Israel has offered Hamas a new cease-fire proposal, Biden says

[palma 8,918]

Just now, River said:

Biden be like:

The worst part is everyone can see crystal clear that this won’t end the conflict or truly help the civilians in Gaza - it’s only for the Biden administration to save face for the elections.

I am so tired that people are always forced to choose the lesser evil. 

[Axl Jax 646]

1 hour ago, gumzy3000 said:

This is never going to end unfortunately. Even with a "ceasefire" the damage is done.

What Hamas did on Oct 7 was barbaric but the genocidal response from Israel with the bombing of hospitals and refugee camps from the killing of children and aid workers has sown the seeds of hatred and extremism for decades to come. The Palestinian kids who grew up in this mess are going to retaliate when they are older, they are never going to look at Israel as anything but the killer of their parents, friends, and relatives.

This whole thing is further going to complicate relations with the Middle East and the Western world forever. I have no hope left, its only going to get worse in the long-term. 

Forgive my ignorance as I'm not hugely educated on this topic but aren't Hamas hiding within civilian areas and having their bases under hospitals etc?

What Israel has done and is doing is unforgivable but looking from the lens of each side its such a complex situation that I can't see ending for a long time 😞

Edit: after re reading the part you wrote about the Palestinian kids growing up, I can actually for the first time in my life see how terrorists are created. (Very slightly - I hope I don't get a warning for this). Just a bit of empathy coming out of me for a topic I never thought I would have. Understanding is probably a better word actually.

[River 129,151]

27 minutes ago, palma said:

The worst part is everyone can see crystal clear that this won’t end the conflict or truly help the civilians in Gaza - it’s only for the Biden administration to save face for the elections.

I am so tired that people are always forced to choose the lesser evil. 

Yeah and one of the reasons is that the US and the majority of the European countries simply doesn't want a Palestinian country, they can pretend like they care all they want (while handing Israel weapons and political aid in the UN), they have the power to declare a Palestinian country tomorrow, but they will not do that.

[palma 8,918]

2 minutes ago, River said:

Yeah and one of the reasons is that the US and the majority of the European countries simply doesn't want a Palestinian country, they can pretend like they care all they want (while handing Israel weapons and political aid in the UN), they have the power to declare a Palestinian country tomorrow, but they will not do that.

If only the parties could agree on the two-state solution back in the 70's when Labor was strong. I have no faith that I'll ever see this conflict resolved... 

[River 129,151]

Just now, palma said:

If only the parties could agree on the two-state solution back in the 70's when Labor was strong. I have no faith that I'll ever see this conflict resolved... 

tbh it became so complicated that it's kind of 3 states right now, West Bank, Gaza and Israel..

[Edonis 28,974]

1 hour ago, palma said:

If only the parties could agree on the two-state solution back in the 70's when Labor was strong. I have no faith that I'll ever see this conflict resolved... 

I know this is extremely controversial to say, but the main reason you see push back about a 2-state solution is because it does not address where any of the Palestinians living in exile (i.e. Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, etc.) that do not originate from the West Bank or Gaza are going to be placed. That's the issue.

A lot of people will spin it as anti-Semitism or that they don't want Jewish people to have a right to exist in a land, etc. but the reality is that only half of Palestinians living in the West Bank are actually from the West Bank. Instead, they're from all over what is now Israel. Most Palestinians in the refugee camps in Lebanon for example, are from the North and West parts of Israel. Those areas wouldn't be incorporated into a 2-state plan, so refugees are then stuck living in sub-humane conditions and the cycle continues. 

That's why you see so much push back (from specifically Levantine Arabs and Palestinians) about the 2-state solution. It's a Band-Aid over a much more serious issue. 

[lavender blonde 698]

1 hour ago, Obobo said:

This conflict has been going on for 75+ years. “Ceasefire” or not, nothing is going to change.

Offically, yeah. But actually conflict between Jews and Muslims has been going on since Islam was created.

[Edonis 28,974]

11 minutes ago, lavender blonde said:

Offically, yeah. But actually conflict between Jews and Muslims has been going on since Islam was created.

I mean, we can have a conversation about division between Abrahamic religions on another day, but if you think it's only Palestinian Muslims (or Muslims in general) that have beef with Israel, you have extremely misguided. 

Not getting into that in this thread though. 

[palma 8,918]

20 minutes ago, lavender blonde said:

Offically, yeah. But actually conflict between Jews and Muslims has been going on since Islam was created.

Not true. Jews were relatively welcoming of the Islamic rule and they were quite well-integrated into the Caliphate when it first conquered the Middle East - Byzantines had a way stricter religious policy and would often persecute Jews. In later centuries Sephardim Jews expelled from Spain were settled in the Ottoman Empire and many of them went on to have prosperous lives and could hold their own courts. I don't like the world "tolerant" at all but Jews in the East were doing much better then those in Europe (save for few places like the Netherlands) in the Early Modern Age and pogroms were not really a thing (compared to Eastern Europe, for instance). I know for a fact that in Ottoman Constantinople Jews often had issues not with the Muslims but with the Armenians and Greeks (competitors in trade).

The discourse that Jews and Muslims are eternal enemies is crafted and built upon the biblical narrative of Israelites vs Canaanites and it only works to spread the idea that there can be no peace between them without one destroying the other. It feeds both antisemitism and islamophobia and it's a lie.

[lavender blonde 698]

1 minute ago, Edonis said:

I mean, we can have a conversation about division between Abrahamic religions on another day, but if you think it's only Palestinian Muslims (or Muslims in general) that have beef with Israel, you have extremely misguided. 

Not getting into that in this thread though. 

I don't understand what you mean? Of course the same thing can be applied to Jews and Christians, but this war has nothing to do with it. I'm just saying that Jews and Muslims have had conflict for centuries that for example led to pogroms of Middle Eastern Jews. Those negative emotions and experiences from both sides has impacted 1948 and that's a fact.

[Future Lovers 7,880]

1 hour ago, Axl Jax said:

Forgive my ignorance as I'm not hugely educated on this topic but aren't Hamas hiding within civilian areas and having their bases under hospitals etc?

These bases under hospitals Israel speaks of have not been found. As for are they among the population? Sure they are. That's how these groups operate. But are they hiding? No. They're not hiding. They're very out in the open. Israel just wants an excuse to drop their bombs wherever they want. 

[lavender blonde 698]

12 minutes ago, palma said:

Not true. Jews were relatively welcoming of the Islamic rule and they were quite well-integrated into the Caliphate when it first conquered the Middle East - Byzantines had a way stricter religious policy and would often persecute Jews. In later centuries Sephardim Jews expelled from Spain were settled in the Ottoman Empire and many of them went on to have prosperous lives and could hold their own courts. I don't like the world "tolerant" at all but Jews in the East were doing much better then those in Europe (save for few places like the Netherlands) in the Early Modern Age and pogroms were not really a thing (compared to Eastern Europe, for instance). I know for a fact that in Ottoman Constantinople Jews often had issues not with the Muslims but with the Armenians and Greeks (competitors in trade).

The discourse that Jews and Muslims are eternal enemies is crafted and built upon the biblical narrative of Israelites vs Canaanites and it only works to spread the idea that there can be no peace between them without one destroying the other. It feeds both antisemitism and islamophobia and it's a lie.

Yeaaah, medieval Muslims were so nice towards Jews that they were forced to live in segregated areas, wear yellow badge, be publicly subservient to Muslims, couldn't marry Muslims, had limited access to legal system and had to pay special tax Maybe in the Early Modern Age pogroms in Middle East weren't a thing, but in early 20th century?

The truth is that great tragedies like Holocaust or Isreali-Palestinian war were influenced by religion and that's why I think that all religions are evil.

[SwissMonster 30,688]

“populated areas“ **** this sh!t. They really thought nobody would notice that “detail”??

[palma 8,918]

33 minutes ago, lavender blonde said:

Yeaaah, medieval Muslims were so nice towards Jews that they were forced to live in segregated areas, wear yellow badge, be publicly subservient to Muslims, couldn't marry Muslims, had limited access to legal system and had to pay special tax Maybe in the Early Modern Age pogroms in Middle East weren't a thing, but in early 20th century?

The truth is that great tragedies like Holocaust or Isreali-Palestinian war were influenced by religion and that's why I think that all religions are evil.

I did not say that they were "nice" and I also said that I don't like the expression "tolerant" hoping to make clear that I was not trying to claim that  All I was trying to say that Jews and Muslims did coexist in the Middle East without killing one another at every turn and compared to their kin living under Christian rule, Jewish communities had relatively better conditions - it has more to do with Islam antagonizing Christianity and using Jewish connections across the globe to make money rather than Muslims being real nice guys but we cannot say that the Jews were, under every circumstance, being seen as an eternal enemy that needed to be eradicated. Post-19th century is an entirely different discussion as it involved the introduction of nationalism - which led to the break up of multi-confessional and multi-ethnic empires of the East and basically laid the groundwork for the creation of nation-states (an inherently European concept) and come the time of the genocides and pogroms in the Middle-East. 

The twisted sick demons who came up with Holocaust were not exactly the most devout people (they also did their best to antagonize the Catholic Church, for instance) and the Israeli-Palestinian war was the direct result of British colonialism. Sure, Arab states employed a religious rhetoric to attack the Jews but they weren't literally waging war on them before the British Mandate in Palestine. 

All religions are evil, that I agree with you. But it's only a tool to legitimize hate - not the root of hate itself.

[BabylonSaints 5,365]

I'll believe this when I see it. I don't trust them to follow through on their ceasefire negotiations at all