To be annoyed nobody mentioned who started the war

[Normalized]

Recently on YouTube the Oxford Union Channel released a debate titled this house believes Israel never really wanted peace. I'm not going to go through the arguments back and forth as anyone can watch it, however what's really annoyed me is that's not a single debater, including on the Israel side, mentioned who actually started the war.

There was a lot of talk whether Israel did truly ever want peace or not, but nobody actually spoke of the fact that Israel never started any wars. It was the Arabs and Palestinians who started first the Civil War in 1947, then Israel's war of independence in 1948. I would think the onus for peace is on the party who actually started all the wars.

It's such a weird debate to pull up Israel for 'never truly wanting peace' while completely ignoring the role of the other side who actually started all the wars.

And what about other minority ethnic groups in the Middle East crying out for a homeland of their own, who have never been offered one in a month of Sundays — Druze, Kurds, Alawites, Rif Amazigh, etc. — and who are continually ignored by the international community? Why do they never get the headlines, the column inches, the NGO press releases?

I think many people internationally would have more sympathy for the Palestinian people if, alongside those “rights, vulnerabilities, needs and aspirations”, you also added the word “responsibilities”. Like the responsibility not to murder, rape, maim and capture innocent civilians in order to have their demands met.

Or rather, their demand (singular) met: the non-existance of the Jewish state and for a Jihadi state to be built upon its ruins. For many, it's hard to take the Palestinians seriously when they don't take themselves seriously.

Did a memo go out about using this stupid phrase in relation to the conflict in Gaza or what? Why does everyone say this and not what they mean?

I didn’t even realise “I think we all know why” was a phrase, let alone some phrase that everyone is apparently using in relation to Gaza. News to me.

If you want to call people antisemites just do it, have the courage of your convictions and say what you mean instead of this pathetic nonsense.

If I wanted to call someone an antisemite, I’d call them an antisemite. I just don’t accept the premise that “I think we all know why” is some universally understood code phrase for it. The whole point about antisemitism mutating to fit its era is that it doesn’t always announce itself explicitly.

Or rather, their demand (singular) met: the non-existance of the Jewish state and for a Jihadi state to be built upon its ruins. For many, it's hard to take the Palestinians seriously when they don't take themselves seriously.
Israel will be expanding across Gaza if allowed and parts of Lebanon built upon the ruins.
I feel for the people in Israel, Lebanon and Palestine who just want to live their life, without the constant terror.
Christian places of worship are being destroyed in Israel too. The Christian people who have ties to the land for centuries are being beaten and intimidated.
Settlers are expanding, they’re not very kind or compassionate nor are their dogs.
It is all horrible.
People have different interpretations of when and how it started, we know that the current conflict started in October the 7th.

I didn’t even realise “I think we all know why” was a phrase, let alone some phrase that everyone is apparently using in relation to Gaza. News to me.

That's interesting, it's frequent usage must be absorbed subconsciously. It's like when racists say “There are certain groups you’re not allowed to criticize.” or “People will call me racist for saying this.” or “We all know who I’m talking about.” blah blah blah. If you are so sure about what you are saying then stand up and say it with your chest.

You say you didn't mean because people are antisemitic with your twee little phrase, then actually we don't all know why. Why is it that Gaza has gotten so much attention?

Lebanon - a Christian state that welcomed Palestinian refugees when Muslim countries refused. Only to have them turn on them and massacre them.

Oh excellent, thats on my bingo card, let me tick it off

Erm, The British caused all this - tick.

Oh I know. I am definitely not glorifying the behaviour of the crazy extremism. I only care about the innocent people. The Christian people in Nigeria and the Congo being slaughtered is barbarous by Muslim extremists. Sudan had a river of bodies.
I would be terrified to live anywhere near the conflict’s, wars.

Exactly, a bit like Amercians who romanticised the IRA and supported them for a lot of the last century, being connected to their muvvaland etc. Yet any other terrorist group would be bombed out of existance.

It was all that Balfour's fault!

There wasnt a palestine.

There was people's land for sure and it should have been done more fairly to avoid people losing livelihooods and homes etc

But Jewish people have been enslaved and ostracised and decimated for all time, going back to the Egyptian pharo periods, including from their own land, from European countries, from African countries.

Its an unusual situation but not one that has any comparables to other groups.

And Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Lybia, Iraq, Jordan, Bosnia and Kosovo...

This list gkes on and on and on

Yet people support mass immigration of Muslims into every European country.

What could possibly happen when the Muslims become the majority here? Hmm?

And its only getting worse as younger generations of Brits cannot access social housing, cannot afford private rent, cannot afford utilities, cannot get GPs or dentist and so are choosing not to have children. Whilst the immigrant communities are happy to live in multigenerational homes and quite frankly most women don't have a choice in having child after child.

A reminder of the significance of 9/11 - this was the date that the Ottoman Muslim army was repelled from Vienna by a coalition of Christian forces turning back the Islamic conquest of Europe.

Also a reminder that in the last few year MI6 has stopped over a score of Islamic terrorist threats.

And Labour naively seem to think that will continue to vote Labour,

Read your History! Arabs, Jews and Christians lived peacefully under the Ottoman Empire.
Zionism rose in the West but was not favoured by the Jewish National Council.
Palestinians welcomed Jews from Eastern Europe after WWII.
Read about ALL the massacres committed by the "settlers" against the Palestinians after the creation of "Israel"! eg the Naqba!
Gaza was and is the largest concentration camp since WII.
Israel has attacked and is attacking hospitals, schools, universities, mosques and CHURCHES!
I used to believe in "Israel" until I went to Jordan and learned the true history.

For one minute I had to check I wasn't on the CITME board.

Haha probably a name changer from there.

Its not quite as black and white as that, there is far more nuance.

First of all, I'm not going to get into the debate over whether Israel truly wanted peace or not. That was the subject of the Oxford Union debate and it's not the point of this thread.

What annoys me is that this debate came after another Oxford Union debate about whether Israel is a greater threat to regional or world peace than Iran. I don't even remember the exact wording of the motion, but the premise itself is so ridiculous that you have to wonder whether there are actually intellectuals at Oxford anymore or just students smoking pot.

Whatever you want to say about Israel, when Israel is left in peace it isn't a threat to the world at large. Iran on the other hand funds terrorist organisations throughout the Middle East, works to destabilise the region and has a regime that openly chants "Death to America." Yet somehow we're having debates about whether Israel is the greater threat to world peace.

But that's not even my main point.

What really bothered me about the "Israel never truly wanted peace" debate is that nobody, including the people arguing on the Israeli side, seemed to think it was relevant to mention who actually started the war.

The UN voted in 1947 to partition Mandatory Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. The idea was that both peoples had a claim to the land and would each get a state. There was no plan at that point to throw the Arab population out of their homes or create what would later be called the Nakba. It was basically a question of which flag would be flying over which part of the land.

The Jewish side accepted the partition plan. The Arabs rejected it and started a civil war against the Jews.

Then, when Israel declared independence in 1948, the surrounding Arab countries invaded Israel and started the war of independence.

So yes, during that war many Arabs who would later be known as Palestinians lost their homes and became refugees. Exactly why each person left is a separate discussion. Some were expelled, some fled the fighting, some left for other reasons. I'm not trying to get into that here.

My point is much simpler: The Arabs started the war.

And if you start a war, surely the responsibility for stopping that war and making peace lies primarily with the side that started it.

Instead, we have somehow reached a point where Israel is constantly being asked why it hasn't made peace, while the fact that the other side started the conflict in the first place is treated as almost irrelevant.

Israel didn't start the Civil War in 1947. Israel didn't start the 1948 war. The Arab side did.
And the fact that Israel survived, became stronger and is now capable of defending itself doesn't somehow change who started the war.

The victim becoming stronger doesn't turn the victim into the aggressor.

If you start a war against someone and lose, you don't get to spend the next 80 years blaming the person you attacked for the fact that the war is still going.

The responsibility, at the very least the majority of the responsibility, should be on the people who started it to end it.

I think so.

Read your History! Arabs, Jews and Christians lived peacefully under the Ottoman Empire.

Tens of millions of Christians were massacred and those that survived and were not enslaved had to pay tribute to their Muslim overlords. Arab Muslims were of course allowed to live peacefully under Muslim rule.

Next you will be saying the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque in Istanbul was offer freely by Christians.

Just to add to this, I'm not even talking about who is right or wrong on every issue today. I'm talking about something much simpler. If you started a war and you now want peace, it is actually very easy to take the first step. Just say: "We are not at war with you anymore. We don't want to fight you. We accept that you exist and we want to negotiate what peace between us looks like."

The onus is on the side that started the war to make that first step. And if the Arabs/Palestinians actually did that, Israel would have to respond. More importantly, I think Israel would want to respond. Then you can argue about borders, security, settlements, refugees, Jerusalem or anything else. But first, stop being enemies. Say the war is over. We want peace. Then negotiate what that peace looks like.

Jews have private security outside their temples. They often have a police presence (Manchester, Prestwich) on holy days.

Christmas markets have anti-ram barricades installed (as does Piccadilly gardens)

Concert venues have Airport style security protocols.

Airport security has to be insanely tight.

All for one, universal reason. And yet that 'reason' is often the one to cry 'racism/phobia etc'

I'm beyond caring what people label me as now.

I don't want this misogynistic, homophobic, totalitarian and threatening takeover.

In that scenario I think establishing an Irish state in Ireland would be justifiable.

What about you?

I don’t think that would give the Irish state carte blanche for everything. And I think both pragmatically and morally that Irish state should allow for non-Irish who lived on that land to be citizens of that Irish state.

I would put a lot of blame on the surrounding European countries that tried to strangle a sovereign Ireland at birth. Especially if they had simultaneously expelled their Irish-descent citizens.

It’s not a perfect parallel but that is pretty much what I think on Israel too.