You've got the history backwards, friend.
- Israel is not intermittently but continuously under attack since 1948 for its mere existence.
- Since when does being "oppressed" give anyone the right to launch rockets on civilians and commit suicide bombings? There are many people in this world who are much worse off than Palestinians who would never imagine engaging in these sorts of acts.
- The Hamas wants Jews erased. It doesn't matter what Israel "stops" or does. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Charter
Sorry, this will not work anymore. More and more people now are learning about the massacres in '47/'48, Nakba, ethnic cleansing, violations of UN resolutions, or even the original partition plan, war crimes, constant illegal settler harrasment and land grabs, and the disgusting nature of the oppression, political machinations of the Israel's ruling class, etc.
Ivoking morality or rights when the occupier doesn't respect either, will just keep working only on the most gullible.
Israel is powerful, and has well established PR machine and lobbying, but the tide of public opinion can turn against it eventually, if it will push too hard.
More and more people are learning nothing and are just repeating propaganda and promoting hate.
I'm not denying there was violence against Arabs by Jews. I'm not denying there's settler harassment and land grabs. That does not justify the violence from the Arab side. It is not right but it also does not justify. If you're going to be stuck in 1947/1948 (and the picture isn't as simple as you're trying to paint it, conveniently forgetting the surrounding counties attacking Israel or the attacks of Arabs against Jews) then this is not going to get resolved. If the dialogue from the Palestinian side is stuck on their historic injustices, some of them are true, some of them maybe less true (to put mildly), without acknowledging the other side and without looking at how they might have contributed to where we stand they are going to lose more.
Israel's PR sucks and it's not that powerful. Public opinion changes on a dime.
EDIT: I just want to address a few more points:
- "Ivoking morality or rights when the occupier doesn't respect either". There is no equivalency here and there are important details that are intentionally left fuzzy in this statement. The morality of building a settlement on occupied territory (from Jordan) is not equivalent to the morality of shooting a baby in the head in front of their parents. There is no piece of land on this earth that is not built on "occupied" territory. What is different about the west bank is that its status has never been resolved after it was won from Jordan in 1967. Some refer to the entirety of Israel + West bank + Gaza as occupied territory which is factually wrong. The fuzziness here is not random, it is intentional.
- "original partition plan". Can you be more specific on the partition plan? It's generally the Arab side who avoids mentioning it and avoids mentioning that the Arabs rejected it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_... "Arab leaders and governments rejected the plan of partition".
- "war crimes". Generally speaking Israel is not committing war crimes. There is a vast legal apparatus in the IDF that advises on the legality of various actions. You may not like those those actions, and it's true that the Palestinians and some others label them as war crimes, but technically they are not. This is just more demonizing rhetoric justifying violence. It's basically blood libel. What most Arab PR calls a war crime is allowed under law of war. I'm sure there are some exceptions. The Israel-Arab situation is somewhat unique but if you compare to many other wars the Israelis are fighting relatively within the allowed legal frameworks. I think if you point out to specific actions, that are clearly war crimes, that's fine. If you just say "war crimes" that's propaganda.
Not really. It's pretty rabidly pro genocide and pro Israel in my country. I don't know what would have to happen for this to change. Minister of defense even suggested leaving UN after the last UN GA vote.
> I'm not denying there was violence against Arabs by Jews. I'm not denying there's settler harassment and land grabs. That does not justify the violence from the Arab side.
So the violence of one side doesn't justify the violence on the other side? Then we agree.
> The morality of building a settlement on occupied territory (from Jordan) is not equivalent to the morality of shooting a baby in the head in front of their parents.
That's just some cherry-picked example. I can just as well tell you that shooting children into knees or heads over the fence is not equivalent to throwing some rocks, etc. This random cherry picking will lead nowhere.
Anyway, this is just a mirror argument to the one above. Either rights apply to both side, or to none of them.
Current example of a war crimes would be usage of starvation of civilian population as a means of warfare. Or attacking hospitals - eg. current attack on Al-Quds hospital https://twitter.com/PalestineRCS/status/1718660055883514087 making it barely inhabitable, and endangering patients there, just because Israel wants the people there to leave.
I agree random cherry picking leads nowhere.
Violence on one side doesn't justify the violence on the other is a bit of a tricky statement. Sometimes violence is justified so context matters. What Hamas did on Oct 7th is never justified. There are possibly (EDIT: actually likely) some examples of Israeli violence that is also unjustified. Rocks kill by the way. What would be your proposal of how Israel should respond to Hamas's attack? If such an attack was conducted on your community, how do you think your country would/should respond?
Under international law hospitals cease to be protected if they are used by enemy combatants and if ample warning is given (which Israel has definitely given, the combatant use I'm not sure). The population of Gaza is also not starving. If Israel were to attack hospitals that are not involved or used in any way by enemy combatants or if the population of Gaza indeed ends up starving then those would be war crimes. There is still food in Gaza. I've heard there is agreement to increase the amount of aid flowing into Gaza significantly. At the same time Israel isn't responsible for feeding Hamas fighters or for how Hamas distribute their provisions in Gaza or does not. I don't think Israel benefits from violating international law (many other countries don't even blink at doing that, but that's beside the point) and should not.
I also disagree that either rights apply to both sides or apply to none. Right always apply to both sides.
I find everything going on right now very deeply disturbing on many levels. Whenever there's any glimmer of hope that something better can happen in the middle east there's always some player that's going to literally blow everything up. I do think the truth matters (vs. the untruthful narratives from almost everyone) as there's no path forward on top of lies. Too many people are just brainwashed. So yes, the truthful events of 1948 (mostly discussed by Israeli historians that Palestinians are happy to quote) are important but so is the Jewish history of the region in modern and ancient times.
EDIT: btw I watched the images on that Twitter video. There is war going on outside and so yes- there is very likely some impact on the hospital. At least the video itself seems to show that it's not a place I'd want to be but also people are still alive and uninjured there.
I'm in Czechia, a country that supports Israel unconditionally, without an ounce of sympathy for Palestinians. Vast majority of comments on news articles that allow commenting just call for genocide, for leveling the place, justify killing children, call Gazan's not human, express excitement when they are being killed, etc. (yes we have laws against genocide and incitement to genocide) Politicians are not much better, except they're just acting out callous disregard for human beings on the "other side". Media is not showing or describing the human toll in Gaza pretty much at all. A country that sold a lot of planes and weapons to Israel in 47/48 during the arms embargo.
You can show people videos like these, and they'd still tell you it's Palestinian's own fault, and they'd still vote even against an unenforcible, largely symbolic resolution calling for a meaningful ceasefire and distribution of aid, so that there's at least an anesthetic, and safe route to get these patients transfered outside of Gaza.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Palestine/comments/17jfd8o/warning_...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Palestine/comments/17jeq4r/kids_inj...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Palestine/comments/17c269h/saving_a...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Palestine/comments/17c9igd/israel_h...
Or who can scroll a few weeks back through this this https://t.me/s/eyeonpal and think that killing, maiming and terrorizing these people in such horrendous ways, and continuing to opress them after the war, will not make them susceptible to even more radical views than what Hamas have now in the future.
Or the news like:
"Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says he ordered a halt to transfer of funds to the Palestinian Authority as a result of, what he says, their “support” for Hamas’s October 7 attack.
“I would like to inform you that I have instructed the Finance Ministry to stop the transfer of payments this month,” Smotrich said in a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, quoted by the Israeli media."
a day after warnings about "explosive situation in West Bank" from security services. It all almost seems designed to trigger as much mayhem as possible, just to guarantee some uprising there. Defunding PA will not make it stronger. It's guaranteed to make it look impotent and useless in people's eyes and make them turn elsewhere.
Anyway, I cope by reading books and learning, so I can confront the ignorance in my country.
> If such an attack was conducted on your community, how do you think your country would/should respond?
My country was occupied twice. It didn't fight back, and just accepted the fate. (aside from people joining foreign legion or partisans, during WW2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_uprising
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Germans_from_Czec...
Lots of nasty stuff. I obviously won't defend the Nazis but Czechs didn't exactly play by the rules of law against the Nazis who also didn't play by the rules of law.
The Germans seem to have a reasonable grounds to claim parts of your land. If 3000 Germans armed to the teeth with assault rifles, heavy machine guns and RPGs went on a rampage through Prague killing 1000 civilians, taking hostages, and retreating back to Germany... What would be your take on that?
Maybe it's not a good analogy, I'm totally ignorant of European history like most are about middle eastern history, point is that without context you can't make a moral judgement.
Smotrich is an idiot. The PA has no interest in making peace. But Israel and the PA do collaborate because the PA corrupt officials want to remain in power and their people will slaughter them without Israel's protection just like they did to the Fatah in Gaza.
EDIT: So why aren't Europeans killing each other all the time when basically every inch of land there was stolen from someone in some war not too long ago? They were for a long time. Because at some point you move on and you stop thinking that you're going to solve the problem by killing your neighbor. The Palestinians are just not willing to move on. Israel has been willing to move on a long time ago but its neighbors want to kill it. Those neighbors also don't generally share the values of the west at all. Just look at the human right situation in the middle east and how neighboring countries (unrelated to Israel) treat each other. It's not Western Europe.
EDIT2: this is ancient history but since we've gone back to WW-II: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amin_al-Husseini ... I am not super familiar with this guy's history but supposedly the family originates from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Husayn_ibn_Ali who lived in Medina (modern day Saudi Arabia) and not in "Palestine". I've heard some Palestinians claim they're the descendants of the Canaanites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaan ... anyhow, context history and such.
I do feel on a human level for the individuals who are suffering and being pawns in a bigger game.
People would be pissed, but that's about as much as they could do. Czech would have to negotiate.
I can certainly make a judgement that killing 100x more children than were killed during Oct 7 is more immoral. Don't need any history for that.
A 17yo Hamas combatant counts as a child btw.
It is terrible that children are dying. Most of that is on the Hamas. Hamas intentionally aimed their attacks at children. Hamas kidnapped babies. Executed children in front of their parents. Israel asked people to evacuate and at least in theory is targeting Hamas in an extremely densely populated area where Hamas is using population as human shields.
I can't deny that seeing images of dead children on the Palestinian side is deeply disturbing. Not getting to those Hamas terrorists is not an option. What is the option? Another by the way there is that this monstrosity of Hamas was created with international help and pressure on Israel and now somehow it's all Israel's fault. There's also a clear propaganda war going on here as well and what I'd call double standards.
If Israel could get at Hamas without hurting a single child that would definitely be preferable. You're asking Israel to sit back and be slaughtered. This isn't only about the Israeli children already murdered and taken hostage, it's also about the safety of the rest of the children.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_in_the_Israeli%E2%80%...
EDIT: just in case you say the option is to "negotiate" this current state is a result of the historical negotiations. How do you negotiate with a brutal enemy that wants you dead? The theory was that they've given up on wanting Jews dead.
EDIT2: Another thought experiment to engage in is if the Hamas was even more successful in their attack, and the other settlements and towns where they were repelled failed, and they killed 10000 Israeli children would there be a different morality? I don't think the ratio of dead people is necessarily a morality factor at war. That does not mean it's good that people (including children) are getting killed.
EDIT3: Interesting the NY Times is also asking similar questions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7K327quaEc ... I didn't listen to it yet.