Israel/Palestine was the ancestral home of the Hebrew (ie. Jewish) people, up until about 700AD.
From then, right up until 1948, it was held by the Arab people in the region, the people now known as Palestinians.
At the end of World War II, there were hundreds of thousands of displaced Jewish refugees all over Europe and the rest of the world - and no country really wanted to take them.
So the United Nations put some weight behind a rather niche interest group (the Zionists) who wanted to reclaim Palestine for the Jewish people, 1200 years after they left.
Palestine wasn’t OK with losing a major chunk of its land with no recompense, but the UN said tough shit sucks to be you lol, and gave them no choice, establishing the modern country of Israel within its borders, kicking out the Palestinians who had been living there for the past 1200 years and settling vast numbers of refugees in a ready-made country.
This held a certain amount of strategic value to the West, as a political, economic and military power base smack bang in the middle of the Middle East, standing opposed to the Arab nations surrounding it, and giving the west a foot in the door and a finger in all the pies, as it were.
As a result, Israel has had virtually unlimited economic and military aid from the west ever since, and become comfortably rich despite having no exports, resources or trade to speak of.
Since 1948, Palestine has made various efforts to reclaim some of its land - and each time, has been beaten back by the combined military might of the entire west, losing ever more territory with each attempt.
Israel now holds virtually all of Palestine, except for tiny fractured and scattered pockets of land - which they keep ‘settling’ - eg. annexing and invading, killing the Palestintian inhabitants, demolishing their homes, burning their farms and taking their land. Palestinians are allowed into Israel, but as second-class citizens in an apartheid regime, exploited for cheap labour.
Palestine no longer has the resources, organization, wealth or strength to maintain an actual military or to mount actual resistance - with guerilla warfare being the only tactic available. And of course where you have poverty and oppression, that’s fertile ground for radicalisation - and this has lead to exploitation by various terrorist groups.
Now, Gaza is a small contiguous chunk of Palestine, bordering on Egypt - and Israel has been blockading it for decades, severely limiting access to food, water, building materials, etc - basically a giant open-air prison camp, with severe reprisals (such as bombing schools and hospitals - collective punishment, which is a war crime) for any attacks on Israel.
It’s this region that’s been the source of the latest conflict - with Hamas (a very unpleasant bunch of people) launching a major offensive, consisting of both rocket strikes and armed incursions, targeting Israeli civilians.
There’s every indication that this was planned and supported by Iran, who have their own agenda, and are happy to see Palestinians and Israelis both get killed.
Israel has responded to the attacks by bombing Gaza quite indiscriminately, and shutting off power, water and food supplies entirely to all of Gaza.
Israel is continuing to act the victim/hero for its actions, as always, and is receiving a vast outpouring of western aid, support and political clout in return.
To complicate matters, half of the religious right in the US is fervently pro-Israel, because despite disapproving of Judaism for rejecting Jesus, they believe that biblical prophesy is predicated on Jewish control of Israel. Yes, seriously. They can’t have their Armageddon and be carried up to heaven unless the events in Revelations come to pass, and yeah.
Also, ever since WWII, Israel has been playing the fuck out of the antisemitism card, loudly declaring that any opposition to their policy and actions must be rooted in hatred of Jewish people, and is obviously just softening up the ground for neo-nazis. And of course, no politician wants to get tarred with that brush.
This is an incredible write up and really covered the bulk of it. I would say that Hamas should be called out a little more for their atrocities over the years, but you’re right in that they only exist due to radicilzation by way of Isreals policies. This is a case of both sides suck, and innocent people who had the bad luck of being born in the wrong place/time/religion will suffer.
So. Basically this conflict goes back a long way, much longer than the current tensions and most recent history would have people believe. But both Israelis and Palestinians stem from the same original ancestors, both have claims to the land, and both are fighting what amounts to a religious war against one another spurred on by the US (on the side of the Israeli’s), and Iran (on the side of Hamas/Palestinians).
They each want to oust the other, and have increasingly done some really really war crime worthy things to one another in the name of oppression or rightful ownership and “peace negotiations”. As a result neither one is really honestly looking for a peaceful resolution and the US gets to sell weapons to Israel, and Netanyahu gets what he wants which is destabilization of the region. All at the cost of innocent civilians on both sides.
TBH I don’t really care either, but here is the simple fact. The ongoing war in Gaza, is HAMAS against Israel.
HAMAS is not Palestine. HAMAS are liars and terrorists, and promote themselves with propaganda and lies, so they can grow in numbers. HAMAS are not interested in making a better Palestine.
Oh and if you are uncertain: the enemy is probably the one driving around with naked dead people in the back of their truck, bragging about what they did. That woman, they killed, stripped naked and mounted on the back of the truck to parade around - was a German.
prageru is a known disinformation platform. That link is worthless.
The ongoing war in Gaza, is HAMAS against Israel.
And what about the Palestinian lands that are occupied and the Palestinians that were uprooted from there? What about the Palestinians that have been killed by Israel? The recent events might have been HAMAS, but historically this is a Palestine-Israel conflict. If you can’t be bothered to learn and understand the context, why comment at all?
You know what, I watch and see what muslims do to others and to themselves. Animals. Nothing more. They can hate each other and kill each other all they like. I dont care. Start killing other religions in the name of their own - fuck them, bomb the lot.
My general sympathy is with the Palestinians who struggle from systemic oppression, but defo not with the atrocities committed by Hamas. How one can support and excuse the recent events is beyond me.
Just because you’re oppressed doesn’t mean you can just go out there and slaughter random people. I mean they even killed tourists, who have no role in this ethnical conflict. But I don’t think they even care…
Hamas are awful, and murdering the innocent is always vile. The problem is that both sides have an endless “but they started it!” going on. Hamas terrorists kidnapping and murdering innocent people: awful. Isreali military bombing innocent people :awful. Both sides claim to be defending themselves. Both sides are making things worse for themselves and others.
But Isreali will win by slowly murdering the Palestinians. Hamas will not win by occasionally murdering Israelis. Because the combined forces of almost all Western governments are onside with the Isreali government.
So, illegal terrorist acts are rightly called out, and funding to Palestine stopped until it can be proven the money won’t go to Hamas. But, even when the UN or indvidual countries call out Isreal for war crimes or illegal actions, they don’t stop funding their military. Per capita, Isreal spends more on its military than the USA (Israel ($2770), United States ($2405) with the USA providing 20% of Isreal military spending. So it’s an extremely lopsided bothsidesbad situation.
Too many countries/companies profit from this conflict. The economy has adapted to it & is built on it. So are the politics… There is no winner besides religious fundamentalism and capitalism.
Can’t see your image properly btw, it’s not loading. Neither on sync nor on liftoff.
where it would be yellow for a thousand years, then green again? how far back do you go for authenticity? People have been fighting over this land since 3000bc. Let’s just go back 500,000 years and we can all agree it’s no one’s fucking land.
I just checked and looks like Israel and British were no different. No wonder hamas attacked as this is not one sided. This war has been brewing from a long time but at least now I got a clear picture.
This war has happened many times before, Arab states either funding or directly participating in an invasion of Israel with the goal of eliminating it.
The Rhetoric from Hamas (militant organisation who seek Palestines liberation, also deemed a terrorist organisation by numerous countries and organisations such as the UK), who are backed by Iran is literally we will wipe Israel (jews) off the planet. After having the Nazis and other groups attempt to do that previously, there is definitely an argument that Israel are defending themselves and have the right to do so.
Would you ever feel comfortable with a neighbour who is a murderer of a member of your family even if you owned an arsenal of guns and had the police in a car watching your property?
Palestine isn’t recognised globally as a country whilst Israel is a ‘Western’ country in the middle East and the ally of many countries such as the UK and USA.
Also Palestine and Hamas are not the same thing. Its like sayingb the KKK is representative of all of the USA.
The whole situation from its inception after ww2 to now is fucked.
This is a situation that transcends good guy/bad guy. On any side of the matter you can point to atrocities that the other side has committed, agreements and international laws that they’ve broken, things that could justify violence if you really want to justify violence.
Little bully got the nerve up to kick big bully in the nuts. Big bully didn’t like that and now has little bully in a sleeper hold while punching little bully in the nuts repeatedly.
absolutely no doubt; and they may feel emboldened to attack neighboring states that they assume supported the operation. it’s an absolute shit sandwich.
It’s not as complicated as portrayed. Everyone has some kind of point. But the people controlling the attacks are pretty much assholes, and the citizens getting killed are innocent victims
If you ask for the “Why” often enough, it always comes down to Antisemitism.
Israel wouldn’t exist if not for the unhinged antisemitism of German Nazis in the 1930/40s.
In the last 20 years, Israel found itself to need new settlements, with all the accompanying political changes and pressures. Why? - because many Jews from all over the world migrated there. Why? - Antisemitism in their home countries makes those a less habitable place than an Israel, even though it is continuously on the brink of a war.
And this doesn’t even touch the rampant antisemitism in the Muslim world that wants to drive the Jews into the ocean and doesn’t accept a state Israel under any circumstances.
There’s another explanation: there is a religiously zealous segment of israeli society that is the main driver of many illegal settlements. Additionally the state of Israel sometimes wields its institutional force against palestinians, especially in east Jerusalem. Citing ‘demographic concerns’ as a reason for giving building permits to israelis and not to palestinians should probably not happen in a non ethno state.
The Israelis and Palestinians are fighting over the same land because they both think it’s The Holy Land. The Palestinians had laid claim to it for hundreds of years (I think) and then the state of Israel took over the same land in 1950, which of course pissed off the Palestinians. Fighting ensued. The US, which is a massive military power backed the Israelis (because we have a bunch of Jews/Israelis with very deep pockets), which pissed off the Palestinians even more.
This is a vast oversimplification of about 70 years of massacres, death, and hatred on both sides. For the past 20 years or so, Israel has been incredibly brazen in its destruction of Palestine and colonization of Palestinian lands. At the same time, Palestine is literally controlled by a terrorist organization that is not even trying to attack military targets and instead seems set on some sort of vengeance (while using Palestinian citizens as human shields). So neither are good, and both seem set on genocide. If you had to pick one, stand with Palestine but denounce Hamas.
Basically, it’s a conflict that had been running for a really long time.
Before WW1, the area of Israel/Palestine was inhabited by Arabs and controlled by the Ottomans.
During WW1, the Brits promised the Arabs that they’d back an independent arab state there, if the Arabs revolted and successfully kicked out the Ottomans.
The Arabs did their part, so Britain, being as trustworthy as ever, turned around and divvied the Ottoman empire up between them, and Britain got control over what was then called Mandatory Palestine, which the Arabs saw as a betrayal. The official plan was for the Brits to rule the Mandate “until such time as they are able to stand alone”.
At the same time, the Zionist Jews wanted to have a national state, where they could live without persecution, and many European nations, where antisemitism was rampant, wanted them gone from Europe, so they kinda had an agreement there. The original plan was to move them to a part of Uganda, but that fell through so Palestine was chosen.
Already long before the national state was created, lots of Jews moved there and created settlements. The Arabs there weren’t exactly happy about that massive influx of settlers and the Jews also weren’t happy about the natives. Each of them started an uprising over the following years, and with tensions rising, the UN drafted a partition plan.
While the opinion of the Jews over that partition plan was ambivalent, though leaning towards being happy about it, the Arabs were decidedly unhappy about it. They thought, that the UN was overstepping it’s rights and that the partition plan was violating the principles of self-determinism set forth by the UN charter.
So a war broke out between the Arabs (including surrounding arab countries) and the Jews there, which resulted in a victory for the Jews. After that, the area was divided up between Jewish Israel, the west bank area controlled by Jordan and inhabited by Arabs, and the tiny area called Gaza strip, controlled by Egypt and inhabited by Palestinians.
The area the Palestinians received after the war was significantly smaller than what was outlined in the UN partition plan.
In 1967, during the six-day war, Israel captured the Gaza strip and it’s been under Israeli occupation ever since. In 1993, Israel granted the Gaza strip limited self-government over the area. Basically, Gaza was allowed to self-government about matters of the populated areas, but Israel remained in control in regards to the airspace, the territorial waters and all border crossings except the one towards Egypt, which is controlled by Egypt.
In 2007, Hamas took over the government of Gaza. Most of the world classify them as a terror organisation, and they have been e.g. shooting home-build missiles into Israel and also have mounted a few small-scale insurrections and attacks against Israel.
Israel on the other hand has been casually bombarding and killing Palestinians for a very long time. Also, they let Israeli settlers illegally settle in occupied Palestinian territories, which the Palestinians are not so happy about.
From 2008 until 2020, roughly 5600 Palestinians and 250 Israelis (including many civilians on both sides) have been killed, and 115 000 Pakistanis and 5600 Israelis have been injured (source: statista.com/…/israeli-palestinian-casualties-by-…).
The Gaza strip is pretty much an outdoor prison, with a massive population density, low life expectency and abysmal living standards. People are generally not allowed to leave from there. Israel routinely cuts water/electricity, which are both supplied by Israel in response to attacks from Palestine.
All in all, it’s a right mess that’s been brewing for over 100 years, with no easy solutions. By now, everyone who has been responsible for causing the original mess is dead. Of the leadership neither side is in the right, both sides are making everything worse. There is no solution in sight.
The Palestinians fight the oppression by killing civilians, the Israelis counter by killing civilians and making life even more hell for the people in the occupied territories, who in turn fight even harder and kill more civilians.
Reducing oppression is hardly possible, since that would allow the Palestinians to mount bigger attacks.
Which brings us to the current situation. Palestinians managed to break out of Gaza, at many places even destroying the perimeter fence. They then invaded some towns and a music festival in the border regions, killing a few hundred Israeli civilians and taking some more hostage. Israel countered by bombarding the Gaza strip, killing a few hundred Palestinian civilians. They also, again, cut power and electricity, and the whole western world then responded with cutting food supply.
This in turn will radicalize the Palestinians even more, who will fight harder, and who knows where it ends. Probably with the Israelis finally finding the same answer to “the Palestinian Question” that Germany found for the “Jewish Question” in the 1940s.
I mean, I do know the difference between Pakistani and Palestinians. It’s just that I know significantly more Pakistanis than Palestinians, so my brain autocompleted wrong.
Sorry to all Palestinians/Pakistanis I might have offended here!
Having said that, the Palestine territory was not chosen arbitrarily, but probably because of the significance Jerusalem has to the Jews, where their ancient kingdom and temple had been.
Reducing oppression is hardly possible, since that would allow the Palestinians to mount bigger attacks.
I feel like there are many things Israel does that are not useful in stopping attacks and ending them should be possible. Intentionally killing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure are among those.
It’s totally true that killing civilians means you radicalize all their family and friends.
In 2006, the newly elected Hamas government actually stepped down during a negotiated cease fire and agreed to a unity government.
Then the Israelis accidentally (at least according to their statements) bombed a residential building, killing 24 civilians including children and injuring many more.
That’s when the Hamas took back the government (some would point out, illegally, since there was no official election after they stepped down) and resumed the attacks on Israel.
But all in all, it’s a prisoner’s dilemma situation. The current situation sucks, but for both sides it would probably be worse, at least in short-term, to unilaterally reduce aggressions without the other side doing the same.
Understandably (after all this bloodshed over such a long period), there are quite a few people on both sides who will stop at nothing short but the eradication of the other side. That’s not exactly a viable basis for negotiations.
And with every attack, every uprising, every repression and every civilian killed, this gets worse.
Hamas intentionally uses civilian buildings and schools as ammo warehouses. Israel aims for the ammunition and ignores the civilian casualties. Neither side wants to avoid civilian deaths in Gaza.
Pretty good summary, but I would object, that “Hamas” is something like a “government” in Gaza. It’s a terrorist group that took control of the Gaza territory and it’s people without ever having been elected by someone (in fact, they are suppressing any kind of election since they took over the power from the Palestinian authorities). They are also using the Gaza population as “living shields” against counter strikes to their terror attacks. Nowadays they also have international hostages, which would make a counter-offensive even more difficult.
A possible - although very unlikely - solution to the conflict could be a de-radicaiisation on both sides and the Palestinians finally overthrowing the Hamas-regime and any other terrorist groups, because those are not fighting for Palestinian freedom, but for some crappy “Jihad” ideas and the destruction of Israel.
Just came to say thanks for the elaborated summary. Was already informed about the greater outlinings, but this adds some interesting details about the conflict.
This will be a ‘thing’ for many more decades. The hatred on both sides is so deeply grounded…quite depressing to see.
The really difficult thing is that nobody who caused the situation in the first place is still alive. Almost every Israeli or Palestinian alive today was born into this inherited conflict. So everyone there can argue that they have the right to be there in their own way. And everyone there has decades of inherited conflict and trauma. This is not going to get better any time soon.
A majority, but to say almost every is an exaggeration. There are lots of Israelis who were not born into the conflict but choose to migrate into it. That said they tend to move in from places that have an antisemitism problem like the US and Ukraine, and in the case of Ukraine there are obviously additional factors for leaving, so I find it hard to blame individuals though they are fueling a colonial project even if they don’t vocalize support for it.
Fair point. I put the immigrants into the “born into the conflict” category, because they, too, didn’t create the conflict to begin with. But you are right, they willingly moved into the situation, for whatever reason that made sense to them.
your summary is excellent but I think you have a typo re: Pakistanis, did you mean Palestinians? it’s hard to terrorize the people 6 countries and 3500km to the west.
From 2008 until 2020, roughly 5600 Palestinians and 250 Israelis (including many civilians on both sides) have been killed, and 115 000 Pakistanis and 5600 Israelis have been injured (source: statista.com/…/israeli-palestinian-casualties-by-…).
Yeah, that’s a typo. I edited it already, but there’s a long standing lemmy bug that causes edits to not be propagated to all instances. So if you view it from the instance I am on, it’s ok, but on other instances you still see the typo.
It’s not a good idea to lump the left into “Palestinian support”. Some people on the left are still pro Israel, although probably a result of western propaganda. Those that are not pro Israel, all recognize that Israel is bad. The level of bad ranges from as little as kills women and children all the way to genocide. Some people take it as far as being anti Jew, which sucks because all of the Jews that wouldn’t live in Israel/support the oppression of those that were there first don’t live in Israel. The problem isn’t Jews, it’s western imperialism and Israel.
My take is, Israel was created 75 years ago by the US and UK as a way for the west to maintain control in the middle east when their previous efforts failed. Israel has never respected their borders, has constantly been expanding by brutal force, holds the Gaza strip hostage, and doesn’t allow Palestinians within their borders to leave or get citizenship. (I don’t recall the number of Palestinians within the border but 200,000 is sticking in my head?)
Israel’s “right” to the land is imposed by the west after WWII, and the reality is it was the home of Palestinians.
Now, on the other side of things, Hamas has expressed the desire to eradicate Jews from the earth multiple times. If they had the backing of the west the situation would be reversed, potentially worse. But I would argue Hamas wouldn’t be in power if Israel wasn’t formed 75 years ago. When millions of people are oppressed and murdered on the regular for 75 years, that’s a recipe for radicalization.
Oh, and I didn’t even get to the religious part. Islam is an abrahamic religion, a descendant of Judaism, although they don’t seem to like to talk about that. Jerusalem is the holy land of the Jews, and therefore it’s also the holy land of Islam (and technically Christians too, although I don’t think any of them care anywhere near as much). Both the Jews in Israel and the Palestinians believe they are gods chosen people of that land. I would say most Jews today don’t feel the need to own that land, but most Jews in Israel do. Trump moved the capital of Israel to Jerusalem which was a dick move, because it was technically still shared territory at that point. But anyway, radical religious conservatives become terrorists when given the right environment.
My final take, Israel and Hamas are both terrorist organizations who desire eradication of the other ethnicity, but Israel has the backing, propaganda, and sympathy of the West.
He moved the US embassy, not Israel’s capital. I’m sure he would have loved that much direct power over a nation-state, though. Also yeah, a dick move.
I guess that’s debatable. Given that Israel itself came into existence when the US and UK recognized it as a state, I consider recognizing Jerusalem as the capital the same thing as moving it from Tel Aviv, but maybe that’s misleading because it ignores nuance.
So where do you want the jews that are currently in Israel to go? Without the state of Isreal and a good military those people would die in that region, and not all of them agree with the current Israeli government. I agree the state is doing terrible things, but so is the US and I don’t think the answer there is to destroy the us
I didn’t say the answer was to destroy Israel. I don’t think it should have existed in the first place, and Zionism is just more religious imperialism, but that doesn’t mean destroy Israel. It also doesn’t mean alllow Israel to basically commit genocide in response to an attack that was a response to decades of oppression and murder.
I don’t know where you got the idea that I want to destroy Israel, in the 75 years that it’s been there, plenty of people have been there their entire life at this point. It’s a shitty situation all around.
I felt like a safe default option is treating both HAMAS terracts and israeli oppression of palestinians as bad and continuously fueling each other. One is right-in-your-face brutal, one is rather impersonal and systemic. That’s the baseline.
Then, opinions start to differ by who is historically to blame there or who can affect this problem and try to solve it (without any final solution some radicals want). Israel is claimed to be that, in both cases but by different parties. Two major schools of sofa thoughts are either free Palestine (and I hope it’s also free from, not for fucking HAMAS of all people?) or Israel handling it whatever it takes and staying as a beacon of the international influence (control?) in the Middle East. Whatever, pick your poison.
There are influxes of hell knows what in discussing this ongoing shitstorm, from infantilizing palestinians to adoring the jewish ethnostate. I feel it’s vital not to engage in deciding the future for these groups of people having a bloody conflict we don’t really understand, but to support humanitarian causes, relief for those affected, and reaching out to those who can help freeze this conflict. It’s hard to talk over exploding munition.
Add comment