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Israel was expanding the occupied terrirories on the west bank, had killed hundreds of Palestinians during 2023 and had thousands of Palestinian hostages. They were conducting a blockade against Gaza.
It isn't endless. Algeria was French for a century, now it isn't. Rhodesia was British for a century, now it isn't. They are turning Israel into the next Vietnam and making Israel fundamentally unsustainable. The US left most of Iraq and all of Afghanistan because it simply wasn't going to end. Israel minus Palestinians and ultra orthodox is about 1/60th of the US but trying to occupy a quarter as many people as the US tried to occupy with the help of Britain and several other countries in 2003.
You see how calling convicted terrorists "hostages" makes people suspicious of your point of view right? Why are we conflating the West Bank and Gaza? They will never be one nation again unless they ethnically cleanse Israel off the map. Of course there were trade controls in Gaza, it is, I don't know how many times it must be stated, run by a terrorist organization whos interest is killing Jews and using its own citizens as human shields to try and get American and European Leftists sad.
Palestinians have every right to engage in armed resistance. Israel is taking more than combatants prisoner and not providing trials.
Why aren't there trade controls on Israel then? They are bombing and occupying Israel? Fundamentally what the region needs is a situation in which Palestinians are in control of the situation and have a stable arrangement that they are satisfied with. The needs of the Israelis can't take higher priority than those that represent the bigger population. Security in the arab world is needed both for them but also since it benefits Europe. The interests of an insignificant tiny state with no natural resources has to be way down the priority list.
Well if its an armed resistance then they are POWs and not hostages. You are trying to have it both ways. In one part of your frame this is a legitimate war, so the Gazans are entitled to violence. Yet, in the other part of your frame Israel is not entitled to carry out its war in an effective manner, which, given normal rules of engagement + Hamas's tactics would ordinarily entitle Israel to a genocide. Which you would, obviously, again object to.
So a genocide of Israel is necessary? The people of Gaza have spoken and they prefer death to coexistence.
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Those comparisons would be more meaningful if Israelis could just take the suitcase or death deal. Even if we wrote off the ones of European origin, the Mizrahi Jews certainly can't/won't go back "home".
It bodes ill that the Palestinian cause seems to depend on a very narrow equilibrium where Western nations are both decadent and secure enough to just eat a loss or two, given the disanalogies.
It's not worth wondering about for Westerners but I often wonder if Palestinians actually think the Algerian deal is viable. Or if they're just lying for their audience and know deep down that, when it comes to it, Madagascar really isn't an option but they'll burn that bridge when they get to it.
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