1y ago

Don’t fall into the trap of ‘picking sides’ over Gaza: Hamas’s attacks were unconscionable, razing Gaza to the ground would be abhorrent. In both cases, basic humanity is at stake ---

Don’t fall into the trap of ‘picking sides’ over Gaza: Hamas’s attacks were unconscionable, razing Gaza to the ground would be abhorrent. In both cases, basic humanity is at stake --- [Opinion] - Feddit

Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/5185724

Original link is here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/israel/gaza-war/63691/alan-rusbridger-gaza-war-israel-hamas

145 comments

This is a false equivalence. Most of the rhetoric I've seen about Hamas is that it's an inevitable consequence of Israel's treatment of restricting the Palestinian people to an open-air prison. Saying "We can't support either Hamas or Israel" ignores the fact that most people in favor of Palestine are in favor of the civilians, the people who did nothing and are still bombed and tortured and executed. Not to say that Hamas deserves to be bombed and tortured, they're citizens as well that shouldn't be in this situation in the first place, but the large majority of support is in favor of the Palestinian people more broadly that are just unfortunate enough to be adjacent to the conflict and are forced to deal with the consequences of Israel's bloodlust
to be clear: I do think Palestinians have a right to fight for their own freedom. But with the amount of disinformation at play here i don't know how many atrocities are actually committed by Hamas and how many are the result of Israeli misinformation campaigns. But the amount of any of that doesn't change how I feel -- Innocent civilians should never die in a conflict like this. I don't care if Hamas is doing it [edit: or not. The purpose of this statement is to show that I don't care if Hamas is doing something abhorrent and Israel isn't, or vice versa because it's irrelevant to the broader point. Just to clarify, my language was unclear], Israel is very clearly ALSO doing it, and it's abhorrent and gross no matter who. But in terms of the conceptual "high ground" the west likes to bandy around, Palestinians have a right to fight for its freedom from an occupying colonial force.
- Ok, so if I just take quite exactly your argument and say: I don't care if Israel is doing it, but Hamas is using violence, and THAT is abhorrent. Then what?
  Sorry, but this abstraction and contextualisation is exactly wrong. This conflict is never ever going to be resolved if people do obviously wrong things for some abstract justification from A past they conceive.
  Also your conspiracy take which makes you simply discard large chunk of information based on your gut feeling is just crazy. I find it quite audacious to say stuff like that and still fake a reasonable argumentation.
  
  I don't care who is doing it because it's abhorrent from both ends, regardless of the frequency or scale. It's bad no matter what.
  But the ends don't justify the means in either case, so in stead we need to evaluate what's being fought for in the first place for context, because both sides are commiting atrocities on various scales so you can try to one up whichever side you disagree with so we need to look at the context of the fight and what's being fought for. Under that lens, israel is an occupying colonial force by any metric and was given it's current territory by other colonial, imperial forces. It's claim to the state of Palestine is tenuous at best and isn't even consistent with the Jewish faith, where Jews see themselves as perpetually in exile until their Messiah comes. Israel leverages it's position as a colonial ethnostate to make people correlate support of the Jewish faith with support of their apartheid ethnostate, which is also a false equivalence. None of this is a conspiracy theory, it's rooted in fact and also agnostic to which side is committing more atrocities. I'm not saying Hamas is doing nothing wrong, I'm saying relative to this point it doesn't matter if they are or not. Hamas are Palestinians that had their homes robbed from them, Israelis are not.
  
  Your view, if I'm parsing this correctly, is that because Palestinians were wronged 75 years ago by the creation of Israel, the Israeli state should not exist - and that while violence is wrong, Palestinians inherently have a more legitimate right to violence - is that an accurate framing of your view?
  If I have that right, is there a point in time, or a number of generations of living on the land, that grants Israelis rights or determination or legitimacy to the land, in your view?
  
  No, there's no point in time that would grant Israel legitimacy. The same way America/Canada has to confront their colonial past over Native Americans, or Australia with the Aboriginiees, or any other number of colonial nations, despite the time that's passed since. I'm sympathetic to the plight of Israelis that were born into an apartheid system and now feel they have a claim to the land and a life there, but by saying they have equal claim by nature of being born there you let time erode the culture and heritage of the Palestinian people that were also born into that space, but into a different and much more unfair system. That concept of time granting increasing legitimacy to Israel as a state is exactly what Israel needs, the longer it's able to commit these atrocities to enable further existence of the state of Israel, the more and more ridiculous "why not just give it back?" Seems as an argument.
  Palestinians do have more of a right to violence, but I don't think that violence should be directed at those of whom don't have power within that system (civilians). Violence is a tool of the oppressed to fight back against the oppressor. The child who was born into Israel and hasn't even been able to grow enough to form an opinion on the system they were born into isn't an oppressor in the same way the Israeli government is, the same way the idf is, the same way other facets of the system that serve to squash Palestinians are, and as a result should not be a target of that violence. That's abhorrent. But Palestine's very existence, these people's lives are at stake if they don't fight back. Ignoring how unfair a two state solution even is to people whose homes were robbed from them in 1947, Israel hasn't even been so much as willing to come to the table regarding that solution, so Palestine needs to fight for its continued right to exist outright, and that's a natural consequence of Israel trying to weaponize the passage of time to further legitimize it's existence as a state, and giving them that is dangerous for the lives of those Israel has a vested interest in murdering.
  
  You got a lot wrong about how Israel and Palestine were created. And it was Palestine which refused a two state solution several times. That's the sole reason why they are still not a state. Perhaps they want that now, after they saw that Israel will just continue to grow and snatch land from them. But at least Hamas will only accept if Israel is gone completely.
  Israel and Palestine did not exist before and "Palestinian" was an ethnonational name for some of the Arabic people living there, mixed with all the other groups like Jews, other Arabic people like the Bedouins, some Christians, etc.
  Since Arabic countries also exiled and killed Jews and of course World War 2, the British Empire thought it would be a good idea to create an official state for Jewish people. And the area (at that time called Transjordan) is the only place with native Jewish people. There were also growing conflicts already then, between Arabs and Jews (and Christians, but they were just moving away I guess).
  To find a supposedly fair solution for both major groups in the area the British Empire in their infinite wisdom did what was totally hip at the time and tried to divide the land into to countries: Palestine and Israel.
  But you had Arabs on one side who didn't want an influx of Jews to the area, they wanted all the land and have a Muslim state. And on the other hand you had more and more Jewish refugees and of course Zyonists coming there who wanted all the land and have a Jewish state.
  At that time Palestine refused multiple times to agree to the two-state-solution out of greed. And Israel started stealing land out of greed.
  Out of guilt and because there are really few Jews on earth the west equipped Israel with weapons to defend against the Arabic countries who didn't want them there. Israel flourished and some of the Arabic countries thought: how nice to have a rich neighbour in the area. And totally forgot about the not so rich neighbour which were the Palestinians, still hoping to somehow get a better deal for a country.
  
  it was Palestine which refused a two state solution several times.
  I thought there was a trial period of the 2SS but it failed because the PLO leadership was corrupt - Palestinians shamed two ministers into quitting but Arafat refused to quit.
  That was my takeaway from the Wikipedia entry anyhow.
  However I did watch a documentary once about Shin Bet (interviewing many ex Shin Bet leaders) which gave the impression that the 2SS failed because of Jewish religious zealots who assassinated one of the 2SS architects: Rabin.
  Can someone clarify please?
  
  Israel and Hamas are on the same side. That side is war. They're both the bad guys. The good guys are the civilians.
- Nothing justifies bombing children. Noone's 'right to defend themselves' should include this.
  
  Hamas also killed children and fires at Israel, so is Libanon. That children die is a consequence of the bombing. People pretend as if Israel is explicitly targeting groups of children to throw bombs at them. What you are saying is that people should not be at war and I agree.
  
  "Your honor, I know it might seem oddly coincidental that I mostly shoot at criminals that are standing next to schools, but I assure you that the large number of child casualties is not my intent. In fact, it's the kids' fault that they let the criminals stand next to them!"
  
  I agree.
- thanks for this, seems like the most reasonable take.
- You forgot about the third side of the conflict again. The innocent civlians Israel (and Hamas) are killing are the good guys. The two theocratic pro-genocide states are exactly the same and both on the same side. That side is war and death.
- Even the misinformation is very one-sided.

145 comments