While some hail Hamas for apparently being the most merciful and humanitarian hostage-taker in the world, let that sink in: you've got adult men and women who take 4 years old kids as hostages...
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There is no excuse for this and no one should be praising hamas.
Just as there was no excuse when the IDF used children of a similar age as human shields and got called to international court on war crimes for it (And refused to show)..
In the end anyone taking **either** side as the good guy is morally corrupt. The hammas are evil, the IDF is evil, full stop.
Absolutely, as the invaders and occupiers the Israel side is significantly worse morally.
At this point its not relevant that the Israelis are the worse... they both commit war crimes and terrorism... Debating what murderer and torturer is the nicer one has little interest to me.
But if you insist then yea, the one who started the fight,a nd did so with a mass genocide is very clearly the worse of the two, regardless of what the other side did after being occupied.
If i break into someones house and chain the whole family up in the bathroom and punch them in the face every day, and they respond by kicking me in the balls when they get the chance, I'm still the worse one, I cant be praised for "taking the high oad and not kicking them in the balls" when im the one who came in, took over their home, and locked them into a small bathroom. It doesnt make kicking me in the balls right, but it does clearly make me the wrong one as the theif and initial abuser.
You seem to have a lot of good ideas about the war. So let’s assume you’re Israel, it’s 7 October, you woke up to the barrage of rockets from Gaza and Hamas fighters slaughtering Israeli civilians. What’s you plan?
I would issue a public apology for invading a country that wasnt mine and occupying it for 80 years and commiting genocide, war crimes and terrorism. I would also state that palestine has done the same and neither of us are right. I would then offer a complete withdrawl of Israel from the region, a dissolution of the state under the condition that 1) all hostages are returned 2) all israelis are allowed an appropriate amount of time to leave the country and 3) any israelis that decide to stay who were born on the land be granted citizenship in Palestine and an equal vote.
Once palestine agrees and the hostages released I would dissolve the state and leave.
Now in all reality neither me nor anyone has complete control to decide the situation. So in any practical sense that will never happen, nor am I expecting it to. But youa sked what I would do if i had control and that would be it.
I would dissolve the state and leave.
Okay, sounds like a great plan indeed. Plans like this are the main reason why the war is now going on for 80 years, and Hamas continuously wrecks any agreed actual peace plans.
Your response makes absolutely no sense.. If you dissolve the state and leave there is no state to have a war WITH... so no the war didnt continue for 80 years because of ideas like this, that makes no sense.
But postulating 10 million people who built the whole country for several generation does make sense?
In my scenario the israelis still own whatever they own and live there. They just are under the government that actually owns the land, palestine. As I said one of the conditions is anyone born ont he land is allowed to stay and given citizenship, this also assumes they retain whatever private land they own so long as they bought it fairly from the palestinian that owned it.
Obviously any infrastructure that exists through theft does not make sense to be allowed to keep.
I think the realism of your plan is best assessed through Hamas position on Holocaust and best illustrated the number of Jews living in Gaza.
Not sure why any of that matters.. its their land, they did nothing to deserve loosing it and were simply invaded. So until the occupying force leaves and especially when they are the ones overpowered and forced into ghettos,then there is absolutely no chance for the Israelis to be the good guys.
The whole "but we built up the area after we stole it and killed everyone" is a pretty damn poor excuse for why they should keep it.
Your statement "it's their land" is exclusively based on 1947 as an arbitrary cut-off date. If Palestinians "were invaded" by Jews, then what in your opinion happened to Jerusalem in 1187?
I won't even comment on your postulate that the extremely antisemitic policy of Hamas "doesn't matter", because it's precisely the part that makes your plan so detached from reality.
@realcaseyrollins
> Your statement "it's their land" is exclusively based on 1947 as an arbitrary cut-off date.
Not at all, that is not how I determine whose land it is.
I determine whose land it is by who can show the longest multi-generational ties to the land. If you can show you were born on the land and lived there for the last 20 generations its your land... some guy who has some 1000 year old claim to the land he cant show a clear right of ownership to then it isnt his land.
If you can show you are the direct descendant and **prove** it with paper work of someone 1000 years ago taking your land from you, and you can show specifically what plot of land you owned, then yea, that land should be yours. Virtually no individual jew can do that. In fact most jews are so intermarried they cant even say they have any connection to the jews at all other than it being a religion they practiced for multiple generations. But to connect them as inheretors of land from 1000 years ago, not even remotely close.
Meanwhile the palestinians, most of those show they have lived on that land and have a clear chain of ownership for hundreds of years.
> If Palestinians "were invaded" by Jews, then what in your opinion happened to Jerusalem in 1187?
Something that has nothing to do with modern times and no one can even show any heritage connection to those events on either side, soits irrelevant.
> I won't even comment on your postulate that the extremely antisemitic policy of Hamas "doesn't matter", because it's precisely the part that makes your plan so detached from reality.
I am glad you are refusing to comment on something I never said or even remotely implied... smart move.
> I determine whose land
Well, except the very concept of "land ownership" is a social construct and in the society populating Palestine and Israel nobody cares about how you "determine the ownership" using carefully cherry-picked criteria.
The reason why I mentioned this was to point out that the question of "whose land" can be seen in two semantic spaces, which are largely exclusive:
* legal, in which case you need to base your analysis on the international law, which includes all peace agreements signed by Palestine, latest being 1993 Oslo Accord, which makes your proposal of "dissolution of Israel" irrelevant, except for some specific extrajudicial land takeover by settlers
* moral, in which case you can go as far back as you wish, but granted complex history of Middle East you loose on each Muslim conquest of Jerusalem (there were many of them) — using the very arguments you raised against "Israeli occupation"! — and you also loose ultimately on the *first* Muslim siege of Jerusalem simply because Islam appeared 600 years after Christianity and that was several thousands after Jahwe religion
In any case, you can't honestly pick and mix from these semantic systems.
> Virtually no individual jew can do that.
But Palestinians can?
> comment on something I never said or even remotely implied
I pointed out at, if that needs clarification, that no Jews live under Hamas rule, which is kind of obvious, granted their viciously antisemitic stance.
Which makes your whole plan unrealistic as on the hypothetical dissolution of Israel we would immediately witness the largest pogrom in history.
You said "it doesn't matter".
@realcaseyrollins
> Well, except the very concept of "land ownership" is a social construct and in the society populating Palestine and Israel nobody cares about how you "determine the ownership" using carefully cherry-picked criteria.
Sure its a social construct, but the criteria I picked is more or less the criteria the world uses rather consistently. Plus it makes logical sense. Much more so than your idea of "well 2000 years ago some people who might be remotely related to me were here"
> The reason why I mentioned this was to point out that the question of "whose land" can be seen in two semantic spaces, which are largely exclusive:
I;d argue botht he legal and the moral are fairly well addressed by the typical standard I put forth. You are the citizen of the land you are born to. Your ties to the land are based on how many generations of birth that may go back as well.
> In any case, you can't honestly pick and mix from these semantic systems.
I didnt, legally I made clear there had to be a clear chain of ownership and/or presence on the land to claim to be the owner, and whoever can show the earliest form of this wins. And morally the rules are largely the same, whoever is born there, is part of there, that is the natural default.
> But Palestinians can?
Yes absolutely. After spending 2 years in the region I can tell you almost every pallestinian, well a lot anyway, have a very proud heritage. In their living room it is common to show a family tree of all the family members born in that house and on that land. They often love to show you their papers and family history and are quite proud to show their ties to the land over many hundreds of years.
Jews on the other hand rarely can show ties to the land, the overwhelming majority can only show ties through an invading force in modern history and can not show a natural connection to the land. You do have some palestinian jews of course who can show ties to the land, but even then it is as a palestinian who is a jew, not as an israelite. Which would give them a right to palestinian citizenship and a home but not an argument for a jewish state.
> I pointed out at, if that needs clarification, that no Jews live under Hamas rule, which is kind of obvious, granted their viciously antisemitic stance.
Then a jew has two options... 1) dont stay if you dont like the region, especially if you are the invader .. or 2) stay and change things.
When a country has crime and hates a certain group thats not an excuse to commit genocide and take over. It is an excuse to clean up your society and try to eliminate the hammas to create a unified country for all palestinians, both jewish palestinians and arab.
> Which makes your whole plan unrealistic as on the hypothetical dissolution of Israel we would immediately witness the largest pogrom in history.
Not if the jews left, which is what most would and should do... I mean maybe you shouldnt commit genocide on the natives if you dont want to be hated as a people, that would be a nice first place to start.. and now that the hatred is there you can leave, or you can take the risk to try and stay and make things right.. but the risks and the unfortunate nature of that choice has no one to blame but you (the israelis) for committing genocide in the first place.
Its like saying "but if they stop committing genocide then everyone might hate them and be violent towards them"... sure... the answer to that isnt to let them continue to commit genocide.
> Not if the jews left, which is what most would and should do
Does your peace plan also involve all non-indigenous residents leaving USA? That would be at least consistent.
@realcaseyrollins
No its not "fine" but it is much better... no id apply the exact same rules... but the population difference here would have very different results... With the natives having control the americans that are left would still be te overwhelming majority of the vote since we all would have citizenship still under the rules if we chose to stay.
In israel the vote is more fairly split so the nation would need to find bigger compromises int eh voting booth. But ultimately both groups interests would be more evenly represented there.
OTher way around, jews have voting rights in palestine, and all the land becoems palestine.
A better way to view it though is to say neither government would truly exist anymore and a new government would form that includes both groups with voting rights..
While these may sound like different things they are effectively the same. A government reflects the wishes of its citizens through vote. So by having one voting body the government would become representative of both groups and as such wouldnt really be one or the other anymore.
But that was the point of Palestinian Autonomy Authority enacted in 1993 Oslo Accord.
There *is* an existing Palestinian government. Except in Gaza it was overthrown by a 2007 armed coup by Hamas who killed hundreds of PAA officials and supporters.
Israel already has Arab members of Knesset, and there's a good dozen of them, from several Arab parties. One of them, Ahmad Tibi, was even an adviser to Arafat.
@freemo
They had a government long before that. The fact that they were killed off invaded, and abused and the USA made sure to rig the fight by supporting the underdog.. .means they were forced into an accord that has no moral legitimacy.
The palestinians were largely nomadic people and did not seem to have much interest in establishing governments. They wanted to live on the land and be free, and ffrankly it worked great for them for quite a while.
The palestinian government only needed to organize much later in history once they were already under attack.
Its also irrelevant, what matters is who has citizenship over the land and a say in how its run (people born there).. whether they choose to organize into a government to do so or not means very little.
@freemo @kravietz When was the first Palestinian government established? I'm at early 1918 in my in-depth deep-dive of the history of the conflict, and haven't come across anything indicating a formal Palestinian state as of yet.