Do You See the Conflict in the Middle East as a Religious War or a Land Grab?

[Oodiks]

Is it a religious war, with Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis, &c supporting Hamas aims of destroying the 'Zionist Project', aka the Jewish homeland, and Global Jihad, or is it a land grab by Israel?

Land grab 100%
Unfortunately Hamas has given Israel the excuse it needed with its horrifc behaviour last october

Land grab

It's very obviously a long planned land grab.

Land grab. They're basically telling us that themselves.

Obviously that doesn't excuse the horrendous terrorism of Hamas in October 2023 but those events provided the justification for what I believe has long been a goal of many in government in Israel. If it wasn't a land grab and Israel was genuinely retaliating in self-defence the Israeli government would have prioritised getting the hostages back safely.

It's been a low level land grab for years but it's been ramped up to include wiping out everyone who lives there. It's never been about religion, just land.

A land grab, but with decades of deep-seated, unchallenged toxic racism behind it. It's easy to justify destroying a population if you've been told all your life that they aren't fully human. It's both heartbreaking and ironic that the world is seeing this horrific phenomenon in Israel/Palestine.

Why the assumption that it's just one thing? It's clearly many different things involving many countries.

Land grab. If they actually cared about the hostages, they wouldn’t be bombing so indiscriminately.

I can see both arguments but would err on the side of religious fanaticism as I cannot see how either side could justify the brutality, barbarism and total disregard for the lives of civilians on the grounds of politics

They are also taught that Muslims and Palestinians hate Israelis because they’re Jewish, and it’s nothing to do with Israel’s land grabs and treatment of Palestinians. So it feeds into the whole mindset that this is self defence against people who hate them when really, they are doing all they can just to build a greater Israel.

They have also passed a bill to ban UNWRA which will only serve to speed up the deaths of civilians who are already suffering one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes. The more people that are dead, the easier it is to steal the land.

That's why I gave the 'other' option.

Religion as a basis for hatred, on all sides.

@ReshyAmina exactly. "Terrorist" and "Arab" are often used interchangeably in Israel. Palestinian lives mean nothing at all.

Jews and Muslims lived very peacefully alongside one another in the Middle Eastern countries until Israel was created. The hatred hasn’t always been there.

land grab

You don't think that view of Muslims and Palestinians might come from decades of experience, including the people of Gaza voting (back when they could vote) for a party who's charter at that time explicitly portrayed the Israeli Palestinian conflict as a front in an eternal struggle between Muslims and Jews?

No?

Land grab is a very deliberate choice of words on your part OP.
I think the conflict in the region is a mixture of different things for different people. I have the view that just about every war ever, has been mostly about land (read money). Other more 'honorable' causes are mostly window dressing imo.

I used 'land grab' because I've seen that terminology used on these boards.

Do you really think religion is an 'honorable' cause? The Crusades? The Troubles?

Israelis voted for Netanyahu again and again and again who is the worst prime minister the country has ever seen in the short time it has been around. The same prime minister who made it crystal clear that he would not allow the Palestinians to have their own state and they would forever live oppressed.

@Kakeandkake so, you don't have any issue with the original Hamas charter?

Not even one page in and the OP is already putting words in people's mouths that they haven't said. Oh dear.

Maybe the poll isn't going as they anticipated.

Palestinians have backed armed resistance groups because they have been living under active oppression for more than 70 years. Even the most superficial research into the subject will show that there have been atrocities committed against them throughout that period; massacres, extrajudicial killings, deprivation of food, water, medical care, freedom of movement, mass incarceration without trial, torture, it's an obvious recipe for radicalisation and armed resistance.

The creation of Israel was the last real settler-colonial project. The last time the Western powers got their pencil out, carved up someone else's land and their attitude to the indigenous population was essentially "well, we'll just clear these brown things out of the way". We, and unfortunately the Palestinians, are reaping the rewards of that repulsive act of racist arrogance.

It's a land grab, it's very obvious what israels plan is