ICJ orders Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza, stops short of ordering ceasefire

Isn't that exactly the view of reality that the Israeli right wing holds? They would agree that the choices are either dismantling the state of Israel, or eternal warfare. Since they don't want to dismantle the state of Israel, they elect for eternal warfare.

It's funny how on some questions, the most extreme people on both sides agree on the answer. Hamas and the Israeli right wing both agree that the only viable solution is for one ethnic group to control all the land from the river to the sea.

> They just want Palestinians to have full human rights on their land, from the river to the sea

This is presumably a one-state solution?

The problem here being the Jews would be a minority in this state. Which leads to existential concerns regarding their survival. That can’t be easily brushed aside. Particularly when members of Iran’s Axis sport “death to Israel, a curse upon Jews” [1]. (Hamas and the Houthis sharing a backer isn’t insignificant.)

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slogan_of_the_Houthi_movemen...

I feel that's an extremely naive view. How many Jews live peacefully and enjoy human rights under Arab rule in the middle east? Zero. How many in Gaza under Hamas? Zero. How many live in the west bank in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority? Zero.

So "Hamas" only wants Tel-Aviv "returned", Jersualem "returned", Haifa "returned", from the river to the sea, but somehow in that vision all the Jewish population lives peacefully and enjoys human rights that don't exist anywhere in the middle east?

No. The Israeli right wing is trying (and succeeding at) making all of the land between the river and the sea exclusive property of the Jewish people. A quick glance at how the borders have evolved since 1948 makes this evident.

Most Palestinians (and thankfully also a good number of Israeli citizens) want a pluralistic solution, without checkpoints and borders, with equal rights and equal representation for all.

A two-state solution was possible 20 years ago, but with the current settlements in the West Bank with 450k or so Settlers and Gaza's total dependence on Israel for water, internet, electricity and many other of life's necessities, all paths towards a two-state solution have been severed.

Now that Gaza has been bombed and bulldozed what possibility is there for a Palestinian state? All records have been destroyed. The courts are gone. The universities are gone. It's all gone.

Israel will accept neither a one-state or two-state solution. By systematically destroying everything Palestinian the question resolves itself. That seems to be the strategy. And if we can take Israeli politicians at their word, this seems to have been the strategy for the past 20 years at least.

> They just want Palestinians to have full human rights on their land, from the river to the sea.

What's the word for word translation of the original slogan again? "From the river to the sea, all land shall be Arab" if my dictionary doesn't fail me...

> They just want Palestinians to have full human rights

Hamas certainly doesn't want Palestinians to have full human rights. Regardless of how unjustifiable some Israel's actions are or what one might think about them Hamas is a fundamentalist terrorist organization and they certainly were/are/would be unwilling to extend "full human rights" to Palestinians or anyone living in Gaza or anywhere else.

The charter of Hamas explicitly calls for the eradication of the state of Israel, the death of presumably all Jews, Muslim rule of all of Palestine, the explicit rejection of peace or any negotiated settlement (with explicit condemnation of the Camp David Accords), and Jihad as individual duty in order to achieve the aforementioned goals.

That's certainly what you (and me) would very much like Hamas to want but it is certainly not what Hamas actually wants

You can only ignore who they are if you don't listen to what they say

While I mostly agree with you, your point does not seem to contradict at all the point of the comment you are responding to

You're correct that the Israeli right wing would really like the entire land to be ruled by the Jewish people. Their "success" since 1967 has really been driven by the Arab countries and the Palestinians. The political violence and the wars they waged pushed the Israeli public to become more extreme and unable to imagine a future where it's possible for everyone to live in peace on the same land. I think this is pretty much fact. Rabin who was trying to make peace was assassinated as a direct result of the heated atmosphere in the wake of Hamas' suicide bombing campaign against Israel, which had the goal of sabotaging the peace process.

I don't think it's correct that most Palestinians want what you say they want (surveys?). And even if it's true, the majority of Palestinians has no means of getting what they want. In areas under their control it's certainly hasn't been "pluralistic with equal rights and representation", it's been more like "I have a gun do what I say or else".

I think the two state solution is impossible but not for the reasons you mention. I don't think we need Gaza's courts or universities. It's also not the dependency on electricity etc. It's impossible for other reasons. On the Israeli side nobody is willing to live with an aggressive entity that wants to destroy it having their own state 5 minute driving distance from all their major cities. Gaza (the withdrawal of Israel and the rise of Hamas and their militarization) to them is proof there's no way that can work. There is no trust that the Palestinians will respect any agreement. On the Palestinian side there's no body that actually represents the Palestinians and there are armed factions that have already said they'll reject any agreement and keep on fighting.

Israel has dismantled settlements in Sinai and in Gaza. I don't think the settlements are the problem. If there was a viable option for real peace Israel would dismantle the settlements (+/- maybe some land exchange around major blocks). Ofcourse the settlements don't help because their existence creates friction and hate and they're sort of illegal.

Maybe external parties will somehow enforce a two state solution. It's kind of hard to see now. Maybe we need enough time to pass so we get social processes that take us somewhere better. Also kind of hard to see right now. Maybe Israel will expel all Arabs from the region eventually (or enough of them that they can annex the occupied territories). Also hard to see. Maybe the Palestinians will unite and reject violence as means of making political progress and that will convince Israelis to let them in as equal citizens. Also hard to see. I.e. no solution. Partly has to do with broader geo-political processes, namely China and Russia's conflict with the west. If that's resolved (also hard to see) maybe progress can be made in the middle east as well.

The West Bank holds the forth largest Jewish population in the world, after France. Now the West Bank is occupied territory, controlled by Israel, so perhaps that doesn’t count.

According to this Wikipedia article[1] there are around 2-3000 jewish people living in Morocco, 1-2000 in Tunisia, and about 100 in Syria and Lebanon (not including the Golan Heights).

I am aware that there were persecutions in the past in many Arabic countries, but the same is true of Europe. Beirut even restored one of their last Synagogues in 2010 after it was damaged, ironically, in an Israeli airstrike.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population_by_country

I don't think it makes sense to talk about what the extremists in a conflict want when one side is a regional superpower and the other side has no army to speak of (that's why Hamas hides in tunnels).

It's about what the parties can actually accomplish. Hamas gambles on international sympathy because they cannot do anything militarily. They have no bargaining leverage either during possible peace talks. I don't approve of antisemitic slogans wishing for the destruction of Israel but the world will never allow it to happen. Never. Zero chance of that happening.

So while extremists on both sides are the same in the abstract, only one side is facing possible extermination.

My point was specific to Palestinian Authority controlled areas of the west bank.

My second point (maybe not so obvious) was about human rights situations in the Arab world and under Palestinian rule. e.g. the Jews living in Morocco can't elect their government because Morocco is a dictatorship ("Monarchy"), ruled by a king.

I.e. there's no Jews living under Arab rule while meeting those two conditions. Being able to live in a democratic, free, country with human rights, and under Arab or Palestinian rule. I was well aware there is some (tiny) Jewish population in some Arab countries.

Read Hamas' charter, they are open about their goals: to kill or expel Jews from the river to the sea.

I should point out to people who might not be as familiar with Israeli history that Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli right wing extremist.

As for the rest, while I appreciate the civil response I don't think we agree enough on the facts to have a fruitful discussion.

> the entire land to be ruled by the Jewish people

Not Jewish people, a very select subset of that group: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2784649

>They just want Palestinians to have full human rights on their land, from the river to the sea.

What about the rights to elections? Free speech? To be gay and not be thrown off a building? They don't even support these basic human rights in the land they rule, for the people they claim as their own.

I'm not sure why we have to bring the Ethiopian Jews into this discussion. I think a lot has changed in this regard since 1993 when this paper was published. Ethiopian jews are much more integrated into Israeli society. But yes, this statement is more complicated than meets the eye, but I don't think this particular topic is current or relevant. I.e. I don't think your typical religious right-wing settler has a problem with including an Ethiopian Jew into their definition of who they think should control the "god given land of Israel". They're probably happier with them than e.g. with some more "modern" Jewish people from the US.

I'm curious but I also appreciate the civil discussion. Thanks for the extra context re: Rabin. This topic doesn't lend itself to one liners.

You could say the same of Europe prior to 1945. However today hundreds of thousands of Jewish people live in Europe enjoy equal rights and democracy.

What makes you think that Palestine can’t become one of those countries if ever allowed to be democratic and independent?

A two state solution is still possible. Why do people assume Palestinians want a state of only Palestinians. Palestine had Jews living in it before and a hypothetical future state of Palestine can too. They are not committed to an ethnostate they just want freedom.

Where is Palestine state proposal from Palestinians so I can read it? Or is this just fantasy made up by outsiders?

it makes total sense to discuss this: because in effect by tipping the balance of power you don't really change anything.

If you made Israel as small as Palestine tomorrow, and Palestine as large as Israel: the same (or, some would argue: worse) situation would exist and the same sentiments from the same sorts of extremists.

Thats what we are talking about, power doesn't matter, only sentiment and perspective has been discussed here.

Hamas has repeatedly refused to disavow the original charter, and, of course, their actions on October 7 certainly affirm it.

Would it be democratic if it became independent, though?

Hamas specifically came to power via elections, but hasn't held any elections since then under various excuses, so they clearly aren't champions of democracy.

I feel like you’re assuming that everyone thinks the same way you do. I don’t really think the evidence or history bears out “they just want freedom”. There were many obvious opportunities for this in the past.

Israel has a fairly large Palestinians population and most of them want to stay under Israeli control so maybe they know something that you don't?

This just isn't true. There are even (a few thousand) Jews living in Iran, and the Ayatollahs have come out in defence of Judaism proper.

The main problem for Jews in the region is the fact that the certain Israeli factions aggressively conflates Judaism with Israeli nationalism/Zionism, sacrificing the former to protect the latter. Above all else, that makes it dangerous to be Jewish outside Israel or one of its Western sponsors. And even inside. Because uninformed people, and actual antisemites, buy into that cynical framing.

They have tried to hold election. Last attempt was in 2021. Israel prevented occupied East Jerusalem from participating which was a noop for Abbas who cancelled them. Also notable was that EU asked to observe the election, but Israel did not allow that. There have also been local elections on the West Bank, last one in 2021.

Holding elections with two distinct governments and a third one occupying both is not easy. Even Ukraine has difficulty holding a general election with only a portion of its territory occupied and a single government.

But yeah, I think, and I think most would agree, that an independent Palestine would defiantly be democratic.

Bingo

There were definitely persecutions and ethnic cleansing campaigns following 1948 in the neighboring Arab countries, especially in Iraq, Syria, and following 1967 in Lebanon, which drove a lot of Arab speaking Jews to Israel. Israel’s immigration policy was also very aggressive in inviting Jews from Arabic countries into Israel. Some even believe Israel went as far as stealing people from Ethiopia. So a lot of Jewish communities that once existed outside of Israel have now been absorbed into Israel.

That said, I think it is a mistake—and honestly a bit racist—to claim that Jewish people can’t live and prosper in smaller communities among certain ethno-religous majorities today.

> And if we can take Israeli politicians at their word, this seems to have been the strategy for the past 20 years at least.

Do you also take Palestinian leaders at their word? Because if so their strategy is to drive out Jews by whatever means necessary. None of them are talking about equal rights and representations, that's just not how their society works and they definitely don't want that together with Jews.

I know that there are significant numbers who don't think like I do. I am stating a possibility that is ignored as an option. "they just want freedom" is based on every conversation I've ever had with a Palestinian. Did you ask any of them?

> That said, I think it is a mistake—and honestly a bit racist—to claim that Jewish people can’t live and prosper in smaller communities among certain ethno-religous majorities today

How is it racist ? There are indeed entire areas where Jews can't really live normally due to harassment. Even in Europe.

Many black Americans chose to stay in the USA rather than emigrate to Liberia in the 1800s when given the opportunity. What can you conclude about the situation for black people in America based on that historical fact?

I don't follow what the clowns in Hamas, Fatah, or the PLO say. But I know some people personally.

Have you ever talked to a Palestinian person, megaman821?

It is racist to zero in on a specific ethno-religous group and say that they in particular are unable to maintain a functioning democracy accommodating of certain minorities. It is the sort of crap that colonial Europe did to justify the horrors of the colonial period.

This is also in the Likud(Israeli far-right party charter) and actually denotes even more land in the region(Jordan) as property of Israel.

Seems like a weird comparison given that arab israelis are citizens with equal rights and most likely have much more information as opposed to people in the 1800s.

Not the mention that in the long term living in the USA was the right "bet", and pretty sure that if you ask black americans today if they'd like to emigrate to Liberia i assume 99.9% would say no.

There are many places in the world that are not maintaining a functioning democracy, that includes not respecting minorities to Western standards. Blows my mind this is a racist statement to you, but we'll have to disagree then.

They killed 1200 people, most of them civilians, raped dozens (at least), filmed murders and posted those videos to the victims Facebook pages. I am, in this one instance, comfortable with the application of Cancel Culture.

There is no advocacy one can pursue more antithetical to the cause of Palestinian human rights than to cheerlead for Hamas.

The likud is not far right, it’s just a right wing party. There are other far right parties. Can you link me to that part of the likud charter? Because the one I’ve read mentions none of that.

I don’t live in Gaza, nor do any of the Palestinians that I’ve known. I don’t think it’s fair to assume that the opinion sample is going to be representative for many reasons.

An interesting current data point for me is that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians support the actions of Hamas on October 7th specifically. If someone “just wants freedom” but doesn’t support the slaughter and kidnap of innocent Israeli citizens, they would actually be in the minority — so I don’t think your characterization is broadly correct. This isn’t even considering other historical events and opportunities for independent statehood.

Mexico has better chances of winning against the US and driving out the Americans than Hamas has against Israel. Hamas has no advanced military capability.

Palestinians have over the years engaged in many good faith peace talks. Honored their side of many cease-fire agreements. And this is exactly what you would expect. After all, Palestinians stand to gain much more by a sustained peace than Israel does. The status quo (before Oct 7) was pretty great for Israel and terrible for the Palestinians. When actions, words, and incentives all point in the same direction I'm inclined to believe the words. Israel doesn't want a Palestinian state with state rights nor does it want millions of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. Palestinians will gladly take any serious peace deal, even if that deal strongly favors Israeli interests, because the status quo is unbearable. But none of this matters because Israel has refused to engage in peace talks ever since Hamas got elected.

History teaches us that peace is possible between bitter enemies when both parties want peace and stand to gain by it. When one party desperately needs peace and the other party doesn't, there won't be peace.

This comment is in bad faith, it is attempting to paint my retort as cheerleading for Hamas despite the actual content of my comment. You can do better than this, maybe.

I think it's a pair of relatively straightforward and banal observations and you have a choice about how personally you want to take them. You can simply say nothing, and reasonable people might reasonably assume that you of course repudiate Hamas wholesale. I'm happy to do so as well.

At the point in which I entered the thread, there was some dispute as to the intent and good faith of Hamas itself. All I care about is that we establish that no such good faith exists. Your own personal beliefs are not something I feel the need to litigate.

> Palestinians have over the years engaged in many good faith peace talks.

So has Israel

> Honored their side of many cease-fire agreements.

So has Israel

> The status quo (before Oct 7) was pretty great for Israel and terrible for the Palestinians.

The status quo was partially the result of Israel being repeatedly attacked.

> Palestinians will gladly take any serious peace deal, even if that deal strongly favors Israeli interests, because the status quo is unbearable.

I think that if this was the case, October 7th would not have happened, Hamas would have surrendered, and the hostages would have been returned.

Having said this, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is highly complex.

> Mexico has better chances of winning against the US and driving out the Americans than Hamas has against Israel. Hamas has no advanced military capability.

I disagree. This isn't Hamas alone, Hamas is backed by Iran. Big proxy armies have been built by Iran and are surrounding Israel - mostly in Lebanon and Syria and now also Yemen. Hundreds of thousands of different kinds of rockets - many of them accurate with big warheads. As for moral support - significant parts of the Muslim world and the Western liberal elites are promoting and supporting the idea that Israel should be dismantled (The Muslims mostly see this done by force. The liberal left by sanctions, but are sympathetic to the idea of violent struggle because of 'oppression').

As for the chances of this working out - I don't think it's low at all. With a patient strategy like this it can eventually happen. They've been at it for around 100 years why can't they go on for another 100? But whatever I think about the chances, I'm positive most Palestinians themselves and the resistance axis supporting them are quite confident in their chances and feel religiously compelled to keep it up.

> After all, Palestinians stand to gain much more by a sustained peace than Israel does

This is a Western approach, not how Palestinians think. You either don't read what the Palestinians are saying or you don't believe them. When they say from the river to the sea - they mean it. It's a big part of their national and religious identity, not something they can give up for a small 1967 border state. Sure, they would have had better GDP and lives had they taken a 67 state with no occupation etc, but that would break their dreams and passions and identities and somewhat their religious beliefs. Those things are more important to them them than safety and GDP, as irrational as it may seem to you. I wish I was wrong about all this but nothing I've seen over the years led me to feel like I'm wrong.

When Hamas got elected Israel aborted all peace talks and built a fence with gun turrets around Gaza. No peace talks means no peace.

The belief that “the other” is fundamentally unreasonable can be used to justify arbitrary amounts of violence. Lets not forget that Hamas is pretty unpopular in Gaza and that most people just want to live their lives and not see their children get blown up. This is not my biased western perspective.

We have very clear instances from history where the opposite is true. The amount of senseless wars and violence is staggering. Arguably more often than not. I don't think this is different, we are going to disagree on that.

It turns out being the group who sent suicide bombers to restaurants, nightclubs, and busses, and who call for genocide of the jews regularly, are not a credible partner for peace.

And when israel does work with them, people say "See, bibi was supporting hamas!"

Sure. We can say the same about the middle ages and prehistoric societies. It's entirely possible that one day Palestine (or we can call it Israel who cares what the country is named) can become a country where all these people that want to kill each other today and lay their claims to the land can be more like Switzerland. The likelihood of that happening in the immediate future is pretty slim. These are long term processes. If we want to experiment let's pick another location in the region that's less complicated, like Syria, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt- pick one. when those become like the UK or Switzerland or France or Germany, i.e. prosperous, free, democratic countries, then we can try this in "Palestine"/"Israel". And really, if we turned the entire middle east into the EU then the tiny little piece of land people are fighting over becomes less of a problem anyways because there's not the same shortage of land/resources. I'm sure many Jewish people would prefer to live and work in Beirut for example or live in some remote area in Syria or Iraq and grow weed. "A wolf will reside with a lamb, and a leopard will lie down with a young goat; an ox and a young lion will graze together, as a small child leads them along." - beautiful.

The US tried to bring democracy to Iraq ... and Russia. That didn't quite end up as expected.

Seriously though, I think it could become. One day. It's been going the opposite direction. These are processes that are measured in generations. There are some major issues that would need to be addressed (like being a safe haven for Jews from persecution) even if the middle east emerges from it's "dark ages". Also I don't think the parties here really want this sort of solution right now (i.e. they wouldn't even be willing to work towards it and they're actively working against it).

defiantly? So you really think that the Hamas would abide by a democratic result that removes it from power? After it took power in Gaza by force, killing many Palestinians (hundreds!) that belonged to Fatah? I think there's little indication that Palestinians in power are interested in democracy, human rights, personal freedoms etc. Neither Fatah/PA nor Hamas. If Israel withdrew unilaterally from the entirety of the west bank it'd be a carbon copy of Gaza. Militarized, dug up with tunnels, rockets aimed at Israel, Jihadi antisemitic education system, zero human rights, rule by force, corruption. The only reason the PA is able to keep existing is because the IDF is supporting it, otherwise the Hamas would already be ruling the west bank cities (and/or Israel would retake them and re-establish the military rule over them).

There's a path to Israeli citizenship for Arabs living in east Jerusalem and Israel has de-facto annexed it. But Israel did allow the 2006 elections to happen there. I wasn't really aware of the details about 2021 but I think you forgot to mention that Hamas refused to allow the elections to take place in Gaza (and participate at all?). At the end of the day this is just another political battle tool. I think it would make sense for the Palestinians to have elections in the areas under their control, by insisting on extending those to areas not in their control they are making a political statement and trying to push towards the outcome they want to see. It's only fair that Israel pushes the opposite direction towards the outcome it prefers to see. There is still a dispute and the sides do not agree. If Palestinians were truly concerned about democracy they would restrict the process to the areas they control ("A" territory in the west bank and Gaza) which would make sense, i.e. give the people that live in areas under Palestinian control a say in who runs those areas, and wouldn't really make a statement as to what the eventual agreement would look like.

I don't know if you missed my point below but can Jews in Iran live in a democracy? Do they enjoy human rights and freedoms similar to what Jews enjoy in Israel?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Jews#Legal_discriminat...

"For example, if a Jew were to kill a Muslim, the family of the victim would have the right to ask that the death penalty be imposed, but if a Muslim kills a Jew, the penalty would be left to the discretion of the judges with the wishes of the victim's family carrying no legal weight" - I mean only fair, right?

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

"There were two waves of confiscation of homes, farmlands and factories of Jews in Iran. In the first wave, the authorities seized the properties of a small group of Jews who were accused of helping Zionism financially. In the second wave, authorities confiscated the properties of Jews who had to leave the country after the Revolution. They left everything in fear for their lives and the Islamic Republic confiscated their properties using their absence as an excuse"

So no, it's is not reasonable to ask Jews in Israel to live under similar conditions that Jews are subjected to in Iran (and really it's much worse than you're painting it). I stand by my original statement.

I think your last statement really tells it all. "makes it dangerous to be Jewish" tells us that the problem really is antisemitism. Israels' critics are the ones "conflating" things and the treatment of Israel by its haters is primarily coming from a place of hating Jews (and sorry, I'm going to put "uninformed" in the same bucket, because if you hate Jews because you're uninformed you're still an antisemite). As a Jewish person living out of Israel I see this in play. Israel is saying that much of the criticism against it is antisemitism and I think that's not way off the reality. It's also true that there's plenty of criticism that's not antisemitic but the bulk of it is. Saying Israel is somehow responsible for this is just victim blaming. If we were more aggressive about antisemitism not being ok/acceptable then we'd just be left with the valid criticism (of which there's plenty) and Israel wouldn't be able to hide behind the antisemitism defense. It's not that hard to tell whether criticism is valid or not, just s/Israel/Non-Jewish country/g and see if it still rings reasonable. That's the test Israel tries to get its critics to apply. Then it's either accused of whataboutism or colonialism or something else by people who don't want to apply this test.

EDIT: another by the way is that Iran is not an Arab country.

> Maybe external parties will somehow enforce a two state solution.

IMO, this should've always been the solution. What has happened is akin to parents letting teenage brothers bloodily beat each other up for many many decades without properly dictating a peaceful intervention assured by a much more powerful force. The world needs to acknowledge that these two parties have shown they are unable to form a peaceful equilibrium, and it's just enabling killing to continually be hands off. Get all the world powers positions on the floor, split the difference, tell Israel and Palestine these are the borders and security arrangement, guaranteed for X decades. No more lives will be lost as long as support for upsetting that agreement (intifada/nakba/etc.) is severed. Letting two extremist right wing sides religiously duke it out over "the holy land" isn't acceptable in the 21st century.

> At the end of the day this is just another political battle tool.

Show me a democracy where elections aren’t just another political battle tool. In anarchist circles there is even a saying: “If elections changed anything, they would abolish it.”

Of course the Palestinian governments are no different. Hamas wanted general elections because they thought they could gain more power. Fatah didn’t because they thought they would loose power. The game of politics happened and they had elections which were boycotted by Hamas and everybody (already in power) wins.

The onset of the Palestinian civil war is a whole lot more complected than to blame it on Hamas. Remember that the Irish also had a civil war after the 1921 treaty, and today both the North and the Republic are thriving democracies. The reality is that it is a whole lot easier to hold power in the modern world via elections (unless you are occupied, or otherwise exploited by a colonial power), and you have no reasons to believe that Hamas or Fatah or any governing body in a future free Palestine wouldn’t see that.

Sorry, but describing an entire region of the Earth as “emerging from its ‘dark ages’” comes a cross as a bit racist.

The ‘Dark Ages’ is a rejected term in historiography and kind of only serves to demonstrate the author’s disrespect for the time period which they are describing. Describing a current regions as being in the ‘dark ages’ does the same to my ears. The fact that you talk this way about the Middle East shows me that you may not respect this region and the people that live there.

> The US tried to bring democracy to Iraq

The US (and allies) invaded and occupied Iraq. That is (a) not a way to bring democracy, and (b) a proven way of hampering many economical and governmental prospects. It ended up exactly as expected—and vocally predicted by experts at the time—in a complete travesty.

Finally (and this is kind of an aside) turning the Middle East into the EU is a very colonial way of thinking. The Middle East deserves their own democracy. The EU holds a legacy, and owes much of its wealth, to colonialism. Some EU members even hold colonies to this day, others exploit cheaper labor markets (including in the Middle East) in what has been described as Neo-colonialism (a misnomer IMO as it cheapens the horrors of the actual colonial period). I certainly hope the Middle East won’t copy this from the EU and start prospering off of exploiting a different region of for its resources.

Hamas is more popular in Gaza than the Republican party is in the US. It is not true to say that they are "pretty unpopular."

> I think your last statement really tells it all. "makes it dangerous to be Jewish" tells us that the problem really is antisemitism. Israels' critics are the ones "conflating" things

The cynical conflation of Judaism/Jewish ethnicity with Israeli Zionism is absolutely driven by the Zionist regime and their hasbara appendages like ADL. Do you know what the "ADL definition of antisemitism" is and why that is significant? It explicitly equates "criticism of Israel/Zionism" with antisemitism. They have literally legalized this conflation in many respects.

It is totally disingenuous to imply that antisemites are the ones driving this confusion. They certainly benefit from it, but so does the Zionist regime, both at the expense of Jewish people of all backgrounds.

You can read HN threads about this issue and see the kernel of truth on both sides of the argument of whether antisemitism is "weaponized" by supporters of Israel, but you do your side of the argument no favors throwing around phrases like "their hasbara appendages like ADL". I'm well aware of the criticisms leveled against the ADL, and they may well be valid, but you're obliged to introduce them more seriously and carefully if you don't want to come across sounding like you believe any Jewish advocacy group is definitionally politically Zionist and thus ineligible to charge antisemitism.