“Israel has a right to self-defence, but it has to be done within international law … cutting water, cutting electricity, cutting food to a mass of civilian people is against international law,” said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Tuesday (10 October).
He repeated the view more than once in his press briefing. “The Palestinian people are also suffering,” he added.
An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. This cycle of violence and repression needs to stop.
It’s not an eye for an eye though. Israeli atrocities over the decades dwarf what has been inflicted upon them by Palestine and Hamas.
You go far back in history enough and we can be here all day over who is guiltier
In this case you don’t need to go back “in history.”
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By this logic, history doesn’t exist and nothing that happened yesterday should matter today.
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Why is it political taboo to call them both monsters, and advocate for not supporting either until they can sort out the differences themselves?
Because there’s an obvious power imbalance and not picking a side just favors the already powerful?
Yeah. If we say “let them fight it out” then Israel is going to roll in and kill all the Palestinians.
Followed closely by war with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan and Iran. Escalation is bad for everyone.
Do we get to go back far enough to the part where israel admitted to funding hamas in 2019?
You guys know this isnt a conspiracy, right? Israeli politicians flat out said this in interviews?
source?
https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/
Israel specifically targeted and funded extremists to stamp out non violent palestinian politics.
Israel created this. This is what they bankrolled. It was the intended outcome to justify declaring war.
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Hamas knew what would happen, they wanted israel to declare war. They got exactly what they want.
So did israel. They wanted hamas to attack so badly, they ignored shared intel that the attack was coming a week in advance. Israel also wanted an excuse to declare war.
Israel wants to use the war as an excuse to kill non hamas palestinians. Thats why they bombed the refugee route to egypt that they explicitly told civilians to follow.
Hamas knows israel wants this, and hopes it will radicalize the survivors and bolster their ranks. They think it will be good recruitment.
What did I expect? I expected israel to jump at the chance to finish off its genocide. Youre a self proclaimed subjugated native, you also should have seen this coming.
What I dont get is why you are cheering on genocide. You are watching your peoples history on repeat. And up and down, you are cheering for them to die.
Holy hand-waving-atrocities Batman
pow
ZING
boof
Welcome to the human condition. Justice isn’t real, but that doesn’t mean we can abandon it. It’s impossible to undo the damage of the past, but if you turn a blind eye to it then nobody will follow you into the future.
It’s not an eye-for-an-eye because we shouldn’t consider targetting civilians an option. If you want to call militias that target civilians terrorists, be consistent regardless of what uniform they are wearing.
This is the only take that actually matters. If Ukraine responded to Russia by bombing villages and shooting civilians, they would not have such near-worldwide support. If Israel wants to truly be better than “savages” then they need to act like it.
So it an eye for an eye from Palestinian side and should be stopped!
Would be better to discuss this in terms grounded in reality rather than papering over idioms with clever gotchas.
That’s the point. The game is to be the last man standing with at least partial vision.
It is a pretty clown face move to attach those that supply your water, electricity and fuel.
That’s slave mentality, dude
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The Final Solution, eh?
By that logic, the other way this ends is the dissolution of israel.
They cant seem to stop themselves from murdering and pillaging their neighbors, right? So they have to go. Right? Thats matching your logic just fine.
There’s another possibility.
Lebanon gets involved. Then Iran. Then the US. Then Iraq. Then Afghanistan. Then Russia. On and on until it’s WW3
But no one wants to talk about that
If the EU and the US have managed to avoid getting directly involved in Ukraine Vs Russia and starting WW3 that way, there is no way this conflict will start anything that big.
Nobody talks about it, because it’s not realistic. This will be treated as another proxy war, with countries providing aid, but not actively fighting.
The US and Russia are already involved. Russia likely started this mess, and US is already sending munitions to its ally.
What’s unlikely about Hezbollah getting involved? Or Iran? Or the Taliban?
It can easily inflame into a massive regional war, and there go oil prices. With oil prices go food prices. With both, inflation slips out of control. Now there’s fuel shortages and hunger everywhere, heightening tensions.
This is a powder keg. Wake up
Yes I’m sure we need to care about great power Afghanistan “getting involved” in Gaza. We should also be wary of Mongolia, and probably Lesotho as well.
Russia/Iran/US/EU are all already “involved” in with Israel. US/EU/Israel want to culturally genocide palestine and Russia/Iran want to hurt the US/EU. This isn’t ww3, and if push comes to shove none of the major players are going to start ww3 over Israel or Palestine.
they really could have just left them alone. It would have been exactly the same result with the Palestinians blaming those in Palestine for their issues.
instead they meddle and build illegal settlements.
Found the Zionist
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Israel isn’t just denying Hamas water, they are denying Palestinians water. That includes children and infants and uninvolved innocents.
Have they considered not trying to take over land that isn’t theirs?
The children living in Gaza don’t have that option. Hopefully evacuation corridors are operational.
Evacuation to where?
Anywhere that isn’t getting genocided by IDF.
Name the place.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at.
You’re making vague statements that the children of Gaza should be evacuated, but that’s not a solution unless you can tell me where they would be evacuated to.
There are two and a half million people in the Gaza Strip. What place is going to accept two and a half million Palestinian refugees? Bear in mind that millions of Palestinians have already ended up as refugees throughout the region and that is already considered a huge problem. Nobody wants even more to deal with. So what country? Even if there were magical teleporters to get them there and everyone was willing to leave their homes forever, who’s going to take them in and support them?
Few people are worried about hamas. The concern is for the women and children. The people with no say in any of this. It’s not a crime to refuse to resupply an enemy, it is a crime to starve innocent people.
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Actually the only hope of truly lasting peace is the dissolution of Israel and the creation of a new state that doesn’t limit citizenship and suffrage along ethnic or religious lines.
I doubt that would work. If history is to be of any indication then Palestinians also have no desire to co-exist with Israel. If the sides were reversed Palestine would be doing the exact same things as Israel is doing. Arabs want Israel gone and it’s been clear since the state of Israel was officially founded in 1948.
Them kick em both out, bomb Jerusalem, move on.
Just take all the Israelis out of that region and give them Ohio.
This. Israel never should have been there in the first place. It’s stolen land, ruled by a tyrannical apartheid regime.
Noone wins a war of occupation. You either learn to live with conquered peoples and give them access tibequal rights (Roman empire) or completely erase the local population (Europeans in North America).
Same rhetoric as German occupiers claiming that they would not execute civilian hostages as long as Resistance fighters would give themselves up. Sorry for the Goldwyn point but you made it a low hanging fruit.
You are talking about an area of the world that is nearly 50% children.
Good luck stopping a millennia old feud
Damn, 1948 was a thousand years ago? Time is weird, I guess.
If you want to just count recent history, jews started buying land and returning to Palestine in the late 1800s. They started flooding in after some anti-semitic pogroms in the early 20th century and things have been spicy since.
Those Jews were not interested in a Jewish state in Palestine. That didn’t come until political Zionism in the interwar period.
Even before that there was some violence between the communities, which is what I was referring to.
Do you think the region of Palestine and Arabs/Jews were created in 1948?
This isn’t a conflict that was going on in the Ottoman period. This is a recent conflict and this attempt to turn it into a thousands year old religious war is bullshit. This is a colonial project where the goal is to take land. Very material in nature. That project has been in place since 1948.
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Quite the opposite. I feel the same as you, both sides should be allowed to stay. What’s done is done and ethnically cleansing the area is obviously a horrific crime that oughtn’t be advocated for in either direction. Where we differ is that I see the two state solution as setting the region up for the same conflict down the road. After decades of settlement the areas which would make up the Palestinian state would be non-contiguous swiss cheese. It would be an untenable situation.
Instead, a singular, secular, egalitarian state with universal suffrage and human rights guaranteed for all would be a challenging path, but I think ultimately a more stable one. And a path which would leave room for healing in the future.
Bulshit. The diaspora started in 63BC, under Roman rule. Everybody could live peacefully side by side in one country, save for the religious nutheads pushing their hatred rhetoric
Are you really saying that Holocaust happened because of the Palestinians.
Jews and Muslims were literally brother before all this western bullshit, so come on.
Unbelievable 🙁
You might want to double check who kicked out the Jews and started the diaspora.
Which country gets the Temple Mount?
There’s a reason why every single non politician Palestinian who favors peace wants a single state. If material conditions persist what good will some embassies do Palestine?
Debatable. The people who think it’s a millennia-long feud are counting from when the Romans threw the Israelites out of Israel according to the Bible. For them, protecting Israel at all costs is a religious thing, and their religion has existed for millennia, so 💁
Islam hadn’t even come about at that time, however, so people casting it as a religious war between Jews and Muslims come across as especially disingenuous if they try to frame it that way. Hell, the Romans hadn’t even Christianized at that time. Is it a war between Judaism and Paganism? C’mon.
You and I both know that, but the Bible - thumping loonies who support Israel’s corrupt government right or wrong don’t. They literally think that if the U.S. ever wavers or gives up support of the Israeli government in any way, it’ll bring on the end times and trigger the prophecies in the Book of Revelations.
🤔 I never used to put much stock into the argument that religion is dangerous, but seeing how it affects everyone else politically, I will have to concede that point. It is very dangerous to civil society. If that’s a authoritarian thing to say, it doesn’t really matter – the truth is inherently authoritarian in the minds of the weak.
The region of Israel was created in 1948 by stealing Palestinian land to give to white European Jews. It’s not a religious conflict, it’s European colonialism
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That’s just a different coat of paint. It’s still the same settler colony it always was.
There have actually been plenty of periods of peace and tolerance in the middle east over the millennia. When these feuds break out people go back and dig up ancient reasons to justify them, but the feuds themselves are new and are not contiguous with those ancient ones.
Ehhhhh…when everyone reporting on it and everyone involved all acknowledge these old reasons as the root of the issue, I’m inclined to believe them over some comment on Lemmy.
As I said:
When these feuds break out people go back and dig up ancient reasons to justify them
So they say now that “we’re doing this because a thousand years ago their ancestors did our ancestors dirty”, but there were periods in between then and now where it was water under the bridge and people got on with their lives.
If you think that people in those regions have literally been killing each other every day for over a thousand years, how is anyone actually left at this point?
Just because there may be periods of peace doesn’t mean these deep rooted issues just no longer matter.
So conflicts like this can never actually end? Any peace is an illusion, just a pause before the next turn of the wheel? I don’t have such a pessimistic view.
There have been conflicts like this throughout history that really have permanently faded off back into the past, with the modern descendants living perfectly fine together and no longer concerned about those original causes of the conflict. If they end up with some new reason to fight in the future they may fight again, of course, and they may even dredge up those old conflicts as part of their propaganda. But it would be a new conflict, not the old one reborn. They’re not going to just up and start fighting again for no new reason.
Not a millenia old feud. A one-centure-GB-US-Iran engeneered old feud.
Heard a lot of shit Iran’s supposed to be involved with in the region, but it’s the first time I hear them being accused of having engineered the Israel -Palestine conflict. How do you figure that? I would’ve understood accusing France for their involvement in sykes-picot, or even the Turks since the Ottomans administered the region in early 20th century. But Iran started supporting the Palestinians after the 1979 revolution, before that the Shah very much supported Israel. So I have a hard time seeing how they could be blamed for engineering the conflict.
Haven’t read a history book I take it, if you think the fight over Palestine is a new thing. I guess you’ve also never heard of the Crusades
What side were the Jews on in the crusades?
Haven’t read a history book I take it
lol right back atcha chief.
Crusades
lol
You are aware that the region known as Palestine and the Arab people existed before 1948 right?
I can say that about literally every piece of land on the planet.
So can you. You literally did, in a comment in this exact thread
Exactly. We can say that about anywhere, and many people can claim Palestine as their ancestral home. It’s in the past and that’s over now. Sucks but my people went through it. Get every white and European off of my continent and ancestral lands and I’d be more sympathetic. P.s that’s what makes me laugh too about all this, North American kids bitching about Israel colonizing Palestine, meanwhile my native ass is sitting there wondering if they get the irony.
Israel isn’t going away, the people who think the answer is getting rid of it are delusional.
Lol, no, not quite. Nice try, but theres a difference between “every piece of land has bloodshed” and “a decade ago is technically the past, so you need to excuse all the war crimes we committed!”
No one gives a shit about your native ass crying “they killed people before, why should we save their lives??” Your ancestral injustice does not justify modern injustice.
Just admit youre racist and shuuut the fuuuck uuuup, no one wants your opinion
Always falling back on racism is why people don’t support you
You literally said, in this thread, that youre native born who had your ancestors land taken from you and no one stopped that, so why should anyone help here?
Thats racial, dude. You said that. Im not falling back on anything, Im pointing the fucked up things you said.
They didn’t say anything racial
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Get this racist bullshit outta here, the middle east is literally one of the cradles of civilization and throughout its history has been a place of tolerance and learning, the barbarity overwhelmingly comes from the outside
You’re also using an example of one of the earliest law codes we know to show barbarity, fucking unreal
The UN and EU consider lots of things Israel does illegal. We just don’t do anything about it and they don’t care.
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The problem I have with the “both sides” argument is while I agree we should not approve of Hamas’ actions, Israel routinely murders civilians without consequence. We tut and tsk but we still send them basically unlimited aid and approval.
Yes both sides behave badly but one side does so with our explicit support.
Don’t forget how Israel sells world-class spyware to despots and dictators, who use it to terrorise journalists and political opponents.
Including their supposed arch nemesis in Saudi Arabia, who used their tech to kill Khashoggi
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IDF soldiers have murdered plenty of children. It is routine and I don’t care if they are protesting, they are entitled to protest oppression.
Hamas are disgusting and Israel are cunts but Hamas is because of what Israel does.
Well if you casually leave out that part it becomes a lie by omission. And there’s a reason you have to use this lie both to yourself and to others. It has a whole different ring to it when you say “IDF regularly shoot teenagers throwing molotov cocktails in protest” instead of “routinely murdering children”.
Mohammed Tamimi is the youngest Palestinian killed in the conflict this year (June 2023)
Shot in the head by Israeli forces.
He was 2.
Siblings Ali and Mayar ed-Din, who were killed in an IDF airstrike on May 9, 2023
Damn teenagers get younger with every cull.
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Yeah they absolutely did, by teaching the people that shit was normal by doing it to them for generations. Murdering civilians who are celebrating is just how they say hi, so they shouldn’t be surprised pikachu face when they do it right back to them.
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We (the EU at least) also send a lot of aid to Palestinians.
Israel should be sanctioned and decolonized like South Africa was.
And I, for one, believe that that would have happened a long time ago if the Palestinians had followed the Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi playbook.
Perhaps I am wrong. Like the rest of the world, I also don’t have the solution for this quagmire.
The experiment has actually been running already. The Gaza Strip is run by Hamas, which is violent and pushes back against Israel however they can. The West Bank is run by Fatah, which has been attempting to keep good relations with Israel and work with them.
Despite that, the West Bank has seen a continuing encroachment of illegal Israeli settlers, continuing violence directed at Palestinians, both by the settlers moving in there and by the Israeli army. The reason the border with Gaza was so ill-defended was because Netanyahu had moved much of the force usually stationed there into the West Bank. Palestinian deaths in the West Bank has been rising.
I don’t think the Mahatma Ghandi approach is likely to work in the Middle East. At least no better than any other approach people have been trying has been working there.
Development aid, not weapons as the west supplies to Israel. But otherwise you’re right. The whole region should be disarmed.
The only way to disarm “the whole region” would be to basically level all of it and make it totally uninhabitable.
That thought also crossed my mind.
I’m not saying it’s the right move
But it would solve a whole lot of issues.
Has anyone ever heard of BDS?!?
The US sends aid to palestine as well, just nowhere near as much as we do to israel.
And there isn’t a good solution. No matter what, everybody will be mad. Mad and not violent would be nice, though.
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Thing also is that those people were also hated during thier time and also called terrorists. There’s no good options for a leader sadly.
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USA also supported Nazi Germany until USSR marched in and whooped Hitler’s twink ass.
Lol fucking what? The USSR militarily supported the Nazis until they were attacked
He literally WAS a terrorist. He ran the ANC’s terrorist wing. People called him a terrorist and it was accurate.
A lot of people seem the think he was only regarded well once released from prison. I certainly didn’t know much about him until then.
Yet Only Fools and Horses was made in 1981, and they lived in Nelson Mandela House. So even in the UK we knew South Africa was on the wrong side of history. And we should know, we wrote most of it…
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So were the IRA…
And yet now here we are with Sinn Fein holding elected positions.
At some point there has to be dialogue otherwise you just keep killing one another.
As opposed to the IDF that’s been terrorizing Palestinians constantly?
It’s terrorists in both sides. Unfortunately civilians are the ones caught in the crossfire.
As opposed to the ANC? Who literally had a terrorist wing run by Mandela?
As opposed to the resistants (including many Jews) during WW2 who were literally called terrorists by Nazis ?
The West called Mandela a terrorist until he won and they killed MLK
So
The West being one single hive mind like the bugs in Starship Troopers
Oh sure, there is some factions within the West, but on the whole they agree on the big stuff. It’s why they’re all allied with eachother in the first place. It’s not a hive mind, it’s a team.
And Gandhi was a black-hating Mussolini sympathiser.
This is the sort of thing that reminds me never to trust the accepted wisdom of internet groups.
Gandhi after being educated in England was only a little less racist then everyone else when he first went to South Africa and made the famous comment you’re referring to… He then had his awakening against oppression and began to fight for an end to racism, one of the main popular scandals against Gandhi in South Africa was that the medical corp he set up would give aid to whoever needed it first regardless of rank, colour or ethnicity. The rest of his life he wrote and fought for the rights of all.
But of course ‘popular person was actually bad’ is a fun hot take so of course it’s going to be banded around without any nuance.
They dont need a Palestinian Mandela to stop military and civil aid and cooperation when Israel commits war crimes.
The UN condemns Israel as a pastime activity. Nobody in Israel cares what they say at this point.
Because they are the West’s military outpost in the Middle East A
I guess sanctions only make sense when Israel is out of the picture.
“And in response we will send 100 billion in lethal aid directly to Israel.”
Israelis are doing a genocide in Gaza right now and the whole western world will celebrate it at worst and tut about it at best. Disgusting
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Well one option is they could get off the fucking land they stole and stop doing a genocide. Not sure why that option slipped your mind. Libs always trying to find hard solutions to simple problems.
It was Western powers that “gave” land that didn’t belong to them, and where other people already lived (and, of course, continue to support Israel). The Israeli government is not the only responsible party here.
It was the UN dividing the land between 1/3 jews and 2/3 muslims who were living there. It got voted 33-13 with most muslim countries voting against and 10 countries including Britain abstaining.
And go where?
considering a lot of them have second citizenships elsewhere…how about those places?
and before you get to “but there are nazis all over europe/etc, the jews need to be safeguarded!” i’m 100% with you. killing every nazi the world over is the correct solution here, not wiping out an innocent peoples.
considering a lot of them have second citizenships elsewhere…how about those places?
That only accounts for maybe 20-30% of the population these days. Most Israelis alive today were born in the country, not immigrants.
So again, where do they go?
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Why is this "Where do they go? 😞 " question relevant only now and only one way?
Because someone specifically told me that every Israeli should just leave Israel?
Are you not following the converstation here?
I wonder, seen your username, are you by any chance living in North America? If you do, would you consider emigrating to give the land back to the Native Americans who the colonists stole it from (with a little jazzy genocide) ? Or do you consider the situation to be completely different?
Look at South Africa. One state for everyone, equal rights, equal votes. That thought will be so repellent to many that they would rather leave, and good riddance to them.
Not that I as some western internet rando have some unique insight into how things can/should be resolved, just the opposite: some of this is so obvious that even a distant and privileged dummy like me can see it
So again, where do they go?
I don’t give a shit tbh. The state of Israel is a rogue state that shouldn’t be recognized by anybody and should never have existed. The settlers can either become refugees or rely on the mercy of Palestinians.
Hamas is extremist to the point where they would be doing a genocide as well if they were in the position to do so.
The exact same nonsense was said about the end of apartheid in South Africa. That the extremist communist party and ANC would genocide white people. It never happened. This is literally a talking point from ex apartheid South African president PW Botha he said the same nonsense:
“I am not prepared to lead white South Africans and other minority groups on a road to abdication and suicide,”
That the extremist communist party and ANC would genocide white people. It never happened.
I don’t think most people in South Africa desire that or even want that. White people are a tiny minority in South Africa, 7% of the population, if the majority of the country wanted white people gone, it would’ve happened already. People just wanted apartheid to end and historic inequalities to be dealt with. The first already happened, the second is happening at a snails pace, if it’s even happening at all in some cases.
white folks who have had their brains rewired to justify the genocidal histories of their peoples always think genocide is the default, against all fucking evidence
This is also because the apartheid government caved under not only international but more important domestic pressure as they were perfectly aware that there would be civil war and mass bloodshed if they had not given in to reforms and the end of apartheid. It’s not clear what would have happened otherwise if, for instance, they had doubled down or intensified the apartheid system with even more extensive fascistic slave-labour in the 80s. As South Africa had an economic model that was descended from the settler-colonial plantation system, as seen, and utilized extensive unpaid (effectively slave) labor, it’s not unimaginable that if they’re pushed the system deeper then there would have been far more retaliatory bloodshed.
Israel and South Africa really are very similar countries
Unfortunately, both were apartheid states at one point…
Thankfully one no longer is
well also being apartheid, settler colonial states, that relied on US support and technical military dominance over neighbours, and that developed nuclear weapons on their own
that developed nuclear weapons on their own
Actually Israel and apartheid South Africa developed and tested nuclear weapons together, see the vela incident…
Indeed.
But the ANC and Hamas are not similar at all.
Hi comrade. Not coming at you personally or aggressively but I feel I do have to come back pretty hard on this take.
The same words can be used in different contexts with different implications, and in the one case they can be correct, in another they can be wrong. The difference which makes your analogy not hold is that the ANC is not Hamas, and pretending otherwise is either confused or disingenuous. They are extremely different organizations. The ANC was a broad-tent organization that included conservatives, nationalists, reactionaries, and revolutionary socialists, notably communists (especially in the armed wing). The armed wing did carry out military operations obvs, but they did not have as a common or explicit policy the indiscriminate torture of unarmed children or torture. They never carried out actions like Hamas has done. Not least because they were sufficiently progressive to recognize that this would politically idiotic, given that the anti-apartheid cause was perceived as depending on foreign pressure on apartheid SA. It seems clear to me that the same applies to the Palestinian case, thought the problem if ofc that the situation is so fucked that the main organization capable and willing of waging armed resistance would not only be terrible for a Palestinian left’s growth in the long-run but could also lead to a regional destabilization which would be harmful for the left in the region more broadly and would likely only benefit Islamists. The actual idea situation would be another leftist-led Intifada, but this has been prevented by Israel, but is also not in the interest of either Hamas or the PA, as it would undermine their authority and power they possess thanks to Israel in Gaza and the West Bank respectively.
By contrast, Hamas are very different. The is evidence for Hamas being the way they are has been there since their inception. They are Islamists. They are extremely fascistic in their politics. They explicitly equate Jews and Israel frequently in their media and they are otherwise clear in their genocidal anti-semitism. Murdering children in their homes is not national-liberation. I’d also add that Hamas are not identical to Palestinians and their actions are not immediately identical with, though they are unfortunately the main military vehicle currently available for, the struggle for Palestinian liberation. Not only that, but Hamas have consistently proven throughout their existence that they do not desire full Palestinian liberation, otherwise they would not have run affairs in Gaza (to the extent they are able in an Israeli open-air concentration-camp) the way they have. This is in no way surprising, given that the interests of Islamists are no less inimical to those of actual working class and liberation movements than fascists and ultra-nationalists, though the latter might also find themselves in the inferior position in asymmetrical warfare with an imperialist power and at the military head of the movement against said imperialism.
Quite frankly, it is an insult to the South African liberation movement to equate them with Hamas, as opposed to the genuinely progressive aspects of the Palestinian liberation movement.
I do think it is important to note these profoundly reactionary aspects of Hamas, otherwise we end up with a blinkered, confused view of what is happening, which is not simply reducible to Hamas being or leading a progressive revolution in Gaza. That in no way changes the fact that the mass of Palestinians who are taking part in these operations are attempting to combat Israeli apartheid and genocide and defend themselves. They evidently feel they have no other choice. But neither does the latter point make Hamas a progressive organization who should be explicitly supported as the solution to Palestinians’ oppression.
The right and need of Palestinians to depend themselves does not, however, in any way imply that every organization that happens to be the means they can do it through now is ideal, good, progressive, or that that will benefit them in the long run. Palestinian Marxists and other groups have found themselves in a situation where they feel they have no option or choice other than to form a front with Hamas in this. The deeper reasons and processes that led to that decision are not entirely clear from outside. We can unequivocally support Palestinian liberation and their self-defense while recognizing that Hamas is otherwise reactionary and therefore will not be the ideal vehicle Also, frankly, I’m never going to support an organization that tortures gay people and throws their Marxist opponents off of rooftops. Unfortunately I’m a pessimist on the front of how the political situation will develop in the long-term as I think the situation’s possible developments are going to be catastrophic in any case, given the genocidal nature of the Israeli apartheid state, how profoundly reactionary Hamas are, and that the material conditions do not allow for the strength of a Communist movement. That would require more ideal conditions which are not to be found in Gaza, and I also don’t think will be brought closer by this current round of war. Israel does of course have ultimate responsibility for this as the genocidal apartheid occupying power, but reaction can bread reaction.
Not all national liberation movements are equal. Not all methods are politically or morally equal. People on this site seem to be able to make this realization in several other cases, such as with ostensibly ‘communist’ groups like the Khmer Rouge and Sendero Luminoso, yet unable to consistently make the same obvious realization in the case of groups in the middle east who’s interests are opposed to those of Western imperialism. There’s a deep and hysterical need among a lot of the western left, not only including but above all among those who are not Marxists but ultras of various types, to unequivocally identify Hamas with the Palestinian people and the cause of Palestinian Liberation with anything that Hamas does, which is a really bizarre and honestly perverse (especially in its reduction of Palestinians to Hamas) form of metaphysical argument by semantic shift of the meaning of the words being used, to make something appear to imply something which it actually does not.
The slightest glance at the history of the relationship of the USSR to national liberation movements makes clear that serious and intelligent socialists of the past who have actually held political power and had geopolitical relevance were perfectly aware that not all national liberation groups are politically equal. Their support was never unconditional, because they were not ultra edgelords on the internet. They were a serious geopolitical power with a specific socialist ideology, and their support was therefore conditional on there being a minimum of progressive aspects to the movements they supported. Of course, this did lead to cases of of questionable or debatable support (such as the Guomingdang or the Derg), and the case is even worse when we consider the CPC’s foreign policy. But that these were mistakes (if they were) is made clear by how they contradicted with the socialist principles which were explicitly underlying them in the minds of socialists politicians who determined foreign policy.
ANC would have looked a lot more like Hamas if the apartheid included putting every black person in a concentration camp for 70 years and randomly bombing them.
Who are you to judge humans that have been subjected to such a nightmare? To claim their fight is somehow tainted? This will end the moment Israel decides to take their boot off the neck of 2 million human beings.
Tbh, I’m not really sure what point you are making here (not trying to rude, so please feel free to clarify what the argument it).
Nowhere have I claimed that the Palestinian cause is tainted. Because I do not equate or identify the Palestinian movement with Hamas, and to do so is an external perspective.
You are correct that Israel bears ultimate responsibility for this. Yes the most important thing is that they stop the occupation. That’s not what this is about. Nor is it a judgment on the Palestinians or other Palestinian groups for feeling that they should, or have no choice but to, join a common front with Hamas. This is about perspective so that people don’t suddenly make the, frankly, stupid move of suddenly speaking of Hamas as if they are simply a progressive force. This is about recognizing that Hamas, precisely in virtue of who and what they are, will not be the ultimate force of Palestinian Liberation, and that in fact their interests are antithetical to it. The other groups also despise Hamas, and it’s important to ask why (not that they are necessarily great themselves). Because make no mistake, it is far from a given that these groups, let alone Palestinians in the West Bank or who are Arab Israeli citizens, are necessarily happy with this. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem also to be making the slip between ‘Hamas’ and ‘Palestinians’, when they are very far from the same thing. Do you think that every single Palestinian in Gaza is happy when they hear that Hamas has launched a new attack? It’s not that simple, even when, as we’ve seen, right now we see there is a display of general support among key groups, though again groups like the PA are also corrupt and do not speak for all Palestinians. But this is also as much a matter of maintaining legitimacy, because Hamas is dominant in Gaza and because now that Israel is launching a brutal attack and that it looks like they could be launching larger scale genocidal actions, especially once their military is more fully mobilized and they launch a ground operation into Gaza, there is naturally going to be a rallying against Israel, and that is justified, morally and politically.
Hamas were aware that that would happen. Hamas are perfectly aware that when they launch these kinds of attacks (made possible and caused ofc by Israel in the grand scheme of things), and Israel then attacks Gaza, this galvanizes support for them. Hamas are a product of Israel in more way than one. Also, and again, and I can’t stress this enough, as Islamists their political interests are not in the construction of a broad, radical, working-class movement which would launch another Intifada and force international powers to force Israel to a negotiating table to allow for a Palestinian state, as even if such a state were to be ruled by a national bourgeoisie, that would be preferable for the construction of Palestinian socialism to what they have now. Personally, i too would like a single, secular, state, but I also feel this is pie-in-the-sky idealism. Israel will never accept that, and neither will their imperialist backers. Nor will they accept a two state solution, as we know from their decades of sabotage of such an option. This is where my pessimism comes in, as the heydays of the secular Palestinian left of the 60s and 70s is gone, Israel is becoming more fascist by the day, and the main vehicle for armed opposition to Israel is Hamas. So I don’t see how this doesn’t even catastrophically. I don’t really see an opening for the left, except perhaps if a Palestinian left finds an opportunity to take prestige from Hamas, though the strength of religiosity makes this difficult, as does Hamas’ Islamism.
I feel like this is a point to try again to dispel some illusions some people are clearly in when they compare Hamas to groups like the ANC, the Vietcong. If anything they are like the FLN in Algeria. Now the FLN were completely fucked, vicious, ruthless and deeply reactionary, but they at least were attempting to construct a national bourgeois state with nationalist perspective and policies. I don’t think Hamas are even trying to do that honestly in that their s’ils seen broader. And even if they were, they are not the ANC or the Vietcong, who were genuinely progressive movements of national liberation.
And again, it’s amazing to me that self-described communists are able to make the obvious realization that if ostensibly ‘communist’ groups like Sendero Luminoso or the Khmer Rouge, even when fighting anti-imperialist struggles (complicated in the case of the Khmer Rouge as they were supported clandestinely by the US for geopolitical Cold War reasons) or at least struggling to overthrow their national bourgeoisie, engage in widespread indiscriminate atrocities against civilians, then their communism or status as a progressive force is compromised. Or to give another example: just because I support (or would have supported) unequivocally the Soviet struggle against Nazi Germany, would never in a trillion years say that the mass-sexual violence which occurred during the Soviet invasion of Nazi Germany was justified. That would be beyond depraved honestly, even though I understand that the men who did it had seen their country and families obliterated in the most depraved ways themselves. But revenge is not the basis of politics. That doesn’t mean it’s not always justified or permissible (like concentration camp survivors killing their guards), but I really don’t see how this is equivalent to killing children or unarmed workers intentionally.
Of course this situation is the result of where Palestinians have been pushed by Israel over the last 80 years. And yes. Intellectually I understand that. But that just a description. It’s not immediately a justification of anything. Nor does it establish by itself what the progressive form of political organization. For that the material conditions and the nature of the possible groups - such as Hamas - then has to be considered. I’m sure that if I saw my child die in front of my eyes due to an Israeli bomb, which I’m blessed enough to not have experienced, then I would want to do some pretty terrible shit to these people. Israeli guards and soldiers, when torturing Palestinians, have been known to joke that they’re like the Gestapo. It’s no surprise that this breeds desire for extremely violent retaliation. But jumping from that to what I’ve seen some people saying, namely ‘anything goes, the babies/kids have it coming’ or that that is politically or morally justified is a completely illogical leap no matter which way you spin it. And frankly that should be obvious. That is not a guide to thinking about what kind of political organization in Palestine is going to lead to Palestinian Liberation. In any case, I’m pretty sure that it’s not Hamas.
By-the-bye, the South African government did engage in militaristic repressions of its population, massacres, forced displacements, ethnic cleansing, torture, rape, terror, slavery. There was armed resistance, but the form this took was very different to Hamas. It was based on progressive movements, whereas Hamas is not.
Also, this is not a question about violence as such. Violence is necessary for the revolution. I wish it wasn’t but it is. When a Palestinian kills an Israeli soldier attacking their home, my heart cheers for them. But that’s not the same thing as an Islamist militant taking someone’s children hostage and raping and murdering the women. Hamas would cut our heads off in a heartbeat. And this is not an idle point that’s somehow irrelevant in some grand geopolitical third-worldist strategy. They are Islamists. They do not care about our revolution and their success, even Thinking the political math is that simple is naive. If it weren’t, then groups like the Khmer Rouge would have been justified. This is not an idle or moralistic point because not all forms of organization or methods are politically equal. Not least because the moral qualities they have does affect how politically effective they are going to be. The indiscriminate killing of unarmed women and children is not going to serve the cause of Palestinian Liberation. Now on the one hand I admit there’s a sense of comeuppance to the blowback Israel is seeing, such as at the attacked rave. The rave, with plenty of well-off Israelis who live off the fruits of apartheid, rolling on ecstasy next to an open-air prison camp - from which, apparently, the rave’s music could actually be heard - is obviously completely depraved. But this is cruel emotion of mine. Not a guide to politics or ethics.
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Hamas is extremist to the point where they would be doing a genocide as well if they were in the position to do so.
“the people being genocided would do the exact same thing if they come into power!” is just soft genocide denial. it’s colonizers telling on themselves, because that’s their solution to an unwanted indigenous populace.
People say separate the Hamas from the people, but that’s really hard when the members of Hamas are of the people and have the support of a good percentage of them.
israel was instrumental in destroying all non-hamas groups. their extremism is intentional, as it gives israel an excuse to continue doing genocide.
… But as the issue stands today, I can’t blame Israel in taking extreme action to end the conflict that’s dragged on for nearly a century now.
you…can’t blame the genocidal settler state for continuing to do a genocide in response to…people resisting the genocide they have been doing for 70 years?? are you fucking drunk?
That’s what makes the whole thing complicated, isn’t it?
Israel shouldn’t have existed to begin with and when it did, it shouldn’t have acted the way it has since its inception.
Yes, Israel is to blame for Hamas having power in Gaza today as well.
I’m not arguing that Israel isn’t a bad guy here.
What I’m arguing is I don’t see an alternative that doesn’t just kick the can down the road.
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what of the poor Germans who moved into the homes seized from Jews where would they go if we gave those homes back
Besides the vast majority of Israelis didn’t come from Germany anyways, so there shouldn’t be as much of a displacement.
I was actually just comparing what Israel is doing now to a policy of nazi Germany regarding racial redistribution of property
The vast majority of Israeli’s were born there at this point.
It’s not a stolen home to them. It’s the only home they’ve ever known.
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Israeli settlers have, for years now, been slowly encroaching into territory officially recognized as Palestinian lands. These people absolutely have the choice to move back out of those areas and into lands officially recognized as belonging to Israelis. On the other hand, very few people can “just move, lol” and I wouldn’t be surprised if Israel specifically chose settlers that would be burdened economically if they attempted to leave.
To be clear, Israel has continuously acted in bad faith against Palestinians and, along with its allies, destroyed the peaceful (or, at least, less militant) groups that sought to unite the Palestinians. This is absolutely a problem of their own making and I would be surprised if there was a peaceful path forward with the current political climate in the region.
If I steal 2 million dollars from you and hang on to it until I have children and give it to them, is that their money or is it still stolen?
This is where it gets tricky and a lot of nuance is lost, I think. There reaches a certain point where it stops being zero-sum because two or more parties can each have an entirely independent and valid claim.
In your example, if you pass the money to your children, they reach 40 years old, spending the money they believe is theirs, and then suddenly they’re told they owe $2M they don’t have for something they didn’t do, that’s not fair on them. Have they benefitted from the $2M? Absolutely. Is it fair that they benefitted while the person/people you stole it from suffered? Absolutely not. But your children didn’t do anything to deserve punishment.
Now I’m generally fairly anti-Israel, and have been for years, so don’t take this as me being an apologist for colonisers. But for someone who has lived all their life in Israel - whose great-grandparents were colonisers - Israel is home and they feel they have just as much right to it as the people it was stolen from 80 years ago. The longer these conflicts go on, the more difficult it is to come up with a fair solution on a human level.
Israel is definitely in the wrong, though. It’s very clearly not fair from a Palestinian perspective. But no matter how you try to divide up the land now, there will be innocent people who suffer for it. There’s no easy solution to it, unfortunately. It’s more complex than just “give it back”.
Really? Your stance is “decolonization sounds complicated, let’s just let Israel genocide millions of people”? As other posters have said, send any dual citizens back to their country of origin, remove settlers from Palestinian land, end the siege of gaza, take down the wall and machine guns, prosecute IDF war criminals, and dissolve the criminal entity that is Israel. Will it be bloodless and free of violence? Of course not, I’m not naive, but the genocide of Palestinians will be much more bloody than any decolonization process
Yes, they are doing a genocide.
I’m not sure what other options are available at this point though.
I’d love to hear your explanation for how you totally aren’t a fascist
Decolonization is a bloody and violent process. Once you colonize a place and the people that live there, the only ways that it will end is the near-complete extermination of the colonized peoples by the colonizers, or decolonization. There can never be a lasting, peaceful status quo, as the interests of the colonized and the colonizers are inexorably opposed. The colonizer wants more of what is and was the colonized’s. The colonized want to keep their homes, and to not be subject to the colonizers. Both will use violence to achieve their ends.
The question of “how can peace be achieved in Palestine” is not “how can the current conflict be resolved,” but instead “should Palestinians be subject to ethnic cleansing, including violently and directly as occurred during the Nakba, or should Palestinians govern Palestine?”
can’t blame Israel
i most certainly can. the instigator of violence always has the option to not continue and to make reparations. israelis are only targets for violence so long as they make life intolerable for palestinians.
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go re-watch the terrorism episodes of TNG and the Kira episodes of DS9 you ridiculous clown.
And there is no where that would accept the Gaza population as refugees even if you could get them to leave.
So what’s left?
Did you just end your lengthy support of Israeli genocide with “No one wants them anyway, so what else is there but to kill them?” Because it sure sounded like that.
Obviously illegal. Collective punishment is a war crime and makes Israel a monster. Imagine if there was a murderer in your building and the feds blew the entire building up.
Where are the sanctions then?
Sanctions are for non-whites.
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Slavs are schrodinger whites in the eyes of the west. They can be called white when they die in a proxy war for US oligarchs, or may become even a proud second class citizens and earn some praise when colonized by the west and bootlicking it. But when they resist? Immediate reclassification to the “asian mongolic horde” status.
lets not get into are Jews white
Israelis and Zionists =/= Jews
that’s fair
I just recently learned Zionism isn’t actually a Jewish thing. Christian Zionism came before, they were the guys who did the crusades.
Well, no shit. And nothing will be done about it.
Not directed at OP
Israel’s actions are a direct consequence of what Hamas did," Borrell’s spokesman had said in Brussels earlier the same day.
Uhh, I think you meant to say “Hamas’ actions are a direct consequence of what Israel has been doing to Gaza”
Someone should probably do something about that huh
Gaza doesn’t have any oil so nobody will help.
Why are they not sending wepons to Palestinians?
Because Israel destroying HAMAS or Palestine doesn’t threaten EU. Yet.
To what end?
This isn’t something Palestine can fight their way out of, however many weapons they have.What?
EU send incredible amount of weapons to Ukraine, citing repelling invasion. So even if we generously forget how most of their members were participating in invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, surely they can send at least some weapons to Palestine?
- This is a far messier situation than ukraine being invaded, and 2) this literally just started. And multiple nations have spoken up about defending palestinians already.
I think it was mostly provocative. You know
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settlers aren’t innocent
Oh, but they did. Oopsy (2014)
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never had the aim of annexing the country and destroy their culture language and identity. Never stole children. Etc.
That is a really stupid goalpost to stand by. The semantics you’ve drawn really do spell out “I only care about the invasion of Ukraine. Iraq and Gaza aren’t that bad.”
If you want to think that, you can.
Because the very same article shows the EU most certainly doesn’t like Hamas.
His condemnation of Israel’s behaviour came after three days of EU rhetoric that had focused on the “utterly inhuman … shocking … barbarous” nature of Hamas’ atrocities, while highlighting Israel’s rights rather than its obligations.
He pledged his staff would conduct a swift review of EU aid to Palestine to make sure no money ended up with Hamas via error or deception.
Stopping aid to ordinary Palestinians would be “the best present we could give to Hamas and it would jeopardise our interests and partnerships in the Arab world,” he added.
“We want to make sure that, beyond UNRWA, the EU budget does not get to any organisations which has any ties, any links to Hamas,” he said.
EU sending weapons is not a matter of who is defending or attacking, only a matter of who they like
Biden and the US have delivered and promises more military aid for Israel. What death toll do we want here? https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-speaks-with-israels-netanyahu-us-monitors-situation-2023-10-11/
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Like clockwork, libs parroting the most blatant propaganda.
The EU may support Israel, but right now they’re calling them out for this bullshit and I’m applauding them for that. Hurting innocent civilians is never a good idea no matter which side of the conflict does it.
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So you just want them to sit back and take their genocide laying down? Of course you do, because you don’t really support the Palestine struggle, you’re just clutching at pearls because the thought of the oppressed rising up scares you.
It is weird talking about a genocide against Israel, while they starve 2 million people.
And bomb refugee camps.
And kill ambulance drivers
Once again with feddit de users saying the literal exact opposite of what I just said and causing me to get 9 billion downvotes.
Why would anyone care about fake internet votes on meaningless comments? Weird thing to worry about.
if the comments are meaningless why are you reading them. If nothing here matters why are you here? go away
It’s less that i’m getting slammed and more that it’s not my fault that i’m getting slammed. Someone else mischaracterized what I said and it’s completely erased what I originally intended and replaced it with the exact opposite, and that’s what people are walking away with.
It started out by you misinterpreting the other guys message, so it’s fair I guess.
I think you are confused, Israel are the ones who are planning on carrying out genocide.
So you just want them to sit back and take their genocide laying down?
“Them” refers to the palestinians.
What the poster is arguing is that Israel incited the attack by years and years of oppression and forced displacement.
I don’t fully agree with that sentiment. I don’t condone the attack and blaming that on Israel alone is delusional, but I certainly will not “stand for Israel”. Genocide is not an appropriate response and the flimsy excuse of citing the recent attack as the trigger for moving forward with their long-standing plan of ethnic cleansing is despicable.
I’m not confused, that other guy was being bad faith. I even made it clear in my comment who was doing the genocide.
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I agree that civilian death is always bad but the Palestinians have tried every course they can and they’re still being choked to death, at some point violence is self defense
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Also EU
So was the blockade. and they did nothing about it . bunch of spineless hypocrites
Wait! I know what Borrell will do: expel Israel from Eurovision! That will serve them right and start behaving!
I don’t expect much more from anything leaded by Borrell. We know him well in Spain.
