The recent recognitions of a Palestinian state and the October 10 ceasefire have been followed by a flurry of calls to “deradicalize” Palestinian society. The New York Times editorial board went so far as to compare this deradicalization project to the denazification of Germany after the Second World War. These calls have the situation backwards to the point of farce.
Hamas is not Palestine and Palestine is not Hamas.
The victims of genocide, apartheid, occupation do not have the same level of culpability as the perpetrators. And it’s not the current right wing government that’s to blame, sorry. It is the whole edifice that the Israelis have built of occupation, apartheid, and now genocide.
You want a moderate palestinian leader? He exists. His name is Marwan Barghouti. And it’s not Hamas that has “done their own thing”. He’s in an Israeli jail, with that worm Ben Gvir torturing him.
And if 50 years seems like a long time to you, and that they should just grow up and accept the fait accompli of the occupation and the defeat, well sorry but that says more about you. I know nothing about you but I wouldn’t be surprised if you come from a cultural background that doesn’t have a history of resistance and struggle for freedom. My Greek ancestors were occupied for 400 years. The Irish for 800. Warmongering? Wars for freedom are just wars. Peace is not the absence of war, it is the presence of justice. No justice? No peace. As simple as that.
So yea, I’m going to take a side.
Hear hear, well said, as a 52 year old, (albeit I’m Lebanese and had my fair share of Israeli wars), it’s been obvious from day 1 Israel has long been practicing blatant apartheid policies in the Gaza strip, and providing IOF support to terrorist settler pogroms in the west bank. The vile entity that is the Israeli government today needs to be torn down and rebuilt to allow for a viable Palestinian state.
I too am taking a side and fuck Israel and the IOF.
Edit: Formatting
And here’s another thought on this: It seems as if quite a lot of arab people (not only the Palestinians) view the mere existence of Israel as an injustice.
Logical conclusion? Obvious…
The existence of Israel in the way it exists now is an injustice.
Is this some kind of attempt to dispute my right to an opinion? Or an attempt to devalue it? I know nothing about you, but come on. I’m sure you can find better arguments for your positions than thinly veiled ad hominems.
No, it is an attempt (maybe ham fisted, in which case I apologize) to make you reflect on whether you have the cultural middleware to really understand that 50 years of occupation is not “forever”, that longer timelines have existed. It’s a call to examine your assumptions.
Nope, it translated to me to “you don’t come from a background of resistance in your country, your opinions automatically don’t matter as much.”
So now that the misunderstanding is cleared, I call you again to examine your assumptions and blind spots.
I acknowledged that when I said “If a Palestinian leader becomes too moderate, Hamas will do their own thing.”.
No, they don’t. There are many blameless Palestinians. And there are Israelis who voted for the current government, they surely carry more guilt in this war than Palestinian victims.
Firstly, I never said they have to accept it. If you think war is the only means of not accepting and trying to change it, it says a lot about you. Secondly, someone else in this comment section said: “what will lead to an enduring peace is actually more important than what is just.”
This is why this will never end.
Like I told you, it’s Israel that “mows the grass” to make sure no moderate gets ahead. Bargouti is in an Israeli jail.
But that’s the point: if it is not just, it will not be enduring. I don’t understand what is confusing about “no justice no peace”. Justice by the way does not mean that Palestinians get everything. It means that they get enough to feel that they have gotten a deal they can live with. Ireland is a fantastic example here actually. The Irish didn’t get a united Ireland in the early 20th century, but they got an independent country. And in the next chapter of struggle, the republicans and the unionists again didn’t get everything, but they got enough to get to a place they can live with. But Britain had to fucking let go in both cases. The Israelis have to fucking let go and they have to come to terms with what they’ve done and realize that they will have to pay some kind of reparation at the very least.
Nothing about it is confusing, it is very clear. And it is an absolute position that will make this conflict go on forever. Why? Because in an asymmetric conflict like this, there will always be injustice.
You have to find a way to end this injustice with peaceful means. I refuse to accept that only violence can solve this. That’s all I am saying.
What absolute position? I wrote a whole paragraph after the bit that you quote exactly on why it is not an absolute position.
Okay, I admit I didn’t pay enough attention to what you wrote. Probably because I don’t like being lectured about history.
But in that case, even better! They tried working on a two-state solution. It was shot down, but you gotta try again. And again. And again.
Everything Israel and the Palestinians are doing at the moment is the exact opposite. They create more violence, hatred, death, destruction and desire for vengeance, which in turn will be the fuel for more decades of war.
Stop both sides-ing for goodness sake! There are no two equal sides here. There are the perpetrators and the victims of a genocide, of apartheid, and of occupation.
Not to mention that you are literally factually wrong. Hamas controls Gaza but the PA controls the West Bank. There is nothing the PA does that “creates violence, hatred, destruction and desire for vengeance” among Israelis. So to be extremely clear YOUR FRAMING IS FACTUALLY WRONG. The PA has recognized Israel, supports the two state solution. The PA is so actively trying to supress radicals that if you look around this thread you will see people accusing it of being collaborationists. And what do they get in response? Colonization, occupation, apartheid, and pogroms. If Israel achieves its war goals and eliminates Hamas from Gaza, the result will be that that insufferable misery also extended there. The Palestinians are literally given a choice of genocide or apartheid, of a quick fiery death or a slow bleeding death. This is Israel’s policy and it isn’t just Bibi, it is the Israeli state policy of the last 30 fucking years.