As I’ve said before, any framework that asks me to wave a Palestinian flag or an Israeli flag is going to fail. The Palestinian flag is flown by Hamas, and they murder people. The Israeli flag is flown by Likud, and they murder people. I won’t take either side.
I’ll take the side of the victims of the war, against the perpetrators of the war. The focus must be, always and forever, on having fewer victims; on disempowering the perpetrators; on helping those who suffer and hindering those who cause the suffering.
If acts of war are persuasively the only means to prevent larger acts of war, okay. But if acts of war are used to advance any other aims, they’re unjust.
That will never happen. Iran will make sure to keep stirring the pot. As long as they do that there will never, ever be peace. Iran does not want that. (and arguably a few other regional powers as well)
Then I guess you disagree with Alessan that Israel can and should “withdraw” after the fighting, right? If I’m reading him correctly, he presumes there will be, at best, a pause in the fighting, and that this current path isn’t even really a path, just bumbling by incompetent leaders.
Yah, this OP is dumb, in the sense of broad-brushing to the point of total incomprehensibility a complicated concept that almost nobody agrees on the exact specifics of.
Personally, as a Jew who’s firmly supportive of Palestinian rights and firmly opposed to almost everything Israel has done in response to the Hamas terror attacks of 2023, as well as firmly opposed to the ongoing Israeli settlement encroachment on Palestinian lands, I don’t even know whether I count as a “Zionist”, or “non-Zionist”, or “anti-Zionist”, or what. All those terms seem to mean merely whatever the user currently wants them to mean.
I don’t think we should withdraw at this time, no. Precisely because I agree that if we do it would just mean a pause in the fighting. If we left today, then in a couple years when Hamas repeats their attack we would need to repeat the whole drawn out process of fighting in Gaza.
Both sides murder people in a war. So the question is which side started the war. And in this case, it was the Palestinians not the Israelis.
I don’t like Benjamin Netanyahu. I think he’s used this attack on his country to further his own political goals. But I distinguish between Netanyahu being wrong and Israel being wrong. The same thing happened in America when Al Qaeda attacked during the Bush presidency. The fact that Bush used the situation to further his own political agenda didn’t absolve Al Qaeda.
? Huh? The Palestinians didn’t stop being “local people” just because Jewish Israelis displaced them within the past century.
Palestinians didn’t stop being natives of the region just because descendants of more recent Jewish immigrants also have a claim to be considered natives of the region.
Yes, I should have been more clear: I meant that the Original Post of this thread is dumb, in its lack of specificity. I have no views or knowledge on the intelligence level of the Original Poster.
The Palestinians left seventy-seven years ago. The overwhelming majority of Palestinians today are not people who lived in modern Israel; they’re the descendants of people who once lived in modern Israel.
So are you saying that a group of people has a right to claim territory because their ancestors used to live in it?
If so, then don’t the Israelis have a valid claim? Their ancestors used to live in the territory that’s now Israel.
If you want to cite ancestral claims then go back in history. It’s pretty undeniable that the Jews were living there before the Muslims.
And again, nearly everyone here are conflating anti-zionism, anti-semitism, legitimate critique against Israel and just hating the joos.
Me, I’m rather intrigued about how both the Israeli government and jewish communities around the world try their best to brand legitimate critique of the war crimes that IDF and the current Israeli admin are committing as anti-semitism. Because, dammit, that’s what they’re doing. War crimes. All the time.
I’m rather impressed that they can’t see that they’re shooting their own foot. Me, I have no opinions about jewish culture, tradition, religion, or whatever. Because whatever floats your boat and all that. But I have rather strong opinions about the IDF, Bibi’s admin and their war crimes in Gaza. If that makes me an anti-semitist, so be it.
When you say “both the Israeli government and Jewish communities” (capitalization added), do you mean “both the (Israeli government and Jewish communities)” or “both (the Israeli government and Jewish communities)”? In other words, do you think this is done by Jewish communities, or by the Jewish communities?
Certainly some Jews, some Jewish communities, conflate anti-Likudism and anti-semitism. Some of them are ideologues, and others are cynical politicians, but the effect is very similar to Republicans in 2001, who asked those who didn’t want war in Afghanistan, “Why do you hate America?” It is a conflation of a legitimate political difference with a pernicious viewpoint.
But there are obviously many Jews who don’t make this error. Several of the Jews in this thread–possibly all of them–are anti-Likud. And if you’re implying that “the Jewish communities around the world” are doing this, well, that’s antisemitic.
I agree with you. I think the focus on “Zionism,” pro or con, is a diversion from the real issue, the suffering of the Gazan people at the hands of a criminal regime. Every breath wasted on abstractions like Zionism could have gone in the cause of bringing the current specific war crimes to a halt. This is a humanitarian crisis. Ideology is all anti-human bullshit anyway. Forget ideology and focus on stopping the war crimes.
I’d say that’s about 97% right, but the other 3% – the suffering of the Israeli people at the hands of a different criminal regime – is a crucial part of the tragedy. Hamas and Likud have much more in common with each other, morally speaking, than Hamas has with Likud’s Palestinian victims or Likud has with Hamas’s Israeli victims.
What is your view on the October 7 Hamas missile attack? Do you feel that was a war crime (or a crime in general or a terrorist attack or whatever)?
After Hamas made the missile attack (which killed over a thousand Israelis) what do you feel Israel’s response should have been? Do you feel the missile attack was justification for Israel fighting against Hamas? Or do you feel Israel should have allowed Hamas to get away with the missile attack?
One issue that’s been raised is the difference between Hamas and Gaza. Hamas is operating in Gaza but obviously most of the people in Gaza are not members of Hamas. It’s debatable how many Gazans support Hamas without being members.
But the question is whether Gaza bears some responsibility for the actions of Hamas. Was the government of Gaza capable of stopping Hamas but chose not to do so? Or was the government incapable of stopping Hamas? What do you feel the relationship is between Gaza and Hamas?