Hamas don’t want peace

[Icanthinkformyselfthanks]

A two day ceasefire was offered to them in return for four hostages but they declined. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said Hamas “once again refused to release even a limited number of hostages to secure a ceasefire and relief for the people of Gaza”.
Isreal has now offered a million dollars for each hostage and safe passage out of Gaza for their captors. Hamas have yet to respond.

I don't know if they misrepresent it, or, rather, they see the world like this. So I give the benefit of the doubt if I can.

We cannot learn the whole world history. And even if we could, every country strictly controls what's being taught in school's history textbooks (nationals living in other countries try to stay culturally connected, so they do get a taste of that too). And so people get very different perspectives from their point of view, ignoring similar events happening to others.

@Limesodaagain I think an increase in antisemitism is likely to be a very real consequence of the Israeli genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. It's a dreadful thought and one that genuinely concerns me.

Just because things are unpalatable or difficult doesn't mean we should hide from discussing them.

yes - agreed.
Sadly the world seems to be becoming more dangerous, extreme and intolerant in lots of ways
😣

What are you on about? Did I forget when Ukraine fired rockets into Russia on a daily basis? Does Ukraine have a charter calling for the destruction of the Russian entity?

I am sorry, but neither of those actions exculpate high tech fully modern Israel from either deliberately targeting or failing to protect civilians.

This might be seen as a derail, but I have a question.
I know that before the Romans renamed Judea as Palestine that Jewish people were considered such and regarded themselves as such.
But what was the name that the nowadays Palestinians' ancestors were called and regarded themselves as, as "seperate" from the Jews/Hebrews before the Romans changed Judea to Palestine and before Christian and Arab Muslim conquest and conversion came about?
I keep on hitting a far from linear blind spot in research and a too large part of my study of the chronology is muddled due to not being able to begin at the "beginning", pertaining to the history of the nowaday Palestinians in the region.
If somebody could point me to BOOK research from a non Abrahamic point of view regarding the non Jewish Judean - Non Jewish Palestinian - Palestinian v Jew (pre 1900) timeline, I would be very grateful.
TIA.

@EasyTouch From my limited understanding the history of the area is extremely complex and you need to understand the development of Judaism, which itself isn’t fully understood. Once you start getting into religious history it can be very complex.

But my basic understanding)and I stand to be corrected) is that both the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah worshipped El (which I think was originally Canaanite) YHVH as part of a pantheon of Gods and Goddesses. This was from about 3500 years ago

During the period of Yawehism there were a number of raids:invasions into the area by Assyrian’s etc and Persians. As the gateway to the Med from the east it has always been a valuable piece of land. Despite these invasions the polytheistic religion that inc El and Yahweh (scholars disagree when these were conflated) continued. It’s often thought that the religion became montheistic during the Babylonian exile. And when that ended and the Jews returned home then this monotheistic version of Judaism became prevelant. But the invading armies were already diluting the population. This would have been complicated further by Alexander the Greats invasion which brought the area under Macedonian control. His methods were usually to leave local populations in peace (in this case the Jews) feed in some Greek culture and Genes, and this largely is what happened in israel/Judah. It was then invaded by the Romans etc and the Jews went. We subsequently have Roman religions, Christianity, then later in the day Islam. Interestingly both Christianity and the Islam set out to make Jerusalem a holy site in their religions to strengthen its claim over the territory. As Christianity was, initially a Jewish cult then this is understandable, the Islamic connection though is purely a territory marker (and is a common tactic in religions of invaders, eg many churches are built on old pagan sites etc). It shouldn’t be forgotten religion was integral to the operation of power

So, because it’s been the subject of constant invasions it’s difficult to trace any line back beyond the original Yahweh worshipers most of whom later became Jews as we would recognise them today.

That’s a very brood brush overview of what I understand to be the situation

https://ismi.emory.edu/documents/A_Concise_History_of_Israel_2015.pdf

this might give a background (although it does argue a specific point - but all works do)

Palestine - a 4000 year history by Nur Masalha is a well referenced book about the History of the region.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0755649427/ref=tmmpapswatch0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Modern day Palestinians and other Levantines (Syrians and Lebanese) have the closest DNA (including a mixture of Philistines and Canaanite) to ancient Inhabitants of the region.

Contents below:
1. The Philistines and Philistia as a distinct geo-political entity:
Late Bronze Age to 500 BC
2. The conception of Palestine in Classical Antiquity and
during the Hellenistic Empires (500‒135 BC)
3. From Philistia to Provincia ‘Syria Palaestina’ (135 AD‒
390 AD): the administrative province of Roman Palestine
4. The (Three in One) Provincia Palaestina: the three
administrative provinces of Byzantine Palestine (4th‒early
7th centuries AD)
5. Arab Christian Palestine: the pre-Islamic Arab kings, bishops
and poets and tribes of Provincia Palaestina (3rd‒early 7th
centuries AD)
6. The Arab province of Jund Filastin (638‒1099 AD):
continuities, adaption and transformation of Palestine
under Islam
7. Between Egypt and al-Sham: Palestine during the
Ayyubid, Mamluk and early Ottoman periods
8. Palestinian statehood in the 18th century: early modernities
and practical sovereignty in Palestine
9. Being Palestine, becoming Palestine: rediscovery and new
representations of modern Palestine and their impact on
Palestinian national identity
10. Settler-colonialism and disinheriting the Palestinians: the
appropriation of Palestinian place names by the Israeli state

Thank you.

I think an import point to consider is also what makes a “people” and you could tread more broadly round that (and therefore less likely to come across bias that is almost inevitable when looking at the near Middle East situation).

For example, does dna make a “people” or is it established customs and traditions. So? For example an American might have DNA showing he is basically Irish because there were lists of Irish in his ancestors neighbourhood so Irish ancestors married Irish ancestry) but his entire culture is American. Or we could have someone whose ancestors were enslaved and sent to America to work on plantations, die to circumstances inflicted by their captors their dna is no longer 100% from an African country. Yet they and their ancestors strongly associate with that African country, their customs, culture and religion aligns more with that African country. They consider that is their home nation. Which has stronger links to that other country, which wins out dna or culture?

Lots of other things like that can be read about much more widely and takes away the “heat” of the Israeli:Gaza situation.

@Feelingathomenow @EasyTouch something to bear in mind also is that both culture and religion were very often imposed or adopted. In the UK the Roman, Anglo Saxon, Norse, Norman transitions may well have been sudden and complete in the higher echelons of society but for many there would largely have been a change of overlord or religious leader along with some migration. This stretches as far back as most white Europeans carrying Neanderthal and other ancient DNA.

Yes it’s interesting that, even in the face of so much opposition by the ruling elite and in the face of horrendous consequences, the Jewish people maintained their culture through millennia, as it had been settled in their homeland giving, in my opinion incredibly strong ties to Israel.