43 votes

The unpunished: How extremists took over Israel

4 comments

  1. [4]
    EMSAqueen
    (edited )
    Link
    Thank you for sharing this. It is an incredibly long and detailed breakdown of the failures of the state of Israel to internally and externally prevent targeted violence against Palestinians by...
    • Exemplary

    Thank you for sharing this. It is an incredibly long and detailed breakdown of the failures of the state of Israel to internally and externally prevent targeted violence against Palestinians by Zionist-extremists. There are always "good eggs" that believe that if they follow the system that justice will prevail and peace can be found. These people investigate, write reports, and present them showing countless evidence of violence and hate only to be brushed off by a government that doesn't care and doesn't want to hear it.

    When you constantly put pressure on people and beat them down with no way out or way to improve their lives, there will always be violent outbursts from those that are oppressed. At this point it is clear that the settlers and those in the government, police, army, etc which support them are just looking for an excuse to wipe out all Palestinians, Arabs, and non-Zionist Jews and Israelis. Incite violence then use that violence as justification to say "well look we can't be peaceful with these savages so we just have to kill them all, oops" with a shrug. It's a bit of a dumb comparison but if you step on a cats tail and then it scratches you, you can't blame the cat for hurting you in response.

    I don't know what to do about it and that uncertainty is paralyzing. I live in NYC and the tensions are so high with no clear path forward. Between student demonstrations, posters plastered everywhere for both sides, and this undercurrent of tension as everyone is looking for moments to make the other side look bad, I don't know how to help without harming. I hate this world where articles can seriously state the stats of 1500 Israelis dead vs ~30000 Palestinians mostly women and children and not feel disgust for supporting the side actively doing nothing to diminish the death of innocent people. They are enforcing a man made famine as countries are practically begging to bring in aid. I just can't reconcile the humanity of those around me that don't feel disgusted looking at those facts.

    This turned into a bit of a rant. The article is important and necessary to read, and I hope you all do.

    33 votes
    1. [3]
      Grzmot
      Link Parent
      If you back an animal into a corner and continue to push, it will attack. Humans are animals, and so this rule applies to us too. It's also a known fact that Netanyahu had no issues with letting...

      If you back an animal into a corner and continue to push, it will attack. Humans are animals, and so this rule applies to us too. It's also a known fact that Netanyahu had no issues with letting Hamas rule Gaza to divide and conquer the Palestinian opposition between them and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). In all honesty, I put a lot of the blame at the current breakdown in the middle east at his feet. His lust for power and desire to remain in it lead him to forge alliances that turned this conflict a lot more violent than was ever necessary.

      A lot of this dicussion came up when I posted Shaun's video on Palestine here on Tildes; because he essentially made a very simple argument as to who is in the moral right; Israel is a colonial project that has oppressed Arabs and thus it's clear that it's Palestine that must be supported. The problem of course is that this conflict is so corrosive that supporting Palestine means accepting that attacks like Oct. 7th will continue to occur (remember, Hamas doesn't want to establish Palestine, Hamas wants to destroy Israel), plus the fact that Hamas is supported by lots of unsavoury regimes in the region, namely Iran.

      I think this was why a lot of people were on Israel's side for a long time. It is the only democracy on the Arabian peninsula, but of course, that has not protected it from committing crimes against humanity just like all the other countries there. It's also in the process of being dismantled by Zionists who want to create an ethnostate on the basis of mass deportation and genocide; which is amusing in a bleakly cynical way.

      Netanyahu needs to go. He's clearly one of those men who will do everything to stay in power, which makes them dangerous, because you cannot appeal to them on the basis of ideology. Because a large share of his power comes from orthodox Jewish circles, he will continue to appease them for as long as is necessary, which means that even in more peaceful times, the Jewish settling in Palestinian lands will continue.

      The problem continues to be that while Israel is unquestionably in the middle of committing some real and hard war crimes, the other sides are not victims here either, especially the ruling class. No other nation bordering Israel has taken in their supposed Palestinian brothers and sisters and given them a home. Everyone is willing to use the real people, the real men, women and children suffering on the ground as something to bargain with. They're all too happy to point the finger at Israel for their crimes, which is correct, but does not lessen the hypocritical nature of their argument. Anyone looking for a side to unequivocally support morally will just not find a satisfying answer here.

      Around when Israel was established, most bordering nations reacted by a) pushing the Jews living inside their borders and b) declaring war. The establishment of Israel isn't the sole cause here, there are also some earlier events, but all I'm trying to say that finding a whole side the stand by in arguments and to monetarily support (because there is nothing else you can do) is difficult, dare I say impossible.

      You can say such things as killing civilians is bad no matter if they are Jewish or Arab, but realistically speaking you can only do that from the comfortable safety of distance, because if you were there, it'd likely just result in both sides hating you.

      I don't want to sound defeatist by claiming that the only way to "solve" this problem is by one side winning, but right now I'm just not seeing any signs for the conflict to slow down in such a way to allow peace. I think the way that the US administration is going right now with trying to appease Israel with Saudi recognition of their statehood in exchange for them finally allowing the establishment of Palestine is a good way to go about it, but it's a fine line to walk, because as long as the US keeps shipping weapons to Israel they have little reason to stop. On the other hand, if they stop, why would Israel listen to the US? There's also a great chance that it would trigger a wider war as the technological edge, plus an experienced army that has pretty much been in conflict since the establishment of the country, plus American supplies are what keep the other nations at bay right now. No one wants a repetition of the wars that came before, which all squarely ended with decisive Israel victories. The US doesn't want Israel to go either, because while they maintain great relations to Saudi Arabia, Israel is gonna basically agree to anything that the US wants to do in the middle east because they depend on them so much.

      As long as none of these factors change, the killing will continue.

      14 votes
      1. [2]
        SloMoMonday
        Link Parent
        It's unfathomable just how stacked the deck is against the Palestinian people. Hell, even if there was a complete regime change to a fully sympathetic administration, there is no meaningful road...

        It's unfathomable just how stacked the deck is against the Palestinian people. Hell, even if there was a complete regime change to a fully sympathetic administration, there is no meaningful road to a Palestinian state.

        There's no real global Islamic identity to leverage and beside middle eastern countries being exceptionally xenophobic, the global Muslim population is effectively impotent while the Saudis are aligned Israeli. Most local Muslim communities are plaged with politics and infighting and if a group takes a united stance against Saudis interests, they can easily be denied access to pilgrimage. And the Arabs really don't care beyond their borders. Like I remember a Dubai influcer telling people to pray for Palestine from their Superyacht. There's also rumors that outspoken opponents to the war are being denied Hajj visas but even that speculation is enough to temper peoples desire to help.

        On top of that, the pro-Isreal PR machine is incredible at staying on message. Any mainstream channel covering a story has a considerable bias and public forums are immediately brigaded with the same handful of talking points. It's also one of the few bipartisan positions. No ammount of student protests and campaigning will change the governments course for the next decade at least.

        And the worst part is that there's a pessimistic, conspiratorial part of me that believes none of the politics and ideology really matters and it would have happened regardless of who's in power. All that part of me sees is a false flag where a government kills a few hundred civilians and tens of thousands of foreigners to grab some prime land and build a fancy new port.

        7 votes
        1. Grzmot
          Link Parent
          The Palestinian situation honestly reminds me of the Kurds. Another national identity without a nation. No one on the international level is pushing for them and Israel will always have the US...

          The Palestinian situation honestly reminds me of the Kurds. Another national identity without a nation.

          No one on the international level is pushing for them and Israel will always have the US behind it, which is already a very significant weight on their side. There's no counterweight for Palestine. They will never be able to match Israel's military might and as long as Israel keeps drifting towards religious extremism because orthodox jews make up more and more of the population, it's gonna get worse.

          It's not just that Israel's PR machine is good (it is), but I think a lot of people supporting Palestine also have issues with the profound hypocritical feeling one can feel when supporting Palestine, when it means that a) Hamas is still a factor, and separating them from Palestine is hard, b) Arab nations keep saying shit and never doing shit and c) most of us are far away from this struggle. If the nations close by don't care, how are you supposed to fix this issue at all?

          2 votes