Quote:
Originally Posted by Red Slinger
It's sad to say but this 'escalation' was inevitable. The Netanyahu government has continued to encourage the so-called Settlers to displace Palestinians from their homes, some of which their families have occupied for decades.
I had the displeasure to have a conversation with one of these Settlers a couple of years ago and it was eye-opening. She was originally Russian but has lived in Israel for about 40 years. She and her family moved into one of the Settlements about 5 years ago. She described how her home is near a Palestinian village and claims that there are no tensions between the groups. She also went on to explain to me how Muslim's are lazy and just want handouts. The conversation ended shortly after that when I got up and started to leave. At that point, she desperately tried to tell me that she wasn't a racist. I saw her one time after that but completely ignored her.
It's particularly frustrating because most people that are directly affected by this aren't Hamas nor Settlers. Most of them are Israeli's and Palestinians who are just trying to get by. Unfortunately, on the Israeli side you have a warhawk, manifest-destiny believer in Netanyahu backed by, what amounts to, Jewish fascists in the Knesset that is seemingly perpetually in flux and ultimately ruled but fringe elements and the financial support of American Evangelicals desperate for the end times to start already.
On the other side, you have Hamas terrorists who are not particularly interested in the well-being of Palestinians but rather the accumulation of power, fortune and influence. They will actively encourage the deaths of their people to better their positions of power.
Meanwhile, the world stands by because of how it impacts their political situation at home.
I don't know the answer to this but it seems to me a good place to start would be to make the Settlements illegal and hand over control of Gaza and probably the West Bank to the UN (or some more effective equivalent). They may want to consider even making Jerusalem and independent city-state with a representative democracy.
|
On a matter of principle, I support Israel. I can even support that sometimes they need to be aggressive on certain security issues. They have a situation that is very hard for many people in the West to understand. It is so hard to get behind their government and some of the things they do though.
They are simultaneously a bastion for liberalism in a region that has very little of that, but routinely have a government that promotes far-right extremist behaviours. I think one thing many people don't realize is how fragmented and diverse opinions and outlooks are in Israel, and in a democratic system, it makes it possible for a minority faction to control things. We see it in Canada to a degree when minority governments have way more proportional power than they deserve, but Israel is a whole new ball game when it comes to that.