I genuinely do not know who the bad guys are. S lot of my leftist friends are against Israel, but from what I know Israel was attacked and is responding and trying to get their hostages back.
Enlighten me. Am I wrong? Why am I wrong?
And dumb it down for me, because apparently I’m an idiot.
Up until 1967, the bad guys were Britain.
Britain seized Palestine from the Ottomans during WWI with the help of the local Palestinians, promising the Palestinians sovereignty in exchange for their help overthrowing the Ottomans.
At the same time, Britain promised to create a homeland for Jews in Palestine (in the Balfour Declaration), and Jewish refugees from Europe began settling in Palestine. Britain did this because they thought they might gain the support of Jewish financiers for their war efforts.
The Balfour Declaration was deliberately vague about whether Britain was giving all of the land to the Jews or just some of the land. It was vague because Britain wanted to appeal to Jewish Zionists (who wanted all of Palestine) while not alienating the Palestinians.
Britain never did divide the land, resulting in two different populations who felt they legally owned the land, one who had always been there, and one who mostly arrived as refugees.
When Britain left following WWII, a civil war broke out for control of the land. A border was eventually drawn at the line of control (which ran through the middle of Jerusalem), and Israelis declared the new State of Israel, while Palestinian refugees fled to their side of the border or neighbouring states. That was in 1948.
So, up until then, it’s a messy situation created by Britain, but one which eventually resulted in the land being split (albeit violently), with both Israelis and Palestinians having a state, and each having part of Jerusalem. The world accepted this as the new status quo and hoped it would be sustained peacefully.
That changed in 1967 when Israel annexed the Palestinian lands (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) in the Six Days War. Since then, Palestinians have been living under a harsh Israeli occcupation as a stateless people (meaning no citizenship), with their rights and freedoms strictly curtailed. Palestinians have been resisting through a number of resistance movements, usually designated as terrorist groups in the Western media.
There was a political movement towards peace and repartitioning of the land that peaked in the 1990s, but since then it has been held up by a series of right-wing governments in Israel. Meanwhile, Israel has been aggressively building Jewish neighbourhoods (called settlements) in the formerly Palestinian lands of the West Bank.
So since 1967, Israel has pretty clearly been the bad guy.
The terrorist attack that killed 1200 young Israelis was horrific, and we should all hope nothing like that ever happens again. But the root cause of the attack was Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. The way to prevent future terror attacks is to end the oppression of the Palestinian people.
while Palestinian refugees fled to their side of the border or neighbouring states.
Technically not incorrect, but too much passive voice. Palestinian refugees were expelled by Israel, either by being directly told to leave or die or through massacres.
The terrorist attack that killed 1200 young Israelis
Another correction: The attack that killed 1200 Israelis, 33% of which were legitimate military targets and 66% of which were civilians. Don’t let Israel trick you into thinking Hamas just entered, killed a bunch of civilians and left, because that creates what they consider justification for their genocide.
Another correction: The attack that killed 1200 Israelis, 33% of which were legitimate military targets and 66% of which were civilians.
I never said they were civilians.
Yes but that’s the implication when you say “the terririst attack that killed 1200 young Israelis”.
If 66% of 1200 are civilians killed by Hamas then
Don’t let Israel trick you into thinking Hamas just entered, killed a bunch of civilians and left
is false (they indeed came and killed a bunch of civilians).
I’m not a pro-Israel person, I hate Netanyahu with a passion but still Hamas killing innocent people is not deserving of compassion albeit I understand their reason.
is false.
How so? Hamas attacked a number of Israeli military bases and outposts on October 7th, which was along with taking hostages the goal of the attack. The Israeli narrative conveniently ignores that, painting the whole thing as one big act of barbarism.
still Hamas killing innocent people is not deserving of compassion albeit I understand their reason.
It’s not about compassion. They definitely committed a bunch of atrocities on October 7th, and that very much deserves condemnation, but ignoring the very real military goals behind the attacks helps no one but Israel. Nobody really talks about that anymore, but if you remember before it was overshadowed by the genocide in Gaza things like how much of Israeli accusations against Hamas was true, how many casualties were Israeli friendly fire, what Hamas’s goals behind the attack were, etc etc were still open questions. The world quite reasonably stopped focusing on these things because Israel kept one-upping themselves in genociding Gazans, but that had the side effect of cementing the Israeli narrative on them as reality in the minds of most pro-Palestinian Westerners. What I’m saying is: Condemning terror that happened during the attack and condemning the attack itself are a different things, and one of them invalidates many legitimate acts of resistance.
There’s something else I want to mention.
In 1947, the UN attempted to sort out Britain’s mess by creating a “partition plan” in which the land would be split between a state of Israel and a state of Palestine.
Though adopted as a UN resolution, it was never implemented, and the aforementioned civil war broke out instead.
I just mention this because I find a lot of people are under the misimpression that Israel was created by the UN in 1947 as some kind of compensation for the Holocaust, and that’s not what happened.
That’s a pretty good summary. I will add that the partition plan was deliberate tactic by Ben-Gurion to set a precedent for the Ethnic Cleansing needed to create the Settler Colonialist Ethnostate within Palestine. The alternative presented by Palestinian Representatives was a Unitary State for both Israelis and Palestinians.
Partition
The Zionist position changed in 1928, when the pragmatic Palestinian leaders agreed to the principle of parity in a rare moment in which clannish and religious differences were overcome for the sake of consensus. The Palestinian leaders feared that without parity the Zionists would gain control of the political system. The unexpected Palestinian agreement threw the Zionist leaders into temporary confusion. When they recovered, they sent a refusal to the British, but at the same time offered an alternative solution: the partitioning of Palestine into two political units.
- Pg 132 of Ilan Pappe - A History of Modern Palestine
On 31 August 1947, UNSCOP presented its recommendations to the UN General Assembly. Three of its members were allowed to put forward an alternative recommendation. The majority report advocated the partition of Palestine into two states, with an economic union. The designated Jewish state was to have most of the coastal area, western Galilee, and the Negev, and the rest was to become the Palestinian state. The minority report proposed a unitary state in Palestine based on the principle of democracy. It took considerable American Jewish lobbying and American diplomatic pressure, as well as a powerful speech by the Russian ambassador to the UN, to gain the necessary two-thirds majority in the Assembly for partition. Even though hardly any Palestinian or Arab diplomat made an effort to promote the alternative scheme, it won an equal number of supporters and detractors, showing that a considerable number of member states realized that imposing partition amounted to supporting one side and opposing the other.
- Pg 181 of Ilan Pappe - A History of Modern Palestine
Ethnic Cleansing and Settler Colonialism
Israel justifies the settlements and military bases in the West Bank in the name of Security. However, the reality of the settlements on-the-ground has been the cause of violent resistance and a significant obstacle to peace, as it has been for decades.
This type of settlement, where the native population gets ‘Transferred’ to make room for the settlers, is a long standing practice.
- The Transfer Committee, and the JNF Ethnic Cleansing, which led to Forced Displacement of 100,000 Palestinians throughout the mandate before the Nakba
The mass ethnic cleansing campaign of 1948:
Further, declassified Israeli documents show that the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were deliberately planned before being executed in 1967:
While the peace process was exploited to continue de-facto annexation of the West Bank via Settlements
The settlements are maintained through a violent apartheid that routinely employs violence towards Palestinians and denies human rights like water access, civil rights, etc. This kind of control gives rise to violent resistance to the Apartheid occupation, jeopardizing the safety of Israeli civilians.
Visualizing the Ethnic Cleansing
Peace Process and Solution
Both Hamas and Fatah have agreed to a Two-State solution based on the 1967 borders for decades. Oslo and Camp David were used by Israel to continue settlements in the West Bank and maintain an Apartheid, while preventing any actual Two-State solution
How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution
‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe
One State Solution, Foreign Affairs
Hamas proposed a full prisoner swap as early as Oct 8th, and agreed to the US proposed UN Permanent Ceasefire Resolution. Additionally, Hamas has already agreed to no longer govern the Gaza Strip, as long as Palestinians receive liberation and a unified government can take place.
Historian Works on the History
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Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History - Nur Masalha
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The Concept of Transfer 1882-1948 - Nur Masalha
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A History of Modern Palestine - Ilan Pappe
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The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine - Rashid Khalidi
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The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappe
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The 1967 Arab-Israeli War: Origins and Consequences - Avi Shlaim
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The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories - Ilan Pappe
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The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development - Sara Roy
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10 Myths About Israel - Ilan Pappe (summery)
Israel started the six day war by striking its neighbors. It wanted that war, it knew it had dedicated sponsors that would back them up.
PS Israel, as an apartheid ethnostare premised on settler colonialism, should not exist. The “state” of Israel should be abolished and replaced by a non-apartheid, non-ethnostate that includes all of the people and guarantees a return of stolen homes and land.
The good guys are the humanitarian aid workers risking their lives bringing food and medical care into the region.
The good guys are aid workers and Palestinian and Israeli civilians who do not like the conflict.
Can you please show me a single protest of an Israeli citizen against the war specifically because of the genocide?
The good guys are the citizens who want none of this.
The bad guys are the citizens who want all of this, and the military personal behind the weapons, and the generals calling the shots.
Same as it ever was.
Edit: Lemmy.ml disagreed and nobody was surprised 🙀
This simplistic one size fits all argument falls flat when one side is being occupied and ethnically cleansed by the other side. It implies that Hamas is the “bad guy” and all other occupied Palestinians are the “good guy,” and it implies that non-military Israeli settlers are the “‘good guy.” But the truth is that the great majority of adult Israelis are militant settler-colonizers; and that Palestinians have the legal right under UN law to struggle against their occupiers by any means necessary, including armed struggle; and that Israel, as an occupier, has no right to “self defense.”
When you can’t support your own arguments, you could of course just acknowledge this or even just not comment at all instead of lashing out at those who can.
It is particularly disgusting when your arguments serve to obscure genocide.
The good guys are the citizens
I’m going to have to stop you right there, because the Palestinians are not the citizens of any state: they are a people being occupied, apatheided, and genocided by the state of Israel. So there’s a “very, very simple truth” for you.
What does your both-sidesing accomplish here? Are you trying to say that Palestine’s resistance to colonialism isn’t justified?
If so, then you’re doing this gandhi quote, but for the palestinian resistance.
Okay:
In 1948, just after WWII, the UK decided to carve a chunk out of Palestine and create a new state there, called Israel - as a Jewish homeland that would take all the refugees that the rest of Europe didn’t want to deal with.
Palestine was not happy about this - the land was taken without their consent, a great chunk of their country just taken from them by decree, backed up by a still highly militarized Europe.
Over the following decades, Palestine tried several times to take their country back, and each time got slapped down (since Israel had vast backing from UK/USA/Europe, both from postwar guilt and because Israel had a lot of strategic value as a platform from which to project military power in the middle east).
Cut to today, and Israel has expanded to take virtually the entire area, apart from some tiny scattered patches of land, and the Gaza strip - a strip of land 40km by 10km, containing most of the Palestinian population, blockaded by sea and land by the Israeli military.
Israel also runs an apartheid regime very similar to the old South African one - Palestinians have very few human or civil rights, generally get no protection from the Israeli police or military, while being treated as hostile outsiders that can be assaulted or have their land ‘settled’ at will by Israelis.
It has been decades since Palestine has had any kind of organised military, and it’s also not recognised as its own country by most of the world, so there’s virtually no way for it to push back, or to call on assistance.
In a situation like that, the only recourse is guerilla warfare, which often descends into (and is exploited by bad actors as) terrorist attacks. It’s a damn good way to farm martyrs, and this hugely serves Israel’s ends, since it can keep pointing to terrorim as justification for their ongoing oppression. Israel in fact provided a great deal of ongoing funding for Hamas, while blocking more moderate groups.
Back in October, a small organised group raided across the border from Gaza into Israel, killing about 1200 people and taking a couple of hundred hostages.
In response, Israel has killed over 40,000 Palestinans in Gaza - mainly women and children - systematically destroying the city’s infrastructure, water, power, food production and distribution, hospitals, universities and schools, bombing refugee camps and destroying the majority of all housing and shelter in the area. It’s also bombing humanitarian aid convoys, preventing food and medicine from reaching the people there. The death toll is expected to reach many hundreds of thousands, since people are already starving and there is no medical care available.
The rest of the world is wringing their hands about the ‘regrettable’ loss of life, while continuing to sell Israel all the weapons and bombs it needs to continue the genocide.
Fuck Israel.
In 1948, just after WWII, the UK decided to carve a chunk out of Palestine and create a new state there, called Israel - as a Jewish homeland that would take all the refugees that the rest of Europe didn’t want to deal with
That’s not what happened.
Firstly, the Balfour Declaration was in 1917, during World War I. By 1948, the Jews were already living there, and fighting for the land.
Secondly, Britain never partitioned the land, and never announced any intention to partition the land. (Things might have been very different if they had.) I think you’re getting confused with the UN’s partition plan, which was never implemented.
