Hello I just created this Account for this Question. Is it okay to support Israel in the middle east conflict? I’m from Europe and have no ties at all to any Side. Its just that I lean more to the Side of Israel then any other. Is this okay? Is it up to debate which Side is to support or is one of them clearly in the Wrong? (Like Russia is in the Wrong attacking Ukraine or Germany attacking Polland 1939).
EDIT: For clarification: Im talking about their Settlements and their military campaigns NOT about their government.
If this Post is too political please remove and I’m deeply sorry for that.
This is a hard question.
Israel was magicked into existence not very long ago(1948), immediately started breaking agreements and compacts… Displaced millions of people from their homes and has killed thousands upon thousands more… Many innocents. It is run by an extremist religious military organization.
Hamas is a brutal, far right religious extremist movement that kills indiscriminately, even it’s own people.
Objectively they are both in the wrong.
Israel has stolen and murdered the Palestinian land and people for decades while continuously lying about their intentions.
Hamas is a shit show of an organization that is probably objectively worse… But their actions make sense when you realize that their families and property have been stolen when murdered for the last several generations. The only life most Palestine people know is one of suffering and loss… And this is directly Israels fault.
In your Russia/Ukraine scenario, Israel is Russia (mostly foreign invaders) and Ukraine is Palestine(natives fighting for their land and freedom). But it’s not quite as simple because Hamas is so objectively horrible…
Allow me to preface this by saying that I think both sides act like enormous cunts at times and I am also eternally grateful that it is not my life.
The only problem I have with the “Its Palestinian land” argument is that 1948 was 75 years ago. Its very important to the macro view of the sutuation but do you think a 3rd generation Israeli born citizen who is now strapping up his body armor to fight so that people stop trying to kill his family gives much of a fuck about how young his country is? Or who traditionally owned the land? Its his town, his city, his little brother who was just kidnapped.
I dont think anyone seriously thinks if Israel gave Hamas/Palestine the whole west bank, no more arguments about borders, leaving the settlements alone and trying to make peace that Hamas would become all about peace, hugs and understanding.
I think its absolutely impossible to defend either side with a straight face. Ask both of them about the worst 10 things the other side did and both of them are monsters.
But surely that person has to appreciate that it’s only happening because his country is killing and stealing the land of another and has been for 75 years, and has essentially kettled them into a literal corner with giant walls and no escape where they have to rely on aid to survive, while killing and injuring huge amounts more of their people. (20x more killed in the last 15 years)
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Acting in self defence or in anger is pretty understandable given what’s happened.
It’s like condemning Ukraine for attacking Russia, if Russia had been attacking for almost a century. Russia also claims that Ukrainian land belongs to their country historically. Blows my mind anyone can “both sides” it, and supporting Ukraine whilst condemning Palestine is especially hypocritical. The BBC especially surprised me how blatant the hypocrisy is with their one sided reporting
Jewish history in Palestine stretches back some 2000 years with a major purge about 1500 years earlier. What do you think about that claim on their land or does time negate that? Serious question that could argue rather the opposite in that they are fighting for land was taken from them.
What do you think about the Russian claim to the land in Ukraine
False. Ukraine occupies it now and have for some time.
But Russia say it’s theirs historically? So surely they should just be allowed to have it
Well if Ukraine doesn’t fight for it and Europe and the US allow it, then I suppose Russia can have it. But I don’t suspect that will happen. Russia is acting like terrorists and well they are paying the consequences. I suspect this will be the downfall of Putin. No loss there.
Do you believe that Russia rightfully should be claiming the land by force?
Side note: the BBC has deeply disappointed in recent years with their Murdoch-esque reporting style. They’ve had to come off the list of trusted sources.
On the other hand, that is within a human lifetime and they’re still expanding their settlements today. It’s not like the bad stuff just happened to people 75 years ago then stopped.
But I wish Israel didn’t help create Hamas. It would be much preferable for a more secular force to help Palestinians that I could put my support in. No one wants to support terrorists, but now Hamas is basically their only option, which sucks. I don’t even like reading about the stuff over there now, it’s all sad and there’s no good solution.
I know it was difficult to move a bunch of ethnic Jews to Israel to begin with, but I don’t see why it would be any more or less difficult to move them away in some sort of gigantic humanitarian effort to give the land back to Palestine now. It is equally as ridiculous now as it would have been back then.
Why not as an international community just guarantee a spot anywhere on the planet effectively for people to move out of Israel and into a country of their choice and give the land back most importantly.
That already happened once, and it is called Israel.
The core issue at the heart of all of this would be the generations of oppression and systemic genocide done to the Jews of Europe and the Middle East that necessitated the establishment of a sovereign Jewish state. And barring any better options, it was decided at that time that the best candidate was the ancestral homeland of the Jews. There was just the small problem of people who were living there for generations after the Jews were first pushed out centuries ago.
You can probably find countries willing to take in Jewish refugees if Israel were to dissolve, but no country on Earth is willing to cede land to enable the same degree of self-governance that Israel has today. If America or Germany were to cede land to create New Israel, that would only result in the same degree of resentment among the generational occupants of that territory that the Palestinians feel today.
Forcing another diaspora and relegating the Jews back to being just a minority group scattered across dozens of countries is asking for the same conditions that led to all of the forced migrations, pogroms, and holocaust which necessitated the establishment of Israel as a sovereign state in the first place.
But that’s the thing. What does Palestinian apartheid have to do with any of it? It was thrusted upon them. Just doesn’t seem fair.
Ironically, the beginning was then England left and divided the land between them. Then all the surrounding countries attacked the Jews and as they defended themselves, created the borders.
Even if you did find a place to move them, the Israeli people don’t want to leave. The area they currently occupy is sacred to all three Abrahamic religions, which is a motivating factor for the conflict.
They can stay, they’d just not be the defacto rulers of the land anymore
This is not really an accurate portrayal of events. Literally on the day that Israel was founded, Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen launched an invasion - for those keeping score at home, that’s all of their neighbors at the time, plus some of the larger countries in the region. This immediate and unflinching antagonism - very specifically on the heels of Jewish people being subjected to the Holocaust, and in combination with rhetoric from their neighbors calling for “the eradication of Israel” - seems to have largely set the tone of Israeli-Arab relations since then, and Israel has fought more than one existential conflict against its neighbors since then.
Now, I’m not saying Israel is blameless here, nor am I saying that the UK/UN was blameless in arbitrarily drawing some lines on a map in a very geopolitically fraught area. But I do find the narrative that Israel is solely responsible for the situation in entirety to be woefully naive at best, and maliciously disingenuous at worst. Sure, they’ve made a LOT of bad calls over the years, but the situation cannot be placed entirely at the feet of Israel.
That is a fair critique. Israel isn’t solely at fault, but they do share blame. It’s difficult to fit the entirety of the history, but from the Palestinian point of view what I said isn’t wrong. There may be confounding external causes, but Israel has absolutely been in the wrong from nearly the beginning of its existence.
There are arguments about preventing genocide that are valid, but most of these arguments start from racist ethnostate positions that have very little moral credibility.
Thank you for your answer! You seem to understand my Problem. I dont wanted to spark such a huge Discussion. ._.
The British fucked up a bunch of things when they divided up political power as they abandoned their territories… Israel/Palestine and India/Pakistan…
Don’t forget basically all the country lines in Africa, although that was Europe’s fault as a whole.
Discussion can be good, it’s how we can all learn more :)
It’s perfectly acceptable to support civilians, and support peace- we can and should be critical of the Israeli government and Hamas- both have inflicted horrible wrongs on the other.
In fact that’s really the only way out of this, I think. This conflict has gone on long enough into history that… there’s really no side that’s justified; and it’s mired in a lot of violence and hatred to the point that it won’t be a simple path forward.
I think with a topic like this, you can’t NOT spark a huge discussion. I hope you still got some useful answers out of it :)
How on earth do you claim Israel immediately started ‘breaking agreements’ when they were attacked on multiple fronts as soon as they became a country?
That’s some wild revisionist history.
Israel not only defended themselves but took land in the war. They then returned that land later on as a gesture of goodwill. Only to be attacked again and again…
I imagine Ukraine’s resistance would become objectively horrible if the Russians were still there after decades, claiming more and more land, bulldozing homes and creating an Apartheid. I once watched a documentary about Palestine (one of many) and the documentary maker was talking to a Palestinian woman while children were playing in the background. The children were playing a game of being suicide bombers. The reporter asked the woman about the children’s game. She said that t the children had no hope for the future, their only hope for a better life was after death.
That really stuck with me. The Palestinian people have been treated like animals for generations by Israel, lied to, robbed, kept in poverty and forced to live in apartheid. I am not surprised they are fighting back. Yes, HAMAS are definitely bad guys too, but Israel is worse and till they are held to account over their behaviour and made to return Palestinian land and homes that have been illegally annexed ,things will not get better.
If Hamas didn’t exist, life in Palestine would be totally different, so this is a bit of a misleading conciliation you’re making.
Rejecting peace deals then acting as if your rights are violated because you don’t have a peace deal, which then justifies your terrorism, is not something that helps the people of your nation
So if the Israeli military hadn’t funneled resources to Hamas in the 80s and 90s it’d be pretty different, good point. Maybe the moderate coalition would’ve been comparatively powerful enough to gain leadership instead of literal terrorists.
Yeah that would’ve been great. Ideal, even.
Unfortunately the only thing to do now is completely dismantle Hamas. Current Israelis did not make this bed, but they’re the ones stuck sleeping in it.
yup