> If you think having a particular ethnicity in charge is equivalent to endorsing genocide, you miiiiiight be a little bit racist.
The democratically elected government of the Palestinians in Gaza(Hamas) has for a long time quite openly advocated for effectively genocide Jews/Israeli's, it's not racist to simply believe that Hamas is telling the truth in regards to what their end goals are.
> The democratically elected government of the Palestinians in Gaza
There's no such thing: the separate authority in Gaza was produced by Israeli military isolation of the separate parts of Palestine nominally administered by the PA, and how that facilitated Hamas local victory there in the intra-Palestinian civil war against the central government.
Also, the elections that were won by Hamas candidates before that were before most currently living Gazans were born, much less eligible to vote, and subsequent elections have not been held because Israel blocked the all-Palestine elections agreed to by Hamas and Fatah, so even if the “government of Palestinians in Gaza” were simply a direct result of those elections, which it is not, it would hardly be the “democratically elected” by those currently governed.
> There's no such thing: the separate authority in Gaza was produced by Israeli military isolation of the separate parts of Palestine nominally administered by the PA, and how that facilitated Hamas local victory there in the intra-Palestinian civil war against the central government.
The election that brought Hamas to power in Gaza was widely considered to be free and fair.[0]
> Also, the elections that were won by Hamas candidates before that were before most currently living Gazans were born, much less eligible to vote, and subsequent elections have not been held because Israel blocked the all-Palestine elections agreed to by Hamas and Fatah, so even if the “government of Palestinians in Gaza” were simply a direct result of those elections, which it is not, it would hardly be the “democratically elected” by those currently governed.
And yet polling indicates if another vote was held Hamas would likely still win, in both Gaza and the West Bank, so it's essentially a moot point. It's not just Israel that has blocked elections, Fatah has also not wanted elections because they know they would lose. The problem is that Palestinians have in reality largely supported extremists far more than moderates, that may change but reducing Palestinian support for extremism is ultimately what needs to change for there to be a chance at having some long term peace agreement.
If you lock women and children in a ghetto, then bomb and shoot them relentlessly for months and years, people are going to want to know what book you are reading.
> If you lock women and children in a ghetto, then bomb and shoot them relentlessly for months and years, people are going to want to know what book you are reading.
This is an absolutely insane comparison, Hamas is free to surrender and give up their weapons if they want the bombing to stop, the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto had no similar opportunity.
> I don't think even I would think surrender, in those circumstances, makes a great deal of sense.
Why not? That's what typically happens when one side loses a war, I'm not sure how prolonging the conflict is helpful.
> And I'm an atheist.
So am I.
> I'm also British.
Funny enough I am as well(in addition to a couple others). History is full of people losing their homes and becoming refugees like some of my ancestors did, that's often much better than the alternative of staying to fight and die. I am certainly not trying to get their homes back as that is long settled history.
> I've come to believe that it's pretty impossible to understand Israel-Palestine without the lens of religion.
From my understanding according to common Islamic teachings non-Muslims are supposed to be Dhimmi's[0](i.e. second class citizens) and be ruled over by Muslim's. So I think this is probably the source of a lot of the issues with the Israel-Palestine conflict, although there are other factors in play as well.
"Not formally" rather implies you think it was. Northern Ireland was/is part of the UK, so civil war I could probably agree with.
The reason I mentioned religion was nothing to do with the requirements it places on how things should happen, but rather about the entitlement and infallibility that a belief that god has decreed something can grant people's mindset and outlook.
I mean, it comes down somewhat to definitions of war I guess.
> Northern Ireland was/is part of the UK, so civil war I could probably agree with.
Maybe an irregular civil war or something like that? Maybe a low level insurgency? There's a few ways to describe that conflict.
I probably should know more about the troubles since I lived in southern Ireland for 3 semesters of college, but that was over 10 years ago.
> The reason I mentioned religion was nothing to do with the requirements it places on how things should happen, but rather about the entitlement and infallibility that a belief that god has decreed something can grant people's mindset and outlook.
Sure, religion does make solving these problems more difficult. I know at least Israeli Jews are often relatively secular statistically at least, although there are those that are more religious as well(which tend to cause more issues).
Different religions have different doctrines as well which play into the conflict in various ways. All religions will generally have problematic teachings but some will cause a lot more real world issues than others, Islamic teachings around Jihad and Martyrdom tend to be especially problematic.
When Israelis see they are surrounded by groups that openly call for their destruction then it's not surprising that Israelis believe those threats due to the history of those groups acting on those threats. Then there's the issue that historically whenever Israel would move in the direction of peace with the Palestinians things would backfire(i.e. Second Intifada).
I'm not really sure what the best solution is but I think some Palestinian de-radicalization will be a prerequisite, but I also don't really know how that could be done in practice.
> And I'm an atheist.
If you had to choose somewhere in the middle east to live where would it be? I presume it would be Israel as that's basically the only country in the middle east where being an atheist is acceptable in the society.
> I don't think there is a chance in hell of that working unless Israeli deradicalisation happens first
Israeli radicalization in that sense is mostly reactionary, the second intifada is what really moved Israel far to the right and subsequent events didn't help either. Israelis largely still want to live in peace with Palestinians, but Israeli's do not think Palestinians want to live in peace with Israelis. Not once has Palestinian leadership so much as proposed a concrete peace deal that they would accept.
> My ethics aren't fungible based on the tribe someone belongs to...
My point was that out of all countries in the middle east, it's almost certainly Israel that is closest to behaving according to your actual ethical beliefs in practice. Advocating for policies that would ultimately result in some Islamic dictatorship or other bad outcome in Israel/Palestine is rather counterproductive if you want to advance western ethics.
I mean, it's not surprising that people living pretty normal lives, separated by terrorist attacks would think like this.
Growing up in the UK, outside of Ireland, but occasionally having the threat of an IRA attack (like Manchester) I lived a low stress life. Meanwhile, those living in parts of Northern Ireland were living a life of constant stress. Kids constantly surrounded by soldiers with guns, controlling their movement and choices on a day to day basis. Violence was always, on some level, a daily threat.
Northern Ireland was a lot less violent that Gaza though. It's not surprising that people living lives under dramatically different levels of stress and with dramatically different life chances/outcomes and life history have different outlooks. Comparing these two groups like they are the same really illustrates how you seem completely unable to actually see the issue at hand.
Now you are asking the group that lost everything, and is living under constant stress with no prospects, and with no power, to engage with another group that holds all the power and won't create a good faith environment for any negotiation.
It's like expecting a Good Friday agreement to be possible whilst London is running a policy of subsidising English resettlement in Northern Ireland and making statements on national TV about how many Irish nationalists they planned to kill each night. It's just a bonkers position. The side that holds the power breaks extremism by clearing its own side of the house and by making concessions that clearly demonstrate good will, repeatedly, over a long period of time. It is sensitive to deaths on both sides - if 50 nationalists were dying for each brit, the whole thing would still be going now, or we would have just pulled out completely.
Regarding your second point, Israel isn't closest to my actual ethical beliefs in practice. It's an expansionist ethnostate that hugely intefers in Western politics and the information space. You don't advance ethics by surrendering your ethics.
> I mean, it's not surprising that people living pretty normal lives, separated by terrorist attacks would think like this.
My point I guess is mostly that Israeli's need to be convinced that the Palestinians actually want to end the war and make a peace deal, but to do that you probably need to first convince the Palestinians that it's in their best interest to end the war and make a final peace deal. Obviously none of this is likely to be all that quick.
> Now you are asking the group that lost everything, and is living under constant stress with no prospects, and with no power, to engage with another group that holds all the power and won't create a good faith environment for any negotiation.
So this idea is really emblematic of my main issue with how the Palestinian leadership has approached the entire conflict, rather than even attempt good faith negotiations they turn to terrorism in some futile attempt to destroy Israel. Palestinians have agency, there are different paths they can go down and Israel has a history of making peace deals with Arabs. What happened in Gaza is the result of years of terrible choices made by groups like Hamas with Israel responding how one would expect many countries to respond so similar threats/attacks.
The side that isn't ready for a peace deal yet is the side that refuses to negotiate in good faith, Russia follows that same pattern with Ukraine because like the Palestinians they think they need to continue the fight to get a better outcome.
> The side that holds the power breaks extremism by clearing its own side of the house and by making concessions that clearly demonstrate good will, repeatedly, over a long period of time.
Well, they kind of tried that in Gaza with the unilateral disengagement in 2005 and it completely backfired. Similar situation with Lebanon as well, the territories where Israel is being attacked from are all where they tried the strategy of unilateral disengagement, while the West Bank has less issues because they never disengaged. It would be great if things would play out that way but it doesn't look likely to me. That's why negotiation of a peace deal is so important.
> Regarding your second point, Israel isn't closest to my actual ethical beliefs in practice. It's an expansionist ethnostate that hugely intefers in Western politics and the information space. You don't advance ethics by surrendering your ethics.
I mean, you can say the same about most countries in that region which have far worse ethical issues in general.
I'm not sure what meaning you can ascribe to this kind of statement, because whilst it is factually true in isolation, it also omits so much information it's almost meaningless.
There's plenty of evidence that the Israeli government is composed of people with a similar outlook, just with a power imbalance that affords them the opportunity to be more politically sophisticated.
History rhymes - I'm pretty sure that Jews in the Polish Ghetto had pretty negative views about the people detaining them there. Do you hold that against them?
> There's plenty of evidence that the Israeli government is composed of people with a similar outlook, just with a power imbalance that affords them the opportunity to be more politically sophisticated.
Israel does have some problems with extremists getting elected but that's partially due to the proportional representation system making it easier for extremists to get elected without widespread support from the population.
> I'm pretty sure that Jews in the Polish Ghetto had pretty negative views about the people detaining them there. Do you hold that against them?
Were the Jews in the Polish Ghetto terrorizing/murdering random German civilians? I'm sure they had a very negative view of the Nazi's but it's not a particularly comparable situation as the Jews were being exterminated regardless of their actions.
Gazans are being exterminated regardless of their actions.
The Warsaw ghettos didn't exist for very long. People are people, treat them the same way and you'll probably get similar results.
Of course, in this case both sides have magical thinking involved that gives them a divine blessing, so that changes things somewhat and makes it harder to reason with them.
Obviously the parallel I've drawn is extremely provocative. The Nazis started with a belief of dehumanism and acted on it. In the case of Israelis and Palestinians it's just the direction of travel over decades, but they look the same in many ways for a reason.
> Gazans are being exterminated regardless of their actions.
That's simply factually inaccurate, Hamas started the latest war while the population of Gaza was growing. The Jews started the Warsaw Ghetto uprising while they were being actively exterminated(i.e. population declining).
The population of Gaza has been declining over the last 2 years as a direct result of 10s of thousands of Gazas being killed, including thousands of kids.
The methods thankfully differ, but the goals are pretty similar.
Both contain an ethnonational conception of the state, seek to secure political sovereignty for a particular ethnonational people, attach historical/national significance to territory, and contain expansionist/settlement currents aimed at extending that people's presence and political control over territory.
And the direction of movement is towards similarity (not away from it) - eg nation state bill.
Israel's main strategy until recently appeared to be to maximise suffering to force displacement.
I don't really see a realistic peaceful strategy for Gazans based on decades of history, they have little power. It's like an amplified Northern Ireland.
Hamas is the democratically elected government of Gaza and retains a high level of support amongst the population. The population could put more pressure on Hamas to disarm but so far it has been fairly minimal.
> Israel's main strategy until recently appeared to be to maximise suffering to force displacement.
Israel's strategy before October 7th was one of containment, but that clearly failed so they switched to a strategy of proactive threat management.
Israel probably should just fully occupy the territories in the short term and make a more serious attempt at Palestinian de-radicalization so that hopefully some sort of two state solution eventually becomes viable. Occupation with de-radicalization worked with the Nazi's and Imperial Japan at the end of WW2 but Israeli's just really don't want to have to fully occupy Gaza so that's going to be politically problematic.
> I don't really see a realistic peaceful strategy for Gazans based on decades of history, they have little power.
They had opportunities for peace, Palestinian leadership ultimately threw those opportunities away by refusing to even so much as propose a concrete peace deal that would be acceptable.
I think if you believe that a two state solution is a potential future outcome (without gargantuan shifts in numerous things), then I think you aren't evaluating information sources very well (which to be fair applies to all of us constantly).
I'm inclined to think that's largely true about the past too, although there was a point around 2000 where it wasn't fantasy. But given settlement activity continued over this time, it's hardly a realistic basis on which to form agreement.
Why negotiate the borders of a Palestinian state while the territory you're negotiating over is continuing to be settled?
Israel is a very sophisticated political actor (that holds nearly all the power), it's a complex mix of political opinions (which don't align) but whatever those are, the state itself in terms of how it acts in the world looks a lot like Russia in the information space. Case in point the original post all these comments sit under.
That's partly a function of the particular position Israel is in, and in the same way that Palestinian authority is mostly politically unsophisticated isn't surprising.
That should affects the way we account for information surrounding Israel-Palestine, like when for the thousandth time an Israeli spokesman appears on the BBC to very reasonably tell us about the strong ethical rules that govern the IDF, and that this particular incident was just a terrible accident.
The hardline elements within Israel ultimately win, through various tactics, above and below board, which is not particularly surprising given the history of some of the characters involved (and that deep rooted mindset) over the years (Irgun etc), who were also very happy to carry out terrorism on British targets alongside their list of other atrocities.
The 'moderate' position is always taken in by apparent reasonableness over the immediately recollectable present. That is changing though, for largely obvious reasons, which is good.
> I think if you believe that a two state solution is a potential future outcome
Potential, sure.
> without gargantuan shifts in numerous things
Obviously any solution will require gargantuan shifts in numerous things given where things are currently.
> I'm inclined to think that's largely true about the past too, although there was a point around 2000 where it wasn't fantasy.
I would agree around 2000 it was potentially feasible on the Israeli side, both population wise and leadership had reasonable levels of support. The 2nd intifada pushed things really far in the wrong direction. Unfortunately the Palestinian leaders walked away without so much as even proposing any concrete settlement terms that they would accept.
> But given settlement activity continued over this time, it's hardly a realistic basis on which to form agreement.
I agree settlement activity is an issue, but I would disagree it is what broke the peace process.
> Why negotiate the borders of a Palestinian state while the territory you're negotiating over is continuing to be settled?
You sue for peace to make the best of a bad situation...and to stop the situation from getting worse, that's a pretty common way for armed conflicts to end.
> Israel is a very sophisticated political actor (that holds nearly all the power), it's a complex mix of political opinions (which don't align) but whatever those are, the state itself in terms of how it acts in the world looks a lot like Russia in the information space.
There are many that try to paint Israel to look like Russia...but in reality there is not much in common with how they operate. Russia will sometimes use similar justifications(i.e. security threats) but with Russia it's usually just a cover for more imperialistic end goals.
> That's partly a function of the particular position Israel is in, and in the same way that Palestinian authority is mostly politically unsophisticated isn't surprising.
Palestinians historically have had absolutely terrible leadership, there's really only so much Israel can do when the other side doesn't have the political will to come to a final peace deal.
> That should affects the way we account for information surrounding Israel-Palestine, like when for the thousandth time an Israeli spokesman appears on the BBC to very reasonably tell us about the strong ethical rules that govern the IDF, and that this particular incident was just a terrible accident.
You need to be careful with misinformation in general, there is one group that quite openly states they want more civilian casualties, and that is Hamas.
> The hardline elements within Israel ultimately win
That tends to be what happens when terrorist attacks are successful.
> which is not particularly surprising given the history of some of the characters involved (and that deep rooted mindset) over the years (Irgun etc)
The history there is much more complicated, the IDF in 1948 dissolved the Irgun by force[0]. Much later it was also the former Irgun leader[1] that ultimately made peace with Egypt[2] by giving back the Sinai.
> who were also very happy to carry out terrorism on British targets alongside their list of other atrocities.
To be fair they didn't do that for entirely no reason either, Britain prevented Jewish refugees from entering mandatory Palestine while the Nazi's were genociding them in Europe. History is messy after all. Benny Morris has some good material on the history.
>You need to be careful with misinformation in general, there is one group that quite openly states they want more civilian casualties, and that is Hamas.
It's very ironic that you are telling me that I need to be careful about information and at the same time that Hamas is the one openly stating things.
So, do you think Hamas could be lying?
Israel's approach to information is reflected in its access for journalists, UN investigators, human-rights monitors, diplomats, aid workers, and foreign activists.
This entire discussion is taking place in a post about a think tank that Israel created to poison the information well.
>To be fair they didn't do that for entirely no reason either, Britain prevented Jewish refugees from entering mandatory Palestine while the Nazi's were genociding them in Europe.
I'm pretty sure all terrorism happens for reasons which can be served up as a justification.
Considering their actions/tactics, it seems quite unlikely in this case.
> I'm pretty sure all terrorism happens for reasons which can be served up as a justification.
I'm not saying it was justified, but it was at least understandable given the context. I also understand why the Palestinians use terrorism as well, likewise I don't consider it justified either.
