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locallost ◴[] No.39148816[source]
My views on the situation aside, the clearest I saw anyone communicate the issues from a global angle was the former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin

Translated here: https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1718201487132885246

Viewed from the angle of the West, I think the message it needs to avoid isolating itself from the world is very unusual for Western media and important.

Quote:

"Westerners must open their eyes to the extent of the historical drama unfolding before us to find the right answers."

And

"This Palestinian question will not fade. And so we must address it and find an answer. This is where we need courage. The use of force is a dead end. The moral condemnation of what Hamas did - and there's no "but" in my words regarding the moral condemnation of this horror - must not prevent us from moving forward politically and diplomatically in an enlightened manner. The law of retaliation is a never-ending cycle."

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pgeorgi ◴[] No.39148909[source]
All correct and yet, what should happen? Israel stops their campaign. And then?

Spend tons of money on iron dome to shoot down the rockets and hope that Hamas won't manage to conduct another massacre, even if "only" half the scope of October 7?

This mess features not one but two parties who currently reject the concept of a cease fire.

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hypeit ◴[] No.39148950[source]
Israel must face the reality that is an apartheid state that exists on occupied land. There is no solution until that happens. Just like apartheid South Africa was dismantled, Israel has to face the same fate or forever be locked into warfare and oppressing Palestinians.
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lacker ◴[] No.39149282[source]
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.

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hypeit[dead post] ◴[] No.39149326[source]
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YZF ◴[] No.39149673[source]
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?

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runarberg ◴[] No.39150076[source]
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

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1. YZF ◴[] No.39150279[source]
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.

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2. runarberg ◴[] No.39150784[source]
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?

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3. int_19h ◴[] No.39151434[source]
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.

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4. runarberg ◴[] No.39151833{3}[source]
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.

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5. YZF ◴[] No.39158868[source]
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).

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6. YZF ◴[] No.39159095{4}[source]
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.

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7. runarberg ◴[] No.39159440{5}[source]
> 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.

8. runarberg ◴[] No.39159605{3}[source]
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.