It's difficult to enter fully into your arguments and point of view when you obfuscate the full view of the facts. For example, in the link posted at the end of the article, you say that Israelis are already intent on violating the ceasefire. But why? Just for fun? To get the band back together? No, because Hamas continues to perpetrate war crimes. Hamas promised to return the remains of the hostages they took and have not done so. It seems to never be the fault of Hamas.
Gaza is rubble, retrieving the bodies of the hostages is a logistical nightmare. The red cross have confirmed this. It was a ridiculously short amount of time to give them to return the remains of the hostages without specialist equipment and it was absolutely in bad faith.
It's interesting that you don't acknowledge the reality that did exist prior to October 7th, that Israel was open to a 2 state solution, always had been with giving up land in hope for the exchange of peace and neighbors they could live with. They did that multiple times and look where we are.
Your beloved Palestinians made Israelis across the whole political spectrum realise what a stupid idea that was. Palestinians now have only themselves to blame for Israel and it's people finally having woken fully to the fact that Palestinians don't want EVER a 2 state solution. No,, what you heard the Hamas loving Lefty's scream in the streets of their countries "to the river to the sea...." That's the goal of Palestinians and now for many radicalized students across the West. It's what they've always wanted and it's not because great grandad had a house in a remote village that no longer exists, it's about the whole territory being Muslim controlled like the rest of North Africa and the Middle East as part of the wider Caliphate.
There's only a 1 state solution and that's it. This end to the war is but a reprieve, it will start again.
And it will either be a single state that is Israel or Palestine. The problem is the Jews won't just go away, hence the desire of Muslims to murder them all or expell but the Muslim brotherhood is hell bent on extermination like their European historical counterparts the Nazis or today, students on college campuses and their professors and Radical Muslims in the West undermining the very countries they've gone to to convert them into Sharia Muslim countries.
If Iran had got its nukes, the whole issue would be moot because as we all know, they'd use them to obliterate Israel to Kingdom come. Ironically in that process they kill all the Palestinians too. All of them in Gaza and the WB. And quite likely a lot of people in the neighboring countries too but Muslims killing Muslims, none of you care and wouldn't give a shit. Proof of that is Yemen and Syria and the mass murder of Christians in Nigeria by Islamists. Crickets from the screaming lefty students and lovvies. However if Israel did it, holy cow, the shit storm that'd ensue. No Jews, no news. So the war will start again and Hamas will ensure it does because they have murderous hate for the Jews. You can't escape it.
I was going to write something more in response, Shadi, but it seems just about ever other commenter beat me to it: you left out HAMAS, who are currently terrorizing and murdering people in the streets they suspect of disloyalty.
But I will say something about what you said here: "To the extent that they’re taken this way, I suspect it has to do with the discomfort that many “anti-woke” Americans have towards the very idea of victimhood. This is a blindspot. You don’t have to like it, but I think you have to understand it."
I don't think the problem is victimhood per se, it's how you're defining it. The Palestinians completely deserve the world's sympathy, just as do the civilians of Sudan's brutal civil war. But in leaving HAMAS out of the equation, and in naming Israel as the only instrument of oppression, you're simply not addressing all the fundamental causes of their suffering.
What happened to Gazans in 1948 has happened to many people through history, but that does not mean they are not deserving of compassion for what they have gone through since then (as do the people who have experienced it). In the recent New Yorker cover story by Mohammed R. Mhawish, a Palestinian journalist, writes (https://www.newyorker.com/news/essay/gazas-broken-politics):
"We as Palestinians are often congratulated for our resilience. It has become the badge pinned on us—the costume of the noble victim. Our ability to breathe under rubble is praised as a virtue, when it’s actually an indictment of the world that put us there. If it does not lead to freedom, resilience delivers only another day of captivity. Survival is the most meagre inheritance. To call us resilient is to praise the caged bird while ignoring the cage’s latch. Surviving destruction is not the same as defeating it. There’s cruelty in this praise. It tells the world to marvel at our strength while ignoring the cost paid in blood and hunger. Our pain is romanticized, and our survival treated as the whole story—when it is only the beginning."
One can only hope Gazans will choose their leaders wisely this time, the international community helps them develop institutions for a modern state, and the Arab/muslims states help them financially and not use them for an ideological cause against the Zionists.
Hamas, it seems, would need to be winded down as a matter of principle - that seems to be the only way forward. Hamas members should be allowed to lay down their arms and rejoin political life, or allowed to leave Gaza and live elsewhere (who will take them?). Hamas itself must cease to exist.
Forgot to mention, already Hamas are rounding up local Muslim Palestinian clan warlord opposition that want to get rid of Hamas and Hamas are executing them. Just like the did the PLA after the elections that Hamas won back in 2007 when Israel left Gaza to allow Palestinian self rule. And over 20 years, look what that decision by Palestinians has resulted in. They never ever learn and still won't.October 7 th is what the majority of Palestinians want to repeat if they could, despite them being war weary....
This is worthwhile reading, but it ignores the proverbial elephant in the room; Hamas. There would have been no war, and Gazans would not be suffering, except for Hamas.
Nothing will be resolved, as long as people point their finger in the wrong direction.
The whole point of my piece was to point out that history matters. In other words, this didn't start on Oct. 7. Gazans were already suffering. Were they experiencing a genocide? No. So, yes, they were definitely doing better pre-Oct. 7 but that's a low bar.
So, what do you use for a start point? The Old Testament?
Israel never initiates conflict. In all cases it has responded to threats, not created them.
People talk as if the state of Israel is not legitimate. Yet they condone Hamas, which is REALLY not legitimate.
Israel has made multiple agreements that would establish a Palestinian state. It is Muslim organizations that wreck the agreements, EVERY time.
Right now, in Africa, Christian towns and organizations are being slaughtered in an ongoing genocide that far exceeds what is going on in Gaza. Are they not worth your notice?
Even a cursory reading of 1948, in light of now un-classified documents, shows that many Palestinian towns were purged by Jewish militants as they established Jewish home rule in the region. So yeah, no need to go Old Testament.
Shadi was explaining the motivation behind WHY Islamist organizations refuse two-state solutions. The grievance runs deeper than just some land. They want all the land back!
And all killing is awful, but whataboutism is not how you should condemn these things.
(*bracing for the inevitable berating of the individualist to follow this comment*)
Damn Shadi, you beat me to the punch on this! I was going to write a pitch for WOC about why the ceasefire is not even the end of the beginning as Churchill would say. You're right to say it is not only about territory, but also wrapped up inside all that history, frustration, anger, and loss is a fight over land and recognition. I am not sure I agree with your assessment that if it were simply about land, then a two-state solution could have been negotiated relatively easily.
But yes, I think your main point is spot on. I must admit, in the past 2 years, I have re-examined how I felt about this issue deeply and sincerely because of the horrors unleashed. Unfortunately, given the tension and the historical locus of nationalism, fear, and the rising tides of hatreds, I cannot see any just or lasting settlement soon.
And Hamas is violating the ceasefire agreement every day, by not returning all the remains of Israelis (that they murdered) that they have. In fact today they returned 4 bodies. One was a Gazan!!! Maybe it was on of the Gazans they brutally executed the other day.
You write as if the Palestinians have no agency. They do. They have used that agency for 100 years to state by their actions that they will not accept Jewish sovereignty in the region. They have never accepted a two state solution even when the Israelis did. How many times could there have been a Palestinian state since 1936 but the Arabs were the ones who rejected it.
If Israelis don't favor a two state solution NOW (as opposed to as recently as 2008) it is because the Palestinians killed their willingness. You know that, but you won't admit it.
I wonder if Americans in particular struggle to empathize with the Palestinian people because we are at our core a nation of immigrants. Leaving lost causes behind is what defines many of our stories. It's hard to see land as anything more than someplace to be settled on and to build a home. And if that all burns to the ground, you move on, just like your ancestors did.
Maybe you wrestle with this as the son of immigrants advocating for American intervention in other peoples' homelands in your book Shadi. I'll buy a copy and find out.
One wonders if all that wistful writing about "lost causes" would hit the same way if it was being written out southern neo-confederates; the veritable trope-namer of "lost causes." If not, then there's not real principle here; just ex post facto rationalizations and justifications for a partisan tribal position.
You mean aside from the phrase and how it evokes belligerence towards power being acquired by one’s believed inferiors?
I’ll add that all the things that Said laments could simply be have been done in the land that Palestinians already have, but no, the clock must somehow be turned fully back, unlike for anyone else (see first paragraph for why).
If there had been two (or three) states after Oslo, and Palestinians simply had their state on some of the land they called “theirs” but not all of it, and been able to live in the manner Said had become accustomed to (one hopes that not just the doctor or lawyer, but even the simple traffic cop would also have the same access to dignity), would that truly have been unbearable? And if we are to be asked to understand the feelings, the plight and suffering of those who basically said “No Jews now, no Jews tomorrow, no Jews forever”, should we also consider the Jews who considered their own history, took that message literally and said “Fuck this, this time we fight”?
I think there is a distinction that can be made between how the eastern mind views their relationship to 'the land' and how a western slave-owner does. But I like where you were going, even if it is a false equivalency.
It's difficult to enter fully into your arguments and point of view when you obfuscate the full view of the facts. For example, in the link posted at the end of the article, you say that Israelis are already intent on violating the ceasefire. But why? Just for fun? To get the band back together? No, because Hamas continues to perpetrate war crimes. Hamas promised to return the remains of the hostages they took and have not done so. It seems to never be the fault of Hamas.
Gaza is rubble, retrieving the bodies of the hostages is a logistical nightmare. The red cross have confirmed this. It was a ridiculously short amount of time to give them to return the remains of the hostages without specialist equipment and it was absolutely in bad faith.
It's interesting that you don't acknowledge the reality that did exist prior to October 7th, that Israel was open to a 2 state solution, always had been with giving up land in hope for the exchange of peace and neighbors they could live with. They did that multiple times and look where we are.
Your beloved Palestinians made Israelis across the whole political spectrum realise what a stupid idea that was. Palestinians now have only themselves to blame for Israel and it's people finally having woken fully to the fact that Palestinians don't want EVER a 2 state solution. No,, what you heard the Hamas loving Lefty's scream in the streets of their countries "to the river to the sea...." That's the goal of Palestinians and now for many radicalized students across the West. It's what they've always wanted and it's not because great grandad had a house in a remote village that no longer exists, it's about the whole territory being Muslim controlled like the rest of North Africa and the Middle East as part of the wider Caliphate.
There's only a 1 state solution and that's it. This end to the war is but a reprieve, it will start again.
And it will either be a single state that is Israel or Palestine. The problem is the Jews won't just go away, hence the desire of Muslims to murder them all or expell but the Muslim brotherhood is hell bent on extermination like their European historical counterparts the Nazis or today, students on college campuses and their professors and Radical Muslims in the West undermining the very countries they've gone to to convert them into Sharia Muslim countries.
If Iran had got its nukes, the whole issue would be moot because as we all know, they'd use them to obliterate Israel to Kingdom come. Ironically in that process they kill all the Palestinians too. All of them in Gaza and the WB. And quite likely a lot of people in the neighboring countries too but Muslims killing Muslims, none of you care and wouldn't give a shit. Proof of that is Yemen and Syria and the mass murder of Christians in Nigeria by Islamists. Crickets from the screaming lefty students and lovvies. However if Israel did it, holy cow, the shit storm that'd ensue. No Jews, no news. So the war will start again and Hamas will ensure it does because they have murderous hate for the Jews. You can't escape it.
I was going to write something more in response, Shadi, but it seems just about ever other commenter beat me to it: you left out HAMAS, who are currently terrorizing and murdering people in the streets they suspect of disloyalty.
But I will say something about what you said here: "To the extent that they’re taken this way, I suspect it has to do with the discomfort that many “anti-woke” Americans have towards the very idea of victimhood. This is a blindspot. You don’t have to like it, but I think you have to understand it."
I don't think the problem is victimhood per se, it's how you're defining it. The Palestinians completely deserve the world's sympathy, just as do the civilians of Sudan's brutal civil war. But in leaving HAMAS out of the equation, and in naming Israel as the only instrument of oppression, you're simply not addressing all the fundamental causes of their suffering.
Thanks Luke
I appreciate your reply, but I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.
What happened to Gazans in 1948 has happened to many people through history, but that does not mean they are not deserving of compassion for what they have gone through since then (as do the people who have experienced it). In the recent New Yorker cover story by Mohammed R. Mhawish, a Palestinian journalist, writes (https://www.newyorker.com/news/essay/gazas-broken-politics):
"We as Palestinians are often congratulated for our resilience. It has become the badge pinned on us—the costume of the noble victim. Our ability to breathe under rubble is praised as a virtue, when it’s actually an indictment of the world that put us there. If it does not lead to freedom, resilience delivers only another day of captivity. Survival is the most meagre inheritance. To call us resilient is to praise the caged bird while ignoring the cage’s latch. Surviving destruction is not the same as defeating it. There’s cruelty in this praise. It tells the world to marvel at our strength while ignoring the cost paid in blood and hunger. Our pain is romanticized, and our survival treated as the whole story—when it is only the beginning."
One can only hope Gazans will choose their leaders wisely this time, the international community helps them develop institutions for a modern state, and the Arab/muslims states help them financially and not use them for an ideological cause against the Zionists.
Hamas, it seems, would need to be winded down as a matter of principle - that seems to be the only way forward. Hamas members should be allowed to lay down their arms and rejoin political life, or allowed to leave Gaza and live elsewhere (who will take them?). Hamas itself must cease to exist.
Forgot to mention, already Hamas are rounding up local Muslim Palestinian clan warlord opposition that want to get rid of Hamas and Hamas are executing them. Just like the did the PLA after the elections that Hamas won back in 2007 when Israel left Gaza to allow Palestinian self rule. And over 20 years, look what that decision by Palestinians has resulted in. They never ever learn and still won't.October 7 th is what the majority of Palestinians want to repeat if they could, despite them being war weary....
This is worthwhile reading, but it ignores the proverbial elephant in the room; Hamas. There would have been no war, and Gazans would not be suffering, except for Hamas.
Nothing will be resolved, as long as people point their finger in the wrong direction.
The whole point of my piece was to point out that history matters. In other words, this didn't start on Oct. 7. Gazans were already suffering. Were they experiencing a genocide? No. So, yes, they were definitely doing better pre-Oct. 7 but that's a low bar.
So, what do you use for a start point? The Old Testament?
Israel never initiates conflict. In all cases it has responded to threats, not created them.
People talk as if the state of Israel is not legitimate. Yet they condone Hamas, which is REALLY not legitimate.
Israel has made multiple agreements that would establish a Palestinian state. It is Muslim organizations that wreck the agreements, EVERY time.
Right now, in Africa, Christian towns and organizations are being slaughtered in an ongoing genocide that far exceeds what is going on in Gaza. Are they not worth your notice?
https://individualistsunite.substack.com/p/why-do-you-hate-israel
Even a cursory reading of 1948, in light of now un-classified documents, shows that many Palestinian towns were purged by Jewish militants as they established Jewish home rule in the region. So yeah, no need to go Old Testament.
Shadi was explaining the motivation behind WHY Islamist organizations refuse two-state solutions. The grievance runs deeper than just some land. They want all the land back!
And all killing is awful, but whataboutism is not how you should condemn these things.
(*bracing for the inevitable berating of the individualist to follow this comment*)
Proclaiming that whataboutism is not valid doesn't it make it not valid.
I have every right, as some people condemn Israel for its actions, to point out that Muslims have done far worse.
If you call that 'berating' so be it. And what is it called when YOU do it?
If you're ever in Denver, I'll buy you a beer. Cheers.
You're on. And the same goes for Cincinnati.
Damn Shadi, you beat me to the punch on this! I was going to write a pitch for WOC about why the ceasefire is not even the end of the beginning as Churchill would say. You're right to say it is not only about territory, but also wrapped up inside all that history, frustration, anger, and loss is a fight over land and recognition. I am not sure I agree with your assessment that if it were simply about land, then a two-state solution could have been negotiated relatively easily.
But yes, I think your main point is spot on. I must admit, in the past 2 years, I have re-examined how I felt about this issue deeply and sincerely because of the horrors unleashed. Unfortunately, given the tension and the historical locus of nationalism, fear, and the rising tides of hatreds, I cannot see any just or lasting settlement soon.
Great minds... :) Thanks Sam for the message, glad the piece resonated
It really did!
And Hamas is violating the ceasefire agreement every day, by not returning all the remains of Israelis (that they murdered) that they have. In fact today they returned 4 bodies. One was a Gazan!!! Maybe it was on of the Gazans they brutally executed the other day.
You write as if the Palestinians have no agency. They do. They have used that agency for 100 years to state by their actions that they will not accept Jewish sovereignty in the region. They have never accepted a two state solution even when the Israelis did. How many times could there have been a Palestinian state since 1936 but the Arabs were the ones who rejected it.
If Israelis don't favor a two state solution NOW (as opposed to as recently as 2008) it is because the Palestinians killed their willingness. You know that, but you won't admit it.
I wonder if Americans in particular struggle to empathize with the Palestinian people because we are at our core a nation of immigrants. Leaving lost causes behind is what defines many of our stories. It's hard to see land as anything more than someplace to be settled on and to build a home. And if that all burns to the ground, you move on, just like your ancestors did.
Maybe you wrestle with this as the son of immigrants advocating for American intervention in other peoples' homelands in your book Shadi. I'll buy a copy and find out.
One wonders if all that wistful writing about "lost causes" would hit the same way if it was being written out southern neo-confederates; the veritable trope-namer of "lost causes." If not, then there's not real principle here; just ex post facto rationalizations and justifications for a partisan tribal position.
I'm not sure what any of this has to do with the confederacy
You mean aside from the phrase and how it evokes belligerence towards power being acquired by one’s believed inferiors?
I’ll add that all the things that Said laments could simply be have been done in the land that Palestinians already have, but no, the clock must somehow be turned fully back, unlike for anyone else (see first paragraph for why).
If there had been two (or three) states after Oslo, and Palestinians simply had their state on some of the land they called “theirs” but not all of it, and been able to live in the manner Said had become accustomed to (one hopes that not just the doctor or lawyer, but even the simple traffic cop would also have the same access to dignity), would that truly have been unbearable? And if we are to be asked to understand the feelings, the plight and suffering of those who basically said “No Jews now, no Jews tomorrow, no Jews forever”, should we also consider the Jews who considered their own history, took that message literally and said “Fuck this, this time we fight”?
I think there is a distinction that can be made between how the eastern mind views their relationship to 'the land' and how a western slave-owner does. But I like where you were going, even if it is a false equivalency.
Don’t cross the invisible yellow line 💀