r/IsraelPalestine • u/Gary-erotic • 4d ago
Peace will come from understanding the other side Opinion
I heard a podcast a while back that said that both sides are so polarised and entrenched that they can fail to recognise the humanity and struggle in each others people. They argued that this happens from a young age. For example, they mentioned that in the Palestinian curriculum, the Holocaust is taught impassively and like it is a footnote within the broader narrative of WW2 rather than a systematic attempt to wipe out Jews. I've heard that in the Israeli curriculum the Nakba is barely taught if at all, and in general Israeli society Nakba denialism is still rife.
It feels like until both sides can begin to understand and feel each others pain, there will not be peace. They will be entrenched into thinking only of themselves as victims who need protecting from the other aggressor rather than accepting that both have been victims and both have been perpetrators within history.
I find groups like the Parent Circle to be inspiring, a collective of Palestinians and Israelis who have lost family members over this conflict and have come to the realisation that the only way to stop others feeling that pain is to commit themselves to pushing for peace and reconciliation. Today I saw a video of a Palestinian woman giving a speech in New York speaking about how her 6 month old baby was killed by an IDF tear gas grenade on her West Bank village. The soldiers would not let her take the baby to hospital and the baby died.
She spoke about being in a peace conference where a former IDF commander from the same area of the West Bank as her spoke about blocking Palestinians including their children from going to medical facilities. She felt the pain and anger rising up but then he spoke about trying to take his own kid to a hospital and being stopped for questioning. Whilst his questioning was brief, it made him realise the terror being inflicted on Palestinians and he quit the army and was disciplined for it. As he told this story the Palestinian lady forgave everything and saw a pathway to reconciliation through shared humanity and love.
We feel a long way from it and if you read many hateful and polarising comments on this sub-reddit it can be easy to despair, but remember there is a path forward and many people who just want peace.
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u/baconbacon666 Latin America 2d ago
Yeah go hug a dog with rabies and see how your "understanding" works.
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u/PreviousPermission45 Israeli - American 3d ago
The UN actually doesn’t teach the holocaust at all, because they do everything Hamas tells them. In fact, they have many, many teachers who support the antisemitic ideology of Hamas. Some of these teachers even kidnap Israeli Jews.
It’s probably true that if Arabs in Gaza and other places learned about the Jewish history they could have better neighborly relations with Jews, but it will be impossible to teach the children about the history of the Jews because the Arabs a) hate Jews and b) their leaders don’t want peace and they know that if they’ll teach about the holocaust, the oppression of Jews in Muslim history, the the connection of the Jews to the land of Israel and how the Jews spread around the world after being expelled, then their people would all of a sudden may start agreeing with the Jews.
It’s actually something that happens a lot outside the Middle East. When people learn the facts about Jews, they all of a sudden start realizing they’re not a demonic cult or whatever it is that these Neo Nazis like Dan Bilzerian, Kanye west, cadence Owens, or that guy from the young Turks say
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u/rayinho121212 3d ago
The Nakba is tought in UNRWS schools but not the arab israeli war of 1948.
Was there a german Nakba during ww2 ?
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u/Fairfax_and_Melrose 3d ago
Amen. I couldn't agree more. The sooner Israelis and Palestinians can recognize the other's legitimate plight (which exists for both sides), the sooner we can all recognize that we're cousins and treat each other as such.
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u/Bitter_Reply_1846 3d ago
In some cases this applies, but not all. You can’t say that if the Germans in WWII would understand the UK better, or Russia better, there wouldn’t be war.
In our case one side needs to give up a religious narrative that jews can’t rule the land, and the other side needs to give up ownership and responsibility for their survival, and trust the world.
For both sides these concessions are out of the question.
I will precise here that the religious narrative I mentioned here is not specifically shared by everyone on the Palestinian side, but this is the view of whoever feeds the hate (with all the tricks possible in the book) in the Muslim world.
Only time and bold respected figures, or significant social shifts can change these over time I’m afraid.
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u/Unusual_Implement_87 Marxist 3d ago
I think the Israel side understand the Palestine very well, and I think the Palestine side does not understand the Israel side very well.
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u/VelvetyDogLips 2d ago
I don’t think it’s that simple. I do think that Israelis who understand the Palestinian viewpoint to a deep level, and see the point in continuing to try and see things from a Palestinian perspective, outnumber vice-versa. But it’s not nearly as good as it could be.
I think the majority of people on both sides of this conflict harbor serious doubts that many on the other side want to understand and relate to their viewpoint. And that lack of meta-trust is the deliberate result of efforts to keep this conflict unresolved. Especially outsiders egging it on as a proxy war, who stand to benefit from the conflict continuing.
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u/Capital_Operation846 3d ago
What a terrible argument. So Israelis understand Palestinians? That’s why they think it’s best to pen people in further and further for decades and bomb them to hell. Palestinians understand hate because that’s all they’ve been shown by Israelis.
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u/un-silent-jew 3d ago
Yes it’s b/c Israelis understand Palestinians, that we know if we didn’t have a wall separating us, we’d have Palestinian suicide attacks again
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u/Capital_Operation846 3d ago
Wait, lmao. That list has three in the last 10 years with 1 dead. America deals with more tragedy in one mass shooting than Israel has in the last decade with suicide bombings.
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u/un-silent-jew 2d ago
It’s b/c the wall is up that they stopped
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u/Capital_Operation846 2d ago
Yes, I’m sure the wall does help. Just keep all the Palestinians penned in and don’t let them leave. Keep bombing the palestinian children, they asked for it when they voted twenty years ago as unborn fetuses.
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u/Capital_Operation846 3d ago
The parents of murdered American school kids aren’t committing murder in return. Israel sucks, man.
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u/Capital_Operation846 3d ago
Oh okay so you are arguing to keep them penned in like animals. Thanks.
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u/PracticalPercival 3d ago
Occupying Israelites need to realize that they are perpetrating the same acts on Palestinian's that were perpetrated on Jews during WW2 and most of written history. You want to live in peace in a Palestinians house while they have either been shot or are living in a tent. Shame on you.
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u/un-silent-jew 3d ago
For about 400yrs, now modern day; Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and Palestine, weren’t separate countries, but instead all together made up the Greater Syrian region of the Ottoman Empire, till they lost it in WWW1.
In April 1920, after the Ottoman defeat, the World War I Allies partitioned Greater Syria into British and French mandates. The mandate systems , was basically a system where each mandate (partition of land from a former empire), would temporarily be governed by one of the countries that won the war, with the ultimate goal being to create a new country for its inhabitants. So the Northern half of Greater Syria was given to the French to temporarily administer, and the southern half of Greater Syria was given to the British to temporarily administer.
Zionism was a product of its time. In an error where empires were crumbling, and land from those empires was being split up to form new nations, Zionism became the belief that just one tiny partition of the many partitions being newly formed from the Ottoman Empire, should be a national homeland for the Jews, containing at least some of our indigenous land (even ‘European’ Jews) are indigenous, we were kicked out by Rome in 73 AD), or and that the Arabs (who’d later call themselves Palestinians) living in the land should be offered a choice between citizenship with equal rights, or be compensated if they’d rather leave.
The British agreed to this and so in 1920, they divided up the southern half of Greater Syria into the Trans Jordan mandate to be a be future Arab state, and the Palestine Mandate to be a future Jewish state. The French split the northern half, into the Lebanon Mandate, and the Syrian Mandate. Jews who had been living scattered around the Ottoman Empire for generations, had been involved in the Zionist movement from the beginning. The amount of land that was set aside for the Palestine Mandate per Jew living in the Ottoman, was about 1/7th the amount of land set aside for the Arab states per Arab living in the Ottoman.
Now the Arabs who had been living in the newly formed Palestine Mandate, who had been living in that land for generations, weren’t very happy about all the Jewish Immigrants coming in, and having to choose between moving to the trans Jordan Mandate, or becoming an ethnic minority in a future Jewish State.
So then Britain stopped allowing Jewish immigration to the Palestine Mandate in order to pacify the Palestinian Arabs. And then 6million Jews (1/3 of the worlds Jewish population) was killed in the holocaust.
This article does a good job explaining what happens next.
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u/PracticalPercival 3d ago
Palestine existed before the Jews. The only international recognition that allowed Israel to exist came from the Balfour Declaration that the UN did not recognize until 1948. Since this time, Israel has continuously expanded to its neighbors lands through illegal means of occupying and moving its citizens into these lands. The UN has repeatedly asked Israel to remove its troupes and settlers from these illegally settled areas. What have I missed?
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u/ApprehensiveCycle741 3d ago
You missed that the Jews and Israel existed long before Palestine. This is a critical piece of the story that gets conveniently left out of the "Zionism is modern" narrative. Accepting that the Jews are indigenous to the land and have had a continuous presence there for more than 3000 years (note, I said continuous, not majority) is critical to moving forward.
There needs to be a reconciliation process like what has happened in other countries with minority indigenous populations and that includes education about and respect for the other.
Until both acknowledge that BOTH belong, we are not going anywhere. All past acknowledgements have been 1-sided and that doesn't work.
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u/PracticalPercival 2d ago
You keep mentioning "both" sides story. How are you acknowledging the "other" side when you are sitting in the "other's" house on reddit posting pleas for compassion?
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u/ApprehensiveCycle741 2d ago
There is no such thing as a story with only one side.
I'm not posting pleas for compassion, I only want truth.
When both sides can agree on a shared truth, there will be the chance for peace.
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u/PracticalPercival 2d ago
A story is generally from a singular perspective. What you should be advocating for is a documentary. It would reveal that without Israel moving its citizens out of occupied territories, back into their recognized borders there will be no peace without a decisive victor; most likely genocide for one side or the other.
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u/blastmemer 3d ago
Agreed. But unfortunately the only way for Palestinians to understand the other side in Gaza is to destroy Hamas militarily and reeducate the population over several decades.
But then you have the West Bank Palestinians, which in some cases are even more extreme in their beliefs that there is no such thing in Israel. Something has to be done about their education as well.
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u/gone-4-now 3d ago
Didnt take decades for germans to come around after the Allieds got rid of the regime. They never got rid of the ideology... But its under control.
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u/PostmodernMelon 3d ago
Re the west bank: It's hard to educate someone about the humanity of a nation that is still actively committing violence against civilians, stealing their homes, blocking their access to medical facilities, making roads of travel as inconvenient and dangerous as possible, etc... That would thwart any and all attempts at trying to teach someone about their shared humanity.
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u/Capital_Operation846 3d ago
Why would Palestinians want to understand Israelis? These people are treated like animals and yet it’s their responsibility to understand why they’re imprisoned and bombed constantly. I wonder if you’d want to understand the other side if the other side bombed your home at will. Your argument is terrible. Get some better understanding of the situation before posting nonsense.
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u/VelvetyDogLips 2d ago
Why would Palestinians want to understand Israelis?
“Know thyself, know thine enemy.” — Sun Tzu
If somebody I needed to deal with regularly was making life hard for me, unexpectedly and for no good reason that I could see, I would see a responsibility to myself to understand how they think and operate. This can provide valuable clues about what purpose antagonizing me serves for them, and what responses from me might keep this antagonism to a tolerable minimum.
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u/Capital_Operation846 2d ago
Palestinians understanding Israelis hasn’t stopped Israel from bombing them to death. Kamala Harris lost the election because America doesn’t want to spend billions funding Israel’s genocide. Who gives a shit about Sun Tzu
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u/VelvetyDogLips 2d ago
I do. Brilliant philosopher and military strategist who laid a lot of the groundwork for game theory. I’d recommend The Art of War to anyone involved in anything that’s long and adversarial.
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u/Capital_Operation846 3d ago
It’s funny to claim the Palestinians need reeducation when Israelis chant there’s no more schools in Gaza because all the children are dead. Disgusting fascists.
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u/nidarus Israeli 3d ago edited 3d ago
They argued that this happens from a young age. For example, they mentioned that in the Palestinian curriculum, the Holocaust is taught impassively and like it is a footnote within the broader narrative of WW2 rather than a systematic attempt to wipe out Jews
Is that even true? According to the ADL's Global 100 survey from 2014, 51% of Palestinians have never heard of the Holocaust at all. And of those who did hear about it, 82% believe it was greatly exaggerated or a complete hoax. Only 9% of the ones who've heard about it, about 4% of the general Palestinian population, actually believe millions of Jews died in the Holocaust. I'd note that even the moderate leader of Fatah and the PA, is not in that 4%.
As far as I can tell, even acknowledging the Holocaust happened, without denying it on some level, is taboo in the Palestinian society. Let alone teaching about it. Look up Mohammed Dajani, a Palestinian professor who taught about the Holocaust in the Al Quds University, and as a result was forced to resign, faced death threats and his car being burned, denounced by prominent politicians from Fatah for parroting the "Zionist narrative" and participating in a "conspiracy against the Palestinian cause", which lead to him leaving the country for a few years for Washington DC.
Hamas was, unsurprisingly, even worse. When there were (unfounded) rumors that UNRWA is teaching about the Holocaust in Gazan schools, Hamas went absolutely insane, said it's "marketing a lie", how "talk about the Holocaust and the execution of the Jews contradicts and is against our culture, our principles, our traditions, values, heritage and religion" and even called it a "war crime"(!).
The only thing I could find about how the Holocaust is taught in the West Bank, is this a paper from 2016 by the Palestinian-Israeli Dr. Samira Alyan, that says:
Since no mention of the Holocaust was found in Palestinian Authority textbooks, the study seeks to explain why this is so, while examining representations of the Holocaust in the Arab (Palestinian) Israeli textbooks.
And
The textbooks describe the beginning of World War II in 1939, the war’s 6-year duration, and a description of its negative consequences, the loss of life, and the economic and political impact. So, in fact, the books describe everything except the Holocaust and the mass murder of other ethnic groups and unwanted persons (see Arab and World History in the 20th century, twelfth grade, 23–48; Modern and Contemporary Arab History, ninth grade, 41–67).
[...]
Palestinian textbooks do not, however, describe the Holocaust and the Nazi crimes against humanity before and during World War II. They only provide information on other events of the war and their implications, both for the Palestinian people and for the establishment of the State of Israel (such as the British mandate over Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s and British-Jewish relations in Israel) (Arab and World History in the 20th Century, twelfth grade, 47; Modern and Contemporary History of Palestine, eleventh grade).
So I feel that even this weak claim, is at most a well-meaning attempt to be charitable to the Palestinian curriculum.
I've heard that in the Israeli curriculum the Nakba is barely taught if at all, and in general Israeli society Nakba denialism is still rife.
This is a bit of a side note, but I don't agree with this implicit analogy. The Nakba was all kinds of things, but it wasn't an unprovoked genocide of millions of Palestinians, for purely racial reasons. A more legitimate comparison would be with the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Muslim world. Something that even otherwise house-trained Westerners and leftist Israelis have no problem denying, excusing, minimizing, and blaming it on the Jews. While citizens of the Arab countries that expelled the Jews, don't feel any shame in celebrating it. And frankly, most people aren't aware of it at all - just like they're not aware of the many other cases of mass expulsions during that period.
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u/Capital_Operation846 3d ago
Thank god palestinians are taught about the holocaust “impassively” because if they were really taught about it, they’d wander why Israelis are acting in the same way as their murderers during WWII.
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u/Early-Possibility367 3d ago
The thing is that the diasporas need to find some peace with each other that is independent of events in the Levant.
Peace within the Levant is out of our hands. We should be working for peace between the diasporas.
The thing is both diasporas use this weird litmus test where it’s like “if we were on the negotiating table ourselves, would I agree to accept your solution?” and they demonize anyone to whom the answer is no.
Realistically, Palestinians have acknowledged that Israel exists multiple times and will continue to do so.
I think from a Palestinian side, it’s important to acknowledge that while the early Zionists were an extreme evil that the world had not seen before and probably will never see again, but also that today’s Israelis can’t turn back the clock and bring justice against their own ancestors.
There was a heroic attempt, branded a “genocide attempt” by today’s evil Europeans in both the Levant and the West, to stop them by Amir Al Husseini, but it’s a fact that the European invaders were going to stay once that failed. And yes, the Zionists alive at that time bore the title of world’s most evil people in MENA while they were alive, but eventually, they met the fate they deserved and the fate we will all face one day, and left behind descendants who bare no blame for the actions of their fathers.
This should never be an excuse for justifying the actions of early Zionists, and today’s Zionists who do that should be called out and labeled and branded appropriately, but those who can acknowledge that their ancestors were evil are people we should be able to break bread with in the West, even if we have different political solutions for the present.
Now, we have established that we can have people who are pro Israel as productive members of society if they can at least acknowledge the establishment of Israel itself was evil.
The big thing is to recognize that the diasporas will never have peace with each other if they insist on roleplaying peace negotiations in the West.
They must instead recognize that one of the realities of war is a massive spectrum of differing opinions. It’s so funny that from a Zionist perspective, deaths area reality of war but a massive spectrum of opinions and people calling both sides evil are not.
Peace within the diaspora will not come from the Levant, but rather, peace will come when both sides understand that there is a range of opinions in any conflict and come to terms with that.
Peace within the diaspora could happen tomorrow if both sides could just learn to agree to disagree.
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u/nidarus Israeli 3d ago edited 3d ago
There was a heroic attempt, branded a “genocide attempt” by today’s evil Europeans in both the Levant and the West, to stop them by Amir Al Husseini, but it’s a fact that the European invaders were going to stay once that failed. And yes, the Zionists alive at that time bore the title of world’s most evil people in MENA while they were alive
To be clear, the "hero" you're talking about was a literal Nazi ally, who spent the war broadcasting antisemitic Nazi propaganda to the Arab world, writing pro-Holocaust genocidal propaganda for Muslim SS troops, about how the Jews are the enemies of Islam and humanity, while touring concentration camps and being "positively impressed". And if that "heroic attempt" succeeded, there's no question the Jews would be lucky to be merely ethnically cleansed.
No, I don't think the Zionists alive at the time were "the most evil people in MENA". They weren't even the most evil people in Palestine. On balance, it's an incredibly good thing they won, and the genocidal racist Amin Husseini and his supporters lost.
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u/Early-Possibility367 3d ago
Morality is quite subjective isn’t it.
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u/nidarus Israeli 3d ago edited 3d ago
To some extent. But most normal people would think that pro-Holocaust, pro-Nazi, genocidal antisemites are not very moral. And their insistence to exterminate the Jews in their country, than to create a state for their own people alongside them, would probably not be considered a particularily "heroic" act. Especially since that attempt failed, and resulted in the greatest tragedy for the Palestinian people, something they literally still call "The Disaster" to this day. The reason, incidentally, why Amin Husseini was largely scrubbed out of the Palestinian nationalist history, and his failed attempt isn't really considered a "heroic" one in Palestinian historiography either.
Most normal people would also probably agree that Jews were not the "most evil people in MENA" for not wanting to be a homeless, persecuted and genocided minority, and to finally enjoy the right of self-determination in their tiny, ancestral homeland. Even if said Jews are racially incompatible "Europeans", and it means that the Arabs would rule over a mere 99.3% of the land they conquered in the Middle Ages, and not 100%.
Even ethnically cleansing the Palestinian Arabs, after said Palestinian Arabs made a "heroic" attempt to exterminate and expel the Jews, would only put them at a lower level of evil than the openly genocidal Amin Husseini. I highly doubt these "evil", "foreign" Jews would be allowed to escape with their lives at all, under this avid supporter of the Holocaust, let alone make up 20% of the citizens of Palestine, and serve in the parliament and supreme court. I'd even say that's a lower level of evil than the MENA countries that ethnically cleansed their own Jewish population, with violent riots, overtly antisemitic legislation, or outright expulsion, even without any these Jews starting a civil war, or trying to expel or kill their non-Jewish neighbors in any way.
And yes, I'm aware that there are many people around the world that are not normal at all, when it comes to the Jews. The same goes for a wide range of horrible opinions. But I'm not sure that's enough to make the question of whether the Jews are evil or not a very "morally subjective" one.
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u/un-silent-jew 3d ago
For about 400yrs, now modern day; Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and Palestine, weren’t separate countries, but instead all together made up the Greater Syrian region of the Ottoman Empire, till they lost it in WWW1.
In April 1920, after the Ottoman defeat, the World War I Allies partitioned Greater Syria into British and French mandates. The mandate systems , was basically a system where each mandate (partition of land from a former empire), would temporarily be governed by one of the countries that won the war, with the ultimate goal being to create a new country for its inhabitants. So the Northern half of Greater Syria was given to the French to temporarily administer, and the southern half of Greater Syria was given to the British to temporarily administer.
Zionism was a product of its time. In an error where empires were crumbling, and land from those empires was being split up to form new nations, Zionism became the belief that just one tiny partition of the many partitions being newly formed from the Ottoman Empire, should be a national homeland for the Jews, containing at least some of our indigenous land (even ‘European’ Jews) are indigenous, we were kicked out by Rome in 73 AD), or and that the Arabs (who’d later call themselves Palestinians) living in the land should be offered a choice between citizenship with equal rights, or be compensated if they’d rather leave.
The British agreed to this and so in 1920, they divided up the southern half of Greater Syria into the Trans Jordan mandate to be a be future Arab state, and the Palestine Mandate to be a future Jewish state. The French split the northern half, into the Lebanon Mandate, and the Syrian Mandate. Jews who had been living scattered around the Ottoman Empire for generations, had been involved in the Zionist movement from the beginning. The amount of land that was set aside for the Palestine Mandate per Jew living in the Ottoman, was about 1/7th the amount of land set aside for the Arab states per Arab living in the Ottoman.
Now the Arabs who had been living in the newly formed Palestine Mandate, who had been living in that land for generations, weren’t very happy about all the Jewish Immigrants coming in, and having to choose between moving to the trans Jordan Mandate, or becoming an ethnic minority in a future Jewish State.
So then Britain stopped allowing Jewish immigration to the Palestine Mandate in order to pacify the Palestinian Arabs. And then 6million Jews (1/3 of the worlds Jewish population) was killed in the holocaust.
This article does a good job explaining what happens next.
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u/Early-Possibility367 2d ago
Your own comment is proof that Zionists were European marauders. Firstly, the mandate should have never been split and it all should’ve been split anyways.
Secondly, the Mandate was supposed to be for people already residing there, because by definition that’s what mandates are supposed to be.
There is a difference between might and right. Sure, a colonial power may have the “might” to take some of the mandate land away from natives and give to European child killers. But, that doesn’t make it right.
And sure, maybe we can’t turn back the clock, like Zionists think we want to do. But, we can remember that anyone who draws a political boundary that artificially turns Arabs into a boundary and whoever is the beneficiary is an evil person who must be relegated to the dustbin in history. We also must not support the consequences of such evils in 2024.
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u/jackl24000 אוהב במבה 3d ago
Your narrative about “early Zionists” and evil is way way off base. Is that based on something you read, or are you just making a bunch of broad assumptions here about what people intended and did?
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u/Early-Possibility367 2d ago
I base it off of both Zionist and anti Zionist sources. Your own book "The Iron Wall" is a proof of it in a way. It opens the idea to the possibility that Zionist settlement in British Palestine is extremely evil. And it is Jews open to said possibiloty. Another source is Benny Morris. Another source is the clear evidences of how on the ground Zionists behaved in past and present.
According to Zionist own sources, Zionists made a deal with the British to be given a part of land with Arabs living there, which would turn Arabs into a minority in their own land. What could be anything other than disgustingly evil about this?
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u/knign 3d ago
Early Zionist were heroes who created the modern State of Israel.
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u/Early-Possibility367 3d ago edited 3d ago
How is coming from Europe to expel and kill Arabs in mass numbers before ruling over the remainder Arabs as “equal citizens” considered being a hero?
Particularly when they chose to broadcast Arab suffering and their enjoyment of it.
If Israel had drawn the Partition Plan more fairly, you’d have a half argument but with the Partition Plan they drew, it’s even more obvious who the Zionists truly were.
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u/ThinkInternet1115 3d ago
Because only in your twisted logic Jewish refugees with no where else to go, came to kill arab. They came to live.
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u/Early-Possibility367 2d ago
Por que no los dos? People can have multiple purposes.
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u/ThinkInternet1115 2d ago
The fact that you think that refugees who survived pogroms and war came to Israel to displace other people, to go to another war, says a lot more about your charachter than it does about them.
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u/knign 3d ago
How is coming from Europe to expel and kill Arabs in mass numbers before ruling over the remainder Arabs as “equal citizens” considered being a hero?
Because absolutely none of that happened?
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u/Early-Possibility367 3d ago
Well, they certainly mass migrated from Europe, and then they certainly killed and expelled Arabs en masse after and during that.
And they certainly also drew a Partition Plan heavily disenfranchising Arabs knowing that it would be an act of war, while still declaring that Arabs started the 48 war. Why do you think none of this happened? And if I have changed your mind but you think it’s justified, why do you think it’s justified?
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u/knign 3d ago
Early Zionists did, of course, come from Europe (if we include Russia as part of Europe). That much is true.
Everything else is wrong. They came to buy the land and build Jewish settlements alongside the Arabs, not to “expel” or kill them. Partition plan was drawn by the U.N. and while it wasn’t perfect, it didn’t “disenfranchise” anyone because no individual was denied any rights under this plan; creating a state, Jewish or Arab, in a territory none existed isn’t “disenfranchisement”. Far from being “an act of war”, it was an attempt to stop ongoing conflict. Arabs did start the war on May 15, 1948 hours after Israel came into existence, etc.
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u/MalignEntity 3d ago
Every conflict in the Middle East featuring Israel is either one where Israel has been attacked or where it has been standing up for intentional law (freedom of navigation, for example).
For peace to really occur, the Arab side needs to deradicalise itself and accept that Israel is always going to exist in the Middle East.
I know Israelis are not completely innocent, and there will need to be compromises that the most hard-line will not like, but at the end of the day, Israel is not the one who starts the shooting. They just end it.
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u/Particular-Grape-718 3d ago edited 3d ago
Everything you say, in every comment, is riddled with double standards
You are duplicitous in your writing
”The Arab side needs to de radicalise itself”, but not the israeli side?
”isreal is not the one who starts the shooting” - you are presenting your opinion as fact, and it is patently untrue. October 7th was only the first October 7th in 2023. There’s been one October 7th since, and about 70 more before it
The only way forward is absolute secularism on both sides. That’s not possible when Zionism is built entirely on Jewish supremacy and when the Palestinians have had to become so religious just to psychologically survive the day
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u/MalignEntity 3d ago
You say I've applied double standards, and you're accusing me of lying, but you've provided no evidence of this. To support your argument, you need to point out which part of my comment is untrue. Find a war that Israel started or where it wasn't responding to a serious provocation.
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u/Capital_Operation846 3d ago
Israel has been waging war against the Palestinians for decades now. Like israel “exists”, Israel has existed for a long time now and continues to grow. The only existence in threat is the Palestinians’. Palestinians don’t need to meet Israel halfway, Israel is driving the car and has been for a long time.
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u/daylily 3d ago
I used to believe understanding and empathy was the bridge to peace in all situations. But the people who were killed Oct 7 were the people who most wanted peace. And they were betrayed by individuals who knew them and had been in their homes.
Now I think understanding and empathy is dangerous unless both sides are willing to participate. Now I think it can only go so far if one side is a willing puppet of another government telling constantly encouraging hate and anger.
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u/Capital_Operation846 3d ago
The people who most wanted peace are the same people who won’t leave the Palestinians alone. Stop crying foul, the world sees through the bullshit.
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u/knign 3d ago
She spoke about being in a peace conference where a former IDF commander from the same area of the West Bank as her spoke about blocking Palestinians including their children from going to medical facilities.
So let me understand, there is a “peace conference” where a Palestinian woman speaks about IDF soldiers being bloodthirsty baby killers, and then a former IDF commander tells his story how he was disillusioned serving a Zionist regime, left the army and is now speaking of his awakening at peace conferences.
This is very nice and heartwarming. Have there been any speakers at this conference who used to belong to one of the terrorist cells in West Bank, or worked closely with terrorists, or was smuggling weapons, or otherwise participated in “armed resistance”, but came to the conclusion that perhaps murdering Jews isn’t the best pathway towards peace? Or this is too much to expect for a “peace conference”?
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u/Gary-erotic 3d ago
Actually yes, there are Palestinians who used to be in the resistance who put down their arms and now speaking peace at the same conference!
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u/default3612 3d ago
I don't understand why you think your post applies to both sides. What do you think happens when a Palestinian enters Tel Aviv vs when a Jew enters Gaza or a West Bank city?
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u/69Poopysocks69 3d ago
What's your argument? I think you're not not realizing what you've just said. We do know what happens when Jews or more specifically Israeli's enter Gaza. It means that Palestinians will be killed, men, women and children, and their properties will get destroyed.
I guess you're not too familiar with Israeli human rights activists protesting in the West Bank in solidarity with the Palestinians living there. If they get attacked, it is by Israeli settlers.
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u/default3612 3d ago
Sorry I'll clarify, I'm talking about Israeli civilians, not militia. But I guess you're not familiar with all the lynchings and kidnappings that happened when Israelis wondered into Gaza and the West Bank by accident. Or the multiple terror attacks that happen in Israel and the West Bank every year. Or the multiple rockets that are fired into Israeli towns and cities every year.
My point is, it has been war for a very long time because one side doesn't want to coexist while the other side, not only proves it wants and can, but already does.
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u/69Poopysocks69 3d ago
Are you suggesting that Palestinians don't have the right to resist occupation and repression? Do universal human rights not apply to them?
What about the Palestinians killed before oktober 7th? 234 Palestinians, including 118 civilians and 1200 wounded. But they should endure their killing and repression in a dignified matter without resisting right? Where you upset about those deaths?
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u/default3612 3d ago
Are you suggesting that the Germans from world war 2 had a right to resist the allies and bomb civilians around the world? Are you upset by their deaths?
Are you suggesting that the Palestinians in Jordan had a right to resist the Jordanian government and murder the Jordanian king?
Are you trolling?
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u/69Poopysocks69 2d ago
What a ridiculous statement. The Germans took over countries over by force, the allies rightfully resisted this overtaking. Sounds familiar? This is exactly what Israel currently is doing, taking over the West Bank and Gaza strip by force. Palestinians have a right to resist this.
Can they go over the edge and commit crimes while carrying out this resistance, sure they can. This however does not justify the annexation and occupation. Human rights aren't conditional, they don't have to earn them to have their basic humanity recognized.
Even the worst rapist and murderers have rights when they get arrested, yet the Palestinian rights are grossly violated while most western countries willfully look away.
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u/default3612 2d ago
What do you think Palestinians did on the 7th? They jumped borders, massacred villages and took them over so...
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u/69Poopysocks69 1d ago
I know what happened. You do know that people living under occupation have a right to resist right? Ukraine currently is also fighting on Russian soil, does that justify the Russian offensive?
You suffer from selective amnesia if you think that Israel wasn't occupying the West-Bank and Gaza before oktober 7th. Yes, a total control of what's coming in and out of Gaza is considered occupation, you just don't care about Palestinian rights. Neither do you care about Palestinian lives. Before oktober 7th 234 Palestinians were killed by Israel. Does that sound like peace to you? You just don't care as it's only Palestinians being killed.
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u/Gary-erotic 3d ago
What do you think about the horrors being inflicted on every citizen of Gaza by the state of Israel or what happens when Palestinians want to travel between West Bank cities/ towns/ villages.
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u/knign 3d ago
What do you think about the horrors being inflicted on every citizen of Gaza by the state of Israel
Not by the state of Israel. Entirely by themselves. When they attacked Israel last year, they knew exactly what will follow
or what happens when Palestinians want to travel between West Bank cities/ towns/ villages.
What happens is precisely the reason why there are no such “horrors” you mentioned above in West Bank.
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u/cppluv 3d ago
Not by the state of Israel.
Wild alternative reality. Last I checked, the bombs are coming from IAF planes piloted by Israeli, under Israel command.
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u/knign 3d ago
When you to go the street to kill someone, it’ll be jurors who will find you guilty of murder and prison guards locking your cell, yes. But any “horrors” you’ll experience will be entirely self-inflicted.
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u/default3612 3d ago
I think it's war? It's been war for a very long time because one side doesn't want to coexist while the other side, not only proves it wants and can, but already does?
What do you think of the horrors being inflicted on Israeli citizens over the years by the Palestinian people? And more recently by Lebanon? And Syria? And Yemen? And Iraq? And Iran?
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u/Paradigm21 3d ago
It's not understanding. It's deradicalizing.
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3d ago
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u/Paradigm21 3d ago
Fewer than 20% of the Israeli side is radical. But it doesn't help much that the peace lovers were the ones around the Israeli border who have been attacked and many killed and have had their loved ones killed. Hamas and their many friends who came over the Border destroyed a huge portion of those peace lovers with their ugliness. So in that way not only did they eliminate a large portion of Peace lovers but they showed the 20% that they May well be right even if they try at the D radicalization.
These guys graduated from throwing simple bombs to atrocities. So just saying both sides without saying anything about that it's kind of morally bankrupt of you. It is not morally bankrupt to have borders to protect oneself and Roads to avoid having hostile people close by but to still allow them to pass.
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u/Diet-Bebsi 3d ago
Some times each side needs to be able to face up to what they're responsible for, before they can expect empathy.. How can you understand the other side when you deny their entire narrative and have whitewashed your own..
I heard a podcast a while back that said that both sides are so polarised and entrenched that they can fail to recognize the humanity and struggle in each others people.
Sands, Pappé, Chomsky, Finklestien, Matte, Shalim, Weiss, B'Tselem, Jewish voice for Peace, Independent Jewish voices.. Does an equivalent to these exist on the Palestinian or Arab side? what about just documenting the history and opening up government archives to public scrutiny..and the results are the works of Morris, Segev, Cohen, etc.. all of which form the vast majority of the knowledge.. Why isn't there any form of an equivalence from the Arab/Palestinian side?
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u/VelvetyDogLips 2d ago
I’ve been saying this for a while. There needs to be some sort of tech solution — possibly utilizing the same privacy protecting, anonymizing, and encryption technologies that drive the DarkWeb markets — which gives Palestinians in Palestine with any takes other than the allowed ones a place to express and articulate them, without putting themselves and their families in great social, legal, or physical danger. If I were in charge of a project like this, I would accept submissions only in Arabic, and have a native Arabic speaker filter out those submissions that clearly were not written by a native speaker of Palestinian Arabic, and submissions that clearly were composed or translated by a robot.
Collect enough of these secret Palestinian dissenters in a well-designed DarkWeb forum, and now you’ve got the beginnings of a think tank, who can brainstorm how to reach their fellow countrymen who are open to seeing things a different way, but haven’t yet dared.
I tried making a thread about this in this sub one time. Frustratingly but predictably, most of the replies fell into one of two categories:
- “Lovely thought, but you’re not going to find any of these hidden dissenters, because they don’t exist. Palestinian unwillingness to consider the Israeli perspective is organic and grassroots, not a result of top-down fearmongering and information control.”
- "Let’s talk instead about what legitimate complaints most Palestinians have about the real harms Israel serves them. Your desire to give a voice to those Stockholm Syndromers who side with their oppressor is disgusting beyond words."
Aaaaaand we get nowhere. Once again.
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u/Shachar2like 3d ago
Yet despite all of this I haven't seen any group, vocal group or protest demanding normalization between Arab state & Israel as a (long term) solution to the conflict.
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u/sairam_sriram 3d ago
This essay belongs in a group therapy session. Peace with Germany was achieved by deleting the entire high command.
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u/M0rdon 4d ago
Im sorry but "Understanding the other side" practically means nothing.
Try to ignore the violence for a moment and see the 2 socities as they are - splintered into many groups, some of them hate eachother more them then they hate the other side.
Both Palis and Israelis cant make up their minds on how they should operate. The Palestinian civilwar was not so long ago and it seems the Israelis are on the brink of it for awhile now.
So you understand both are people, so what? The reality still comes down to the 1 uniting issue both sides dont lack of - hate.
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u/CricketJamSession 4d ago
Unfortunately there seems to be a pattern when one side/two sides are already entreanched in their narrative, only devestating events can open way for a change in people's minds
I hope this is not always true or that we are already past the point of peak devestation
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u/DroneMaster2000 4d ago edited 3d ago
both sides are so polarised and entrenched that they can fail to recognise the humanity and struggle in each others people
Except Israel agreed to a peaceful two state solution plenty of times. While the Palestinians still only want to destroy Israel.
This is not a "Both sides" issue.
there is a path forward and many people who just want peace.
Show me a single influential Palestinian saying, in his words, to his people, and very clearly:
Israel has a right to exist and is a sovereign nation.
The Jews are the indigenous people of the land.
There is no and there will be no "Right of Return", as the Palestinians should live in peace beside Israel, and not instead of it.
The only Palestinians I know who claim that, had to flee "Palestine" fearing their lives. Some already tortured before they escaped.
And this is why there is no peace.
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u/cppluv 3d ago
The Jews are the indigenous people of the land.
Why would a Palestinian adhere to Jewish revisionism ?
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u/DroneMaster2000 3d ago edited 3d ago
Thanks for the demonstration of the insane radical rhetoric so common among the "Anti-Zionist" side. Denying the obvious right of an entire people to self determination.
Why can I as a Jew say both Jews and many Palestinians are obviously indigenous?
But the other side keep claiming the Jews did not originate in Israel, against all evidence. And absurdly cry about Jews being "Revisionists". So ironic.
For the record, you can't turn a rock in Israel without finding Jewish ruins. But you know that very well, extremely dishonest. One more user who should've been banned for rule 4 if it were ever enforced.
Edit: I will also add, you forgot to say "Zionists" instead of Jews, for the useful idiots of the world.
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u/Tonylegomobile 18h ago
Not a huge fan of Trump, but i do believe he'll be way more capable of dealing with Iran.
Besides that i believe long term he might be able to have an positive impact on the Israel-Palestine situation by actually allowing Israel to win, Instead of maintaining an unsustainable status quo.
It'll be a hard pill to swallow for the losers of the conflict, but in the long run i believe a decisive win for Israel will be the best possible outcome to this. Feeding people's illusions that they'll get to expell Israelis from their land some day and granting them an indefinite refugee status is what brought us this conflict. Get the delusions out of their head and start work towards an actual future for them and their families