Israel has likely also created multiple generations of anger and hate against themselves. They may have reduced the likelihood of another Oct 7 in the near term, but 50 years is not something I would count on
Probably the most efficient way of creating multiple generations of anger and hate is letting a radical terrorist movement control 2 million people, which can completely mold the education curriculum and free to draft anyone to their quasi-army
So whatever it has done, it cannot possibly be worse than pre-war
> letting a radical terrorist movement control 2 million people, which can completely mold the education curriculum and free to draft anyone to their quasi-army
“Terrorist” groups Irgun, Haganah, Lehi all became part of Israeli government and army post 1948. Israel has mandatory military service for its citizens.
Haganah was a paramilitary organization formed after a few rather violent massacres of the Jewish population in the 1920s, climaxing with the Hebron massacre in 1929 which included horrors similar to October 7, hence why it's name in Hebrew is "Defense". Except for a short stint of a few months of something in between guerilla warfare and terror attacks against the British, it was mainly a military organization foremost, tasked with defense of the Jewish population from Palestinian attacks until the 1948 war
Irgun and Lehi were both offshoots which can be categorized as terror organizations, however they were very small, with a few hundred members and never reached the size or level of support of any Palestinian organization
While the Haganah formed most of the IDF leadership, the new country civilian leadership was based on the Jewish Agency which predated the Haganah and had completely civilian leadership.
There are many other differences between Hamas and these organizations, but in general this is an invalid comparison
I believe the comparison is valid - I put "terrorist" in quotes for a reason.
All three groups at times participated in violent activities targeting the British, Arabs, and even at times other Jews.
Haganah was proscribed by the British mandate and was an unlawful, underground militia. Lehi had 100s of members but Irgun had 4000-8000.
You yourself admit that Lehi and Irgun could be categorized as "terrorist" and Haganah engaged in what you describe as "something in between guerilla warfare and terror attacks".
Hamas would also not describe themselves as "terrorist", they also describe themselves as a "resistance" movement.
Haganah both planned and executed the "Plan Dalet", which killed and forcibly expelled the vast majority of non-Jews from their lands - they actually did what people accuse Hamas of wanting to do.
The relations with the British was more complex than you think, including many years of cooperation, including British training of Haganah forces in the SNS and fighting together during the arab revolt. As common in this conflict I think your original comment was superficial in its resorting to labels rather than content.
Regarding Plan Dalet, saying that most of the non-jews were killed or forcibly expelled is simply not true, not chronologically or factually.
Fact is that most of the Palestinians in 1948 fled on their own accords, while forced expulsions happened they were rare and were done for military reasons, mostly preparing for the imminent attack of five regular armies, as happened by the other side as well (e.g. kfar etzion)
While Israel proper has a sizable Palestinian population that is larger than the population of the Gaza strip
As i alluded to in my comment, I put “terrorist” in quotes precisely because I recognize the nuance. I agree that it is not productive to resort to lazily labeling militant groups as “terrorist”. That was the entire point of my original comment, which seems to be lost on you.
> Regarding Plan Dalet, saying that most of the non-jews were killed or forcibly expelled is simply not true, not chronologically or factually.
Right wing Israeli historian Benny Morris writes:
> the bulk of the Palestinian refugees—some 250,000 to 300,000- went into exile during those weeks between early April and mid-June 1948, with the major precipitant being Jewish (Haganah/1ZL/IDF) military attacks or the fear of such attacks
> In conformity with Tochnit Dalet (Plan D), the Haganah master plan, formulated in early March 1948, for securing the Jewish state areas in preparation for the expected declaration of statehood and the prospective Arab invasion, the Haganah cleared various areas completely of Arab villages
In his paper “A new historiography”.
His estimates of expulsions are on the low end compared to other Israeli New Historians. And of course much lower than Arab historians are estimates as well, but I have a sinking feeling that citing Arab historians wouldn’t be productive in this particular exchange.
I see that one show cited a lot - What in particular about that television show was problematic and “worse” than what Gazans have endured over the past 15 months?
Also, how does that compare with Israeli schoolchildren singing about destroying Gaza?
> Nahoul lectures to the audience that "we will liberate Al-Aqsa from the filth of the criminal Jews." [...] Later, Izz Al-Din from Ramallah calls in and Nahoul suggests that "we will go on Jihad when we grow up
> Nassur and Saraa have a disagreement about what the "expulsion" of the "Jews or Zionists" means. Saraa adopts the argument that they should be "chased away" and that "we don't want to do anything to them, just expel them from our land." Nassur, on the other hand, endorses the view that they should be "erased" and that "we want to slaughter them so they will be expelled from our land." Saraa eventually concedes, and the two compromised that "we will expel them from our land using all means, and if they don't want to go peacefully, by words or talking, we'll have to do it by slaughter."
You know that thousands of children have been killed now right? I'm counting the Israeli children along with the Gazan children. There is no basis for this kind of comparison now that the leadership of both countries have revealed themselves as murderers. Let's have a sense of proportion here...
I'm not trying to say if it is better or worse. Perhaps a better phrasing is "Israel has solidified another 2 generations of hatred by how they prosecuted the war." Leveling a country, killing and maiming as many as they did, the indiscriminate nature and war crimes, these things worked against their stated goals in the long-term
This is the narrative that the extremists want to push, but it’s hardly the truth. Hamas was not some grassroots movement of frustrated Palestinians. It was an Iranian proxy force masterminded, funded, supplied, trained, and instructed by Iran.
There are certainly many angry Palestinians before and after but this is foreign meddling through and through. Hamas would not exist in this form and have done the things that it did otherwise.
They already hated Israel. So much that they attacked them and started this war in the first place. I doubt Israel is any worse off in terms of being hated than they were before the war.
Hamas is not a rational actor. Their stated goal is to destroy Israel and kill every Jew. That's it. There is no scenario in which they are going to stop hating Israel. They don't care if every Palestinian also gets killed, if they get to destroy Israel it's worth it to them.
There are multiple generations of hate in the West Bank as well. Israel isn't threaten by them as much as they have much more difficulty accumulating weapons.
Are the Palestinians in the West Bank supposed to love their armed illegal settler neighbors?
It feels like almost ever day that I see a video of a Palestinian's home in the West Bank being demolished or a Palestinian family being harassed by armed settlers
I think you might have misinterpreted the comment above you. I took it to mean that there are a set of circumstances unique to Gaza that cause greater conflict between it and Israel than between the West Bank and Israel, which is not sufficiently explained by generational trauma alone.
> Israel has likely also created multiple generations of anger and hate against themselves
Israel would have created multiple generations of emboldened anger and hate against themselves if they failed to respond to the massacre and mass kidnapping.
I don't understand how is this different to all wars? back then when the Nazis started the war and we had to declare war against them. Or when we nuked 2 cities of Japan, were we also afraid that we will create multiple generations of anger and hate? how is this different?
I'm not comparing Israel or Palestine to Nazi, it's just a bitter fact that war always create anger and hate. Something had to be done though?
If you take the analogy further, Germany also completely surrendered after WWII and came up with a new, democratic government. In the meantime, 12-16 millions of Germans were driven out of their homes in East Prussia never to return. It wasn't until 1990 that the (now reunited) Germany finally renounced all claims to their lost territory.
So whatever it has done, it cannot possibly be worse than pre-war