This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
Doesn’t it bother you that you immediately changed your argument from “the Palestinians deserve to lose their territory because they failed to make an agreement”, to “the Palestinians deserve to lose their territory because Jews are special and there’s not many of them and Arabs suck?” It betrays the fact that your original argument wasn’t exactly sincere. Or was not at least your main argument.
98% of the region is Arab, always has been and always will be. Sympathy is therefore difficult
That’s a lot like saying “99% of the region is Slavic, therefore sympathy is difficult if Turks decided to conquer Odessa“. It doesn’t make sense as an argument because it ignores the diversity within the term “Arab” and the fact that you don’t suddenly get the right to land because the inhabitants are under the same broad ethnic umbrella. And it ignores that the holy land is particularly important for the whole Arab world.
the Jews have no interest in Arabia itself, nor in Persia or almost all of North Africa or Anatolia
The Jews have no interest in Iran? Have you turned on the news in the past decade? One of their overriding geopolitical interests of Israel is to destabilize Iran, just like they aimed and succeeded to influence American foreign policy toward destabilizing Iraq, Libya, and Syria. It turns out that placing Jews in the heartland of the Muslim world means that they are perpetually neurotic about powerful neighboring states. Which is a recipe for massive regional unrest. Jews have been kvetching about Iran for some time now, with the same WMD lie that they used to sell Iraq to America. Israel has no interest in Iran like America has no interest in Venezuela and Nicaragua.
Doesn’t it bother you that you immediately changed your argument from “the Palestinians deserve to lose their territory because they failed to make an agreement”, to “the Palestinians deserve to lose their territory because Jews are special and there’s not many of them and Arabs suck?” It betrays the fact that your original argument wasn’t exactly sincere. Or was not at least your main argument.
There are two arguments for two different questions, neither of which is 'does Israel deserve to exist?'.
The first is something like 'are problems with Israeli religious zionist settlers [which is what the original comment was about] in the West Bank an inevitable outcome of the existence of Israel and its settlement by zionists?'. My answer to this is 'no', because (as I said) had the Palestinians accepted the '47 or '67 borders, there would be no settlers on that land because it would have a clear border, be guarded by one or multiple Arab armies and would be recognized by the international community (including the US and Israel, which were prepared and ready to recognize such a Palestinian state at the times in question). There would be no settlers in such a Palestinian state for the same reason there are none in present-day Syria, in present-day Jordan and in present-day Egypt. The sole reason settlers exist in the West Bank is because they can be guarded by the IDF, because the IDF controls the land, because of successive defeats for Arab armies on that land by the IDF, because of wars that the Arabs started.
The second question, which you seemed to be discussing in your next comment, is some variant of 'how much should we sympathize with the Palestinians' plight?'. This is a separate moral consideration since one can certainly sympathize with a defeated party even if they brought ruin upon themselves. In this case, I argue that the grander civilization of which most Palestinians were part continues to control almost all of the region and that resettlement away from historic Palestine - while a partially avoidable (as I said above) tragedy - to nearby Arab lands that are not overpopulated, that have natural resources and that share a cultural, ethnic and religious identity with (predominantly Sunni) Palestinians is a less sympathetic plight than that of Jews who have no 'homeland' peopled by those of their ethnoreligious identity if Israel is destroyed.
This is actually why I'm more sympathetic to, say, the plight of European nationalists than I am to the plight of, say, the Rohingya. The Rohingya are ethnically Bengali Muslims who live next door to the homeland of Bengali Muslims in Bangladesh, where their demographic majority is not threatened. If, say, native French become a minority in France, they have no homeland left to return to.
The Jews have no interest in Iran? Have you turned on the news in the past decade?
How much interest did the Jews have in Iran when the central mission of the Iranian state was not the eradication of Israel? I think the answer is comparatively little, and as I recall they were allies. It was only when an explicitly Islamist movement took over the country, almost all the local Jews fled after many were arrested and/or expropriated and/or even executed, and the Iranian government declared that it sought (and would fund, and arm, and incite) the eradication of Israel that Israel pursued its anti-Iran policy.
The counterfactual is valid - Iran could, without altering its demography, territory, flag, national religion or even political system end any Israeli opposition by renouncing (and ceasing to pursue) its hostility toward Israel. There is nothing, by contrast, that the 'Zionist entity' could do to end the opposition of the Iranian revolutionary government other than dissolve itself entirely.
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Notes -
Doesn’t it bother you that you immediately changed your argument from “the Palestinians deserve to lose their territory because they failed to make an agreement”, to “the Palestinians deserve to lose their territory because Jews are special and there’s not many of them and Arabs suck?” It betrays the fact that your original argument wasn’t exactly sincere. Or was not at least your main argument.
That’s a lot like saying “99% of the region is Slavic, therefore sympathy is difficult if Turks decided to conquer Odessa“. It doesn’t make sense as an argument because it ignores the diversity within the term “Arab” and the fact that you don’t suddenly get the right to land because the inhabitants are under the same broad ethnic umbrella. And it ignores that the holy land is particularly important for the whole Arab world.
The Jews have no interest in Iran? Have you turned on the news in the past decade? One of their overriding geopolitical interests of Israel is to destabilize Iran, just like they aimed and succeeded to influence American foreign policy toward destabilizing Iraq, Libya, and Syria. It turns out that placing Jews in the heartland of the Muslim world means that they are perpetually neurotic about powerful neighboring states. Which is a recipe for massive regional unrest. Jews have been kvetching about Iran for some time now, with the same WMD lie that they used to sell Iraq to America. Israel has no interest in Iran like America has no interest in Venezuela and Nicaragua.
There are two arguments for two different questions, neither of which is 'does Israel deserve to exist?'.
The first is something like 'are problems with Israeli religious zionist settlers [which is what the original comment was about] in the West Bank an inevitable outcome of the existence of Israel and its settlement by zionists?'. My answer to this is 'no', because (as I said) had the Palestinians accepted the '47 or '67 borders, there would be no settlers on that land because it would have a clear border, be guarded by one or multiple Arab armies and would be recognized by the international community (including the US and Israel, which were prepared and ready to recognize such a Palestinian state at the times in question). There would be no settlers in such a Palestinian state for the same reason there are none in present-day Syria, in present-day Jordan and in present-day Egypt. The sole reason settlers exist in the West Bank is because they can be guarded by the IDF, because the IDF controls the land, because of successive defeats for Arab armies on that land by the IDF, because of wars that the Arabs started.
The second question, which you seemed to be discussing in your next comment, is some variant of 'how much should we sympathize with the Palestinians' plight?'. This is a separate moral consideration since one can certainly sympathize with a defeated party even if they brought ruin upon themselves. In this case, I argue that the grander civilization of which most Palestinians were part continues to control almost all of the region and that resettlement away from historic Palestine - while a partially avoidable (as I said above) tragedy - to nearby Arab lands that are not overpopulated, that have natural resources and that share a cultural, ethnic and religious identity with (predominantly Sunni) Palestinians is a less sympathetic plight than that of Jews who have no 'homeland' peopled by those of their ethnoreligious identity if Israel is destroyed.
This is actually why I'm more sympathetic to, say, the plight of European nationalists than I am to the plight of, say, the Rohingya. The Rohingya are ethnically Bengali Muslims who live next door to the homeland of Bengali Muslims in Bangladesh, where their demographic majority is not threatened. If, say, native French become a minority in France, they have no homeland left to return to.
How much interest did the Jews have in Iran when the central mission of the Iranian state was not the eradication of Israel? I think the answer is comparatively little, and as I recall they were allies. It was only when an explicitly Islamist movement took over the country, almost all the local Jews fled after many were arrested and/or expropriated and/or even executed, and the Iranian government declared that it sought (and would fund, and arm, and incite) the eradication of Israel that Israel pursued its anti-Iran policy.
The counterfactual is valid - Iran could, without altering its demography, territory, flag, national religion or even political system end any Israeli opposition by renouncing (and ceasing to pursue) its hostility toward Israel. There is nothing, by contrast, that the 'Zionist entity' could do to end the opposition of the Iranian revolutionary government other than dissolve itself entirely.
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