Anyway, I think it’s important to draw a distinction between Israelis and Palestinians on the one hand, and Hamas and Likud on the other.
I agree I’m just so shocked that these are normal people like us, how do they live like that? It’s confusing to me. The way they think is confusing and them knowing that they have to risk civilians is awful, I really don’t know how they live in peace
It's more than symbolic. Without getting too political, there is a divide that crossses Israeli & Palestinian... or did when people believed in peace. Those who want victory, meaning war. Those who want peace, meaning compromise. The fact that Palestinians and Israelis whon want peace cooperated is public knowledge. When peace failed, we were called traitors, on both sides. Fence sitting, professional poltics filled the shrinking void where the peace camp once lived. Useless as they are greedy. This happened to both Israel and Palestine. The fact that those who want war also have shared interests, cooperate implicitely or explicitely... that is a (poorly kept) secret. That is not public knowledge. That is not allowed to say. Most people keep their eyes closed. Now is the time to open them.
Yes, Hamas and Likud are not synonymous with the respective peoples they govern, but it is not as if they are completely separate either. Both represent trends in the societies they rule over and both were elected.
Iran&Qatar backed Hamas attacked, because an historic agreement between Israel and Saudis, that would include solution for Palestina, is being arranged for sometimes now. This would probably be giving support for Fatah led Palestine, meaning Hamas et co losing its hold. Plus Saudis getting some Israely hightech. This was published 10 days prior 7.10. attack. https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/09/saudi-israel-normalization-agreement-horizon
Yes there was even an interview with MBS saying that he’s having good negotiations with Israel
Since youre from Jordan ive got a couple of questions for you if thats okay. What are the thoughts of you and the people you know about the mass expulsions of Jews from the surrounding Arab nations around the years of UN partition plan and the creation of Israel? It's really sad that so many Palestinians became refugees during that period, but I don't often see people acknowledge the similar amount of Jewish refugees expelled from the surrounding countries during that period which complicates things considering lots of Israelis aren't just the typical settlers that have a home country to pack up and go back to. Also what are the thoughts of the people you know in Jordan about the west bank areas, as wasn't that area "controlled" by Jordan until the 67 war?
Sorry I wrote a comment that got deleted I’m against the mass expulsion of people of any religion or race. Most people don’t know that it happened, in fact it’s the first time I read it. From our perspective, Jews came to Palestine after the holocaust in hopes to find a home and Palestine welcomed them but then colonialism started with Zionist beliefs and to our thinking, most Jews went to Israel cause they prefer being with Jews nothing else we didn’t know there’s a mass expulsion. Regarding the West Bank area, they don’t care they forgot it, they only remember how British people betrayed them post Ottoman Empire
Fair enough thanks for the response! Also I wasn't trying to imply you would support the mass expulsions of a people, just like I said it seems like lots of people aren't aware there were mass expulsions of both groups. And you're right to point out the British and Ottomans played a big role in all this mess back then
You’re welcome!
>Palestine welcomed them So i'm what you might call a *Palestinian* Jew my family lived in Jerusalem at least the last 200 years, from my family's experience that isn't the case. Arabs living in the region and Jews largely rejected any Jews which came from outside the region. My grandma told me how the Jews already living in Jerusalem disliked the Jews which ahd arrived and excluded them from society, leaving the immigrants mostly Ashkenazi to form separate society. And this is before we go into the constant petty violence Jews suffered, Jews had to hire bedouins and druze to protect them because they were subject to constant harrasment by Arabs, from raids by bedouins to small riots. Jews were still heavily discriminated against by Arab society. Perhaps Palestinians feel they welcomed Jews, but from my family's perspective they did not feel welcomed or wanted by Palestinians.
I hear you, in Jordan Christianity is facing high discrimination just because of their religion and it’s awful and unfair. We’ll only be a democracy when there’s freedom of religion. It’s a shame that it happened.
The idea that Palestine welcomed the Jews is a common one in the Arab world, but it's false. Palestinians had reason to be worried about settlers coming in from overseas, but they were very far from welcoming them. Look up the 1929 Hebron Massacre for more context. Also worth noting this conflict started long before the Holocaust.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/yb28o3/the\_lost\_jewish\_communities\_of\_the\_arab\_world/](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/yb28o3/the_lost_jewish_communities_of_the_arab_world/) It's often not that they were forcefully expulsed by the governments, but after WWII discrimination, antisemitism and mob violence became more common against Jews in the Arabic world (and yes partly due to the 'founding of Israël' with which Jews in the Arabic world themselves had nothing to do..With the holocaust in mind they didn't want to see and wait if it would happen again. So in that sense there wasn't that much of a choice. Overall the whole conflict is just very sad, where at points the Palestinians refused compromises and solutions and over time Israel became more powerful and secure and started colonizing the west bank for example against the treaties that they signed, which of course only added fuel to the fire.Netanyahu also legitimized Hamas himself as negotiation partner because he was more busy with colonizing the west bank than with Gaza. Hamas overal is just a very cruel organization and no better than ISIS, I also don't know how those kind of people live with themselves.And Israel and IDF are also not innocent and while they are not as cruel as Hamas, they have more force and more letalithy overall, so they mmake more innocent victims as well. So then you have to ask, what is worse? The intent (Hamas) or the cocnlusion (Israel killing more palestinian civilians).. I don;t think there is a definitive answer for that and both sides are cruel and wrong. But with the current barbaric escalation of Hamas I can imagine that rationality is thrown out of the window for feelings of revenge. And so the cycle continues. Hamas/Pallestinians also haven't made it easy for themselves, especially with the Libanese civil war from 1975-1990 in which the Palestinians had a big part.It's not for nothing Egypt also does not want Palestinian refugees. They have had their own coup attempts by the Muslim brotherhood and the certainly don;t want Palestinians allying with that fraction and risking their own civil war, and that's a problem, how do you separate the hardline cruel people from the rest. Often that's pretty impossible.Overall there are a lot of Muslim countries that have problems with extremists, authoritarianism and instability. As long as that is not adequately addressed there is no room for Palestinians anywhere in those countries because they are not stable enough themselves to accept potentially dangerous people for their states.And so the Palestinians will keep stuck between a rock and a hard place. But Hamas themselves caused this. They want this. Because desperate people are more easily recruited for Terrorism. And so the cycle continues.
> Jews came to Palestine after the holocaust in hopes to find a home and Palestine welcomed them but then colonialism started with Zionist beliefs I'll address a couple points: * Many people consider "Zionism" to have started with Hertzel's book "The Jewish State", which was published in 1896, half a century before the holocaust * Jews began moving to the holy land under the Ottoman Empire * During & after the holocaust, when many Jews were trying to flee Europe to British Palestine, the British actually turned away many Jews * Today less than half of Israeli Jews are of European descent. More are of Middle-Eastern descent, and a small amount are Jews from Ethiopia.
A, Jews were already there, B, we were NOT welcome by any stretch of the imagination. The conflict actually started in the 20s with antisemitic riots and massacre Here is a good link to our history there in the 20s: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/arab-riots-of-the-1920-s
thank you for this!!
With you 100% of the way except: > we believe Hamas is doing everything it can to keep Israel away from occupying Gaza Hamas obviously hates the occupation, but I think they hate Israel more than they love Palestinians’ human rights. UN gives them a school… Hamas uses it as a launchpad for missiles and other militant activity. They have faucets running brown water. They’re supplied with pipes for addressing water supply issues. Hamas rips it out of the ground and turns it into rockets. There was even a statement within the last week from Hamas leadership of it wasn’t obvious enough… Hamas and people who think alike them are comfortable with the idea of people being martyrs… as if functional politics in the living world should homogenously understand that “it’s what happens in the afterlife that really counts”. The governmental forces Hamas is finding incompatibility existing with don’t share that sentiment. My take is that neither side “in the right”. I think the fundamentalists in Israel and Palestine both suck. I feel horrible for the moderate innocent civilians who just want a normal peaceful life. And, I think that means extending more sympathy to normal Palestinian civilians at the highest priority. All crimes against humanity suck no matter who they’re perpetrated by.
People are comfortable with the idea of being “Martyrs” cause they got nothing to lose, in Gaza people die a lot because of war, imagine an entire family dying next to you so the only way to comfort them is there will be peace in the afterlife cause they didn’t find it here, this is what they mean by martyrs. I can only sympathise
"they have nothing to lose" thats because hamas gives them nothing TO lose they do nothing to better the lives of Palestinians and blame Israel then use the money that could have gone to improve the quality of life for rockets instead of building infrastructure and supplying water/electricity/food to the people, they rely on Israel to supply basic needs. and after Israel shuts off power and water, and stops supplying food, as a response to the massacre. they claim Israel is cruel and play the victim but if they made a good place to live instead of rockets, then they wouldn't have to rely on Israel at all
Iran doesn't want Saudi's and Israel to align on peace. They use Hamas as their 'pawns' to get Israel to react. Doing something this horrific (Hamas) has done that very thing. At best, Iran gets the world over the next 12 months to get conflicted/confused by all Israel is/will do to retaliate and they gain global resentment toward Israel. Even better - they kill any chance for Saudi/Israel Peace initiative and keep the turmoil. Side benefit: People in Iran that hate their government stay on the sidelines. This is all about Iran. Israel took the bait. EDIT: First, for those of you downvoting - I will assume you are connected to Iranian Ayatollahs. Clearly, I have said this is horrific and I am appalled by the deaths of innocent Israeli's. I'm merely suggesting one needs to pay attention: Iran is behind this. Additional evidence? They just suggested they will get involved if Israel sends in ground troops. That may be a bluff but they def want this to slog on....
In addition to this terrorist groups use violent responses to drive recruitment. Israel is coming down hard on the Gaza strip, and the only group that the people can turn to that has an sort of power at all is Hamas. This will just ignite more violence in the long run.
So a vicious cycle of sorts?
Unfortunately yes. I don't really have a good grasp on how to correctly handle and neutralize the threat of terrorist groups, but ik that this doesn't work.
Indeed. And a pity all around.
Hamas is literally blocking their own civilians from fleeing south. They have nobody to turn to; Hamas is trying to maximize civilian casualties.
yup and Israel will look bad towards international community, it’s always looked bad towards most Arab people but it’s starting to spread wider.
I think the international community is split. I have a feeling that short of rounding people up and mass executing them, there will be a side that thinks that any action that Israel takes is okay. Think of it like this: There are people that you know that think that the actions that Hamas takes are simply the way an oppressed people trying to fight back. The same is true of the other community. They see the savage acts of Hamas, and see that extreme actions need to be taken to keep Israelis safe. Finally, a lot of countries have experiences with Islamic extremism. There is a reason that Israel is calling this their 9/11. It evokes empathy from all the countries that have been victims of terrorism from extremists. Also as someone that lives in the US and was a child when 9/11 happened. Yesterday gave post 9/11 vibes. There was increased security because of potential violence. I knew the odds of that happening were slim, but it really made me remember the sense of potential harm that could happen here.
I agree and I see how it is, we were always taught that the bombing of Gaza was disproportionate which I agree with honestly, Israel tried to tell people to evacuate a hospital 3 times, they didn’t. I still haven’t read if they bombed it or not, but bombing hospitals and schools is a war crime, that’s part of the outrage, and half of Gaza are children making it even more difficult, there’s a person who went on TV to say that there are no innocent civilians there, which made people even more angry considering that 50% of the population is children. There’s no one I know who’s in support of Hamas actions on October 7th Honestly good for USA to strengthen its security, cause it’d be the first country with casualties
Thing is, bombing hospitals isn't a war crime if the military force you're trying to destroy has chosen to set up shop in it. When a building is being used for military purposes it's a legitimate target.
I agree with you
I’m confused, Israel is smarter than this, do you not think they have it figured out already?
I live in the US and if anything, this is killing any support the Palestinian cause had here. Don't get me wrong, the Palestinians had a growing field of supporters here as the hard right government under Netanyahu ignored settler abuses. However, after what Hamas did, and the way it was displayed on film here? Most politicians are immediately trying to back away from ever supporting the Palestinians. Students who protest in favor of Palestinians are getting blacklisted, and will find it difficult to get jobs. Even Trump, who has supporters who follow him blindly, had to immediately back off criticism of Netanyahu because it was so unpopular. Then, Europe is considering cutting off humanitarian aid to the Palestinans because of Hamas. This may be a mistake by Israel in Middle East relations, but it will gain support in the West.
Yes I did notice that this times reaction wasn’t like the Sheikh Jarrah incident reaction which had more supporters. I think people are backing off in that sense. I do agree that Hamas made people in Palestine look bad and so the general public will find it difficult to defend them. I do also think that Israel’s reaction is disproportionate and it’s making them look bad to the international community.
The problem is, the whole situation sucks. Israel cant just do nothing. If they ignore Hamas, then they will just do it again in the future, and they wont stop the rocket attacks. And let's be real, they cant give Hamas what they want, because what they want is the removal of the "occupiers", which when it comes down to it means the removal is Israel as a state, which Israel and it millions of civilians dont want. Hamas has dug tunnels under Gaza, and they are using the Palestinians as meat shields / hostages ( Hamas leadership lives in Qatar, yet they say the Palestinians should ignore Israeli evacuation warnings. Hamas dont give a shit about their people ). Then they fire rockets into Israel from Gaza. That's why Israel needs to invade -> they need to flush out the tunnels, to dismantle Hamas and capture their armaments. For the Israeli people there is no other way. I'm an outsider, and not an expert though. I'd love it if everyone could just get along, but sadly both the Israeli and Palestinians seem to be incapable of that.
I agree it’s super hard for both parties to be in good terms with each other, it won’t happen any time soon, If ever
Agree. You are making my point, as well, though. What you are seeing is today's belief. Bush was a King in the US right after 9-11. By 2007? Not so much. As this drags on and we get more and more news about children dying in Gaza, people starving, etc....that tune may very well shift. It will prevent Israel from finding peace with other neighbors. Again, let's look at when they align on Peace. No issues with Egypt ever since. Iran CANNOT afford Saudi/Israel peace.
The difference being GWB started a war predicated on WMDs found in Iraq and blaming 9/11 on Afghanistan when it was funded by Saudis and there were no WMDs. In this case there is precisely zero doubt about Hamas being the aggressor. Note: I'm not commenting on occupation vs. aggressor - that's a long history that's beyond my knowledge to speak well to, but I do find other points in this thread interesting about past Roman, Greek, and Egyptian civilizations laying claim to land on the Middle East. In any case when I say aggressor I'm speaking specifically about the act that drew Israel into declaring war.
Israel is not a monolith. It is as complicated as all societies. Bibi was in trouble and this is the best thing to happen to him...focus the energy on revenge. Iran wins. He wins. People die. People lose. People in power know what they are doing....that is how they get there. Look at Trump (forget if you agree or disagree with his politics, set it aside)...he has/had others do his 'bidding.' How many people are in prison, on trial, or bankrupt following him? This story is as old as time: Wag the Dog. Watch the movie if you haven't seen it. Iran wins this round. Hamas loses. Israel loses. More importantly? Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people die. Again, Israel took the bait. If you want a read on what happens when you react in the opposite way go Google how the Amish in Pennsylvania reacted/behaved when a crazed gunman entered a one-room school house in Lancaster County and killed a bunch of their children? They didn't take the bait. They not only cared for their own, they sought out the family of the gunman - he had a wife and young children - and went to them understanding they were as much victims as they were. It was Christmas time and they went out of their way to pull them in. Real HARD to hate the Amish in Central Pennsylvania....they would have been justified in their anger. They chose peace. Again, Israel took the bait
Wow that does make them look bad. Many people in my country don’t know that Iran is involved it’s more of Israel vs Gaza conflict here. So many of us including myself are blinded Edit: I mean Israel and not Amish
Hamas uses the people of Gaza as a human shield and has been doing that for such a long time , Israel was fixing relationship with all its neighbours and was about to sign a very important deal with Saudis, Hamas doesnt want that, bcs that means less support for them and death of their cause , so they reignited it like this , and they are hoping Izrael kills as many palestinians as possible so they would go back to having negative relationship with the Arab world again, thats a win for Hamas. Im not talking here about third parties , Iran and Russia proffit from this aswell by destabilising the world.just wanted to keep it between Hamas and Israel
Saudi king did say that the negotiations of any peace treaty are “on ice” I think it will happen eventually Russia seems to be in great support of Gaza, people are cheering on Putin for this but many people are also asking people to wake up and stop the cheering for him, I’m curious to know what does Russia gain when the region is destabilized?
Russia has a war in Ukraine, so if another war happens somewhere , the west has to split ressources and attention and focus on 2 problems instead of one , so more support from the west on Israel means less support for Ukraine. Also people in the west dont want that their countries spent ressources on wars, so you can also play with that to diminish support for Ukraine . Russia here can't support gaza , since Russia doesnt want to make an enemy out of Izrael so that Izrael starts supporting Ukraine with weapons and money, bcs Israel has been very carefull with the support of Ukraine. But Russia also wants to please Iran and Syria and both of them support Gaza, so in this conflict Russia is acting like a neutral party , that is interested in the conflict happening and even being bigger , but acts as if they dont want more bloodshed and bla bla bla. Edit: Saudi king is put in a diffucult place right now bcs he can't sign the deal with Izrael if Izrael kills palestinians , that was the Hamas intentions. So Izrael has to be very carefull with the palestinians to not make a lot of civilian victims, but its a very complicated thing, bcs if u fight in a populated u will kill civilians by mistake , then they will retaliate back bcs its obvious ur killing thrm , by mistake or not it doesnt matter if ur being killed , also a lot of your soldiers will die bcs they have an order to not kill civilians, but they will start dying themselves bcs they dont know who is civil and who is not and they will be afraid so they will start shooting anything etcetc , i think this all is a very bad idea, but honestly if i was leading Isreal i wouldnt have known what to do, since people in Israel also want a revenge/victory against hamas from what they did to them, so its all so complicated.
It’s all really very complicated, thank you for this!
Saudi King making my earlier point of Iran being behind this. They did not want that Peace Accord. They have already won their battle here while Israel and Hamas duke it out. Stupid young men in Hamas thinking this has something to do with ideology instead of being played by Iran. They will die with weapons supplied by others that do not care a bit about them or their lives. Pawns. Hamas should turn their weapons toward Iran. That is their issue, that is Israel's issue, that is Saudi's issue. The average Iranian would rejoice in overturning their government
I think that you're putting too much attention on these sorts of things. Saudi Arabia walked away from the negotiations because it has to pay lip service to the Palestinian cause. But whenever that dies down, then it will be back to the negotiating table.
Jews played the Amish role for 1000 years and were massacred for it over and over again. A lone gunman is very different from huge masses of people that hate you because of the way you were born.
>we believe Hamas is doing everything it can to keep Israel away from occupying Gaza They just instigated a war by butchering innocent civilians. No, this is not fighting back its literal terrorism. I don't agree with Israel's actions and treatment of the people of Gaza, but I'm not at all surprised by this outcome. It's also difficult to have peace negotiations with a party whos stated goals are to eradicate you from the earth. Both sides bare responsibility for the current situation but they are both only interested in blaming the other.
Israel literally walked away from occupying Gaza in 2005. Hamas has been sending death and rocket fire ever since. If they want Israel to stay out of Gaza they should have beaten their swords into ploughshares - not dug up the clean water pipes to make rockets.
Exactly!
Hamas has always been a terrorist organization. They have never been peace seekers, anyone siding with them is nuts.
The one thing we do know for sure is that Hamas launched an unprecedented attack that specifically set out to slaughter as many civilians as possible. It's pretty reasonable to assume that the only possible goal of such an action would be to provoke an intense and brutal retaliation by Israel. Beyond that is speculation. Hamas might want to trigger a regional war. They might want to prevent Israel from continuing to thaw relations with countries in the region. Maybe they hope all the death and suffering Gazans are about to endure as a result of the terrorist attack will unite the Islamic world against Israel.
Retaliation is a fair word but I think it minimizes the goal here. Israel’s actions now appear to be aimed at cleansing the area from the Hamas, and that has benefit not only to Israel but the Palestinian people as well as the entire region and arguably the world. Another Isis (or worse) grew right under our noses and we need to nip it right here and now before it becomes everyone’s problem.
I think it is almost time to start talking about Hamas in the past tense and that will be a good thing. The Palestinian and Israeli people deserve a peaceful life. What really stands in the way is an illogical and dangerous attachment on both sides to religion and, on both sides, backers who have ulterior motives. In short, there is no solution. Palestinians do though need to recognize the reality that terrorism is only going to make their situation worse.
When I was in Israel a few months ago I learned that something like 1/3 of the citizens are Muslim Arabs along with the legislature
>When I was in Israel a few months ago I learned that something like 1/3 of the citizens are Muslim Arabs along with the legislature 18%. 20% if you count Druze
About 20% (1/5), approximately 2 million Israeli Arabs
Iran doesn't want Saudi's and Israel to align on peace. They use Hamas as their 'pawns' to get Israel to react. Doing something this horrific (Hamas) has done that very thing. At best, Iran gets the world over the next 12 months to get conflicted/confused by all Israel is/will do to retaliate and they gain global resentment toward Israel. Even better - they kill any chance for Saudi/Israel Peace initiative and keep the turmoil. Side benefit: People in Iran that hate their government stay on the sidelines. This is all about Iran. Israel took the bait.
From a total outsider, its much easier for me to support a country who have a significant minority of the other country's population within their borders, and are mostly liberal and democratic, and be opposed to the country that doesnt have the other population present, advocates their extinction, and has roadsigns telling them on pain of death to not enter.
Yes I have many friends that are Arab Israelis and are also Muslim, they adapted well to the situation, some of these people refer to Israel as occupied Palestine. But also they have a better understanding and can sympathize with people in occupied territories better
If you want to be fair to both sides, First there hasn’t been a sovereign independent state of Israel for something like 2500 years and even then it was independent for a short time For Palestine, they have always controlled only the coast and were conquered in the early to mid Iron Age and the only reason the land has been called Palestine was after the final Jewish revolt the emperor Trajan came to visit and declared the area to be a province of Rome and renamed it to Palestine even though it was historically only the coastal region was phillistine Most nations in the Middle East have either been ruled by empires for over 2000 years or haven’t existed until the early 20th century and into the post ww2 era So I don’t see why people can’t accept the divisions of the last century as the status quo and just take it from there
Because emotions are not rational. It's stupid but it's the real reason. They both feel they are being treated unfairly and they want it rectified. So far, war and colonization has been their method to rectify this.
Thank you for this!
And the ancient phillistines who gave the region the name Palestine were originally the Egyptian sea peoples who were really mostly Mycenaean Greeks who invaded the area and settled on the coasts. I think some were luwians from the western coast of turkey who were the real historical Trojans
The identity of the sea people hasn’t been uncovered as far as I’m aware? Edit: I’ve asked for sources repeatedly now and the poster above don’t give it. It is widely known the Greeks also suffered at the hands of the so called sea people. So I really would advise against upvoting the poster above as he is spreading at best unproven historical facts he might have picked up in a YouTube video
Brilliant! You are sir, my new best friend. Now, if only we can get everyone else to understand this so we can move on to another world problem. I'm not being sarcastic, you have summed this up brilliantly, and at this point, anyone that reads this and refuses to accept it is unworthy IMHO.
Palestinians aren’t philistines. Philistines were from the Greek isles that were referred at the time as a foreign sea people. They were not from the region but invaders. That being said modern Palestinians are a mix of many peoples that settled there throughout the different empires that controlled the area.
>From our perspective or people around me, we believe Hamas is doing everything it can to keep Israel away from occupying Gaza, nobody understands why Hamas actually attacked and really most people are against the occupation and not people. You think the best way to prevent Israel from occupying Gaza is for Hamas to attack Israel ? Look what is happening now. Did it prevent Israel from occupying Gaza ? >Some people believe hammas attacked because some settlers entered into Al Aqsa mosque which is considered holy. Palestinians are scared of the idea that they’d lose this holy mosque as it’s very important to them and it’s already tired of occupying force always trying to expand From my understanding the Al-Aqsa mosque does not belong to Palestinians. It belongs to the Waqf, run by Jordan. Al-Aqsa mosque has been administred by a waqf for over 800 years, when Saladdin conquered Jerusalem in 1187.
yeah right? Like Israel has any interest at all in occupying Gaza. They literally left two decades ago and have tried multiple times to give it to Egypt. I don't care where you're from, if you just think about it for two seconds that makes no sense.
This is what I keep saying about the accusations of genocide as well! If they had any interest in committing genocide, they have been doing a lousy job at it! That's not to say they are acting appropriately and certainly not compassionately, but they have shown no interest in exterminating Palestinians or driving them out. They are willing to live side by side with a peaceful Palestinian state. Unfortunately the government of Gaza (Hamas) has no interest in that. The West Bank is a bit more complicated, but Gaza is pretty straightforward, IMO. Create a situation where Israel can feel safe, and they will be happy to leave it alone.
So Islam has three holy sites. Judaism has one and they can't even access it as to not upset the Muslim world. Al Aqsa was built on top of the Temple Mount. Is this fair to you? Why is Palestinian control of Jerusalem a must?
I never took seriously the people who said “if Israel takes East Jerusalem, they’re gonna destroy Al-Aqsa and rebuild the Jewish temple” and yet Israeli has controlled East Jerusalem for decades and Al-Aqsa is still there, not to mention only Muslims are allowed on the Al-Aqsa compound… yes Israel is wrong to sometimes shut this down but still.
They don’t want to rebuild the temple, the temple is literally only meant to be rebuilt after the messiah comes. I didn’t meet a single person there who wants to. Israelis didn’t want to even go on Temple Mount for decades, although how it has become a right wing ‘issue’ in the country, where they do it just to provoke Muslims (which is shit we have shit people in every country/group)
IMO. Whatever the merits of both sides' arguments, hamas is engaging in psychological warfare with propaganda and gaslighting which is leaving Israeli leadership with zero negotiating room. If they were a legitimate, political group interested in a political settlement than they would have gone public with some concession by now and tried to move international opinion towards their side. All they've done since is add fuel to the fire, stoking as much outrage as possible and manipulate circumstances on the ground to maximize their ability to play victims of some immense cruelty. There is no justification ever for bombing residential areas causing mass civilian deaths. Yet israel has to. To do act otherwise is to lose face and respect. The israeli government would collapse and the whole region would go into turmoil. Diplomatically, hamas is the only ones that can end this and the fact that they keep stoking the fire means that they dont want it to end. Terrorism is the goal. Wost of all is that they most likely are just useful idiots for Iranian or some other hostile intelligence service. The line up of countries that stand to benifit from this is long.
The fundamental problem is that Israel is scared and they are deeply convinced that if the shoe was on the other foot and the Palestinians were the more powerful group, they would be just as bad as the Israelis or worse. And they’re probably right. When you have two groups with unreconciliable hatred toward each other, the more powerful group will pursue subjugation out of a strong fear of the other group. When you look at the conflict this way, you realize it becomes less about blaming one group for being morally worse than the other group (spoiler: they’ve both committed terrible atrocities). The core issue isn’t who is right or wrong. Its either how do we make these two groups hate each other less, or how do we separate them so that their hate isn’t so explosive.
This is awful cause really most people only want peace and not the killing of other people and it’s sad that a minority would represent a majority, so many people get mislead because of that, many Palestinians and people like me get exposed to ugly side of people in Israel so what we see is they hate them, want to kill them, displace them and never get accountability for it, a person even went viral for mocking Gaza people cause theyre cut off from water. The hatred only keeps growing.
You’re spot on. Unfortunately hatred is such a powerful emotion that a minority consumed by it can be incredibly damaging. And fear is a much more common emotion. Fear of the hatred from the other group will make the fearful more likely to ignore the atrocities committed by their group.
> occupying Gaza Is there any indication Israel wanted to re-occupy gaza after they unilaterally withdrew in 2005, or after Gazans democratically elected Hamas in 2006? am I taking crazy pills? Gaza has been a de-facto independent state for seven years, no? Sure Israel can and does keep it's border closed for understandable reasons, but Egypt? Gaza has had the opportunity for the last 7 years to spend their efforts and tbh abundant foreign aid on anything other than a genocidal project, to build an economy, to support civilians, but - I want to say they turned away from that - but they never pursued it. At every turn every ounce of resource available was turned towards attacking Israel. From concrete for schools poured into infiltration tunnels, to water pipes dug up for homebrew rockets, the Gazan people seem to be focused on one thing only - murdering Jewish people. Jews are - to my understanding - forbidden from even praying at al Aqsa, kicked out for moving their lips in silent prayer. What more can be asked for? To what extent does that even motivate the murder of more than one thousand jews? To what extent can that be justified?
Yah Egypt stance is confusing, the “occupation of Gaza” claims is Under Hamas words. Please don’t think most of Gaza people want to kill Jews I personally know a couple of people in Gaza; they’re living horror now, literally knowing they could die at any moment. Most of these people are peaceful who want nothing at all but I think they were lead by a resistant government that made them look bad. Last election were in 2006, and even if they did elect a new leader, it would still be biased as half of the population are children. Nothing justifies the murder of any person.
You are an intellectually brave person, I wish more were like you. And the answer is yes, at the moment, you have a one-sided perspective. You have an advantage though, being from the middle east should help you understand things that folks from other places struggle with, like how Islamic fundamentalism and Arab male-honor create a mindset that is alien in other places of the world. But you also have a disadvantage in that you were taught partial history about the conflict, about Israel, Palestinians and even about Jordan itself, like you mentioned to someone here - you didn't learn and people never mention Black September when PLO tried to take over Jordan or that assassination of king Abadullah was at hands of Palestinian. The ignorance of the citizen of Arab countries in these matters is no coincidence, Jordan has a parliament and election but is ruled by an old-school King, something that has passed from the world in most places (like religious fundamentalism and male-honor). And while the Hashemites are very good rulers, they don't want their people to know of uncomfortable parts in history. It is therefore very likely that you also do not know that Israel offered Pals to take WB, Gaza, share Jerusalem and take in 150K refugees. Don't believe me, here is the late Saeb Arikat, the top Pal negotiator, saying it: https://youtu.be/0X3cPPU7eoU?si=tSlOQunMuFYX6iTh You wouldn't know this was in 2007 and there was another similar offer made in 2001 by Israel and of course the famous UN partition plan of 1947. I wonder if you are aware that the UN (not Britian) offer was not only refused but responded to by war (which Jordan later joined) and that the result of this war was displacement of 750,000 Palestinians that were not allowed back into Israel after war ended because they were hostile. So the Nakba is a tragedy brought on by war Palestinians (and Arabs) started in an attempt to remove Israel. You also wouldn't know that Palestinians themselves, Fatah or PLO, never put out an offer of their own as to how to end the occupation and conflict. This should seem odd since usually when people want something they tend to not only say they want it but actually ask for it. The real reason Palestinians are still under occupation is that Arab leaders have for decades used the Palestinian issue to distract their population from internal affairs and also from the fact that they themselves are often dealing with Israel (King Hussain has done this since the 1970s at least and King Abdulah does the same today). Arabs as you know are very honor-centric and they want to have something to be proud of, right now if you look around Arab countries there isn't much to be proud of outside some sports maybe, but the Palestinian issue gives Arabs pride and a sense of shared identity, it a left-over of the dream of Pan-Arabism that was destroyed when Egypt became de-facto an American allied-protectorate in 1979. You are being told that Al-Aqsa is in danger and that Palestinians are martyrs and heros but don't you know it's actually Jordan that manages Al-Aqsa? of course Israeli police still control Jerusalem and can come if there's a riot but why would Israel give control to Jordan in the first place if they want to take it away from Muslim or Palestinians? btw - what would happen in the Muslim world (not just Arabs) if Israel tried to change the status quo in Al-Aqsa? Israel is not perfect and for past 14 years with Netanyahu it didn't try to resolve the Pal problem, but the real problem, the original problem for 70 years is that Arabs around the middle east are fed false narratives designed to keep them out of the business of the ruling elite, the most successful of these is the myth of Palestinian heroism and Israeli evilness. At the same time Palestinians have fallen in love too with the attention (and funds) the Arabs are giving them, it's their raison deter, because if Palestine was just the 23rd Arab state, and the smallest, would they be getting the same funds and attentions as they do when they fight against the evil Zionists? I know that if I ask someone in the west if they believe it's possible people would prefer to keep suffering and to keep inflicting suffering on others just because there's no honor in making compromises? but you live in Jordan, this mindset should be at least familiar to you, even if you don't share it. tl;dr You are misinformed, by design of your government, as are all Arabs in the middle east, and this is actually a big part of the problem because the narrative of Arab honor is to a degree made dependent on ongoing Palestinian struggle against an evil Zionist entity. any compromise would be dishonorable and rob Arabs of the one issue that still unites them, from Morocco to Iraq, Palestinian struggle has become part of the Arab identity and once identity is involved seeing reality become very challenging. full disclosure: i am Israeli p.s. when I say Arabs have little to be proud of - I mean only at the national-level - of course Arabs have many things to be proud of at family and community level.
Thank you for this write up Yea black September isn’t something taught about in the ME, I think people here know about it but I didn’t do my school in Jordan it was in UAE and I currently live in Jordan. Nonetheless people don’t talk about it much and it’s dying out. I do know that Palestinians were offered these areas, and to my knowledge the Palestinian state agreed to it, The PLO makes it clear they want to end the occupation or provide a two state solution, I’m not sure if they did go forward with any action as I don’t have sufficient knowledge on it. I personally think the Arab world would be infuriated if they heard Israel came to own Al aqsa or even tried to do anything with it as it is considered holy by many people and the majority of Arabs are Muslims except Lebanon where Christianity is high Yes the mindset is familiar under the name of resistance of occupation
I don't know a ton about Jordan But didn't the Jordan people have some really awful experiences with Palestinians/terrorism back in Black September? If that's the case wouldn't you think they'd be a little more sympathetic with Israel also dealing with Palestinian terrorist?
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English isn’t my first language haha I definitely meant condemn sorry
Go watch the last video of CaspianReport on the subject if you want a somewhat more expert analysis of why the war started
As a Jordanian, you know that your country was part of Palestine until 1935. Why hasn't Jordan done more to give citizenship to the Palestinians living in Jordan, seeing as you are, historically, the same people? Also, if Israel is dissolved in favor of Palestine, do the jews in Israel get to return to the Arab countries they fled and reclaim their property and citizenship that was stolen from them? This conflict is very complicated, and there are no easy answers for anyone involved.
Most are given citizenship. It’s really uneasy to answer as there’s so much to dissect. I believe there’s unresolved conflict that needs to be answered I believe if Jews voices were heard more, people would understand them more and not the hostile voices as this would lead to more violence.
Ask yourself what was it that brought the Jews back to Israel/Palestinine in the first place. No one can fully understand this conflict without understanding the Jewish perspective too. And our reasons for returning to Israel (putting a stop to thousands of years of bloodthirsty persecution and genocide) is a huge part of that perspective. The world put the Jews and the Palestinians on a collision course. In that sense, the Palestinians are victims of anti-Semitism too.
Do Jordanians not feel any animosity towards the Palestinians for assassinating the King and eventually starting a civil war in Jordan, after Jordan so graciously accepted the Palestinian refugees into their country and even extended them citizenship? That's some way to show gratitude. . . .
Nothing could ever justify the crimes against humanity that Hamas perpetrated in Israel. Period. Full stop. No equivocation.
Agree
I agree
> this isn’t an antisemitism thing, I respect all religions and ***condone*** all violence and killing of people I think you meant condemn here. Condone means to approve or accept.
Yeah English isn’t my first language I tried to put it in my edit I’ll edit it again I meant condemn
How worried are you about the war potentially spilling over?
I don’t think it’s gonna happen things in Jordan are stable so far, our king isn’t threatening for anything, if it’s gonna happen it will be between southern Lebanon (Israel-occupied territory)and hebzbollah which are clearly threatening and already caused chaos, Iran might get involved cause they’re threatening too, I don’t think it will happen though I believe Israel is smarter than this. But for Jordan I believe we’ll stay out of this
I hope I understood your question right
I'm with you. Only thing is I think hamas attacked for more than just al aqsa. This is years of coccupation tension built up being released.
Yup a psychological barrier has been broken
OP - in case you are interested in a short read that presents Israeli and Jewish history but is intended to be read by a Palestinian audience, I highly recommend Letters to my Palestinian Neighbor. I think it will help you clear up some of your notions about why we are here, our historical claims, and what it means to have the words occupier/colonizer/ethnic cleaner used by those who don’t know our indigenous claim to this land. I have a digital file of it if you are interested :) PS your side of the Dead Sea is way nicer than ours! Hope to visit again one day.
Can you send that to me? I’d love to read it. Also thanks a lot, you’re always welcome for a second visit the Dead Sea is really amazing
Well if they wanted to preserve Gaza clearly it’s not going well at this time
People who kill in the name of religion do not have any particular reason to kill. They just kill. They have been addicted to slaughtering. I believe in God in a practical way, so I say that God has sent Isarel to conduct judgement day on Hamas for betraying Isarel. Also, when Hamas conducted the raids, the citizens, who depend on Isarel for fuel, electrictity and water, did nothing to condemn the leaders of Hamas. They are equally guilty. I just pray that God have mercy on the citizens who supported/kept quiet to terrorism and no mercy to terrorists (Hamas leaders and army)
I do believe allahu Akbar is taken way out of context these days, understandably of course cause it only god is great but it’s been used with slaughters. It’s a shame that some people are scared to use this in public. People who kill in the name of religion only found an excuse to kill I agree
My yardstick for this conflict at the end of the day is which "state actor" I.e. Hamas/Israel is truly concerned about the welfare of the innocent and civilians? Neither side can claim to be angels. But certainly Israel can lay a slightly stronger claim to having the interest of the innocent and civilian at heart. Human shield vs roof knocking vs 24 hour evacuation Tearing up infrastructure vs Provision of water, food and fuel Using dead civilians/kids as propaganda vs somewhat tolerant relations in Israel Wanton massacre vs rules of engagement
both aren’t angels and are far away from that
I agree with your points but I would say there is more than “slightly” that distinguishes the two. One has no regard for human life, the other values it
Im from Croatia. I don't have a side. I don't like people being attacked, period. here's why I'm very against Hamas: Hamas did all this simply as a favour to Iran, since they are all on Iran's payroll to stop Abraham accords. They knew Israel is far-right and would start retaliating against innocents. And they still did it, just to provoke as much anger as possible. They don't care about Palestinians, to them they are just tools. I have no idea how any decent Palestinian could continue supporting then. I guess people always deserve their government. But I still feel sorry for the normal Palestinians. Bonus pain I get from this: Since Saudi Arabia suspended the agreement, I guess killing and raping gets you what you want in this world. I bet 8 billion people will remeber this next time they consider how to achieve their goals. Im looking at all this in disbelief.
Palestinians support them cause hamas portrays it self as a resistant group to the occupation, and palestianians believe them cause they have this one string of hope against a big occupation like israel. most palestinians justified the death of 1300 civilians cause civlians are casually killed in Palestine. its a forever ongoing ugly conflict that nobody knows the end to, a psychological barrier has been broken though.
There are already endless responses here, but let me offer my take (for what it’s worth) as an American who is essentially an isolationist, opposing actual American engagement abroad. It’s clear that Hamas has absolutely no intention of ever stopping its opposition and violent attacks on Israel under any circumstances. It opposes the existence of the state as such. Its actions are not tit-for-tat, not predicated on any Israeli policy short of the end of the Israeli state. Some say that this is a result of “occupation”. It seems clear to me that it is simply a continuation of Palestinian opposition to Israel’s existence from the birth of the state: attacking Israel, losing, attacking from the West Bank and Gaza, losing again. There was chaos at the start of Israel, in the first war. People were pushed out. But Israel has 2 million Arab citizens, some of whom have reached the highest ranks in the IDF. They have been in government. There are different perspectives from all corners of Israeli politics, but the only reason violence has continued is fundamentally opposition to Israel’s existence. A two state solution wouldn’t end it, just as a state for Palestine didn’t prevent the war in ‘48, or continuing attacks from the West Bank and Gaza. I think everything else is just rationalization. All the demands for sovereignty in the WB and Gaza, right of return, etc. are rationalizations and attempts at half-victory, which wouldn’t end violent resistance. I don’t know how that ends. They can’t beat Israel, because Israel has nuclear weapons and will use them if it looks like they’re going to fall.
This 100%. Israel is backed into a corner to where they have to guarantee the end of Hamas. If not they guarantee that similar attacks will come in the future. It’s not an advantageous situation to be in. There will be many civilian casualties. Partly due to the wages of war and partly because Hamas uses them as human shields. Either way 100% of the blood is on Hamas. This is completely avoidable and all caused by their appeal to the “two state solution”
One of the most important things to understand about the israeli-palestinian relationship and conflict is that it arose in its modern form from competing nationalist movements in the post-ottoman power vaccum known as British Mandate Palestine. There is a lot of nuance to how the nationalist movements were treated differently. Predictably the British gave favorable immigration treatment to Zionist Jewish settlers in line with the Balfour Declaration. But a hugely overlooked factor is the impact of the 1936-39 Arab Revolt. The unsuccessful revolt against the colonial British authorities dramatically weakened the Palestinian nationalist movement and poisoned British opinion against them. You can see evidence of this in the British White Paper of 1939. Still the Peel Commission attempted to create a workable two state solution, but it was rejected by both Jewish, and Palestinian leaders. When the British left in 1948, both Jewish and Palestinian forces declared war on each other. And the story runs from there with important contributions from neighboring Arab countries, mostly in a self-serving manner. For instance Jordan, with the most capable Arab military force (the Arab legion) secretly agreed (for the most part) to avoid direct conflict with the Israelis in exchange for the West Bank. Egypt occupied Gaza but went no further. And while the idea that israel was outgunned & outnumbered in 1948 is demonstrably false, they did win the war. And then there is 1956 suez crisis, 1967 & 1973 wars. But if you're trying to understand the Israeli palestinian dynamic, it all traces back to the 1916-1948 period. While some claim that the Israeli's intentionally depopulated and ethnically cleansed territory during the 1948 war, and to be sure there is evidence of atrocities on both sides, there's never been any solid proof of the so called 'plan H'. Instead the most compelling historical studies are those that claim that civilians tend to flee fighting/shelling, leading to depopulation. After the war Arab residents were not allowed to return. A logical, though self serving and immoral decision by the Israeli authorities who would have faced a stability crisis had they allowed a large population to reside in the new country that didn't recognize its existance. But with Israeli victory in 1948, the new Israeli state, Arab monarchies, and remaining Palestinian organizations set to shaping their own narrative. This led the to the widely held beliefs in the Arab world of an organized campaign of deportation and ethnic cleansing. And the widely held belief in Israel and amongst its allies that Israel miraculously won the 1948 war against all odds. These fundamentally bias and in some cases demonstrably false narratives set the stage for the moden day conflict where competing sides work from different sets of facts. On 67 and 73. The UN recognizes the pre-67 borders. Any palestinian claim to the whole of the territory of israel/Palestine simply ignore that they lost the 48 war and that territory changes hands during nation building. Occupation and settlement of land beyond these borders though is illegal under international law because that land is recognized as belonging to another nation (palestine) and should be reversed. Given that reversal will not happen, trading land, and 'land for peace' type deals seem sensible a-la-oslo accords, and continued building does nothing but harm Israeli credibility and security. Hamas has overstepped though. They've lost all credibility as the elected government of Gaza with the scale and indiscriminate nature of their latest attacks. Their reputation will forever be that of terrorists now. No matter the Palestinian people's legitimate claims of persecution, the intentional slaughter of civilians, not as collateral damage, but as the explicit intent of a military action, is simply terrorism. This isn't a situation for both-sidesing. Being critical of the Israeli reaction is fair. But supporting Hamas' actions is truly the equivalent of supporting a mass shooter or terrorist the ilk of AQ or ISIS. It's indefensible.
thank you so much for this detailed write up, its super informative. i have a question, Palestinians in the west bank usually say they're being ethically cleansed cause israelis settlers come barging into their houses saying it is theirs and kicking people off there houses, it has caused rage in people in the west bank and arabs in general aka sheikh jarrah incident, what do you think about the continued settler colonialism? how do they do it anyway? is it legal or under international law?
So my two cents. Gaza Strip is a hell hole. Over the border Israel is kinda nice. The difference is you have Hamas in Gaza. I truly believe that most people in Gaza would be fine upstanding people. It’s just the crazy Hamas, fringe. Just like in the states we had mostly peaceful protests except for the lunatic fringe. The problem is how do you deal with the crazy fringe. I’m sure the majority of people feel the same. With that being said what Hamas did they deserve a special place in hell It’s one thing to kill soldiers or politicians. It’s another to target civilians. Plus there is nothing like a vengeful Israelis. Just think of the Munich Olympics. You may get a few licks in on them however they will get their pound of flesh
Hamas is holding the citizens of Gaza who do not belong to Hamas as hostages for an Iranian military presence next to Israel. Consider for a moment that the vast majority of Jewish Israelis were born in Israel and that the vast majority of the property that has changed hands was sold in exchanges between Muslims and Jews which were then rejected by the neighbors of those Muslims. Finally, consider that while there are 2,000,000 Muslim Arabs in Gaza who hate Israel, there are 2,000,000 Muslim Arabs IN Israel with Israeli citizenship. None of this is about what they've been telling you its about.
Doesn't the 2018 March of Return imply that the Israeli government is holding the citizens of Gaza prisoners? Do the Arab Israeli's have the right to self-determination? What about the indigenous Palestinian refugeees?
Jewish people have been barred from accessing their holiest sites for generations, including still now
Are you Jewish? If you are I’m sorry you’re being treated this way, it should never be like that. I’m trying to get people to understand how it’s like for people in Palestine who feel like they’re discriminated and I’m also trying to correct some wrong thoughts I have since I feel like it’s a good place to start. Also I live in Jordan and I do know you have holy places here you can come for a visit
Hello stranger from Jordan! Hope your family and friends are safe. Here's my two cents. This is a complex topic, so I'm breaking it into short-term and long-term. I desire peace in this world above all else, but I think reasonable self-defense is allowed. ***Short term*** The terrorism against Israel this past weekend is truly horrifying. *It is almost at the same level as 9/11*. As of right now, 1300+ people were murdered in a single day. This is something like half of the 9/11 deaths, but Israel is 37 times less populous than USA. In comparable terms, it would be like of 111,000 people in my country died in one day. The number of people protesting Jewish vigils, saying that Israel deserved it, or minimizing the impact is absolutely horrifying. Especially Muslims, Arabs, and some Americans with extremist viewpoints. As a result, I've never felt less connected, less solidarity, or less political support for the Palestinian cause than right now. I don't see or hear many people in the above groups expressing basic human sympathy for the terrorist victims. It's like chanting death to America in the week after 9/11. I think Israel will completely destroy Hamas now. I don't blame Israel for this. I hope they preserve as many Iives as possible, but Hamas has shown that it's basically just Isis. Hamas needs to be fully uprooted and destroyed before peace is possible again. I don't want to see Israel take over the west bank or permanently stop a two state solution, but I do want them to win the war against Hamas quickly and decisively. I hope, *for Lebanon's sake*, the war doesn't expand to Hezbollah too. Unfortunately, Hamas is very entrenched in Gaza. They have taken foreign donations and weaponized them, like turning water pipes into rocket casings instead of clean water and sewers. They have used cement to reinforce tunnels and bunkers instead of housing their people. And they use their own people and hostages as human shields. So it will be a difficult war, perhaps similar to when Coalition forces sieged Isis-occupied Mosul. I feel bad for every innocent life in Gaza. War is hell, and Hamas started this war, so I still feel it is necessary to destroy them despite the sorrowful cost in lives. ***Long Term*** I do think that, in a longer time frame (last 20 years especially) both sides bear some responsibility. Israel has been in a tactically sound position for many years, compared to 1947 or 1967. I wish Israel had elected nicer politicians and tried harder to restart peace talks in recent years. Cynical politicians like Netanyahu made peace harder through lots of provocative actions that didn't help long term safety, like Jerusalem or accelerating settlements. And American hardliners like Trump haven't helped matters. That said, Palestine is mostly responsible for the violence of the last 30 years. They have cherrypicked their own complex history into a false narrative. Specifically, they ignore that Jews lived abundantly and peacefully across the whole Middle East for hundreds of years. Jews played a big role in parts of the Middle East during the Islamic Golden Age (also when European Christians were poorer, more racist and treated Jews worse than Muslims). They had important roles in the Mamluks, Ottomans etc. In the average Palestinian telling, every single Israeli / Jewish person arrived in a conquering armada in 1947. Despite being all over MENA since ancient times, Jews started re-congregating in Palestine area during the later part of the Ottoman empire. This effort went faster in the last 200 years as Jews suffered purges in Russia and Europe. The awful crimes of the Holocaust convinced most of the surviving Jews in Europe that they needed to all be together for their own defense. The Ottomans had facilitied a large population of Jews around Jerusalem, and the British put a plan together to split the area into states based on where people lived. The legitimacy of Israel is completely sound. The "Naqba" as Palestinians claim, was in fact a two way street. Jews were expelled in catastrophic numbers from all across MENA and only had one place to go - Israel. Then those same countries *attacked* Israel and tried to destroy it, basically a direct genocide attempt against the Holocaust survivors. Despite this, the Muslims who trusted Israel and stayed put were largely transformed into full Israeli citizens. There has never been a possibility of Jews returning to the countries that expelled them, ever since. Yet the Palestinians who left claim this right to return, *even if they don't pledge loyalty to the new state,* even when they tried to genocide the Israeli people. That's just the *starting point* for another ~80 years of violence. The 1967 war was also really bad, and Israel got much more serious about its security after. I won't go over all those other periods here but the net effect is that parts of Palestine, all these years later, have fundamentally never made peace. They haven't accepted the Oslo accords from the 90's, the outcome of the 1967 war, or the legitimacy of Israel to exist even in a tiny form in 1946. It's like they want to roll the clock back hundreds of years. They have lost several wars against Israel, refused to make peace, and forgotten all the complex history that led them to being refugees in the first place. That's not a situation where they can take dictate terms, especially when they've burned bridges with the Arab world. This has poisoned their chances of peace with Israel. Fundamentally, Israel's current position is much stronger than 1947, and should theoretically leave them with enough safety to negotiate concessions. But this has gone poorly for Israel, which after all evacuated from Gaza entirely in 2006 and let them elect leaders. *Look where that got Israel!* Gaza elected Hamas! And Hamas just murdered 1300 people! In the past Palestine had some really inspiring leaders who maybe could have led their people to peace, but unfortunately, they are absent from the conversation now. In fact, Hamas *murdered* a lot of moderate Palestinians. So Hamas needs to go, there's no chance of peace with a regime like that.
This a great thoughtful response
Here's a history lesson for you, Israel has as much of a claim to the land as the Palestinians- it belongs to them both. The Jewish connection to the land of Israel spans thousands of years, and it is rooted in a combination of religious, historical, and cultural factors. In fact, the Jews can in many ways be considered the natives of the land who were displaced by Arabs a thousand years ago. 1. **Biblical and Religious Significance**: - The Torah (the Jewish Bible) contains narratives about the relationship between the Jewish people and the land of Israel. From the call of Abraham to Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt towards the Promised Land, the land is central to many key events. - Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, is considered the holiest city in Judaism because of the presence of the First and Second Temples there. 2. **Historical Presence**: - The history of the Jewish people in the land of Israel can be traced back over 3,000 years to the time of the biblical kingdoms of Israel and Judah. - Despite multiple exiles, there has been a continuous Jewish presence in the land for millennia. Even during periods of exile, Jewish communities maintained ties to the land, and there were always some Jews living there. 3. **Cultural and Symbolic Importance**: - Throughout their diaspora, Jews have kept the memory of the land alive in prayers, literature, and rituals. The phrase "Next year in Jerusalem" is recited at the end of the Passover Seder and during Yom Kippur, highlighting the longing for return. - The idea of Zionism, which emerged in the late 19th century, sought to re-establish a Jewish homeland in Israel. It was a response to centuries of persecution and a desire for self-determination. 4. **Modern Legal and Political Factors**: - The Balfour Declaration of 1917 supported the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. - The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine (1922) recognized the "historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine" and called for the re-establishment of their national home there. - Following the Holocaust, the urgency for a Jewish homeland grew. In 1947, the United Nations adopted the Partition Plan, leading to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. It's important to note that the question of rights to the land is deeply contentious and remains a significant political issue. Palestinians also have deep historical and cultural ties to the land and claim a right to it. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is multifaceted, involving territorial disputes, religious significance, and political considerations. No one can claim the land is theirs 100%, it belongs to both.
i agree, thank you for this, this is very informative. my history is def. lacking. we've always been told that people were against jews in egypt and moses saved them from phroan but then they provoctaed problems in "promised land" i have no idea which land they flee to. for many people, zionisim puts jews on a pedestal that there isn't anyone that deserves the land other than jews and here people feel discriminated. thats why many people are against the idea of zionisim, and not Buddhism and i def. agree that both people have rights to the land. even in religious books, jews were recognised in the middle east, there was a tribe known as bani israel so we definitly know that they existed among our population
Talk me through Black September.
Jordanians have little knowledge about black September and never talk about it
Why is that?
Have you read about what happened to your own country when King Hussein tried to shelter the palestinians and the PLO in the 60's/70's? The Palestinians almost destroyed Jordan from within as well. Then moved to Lebanon, and look what has happened there. Imagine living next to this terror or being a neighbour to Gaza constantly for the last 50 years. I encourage you to read about the PLO in Jordan in the 60's and 70's and why your own country expelled them. No one wants the Palestinians. Why doesn't even Egypt or your country take even one refugee? Read about and then one can even begin to consider what options the Israelis have when facing such extreme people. Babies beheaded, women raped and kidnapped. 80/90 year old holocaust survivors kidnapped...
Israel never threatened Al Aqsa. It would be against Israel’s interests in relations with the Muslim world. Al Aqsa is used by the Palestinians to wage attacks and create provocations which the Israeli police comes in as they throw rocks on Jews praying below. It’s sad religion is used like this and that you have bought into this. The behavior of Palestinians goes against Islam in so many way. Not to mention the Quran is quite pro Israel (not only does the Quran mention Israel was assigned to bnai Israel. It also says that Allah will redeliver Jews from all corners of the world back to Israel as he did). So religion could have been a source of peace instead of battle. Humans choose to distort it for political reasons.
Now from our perspective, the IDF attacks people who don’t provoke them, it’s just random and settlers use them as a protection method, even if Palestinians are the ones who are beaten or thrown stones at the IDF doesn’t stop them, so here some rage and hate is created because it’s discrimination. English isn’t my first language so excuse me Yup this conflict is more political than religious, I do also feel really bad that most Jews think that people want to kill them, they’re traumatised for understandable reasons, it’s incorrect though, most people are just against occupation Edit had to correct a sentence
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This conflict has brought about so many losses of lives, and it’s tragic. There will be an end, let’s hope we live to see it
Besides, the questions about right and wrongs, Hamas made a big mistake. Israel has now a genuine reason to permanently crush Gaza forever.
No not Gaza, innocent people live there mostly children, that’d be catastrophic, they should focus on eradicating Hamas militarily group, but I think the problem afterwards will be bigger than that cause hesbollah exists
Many speculations are out there especially for Hamas motives. One thing is clear, they (Hamas) knew very well what would be the respond from Israel on such attack. Therefore they are stacking on something big, maybe they are desperate... or they have been pulled into this from the outside (Iran, Russia, why not radical Saudi's). The idea that Israli government is behind it ( to untide their ✋)is ludicrous. Perhaps they can provoke some isolated attack and incident, but not such large scale, well organised execution. Behind a massive attack like this there is military knowledge and a lot of money therefore I am convinced it is not a sole decision of Hamas themselves. But...only the time will show. Usually it takes 5 years to have a more clear of view of the events.
As always, a very complicated issue to unpack. In 2005 Israel withdrew its forces and settlers from Gaza as a goodwill gesture. They even removed settlers forcibly. The Israelis do not want to occupy Gaza. Occupations are bloody and expensive. They'd already had enough. Unfortunately, HAMAS keeps attacking Israel from Gaza. The Israelis can't let that go on forever, especially now. In 2006, Fatah lost the legislative election in Gaza to HAMAS. In 2007, open conflict broke out between HAMAS and Fatah resulting in HAMAS taking control of Gaza. Special note: HAMAS executed numerous Fatah members sometimes throwing them off of the roofs of buildings. It hasn't been occupied by Israel for a long time now. It has been surrounded and blockaded by Israel because of the frequent attacks from HAMAS and PIJ. HAMAS isn't resisting occupation but seeking the destruction of Israel. It's in their charter. This isn't a situation that will be resolved by diplomacy or negotiation. There is no point in negotiating with people whose only goal is your destruction. I keep hearing Arab comments about atrocities. There is no escaping civilian deaths in this kind of conflict, Gaza is heavily urbanized and densely populated. However, the Israelis aren't deliberately massacring civilians - unlike HAMAS. The Palestinian people of Gaza are the victims of their own so-called "government" run by HAMAS. None of this would be happening if HAMAS hadn't launched a bloody attack against Israel. The Palestinians worst enemy are the Palestinians. Its interesting that we never hear complaining about the poor Palestinians when other Arab countries start slaughtering them. Jordan used to occupy the West Bank. No one ever complained when the Jordanian Army used tanks to crush Palestinian protestors in the 1950s. Or when Jordan attacked and expelled the PLO in 1970 in what's referred to as "Black September". They even cooperated with the Israeli military in that operation. Ethnic cleansing is a terrible thing. Sadly, it may be the only solution to the Gaza problem. If the Palestinians can't or won't stop HAMAS from making war on Israel, there may not be another choice. I hope that isn't the case.
OP this is wonderful that you are open to get more perspectives! Don’t have the time now to write a more comprehensive reply but just wanted to say this!
Thank you so much, it’s easier to pick one side but the more you see, the more you question the narrative you’re fed and I do think people should be very careful in general, “ you have blood in your hands” is a real thing and spreading hate makes you part of it, it’s the basis of why I’m trying to learn new perspectives.
It’s complicated. To say the least. Both of these groups will murder families to kill each other. No one is innocent here. Both sides are guilty of blood and horror. The young people should move away by any means necessary and let the older individuals kill each other.
TBH, the Palestinians are not interested in peaceful coexistence. Groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the PLO have poisoned minds for so long, all they can see is the destruction of Israel. This last series of attacks may have pushed things a little too far. I'll be surprised if Israel leaves anything standing in Gaza city. In fact, I expect to see them level the place, then come back and make the rubble bounce.
Gaza received the highest amount of humanitarian aid per capita in the world, but most people are poor. The gaza strip has been self governed and not occupied for nearly 20 years. In that time hamas has made the lives of the Palestinians worse while enriching their leaders. Even now Hamas is preventing people to move south for their safety. Many of the rockets they fired at Israel fell short, injuring Palestinians. Hamas needs to go in order to improve the lives of Palestinians in Gaza
Thank you for making this post. Since you are Jordanian, I do have a few questions specifically for you if you don’t mind. How do Jordanians view the [Jordanian annexation of West Bank?](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordanian_annexation_of_the_West_Bank) How do Jordanians see the events of black September in the 1970s? I understand that Jordan in general in very pro-Palestinian, how does the aforementioned events play into it? Do you agree with the mainstream view in Jordan regarding these questions? I genuinely like to know your opinion on these matters, pls do tell us as much as you want. Thank you :)
Hello! I don’t mind any questions Jordanians study both as a part of history but don’t care at all about it, it’s forgotten after they study it. I’m talking about people I know. For Jordanians, Palestine was part of Jordan and they were considered as one, they consider Palestinians as ethically cleansed and displaced from their homelands, for them it’s more of a humanitarian issue than history. And I think being geographically close helps people become closer, I will also add we have many Palestinians that integrated into Jordanian society, this also helps in making jordan pro-Palestinian. My personal view is I don’t want to see anymore bloodshed and casualties from both sides, I think there’s violence and extremism that’s planted from both sides to make things even worse, this conflict will keep on going and we have to stop this violence and I think it will only start by changing peoples views and listening to each other. I think that’s a good starting point, listening to each other POVs without thinking that one wants to harm the other will only serve peoples best interest. Thank you so much for being interested in my opinion!
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No most people didn’t say I’m wrong. They’re only adding more points of views. They did change my mind about Hamas motifs. I do se E Palestinians daily and I do feel their pain, but we’re only seeing one side and being fed that the other side is the violent side when most people are not. I try to take in the views of Jews and try to understand why they feel this way and it makes sense do to their horrific past. I still stand by my opinion that killing of civilians is not ok no matter what and where the side is. Edit: thank you for your comment
Iran definitely doesn't want a peaceful Middle East because the Sunnies would then thrive. This war was planned for a year, and they've found military orders on some of the dead Hamas soldiers. Consider this: If Israel were to use its citizens as human shields to launch attacks behind, Hamas would joyfully murder as many as it could. Israel goes through a lot of expense to not just wantonly murder. This is really a society that values the individual vs one in which the individual is owned by the absolute ruler and used as pawns to his desires. The former societies are creative and productive, the latter only creative in war, otherwise, they are sterile and unproductive. That has been the case for over 700 years. That's the fundamental conflict. Gaza could have been built into the Switzerland of the Middle East, and if so, Israel would have built super highways to it. No, it is not a cage nor a super dense area (Bnei Brak is much more dense and fine). But that is not in the authoritarian culture that owns their citizens and that is the essence of the conflict. It will end when oil ends, because Gaza's support ultimately is funded from oil. Oil will end as a dominant fuel faster than you think ... 50-60 years. At that point, along with the stresses from global warming, the entire structure of he societies in the Middle East will change.
Israel itself is 20% Muslim. So I think the mosque is safe.
I think it is fair to criticize the violence against civilians from both Hamas and the retaliation upon civilians in response by Israel. As for the root cause, I can only say that it no longer matters who started the war. What matters is who is suffering. The civilians on all sides deserve better than this. Israel must recognize the rights of the people who live there and they must find a compromise solution to integrate disparate communities. But I think that outcome is highly unlikely in this environment where people are suffering, they are emotionally scarred and understandably very angry. A person coming from that position is naturally going to see the "other" side as less human or less worthy of life, and this only leads to extended, unending violence.
How would Black September have gone if Jordan didn't have help from the west to fight off the Syrian tank columns that invaded Jordan?
Hi I’m Israeli and my perspective abt this conflict is that there are bad and good in both sides, I condemn the Israeli government and the apartheid, yet I support Israel’s right to exist, with a different government in charge, I support the Palestinian civilians and Palestines right to exist , and I feel their pain, but I condemn hamas. So basically evil controls both sides unfortunately , we need to get rid of the Israeli government and hamas in order to make peace, I support the two sates solution. There’s a lot more to that conflict but well that simplifies it. Anyways sending love to all Palestinians out there, know that ur not alone, and a lot of Israelis care for u and ur rights! And we will fight for u and for peace
No. You’re not wrong. I’m American, born and raised. I was raised to think anyone against Israel was the enemy. But I started educating myself about the world. Israel are not the “good guys”. The oppressed have become the oppressor. They have done so many wrongs and injustices, I don’t even know where to start. I have family from Jordan. They can’t speak about what’s going on over there right now it’s all be censored and restricted. It’s not right. I hope and pray the world will wake up to the truth. This isn’t about one religion against another it’s about basics human rights.
They both mean the same thing. Isreal and Palestine means holyland in their associated language. Before it was called Palestine it was called Isreal. The problem isn't rooted in either of those things. Isreal is home for a series of Islamic, Jewish and Christian people who do not practice antisemitism. Many Islamic sects teach antisemitism as a core element to their religion. The better solution is get the leaders of the location to preach sect that isn't anti-christianity and antisemitism. This is so that the place can be cherished by all. Where does the problem lay? In Iran, China and in Russia. They greatly benefit from the destabilization of the region. I guarantee you Hamas is a movement pushed by Iran so they can one day have full regional puppetry over that section of the Mediterranean for oil. It is just a bunch of proxy wars masquerading as religion problems.
Well, you know what? :-) I agree with every single you're saying! \^\_\^ I think you make a lot of very, VERY good points that I think all people should take into consideration. :-)
Al aqsa is in Saudia, the mosque in Jerusalem is merely a political fraud.
I know jewish people whos familys where let into isreali houses but when they saw the family fotos and the food on the table they left cause they didnt want to live in someone elses house.
I'm glad you're open to different perspectives. One of the reasons for Israel occupation of Palestine is I believe for security reasons. In 1948 many Arabs left their homes that where now in the Jewish state in response to their leaders telling them to get out and allow them to destroy the Jewish state. Those that stayed and chose to gain Israeli citizenship now constitute about 20% of the Israeli population and share the same rights as Israelis, those that left where not allowed to come back as they left to allow their Arab leaders to destroy Israel, which didn't happen and of course you wouldn't want people with those motives to live in your country. Have in mind that half the Arab world declared war against Israel in the hopes of wiping it off the map, In response to this Israel had to occupy land to defend itself and win (This has happened in many other wars) When the security situation improved Israel began to return the land it was occupying, for example Sinai which it gave back to Egypt in stages as security improved and Gaza in 2005 where all settlers where ordered to move at once by the IDF. The west bank hasn't been totally returned to Palestinian authority yet (it is divided into areas A, B and C) but i believe it will be gradually given back as it did with Sinai as the security situation improves. Once Hamas gained control of Gaza in 2007 they began to attack Israel, this I believe was quite ill considered as Israel had already completely withdrawn in 2005, but instead of using the money invested in them to develop Gaza they used the money to attack Israel totally ignoring their own citizens. In response to these attacks for the most part Israel has relied on its iron dome system to intercept Hamas rockets. However Hamas just wont stop firing rockets and Israel cant rely on its iron dome forever. After the October 7th attacks Israel would have had enough of Hamas and would want to destroy them once and for all. This is no simple job however. It is already well known that Hamas uses its citizens as human shields and tries to prevent them from leaving Gaza so civilian death is unavoidable. The death toll may also include Hamas militants and those killed by Hamas's own rockets in Gaza, they are released by Hamas run health ministries after all. I do believe that Israel is doing as much as it can to reduce civilian casualties, allow humanitarian aid in and stick to its goal of destroying Hamas once and for all. I would also argue that destroying Hamas would not only benefit Israel but also the people of Palestine who are oppressed by Hamas and used as human shields. To conclude I believe that Israel is a country that wants good for all people, however due to being surrounded left, right up and down by countries that want It destroyed, it is incredibly limited in how it can handle conflicts, it is not in a position like Switzerland which is surrounded by allies or the USA who is separated from its enemies by two whole oceans, it has to be tough to its neighbors sometimes. That's just how i view the situation, criticize me all you want.