So is it your position that the toleration of settler violence and theft is acceptable because of past wrongs by separate individual Palestinians?
I think you’re confusing “Cause & Effect”. The “cause” is a population that has been harboring terrorists that have been rocket attacking Israel for years, the “effect” is the less than kind treatment of the guilty parties. That’s probably why the rest of the world isn’t particularly bent out of shape about it, also. Consequences can be a real bitch.
So you believe that Palestinian civilians (including, presumably, children) in the West Bank who have had their property stolen, or been assaulted, by Israeli settlers, are “guilty parties” who have been “harboring terrorists that have been rocket attacking Israel for years”? And thus, their treatment is justifiable “consequences” and rightly tolerated by Israeli authorities (and more broadly, the rest of the world)?
I’m saying that’s how the world works. All you need to do is look at WW2 to realize that you should never EVER start a war unless you are going to win it because the consequences are that the aggressors are going to get their asses handed to them … ALL of them.
So you’re fine with Israeli authorities tolerating brutalization and theft and other rights’ violations of Palestinian civilians in the West Bank because “that’s how the world works”? And you think it’s the fault of Palestinian civilians in the West Bank for “start[ing] a war”?
They have been harboring an aggressive, attacking force. They have allowed them to build a dangerous infrastructure of weapons, communication, etc. Associated crimes that the Palestinians could be arrested for in this country: “Harboring a Fugitive(s)”, “Accessories after the Fact”, “Aiding & Abetting Criminal Acts”, etc. I’m sure there’s more.
So you’re saying all Palestinian civilians in the West Bank are guilty of “harboring an aggressive, attacking force”, “allowing them to build a dangerous infrastructure of weapons, communication,s”, “Harboring a Fugitive(s)”, “Accessories after the Fact”, “Aiding & Abetting Criminal Acts”, etc.? And thus Israeli authorities are justified in allowing theft and brutalization against them by Israeli settlers?
Or are you saying all Palestinian civilians in the West Bank should be arrested for those crimes?
Or both?
Thank you for answering my questions. It seems like an awfully weak defense/justification to me - that all Palestinian civilians are guilty of terrible crimes and thus their rights can freely be violated as “payback” - but I appreciate that you answered them honestly.
From my perspective, and in my factual understanding, most Palestinian civilians are not guilty of any crimes, and in my opinion very much do NOT deserve to be victims of theft and brutal violence, and those who commit such theft and violence against Palestinian civilians are criminals who should be prosecuted (but mostly are not, because this Israeli government generally tolerates such criminal behavior).
As my B’Tselem link describes, though, there are also decades of historical evidence that show Israelis committing act upon act upon act of terrorism (and many other forms of oppression and intimidation) against Palestinians in the occupied territories as well.
You say it’s not chauvinistic bigotry to hold one side accountable while giving the other side a free pass, even when they do the same things; but I’m not seeing it.
Israeli society has also been harboring an aggressive, attacking force that has constantly been encroaching on Palestinian land, property and resources, using theft, intimidation, destruction and personal violence. Why do you think they should be immune from any “payback”?
There are different kinds and degrees of injustice and oppression mixed throughout this conflict from every angle, of course. But if you can’t even see that the injustice is not all solely on one side, and you have to try to handwave away all criticisms of the other side with allegations of antisemitism and lies etc., then you are seeing the situation through a massive lens of bias.
The world works in all sorts of awful ways. Roughly half the women in the US will experience sexual violence at some point in our lives. Do we respond to that with a shrug and say “That’s the way the world works,” or do we try to make the world work better?
Pretty sure if someone had posted that here on Oct 7, they would have been insta-banned.
I just went back and read that entire thread, and it was very interesting. Lots of discussions of law and religion and history, but very little discussion about the concerns, desires, and rights of everyday Palestinians who were living on that land and other lands in similar circumstances until being removed against their will.
ISTM that the settler movement, and possibly now a very large portion of Israelis, has been successfully convinced that the desires, concerns, and rights of Palestinians are entirely irrelevant, whether or not the individuals are peaceful (as, of course, most Palestinians are). After all, out of sight, out of mind. And ISTM that Israeli and American media have been very successful at keeping the desires, concerns, and rights of Palestinians out of sight for most.
It has become apparent to me that a soldier cannot live with himself if he sees the other side as human. Killing someone, or even the thought of it, does that to you. The first spark of the war between the two sides came in 1917 with the Arab revolt and Balfour declaration. The situation escalated from there. The two sides have been at it for 100 years.
If you truly wanted to make the world a better place, you’d need to convince arab muslims in the levant that living in a racially and religiously pure ethnostate is not a realistic goal and they need to learn to coexist with ethnic groups and religious groups they consider impure and inferior.
That would solve the actual problem. Even if all the Jews magically disappeared from the levant, it would still be full of war. Sunni and Shia hate each other. ISIL and Al Qaeda hate each other. Both ISIL and Al Qaeda hate Hamas. Hamas hates Fatah. The Druze, Alawites and Kurds are hated. The muslims and christians don’t get along.
The root cause is tribalism and its not going away. Even if you magically made all the black people go away, the KKK would still be full of rage and a desire to live in a racially and religiously pure ethnostate. With the black people gone they’d just go after the catholics, jews, immigrants, asians, Irish, etc. Leftists in Japan who don’t understand American culture telling black people in the US to be nicer to the KKK when they burn a cross on their yard is not a long term solution.
…no it wouldn’t.
Because for starters, you are treating “arab muslims” as a monolith and treating everyone else as “innocent parties.” The real world doesn’t work like that. If the root cause is “tribalism,” then address that, but you can’t do that if you pretend that one of the “tribes” isn’t part of the problem.
“Leftists” want the party that is committing apartheid and genocide to stop the apartheid and genocide. You understand that using your analogy, you are defending the KKK right?
The responsibility for overthrowing the corrupt Israeli government is an Israeli problem, not an “Arab Muslim” problem, except for those Arab muslims who are Israeli citizens. Elections are supposed to be held in November.
As for Israel’s occupied territories, the problem is that the authorities at the time allowed them to get occupied in the first place, but a new government could certainly start by enforcing the law, preventing violence, and upholding people’s civil rights.
…this stopped being an “Israeli problem” when they crossed the line into illegal occupation, apartheid, and genocide. It is an international problem, and we address that problem by recognising international law, which requires us to prevent and punish these crimes.
What I don’t understand here, and perhaps you would like to elaborate, is why so many people keep giving Isreal a pass for things that we wouldn’t tolerate if anyone else did it. For example:
The International Court of Justice has been quite unequivocal here. This is an illegal occupation. We are a million miles way from Israel “upholding people’s civil rights.” That isn’t going to turn on an election. It’s in the realms of fantasy.
In every single thread I outline the absolutely appalling things the Israeli government and the settlers are doing to Palestinians: things that have been going on for decades. Just read through this thread and you will see that many people think those things are justified. Why is it so impossible for people to see the humanity here? That the baseline here isn’t just safety and security for the people of Israel, but for Palestinians as well?
Because ultimately that’s the thing I don’t get. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand how people can defend apartheid-like systems, but they’ve done it right here in this thread. I don’t understand how we can see everything that has happened in the last three years and just say that it’s an “Israeli problem” and we should just leave them to it.
You can’t leave people to rot like we are in Gaza right now; you can’t steal houses and land and stop people from literally crossing the street like they are in the West Bank and not expect the situation to explode again in the future. We can’t keep doing things the same way we have always done.
Because the German state killed so many Jews in the Holocaust during WWII and the world still feels guilty about that.
The same explanation as to why antisemitism id consider to be far worse that any other kind of discrimination