You don't understand it because most, if not all, aren't arguing that Israel should "just take any attacks coming their way."
A response needs to be proportionate, and also one needs to account for the causes of the attack in the first place. People will point to things like Israeli expansion, mass surveillance, and other issues relating to Gaza as factors which need to be considered when discerning what is an appropriate response.
Now, what I just said is a very simplistic and slanted presentation, but it should suffice in demonstrating that it's not as simple as one side (the "good guys") who thinks Israel should defend itself and the other side (the "bad guys") who think Israel should allow itself to be wiped off the map by terrorists.
> A response needs to be proportionate, and also one needs to account for the causes of the attack in the first place.
You mention a list of reasons, but you forget to mention the most important: that the Palestinians were displaced from their homeland in hordes, often quite violently, in the 1940s to make room for current day Israel.
Just want an accurate depiction of the real reasons, so people are also able to kind of understand (tho not necessarily condone) the Palestinian response.
I have a lot of Israeli coworkers who I like working with, and would never wish them harm. Instead of taking sides, I really wish people understood how we got here, and what we can do to go forward from here. I think a fair path forward would be for both the west and Israel to pay massive reparations of some kind to Palestine, and just slightly re-visit the current drawing of the Israel/Palestine borders. Chances of this happening are slim tho, with western media portraying Palestinians as mindless Hamas terrorists.
> You mention a list of reasons, but you forget to mention the most important: that the Palestinians were displaced from their homeland in hordes, often quite violently, in the 1940s to make room for current day Israel
Right, so because 700k Palestinians were displaced 75 years ago (due to a war they started together with the surrounding Arab nations, while throwing out the Jews living in those Arab nations) the just thing to do is to violently displace 7 million Jews now (?). Sounds simplistic maybe but what I described is the 'solution' Hamas says it wants and there's a huge support for this among Palestinians and Muslims in general.
I wonder if all other nations who had a history of displacement are going to follow suit and voluntarily dismantle themselves to try to create justice for events whose participators are mostly not alive anymore.
> due to a war they started together with the surrounding Arab nations, while throwing out the Jews living in those Arab nations
I’m not super well versed in the specifics of this history, so correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t these things happen during and after the Nakba?
Reading the timeline of Wikipedia it seems as though expulsion had already started and was well on it way before the Arab League’s armies entered Palestine in May 1948.
Likewise reading about the history of Jewish people in Iraq[1] it seems that the persecution was very much a reaction to Zionist conduct in Palestine. As in most of the anti-jewish laws were passed between July and December 1948, which is several months to over a year into the Nakba.
These actions were certainly unjust and should be condemned, but to me it seems wildly ahistorical to blame the Nakba on them. Plan Dalet started in April 1948 before the Arab league invasion, and certainly before anti-jewish laws in Iraq. And Plan Dalet was not the first instance of ethnic cleansing by Zionsits in Palestine, but rather followed several months of escalations which included depopulating villages as early as November 1947.
EDIT: I also feel like it needs stated how weird of a justification that is. The Palestinians who were displaced during the Nakba had nothing to do with the Arab invasion and certainly not the discriminatory anti-jewish legislation in neighboring country. These refugees and their descendants are still to this day refugees now three to four generations later. It seems odd to continue to punish them with Apartheid and genocide to this day because of actions they had nothing to do with. Most other groups who have suffered similar and much smaller injustice have gotten apologies and even reparations for (a noticeable example are Japanese Americans after E.O. 9066). Palestinians however still get blamed for crimes they had nothing to do with, except having been victims.
Tbh starting the history doesn't at 1948 doesn't really help much. Around 1948 is when the Jewish and Palestinian narratives are already in full swing and have some of the strongest evidence for each side. On the Jewish side you'd have their invasion by the broader Arab world and their subsequent mentality that they have to defend themselves at all costs. On the Palestinian side you have the Nakba and the resulting trauma that forms their identity.
If you go back earlier you start to see the roots of the conflict more clearly. From Russian Jews being expelled out of Russia and looking towards the Ottoman empire and historic Judea as a place from their home, Ottoman policies around 1900s when they are hyper paranoid about quashing nationalism in their multi-ethnic empire and how that plays into their treatment of Jews they allow to immigrate into their lands, then the British control over Ottoman lands and how they tried to administer to it and designated Judea as a vague "Jewish National Home" which gave neither Jews nor Arabs clarity on the political reality of the region. Then there was the early immigration of Jews to Israel in the 1910s and 1920s which meets some Arab resistance and sparks violence, but the migration stops in the mid 1920s, so tensions cool a bit. Then in the 1930s the Nazis rise to power and immigration of Jews to Palestine _really_ starts. At this point the US has imposed strict quotas on Jews immigrating to the US (in around 1924), so for many Jews Palestine isn't their first choice, but it is a choice for them and the British seem serious about this "Jewish National Home" thing, so they go for it. Then comes the great Arab revolt in 1936 where Arabs in Palestine respond to the large influx of Jewish migrants, demand independence from Britain, and seek to end the Jewish National Home project. Somewhere around the early 1940s WW2 is in swing and the Nazis invade Egypt and establish a SS unit there whose purpose is the genocide the Jews in Palestine. This was a pretty close call, if it wasn't for a British victory in Egypt that held the Nazi's back, odds are the Middle East would look very different today.
And that brings us to 1948 when the British withdraw and the stage is set for the resulting chaos. So there you have it. On one side a population struggling to determine their national identity after the fall of a 600 year old empire and dealing with a large influx of immigrants that they don't want to their lands (and also still struggling to figure out what "their" means). On the other hand you have a group of people trying to flee their home country and having no option but this weird "Jewish National Home" that totally isn't a state according to the British despite it being maybe possible a state for Jews? Then in the middle of a clearly bad situation, Britain withdraws and the Jews and Palestinians have been dealing with the situation sense.
None of this is to say that one side is right or wrong. Rather, if you look around 1948 you're already missing a lot of the buildup to the conflict and the reason there is no trust between the two groups in 1948.
Agreed, the history by it self is not enough, except for the context it is put in. In the case of Israel Palestine this context matters. I like to put it in the context of colonialism and colonial warefare/resistance. Knowing the history is important, and 1948 is certainly a pivotal moment in history, but if you list events as if one thing leads to another (like my parent did) you, at best, end up with a simplistic view, a weird nonsensical justification and, at worst, wrong timeline and a confusing conclusion. Lying with history is after all a pretty known device to provide justification which otherwise wouldn’t be possible.
I like the context of colonization here because in 1948 Europe is in the middle of recolonizing regions lost during WW2 and the whole period after WW2 has been dominated by a) the cold war and b) decolonization. The cold war here seems irrelevant but decolonization seems important. Many post WW2 decolonization efforts were done via colonial warfare and resistance. Many of the colonial nations spent most of their military activity fighting resistance movements in their newly re-established colonies. Examples include the British army fighting the Mau Mau in Kenya, and the IRA in Northern Ireland, the French fighting FLN in Algeria, and the Americans fighting the Viet Cong in Vietnam. Even before WW2 the British were fighting Irish Republicans in Ireland.
In Palestine we have the British handing the colony of Palestine over to the UN in the hopes of a peaceful decolonization, which became moot when Israel declared independence in 1948. After 1967 it becomes obvious that Israel is the colonizer and Palestinians are the colonized. In 1967 Europe is desperately trying to keep colonialism alive so it makes sense they support another western colonizer in the Middle East. After 1967 we also have established resistance movements in Palestine such as the PLA (which later became superseded by Hamas and PIJ). By the 1990s, after the Cold war has ended, it becomes obvious that European colonialism is all but dead. However Israel remains as a beacon of hope, the last remaining colony of European settlers. But everyone knows it can’t stay like that. Decolonization is inevitable. And I think the hope is that the two-state solution is a way for the settlers to keep theirs while Palestine remains subjugated while not a proper colony (not learning the lesson from the partition of Ireland). This however failed, largely because Israel wished to keep colonizing Palestinians.
Of course this is simplistic. However this is the context in which I like to put this history.
I think you are reading too much into my response. The list of events isn't an attempt to justify anything. It is mainly to establish that what happens in 1948 isn't coming out of nowhere, but rather has been brewing and building up for a while in the region. If someone is only familiar with 1948, they're going to really struggle to understand the motivations of either side and will likely end up with a simplistic view of one side or the other as evil depending on what information they get.
As for the colonialist interpretation... that confuses more than it clarifies. There is enough substance to the conflict itself that we don't need to resort to grand sweeping historical narratives.
I didn't say the displacement of Palestinians was because Jews were displaced from the Arab world. What I am saying is if we're going to try to bring "justice" to things long past the plight of Jews in the Arab world should definitely be mentioned.
I do think the Arab conduct before the invasion and the war mongering statements made by the Arab League threatening invasion and genocide planted the idea that this is a fight to the death (which I think it was) in the hearts of the Jews.
The Farhud massacre happened in 1941. I don't know if you can blame the whole thing on Zionism, I don't think most Iraqi Jews were Zionist at all - so looks more like Anti Semitism to me. You can say Zionism created the general hatred of Jews among Muslims, even Jews who weren't much into Zionism at all like Iraqi Jews back then. But even if that is the case, that's not really excusing anything. I also suspect for the population to turn against Jews so quickly there must have been seeds of hatred already planted long before, maybe due to culture and religion.
Anyway It's quite complex and not something you can summarize in 3 sentences.
We should also mention why the chances are slim. There are several components to this, with regard to the West's role in the matter: the role of the military-industrial complex, the ramifications for further reparations to other groups, and the ramifications for elections in the US. Point-by-point, very briefly:
1) Israel is an important intelligence ally, military foothold in the region, and both source and buyer of military research and applications. Anything that disrupts this arrangement risks hundreds of billions of dollars and the perceived national security interests of multiple countries.
2) Reparations to Palestinians would not only be extremely expensive, it would also raise questions of potential reparations to other victims of Western imperialism and apartheid, including to Native Americans, Native Austronesians, and much of the African continent and diaspora.
3) Securing the existence of Israel as an ethnostate drives political support from Western Zionists and Evangelical Christians. Even a change to a more stable, secular, multi-ethnic Israel would see not only the revocation of support but also active retaliation that, at best, would get your a chapter in a Profiles in Courage reboot.
Palestine fired thousands of missiles at Israel after the Oct 7. Just because Israel is able to block most of them doesn't make it okay. Those missiles still count.
At worst, this is debatable but the protesters at google think that they are absolutely correct with no debate needed. I think they all should be fired, and their names should definitely be disclosed.
Your opinion is incorrect and concerning in its confidence. Oct. 7th has been characterized as Israel's 9/11 (with, frankly, fewer deaths). Meanwhile, Israel has perpetrated a 9/11 roughly every 2.5 weeks for the past 6 months in Gaza. The difference in Hamas versus the IDF's allowance of accessibility to basic needs is also stark. In essence, a terrorist attack is not proportional to a siege.
I think categorizing it as a "terror attack" does some injustice to the scale of things - we are talking about thousands participating in the Oct 7th attack, basically the Palestinian "army".
Not that I think Israel's reaction was wise, but that's a different story.
I actually tend to agree. Characterizing it as a terrorist attack was a mea culpa; it is absolutely better categorized as a counterattck/insurgency against an occupying force.
No, we cannot agree to disagree. 3 of your 4 statements are verifiably false. Notably, 33000 dead over 6 months is roughly a 9/11 every 2.5 weeks (if you're going to say, "I said 2 weeks," I said 2.5 weeks). You are wrong. You should ask yourself why you cling so hard to that. It is your duty as a human being to recognize and denounce the genocide that is taking place.
Palestine has been offered ceasefire, two state solution, and etc. They have refused to take it. They fired thousands of missiles at Israel. Their army hide under hospital and schools.
You declare "verifiably" and "we must recognize genocide" when it is not. It's a war. Then, after you declare a genocide, you follow with "it's your duty!"
You are looking to harass anyone who disagrees with you. People can't even be neutral on the topic and recognize it's debatable. There's no discourse to be had.
This is why people like this should be fired from a workplace.
Hamas has been in support of all ceasefire resolution to date, Hamas has attended every truce talk to date. Israel, however has been in opposition to every ceasefire resolution to date, and has boycotted or walked away from most truce talks. It is true that Palestine has rejected a two-state solution in the past, however those deals contained what many considered a poison pill for Palestinians, it is disputed among international experts whether those deals were indeed acceptable for Palestinians. Meanwhile Israel has worked hard in making any future two-state solutions impossible. They fired thousands of missiles at Israel, however Israel has killed thousands of Palestinians. If you take issue with Palestinians you must have an order of magnitude greater issue with Israel.
Your parent is far from the only person to declare genocide. Many countries and international organizations have done so. The world highest court has ruled it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Genocide is the highest crime there is. You should do everything in your power to stop it.
In 1993 Steven Spielberg released a very popular movie based on a true story about a factory owner in Germany who took issue with the fact that his government was using his products to commit genocide. Instead of simply following orders, he tried to save as many people as possible by hiring potential victims and making sure his products were faulty and unusable for the state doing the genocide. The protagonist in this movie was a hero. Most people in Germany however simply went to work and did what they were told. Millions of people died in that genocide. Let’s not repeat history.
> Hamas has been in support of all ceasefire resolution to date
This is already false. Hamas violated ceasefires multiple times within the last 6 months alone.
> Meanwhile Israel has worked hard in making any future two-state solutions impossible
This is also false. Hamas's charter is to annihilate Israel. It is written in their charter. Yet you solely blame Israel.
On the flip side, does Israel have a charter to annihilate Palestine? Nope.
> Your parent is far from the only person to declare genocide.
There are also many people not seeing it as genocide.
This is exactly my original point of people like you who bring politics into a workplace. They don't even recognize other people's opinions here. Again, this is at maximum debatable. It's not a set-in-stone topic like you are making it to be.
People also denied the holocaust back in 1944. I’m sure there were people telling Schindler that he shouldn’t be messing with politics and just do his job well. Those were differing opinions for sure, but the genocide deniers were both morally wrong and factually wrong.
BTW. Hamas does not have the annihilation of Israel in their charter anymore, only the annihilation of the Apartheid system which discriminates Palestinians, and denies displaced Palestinians the right of return. One can demand the destruction of a state without any harm to the people, that was the case for the ANC who worked successfully to destroy the state of Apartheid South Africa.
> The rule of proportionality requires that the anticipated incidental loss of human life and damage to civilian objects should not be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage expected from the destruction of a military objective.. (From the Geneva Convention)
The Israeli military goal is to destroy Hamas, which started the war, and is hiding in and under densely populated cities.
So the question becomes how you can destroy Hamas without unnecessary civilian casualties. My impression is that Israel is doing pretty OK with that, though things can always be better, and tragic mistakes are inevitable in war.
A common misconception is that the response needs to be proportionate to the attack. So if Hamas killed 1200 people on Oct 7, Israel should not kill more than that. That is not at all how the laws of war work!
A response needs to be proportionate, and also one needs to account for the causes of the attack in the first place. People will point to things like Israeli expansion, mass surveillance, and other issues relating to Gaza as factors which need to be considered when discerning what is an appropriate response.
Now, what I just said is a very simplistic and slanted presentation, but it should suffice in demonstrating that it's not as simple as one side (the "good guys") who thinks Israel should defend itself and the other side (the "bad guys") who think Israel should allow itself to be wiped off the map by terrorists.