"Along with the very real and violent war on the ground – there is also a fierce information war. Like Tuesday’s explosion at the Gaza hospital which Hamas says killed hundreds of people.
Israel says it was a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket, which they deny. Hamas says it was an Israeli airstrike, which they deny.
But tonight Forensic Architecture, Earshot and the Ramallah based NGO Al Haq have shared new information with Channel 4 News they say casts doubt on some aspects of Israel’s account."
The evidence is presented in the video
I agree completely, the power asymmetry is a fundamental issue that has to be considered as part of any response. Several instances where that’s been an issue easily come to mind: Nazis industrially killing Jews, gypsies and others; Argentina’s military torturing and raping civilians, and now Israel flattening a city.
But Palestinians getting to where we’d all like them to be, with their own state, with open borders, welcome anywhere they go… Unfortunately we’re way past the point where that’s an option. There’s a reason not even their Islamic neighbors want them.
Also, they had a better option. Many Palestinians lived in peace, they even worked in Israel. Their extremists don’t care though, that’s not what they’re after. They just want to kill Jews.
I think you will find it a hard sell to tell any population they haven’t earned their freedom (yet) and expect them to accept it and be peaceful.
The cycle is just repeating, the frustrating thing is those with the ability to break the cycle have no incentive to do so.
So what do you suggest? Let’s assume the Israeli government stops the retaliation right now (as they should). What’s next? Who do they talk to? The rest of the Arab world doesn’t want to have anything to do with the Palestinians, except, of course, those who want to use them as pawns to attack the Jews by proxy.
Israel and the west have tried to solve this situation since the creation of the state. It’s been sabotaged every time. If course the Israeli right has done some horrible things as well. But that’s not the reason they’re being attacked. Even if they didn’t do any of those things, the Islamic terrorists would still be killing them at every opportunity.
I don’t know what the solution is. But let’s not be naive.
I’ve posted elsewhere, but you just have to look at the anti-apartheid roadmaps other countries have followed. There’s a choice here, either an independent Palestine, or an integrated Israel. Maybe change the country name. Those are the only viable options. You have to choose one, and then make all of the hard road choices along that path.
You can’t point to the history and say it didn’t work, people, especially indigenous people, are very reluctant to say yes everything up to now has been okay please give us some freedom today. They just don’t do that that’s not human nature. An individual might do that to get the torture to stop, but you’re never going to get a political leader to agree to it and even if you do, there’s still going to be discontent among the population.
So the summarie: Economic integration, political integration, no second class citizens, everyone has to see a brighter future, you’ve got to give opportunities to the young male population which is the recruitment bed for extremists.
Independence or integration, both roadmaps need to hit the same points. You can’t have a massively resource-starved population looking at a massively resource Rich population and expect content and peace.
Do you’re realize the Palestinians were given that option and they rejected it?
Everything you described sounds great, it’s the reasonable and kind way to think, but I keep asking the same question: how do you do that with a population whose most extreme members, which are a significant proportion, have one mission in life, and that is to kill every single one of you, not just because of your oppression (that’s a contributing factor of course) but because of your religion?
Also, in this case, you’d need to overcome the religious extremists not just in the population you want to integrate, but in other countries who are using that population to attack you by proxy.
Tell me, how do you solve this?
You can’t blame an entire ethnicity for the actions of a few. Even a large few.
Unless you’re willing to exterminate the entire population, you’re going to have to deal with them.
That means making overtures, and peace, with the majority of the population, providing them a better future together than one apart.
And that means treating terrorism, as terrorism rather than a war against a an entire ethnicity.
And it’s not easy, and they’ve both ratcheted themselves into a terrible position. So it’s going to take a lot of soul searching on both sides.
So yeah, ratcheting down the Gaza situation is going to be difficult, especially because Hamas is very popular there for all these reasons. So initially the piece overtures are going to help Hamas, but we have to have faith that net net the population is going to see a better future. Most people don’t want to fight, if they have better options. Throughout all of history. So that means those young men with no future and no prospects and no jobs, they need to get something to do.
Maybe this plan involves unifying the West Bank in Gaza, so that the West Bank political system can provide stability to Gaza. We got to try something other than the current kill and oppress. Because kill an oppress doesn’t work as we’ve seen. Unless you’re going to kill them all. And then we have another name for that
I’m sorry, I realize I’m going in circles, repeating myself comment after comment.
My parents fled the Holocaust and even though I don’t consider myself Jewish, by ethnicity and by family history I am. I think nobody deserves to be killed no matter what.
I hope there’s a solution and that I’m wrong. I hope my opinion is not based on experience but on the fact that I’m old and jaded.
I’m not blaming an ethnicity, I don’t care what ethnicity anyone is. I’m blaming religious extremism.
I commend you for your optimism, I wish everyone thought like you. The world would be a better place.
But in this case, all of that has been tried, and it failed. It should absolutely continue to be tried, and I want to be clear that I don’t support what Israel is doing right now, but let’s not kid ourselves. There’s no solution, there will never be one.
Have you thought that Hamas is in power because of Israelis policies. If they weren’t so oppressed or lived in such terrible conditions, they would have maybe never voted for Hamas.
Same with the Nazi party, they only get into power after the Versailles treaty.
And why do you think they lived in those conditions?
A piece of advice, open Wikipedia and educate yourself and stop listening to your country’s propaganda.
I haven’t listened to my country’s propaganda, even though I know the general attitude here is mostly in favor of Palestine. I know the history of this conflict from my own family history
This question is disingenuous. It’s just like an abusive boyfriend saying “why do you keep making me hit you?”
Sure, but terrorism and war is not like domestic violence. That analogy is disingenuous.
Fair enough let’s agree to disagree. The current situation is just a pressure cooker I think we both agree on that.
Yep.