It’s easy to say from the sidelines that through diplomacy peace will prevail, but who’s definition of peace? Are the Palestinians going to get any of their land back? What about the natives of the Americas or Australia? You can’t negotiate with colonionalism. You will never even have a seat that the table. The unfortunate truth is that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. And one party is completely to blame for stacking the deck that way. These two things are not the same.
Those are all very complicated questions. The Israelis being closer to the afore mentioned American and Australian natives than their European settlers, having historical roots in the Levant since well into the BC’s being one of them. Further complicated by the fact that Palestine lost that land after going to war to reject the two state system, multiple times. The only acceptable option according to Palestinian governments (leaving intentions of the civilians out of it for the obvious reasons that their individual preferences can’t be known) up until recently was the complete destruction of Israel, and no country is going to just roll over and cease to exist because their neighbors want them to.
This is not to justify a might makes right viewpoint, or to give a pass for war crimes on either side. The years of heavy handed treatment definitely exacerbates this. I honestly don’t know of any country that would handle the situation better in the same circumstances, so it’s hard to find a good path forward. The closest situation I can think of is Britain and Ireland, and I don’t think there would be a Repulic of Ireland if their only stated objective had the complete annihilation of the British from the isles instead of just independence of the island.
It’s easy to say from the sidelines that through diplomacy peace will prevail, but who’s definition of peace? Are the Palestinians going to get any of their land back? What about the natives of the Americas or Australia? You can’t negotiate with colonionalism. You will never even have a seat that the table. The unfortunate truth is that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. And one party is completely to blame for stacking the deck that way. These two things are not the same.
Those are all very complicated questions. The Israelis being closer to the afore mentioned American and Australian natives than their European settlers, having historical roots in the Levant since well into the BC’s being one of them. Further complicated by the fact that Palestine lost that land after going to war to reject the two state system, multiple times. The only acceptable option according to Palestinian governments (leaving intentions of the civilians out of it for the obvious reasons that their individual preferences can’t be known) up until recently was the complete destruction of Israel, and no country is going to just roll over and cease to exist because their neighbors want them to.
This is not to justify a might makes right viewpoint, or to give a pass for war crimes on either side. The years of heavy handed treatment definitely exacerbates this. I honestly don’t know of any country that would handle the situation better in the same circumstances, so it’s hard to find a good path forward. The closest situation I can think of is Britain and Ireland, and I don’t think there would be a Repulic of Ireland if their only stated objective had the complete annihilation of the British from the isles instead of just independence of the island.
Nuanced, well thought-out takes getting downvoted? What is this, reddit?