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.'

Thank you @LemonyTicket
Your posts have taught me a lot as well

@IDriveMySupernova

I’m still working my way through the thread but coming to the top quickly to say thank you to @LemonyTicketfor your informative posts. It’s helped so much with my understanding of the situation

Oh that is so nice, thank you for reading me generally useless information :) It's something I have studied for twenty years and hardly ever get to talk about!

Here's an example of what I mean: https://twitter.com/EtanSmallman/status/1710712311755739502?t=XF_F5JBo6Zk6YoNKhP9eWg&s=19

And another one:
https://twitter.com/gary_weiss/status/1711205300798185868?t=JjNJsCTuj949mJumkMOGYw&s=19

And another one:
https://twitter.com/gary_weiss/status/1711205300798185868?t=JjNJsCTuj949mJumkMOGYw&s=19

The anti-Israel bias in Western media is crazy. The Guardian website had 3 rolling images under headlines about Israel and Gaza this morning - all of Gaza. No images showing or humanising Israel or Israelis at all. The headline for an article on Gaza referred to 'People' - the headline for an equivalent article on Israelis referred to 'Israelis'. Guardian journalists just fundamentally can't imagine identifying with Israelis; they don't see them as people like them. Their own bias is not even visible to them.

Once you start to be aware of it, you spot it everywhere. It's terrifying.

I am not confused.

I am talking about land designated to the Palestinians.

Which the Israeli government has systematically (and loudly proclaims to have) bulldozed their homes and built Israeli settlements, and has zero qualms about doing so. And continues to do so proudly to this day.

That is stolen land.

Complete lie.

Go on then, let's have links to Israeli troops not only vomiting equivalent crimes rn masses but being regarded and being praised for it by the state.

Go on then, you said it, you prove it.

Desperate lies.

@AhNowTed

The "sharing" idea evaporated 20 years ago, and 650,000 Israelis now live on Palestinian land

This is the way I see it.

18 years ago, Israel followed through with a really genuine plan for peace and two nations. Despite being constantly terrorised, constantly attacked and warred with. They agreed to pull out of Gaza, stripping families who had lived there for 40 years of their homes and they did everything they were meant to. They stuck to the deal.

In response, Hamas took their new found independence and within days trashed Gaza's infrastructure, announced their sole mission was to destroy Israel and kill most Jews and turned Gaza into a terrorist paradise where they have reigned supreme ever since.

They were trying.

They were doing their side of things correctly - but how do you carry on if the other side are like that? It's like trying to make peace with a chicken you fed crack to. They don't want it. They never did.

So I imagine that moved Israeli governments farther right. I imagine after decades of peace being handled like that by the other side and endless terrorism ,people in Israel probably lost their appetite for trying to make nice. I think a lot of them now just want Hamas blown off the face of the planet and a far right leadership like Likud became more and more appealing in that space where people are pissed off.

I don't think they do the right thing anymore - I think they did for a very long time. But how do you move out of the holding pattern if your opponent won't engage and just wants to kill you?

I despair of it, because the best thing would be for Hamas to be gone and reasoned, moderate leadership to be installed who are interested in peace and prosperity and likewise I'd like to see Likud go. There is movement on the latter, left wing parties are doing better in polls - but Gaza doesn't even have elections anymore. They are essentially under control of mad people hell bent on destruction who are passing the blame to Israel.

So even if there was an election, I don't know who people will vote for.

Lessons from the most moral army in the world:

https://twitter.com/incontextmedia/status/1600493875746963457?t=zMUZpib4ElH2koMn7GyKmw&s=08

"We put Palestinians in cages and killed them. One of us raped a sixteen-year-old girl; some of us ran after them with flame throwers and burned them."

Didn't want to post this because it's not a competition to see whose army is more vile, but clearly the IDF have committed plenty of atrocities, you don't have to do much research to find evidence of it.

Also:
https://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/

You are confused, because the post you were discussing wasn't talking about the situation now, as I said.

It was talking about the land before it was separated into Israeli and Palestinian areas.

Which group agrees to that?
One. Israel has been agreeing since 1936 when the first of five offers was made and even long before that was that all they wanted was their own self governed space in their homeland of the middle east. They are not demanding Palestine doesn't also have a space, they just want their own.

That really isn't true. Israel have been shrinking and shrinking the land available to Palestinians. The land they have is much much smaller than the original agreement.

Why is why International support should have been there all along. Help to protect the borders as agreed.

Perhaps. Back in 1948, no it wasn't stolen land.

It is now.

Hasn't Lemony been saying that the Israelis agreed at that time to a state for them and another for the Palestinians but the Palestinians refused to agree to that? So when you say 'the borders as agreed' are you saying the Palestinians also agreed to accept the two state proposal back then?

I heard a story on the news of a woman trapped with her baby for hours trying to keep the baby quiet. She could hear the militants outside her door. I just couldn't imagine.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12610209/NHS-doctor-mocks-Israeli-festivalgoers-fleeing-Hamas-gunmen-social-media-post-saying-home-stay-fight-wouldnt-just-run-away.html

Was discussed on the other thread as an event that probably (almost certdinly) didn't happen.

It's certainly not something that was carried out en masse and publicly as happened this weekend, and which the Hamas terrorists were actually showing off about.

If the incident you link to ever happened (which is, as I've said, unlikely,), it was one case. Whereas Hamas terrorists committed hundreds of war crimes including multiple rapes, tortures, beheadings, hostage takings, children put in cages, and summary executions of hundreds civilians just on a single day this weekend. And all approved of and boasted of openly by Hamas (who posted videos of it online). That would be Hamas, who reward its terrorists with a lifelong pension if they successfully murder a Jew, with their notorious 'pay to slay' policy.

There is absolutely no moral equivalence at all.

And anyone who suggests there is a gullible fool, a paid propagandist or a deliberate liar.

@Malvasylvestris I actually think it's now common knowledge that there have been abuses and atrocities visited on Palestinians for 75 years. We have youtubers and more than a few news sources, the internet and wider media coverage than we did 30 years ago. The few news outlets and commentators who are in denial of this have zero credibility. That does not mean ordinary Israeli civilians should suffer, or that they have no right to live in what is now their home. But it does move the conversation on so that we can ignore the black and white arguments of the 'Arabs,' (as such commentators like to call them) being deranged animals who are completely unreasonable, and Israeli governments and army being utterly moral.

Quite frankly anything Israel declares about Palestine can’t be believed. Nor the other way around.
The Israel state throwing it’s power and wrath at innocents in Gaza shows just how little they value the lives of any Palestinian.

Which 'it' are you referring to?

Israel is NOT on stolen land.

Do you believe Israel has a right to exist?

If not, why do you not respect Israel's right to exist? Why do you not respect international law?

There are no desperate lies @Truthisbetterthanlies

Go on then, let's have links to Israeli troops not only vomiting equivalent crimes rn masses but being regarded and being praised for it by the state

I think we all know how much Israel is protected.

You are all over these threads, lashing out and if I may say so, hysterically determined to deny Israeli brutality.

I am appalled at what has happened and won't stop saying so. But I won't engage with posters like you @Truthisbetterthanlies

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/08/28/west-bank-spike-israeli-killings-palestinian-children

Gaza is a densely populated area. Israel has advanced weaponry. If they weren’t actively trying to minimise the risk to civilians they could have flattened it and killed everyone in it.

@justteanbiscuits

I am not trying to be pedantic but factual here :)

That really isn't true. Israel have been shrinking and shrinking the land available to Palestinians. The land they have is much much smaller than the original agreement

There was no original agreement! The Palestinians never agreed to it!

Yes, originally, a larger area was allotted to the planned Palestinian state in1947, but the Arabs rejected it and in the 1948 war (which 5 countries joined the Palestinians in the fight Israel) the Israeli won.

As part of that, the army conquered major parts of what was proposed Palestinian territory. While in the Partition Plan about 45% of historic Palestine was destined for the Arabic state, the Palestinian territories constitute only some 23% so it was a big change.

So essentially - there never was an "original agreement" just a proposal, to which they said "fuck off" and started a huge war, lost the war, and in that process Israel took more land. So yes, that is shit, but it's also what has happened in wars since history began. They did lose the proposed territory fair and square by the same means we are not all speaking German right now.

Then there was another war in 1967, and as a result of this conflict, Israel gained control over the Sinai peninsula, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Which was almost total domination. And caused a massive problem with the ME peace process obviously.

That said, International support was actually there. Efforts were being made for peace and in 20024 the UN voted for the pre-1967 borders to be reinstated, as well as official sovereignty for Palestine.

At that point, Israel did pull entirely out of Gaza as per the posts I made above but you can see how that went, and I guess the spirit of the whole thing for very screwed up and there has been nothing but violence since.

Yes, they continue to settle into Palestinian territory, which is clearly wrong, but it's not correct to say they broken the original agreement because there wasn't won. If they chose instead to go to war, they have to live with the results fair and square.

The charter of the United Nations changes things though. Countries who gained territory through war before that were not necessarily in breach of international law. The fact that this land was occupied after the foundation of the United Nations is what makes it illegal under international law. It isn’t comparable to examples
from before World War Two.

The current situation will only strengthen the far-right Netanyahu government. He's been elected 3 times, and is the longest serving PM in Israel's history.

He has as much willingness to come to the table as Hamas. None.

Let's not pretend otherwise.

Meanwhile his publicly stated aim of continuing to steal land and build settlements is hardly any starting place for peace of any kind.

I'm not saying that Israel wasn't prepared to share in the past, they absolutely were, but that ship sailed a long time ago.

The whole thing is royally fucked.

And innocent Jews and Arabs will pay the price. It's going to be devastating.

‘Gaza is a densely populated area. Israel has advanced weaponry. If they weren’t actively trying to minimise the risk to civilians they could have flattened it and killed everyone in it.’

and where would that have left them in the world? After committing genocide?
As it is they are galvanising forces, have cut off water, food, and power and are bombarding now.

I genuinely don’t see how adding the deaths of more Palestinians, to all the hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians already slaughtered, will achieve anything.

They pulled out of Gaza but not the West Bank or East Jerusalem.

It’s irrelevant whether they agreed to it or not. It was passed by a UN resolution (181). The UN then failed spectacularly to enforce the borders of that resolution or to send in peace-keeping troops to quell the entirely predictable violence that happened on both sides after it was passed. This whole sorry mess is a failure of the international community.