Saying "this section of the planet belongs to a specific race because they're fractionally descended from one of the people that lived there a long time ago" is dumb as fuck. Modern people have 0 connection to Jews that long ago and most modern Israeli Jews aren't actually ethnically similar to Jews thousands of years ago, most Israelis are primarily European descendant or other non-Palestinian descendant.
Modern Israelis are not the same group as the various historical groups referred to as "Jews". Your logic is flawed.
Just a slight correction; something like 60 percent of modern Israelis are Mizrahi, meaning they are from the Middle East and have no European ancestry or connection to Europe. Ethnically they are very similar to the Palestinians and if you put them together in a mixed group, you probably wouldn't be able to tell them apart based on appearance alone.
There's also no reason to think that Mizrahi Jews aren't largely descended from the ancient Jewish population since wherever they've lived in the Middle East, they've never been fully integrated and have always been pretty insular. Most scholars think that the same is true to a lesser extent of Ashkenazi Jews as well, though obviously they have a lot more European ancestry.
Total war is not just an abstract political move, it's an immense suffering and deaths of dozens of thousands of civilians.
It's easy to play political mastermind from the safety and comfort of your home. People who witnessed war know full well what it entails, and they know it's not just numbers and maps and politics.
It's blood. It's broken families. It's famine. It's the destruction of everything they valued. It's PTSD for just about everyone who managed to survive.
Think twice before saying things like that. Please.
I’m simply describing the situation in Gaza for what it is, Total War. I’m not advocating for it, but I recognize that Israel is going to respond to October 7 as they see fit.
Would you rather I described it in a way that didn’t hurt your fragile sensibilities?
The fact that I described the current situation as “Total war”. Seems to offend you. Should I say both sides are making a “fluffy”, would that make you feel better?
Sorry it’s been a day between posting and responding. On top of that there are a lot of tools in this thread and it hard to keep every conversation straight.
But in short Israel is a sovereign nation whose citizens were just attacked in a large scale well coordinated manner. They have every right to go after the perpetrators. If total war and the leveling of Gaza is what it takes and they have the ability to execute it then so be it.
And that's where I and most other Palestine supporters strongly disagree.
For starters, being attacked doesn't allow the country to breach the international treaties on the law of war. Civilian massacre and "leveling of Gaza" is a grave breach of the treaties and a war crime, it should not be supported and Netanyahu and Israeli military officials are waited for in Hague, where they need to give quite an explanation for what they've done (and certainly get arrested).
Second, the attack on Israel was carried out by a small militant group, to which the majority of Palestinians barely holds any relation. About 200 people were taken as PoW. Israel's response on that was unproportionate, with dozens of thousands of civilians killed, misplaced, and taken as PoWs. Regular people, people who did not attack Israel, are now finding themselves among one of the most cruel and lawless wars of the 21st century, with nobody able to protect them.
People of Palestine did not deserve this. They are civilians, and under the law of war, they should never be touched. There is a reason international community recognizes those rules, and Israel just decided to not give a damn. Israel is currently carrying more unnecessary, malicious violence and extermination than any other country on Earth.
As I said, under any circumstances, total war is not justified, and the international community has long formalized that. This conflict has shown how many people lack basic humanity to be able to universally recognize basic human rights long written in international laws and conventions.