[YZF]

Palestinian violence predates the 1967 and 1948. Also Gaza wasn't occupied since Israel left it in 2005.

Here's is one example from 1954 when Israel did not control Gaza or the West Bank: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma%27ale_Akrabim_massacre

"The Ma'ale Akrabim massacre, known in English as the Scorpions Pass Massacre, was an attack on an Israeli passenger bus, carried out on 17 March 1954, in the middle of the day. Eleven passengers were shot dead by the attackers who ambushed and boarded the bus. One passenger died 32 years later of his injuries, in a state of paralysis and partial consciousness. Four passengers survived, two of whom had been injured by the gunmen."

Palestinians are largely in the reality they're in due to the violence.

[defrost]

Can you remind us whether this bus attack in which 11 people died came before or after the 1948-1949 Plan Dalet during which over 500 Arab villages were destroyed or depopulated by military forces under the direction of later first prime minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion?

  The plan's tactics involved laying siege to Palestinian Arab villages, bombing neighbourhoods of cities, forced expulsion of their inhabitants, and setting fields and houses on fire and detonating TNT in the rubble to prevent any return. Zionist military units possessed detailed lists of neighborhoods and villages to be destroyed and their Arab inhabitants expelled.

  This strategy is subject to controversy, with some historians characterizing it as defensive, while others assert that it was an integral part of a planned strategy for the expulsion, sometimes called an ethnic cleansing, of the area's native inhabitants.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Dalet

Israelis and Palestinians are largely in the reality they're in due to the violence.

[YZF]

Why are we moving the goal posts?

Parent claims the violence is simply due to:

"The idea of Hamas wouldn't exist if Gaza (and the West Bank) wasn't occupied by land, air and sea; their land stolen on a daily basis, and Palestinian people treated as subhuman animals."

This is not true. And this is what I'm addressing in my reply.

We can litigate 1948 as well. Plenty of Palestinian violence pre-1948. Their refusal to accept the UN's partition plan (which was a lot more generous than the two state solution people are talking about today).

EDIT: Also I hope you're not trying to say that Israel's actions during the war in 1948 (even if we accept they were in the wrong, which I do not) justify boarding a bus and slaughtering civilians 6 years later.

Your last statement I guess is true but not helpful. Plenty of violence to go around.

[michaelsshaw]

All military actions made by oppressed peoples is legitimate resistance and your framing of Palestinians as instigators is troubling.

[HDThoreaun]

The problem with this framing is that it will never lead to the palestinians accomplishing their goals. As long as they continue to commit terrorism against israel israel will continue to oppress them and annex their land until the genocide becomes a reality and all the palestinians are dead or in a diaspora. No one will stop israel as long as they can credibly make a security argument. You may claim the same is true in a non violent plan but it is 100% guaranteed on the current path. So sure, the resistance is legitimate, that doesnt mean it is helpful to their cause though.

[gryzzly]

not wearing uniform, attacking civilians, capturing hostages and holding your own civilian population hostage by violently taking over the commercial distribution of free humanitarian aid can not be called legitimate in any way

[tdeck]

The IDF captures Palestinian civilians, dresses them in IDF uniforms, and forces them at gunpoint to walk in front of their military while conducting military operations in Gaza. Every accusation is a confession.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/11/03/israel-gaza-...

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/24/middleeast/palestinians-human...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israeli-soldier-palestinians-hu...

[YZF]

None of the articles say what you claim. There's no mention of dressing civilians in IDF uniforms. The claim is they are forced to enter suspected booby trapped building, not "conducting military operations". It's quite possible that this happens sometimes, and yes it's not supposed to, but that's war for you.

From the CNN article btw: "The soldier said that he and his comrades refused to carry on with the practice after two days and confronted their senior commander about it. Their commander, who first told them not to “think about international law,” saying that their own lives were “more important,” ultimately relented, releasing the two Palestinians, the soldier said. "

This goes to show you to what degree Israeli soldiers do consider the international law and these sort of moral questions. They would rather risk their own lives. But yes, over a long war of this kind the threshold is going to become lower. It's the Hamas choice to keep fighting the way it does (booby trap every civilians building e.g.).

Now find me the Hamas "soldier" who refused to carry out orders to murder civilians or refused to hold civilian hostages and got their commander to free them. Let's see where's the moral equivalence.

[michaelsshaw]

You're right, Hamas should focus on uniform production(they wear uniform bandanas BTW, watch their videos) while Gaza has a higher proportion of destroyed buildings than Germany in ww2. You certainly got your priorities straight.

[YZF]

They have other problems that are higher priority apparently: "A 22-year-old Palestinian man was tortured and killed by Hamas militants after he criticized the group publicly and participated in rare anti-Hamas protests in Gaza, his family said.

Uday Rabie was taken last week by dozens of armed fighters with Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City, his brother Hassan Rabie told CNN on Tuesday." - https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/01/middleeast/uday-rabie-palesti...

And by the way, while they do have uniform, they don't wear them when they fight. Only for celebrations like their marching of civilian hostages. Gaza also has a higher proportion of structures used for military purposes (like all of them?) then Germany in WW2. There have been cities in Germany during WW-II that have been completely destroyed - we can pick that as a comparison. Picking entire Germany vs a tiny area is not reasonable.

[int_19h]

Not massacring civilians by the hundreds would be a good start.

[za3faran]

Easy to refute, here it is from Sheikh Ahmed Yassin himself: https://x.com/incontextmedia/status/1720877046664986750

[YZF]

Right and this is exactly why the Hamas covenant says: "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

I mean he must just love the Jewish people. Lovely guy indeed.

[za3faran]

Do not take texts out of context, I'll leave it at that.

[tradethedelta]

Funny how easy it is to forget that guerilla terrorist actions were introduced to the region by Zionists in the 1940s: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing

Just to name a notable event amongst many.

Many of the masterminds of the early Zionist insurgency later became top Israeli government officials.

Sad to think that Jews and Arabs lived ok side by side. Right wing radicals realized their destiny could only be completed with Palestinian displacement.

[YZF]

Why are we changing the topic? This isn't a "who started" question. The assertion was that Palestinians are murdering Israeli civilians only because of how they're are treated in the West Bank and in Gaza. And that's somehow justified. My example shows this is clearly not true. Palestinians murdered Israeli civilians when the West Bank and Gaza were not even under Israeli control. And well before that as well. The correct order of events here is that Israel is responding to violence and defending its citizens. Not that the Palestinians are peace loving people who are under such dire conditions that it justifies blowing up busses and murdering children. For what it's worth the answer to "who started" is the Arabs unless you consider Jewish presence/immigration/return to their historic homeland as an affront, which ofcourse the Arabs do. If your position is that Jews are not allowed to live in the middle east despite their strong historical connection and their legal claims then ofcourse nothing they can do is right.

The King David hotel was the Headquarters of the British Armed Forces. They were also warned to evacuate and this was a splinter group that executed the attack not really representative of the majority of the Jewish population.

This attack for the most part is relevant in the context of the British occupation of the region. Current day Palestinian narrative essentially puts the Jewish people as British agents who are colonizing Israel. Total nonsense.

You're not wrong that figures like Begin and Shamir eventually became the government though that was decades later. Shamir was one of the first Israeli prime ministers to try and seek a peaceful solution during the Madrid Conference: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/madrid-confer... [EDIT: And Begin promised to give Palestinians autonomy as part of the peace agreement with Egypt]

It's the Palestinians who are creating the Israeli right wing radicals. It's the Palestinians who are creating a situation where the only way Israelis can live in peace is by displacing the Palestinians. It's the Palestinians who are playing a lose-lose game instead of a win-win one. You could see that in 1948 when they attacked Israel. You could see that when Israel left Gaza in 2005. You could see that in the suicide bombing campaign of the early 2000s. And you can see this right now with Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank.

Jews and Arabs lived ok side by side only when the Jews "knew their place" or when the Jews had power. There is no precedent for anything else. The Israeli right wing extremism is more or less a mirror image. They used to be outlawed and have risen as a result of a campaign of violence against Israel. There is no example since 1948 of when Palestinians came and said we are going to stop violence and settle things through negotiation. They've always negotiated out of one side and murdered civilians out of the other. And here we are.

EDIT2: It's worth noting the British prevented Jewish people from immigrating to Palestine which sealed the fate of many to death in WW-II. They also put illegal immigrants in camps and mass deported them back to be killed in Europe. They also hanged and imprisoned quite a few Jewish people during the British Mandate period. They hanged quite a few Arabs as well. That said the majority of the Jewish community did not support violence against the British. It's worth noting the mandate given to the British was essentially to establish a Jewish state in that region (initially including Jordan).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration

https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/conflict-Palestine

[za3faran]

Poor Palestinians for defending themselves and their home land - maybe they should just sit and take it like the native populations in America, Canada, Australia, South Africa did.

Shelomo Dov Goitein admits that the Jews lived best when they lived with Muslims (and under their protection). This "knew their place" is not true, go talk to Syrian Jews (there's an interview with one on youtube) on what it was like before the brits made israel.

Who gave the british the right to declare who has the right to live in land they stole? The whole thing is insane when you think about it.

[MomsAVoxell]

> Who gave the british the right to declare who has the right to live in land they stole?

It’s nuts, I agree. But it has to be understood that such authority is assumed, it isn’t granted, and the only way to refute it is to refute it. If nobody does that, the assumption of authority persists.

It is the basis for international relations. Authority is assumed under duress, it is never granted unless under duress.

[YZF]

- It's the Jewish homeland. The Jewish people are the native population. The Arabs are the invaders. There are some Arabs who have lives in the region for a long time but many current day Arabs in the region are immigrants from Egypt and other Arab countries.

- The Palestinians are not "defending themselves".

- Your statement about the Jews in Arab countries is patently false. You're just repeating propaganda. Jews were discriminated and persecuted against everywhere when they lives under Arab and Muslim rule. You should talk to Jews whose families come from Lebanon or Syria. Do you know how many Jews are left in Syria? The Palestinians and Arabs boast they treated them better than the Europeans that massacred them or forced them to convert to Christianity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_under_Musl...

The fact of the matter is that Arabs living in Israel under Israeli rule have the most freedom of any other Arab in the middle east. They're also amongst the most prosperous. To contrast in all Arab countries Jewish people have been ethnically cleansed.

It wasn't just the British who acknowledged that Israel is the home of the Jewish people. It was the league of nations and later the UN. I.e. everyone. The Jewish people were forced off this land (including by Arabs) and their right trumps the right of the Palestinians. Those that came there before 1948 (and during Ottoman rule) joined Jewish people who have lived there forever, are legal immigrants, and had to buy their land back (including places like Hebron or Jerusalem) where they were forced out. There was also a Jewish community in Gaza by the way, also ethnically cleansed.

Who gave the Ottoman's who came before the British any rights? Why aren't you challenging the right of the British to give Jordan to the Hashemites who came from Saudi Arabia? Or any of the other countries that France and Britain carved out? Why shouldn't the Kurdish people have their own country? Or the Druze? But OK. The white people from the Americas can return to Europe (+ all the more recent immigrants from everywhere). Same for Australia and New Zealand. The Arabs can return to Arabia. The Jewish people will return to their home in the middle east. And then according to you everything is now "correct".

EDIT: One should also point out that it's extremely well documented that this is the historical homeland of the Jewish people. I.e. whoever lived there knew that. Everywhere you dig you find synagogues, coins with Hebrew writing, and other artifacts. The Palestinians have zero documented connection to the region other than the fact that they happened to live there in 1948 (which I am not disputing). I'm sure there are also Palestinians with lineage going back to the Israelites. There are also immigrants etc. That doesn't really change anything. The claim by Palestinians that they are descendants of the Canaanites or the Phoenicians is a joke. Clearly in 1948 they were Arabs with the same identity as people living in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. No national identity whatsoever and no particular connection to the region we call Israel. Generally speaking. (I'm sure some had stronger connection to the region).

The other thing is this really doesn't matter. Today Israel exists. Israelis are not going anywhere. If you want to fight for justice go fight for the aboriginals to get Australia back or the first nations to get Canada back. That's a real story and your chances of success are better. Palestinians need to change their thinking here if they want an end to violence. Which apparently they do not.

[YZF]

Just as an example: Israel's minister of defense is Israel Katz. Katz stands for "Cohen Tzedek". Israel traces his paternal lineage all the way back to priests that served in the temple in Jerusalem during the days of King David. There is no other way to assume the name Cohen or any of the variation of priest family names. Similar for Levy. There is no way to convert and assume that name. The lineage of Jewish priests also has DNA evidence that they are all related.

His family was forced off their land and prevented by force from returning through the ages.

It so happens to be Passover now. Do you know how many time each Jewish person mentions returning to Jerusalem during the Seder every year?

His right to live in his ancestral homeland, just like the right of native in Canada or Australia or the US, never expires. The only way to settle his claim is through mutual agreement, like treaties in Canada.

[za3faran]

We know Jews that lived in Syria - their houses are still intact and held for their owners. I already referred to a youtube interview with one you can easily find. He speaks positively of the Syrians.

Islam is very well known to protect the rights of minorities under it, especially the People of the Book: the Jews and the Christians.

By the way, what does the word "Hebrew" mean? Those that crossed the river ;) So someone lived there before the Jews - the Caananites, i.e. the Palestinians. The same people who became Jews and Christians, then Muslims.

Arabs and Muslims did not force anyone off their land. Ottomans did not kick out anyone under the ruling of Islam. The Ottoman Caliphate was an Islamic rule at its peak, not an ethno-rule as some like to falsely claim. Muslims preserve the local culture - this is why Islam spread. And that is why you will see Kung Fu styles adapted by Muslim rituals like Wudu'. Islam does not erradicate the local culture, people accepted it because of the positive interactions they had with Muslims. This is why most Muslims are not Arabs.

When pan-turkism and pan-arabism did arise (due to several reasons, but also instigated by the west, the story of Lawrence of Arabia is well known), that was a big reason to the decline of the Ottoman Caliphate, of course other factors played a role, but it was against the teachings of Islam.

There was no "Saudi Arabia" back in the day lol.

Yes, we reject all of the european colonialist projects and fake borders in the ME. Post WWI european colonization has caused nothing but destruction everywhere it touched, including India - that's why they sought liberation. Divide and conquer is the name of the game. The established view in Islam is that all Muslims are one people, and no borders between us, from Indoesia all the way to Mauritania. Bilad Al-Sham are one, not the sykes-picot borders that they carved out.

Edit: why are they allowed to do this: https://x.com/trackingisrael/status/1911148565692362904