Why can’t the Israelis and Palestinians just live in peace?!!

[elprup]

Surely that’s what the overwhelming majority want. Let’s face it, 99% of us just want to get on with our lives in a quiet, peaceful way and do the best for our kids. So why can’t they all just lay down the weapons and live together, in harmony? Open the borders and live as one, forging a brighter future for their kids?

That old chestnut again...speak out against Israel and the warmongering Netanyahu and you're branded antisemitic. Is that supposed to silence the critics?

The level of presumption about my faith is also staggering. Not all Jews are supportive of Israel. Thankfully.

And "Our means Britain"??? The British government's diplomatic position doesn't necessarily reflect the view of the population at large. While 30-ish% of British Jews support Palestine, I suspect the figure is larger among the rest of the population.

While Britain has maintained diplomatic relations with Israel it's a bit of a stretch to say "allies" given that it has also formally recognised the state of Palestine since last month.

And yet most of the civilians killed in the last couple of years of which a huge proportion were children or infants, were killed by Jews surely? Looking at other wars in the region like the Iraq War weren’t Christian’s the ones doing the majority of the killing? I’m not sure characterising Muslims as particularly murderous really will hold up to scrutiny.

<Sigh> Don’t be so ridiculous. It never fails to amaze me how lacking in the ability to comprehend nuance and irony some MNers are! To spell it out in words of one syllable for your benefit :-

My response to a poster claiming that Israelis and Palestinians do live in peace in Israel, was to point out that yes, they may live in peace in Israel as long as those of Palestinian descent are prepared to ‘know their place’ which as far as the State of Israel is concerned is very much as second class citizens.
HTH.

They’ve tried, Palestine keeps breaking the peace. They want all Jews to die, which is kinda problematic for Israel.

"Looking at other wars in the region like the Iraq War weren’t Christian’s the ones doing the majority of the killing?"

Probably. The American military were Christian or at least Christian-adjacent.

Just leave the Middle East alone. It's where empires go to die. There's always a conflict going on over there. Just stop getting involved. Of course that will never happen because war makes money.

"The day that enemies usurp part of Muslim land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Muslim. In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised "

(From the Hamas Covenant 1988)

What I find interesting (but I'm not enough of an Arabic scholar to understand) is that Hamas make Jihad the duty of every Muslim when Muslim lands are threatened - yet other Muslim nations have been conspicuously absent in this conflict.

Hamas were always going to lose the war. Compared to Israel they are smaller, and weaker both financially and militarily. Israel have carried out the most horrific genocide against the Palestinians. Yet Israel could have been stopped. They may have sent money and some equipment, but if those rich Muslim nations with well funded and equipped militaries had actually sent in troops and planes, Israel could have been obliterated the way they have done to Gaza. Why has that not happened?

This is just an academic point, it doesn't mean that I support Hamas. Personally I would like to bang together the heads of both sides and I regret that there seems to be a widespread (not necessarily on MN) narrative that if you condemn one side it means you support the other.

Completely agree with your point

Exactly that. As much as people want to go on about Israel having to deal with Islamic hatred and therefore no peace will ever happen, if that was the case then Israel’s actions in Gaza would have given the Arab countries the perfect excuse to attack Israel, especially after it bombed Lebanon, Qatar and Syria. It also completely ignores that relations between Israel and several of the ME countries were starting to warm before Oct 7. There isn’t this engrained hatred that posters on MN go on about.

Similarly, pre Israel, Jews did live happily in many ME countries and leaving was very difficult for them. You hear countless stories of Iraqi Jews reminiscing happily about life in Iraq, etc.

When you say that Zionists are not your friends, what do you mean by Zionism?

And what do you mean by "support Israel" or "support Palestine"?

Are you against a two-state solution? To my mind, an anti-Zionist is someone who wants to wipe Israel off the map and I find that hard not to consider anti-semetic.

And to me an anti Zionist is someone who is against Israel’s continued expansion into Palestinian occupied lands.

That doesn’t make me anti semiotic, no matter how much you want to use that as a weapon to shut down debate.

I know someone said look at Northern Ireland when I said here in England the massive divisions and killings between Protestants and Catholics are over, but even in N Ireland today it is not like in the days of the killings, the expropriation of Catholic lands by Henry VIII and the like. We have calmed down and live in peace. That is possible for most groups who in the past were enemies. There is always hope. I know posters on MN are very divided on this issue and I am on the side of Israel (I am Christian not Jewish by the way), but at least we do debate the issues and it is by talking that people can start to understand each other's positions.

Delusional.

Israel created the forming of Hamas though years of occupation, murder and oppression of Palestine.

Israel are the perfect example of hate and evil. They’ve never wanted to share the land, only to exterminate every Palestinian until it was all there’s.
The hypocrisy of your post is laughable. It’s Israel not Gaza killing and starving civilian. There’s no Hamas in the West Bank so what your excuse for their despicable actions there?

Surely you could say that about every war and conflict ever?

In pretty much all of them, there’s a small group within one party or both (and / or maybe some outside agitator) that wants war at all costs, whilst most of the ordinary people on both sides would happily live in peace.

Wow @maudelovesharold. You sound angry. No need to be rude and patronising when you could have simply explained that this was a misunderstanding. You didn't quote the other poster's post fully so it wasn't clear what you meant, apart from in your own head, which no one else has access to. People write all sort of nonsense on here on this and other topics so nothing would surprise me.

Looking the other way while tens of thousands are slaughtered, maimed, made homeless, and starved shouldn’t be an option for anyone.

I understood.

Which is exactly how Jews have lived in Muslim majority countries or areas for centuries. We were always second class citizens. My Iraqi relatives weren't allowed to go to university. They weren't allowed to leave their city. They were second class citizens and had a star of David on their IDs to make sure that everyone knew it.

We also have the issue of Dhimmi status, whereby non-Muslims had certain prohibitions they were forced to live by, and a specific tax they had to pay. Restrictions on being allowed to be in public office etc. So Jews have been second class citizens in Muslim countries for centuries, but no one talks about that and instead accuses Israel of apartheid 🤦🏻‍♀️ I guess people just see what they want to see.

Then why get rid of Gaddafi in Libya? Why get rid of Assad in Syria? Sure they were tyrants, but has it been considered that maybe those people were the exact sort of people needed to keep those people in line? Gaddafi was murdered and his body paraded around. Then ISIS (the Islamic fanatics Gaddafi was trying to keep at bay) gained prominence, seized power and Libya later became a total blood-soaked hellhole.

Take for instance all the warlords in Africa, famine, conflict etc. Then LiveAID happened. Fantastic performances, it raised a lot of money, a lot of which ended up in the hands of the very people the west wanted removed; the tyrants, the warlords. What did it achieve? There are now much more of them starving because they had more babies. The famine over there got worse. Now what? Do we send yet more money over? That didn't work the first time.

Some civilisations should be left well alone.

Jews were second class citizens in Iraq. They loved it there because that's where their family were, but they were not treated well.

I think I'm a Zionist because I believe Jewish people have the right to self determination in a homeland in the area around Jerusalem.

I believe Palestinian people also have a right to a homeland and self determination in the same area.

I don't believe Israel has the right to expand into Palestinian land.

So am I a Zionist or not?

I don't think we can pick or chose meanings of words.

The usual meaning of an anti Zionist is someone who doesn't believe in the rights of Jewish people to have a state where it is.

Do you think Israel doesn't have the right to be where it is?

Isn't it clear that that belief is quite likely to be held by someone who is indeed an antisemite?

I don't think thats an accurate description of what a Zionist is, though. At its core, Zionism is the in the continued existence of a Jewish state (and there's a large divergence of views on what, exactly, that entails).

Unfortunately, people in the UK (particularly on the left) seem to define Zionism differently and more narrowly than the rest of the world - and so, when they attack Zionists, it is often heard as being anti-semetic, even if that's not the intention.

@ThatDreamyLemonBiscuit I completely agree with that.

We can all choose who we want to be. Your chosen attitudes don’t appeal to me at all.

Exactly what people used to say about Northern Ireland. Why on earth can't people just ignore the injustice they have experienced and be nice to each other, just forget the death and destruction of their lives, pretend it didn't happen? Wouldn't that be much nicer?

Yes, and black is white and up is down