What's the deal with Isreal vs. Palestine side taking in the West?
What's the deal with Isreal vs. Palestine side taking in the West?
I feel like I've been kind of in the loop for most of the headlines regarding this confrontation. Yet somehow I can't find it within myself to actually care about either side. It seems like both are lead by genocidal parties, hell bent on indoctrinating their populace into hating the other side. Yet at the same time people are able to discern which state is the good one. And some going so far as to believe that one state might even be right over the other.
So far from what I've read and heard, it seems that overall Isreal is just more successful militarily and is encroaching on Palestinian land, and is exhibiting control over some of it. Is that the reason why one might support Palestine? Is it the fact that Isreal has more direct power in the region and thus can easily execute its will a problematic issue for some? From what I can see, both sides have caused massive civilian casualties and neither side wants a two state solution, so neither of those reasons can be a contributing factor to side picking, right? That being said, I can't find a reason for supporting Isreal, so does Palestine win out by default? But what of the people that support Isreal, do they do that purely because they're an American ally? Is any of this side taking have anything to do with the insertion of Jews into the region? What is expected to be done outside of a two state solution or genocide by those taking sides?
I have a lot of questions, and I obviously don't expect all of them to be answered in a single post. So maybe focusing on the elements you're highly informed on would be helpful and then I can kind of piece together the details. Thank you in advance!
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People like taking sides, because it fits into any narrative.
You have Jews vs Muslims, White(not really) vs Brown, Western values vs Middle Eastern.
The progressives love Palestine because they are brown, Muslim and anti West/US and some because anti White.
The Nazis love Palestine because they are anti Jew. (although some Progressives seem pretty antisemitic nowadays too.)
The Conservatives love Israel because they are fighting Muslims and the middle east.
Moderates side more with Israel because the values align more than the theocratic Muslim ones and Israel is a good door into middle eastern affairs. But that requires Americans to think about stuff outside of the US, that's not black and white, so there are not a lot.
The thing is, most of these categories aren't actually that black and white.
Israel has taken in a lot of Arab Jews who fled persecution in their home countries. They are also allied with Arab nations like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and probably more. So the "white" part is not true.
The religions are mostly true, although there are Muslim-majority countries allied with Israel, so its not as clear cut. (Iran is kinda using Palestinians as an attack vector against Israel, and Jordan helped with shooting down Iranian drones)
The west vs middle east part is also a bit weird, since Arab nations are on Israel's side. It's more of a inter-middle-east conflict and the west is supporting Israels side.
Explain why many non zionists jews support Palestine. Also arab countries leaders are US puppets that's why they support Israel but the entire populations are against Israel colonization
Buddy Zionist means believing Israel should be a state.
If you ask the four Jews who don't believe that, of course they support Palestine.
And of course its the evil US pulling all the strings again. Why do some people base all their politics on "America Bad"?
Why people believe Us is evil? Because there is a ton of example of US illegal wars and helping overthrowing democratically elected leaders. Non zionist jews could be neutral if they didn't believe in Palestinian struggles
That sounds... weird. And ignores a lot of history behind why they are fighting. Do you have any sources for your claims or is that just your personal opinion?
Mostly just a personal explanation for why anyone cares. There a a lot of wars going on, many of them with more casualties. But for some reason this gets all the discourse.
Also I think the history is mostly irrelevant, in the sense that like .01% of people talking about it actually know it. In terms of why they are fighting it is somewhat relevant, but we should go too far back for justifications, only explanations. And for a solution, both sides need to look at the present and ignore history.
Okay, that explains why you're so far off the mark on some points. Framing progressives as "anti West" or even "anti White" is honestly insulting and sounds a lot like far right propaganda. Most left / progressive people I know that support Palestine do so because of a couple of reasons:
- Killing civilians is bad. While both sides have been guilty of that over the last few decades, Israel is currently taking it to a whole new level.
- Palestine has arguably the better claim to the region. Arabs have lived there from the 7th to the mid 20th century. On the other hand, Israel's claim amounts to "It was ours in ancient times" and "The British said so during WW2"
- Israeli aggression comes from the government while Palestinian aggression comes mostly from Hamas, an extremist group who does not officially represent the country as a whole (yes, I know there are some members of Hamas in the government but their pseudo-military actions don't seem to be officially sanctioned to the point where the president has urged them to adhere to the 1967 ceasefire since at least 2006)
I would argue that almost nobody involved in the overall discussion actually supports Hamas' plan of eradicating all Jews from the area, not even the far right. Most people would be fine with a peaceful solution, be it two states or one. But because of the way Israel was founded (by a colonial power giving land that has belonged to Arabs for 1300 years to a bunch of refugees with no personal connection to the place), reaching a peaceful solution extremely hard if not impossible.
In conclusion: everybody sucks but at least right now, Israel sucks more.
Oh and as for why people talk about this and not as much about many other wars:
- This is the continuation of a conflict that has been in western news for decades and has been flaring up every now and then.
- Israel and Palestine are geographically and in parts culturally close to Europe which makes them seem a lot more relevant to Europeans than what happens on the other side of the world.
- Israel is directly targeting civilians which is by all definitions a war crime
- Israel has traditionally been allied with the West but has always been controversial for the various reasons listed in all the other posts in this thread
- This is yet another conflict in an already unstable region (Syrian civil war since 2011, the Arab Spring in general, Iraq still hasn't fully recovered from its war between 2003 and 2011, ...)
- Israel has access to nuclear warheads, Iran may have some as well and is just one bad day away from fully engaging in the conflict on the Palestinian side
- The overall situation is very complex which means there is a lot to talk and argue about.
- This is stuff happening right now. People have been talking just as much about Ukraine and Syria and would have been talking more about many other conflicts if social media had been more present when they broke out.
since Arab nations are on Israel’s side
Are they? Pretty sure Ive only seen the opposite but Im not following the topic very closely
Not all Arab nations are united in their beliefs or how government / religion should be linked.
Saudi for example has absolutely no love for Iran. Saudi maybe a muslim Kingdom ran by Sultans. But Iran is a Theocracy ran by the Clergy and is far more hell bent on spreading their form of religion to even the other Muslim nations. Jordan for example is fairly secularly run Kingdom. Iran despises that too.
As for "Sides". Israel has existing peace treaties and open relations now with several of it's neighbouring muslim nations. Egypt and Israel have been allied for decades now. Egypt maintains a border wall and blockade of Gaza as well. Jordan and Israel have been fairly peaceful now for decades. And Lebanon frequently looks to Israel military support to quell Hezbollah. Up until Oct 7th, Saudi Arabia was also in negotiations with Israel to normalize relations towards a peace deal.
I mean, yes. Jordan shot down some of the Iranian drones that were headed for Israel. I think some states are more behind the scenes, because the population doesn't like Jews, but the "monarchs" kinda see the writing on the wall. I mean Israel is a good ally to have in terms of military and economy.
Or Saudi Arabia. They have publicly stated that their AD systems shared information with Israel. Saudi Arabia really isn’t religious enough to care about Israel that much, at least not compared to more important goals that they can reach otherwise. Of course, they do fund various anti Israel groups, but not in any particularly heavy way that can be traced to them
Jordan shooting down drones that pass over their country doesn't make them an ally of Israel. It just means they don't like being caught in the middle of a war that others are fighting.
The Nazis love Palestine because they are anti Jew. (although some Progressives seem pretty antisemitic nowadays too.)
Reactions by the far left on this issue seem to support horseshoe theory
Progressives generally don't hate Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus or any religion or ethnicity in particular. They hate people who think it's okay to harm innocents. Just happens that thinking it's okay to harm innocents currently has a strong overlap with certain groups. Is that so hard to understand?
I'll happily let you pray to whatever god(s) you like. If you want, you can do that right in my back yard. As long as we can agree that "Do not harm others" is kind of important. You know, that thing that is all over the Torah and the Bible. "Thou shalt not kill", "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and all that?
No, progressives, leftists, however you want to call them do not want to overthrow western society, abolish conservative thoughts or anything like that. They just want to be left in fucking peace and believe that anyone who doesn't harm others has a right to live their lives. Doesn't matter if they are black, white, brown, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, straight, gay, cis, trans, Star Wars fans or Star Trek fans...
Oh and yes, we're just as annoyed by the few very vocal Stalinist weirdos as you are. They do not represent the majority of left-leaning people.
Edit: some typos and grammar
I don't like that theory. Democrats are on the spectrum of left and right. But if you are antidemocratic you are a whole different thing. And that way the communists and Nazis are the same. Its not really a horseshoe, just a separate bubble of extremists.
Edit: Democrats as in people who believe in democracy, not the party members.