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You've been spewing anti-Semitic propaganda here for a couple of hours and even called my mother a whore. Now I supposed to take your seriously?

Nothing will ever get resolved all the time BOTH sides have the attitude that they can do no wrong and the other side is 100% pure evil. "Virtue points scoring" isn't going to help either. If kids are brought up to hate other kids from day one, that is very hard to undo. And there's always an excuse for barbarity, isn't there? "You did X so we're doing Y". That's just a guaranteed downward spiral from there.

Hardline Jews have made things bad for their own people. Hardline Palestinians have made things bad for their own people. Why? Because extremism begats more extremism. Hamas refusing to accept that Israel should exist, for example. Ongoing Israeli settlement in the West Bank, as another. And I can understand the rush towards ever more militant leaders when both peoples think they're the ones under attack. But it doesn't make it right, doesn't fix anything. Just turns the whole thing into an all-or-nothing battle where the ultimate losers will be innocent people. Time for some growing the f**k up.

The Jews are no more at risk of genocide than the Palestinians. In fact in terms of the overall balance of power, Israel holds pretty much all of the cards. The main limiting factor on Israel at the moment is international pressure. This is all the more sickening because of what happened in WW2. You would hope everyone remembered how it felt to be bullied and humiliated, to be vulnerable and have no say in your own fate. Yet now we find the damaged child becoming the abusive parent. On the other hand there are clearly elements within Hamas that want Israel wiped off the map. I don't think that threat is credible but it certainly isn't helping, is it?

Both sides need to own their own failings, stop deliberately poking bears, give up the blame game, and get their own houses in order. Pointing fingers whining "but he started it!" is playground behaviour. And everybody just needs to forget about owning Jerusalem outright, too, because it's never going to happen. Make it a free state of its own and give it to someone like the Gurkhas to maintain peace (a mix of Hindu, Buddhist and Mundhum worshipping soldiers - so religiously neutral here - with a VERY strong sense of fairness and discipline).

I've seen all this BS in Northern Ireland, you'll never break out of the rut without abandoning paranoia, extremism and the tit-for-tat excuses used to justify atrocities. Stop using the word "they". Don't even distinguish between different groups of people when reporting trouble. Four Mums and eight Dads were injured by gunfire today when they shouldn't have been, five children starved while others had plenty, and twelve hospital patients died of infections that could have been treated. That's all you need to know. Break down all the "them and us" thinking and ignore anyone who is attempting to stir up hatred. If something horrible does occur, rise above it, do not bring the same dishonour on yourselves by kicking back in the same manner. Learn to think before acting, learn some humility, stop thinking everything is one-sided and black and white when it isn't, and it never has been. That's how peace is oh-so-slowly-and-carefully secured. It's not easy, it is very complicated. Throwing rocks at people is much easier, the problem is it doesn't work.

You know, while I disagree with the overall premise of your post attempting to "both sides" an inherently asymmetric human rights violation where a superior military power bullies a much weaker people, I nonetheless respect the overall spirit of your post seeking peace, resolution and redress and wanting a world where violence is replaced by mutual empathy and peace. I may not agree with all your points made nor the appraisal of this conflict, but I share your sentiments and convictions that however much one side is or perceives itself as more aggrieved, peace will only come when people transcend hatred and find resolution in cooperation and ending the cycle of violence, ending the "us vs them", and ending the fuels to the fire of hatred and violence that has consumed so many.

Even though I dont think I have it in me to ever forgive Israel for the crimes it has committed against my people and even myself personally, I do know that eventually burying the hatchet is the only necessary condition for a more peaceful world. If the Irish learned to eventually do it with England despite England's atrocities against the Irish, then Palestine can do it someday.

Hamas isn't the only terrorist group calling for the destruction of Israel. Hezbollah and the Iranians are continuously threatening to wipe Israel off the map too. I'd call the continuing attacks and threats an ongoing attempt at genocide, but you call it an ongoing threat of genocide.

The counter-argument there, as I'm sure you already know, is that Israel will claim Palestinian resistance is part of a much wider Arab anti-Jewish plot, and therefore it is actually the Jews who are the underdogs in international terms. That is true to a certain extent but it ignores the fact that many previously neutral Palestinians were radicalised by military brutality, rather than being international conspiracists from the word go. And Israel has international support too. And certainly in Gaza and the West Bank it has basically been a case of keeping people pent up in appalling conditions and occasionally shooting at them like fish in a barrel. But then Hamas keep launching rocket attacks that radicalise otherwise neutral Jewish folk, too....

That's my point, you can go on saying "they did this, so we did that" all day, it won't resolve anything. Just becomes a circular set of knee-jerk reactions, each slightly worse than the last. Getting away from that is the main aim here. And yes, it takes generations to break that instilled mistrust and hatred down, on both sides.

Oh look, the counter argument I'd been expecting.

'Attempt' and 'threat' basically mean the same thing here, which is that it isn't going very well. So it's more of a theoretical danger from some quarters than an actual one. It's also worth remembering that not every Palestinian wants to be a member of Hammas and bring down the state of Israel. Most would probably be quite happy to be left the f**k alone to live their lives. But if there's no fresh water for weeks on end, and your kid gets his legs blown off, then revenge becomes a motive, and all-or-nothing extremism becomes appealing. That is equally true the other way round, don't think I'm saying otherwise. But it does seem that Israel is deliberately taking out all of its fear and anger on the Palestinians, who are essentially trapped, rather than taking the fight to Iran (for example). Including possibly some pent up cultural rage from WW2. And from a Palestinian's point of view the main aim of Israel does seem to be a complete takeover of Gaza and the West Bank, primarily through settlement rather than military action, but in the long run it achieves the same thing.

So how do you get away from all that? How do you avoid turning ordinary people into terrorists? Not treating them shittily seems like a good start, and again that applies on both sides. Talking to people, on an individual level. Breaking down barriers. Learning their names, rather than concentrating on race or religious dress codes. Showing humility. Being willing to forgive and forget. Keeping promises. And throughout all this, having faith in the process, and in the ability of human beings to reject fanaticism in favour of pragmatism and kindness.

It is not easy, and nor is it quick. But it's more likely to succeed than hatred and conflict. How long has this been going on for, now? 73 years?

Thanks for making my point. It's obviously not a counter argument. Jews are under continuous threat of genocide and are blamed by many for simply protecting themselves. All people should matter and should have a right to live in peace. We should praise them for taking it upon themselves to defend themselves.

The circular set of knee jerk reactions though, like every other set of spiraling feedback loops, has a cause, a genesis, for nothing exists except that a regression to root causes establishes the origin of this conflict. I believe there is enough historical evidence to posit the claim that the beginning of the Palestinian and Israeli conflict was by and large overwhelmingly caused by wrongdoing on the part of the Zionist movement for a plethora of well documented reasons:

1) Zionist founding fathers and writers such as Vladimir Jabotinsky openly talking about dispossessing the indigenous Palestinians, as well as even Theodore Herzl mentioning the same in his writings. A quote by Zionist founding father Vladimir Jabotinsky: "The Arabs must make room for the Jews in Eretz Yisrael. If it was possible to move the Baltic peoples, it is also possible to move the Palestinian Arabs." Right off the bat this quote, and other quotes from Zionist founding fathers establishes that the Zionist project was inherently genocidal and paralleled the American project of Manifest Destiny that pushed the Native Americans back and extirpated their culture, showing that from the beginning the Palestinian-Israeli conflict began with an external genocidal threat that the Arabs had every right to try and preempt. If the Kurds one day created conferences pushing for the eventual takeover of England with founding Kurdistan authors drafting pamphlets detailing explicit plans to expunge the native British population of the Isles to make way for a gradual Kurdish takeover of England under the premise that the Kurds lack a state and therefore England, having control over Scotland, Ireland, Wales, could make room for a Kurdish state to be carved out of such ample land, I'm pretty sure that you as a native Briton would take up arms and launch the call for Jihad against the looming genocide of your people; which we as Palestinians have been justifiably doing for almost 72 years.


2) In the Rabin diaries there is a part where former prime minister and at that time war criminal of the Palmach Yitzhik Rabin was told by Ben Gurion to drive out the Arab population of Lydd. Then there were all the massacres that preceded the so called Arab armies invading, such as the Deir Yassin massacre where over 107 innocent Arab villagers, men, women and children were brutally killed, and this massacred happened before any single Arab army ever set foot to fight Israel, nullifying all claims that Israeli military action was only in response to Arab aggression. The Deir Yassin Massacre shows that the Israeli forces started this conflict.

3) Original Balfour Declaration by Chiam Weizmann one of the founding fathers of Zionism, part of World Zionist Organization, and 1st president of Israel, wrote in the original draft that Palestine would need to have its demographics "reconstituted". Look at the language he used. REconsituted. RE. RE. As in, there was already an existing constitution of Palestinian Arabs living there, and that Israel needed to change that. If that doesnt sound like a veiled genocide threat, I dont know what is.

4) The Nakba. 750,000 Palestinians expelled from their homes permanently to become one of the largest refugee classes in the world.

5) Death marches that killed many Arabs and forever barred them from their home.

And I can go on. No matter what counterargument is proposed, when one side is responsible for starting this conflict, committing actual acts of genocide by expelling hundreds of thousands of indigenous farmers, massacring villages, writing openly about expelling the Arabs and reconstituting the demographic makeup of the land (Zionism=Lebensraum confirmed), creating transfer committees to move away Arabs to outside Israel, and openly plotting the dilution of an indigenous population to make way for an invading population, even if you told me that the Arabs went out and declared support for Hitler that doesnt negate the fact that the ones who start the conflict will ALWAYS bear the overwhelming culpability, ipso facto.

I apply that same standard even to my own people. For example my ancestors were soldiers in the Ottoman Empire. When the Greeks declared independence from the Ottomans there were actual genocidal massacres and total annihilations of the Turkish settlers living there, including Ottoman settlers like some of my ancestors. While I'd never ever condone genocide, I'm open and fair enough to admit that however aggrieved the Ottomans felt having their people ethnically cleansed the bulk of the culpability in this conflict came from the Ottomans for originally invading land that wasn't there, and however grisly the response from the Greeks and other Balkan natives in expelling the Ottoman presence it would be totally remiss to put both Ottoman atrocities and Balkan atrocities on an equal scale knowing that one is a direct response to the other's starting this conflict.

Nothing from the Palestinian atrocity side even comes close to how the Greeks dealt with their oppressors (full blown genocide) nor do I condone it. It's not that the Palestinians don't have their dirty skeletons and even atrocities. However it pales in comparison to what Israel has done to the Palestinians, it doesnt take into account Israel started this conflict, it doesnt take into account the Palestinian resistance, however brutal it could be at times, is in response to the overwhelming genocidal tactics of the Israelis, and it doesnt take into account that long before Hamas ever came into existence Israeli founding fathers and Zionist architects never ever recognized the actual indigenous population of Palestine; Hamas doesnt recognize Israel, an invading force that has been oppressing the Palestinians since its inception. Israel and the founding fathers never recognized the indigenous Arabs, something that is customary when visiting a land that isn't your own. Before we focus on Hamas not recognizing Israel, why not shift the conversation back to the original injustice: when did Israel ever recognize Palestine? Building settlements that are illegal, extirpating villages, demolishing homes, burning down olive trees, and expunging Palestinian heritage from sacred land isn't how one recognizes and respects the indigenous population. Hamas only came into existence in the 1980s and only won power in 2005. Long before Hamas was ever a thing Zionist founding fathers, paramilitary units and Rabbis within Israel have been calling for the total control of all of Palestine and expelling the Arabs, so of course after putting up with over 50 years of that a more radicalized group will form that will espouse extremist rhetoric and not recognize the other side. But to equate both Israeli refusal to recognize Palestine with Hamas refusal to recognize Israel as symmetric commits a gross fallacy, the Golden Mean Fallacy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation


While I'm all for peace the Palestinians have suffered too much at the hands of an invading and occupying power to just accept the indignation of equalizing both sides as misunderstood parties of a symmetric conflict, rather than victims of a gross injustice of betrayal, treason, land theft, terror, and genocide. Comparing firing rockets in self defense to the actual conditions that Israel imposed on the Palestinians that led to the rockets being fired, I can't accede to that reasoning only because oft times in history we see that when a peaceful resolution is made in conflicts where a transgressing oppressor forces the transgressed oppressed to act as if both sides are equally aggrieved and can just bury the hatchet without addressing the source of that pain, then that peace becomes frail and gives way to simmering conflict. That's what happened in South Africa. For all the talk of peace and equality between the whites and blacks the fact remains that 20% of a white Afrikaan elite rule most of the land, while the indigenous black population is pushed aside economically and land ownership wise. When the resulting peace failed to address such disparity we got a situation where white farmers were being killed by disgruntled blacks.

For peace to exist between Palestine and Israel then Israel will have to recognize the overwhelming scars it has left on the Palestinian people and actually work honestly to rectify that. Stop teaching its population with state approved history books that Israel declared independence on May 15, 1948 and fought off 5 big bad Arab armies in self defense, but teach its population the uglier aspects of its history that like the American white project of America the establishment of Israel was inherently genocidal, inherently deceptive, and inherently terroristic. In American public schools we teach the students that the American whites broke treaties with the Native Americans and that we pushed them off the land, so teaching Israeli students the same would go a long way in mending relationships and repairing scars. Justice cant happen without 1st recognizing wrongdoing.

Then there would be an issue with the settlements that needs to be fixed. Also the siege of Gaza. The Palestinian refugees who are still alive today unable to return to their own homeland because they were expelled from land they and their ancestors have been living in since time immemorial. All of that would help go a long way in mending peace. Many Palestinians want peace and are able to put the past behind them despite what the media shows otherwise, but that won't happen until Israel, being the main bully and wrongdoer in this conflict, goes out of its way to rectify its mistakes and take ownership for them.

Germany terrorized the entire world, killed millions, and caused more damage to the world more than any nation on earth yet today Germany gets along just fine with the lands it once invaded and is forgiven by most Jews because they took ownership for their mistakes and worked really hard to repair their image and rectify their wrongs. If Israel can seriously do that I'm sure many in Palestine would be ok with having peace with them