To ask if we can please try to have Palestine and Israel thread where we acknowledge how awful it is for everyone, but try not to throw shit at each other?

[theotherfossilsister]

Please

From someone who does have 'skin in the game.'

I'm following with interest. It's such a horrible situation I don't know how middle ground can ever be found

Very wise.

Does freeing Palestine have to involve parading naked women through the streets?

I agree. I think this is what the OP was hoping to achieve but we've already had posters playing the blame game.

A big problem is that this is (IMO) a religious as much as a territorial conflict and both sides feel they have right/God on their side.

Quoting Chris Williamson. Yikes.

And the story of the conflict goes back so, so far – I struggled to explain things to my niece today too, because there's just so much history and nuance involved (and far more than most people today are able or willing to invest themselves in learning about)

This isn't "armed struggle". What is happening are atrocities against civilians. If you can watch this and just sit back and say ...meh, they deserve it- I think there's something seriously wrong with you.

And as for a peaceful solution, sadly at this point I simply can't see it. How could either side sit around a table and talk now? This is an utter disaster.

How can one not take a side? It has been a bloody mess for decades. Pressure cooked just exploded.

Well that will be a no then

Agree so strongly with the poster you talked about the hypocrisy of “pain on both sides”. The Palestinians are the aggressors right now, they caused this. Israel has been attacked and should have our support in defending herself.

It's all so awful. There's going to be so much loss on both sides.

I'm generally very sympathetic towards the Palestinian cause - used to go on those 'Free Palestine' marches in London when I was younger.

Nothing justifies what we've seen Hamas doing to women today.

BOTH SIDES will be using dramatic images and footage, much of it fake, to manipulate opinion. Please detach yourself, and if a reputable news channel says “appears to be”, treat with scepticism.

It’s terrible what Hamas has done today

Its terrible that Isreal voted in a very right wing parties led by Benjamin Netanyahu who behave like terrorists on mass scale just their actions tend to be less obviously violent. Thousands of homes were agreed to be built in the West Bank area displacing thousands of Palestinians once again who are treated like dogs

@InvisibleDuck That's how I feel I think. I know the video clip you mean, came up on my instagram feed. She had obviously been gang raped and then beaten to death, her naked body dragged around the streets.

Just no words.

@FlemishHorse I had not even considered this. I really hope this was fake. How are fake videos done? On a computer or fake scenes , if you see what I mean?

I get where where you are coming from however they were attacked due to their oppression of another nation. Doing something to further oppress them will not result in peace but more revenge and killing.

I always viewed Israel and Palestine as Northern Ireland. The only thing that stops the conflict and the violence wasn't more violence but rather a middle ground, a peace treaty, discussion on how they can cohabit in the same land. I don't know how to do that but it is the only thing that will end the violence rather then more retaliation

It must be nice to look at life in such a black and white way. When I was young I used to think like that too but over time I’ve come to realize it’s never that simple.

BBC news right now “a failure of Israeli security”. Fuck off. Somehow it wasn’t a massive failure for Ukraine when they were invaded, was it?

Why is Israel never treated like other countries?

This is a horrible situation and civilians on both sides are going to suffer horribly. What is being done to civilians in Israel turns my stomach. It’s horrifying, and it will do nothing to help the people of Palestine.

The lessons of history tell us that Israel will win and the reprisals against Gaza will be devastating.

The international community has turned away from Israel-Palestine for decades. This has not come out of nowhere, the international community has allowed this to reach this point. Hamas wouldn’t even exist if the international community had taken responsibility for putting UN Resolution 181 into practice properly in 1948. Instead the world voted on the creation of Israel, patted itself on the back, and then did fuck all as the situation descended into chaos. The issues from the 1948-49 war have never been resolved. That’s a ridiculous amount of time to have left this situation simmering. Hamas are a product of the intifada, which was itself a product of decades of pent up frustration at international inaction. They didn’t just come out of nowhere.

I think it’s also worth noting that neighbouring Arab states have also been instrumental in screwing over the Palestinian people, it isn’t just Israel who have done that. Between 1949 and 1967 Gaza and the West Bank were under Egyptian and Jordanian occupation respectively. If a properly functioning Palestinian government had been set up instead to run those places then the situation now might be very different. The fact is that those countries had no interest in freeing Palestine when they had the chance. The Arab League didn’t recognise Palestinian leadership through the PLO until 1964. Palestinian civilians have now been totally fucked over by their own leadership. Hamas have just condemned the people of Gaza to obliteration. It’s depressing as fuck.

Instead the world voted on the creation of Israel, patted itself on the back, and then did fuck all as the situation descended into chaos.

This is always ignored.

I feel sorry for civilians on both sides of this horrible conflict.

Respectfully, I think this is a bit reductive. Using this logic you can easily say the opposite is true too. That the ‘democracy’ Israel has been responsible for the deaths of over 200 palestinian civilians this year alone (prior to today’s events). Or that the same state is using collective punishment- a prohibited war crime by the geneva convention.

That is not to say that I wish to use anything in the above paragraph to justify the targeting of innocent civilian, which is reprehensible and indefensible in any scenario, no matter the perpetrator. But I think the nuance here that’s getting overlooked is that not every Palestinian fighting for freedom is Hamas are they? Israel makes every day under apartheid a living hell for Palestinians in Gaza. The average age there is 18. It’s been under blockade since 2007, without access to adequate water, eduxation, health supplies; electricit, in horrific population density and poverty.

Some people today are stepping outside of this open-air prison for the first time in their lives. For me; it’s as I saw someone write earlier, “We can condemn Hamas as an entity and mourn the loss of every civilian in conflict without losing sight of the fact that Israel and its decades of violent occupation and brutality are to blame.”

I’m terrified for friends on both sides of the wall in Tel Aviv and the West Bank tonight. But you can’t blame an oppressed group of people for fighting back against their oppression.

My opinion only.

It’s awful and I’m not sure what will happen next

Usually archive material from a different conflict and era, presented as happening now. Sometimes footage from dramas or video “games”.

The irony of this on a British chat forum…