Palestine - The twice-promised land

All the mutual massacres, atrocities, war crimes, terrorist attacks, military aggressions, and land thefts have for many decades contributed to the situation we see out there. It is particularly true of this area of the world that we cannot hope to understand the present without understanding the past. Massacres and all. 

And I will say this again. Massacres of Israeli civilians by Arab extremists is not justified by the plight of the Arabs, anymore than the indiscriminate bombing of Palestinian civilians would be justified by the plight of the Jews.

But history matters in this part of the world perhaps more than in any other. The conflict cannot really be properly understood at all without some recourse to history in this region.

It was not the Haganah who were primarily responsible for the Deir Yassin massacre but extremist elements like the Stern Gang. And it was you who accused me of not understanding the Israeli position by being critical of the Deir Yassin massacre. How else is that to be interpreted other than a plea on your part to explain away the massacre as an exigency of war? After first trying to call it a battle. 

I have been even-handed, condemning both Jewish and Arab massacres. I'm not the biased one around here, sunshine.

And you and your ilk are forever throwing accusations of anti-semitism around at the drop of a hat in an obvious attempt to silence critics of Israel. Apparently, criticising Jewish extremists for a historical massacre is anti semitic in your eyes.

I guess I must be anti-American for being a critic of the My Lai massacre. And anti-British for being critical of the Amritsar massacre. Or perhaps you calling me an anti-semite is a baseless slur and insult entirely without foundation, which is typical of the Labour right wing you so identify with.

If you can point out where I have been anti-semitic - with quotes - then go right ahead, but at the moment if you even try you are going to quickly make yourself look both biased and stupid, not to mention malicious and mendacious. Because criticising a bunch of armed Jewish extremists for initiating a massacre of civilians in the 1940s does not constitute anti-semitism. To prove that it does you would have to demonstrate that I hold the entire Jewish people responsible for that on the assumption that all Jews are bad. Good luck with proving that one because I dont think that and never have, so am unlikely to have ever said such a thing.

So you can shove your malicious, dishonest, and nasty accusations where the sun don't shine. And swivel.

Funny really - in Eastern Europe, Russia is attempting to steal land which is not theirs, and so quite rightly we are supporting and helping Ukraine.

Meanwhile in the Middle East, Israel is attempting to steal land which is not theirs, and we are helping them.

Israel came under attack with 1400+ civilians killed in one of the worst terrorist attacks in history.

Gaza is run by a terrorist organisation committed to the destruction of Israel.

What's Israel supposed to do?

Invading and getting rid of the Hamas dictatorship is necessary.

Killing Gazan civilians has to be avoided as much as possible.

I am afraid that it is true that Israeli settlers, fully backed by the IDF and Israeli government, have been stealing land that is not theirs. And whilst we have not helped them do this, we have done nothing much to stop them either.

But what you say about Israel giving Gaza back is true, and yes Israel does have the right to defend itself. 

But in the long run, security and peace for Israel can only come about when there is justice for the Palestinians as well. This should include giving up the illegal west bank settlements and establishing a viable two state solution. But on the understanding that if the Palestinians choose leaders who want to attack Israel, or who harbour such people in their midst, Israel has the right to intervene to prevent this.

Ultimately peace for everyone will have to be based on something like this or there will be no peace, just an endless cycle of tit for tat and ever more hatred from each side towards the other. Both sides have been provoking the hatred of each other for many decades now, and this hatred is being passed down the generations and constantly being reinforced. The last time sworn enemies attempted to bury the hatchet and make peace, Israeli extremists assassinated their own leader for doing so, whilst Yasser Arafat lost the support of most of his own people too. And he was quickly isolated when a right wing Israeli regime effectively tore the Oslo accords to shreds, provoked into this by Arab extremists who also never wanted peace and whom Arafat was too weak to suppress.

Funny really, I suspect that Russia is behind the current escalation in the Middle East.

Indeed. Think about it: Proxy wars.

We (as in "The West") are funding Ukraine vs Russia. Russia is losing, or at least bogging down, in Ukraine.

Israel is a Western proxy, so what better for Russia than to divide Western attention/funding by provoking a conflict with Israel.

Let's face it: Those dimwits in Hamas don't usually have the training or funding to pull off something on the scale that they just did.

My money's on Russia (but yeah, I dare say that Iran were in there too).