I think it’s fair to blame Israel for their excessive violence, in the same way it’s fair to blame the Allies for flattening civilian cities at the end of the war.
When it came to bombings, both sides were terrible. A lot of things the victors of WW2 would’ve been war crimes if it weren’t for the blanket “all Germans were nazis, all nazis were evil, so they deserved it” attitude that developed during the war. But who would defend the nazis? They had invaded every country around them, which turned everyone in their sphere of influence into either their enemies or their liberated subjects. Switzerland could wag a finger at the victors, but there weren’t many places in the world that could add anything.
I don’t know if historians would call the German people accomplices, but the media and general public sure did, and that’s what stuck around. Real life is a lot more complicated than “group A bad, group B good”. Hitler didn’t come to power democratically, he was a minor player that used threats and violence to seize control.
There are a lot of similarities between the beginning of the second world war and the current destruction of Gaza. Everyone feels bad for the Palestinians but nobody wants the Palestinians to come to them. Invaders haven’t spoken their intent to commit genocide out loud yet, but everyone can see where this is going. There is a clear imbalance in military strength, and out of fear of escalation, nobody is willing to do anything. There’s also a second war raging that has powerful allies worried much more.
But there are also differences; Israel isn’t going to try to conquer the Middle East, the colonial powers are no longer controlling the vast majority of the world so the political situation is more complex. The Palestinians are much more concentrated in one single place, and the conflict has not only an ethnical history, but also a territorial one, going back hundreds to thousands of years, with both sides picking an arbitrary point in history to claim their right to the land. Then there’s the cold war-style military backing of Hamas and the IDF by Iran and the USA and its allies. It also doesn’t help that both sides are fighting to drive the others out of their lands; if Israel would stop their invasion and attempt to rebuild Gaza into a paradise, many Gazans will still cry for the death of all Jews in ten years time.
The Israel/Palestine situation isn’t as simple and clean as any world war. It has festered for much longer. Barring the eradication of all Jews, I doubt we’ll see peace in the middle east in our lifetimes with the way things are going.
I think it’s fair to blame Israel for their excessive violence, in the same way it’s fair to blame the Allies for flattening civilian cities at the end of the war.
When it came to bombings, both sides were terrible. A lot of things the victors of WW2 would’ve been war crimes if it weren’t for the blanket “all Germans were nazis, all nazis were evil, so they deserved it” attitude that developed during the war. But who would defend the nazis? They had invaded every country around them, which turned everyone in their sphere of influence into either their enemies or their liberated subjects. Switzerland could wag a finger at the victors, but there weren’t many places in the world that could add anything.
I don’t know if historians would call the German people accomplices, but the media and general public sure did, and that’s what stuck around. Real life is a lot more complicated than “group A bad, group B good”. Hitler didn’t come to power democratically, he was a minor player that used threats and violence to seize control.
There are a lot of similarities between the beginning of the second world war and the current destruction of Gaza. Everyone feels bad for the Palestinians but nobody wants the Palestinians to come to them. Invaders haven’t spoken their intent to commit genocide out loud yet, but everyone can see where this is going. There is a clear imbalance in military strength, and out of fear of escalation, nobody is willing to do anything. There’s also a second war raging that has powerful allies worried much more.
But there are also differences; Israel isn’t going to try to conquer the Middle East, the colonial powers are no longer controlling the vast majority of the world so the political situation is more complex. The Palestinians are much more concentrated in one single place, and the conflict has not only an ethnical history, but also a territorial one, going back hundreds to thousands of years, with both sides picking an arbitrary point in history to claim their right to the land. Then there’s the cold war-style military backing of Hamas and the IDF by Iran and the USA and its allies. It also doesn’t help that both sides are fighting to drive the others out of their lands; if Israel would stop their invasion and attempt to rebuild Gaza into a paradise, many Gazans will still cry for the death of all Jews in ten years time.
The Israel/Palestine situation isn’t as simple and clean as any world war. It has festered for much longer. Barring the eradication of all Jews, I doubt we’ll see peace in the middle east in our lifetimes with the way things are going.
Well written. There is nothing to contradict.