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Thousands of Jewish Americans and Allies Demand Cease-Fire in Gaza
(www.commondreams.org)
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this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
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politics
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You act as though both sides are equivalent.
They are not. Israel is an apartheid state. Palestinians are legally deprived of human rights and restricted to ghettos. Hamas is merely an extremist group that offers Palestinians something, even if its something they cannot deliver on and have no legitimate means of achieving. Palestinians have been massacred by Israel since its inception. Israelis have occasionally died in comparatively small numbers from Hamas attacks. Hamas is not Palestine though. And hamas has no legal power within the Israeli state. The Israeli state is entirely responsible for the current state of affairs and for the ongoing violence.
Palestinians have no state. They have no home. They are kept in ghettos. They are currently facing one of the largest humanitarian crises of the 21st century. The Israeli state could stop it all tomorrow. They could stop it all right now. Unconditionally grant equal citizenship to all Palestinians, return them their homes, give them 50% representation in the Israeli government, and formally condemn the racism and genocidal rhetoric of the Netanyahu administration and the many war crimes committed both by him and the IDF and the Israeli police force.
Its entirely up to Israel. Palestinians can do none of these things. Their only available recourse is extremism.
I agree with one caveat: the Palestinians can help themselves the same way India, South Africa, and other colonial peoples have. Non-violent resistance gets really good results in democracies. It's not easy, but it's less dangerous than attacking a modern military.
The hardest step is getting rid of Hamas, which is more like a mafia than a government. They're more interested in keeping their power and position with help from Iran. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela was a violent terrorist before he turned to 100% non-violence.
Here's an interesting article that no one will read:
https://time.com/5338569/nelson-mandela-terror-list/
They tried. They tried a lot (well the first intifada also had a violent element but yk). The result was the Oslo accords, which were almost there until the then-PM was assassinated and Netenyahu who succeeded him just called the whole thing off. Since you mentioned India, the situation in Palestine is more like the troubles in Northern Ireland. You need people who actually care about human rights (many Israelis do, but enough don't that Netenyahu was/has been PM for a total of 16+ years).
Hamas aren't actually 100% opposed to peace. They've already made three good faith efforts (2008 ceasefire, 2012 ceasefire, 2012-2013 united government), but in all three Israel actively rejected peace.
Edit: I know it's weird that a terrorist organization is being the (slightly) reasonable side here, but yeah the fact that the conflict went on for so long is on Israel's far-right party and Netenyahu specifically for rejecting peace time and time again. As soon as peace comes Hamas will either mellow out into an Islamist government or die off.
THEY'VE TRIED.
Doesn't help when most of the "offers" they get are basically, "you give up at least half of your land (including most of the Mediterranean Coast) and in return, we'll stop genociding you."
And those are the "good" offers.
I can only think to part of a response Orwell had for pacifists:
Yeah, that's correct:
That's why I said democracies are vulnerable to non-violent resistance.
Democracies, like Israel, are the opposite of authoritarian governments. Developed democracies can withstand all the force you send at them because they rule with the consent of the governed and have much larger resources at their disposal.
They are more vulnerable to soft power. Hamas already has broadcast abilities. They should literally get rid of most weapons, and start broadcasting 24/7 about the hardships of living in the West Bank and Gaza. They have an unlimited amount of ammo because Israel genuinely makes people's lives terrible.
just because a place calls its self or even is a democracy doesn't mean it can't be despotic.
there is no inherent "democracy is not despotic" we have seen plenty of despotic democratic governments, almost all of them only toppled due to outside influence.
and a side point Democracies aren't more resistant to force, they are just a little less likely to collapse due to a general trust in the standing government, nothing to do with resources.
You are so delusional about this situation that you think somehow a one state solution could work at this point. A two state solution is the only answer but unfortunately the leadership on both sides right now would never let that happen and the leadership on one side in particular (Hamas) is set on full extermination of the other party.
Hamas is an extremist group, they are only considered a reasonable thing to support because Palestinians do not have human rights and are confined to ghettos. One party in this situation is actively genociding the other, and quite understandably Palestinians are more inclined to listen to extremists than the Israeli state genociding them. Israel has actively sabotaged every single attempt at negotiations since the mid 90s. Netanyahu can be thanked for that. Him and the racists who support him.
Hamas is nothing if Palestinians had rights. Palestinians are just people, they are not an army they are not a militia. They deserve human rights. Israel could do that today. They deserve their homes back. Israel could do that today. Hamas has nothing to do with it. There's never an excuse to deprive a race of people their rights and freedoms. Genocide is never acceptable. Apartheid is never acceptable.
The Palestinians in Gaza, at this point, can't choose to vote Hamas out of office if they wanted to. Hamas won with a plurality (not a majority) in 2006 and has cancelled all future elections. They've used aid meant to support the Palestinian people to make rockets to attack Israel. There's no trust in the Israeli side that Hamas would stick to their word. Netenyahu needs to go, but so does Hamas.
Well said. I can’t believe I found another person on here with a reasonable take.
Who elected Hamas? It’s interesting you say Palestinians have no other choice. Who governs the Palestinians in the West Bank?
Hamas cannot change the apartheid state. They have tried repeatedly since the mid 90s and every time America and Israel have sabotaged negotiations and refused to give Palestinians equal rights.
Hamas was elected once and there have been no elections since. They also have no actual political power in Israel so it doesn't really make a difference who is elected. Netanyahu wants to commit genocide, he has no interest in changing anything.
Just so I understand your argument - Palestinians are not Hamas but Israel IS Likud.
How many Palestinians have been protesting globally against Hamas? How many hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been protesting against Likud?
I never said Israeli citizens were the Israeli state. The Israeli state is in fact a state. That state has legal power over all Palestinians. That state is denying Palestinians human rights. That state is orchestrating an attempt at genocide.
If Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians why is the population of Palestinians growing exponentially?
Do you not understand how genocide works? They literally cut off all food water and electricity to the entire gaza ghetto like 3 days ago. They are about to launch the largest land invasion in the history of the state of Israel. They called Palestinians "human animals" on international TV. Theyve murdered men women and children indiscriminately in both gaza and the west bank. They've been emboldening racist Israeli citizens to launch attacks of their own on Palestinian citizens in the west bank.
If Al qaeda was based in Canada and they attacked the U.S. should the U.S. continue providing water and electricity to them? What other country bites the hand that feeds and then expects the status quo to remain. Think about that for a minute.
Why didn’t Hamas, instead of building rockets, build a new power plant and water treatment facilities with the millions of not billions of aid that the international community has given in aid to Gaza?
Despite all that guess what - https://www.axios.com/2023/10/15/israel-resumes-water-supply-to-southern-gaza-after-us-pressure
The delusional thing is Britain thinking they could displace 750,000 to create a country out of nowhere and expect the indigenous to silently die off.
They'd done it so many times before without repercussions... Lol
They colonize but everyone fights back. That’s precisely my point. It’s normal and natural to fight back against that. It’s delusional to think it’s not.
No disagreement here