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Comment by xdennis | Hacker News Reader

Your analogy is wrong because Jews were there before Arabs.

It's like saying that Cherokee would be colonizers if they moved to North Carolina, which is their original homeland before they were forced to move to Oklahoma (the Trail of Tears).

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I suppose you refer to the relatively short period that Israel existed almost 3000 years ago? And we're just conveniently forgetting about all the people who lived there before and after that?

Weren't the Philistines in the old testament the ancestors of the Palestinians? Meaning they were there first presumably, since the Israelites had to fight them to take the region in the first place

Of course not. Their ancestors are Egyptians and Algerians who came to work for the British between 1919-1947.

The Philistines settled in a small part of modern Israel at around 1175 BC, and disappeared (were assimilated) by the 5th century BC.

Roman Judea was renamed to Palestine in 135 AD (after the Philistines) by the Romans after numerous revolts by the Jews attempting to overthrow their colonizers.

It was freed from Roman colonialism in 634 AD... by being colonized by Arabs. Many empires colonized it afterwards, the last being the British.

Most of today's Israelis are from Muslim countries, some are from Europe, and the rest never left. But many of Arabs of the land (which have adopted the name Palestinians after the province, not the people) are from neighboring countries.

So we can go back to antiquity to make territorial claims? Hell, better not tell that the Persians, Romans and Mongols! Or the British... Maybe Macedonia wants another shot at conquering India so, who knows?

When you have to go back 1300 years to justify an apartheid regime, maybe you should ask yourself a few questions.

Or... when you have to go back 1300 years to shed light on a complex issue, naive people should consider that they might not fully grasp the basis of the conflict

That's a classic handwave to avoid going into the fundamental merit of the problem: which is that, based on claims that were last valid more than 1000 years before, a fundamentally-theological apartheid state was installed and then supported with brutal force, pursuing a slow but methodical ethnic cleansing of the land. Unlike similar efforts in previous centuries (i.e. the purge of Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians, or pre-Colombian South Americans), the Israeli effort doesn't even have the excuse of philosophical immaturity of the mainstream: it was pursued well after the post-colonial fundamentals had already been established between WWI and WWII. These are hard facts, no matter how you spin who started what in which year.

The sad thing is, there is now, realistically, no way out of the current situation that involves reconciliation - that chance was missed in the last century. The animosity is now likely unsurmountable, the military disparity is entrenched for good, and a sustainable resolution can only involve the complete purge of Gaza and West Bank. Israeli citizens have chosen to belong to another nationalistic ethnostate, right when the Western mainstream started to move towards more modern and inclusive models of statehood - ironically, on the example of Israel's best ally. As such, they are busy repeating all the sins such states have been guilty of during less enlightened ages.

There's nothing wrong with "nationalistic ethnostates", that's just a weird way to say "nation" (ethnicity is fractal).

The problem is the countries that are empires : where non-national ethnicities are subjects. This includes Israel because of its control of Cisjordania and, yes, also the USA (though to be fair, there's hardly anything left of the Native Americans, and as you say, they get the excuse of immaturity).

> a fundamentally-theological apartheid state was installed and then supported with brutal force

This is also a handwave.

Minor quibble over "theological" - I think "tribal" would fit better. Humans are a funny animal.

The chance for peace was extremely slim. It's been an existential conflict since before 1948, and Camp David's alternative required that the doves on both sides be stronger than the hawks. Unfortunately, there's an asymmetry there.

>> a fundamentally-theological apartheid state was installed and then supported with brutal force

> This is also a handwave.

No, that's a statement of fact. It's been almost 80 years since the founding of Israel, its overall historical trajectory is not really in question anymore. Election after election, these choices have been made for three generations; the ideological scenario is entrenched for good. It's sad but it is what it is.

> Minor quibble over "theological" - I think "tribal" would fit better.

I could agree there, but it's a fine line. There is a religious symbol on the very flag.

My (possibly incorrect) understanding is that this goes all the way back to Jacob and Esau, if one considers the Bible as purely a historical reference and not a religious text.

That hasn't been true since Hadrian

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