Hamas Attacks Israel: 70 Israelis, 198 Palestinians Dead

[Belsnickel]

(10-09-2023, 07:15 AM)Dill Wrote: I agree that Hamas does not want peace, though the majority of Palestinians do. 
And Hamas undermines or kills other Palestinians who want peace.

What they want is the end of the state of Israel. 

But just killing off Hamas won't produce peace, so long as Gaza remains a giant open air prison. 

If every member of Hamas dropped dead right now, within a generation there would be another organization, 
possibly also Islamist, with the same goal.

This would be easier to understand if you imagined how two million Americans might respond to imprisonment
for three generations in an area of 140 square miles. Think of how they respond to mask mandates now.

The right wing in Israel does not want any solution to this problem which entails Palestinian autonomy and a homeland.
And certainly no "right of return." They have a realistic fear that Palestinians would try to take back the land Israel took from them. 

Israel was able to integrate a remainder of the Arab population remaining on Israeli land after the 1948 war, 
but they didn't want to do that with the refugee populations in Gaza and the West Bank, in part because of the ethnic
imbalance that would create and in part because their real property had already been given to Israelis. 

So just as there are Palestinians who don't want peace, there are Israelis who don't want peace.
E.g., when Rabin signed the Oslo accords with Rabin, it was an Israeli who assassinated him.
When Sharon and Netanyahu followed him as PM, they were hostile to the Accords and began increasing settlements
on the West Bank and generally refusing implementation. The view that examining this history is "excusing" Hamas
only insures that Hamas, or some facscimile thereof, will continue into the future. 

This post is a very valid position that I fear will be lost on many people when discussed in the context of this latest situation. I often think about discussions surrounding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in a similar way as I do gun control discussions. The topic gets a lot of focus during major incidents and in the immediate aftermath, but then the attention dies away for the vast majority until the next flare up. The problem is that in those times of heightened emotion the issues get the most attention with the least amount of logic and nuanced evaluation, but no one is paying attention when those sorts of discussions take place. Trying to apply this sort of analysis to these situations during the times of heightened emotion comes off as defending those in the wrong and as a result people sour on these positions during the less emotional times. At the same time, though, people need those sorts of takes during these times because it can prevent actions that could have dire consequences.