The Situation in Israel/Palestine

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When I was moving to Israel, I wanted to learn more about politics and I wanted to get as many points of view as possible. I joined r/Israel, r/IsraelPalestine and r/MiddleEast. In order: very pro-Israel, mostly pro-Israel but open to some more nuanced conversations, very anti-Semitic.

I also was a member of many Facebook groups for people making aliyah (Jews moving to Israel) - everything from people above 50 moving to Israel to being financially smarter to the official group for making aliyah. I’d also joined a group for people “making yerida” (“going down” or leaving Israel), to get the anti-Israel point of view


Then when I moved to Israel, I joined a bunch of WhatsApp groups of immigrants. When the war broke out, I was recommended to subscribe to various WhatsApp News groups, mostly Israeli sources. This was necessary to keep safe.

On YouTube I subscribe to the channel of an Israeli tour guide who prior to the war occasionally posted about politics, but mostly on things like how to buy a bus ticket or see the big holy sites, but then after the war he wasn’t getting much work as a tour guide so he started to post mostly political content, with a focus on educating about some of the historical facts around the creation of Israel and Palestine. His content is informative but pro-Israeli.

Of course, I get the News feed on my phone from all the big news sources like BBC, CNN, CBS, etc.

There’s very little that feels neutral, and I feel like most of my content is weighted more toward Israel. I have a hard time connecting to the Palestinian point of view even though I try. It’s tough to not feel like they brought all of this on themselves with such a vicious attack on an enemy with a stronger army.

I didn’t seek them out, but because of my newsfeed, I’ve watched more videos than I wished I had from 10/7. They are gruesome. I’ve read more reports of what happened on that day that I wished. I’ve seen videos from a first responder who was documenting what he found at the festival. I’ve seen videos from security cameras near borders. I’ve seen videos that were livestreamed on 10/7 on Telegram by the terrorists themselves. I can’t even talk to people about how awful these videos are because it’s natural to want to turn away; there is something voyeuristic about watching a security camera feed. I don’t recommend to watch these videos, but I don’t know how you can understand the Israeli position without seeing them.

What’s particularly hard for me is that a lot of the people at the festival and in the kibbutzes were people who were compassionate to the situation in Palestine and who were actively working to create alliances with people in Gaza. I feel like, politically, I align a lot with those people. Then to see what happened to them, how their trust was taken advantage of and in such brutal ways, I have a hard time reconciling it in my mind.

As I followed the war, Israel’s assaults seemed justified to me because the only way to get Hamas out was to get the tunnels, and they were strategically placed in hospitals, daycares, and schools. I’m not sure what choice Israel had but to destroy these bunkers, even if that meant civilians were harmed. If Hamas cared about their civilians, they wouldn’t have put them in harm’s way, and they would wear uniforms, then Israel wouldn’t be put in the position of destroying these people’s homes and hospitals.

But as they get to Rafah and threaten to go in there, it’s as inhumane as the attack that started it all. People are starving, without sanitation, crowded together with nowhere to go. Maybe there is a military need to go in there, but when is it just too far? I don’t want to be a part of a country that responds like this. There has to be another way.

When I watch sources from Israel, they focus on 10/7 and it seems like they are in a bubble where they are unaware of how they are being viewed by the rest of the world. They want the captives back.

If I read a pro-Palestinian source, they focus on how awful and inhuman the Israelis are. Vice versa for pro-Israeli sources. Probably the biggest sticking point is that there are 2 conversations - one about land and one about religion. The land dispute seems solvable. The religious one does not.

I don’t know what the answer is, but I feel like as a Jewish person and Israeli, that I want Israeli to find a way that is in alignment with our values. I need them to stop now, but how do they get Hamas to the table without the threat of violence? It’s hard to sleep at night. I want it all to end.

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I’ve not seen such a reasoned response to the whole situation. I agree with most of what you’ve said.

What really bugs me is this “genocide” business. It is a war. However it’s a peculiar war because the perpetrators of the Oct. 7 massacre are terrorists, yet they seem to be the closest thing to a government in the region (if I understand correctly). Yet they continue to be terrorists. I don’t think they want to end the suffering, because they don’t seem to care about people, even their own. They hide and surround themselves with innocent people as human shields.

Hamas brought all of this upon themselves. Killing people doesn’t seem to bother them, nor do all the atrocities they committed, nor holding hostages (I refuse to call them “prisoners of war.”) I wish the Palestinians could somehow form a real government that doesn’t stoop to war crimes. I also wish the whole thing would end, but without Israel be called out for genocide. They didn’t start the conflict. I hope their massive response will make Hamas rethink their methods, but somehow I doubt it.

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This is the Israeli viewpoint, that the Palestinians haven’t had good leadership. It would benefit Israel to have good neighbors they can trade with who have their own stable government.

However, I also think that there’s this situation where Gaza is not a country that makes this so much more complicated. Israel no longer rules Gaza, but they do have a big influence over their access to food, water, and infrastructure.

People are rightly outraged at living in crowded conditions and having their food and water controlled by Israel. Israel definitely isn’t innocent in the conditions that Gazans have to live with. I don’t know all the accusations about how Israelis have treated Gazans over the years, but I am sure that some of it is true. I am sure the IDF treats Gazans with brutality, anger, and harm.

I’ve seen people argue that Hamas shouldn’t have dug up the water pipes and repurposed them for military use, but countries do invest in military infrastructure all the time, even when it means that people don’t eat. Look at the U.S.; we spend lots of money on bombs and not so much on feeding the poor.

Guerilla warfare is really effective for people that can’t afford conventional weapons. Gaza doesn’t have the support and military infrastructure that Israel has, so it got scrappy and built tunnels and missile capability. I don’t think it’s so sinister that they created all the tunnels, or even that they placed them so Israel would be less willing to target them.

There doesn’t seem to be any mechanism for the war to come to an end because Hamas doesn’t seem to have a positive goal. There doesn’t seem to be a vision for a flourishing state. They want all of Israel. That’s what “from the river to the sea” means. That war got fought a long time ago and they lost. It doesn’t matter whether people like that outcome or not; that’s been the situation for decades now.

Hamas doesn’t have the firepower or the support from other countries to take over Israel. They can’t put up a real fight. They’re being demolished. It’s a sad and weird situation, because it’s not possible to imagine - even before the war - how Gazans can live safe, happy, healthy, and free.

It seems like all they have is outrage instead of hope for a better life, and Hamas is keeping their people clinging to that outrage.

Israel had some weird plan to deport Gazans to an African nation. That plan was terrible. But, I don’t think the 2 state solution is a good one either. It isn’t what Gazans want. I think they deserve better
I also don’t think they are going to get what they want, which is Israel
and specifically, Jerusalem.

That I think is the part that isn’t just about having a land, but about having THAT land. The holy sites are so meaningful to people. They’ve been parceled up as much as possible, but extremists on all sides don’t want to share those sites. Even if Gazans had their own country, they still wouldn’t have Israel.

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As an outside observer with no connection to either side, the first thing that comes to mind is something I learned when growing up in a fairly rough area - “fight fire with napalm”. Basically if a bully or someone attacks you and does some damage, then you need to do significantly more damage in return in order to make that something they won’t consider doing again.

That may work at an individual level, but it breaks down a bit at a societal level. Especially when there’s a multigenerational feud where each side thinks that their own attack is the justified reprisal, and the opponent is the bully. And especially when so many noncombatants suffer due to a feud they weren’t even participating in.

But Hamas broke the peace, committed atrocities, and they knew full well what to expect and chose to do it anyway. They actively chose to and called this down upon themselves and their neighbors.

It sucks though, there’s no easy way to break that cycle. If it’s just two people, most likely one of them is going to stop after awhile. But when it’s a whole society, and much of the pain falls on people other than the perpetrators, then it has a way of perpetuating itself.

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A one state solution was always the answer but right-wing israelis (and hamas tbh) hate voting as a fash statement. It’s just the fashion since Rabin got whacked. Machers and machers alike must measure their dicks. Apparently.

There’s not much money in Israel/Palestine except tourism, so to stop fucking with the ACTUAL money, the money that makes real people real money, not deals with Milwaukee and ASMR, be nice. Peace and love will come, but the fundies gotta go.

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I feel that would have been more relevant 25 years ago when I started having these thoughts about politics but were too terrified to voice.

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A world-wide solution.

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And this is precisely why there are forces on both sides who work hard to keep it on religion, because then the problem seems entirely intractable. It’s not. If you look at the longer history (the Ottoman era, especially), there is certainly peace to be had, and this current conflict, it’s really about land, not religion. For one, when you talk about Palestinians and Israelis, neither are a religious monolith. And this all started with a dispute over land and some of the earliest Zionists were not necessarily deeply religious folks, but plenty of left-wingers who believed in a safe Jewish state, but a secular one.

Jews have been historically dehumanized for a long time, especially in the west. But the Palestinians are being lumped into a single group and dehumanized too, right now. They are indeed being ethnically cleansed from their home, and that’s not something we can or should ignore, just like we should not ignore the 10/7 attacks. As long as the idea that it’s all Israelis/Palestinians that are to blame, therefore whatever happens is seen as okay because “they brought it on themselves.”

I guess that depends on who you ask what that means. Not everyone holds the same values in Israel. The current government certainly doesn’t hold all human beings as having value, that much is clear. Same for Hamas’ leadership.

I didn’t realize that Hamas recruited babies? Because quite a few of the members of Hamas are alive and well, while plenty of children have been brutally killed. We really do need to stop equating ALL palestinians with Hamas, just like we should not accept that all Israelis support genocidal actions in response to 10/7.

Well, killing everyone in Gaza will not help that at all. Killing children (whatever their ethnicity, religion, nationality, etc) never helps anyone reach a peace deal.

The only way to really move forward is a common acceptance of each other’s basic humanity, an end to violence (which the Israelis hold overwhelming force) and a good faith effort at a peace settlement. Neither Hamas or the current Israeli government are willing to do that. They both need to go and others need to step up and figure something out. But the status quo isn’t sustainable and it wasn’t before 10/7 and it’s certainly not now. Netanyahu has spent YEARS doing everything he could to undermine a two state soltuion and pushing for a complete take over of the lands taken in 67. He believes in “Greater Israel” with no Palestinians in sight. Hell, he funded Hamas, because he thought that their violent and bellicose methods would help him achieve that.

What else can it be called? If we can speak about the inhumanity Palestinians have suffered in the same way that we do about the people who were attacked on 10/7, then we don’t hold their humanity in common, do we? We find one people disposable and they very much are not. Just like the people attacked on 10/7 did not cause that, neither did the people in Gaza who were NOT in Hamas.

That’s true. No one has been seen as particular helpful since Arafat died. But Netanyahu felt it was more expedient to deal with Hamas and to marginalize the PA as much as possible. And most Palestinians see the PA as highly corruption and merely an extension of the occupation.

Exactly that.

Because there has been no movement to formalized statehood, in part because of the occupation.

It absolutely is the case. Plenty of Israelis say that, not just Palestinians.

Yep, yep
 I find a useful text for thinking about this, and how this kind of resistance can be incredibly brutal is Wretched of the Earth by Franz Fanon. He was a psychologist, so he’s not just focused on a strategic view of anti-colonial violence, but how this kind of brutality associated with colonial or an occupation like this can create a deep sense of nihilistic hopelessness.

Frankly, though, neither does Netanyahu (to the end? what PRECISELY does that mean? He has not said). It’s still a two way street here, and the IDF still holds the majority of the cards.

I think we have to think about that, and try to imagine it, living side by side with Israelis in peace, because I think so much rides on it. It’s clear that the leadership in Gaza and Israel can’t do it, so the Palestinians and the Israelis must be the ones to do it for their leaders and make their leaders hold to it
 But as long as the Israelis hold the cards the way they do, it’s on their government to start with a ceasefire.

Well, as you said in your previous post, plenty of israelis seem to feel this way, too. That they just have a negative view of the Palestinians and aren’t interested in negotiation.

The original plan was not all of it for a capital, but East Jerusalem. Both Christians and Muslims are being pushed out of East Jersualem though.

Ethnic cleansing, though is not the answer here. At all.

And again, that is a two way street, as some Israelis also support “Greater Israel”


They did not do it in a vacuum though, and we should acknowledge that. There had not been any movement on any sort of peace talks for ages, Israelis had been taking greater shares of land in the West Bank for a while under the current government, and the embargo was strangling life in Gaza


This isn’t about religion, though. Not really. It’s always been about land. But no, the fundies do not help, but the fundies aren’t just being fundies for their own sake. It’s about land.

A ceasefire is the best place to start, and then figure out some good faith actors from both sides to hammer out a long-term peace deal. Palestinians are not just going to go away and stop having claims to their homes that they were pushed out of 70 or 50 years ago (or this year). Likewise, the state of Israel is not just going to “go away” as some wish it would. Until both groups of people have leaders willing to acknowledge the pain of the other group, and to seriously work for a solution for all, we’re gonna keep playing these shitty, brutal, violent, genocidal games.

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Ok, they brought it on their neighbors then. They chose to have their neighbors’ babies killed. That really doesn’t make it better.

This has been an ongoing feud, they knew that this would happen and they chose it.

I agree with your other points, certainly. But we have to acknowledge that a group of people got together and decided it was worth the cost, knowing what that cost would be. And that’s kind of horrifying.

It’s either that or they were all total idiots thinking they could just go on a rampage and their victims would happily accept it. Like they expected the response to just be “Ok, you slaughtered my family, guess you got me this time. Haha.”

Nah, they knew what they were getting into. They knew that everyone around them would become victims. And they chose to do it anyway. Because it adds that martyrdom justification and radicalizes those who would’ve otherwise been perfectly happy not to get involved in the fight.

They chose to inflict these horrors on their friends, family, and neighbors.

Yes they had a shitty situation. Not easy to deal with. Not many options. But they chose the most evil option possible.

Edit to add: I should probably just step out of this discussion. I’m a bit emotional about it. Trying not to be rude but the “babies” thing kinda set me off. Apologize if I seem a little rough in my response. I sat here and thought but I didn’t come up with a better way to word it.

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And why is that an acceptable justification for the response? Hamas is a bad actor, we know that. But if they were hiding within the Israeli population, would they be destroying entire cities trying to get to them? Of course not. So it’s clear that they view ALL palestinians as complicit and are acting accordingly. They’ve even said so.

Exactly. It doesn’t. I think we agree on that general point - that Hamas did a fucking awful thing and the Israeli government is doing an awful thing in return.

That really sort of downplaying the entire history here, though. Traumatized people, who had suffered years of persecution founded a country that led to yet more violence and persecution (and war with their neighbors). One wrong justified other wrongs. From the start, even Jewish people debated the founding and disagreed on how it happened, and what that should mean for the Palestinian population. From 48, there have been strong anti-Zionist sentiment from some in the diaspora, and that’s not to be dismissed out of hand. But the history is contested and it angers people to even discuss it, so it rarely gets discussed in the public discourse, other than to be a cudgel used to beat dissenting opinions into submission. If you bring up the Nakba, you’re ignoring the Holocaust, if you bring up the Holocaust, you’re ignoring the Nakba, but BOTH matter when we discuss the founding of Israel and its subsequent history. I think humanizing both sides means common acknowledgement of both historical realities and how they’re interrelated now.

And Israel played right into their hands. They are doing this, not because it’s the ONLY viable option for dealing with Hamas (that would include supporting real alternatives that have not been entirely discredited by many Palestinians), but because this is how they’ve decided to deal with it. There ARE and WERE other options, and this is the one they settled on.

They knew precisely what would happen. Hamas is not made up of idiots (rather murderous assholes).

But, again, the entire Gaza strip is NOT Hamas. And conflating the two is just disingenous (at best).

I think that the way things have been going has radicalized people, though, since Oslo fell apart. Peaceful protests have been generally ignored, as have any and all petitions made to the UN for redress. Things were at a breaking point, already, with no path forward.

And again, Israel could have made a different choice. They did not. They too, seemed to have gone for the most evil option available to them. It’s pretty clear where the invasion of Rafah is going to end up. Egypt gave the game away when it became clear that they are building a refugee camp just over the border (after saying that they would not accept refugees).

We all are, I think. I do want to say that I don’t think anyone here is arguing in bad faith or is supporting the destruction of the Palestinian people (@ChickieD has made it especially clear how conflicted she feels over all this, despite leaning harder towards the Israeli position more generally). I do think that emotions are running high, but that we really should acknowledge that there are conflations being made about who is at fault, and who should bear responsibility. I don’t think anyone would say that the children who have been killed (or lost entire families, etc) are responsible for what Hamas did.

And just to be clear, I DO NOT support Hamas. It is abundantly clear to me that even before this, they were doing a shitty job of running things. They are an authoritarian group who have been incredibly brutal to the population of Gaza. But I’d HOPE that people here know me enough to know how I feel about what they did.

no, you’re more than fine. We disagree, but I don’t feel like you’re attacking me. Just know that I’m working to communicate in good faith here, and not trying to attack you or anyone else here. But I do feel the need to bring some broader historical context to the discussion.

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That’s a really good point that hadn’t occurred to me as such. Now that you’ve mentioned it though, I can’t unsee it. It definitely adds some perspective.

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There’s always choices, I think. But something like 10/7 happens and people are angry and hurt and scared. “Wipe them out” starts to seem like a reasonable response to something like 10/7.

Another point, but right now there isn’t any evidence to back this up - that the cross-border operation by Hamas was probably not expected to end up like it did
 I think they probably expected an immediate response from their incursion by the IDF, that this would be a short, suicide mission for the people carrying it out, they’d all be dead within an hour of crossing over, and then, there’d be some kind of response from Israel that might move the needle
 Hence, they (apparently, I’m not sure it’s been confirmed or not) gave the people carrying it out drugs, because they expected to be dead at the end of the day. Instead, in some places, they ended up being able to infiltrate for hours/days - hoped up on hate and drugs. Lots of the IDF had been moved to the West Bank to protect the illegal settlements, hence the slow response.

And here, there were other choices Hamas could have made, rather than this, because it turned into an awful bloodbath that didn’t accomplish anything productive for Palestinians (which indicates that they’re not operating in good faith anymore). I think a lot of people were (understandably) frustrated by the lack of focus on the protests on the Gazan border that had been going on for years. And on top of that, Hamas was losing support to more radical groups and the people who were tired of their oppression in Gaza itself. And even more upsetting, the Egyptians apparently warned the Israeli government about this, and the Israeli government just dismissed it.

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(I’m not sure where on the media spectrum The Intercept lies, but this looked fairly in-depth and does raise some questions.)

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Fucking massacre.

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mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-intercept

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That mostly tracks with what ground.news had for them
 “mostly factual” is good, but the only other information seems to be that they’re left-leaning, which I’m not entirely sure says much about potential bias in the Israel/Palestine situation.

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Somewhere in Brooklyn.

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More on that


https://archive.ph/nw1tq

But there is also this:

So, while the NYT story does have some real credibility issues, the UN still believes that there were rapes during the Oct. 7th attack. I think both things can be true at the same time, that Hamas committed acts of sexual violence and that there are those seeking to spread disinformation about it. It’ll take years for all the facts to come up, unfortunately, because of course anyone who suffers such abuse deserves justice.

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The article on The Intercept also mentioned the possibility that acts were done that were not intended by Hamas as an organization or were carried out by civilians. It does sound as though a lot of the reports of the worst abuses have credibility issues, which really muddies the waters.

NPR reporting on it as well, though I don’t think it really adds much clarity:

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