After browsing, reading, learning, listening, and talking about it to several people, some of them on both sides of the conflict, I have a clearly formed opinion: the problem is… people.
In particular, people from both sides who deliberately immigrated to both Israel and Palestine for the sole purpose of having kids there and increasing the population to “strengthen their point”.
I haven’t formed an opinion for one side or the other, at this point, but I think tentatively that this isn’t as black and white as everyone is trying to make it out, pro Palestine or Israel or not.
it actually is pretty black and white. israel is a colonial settler apartheid state who has oppressed the palestinians for the better half of a century. nobody gave a shit about the last 20 years where thousands of palestinians have been killed by israel. every 1 israeli that dies, 10-20x palestinians die depending on the year.
they have separate court systems with harsher punishments if you’re palestinian. they kick people out of homes and move in settlers (what we would call ethnic cleansing if China or Russia were doing it)
they have blockaded gaza for the last 16 years and created an open air prison. hamas was not created in a vacuum. now they have the perfect opportunity to accelerate the goal of ethnically cleansing gaza. US and Israel are desperately trying to get Egypt to accept the refugees. call it a humanitarian corridor.
but if Palestinians leave, they are never coming back. and israel will no longer have to worry about those pesky indigenous arabs and their cries for justice
i understand where you’re coming from but there are indisputable facts. there are objective statements of truth that can be made and even someone who is not informed on the region’s history can make conclusions from those facts.
fact a - israel has been occupying the following areas since 1964 in violation of international law
the west bank
golan heights (occupation ended in 1981, when israel annexed the land)
gaza strip (occupation ended in 2005, which is when the blockade began)
east jerusalem (formally annexed in 1980)
Those are statements of fact. No spin. Those 4 areas are held against international law.
fact b - Israel has been blockading Gaza since 2005. They enacted an absolute blockade a couple of days ago. The previous blockade was meant to
restrict the movement of palestinians in and out to a couple of checkpoints. this amounted to a few thousand palestinians per month being able to enter or exit in a place with a population close to 2 million. in order to leave they needed to apply for a specific identification card and have a valid reason to leave.
totally restrict any form of air travel of any palestinian airline
restrict the movement of goods in and out of the territories :
“The World Bank estimated in 2015 that the GDP losses caused by the blockade since 2007 was above 50%, and entailed large welfare losses. Gaza’s manufacturing sector, once significant, shrunk by as much as 60% in real terms”
The current blockade is even harsher, not letting anything in or out - including humanitarian organizations or food or water. What was once already broadly recognized as harsh is amplified
fact c - israel has two different judicial systems in the west bank. one for Palestinians and another for jews - and palestinians regularly recieve dramatically harsher sentences for the same crimes as their jewish counterparts. you can read more about it here.
this is effectively two different court systems depending on your race. this is apartheid.
For every 1 Israeli killed, an average of about 20 Palestinians are killed. Many of these killed are unarmed civilians, children, and teenagers. Even if you took all the Jews killed by Hamas in the last week, the ratio is still dramatically tilted towards Palestinians being killed at a much higher rate.
depending on where you get the statistics, figures differ. palestinian sources claim much higher # of dead palestinians. however, we can reasonably conclude that many palestinians have been killed by israel in the last few decades.
fact e - Israel kicks palestinians out of their homes and establishes colonies in the lands previously held by palestinians. read more here. the united nations has stated that these settlements are illegal and against international law.
"An estimated 430,000 Israeli Jews now live in 132 officially recognized “settlements” and in 121 unofficial “outposts” that require, but haven’t yet received, government approval. Constituting about 15% of the West Bank’s total population, these “settlers” live in their own communities, separate from the area’s approximately 3 million Palestinian residents. "
if you want, i can give you more nuance on the geopolitical situation. why this is happening now. what are the implications. what israel wants, what palestine wants, etc. but those facts above are not up for dispute.
i have my own personal opinions. but they are not because i simply read palestinian propaganda like you imply. the truth does not change depending on who says it. the truth is the truth
Egypt closed the single crossings into Egypt, yeah. Although there are other crossings into Israel. Egypt also wants to put humanitarian aid into Gaza but Israel refuses to allow it, saying they will bomb any such shipments of aid.
Having said that, I think the reason the Egyptians are refusing refugees is more complicated than just the shelling from Israel. That was a good justification, but consider Egypt’s position.
a) they are going through an economic crisis and a potential 1+ million refugees will not be easy to accommodate
b) there is an active militancy in sinai right now, presumably where a majority of the refugees would end up, and the radicalization experienced by many of these will certainly feed into the current problem
c) let’s say they accept a large chunk of gazans. where’s the guarantee that they are going back? This operation by Israel could take months and totally destroy the cities in Gaza. Even if the Palestinians wanted to go back at the end of this, who is to say the Israelis would let them? The Israelis would have gotten rid of a large number of problematic people. Less Palestinians = less problems. They would have very little incentive, besides international pressure, to accept these people back
How will history and the rest of the Arab world remember the Egyptians? As a provider of aid in a trying time? Or as a facilitator of ethnic cleansing?
it’s one sided because the power dynamics are one sided. israel is totally dominant. they own the palestinians. we are talking about a population that is totally at the mercy of a country actively hostile to them. when you subjugate a group of people, take away their economic potential and freedom of movement, and then you regularly kill them in brutal fashion over the course of decades…
why is an isreali life worth any more than a palestinian?
nothing justifies the taking of innocent life. what hamas did was a terror attack. but i believe in treating the disease and not the symptom. israel caused this with their long term brutality.
already at this point israel has already equalized the number of dead civilians and it doesn’t look like they’re slowing down anytime soon. how many gazans need to die before this is through?
You are ignoring what I am saying. I think you are the one that is biased.
I am not justifying violence done by Hamas. I am saying you cannot equate the total harm done by Hamas with the harm done by Israel. When you say “both parties are terrible” you ignore the context that Israel has done magnitudes more harm over a much longer period of time.
Israel has killed a magnitude more Palestinians than the other way around
Acknowledge that and tell me why you think Palestinian lives are worth so much less to equate these two things. I refuse to continue this back and forth with you while you ignore that fact
Israel has been in the driver’s seat for 75 years. It’s not the Palestinians under blockade. When Gaza hospitals and universities get bombed, there is no Iron Dome to protect them. Israelis aren’t the ones being kicked out of their homes over the last century. Israelis aren’t the ones being subject to apartheid.
You’re being disingenuous. And I think you’re doing it on purpose.
deleted by creator
I’m pro-civilian. Fuck Hamas and fuck the IDF and the whole Israeli military complex.
After browsing, reading, learning, listening, and talking about it to several people, some of them on both sides of the conflict, I have a clearly formed opinion: the problem is… people.
In particular, people from both sides who deliberately immigrated to both Israel and Palestine for the sole purpose of having kids there and increasing the population to “strengthen their point”.
Well spoken.
it actually is pretty black and white. israel is a colonial settler apartheid state who has oppressed the palestinians for the better half of a century. nobody gave a shit about the last 20 years where thousands of palestinians have been killed by israel. every 1 israeli that dies, 10-20x palestinians die depending on the year.
they have separate court systems with harsher punishments if you’re palestinian. they kick people out of homes and move in settlers (what we would call ethnic cleansing if China or Russia were doing it)
they have blockaded gaza for the last 16 years and created an open air prison. hamas was not created in a vacuum. now they have the perfect opportunity to accelerate the goal of ethnically cleansing gaza. US and Israel are desperately trying to get Egypt to accept the refugees. call it a humanitarian corridor.
but if Palestinians leave, they are never coming back. and israel will no longer have to worry about those pesky indigenous arabs and their cries for justice
deleted by creator
i understand where you’re coming from but there are indisputable facts. there are objective statements of truth that can be made and even someone who is not informed on the region’s history can make conclusions from those facts.
fact a - israel has been occupying the following areas since 1964 in violation of international law
Those are statements of fact. No spin. Those 4 areas are held against international law.
fact b - Israel has been blockading Gaza since 2005. They enacted an absolute blockade a couple of days ago. The previous blockade was meant to
The current blockade is even harsher, not letting anything in or out - including humanitarian organizations or food or water. What was once already broadly recognized as harsh is amplified
fact c - israel has two different judicial systems in the west bank. one for Palestinians and another for jews - and palestinians regularly recieve dramatically harsher sentences for the same crimes as their jewish counterparts. you can read more about it here.
this is effectively two different court systems depending on your race. this is apartheid.
fact d - israel has been killing palestinians at near daily frequency for decades. here’s an infographic with data from the United Nations
For every 1 Israeli killed, an average of about 20 Palestinians are killed. Many of these killed are unarmed civilians, children, and teenagers. Even if you took all the Jews killed by Hamas in the last week, the ratio is still dramatically tilted towards Palestinians being killed at a much higher rate.
depending on where you get the statistics, figures differ. palestinian sources claim much higher # of dead palestinians. however, we can reasonably conclude that many palestinians have been killed by israel in the last few decades.
fact e - Israel kicks palestinians out of their homes and establishes colonies in the lands previously held by palestinians. read more here. the united nations has stated that these settlements are illegal and against international law.
if you want, i can give you more nuance on the geopolitical situation. why this is happening now. what are the implications. what israel wants, what palestine wants, etc. but those facts above are not up for dispute.
i have my own personal opinions. but they are not because i simply read palestinian propaganda like you imply. the truth does not change depending on who says it. the truth is the truth
I think it was Egypt who indefinitely closed the border some days ago. But to be fair, the reason for that was that the IDF was shelling the Rafah border after telling Palestineans to flee through that corridor.
Egypt closed the single crossings into Egypt, yeah. Although there are other crossings into Israel. Egypt also wants to put humanitarian aid into Gaza but Israel refuses to allow it, saying they will bomb any such shipments of aid.
Having said that, I think the reason the Egyptians are refusing refugees is more complicated than just the shelling from Israel. That was a good justification, but consider Egypt’s position.
a) they are going through an economic crisis and a potential 1+ million refugees will not be easy to accommodate
b) there is an active militancy in sinai right now, presumably where a majority of the refugees would end up, and the radicalization experienced by many of these will certainly feed into the current problem
c) let’s say they accept a large chunk of gazans. where’s the guarantee that they are going back? This operation by Israel could take months and totally destroy the cities in Gaza. Even if the Palestinians wanted to go back at the end of this, who is to say the Israelis would let them? The Israelis would have gotten rid of a large number of problematic people. Less Palestinians = less problems. They would have very little incentive, besides international pressure, to accept these people back
How will history and the rest of the Arab world remember the Egyptians? As a provider of aid in a trying time? Or as a facilitator of ethnic cleansing?
deleted by creator
it’s one sided because the power dynamics are one sided. israel is totally dominant. they own the palestinians. we are talking about a population that is totally at the mercy of a country actively hostile to them. when you subjugate a group of people, take away their economic potential and freedom of movement, and then you regularly kill them in brutal fashion over the course of decades…
why is an isreali life worth any more than a palestinian?
nothing justifies the taking of innocent life. what hamas did was a terror attack. but i believe in treating the disease and not the symptom. israel caused this with their long term brutality.
already at this point israel has already equalized the number of dead civilians and it doesn’t look like they’re slowing down anytime soon. how many gazans need to die before this is through?
deleted by creator
You are ignoring what I am saying. I think you are the one that is biased.
I am not justifying violence done by Hamas. I am saying you cannot equate the total harm done by Hamas with the harm done by Israel. When you say “both parties are terrible” you ignore the context that Israel has done magnitudes more harm over a much longer period of time.
Israel has killed a magnitude more Palestinians than the other way around
Acknowledge that and tell me why you think Palestinian lives are worth so much less to equate these two things. I refuse to continue this back and forth with you while you ignore that fact
Israel has been in the driver’s seat for 75 years. It’s not the Palestinians under blockade. When Gaza hospitals and universities get bombed, there is no Iron Dome to protect them. Israelis aren’t the ones being kicked out of their homes over the last century. Israelis aren’t the ones being subject to apartheid.
You’re being disingenuous. And I think you’re doing it on purpose.