Oddbean

As part of your reflections on the topic I would encourage you to honestly answer the likely outcome of two questions: 1, What would happen if tomorrow Israel laid down their weapons and said they would fight no more? 2. What would happen if tomorrow Palestinians laid down their weapons and said they would fight no more? In the first case, Israel would be annihilated. In the second case, there would be peace. One side wants to live in peace and simply exist. The other side does not recognize the others right to exist. It's not about land or borders. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. If it was about borders, Palestine would be a separate state today, but they've rejected every single concession over the last few decades. Those in power don't want a state that also recognizes Israel's right to exist. As demonstrated all over the world, Palestinians, their sympathizers, and the Muslim world in general, hate Jews and want them destroyed. Any honest reflection on your part should present those facts plainly.

Are you aware that the Jewish people have lived on that same land for over 3,000 years? Are you aware that throughout that period there have only been 3 sovereign states on that land, all being Jewish states? Are you aware that the Bible, which goes back 3,000 years, mentions Jerusalem over 700 times? Is there anywhere within present day Israel borders that you believe belongs to Israel? Glad we can agree on the second point being defined as Terrorism. Unfortunately, the leaders of Hamas view all the innocent people murdered as occupiers, and thus invaders and legitimate targets.

I know the history is complicated. States don't own land in my perception, people do. As far as I can say, there has been a lot of immoral takeover of land by Israeli's, backed by the state. I've seen Saifedean debate Walter Block, and his arguments held up pretty damn good. I'm not having conversation. Maybe I would agree that those people were occupiers, but that doesn't make it right what happened.

If you view the people of Israel as occupiers, you're saying they have no right to exist in Israel today. You set aside 3,000 years of historical facts and Jewish heritage in the Holy Land. That would put you on the side of genocide of Jews. That puts us back to my original point, if Palestinians would simply let Israel exist, there would be peace. Israel warns civilians before they bomb a target, Hamas uses their own people as shields. There is no moral equivalency between the two.

In my view everybody has the right to exist anywhere, as long as you get your property in an ethical way. A lot of property in Israel, as it seems to me, was obtained with violence. I don't think whole states belong to anybody, although governments pretend to.

So what do we do, how far back does the violence have to have occurred to be "legit" or "forgotten". Currently we see the Russians, the Ukrainians, the Israelis and the Palestinians dig out various maps from various times in the past that show all sorts of things, each one in their favor. It seems that there is some sort of consensus by the "international community" whoever that is that draws the line post WW2 1950-ish and those are the official borders now and they stay forever. Seems pretty arbitrary to me.

so if I say yes it was evil then Israel is on the good side and has the right to do whatever, and if I say it was not evil then I'm a terrorist? I try not to judge but more to understand, I don't want anyone killed to give an honest answer I will say I don't know, give me a list of the "events" and we can discuss. from Hamas side they say the target was the Gaza Division of the IDF they say it was success and they got it out of service, collateral damage had to happen. from Israel side they say it was an attack on civilians to rape women and murder children, nobody accepts that but are you sure it was Hamas? because when they opened a hole in the wall, other armed groups and looters also went in so I don't know. I feel like I have to make it clear I feel no hate for anyone and I don't want to see anyone from any side even having a bad day. I'm Egyptian Arab Muslim and I don't hate the Jews and don't want them killed so you should reconsider the assumptions you made, I believe there are good and bad people on both sides, Jews lived in many Arab countries for a thousand years until Have a good day

How many Synagogues are there in Egypt? How are the Coptic Christians doing in Egypt? Did you know 20% of the people living in Israel (not Gaza or West Bank) are Arab? Let's not fool ourselves on how tolerant the Muslim world is towards non-muslims. You can readily search for the atrocities that were committed that day, if you really desire to seek the truth. If you cannot recognize murder of babies in their cribs as Evil, there's literally no common ground from which to work from. Human beings need to first acknowledge the others as Human before anything else can be discussed...

Murder of babies is Evil!! Murder of Babies is Evil!! MURDER OF BABIES IS EVIL!! where did I say murder of babies is not Evil?? I only said it was chaos that day and I'm not sure if it was Hamas soldiers who intentionally did it. show me the video where the Hamas soldier killing the baby or raping the woman, just to prove it is Hamas who did it not to discuss if it's evil or not. of course it is evil and I'm sorry if it looked like I'm not sad about it. there are some Synagogues i don't know how many, my best friend is christian we live around each other no problem and not saying we're perfect but what do you think are their problems? Arabs in Israel, cool. not fooling anyone the fact they exist for a thousand years while Islam ruled is not tolerant? they only became enemies in the past century, I was here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom

FWIW I know a lot of folks who definitely do not hate Jews that are sympathetic to the Palestinians. There's a difference between laying down weapons for defense (not advisable with so much anger that's built up over the generations) and "laying down weapons" in the sense of not using those weapons to attack. Just some reflections on your note but I have no solution. In a lot of big issues I have at least some opinion of what I would do if I were in charge. In this one, I have no idea what I would do.

That is what I have heard forever as well. But on deeper inspection, the issue is with all the Palestinians that fled after the first war and were never allowed back into the land Israel took / where they lived inside 1948 Israel. Now I can make sense of that because 700k-1M + people that don’t really like Israel living in Israel is something I don’t think would work out? But the false narrative that “why don’t the other Arab countries take them in” keeps propagating. The Palestinians are nothing like the surrounding Arab Nations. We will never know what would have happened if everyone accepted the 1948 borders and UN agreement. But here we are. And make no mistake. The Likud and conservative Israeli population wants to get rid of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. They aren’t going about it like Hamas does against Israel, but there are bad things happening to innocent people in Gaza and the West Bank by Israelis. I wish it were as simple as Palestinians lay down their arms. But we live in the real world and something must really be done to bring the Palestinians out of the dumpster they are in for them to live in peace.

The Palestinians could prosper if they accepted any of the multiple offers for their own State. They would have endless support from the International community to ensure their prosperity. They've rejected every single offer. They completely reject the idea of a Jewish State in present day Israel. They deny 3,000 years of Jewish heritage and history in the Holy Land. They deny that Jews have always been there. Until they accept that Israel is not going anywhere, they'll continue their misery.

They rejected the Israeli state in present day Israel And 1948 boundaries. I so want to believe that if they just accept it, all will be great. It sounds too simple. They need great leaders and the ability / resources and global support to use their demographics to educate themselves to be a prosperous nation (like Singapore). It truly saddens me that with all the aid and resources they receive, they tend to spend it on (or maybe instead of receiving aid, they receive) missiles, tunnels, etc. instead of things that will help them get out of poverty. Maybe I am being idealistic and they are being kept down in the dumps by Israel and the West as well as their “friendly neighbors” like Iran. If it were as simple as saying, “if they just accepted Israel as a State” we would have peace, then why don’t we have peace in Ukraine or elsewhere? There are always plenty of bad actors and mobs / crowd mentality make it worse.