hundreth

I think it was a lot of things, not just we were here 3000 years ago. Most of it is just historical context. Post WW2 Jews immigrated there en masse after being unwelcome in Europe (understatement.) The British happened to be in control of the area, the Jews who fought with the British made a deal with them, and then the UN followed suit. Would the same thing have happened today? No. Is it moral to continue expanding? I don't believe so. I think what already is in place is what is there and you can't go back now. Unfortunately the Palestinians got dealt a bad hand in all this, and to compound the issue they also played their hand badly. It's sad, but I'd rather focus on moving forward and finding a way to coexist.

That's not a lie. It's the truth. The topic of DNA and descendants came up in the last Israel thread and it was addressed there. Directly to you in fact who was making the same claims. There is tons of evidence showing the lineage between biblical Jews and even the modern European Jews. I won't bother posting it again, because you will ignore it again. But that's besides the point, because you don't have an answer for what would constitute being a descendant. There is no answer you would accept. It's just a point you like to make, that they aren't, because that's the story that fits your narrative better.

When push came to shove Arafat said no, every time. He didn't make any counter proposals. This is well documented. No matter what spin you try to put on it, Arafat is the main reason the two state negotiations failed. Hamas operates within Gaza and is confined there. Obviously they attack Israel. How are they going to attack Jews outside of Israel? This makes no sense. You make it seem like Hamas is using restraint lol. I don't know much about the Likud charter but if that's true then wage war against the Likud, not Israeli civilians. Notice how Israel explicitly states they are at war with Hamas. The name of this war is the Israel-Hamas war... not the Israel-Palestine war. If the aid money isn't enough, then make a case for that by actually using it. This isn't about how much aid money, it's about the priorities of the region. There is no amount of aid money you can give Gaza to make their lives better. Literally name any amount of money, and it will be funneled into Hamas tunnels and rockets. The UN cannot change that simple reality. As I said earlier, Arafat is to blame for the two state negotiations breaking down. Hamas is not capable of negotiating a two state solution on behalf of the Palestinians. They don't have that authority. They don't represent the will of the Palestinians nor the Israelis.

Which claim isn't based on truth? How much DNA should an exiled people have to their homeland for it to be truth that it is their homeland? And who is to say a different location wouldn't have had it's own set of issues? You could have been talking about a Ugandan Israeli genocide right now, so I never understood this line of argument.

By what metric? Those biblical Jews were exiled from the region and kept a religious tradition for thousands of years which revolves around Israel. How much more related can you get? Literally their entire worldview revolves around Israel and maintaining a connection to those biblical tribes, yet now they're "barely related."

Israel's objective has never been to destroy Palestinians. They moved towards a two state solution and were rejected. Now Israeli society has shifted to more aggressive motivations. If Palestinians believe this is an existential threat, they can attack the Israel government - not the civilians. That's the major crux of the issue. Hamas doesn't differentiate, they kill whatever they can kill. There isn't a military objective. It's just to kill Jews. I don't know why you think this matters. Hamas is a terrorist organization whose objective is to destroy Israel. There can never be peace with them. You just won't accept this reality. The PLO is not what you think they are. The Palestinians do have alternatives. They can take the billions of aid money they receive and use them to better their lives and develop the areas under their control. That's the tragedy of the situation. If Palestinians valued their people's well being over the destruction of Jews and Israel, they would immediately have better lives and a clear roadmap to peace. Israel and the surrounding nations would be exponentially less afraid of a state who's priorities are on their own well being over destruction. It's so unfortunate that anti Israel voices have determined that the Palestinian people's path lies solely in the hands of Israel and Jews. That they have no agency. That there are no alternatives but to kill Jews. That everything is 100% Israel's fault. That Hamas is an inevitability. All of this is nonsense. And so instead of helping Palestinians help themselves, these Pro Palestinians help them drag Israel through the mud and rationalize terrorist attacks.

Lol.

I'm assuming you meant even if Israel would be less safe... In which case that's absurd. This isn't an "in case" - it's clear cut intentions they don't even remotely try to hide. I'm not saying that Israel should destroy an entire civilian population, but they should absolutely go after groups that are outright hostile to their existence. That is reasonable. When there are groups whose entire purpose is to eliminate you, the priorities change. It is unfortunately the same chicken and egg debate we've always had here. Anti Israel voices believe that if Israel gave Palestinians whatever they want, there would be peace. Israelis don't buy that for a second. The classic question. State before peace or peace before state? I believe statehood will always be impossible until there is a culture shift in Palestinian culture as well as the greater Muslim world. Israel will never put their survival at stake with blind trust in groups who hate you and want to kill you. With that said, Israel hasn't done themselves any favors in terms of fostering good will and giving them a reason to shift.

And yet you didn't really disprove what he said. He said the majority of the Israeli government isn't religious, which is true. You cherry picked. Then as a counter to what he said about most Arab nations, you referenced Qatar, which is one of the more moderate nations that Israel actually has good relations with. More cherry picking.

Yes nice job going back to 1948 lol.

Agreed re: macro factors. What we've heard from the Israelis about this school bombing is that a large percentage of those eliminated were Hamas commanders and militants. I don't think anyone is hiding from this bombing, but instead Israel has pointed out why. Of course the numbers can be debated and it doesn't make it any less gruesome when bystanders are caught in the crossfire. I also don't think we're saying that these atrocities are inherent in Arab society. Moreso these atrocities are inherent where there is religious extremism. Palestinians have had much of this governing their society, and now we see as Israel adopts a more religious stance the atrocities ramp up as well.

In some ways it isn't. I've never been surprised that Hamas would situate themselves inside schools and hospitals as it makes sense when you're cornered. It's something brought up and discussed because it highlights the challenges when trying to fight a force like that.

I said they incentivize any Palestinian to murder Jews in cold blood because their families will be taken care of. A rogue actor can infiltrate an Israeli home, stab an entire family to death... and his family will receive paychecks forever. They will name a street after him and call him a martyr. In addition, yes they have their own military aspirations. The PLO is a wolf in sheep's clothing, albeit very thinly veiled. The logic about the UK ambassador part is self defeating, as you consider Israel bad while having representation everywhere.

I guess. In the grand scheme of things, and given everything that's happened occurrences like this are going to be mostly ignored. It is extremely fucked up. The difference between this and other war crimes is there is a self preservation aspect to it. It's easy to forget these soldiers are 18 year old kids, and in the grand scheme of things this war should be a meaningless part of their lives they move past. They aren't robots. They are going to do whatever it takes to stay alive. I think morally they have a responsibility not to - easier said than done. The war crimes that stand out are the ones where you harm civilians when there is no danger to your own life. You do it purely from a place of anger or hatred. I am surprised they haven't come up with a better way to handle situations like this though.

I just showed you how they weren't nearly as moderate as you think they are, but you ignored it.

Sure, it would be lovely to negotiate many things but there's no one to negotiate with at the moment. Even if you had the most progressive Israeli leader who wanted to grant statehood, there's no partner to discuss those parameters with. I think the third party idea is also the best one for how to proceed in Gaza, but not surprisingly no one wants to be there. Especially with a frothed up Hamas still running the show. We're talking about rogue actors infiltrating Israeli homes and stabbing families while they're asleep. Funding that is of course evil. When Israelis protest accountability for those Israeli soldiers facing sexual abuse allegations, it's just as bad. The PLO incentivizes this behavior by granting those families paychecks for life. I don't know where you got this majority statistic. But even if Fatah was a motivation, they immediately started shooting rockets into Israel. Is that not a punch in the face either? If Palestinians aren't violent while establishing someone truly capable of negotiating on their behalf for peace, then something can develop from it. I don't deny that Israel has thwarted this to some extent, but in the absence of a peace partner there's not much which can be improved. There's levels to this. There's a huge difference between disdain for a political machine and dehumanizing an entire ethnic group. The Palestinian youth has been brainwashed with the most twisted perceptions of their neighbors. It makes establishing a relationship almost impossible. A Palestinian leader can't bring themselves to tell their population they're now working towards friendship with the evil Zionists and have a two state partition. What Arafat used to tell his constituents is that you make peace now so you can wage war later. Arafat used the Islamic concept of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah. This was the text of Arafat’s famous Johannesburg speech in May 1994—after he signed the Oslo Accords in September 1993: This is the reality of what Israel is up against. Both parties really want a temporary ceasefire so that they can resume activities when they see fit. In Hamas' case, more October 7ths. In Israel's case, the continuation of the elimination of Hamas.

We don't have any alternative to Hamas at the moment. The Palestinians themselves favor Hamas to the PLO, and the PLO also engages in funding the families of those who murder civilians. They aren't Hamas, but they're also pretty bad. Israel took a huge step towards giving Gazan's the freedom they asked for. Did they completely 100% remove all security considerations overnight? No. But how is that the issue? If a police officer handcuffed you and in the process of freeing you removed one of the handcuffs, would you then immediately use your free hand to punch them in the face? At some point you need to allow incremental progress to happen. That's not what I said, I never meant that they couldn't protest. It's just whenever we speak of establishing trust and behaving peacefully, you bring up protests as if that's a show of anything. Peace is not attacking Israeli civilians. Of course it matters what they teach in schools. Would you say Israeli society's current right leaning trend doesn't matter? Does it matter that there are swaths of Israeli society who are in fact now racist towards Palestinians? What a bizarre thing to say. If Israelis taught even 25% of the crazy racist things Hamas teaches in schools, you would have a post about it every 5 minutes. Fair enough. It's meaningless because neither side actually wants one. Also, if you look at what I wrote I explicitly said it's not only because of Oct 7. It's really the straw that broke the camel's back. There's no going back to the status quo of skirmishes with Hamas.

A few points: - Right now the Israelis are in danger of attacks on the scale of a guerrilla Hamas. Now allow Hamas to have unlimited free flowing funding and supplies from Iran while building up an official military state. That becomes an existential threat, something much greater than October 7. - You really drank the Kool-Aid that all of the issues stem from the lack of Palestinian statehood, yet Israel was attacked incessantly while the Palestinians were not under Israeli occupation. It's a highly reductionist way of looking at it. If the Palestinians had everything they wanted, it wouldn't stop them or Iran from moving towards the destruction of Israel. In fact you can see as recently as Israel left Gaza, Hamas was elected for that purpose. - Peaceful is in quotes because the protest intentionally played games with the buffer zone. I don't know who fired the first shot, nor do I care... because the response was predictable. It resulted in cycles of escalations from both sides and blood shed. - Protesting, whether violent or not is not what we mean by being peaceful. A protest is by definition an inflammatory event. To build trust in the region, you need extended periods of stability and integration. Being peaceful means no rockets, no missiles, no tunnel building, no stabbings, etc. It also means no longer teaching your youth the most vile anti Jew propaganda. From the Israeli side, it means no longer building settlements and expanding. It requires both sides to behave as friends for some time. That is what establishes trust. - Prior to October 7th Israel was increasing the amount of work permits to Palestinians - as it seemed things were stabilizing. That is a positive gesture which increases cooperation and integration of both sides. This could have been a momentum builder, but Hamas used it as a chance to attack. This is how it always goes. - Both the charters and the ceasefires are meaningless now. I'm fine not mentioning either, because actions speak louder than words and Hamas has proven via their actions that they meant what they said by their initial twelve fundamentalists and original charter. And it's not just because of Oct 7th, it is because of how they teach their youth to hate Jews and uphold the destruction of Israel as their highest value. Don't get me wrong, Israel has become more and more resigned to thwarting any chance of long term peace as well and they deserve their share of the blame. I just disagree with your one sided interpretation of what's going on there.

Obviously Israel doesn't want a Palestinian state shoved down their throats who is hostile and dangerous. There are other more selfish reasons from more fringe groups, but that is the main one. The pro Palestinian voices have their holy trinity of get out of jail cards: - They did a "peaceful" protest at the border once, and violence ensued. Therefore being peaceful doesn't work. - They updated their charter. - Nat Turner These arguments are tired and bad faith.

This isn't about "worthiness." The Palestinians can literally do whatever they want and achieve statehood, EXCEPT for initiating attacks and firing rockets at Israel. That's how low the bar is set. International law and rights will always take a back seat when survival is at stake. As I said earlier, you have it backwards for this reason. The reason you need peace as a starting point is very simple. You need to know that the moment you grant what they wish for, they won't turn around and kill you. It's not about worthiness, it's about building trust.

How are you going to conflate 2024 with the late 90s and early 2000s? Obviously, circumstances have changed.

The first one, yes. The second one I'm not sure. For one, the Lebanese are the ones who perpetuated it with Israeli intelligence and weaponry. Also, the main motivation was to root out the PLO. Anyways this one seems multi faceted. The first one is clearly a form of terrorism because the intention was deterrence via retribution on civilians from a previous attack.

There is no negotiating with Hamas. Both of them greenlit October 7th, they are dead men walking. Justice to Palestinians is the complete elimination of Israel. By that metric, there is no path forward. That is the reality of the situation. You can't really apply what happened in South Africa here. Israel has attempted to move towards two states, and was met with bad faith and attacks. They attempted to leave Gaza and were rewarded with Hamas and attacks. No good deed goes unpunished with the Palestinians. And so, with this toxic relationship you see what unfolds.

I don't dispute that, and wasn't mean to say their are "inherently" different - but the condition now is what I said. The society's highest moral virtue is the elimination of Israel.