Former President Barack Obama said a way forward for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is only possible if people acknowledge the “complexity” of the situation.
“If there’s any chance of us being able to act constructively to do something, it will require an admission of complexity and maintaining what on the surface may seem contradictory ideas that what Hamas did was horrific, and there’s no justification for it. And … that the occupation and what’s happening to Palestinians is unbearable,” Obama said in an interview on the podcast “Pod Save America.”
The former president’s comments come as the Israeli military focuses its offensive against Hamas in Gaza City and northern parts of the enclave.
this f**king joke has no right to tell anyone how to move forward
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/jill-stein-2012-debate-arrest-hofstra-university/
his solutions for peace involved chaining people to chairs for wanting equal rights
Probably one of the most complex issues that I don’t see being brought up is Gaza’s culture built around Sharia law.
Yeah, there are plenty of innocent people are children suffering. This still doesn’t mean that if Gazans had there way, Israel would be a better place.
That said, the US should end all aid to Israel and let them fund their own genocide. They can afford it. They have a fucking intel fab for fuck’s sake.
Do you have any understanding of the Palestinian history? Isreal funded religious extremism in order to opposed the leftist secularist political organizing within Gaza.
This feels a bit like saying “you know, the trail of tears was bad, but we don’t bring up the complex issues of Cherokee slavery”.
Sharia law isn’t a monolithic belief and is subject to reform. But it’s entirely a secondary consideration when you have a state committing genocide.
Yes.
Could we have this guy back, please?
The drone strike guy who didn’t close gitmo?
What israel is doing in Palestine is what oBomber did during his entire presidency.
Let’s judge people on their actions instead of hollow words. Even the walking orange did better than Obama when it comes to foreign policy by withdrawing from Afghanistan.
Do you think anyone outside of the 30% of Confederate descendants in the US agrees with you?
Isn’t it sad that you’re so fixated on defending “lefties” that you’re willing to ignore that Obama was a warmonger that indiscriminately targeted civilians to further US imperialism?
But keep going about the repubs vs dems circlejerk.
Isn’t it sad that you ignore that the Republican presidents didn’t close gitmo either and that Trump actually increased the drone strikes?
Lol I hope you’re getting paid to do your farcical trolling. I said nothing about repubs vs dems - YOU did. I just mentioned the racists, sexists and bigots that are the only ones on your side of this argument.
I’m sorry was my side the one supporting a racist apartheids state akin to literal Nazi’s?
No, your side are actual Nazis.
Which side is that? Your only rebuttal is tu quoque but I haven’t declared support for any party.
Or is it a law of nature that if you criticize precious GenocIde Joe that you must vote on the elephant logo?
I’m a leftist and I agree with him. Sure, obama wasn’t as bad as Bush or Reagan, but he was still pretty shit.
I judge by results, and he’s right that even trump was better on foreign policy than Obama. Staying in the forever wars for his entire 2 terms is completely unforgivable.
You forgot the /s. https://www.cfr.org/timeline/trumps-foreign-policy-moments
I guess unless you are unironically admitting to being a racist xenophobe.
Literally scoreboard. Trump got us out of the forever wars, Obama made them worse. Sure, he took 4 years to do it when it should have taken 3 months, but doing it is strictly better than not doing it. And Obama didn’t do it.
Got it. Racist xenophobe confirmed.
You libs are so fucking stupid. Learn to question what you’re told, institutions lie all the time.
Pro-tip, if you want to pretend to be a leftist on the internet, it helps to not call trump better than Obama.
Good luck!
He’s been programed since birth to worship tough guys, i.e., The Czar.
Leftists don’t actually like Obama. Did you not know that? I’m a socialist, and on this particular issue, trump was very obviously better. He didn’t commit nearly as many war crimes.
Does noise constantly echo in your empty skull?
No because the words of western leaders are so hollow that the echo cancels out. You should try taking both your eye patches off.
bloppydee dooo dee dooo! lmao
No. I need my left eye patch. I’m a pirate. You’re a loser.
Don’t forget the tan suit and bicycle helmet!
Worst president ever, ever!
/S
Obama is a Centrist-Democrat. Right-wingers AGREED with his policies enough that all they complained about was how much melanin his clothes lacked and lack of head protection. That meant the policies and actions were favorable to Right-wing nuts :-( Cancelling student debt, bailing out families in need, reinforcing the Social-Security, VA, CDC, EPA, FDA and making Roe-Wade into law ( along with the ACA ) in so many ways were sidelined and ignored while 2008 taught the lessons that werent learnt, 2019 hit so hard and so fast nothing could have been effective at stopping the long plunge into the depths.
Centrists do nothing except maintain the status-quo while silently allowing everything that failed to stay broken, while the next cycle of things to break happens over and over again until that deep dark pit becomes the new reality.
Is it hard keeping up with all the accounts you’re in charge of at The Troll Farm, tovarisch?
Not really since every rebuttal I receive here cannot seem to reason past the level of ad-hominems.
The “lead from behind” guy who delivered $4 billion in cash by US military to Iran? No Thanks
The guy whose quantity of melanin drove Bubbas insane?
“It’s the WHITE HOUSE!”
The guy who doesn’t understand that genocide is not at all complex? The guy who bombed a wedding and a hospital? And intentionally targeted American citizens with drone strikes? No thanks.
Nah, he might seem reasonable here but his foreign policy scatterbrain pattern is part of why Ukraine is in such dire straights now. Man hesitated to stand up to Russia when they went into crimea, the point when they could have been stopped, and where Ukraine could have been swept into the EU orbit with far less bloodshed.
Obama standing up to Russia during the Crimea invasion would make for some interesting alt-history.
With Russia under stronger sanctions earlier, perhaps they would have less opportunity to feed and fund the alt-right to the same extent as it has been.
Please, they’ve been stirring shit up on a shoestring budget for decades. It’s almost impressive what they’ve been managing to do.
They should run a frugal youtube channel and teach the CIA how its done.
Reddit probably rotted my brain, but I’m struggling to determine how this is anything but “everyone sucks here.” On this matter, I don’t think anyone has been truly in the right in a century. Can anyone provide a convincing argument otherwise?
“It’s complicated” is a constantly used rhetorical strategy by those in power to put off moral judgement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxC5HhKQ5ks 80 second video. This situation isn’t complicated at all.
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https://www.piped.video/watch?v=RxC5HhKQ5ks
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I truly do think that Islamophobia and the United States having a lot of historical and economic ties to Israel are why we’ve allowed this to go on unchecked for decades.
Public opinion is definitely shifting in favor of Palestine though.
Michael Brooks is missed. Great name btw.
Nah, you can go through the comments here and find people taking the easy, position here too. “Bombing kids is bad, so Israel is bad, so Palestine must be good, therefore I support Palestine.” No nuance, no attempts to look at a more complex situation or consider anything other than the most basic information.
Both sides suck, both sides will happily commit war crimes, and civilians on both sides are getting hurt. One side is getting more hurt than the other, but that’s just a difference in capability, not belief.
Stupid Palestinians fighting against colonists for the right to exist on their own land. DAE both sides?
How does this argument work when it comes to Russians in Crimea?
Both Jews and Palestinians have claims to the area as “their own land.”
You may note that when Russia invaded Crimea, the West did basically fuck all about it. Russia invaded it and so Russia has kept it. You wanna play that argument, then Israel gets to keep everything they got in '48 and '67.
If you’re arguing it’s Russia’s to take “back” because Crimea is part of Ukraine which used to be part of the Soviet Union, that’s also not a great argument. Ukraine’s borders were accepted and recognized internationally. By that token you could argue Palestine should be able to “take back” all of their territory to the '48 borders, and Israel was content with that border at the time. The Arab nations weren’t happy with that in the first place though, which is why they tried to wipe out Israel.
So maybe you argue that it’s the pre-1948 border they should be able to “take back,” and it should all just be one state, like Mandatory Palestine as it was under British Rule. Except neither side really wants a one-state solution and obviously the elimination of the entire Jewish people is not a good one.
You can keep going farther back and claim that it was all Ottomans anyway so only those who have really lived there since the 7th Century have a claim (ie. Palestinians). Of course they’re only there because of the Rashidun Caliphate, so why stop there? If we push back farther we should really give the region to the Greeks. If they pass we can give it to the Italians, and if they pass, oh look, hey, ethnic Jews have a claim to the area before even Rome showed up.
Now obviously, the modern Israeli government is tremendously overreacting and the West should sanction them to hell until they return to the table for a two-state solution (or any solution both sides agree on), Netanyahu is gone, and Palestinians are given their own recognized state. Palestinians need support, aid, and the backing of the globe to push for their rights as a country. But Hamas is not necessarily going to get them that either.
Jews have zero claim to that land. There are original Palestinian jews and the israeli government is literally racist against them. This has nothing to do with ancestry. The israelis are mostly Eastern European or American jews. There is a good reason why Netanyahu looks so much like Putin.
israel’s borders are not accepted at all. Only countries half way across the globe from them accept their borders.
The only just solution is a one state solution with the returnal of the Palestinian land to the Palestinians. Just like the returnal of Crimean land to the Ukrainians.
Crazy how people are actually defending colonists as if they’re now rightful owners to land because they’ve been committing genocide for long enough.
70 % of the Jews living in Israel currently were born there. And about 20 % of Israelis are non-Jewish Arabs.
More than half of the Jews in Israel are Mizrahi. Your theory of European colonizers populating Israel is factually incorrect.
I think he’s trying to get around the black and white viewpoints, and bring up the idea that Israel is committing war crimes here, which is outside the Overton window on the subject currently in US politics.
Exactly. One does not do politics and convince their opposition if they don’t use conciliating language.
Thanks. People want to pretend this started a month ago and not understand the history.
Here is a 2 minute video about being able to hold the idea that Hamas and Israel are both in the wrong and civilians are getting hurt on both sides as a result.
It’s not true that civilians are getting hurt in Gaza because of Hamas. They were already being killed off before the attacks.
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I think that’s basically what he’s saying with more words. You’re not wrong in this case, but the “everybody sucks here” line is most often used by people who don’t actually know the details of what they’re talking about, but need to have an opinion on the record. (Other recent example being the Ukraine war situation)
In my opinion, this whole situation is too drunk guys who got in a fight over something stupid. Palestine got knocked out early, and so Israel is being vilified simply for being the one still standing, but now Palestine has got up and kidney punched Israel while it was turned away, and people are rooting for the underdog since they got back up. The problem with this, and the reason that Obama is speaking the way that he is, is because people seem to be forgetting all of the other horrible things that Hamas has done too, because they’re currently the crowd favorite.
So yes, everybody sucks here, and I think people are having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that, sometimes in a fight, there isn’t actually a 100% good guy. It’s just too drunk guys getting in a fight over something stupid.
Your analogy assumes some sort of equivalency between the two drunk men, but in reality there’s a huge discrepancy of power between Israel and Palestine, one so vast that your analogy comes off as reductive. It’s not just “two drunk guys in a fight”, it’s more like a drunk guy and a child, which the drunk guy has been picking fights with since the child was born, and all of the drunk guy’s friends keep helping him beat this child up.
There’s a power discrepancy now, but there wasn’t always.
By this analogy, Palestine is a drunk 17 year old, who along with a bunch of 20-something friends jumped one another kid when he just turned 18. Except the 18 year old won the fight and the older pals of the original drunk kid have backed off. Beaten to shit, the 17 year old keeps trying to swing at the 18 year old, who continues just kicking him while he’s down and everyone is looking on in horror but unwilling to jump back in the fight.
The fact they went 1 v 8 probably contributes a lot to Israel’s absolute unwillingness to not put themselves in a position where they are less powerful.
I see where your coming from, and I suppose I should clarify: in this case, the reason that I invoke the simile, is that the original reason for ALL this drama, is religion. There is more than enough physical space for them both to live in the region happily, but because this is the Land of Israel that we’re talking about, they both claim exclusive right to it, and only one can have it.
Events since this original issue obviously can’t go overlooked, but it all stems from this unreasonable unwillingness to share plenty.
It’s a tale as old as time. Just like the Hatfields and McCoys. They’ve hated each other for so long neither side remembers what started it and both sides have a list of grievances longer than they can keep track of and the score can never be settled. It’s to the point where there is no right side; both are wrong. You can make arguments that one side is more wrong than the other, but I’m not in favor of a “let the least wrong win” approach. Both sides are objectively wrong and both sides must stop.
This is simply not true. Palestinians were copacetic before the British mandate, the Balfour declaration, the declaration of the state of Israel and the Nakba.
the “everybody sucks here” line is most often used by people who don’t actually know the details of what they’re talking about
Agree or disagree with other people’s opinions, so be it. But this comment is such a unearned hand waving away of other people’s thoughtful comments/opinions made on the subject, and it’s not a true representation of what’s going on.
See, reading your comment makes me think that you didn’t actually read the rest of mine, because that’s not what I said. I’m not talking about the people here… Mostly.
me think that you didn’t actually read the rest of mine
I did.
Well then I’m not sure where to go from here, because you’re implying that I said things which I didn’t.
Well then I’m not sure where to go from here, because you’re implying that I said things which I didn’t.
What I quoted, which is what you did say, is very explicit…
I think that’s basically what he’s saying with more words. You’re not wrong in this case, but the “everybody sucks here” line is most often used by people who don’t actually know the details of what they’re talking about, but need to have an opinion on the record. (Other recent example being the Ukraine war situation)
There’s truly no reason for us to continue to go back and forth on this endlessly, that text is very specific and straightforward.
It’s the official policy of many of the most powerful nations of the world that only Palestine sucks here and that Israel can do no wrong and must be supported unconditionally. An “everyone sucks here” position would be much closer to the truth.
The victims. They are in the right. But they have no voice. Ironically though, as toxic as social media is, governments can’t get by with the same shit that they did 50 years ago (Sauce: US in Central America).
Because the truth is that Israel is WAY worse than Palestine. They’re openly calling for genocide. Resistance to oppression is good, actually, and so basically whatever Palestine does while still being oppressed is morally fine, while Israel continuing to oppress them is not. Anything anybody says criticizing palestine’s reaction to oppression is whataboutism, because they’re literally the victims of genocide.
Hamas is openly calling for genocide too, and they’ve been doing it longer than Israel.
Also, funny story, Israel is also literally the victims of genocide, (the Holocaust?), which is why their motto is “never again”.
There is no “way worse”, just ignorant keyboard warriors, and a shitty situation made worse by shitty people.
Do you think the Holocaust means that the descendents of it’s victims can’t be genociders themselves? It altyally makes more sense, when you consider the cycle of abuse. Israel has been genociding Palestine for longer than Hamas has even existed, so no, that’s false.
Israel is way worse than Palestine, and you are the ignorant one if you disagree based entirely on the US/Israeli propaganda you’ve seen. You should research this yourself if you don’t believe me. Would you rather be right, or correct?
You said:
Anything anybody says criticizing palestine’s reaction to oppression is whataboutism, because they’re literally the victims of genocide.
I’m saying: you’re an idiot with mental retardation if you think that that “because” means anything, since BOTH SIDES are victims of genocide.
Either you’re a holocaust denier, (and my diagnosis of you stands) or you’re just a plain old idiot with mental retardation who isn’t a holocaust denier, and is just stupid.
Israel is way worse
I’m not getting involved in the “who was worse” game. Worse doesn’t justify anything, you idiot.
You should research this yourself
Found the retarded sovcit / anti-vaxxer/ russian worshipper.
No, they are not both victims of genocide. One side is doing genocide (Israel), and the other would very much like to kill all the people genociding them. If you disagree, go look at deaths data over the last 30 years. Palestinians are 90% of the deaths.
Doing genocide justifies getting killed for doing genocide. And I’m a Russia worshipper because I told you to verify the facts you believe? Okay cool, I’m not going to continue wasting my time on a trolll then
Israel are the beneficiaries of the Holocaust.
Literally, the major bump in population they experienced as a result of WWII was Jews who were able to go through a Nazi/Israel visa program to transfer them and their money. Like Hitler was planning to send them to Madagascar after he seized France, and then Israel reached out to him and negotiated a deal for him to send them settlers.
This agreement was seen as such a “success” the Roma (who unfortunately had a bit of a fascist sympathizing streak at the time) wanted to strike a similar agreement with Mussolini when he invaded Egypt to get their own “Israel” along the Red Sea coast.
The actual place most of the post war victims went to was to America where Jews had found success developing community safety via integration with surrounding communities.
That’s basically the rational take here. Israel was attacked and is defending itself, but going far and beyond self defense using the extermination of terrorists as an excuse to commit genocide. Palestinian civilians are caught up in the crossfire and are innocent of any wrongdoing, but the Palestinian government knowingly harbors Hamas within their borders and refuses to cooperate with Israel at every opportunity to create a two state system. Finally, there’s Hamas, who are bad guys full stop with no redeeming qualities.
So, Obama’s take is pretty solid. Nobody has their hands clean in all of this and everybody sucks, but there are still ways to stop the bloodshed, but those solutions are complicated. Especially when nobody really wants to come to the negotiation table right now. Israeli citizens right now remind me of American citizens in the wake of 9/11 - bloodthirsty and hungry for vengeance at any cost. So long as they remain furious, Netanyahu has a clear political motivation to continue the attacks.
The government of Gaza is Hamas, elected in 2007.
Israeli civilians have also been caught in the crossfire. You know from the terrorist attack they committed 3 weeks ago that killed 1,400 and then the 200 innocent people they kidnapped and imprisoned as hostages somewhere in Gaza, which is what this is all about?
If Hamas freed the hostages, Israel would have a much harder time conducting this war in the way they are, but you can’t literally kidnap someone’s citizens and expect anything less.
What about Netanyahus relationship with the PLO before Hamas. He’s been playing both sides using the fear of Palestinian militants as a political football, just trying to stay elected and ignoring the views of the average secular Israeli.
Israel is being led by a group of religious extremists.
It’s complicated, and both sides have committed unbelievable atrocities, but Israeli leadership have overplayed their card. Their crimes over the last few weeks will echo for decades to come.
My guess it will have the opposite effect than they intended, Israel will lose out in the long term.
Netanyahu also stoked the anti-Oslo crazies to the point that Rabin was assassinated. He’s more responsible for the current state of the conflict than anyone, period.
Time will tell.
You’re right that both sides have been awful.
While Israel may be led by a group of religious extremists, so is Palestine and Gaza specifically by extremist terrorists.
This round of tit for tat will echo like all the previous rounds over the last 70 years.
Until Hamas frees the hostages, it’s virtually impossible to overplay the hand.
This will just be another footnote of ugly killing on both sides in a long history of ugly killings.
I’m not so sure. The current geopolitical outlook leaves Israel in a tough spot. With the failure of globalisation and the declining importance of the Middle Eastern hydrocarbons, there is actually a breaking point.
I don’t necessarily think that breaking point would be reached, but if the current government does not restrain themselves and play their card correctly, it will count against them going forward.
Despite what Americans think, their previous actions have counted against them, too.
I’m the modern information age. The old tactics of statecraft and economic dominance fall apart. The opposing axis wanted Israel to respond like this. It’s a huge mistake for them to continue with this approach.
It’s a multipolar world these days.
Which are the poles you see in this multipolar world than were different from the poles over the last 50 years?
Suppose when you take the foreign policy of globalisation out of the equation, the geopolitical arena looks a lot different.
It’s hard to know how the relationships will develop. Israel geographical location has become at least 50% less important.
When you consider the possible impact of climate change and demographics over the next decade, coupled with the increasingly fragile financial outlook.
It’s not unfathomable that Israel ends up in an extremely exposed position without significant support from the West.
China and Russia are bound together by mutual interest in hydrocarbons, and Irans leaders would attempt to capitalise on every opportunity.
In a destabilised world, everyone will try to sieze the opportunity. It’s going to get very busy, Netanyahu is assuming a lot when he thinks that Israel is going to stay relevant in the long term.
Just wanted to add that it’s going to be multifaceted threats along with the multipolar geopolitical outlook. In situations like that, things get very simple. Things start to boil down to very simple decisions.
Nothing justifies war crimes.
But people justify Hamas attacks all the time by claiming they just defend themselves.
Did you really just just conflate every Hamas operation as a war crime?
That’s… Impressive.
This did not start this past October. Israel has been treating Gaza as an open air prison for over a decade. And before that there’s all the settler bullshit and decades of war crimes justified by dehumanizing Palestinians.
Of course the Palestinians haven’t been peaceful. Neither side has been peaceful since the 1940’s.
Palestinians and Israelis are overall fine, except when you have to listen to them talk about each other, it’s their governments that are so fucked.
This entire conflict is a story of overstepping state entities victimizing innocent civilians on both sides of this war nobody but them and their cronies wanted.
As much as we all hate comments like this…
“This.”
(Well said. Short, to the point, and the best summary I’ve seen in a while.)
former drone striker in chief trying to remind us of his legacy of absolutely failing to acknowledge, let alone tackle, the role of US imperialism in the middle east.
This specific conflict is more related to early 20th Century Britain promising two different people the same land after the Ottoman Empire collapsed and then being dicks about it for another 20 years. So UK imperialism, not US for once.
The US certainly still arms Israel, but the US arms basically anyone they consider an ally. The US would arm Israel if Palestine were its own state, were part of Israel, or if the whole conflict never happened. But Israel wouldn’t have existed at all past '67 without Western equipment.
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If the entire holy land was nuked and radioactive, people would still try to occupy the wasteland so they could get back in first. Don’t think there is a solution
Honestly, this is nonsense.
They aren’t fighting over Jerusalem or Bethlehem or Jericho. This is a war over grazing lands and a beach town.
If you look away from Gaza for a moment to the other Palestinian territory – the occupied West Bank – you’ll see gangs of a hooligans in pickup trucks with ski masks smashing water wells and killing cattle in small desert towns like it’s high noon at the O.K. Corral.
The whole religious component is largely a distraction. There are people living on real estate that other people who have much bigger guns want. The solution is the same as it’s always been: give folks a fair deal.
It’s not a coincidence that this latest conflict is in Gaza. Gaza isn’t religiously significant. It’s just the densest, most brutal concentration camp in Israel. This is not over religion.
Tiktok says this is all about the Ben Gurion Canal Project. I haven’t had the time to validate the potential veracity, but it seemed like an interesting rabbit hole.
Thanks. I’m interested.
The radioactive halflife of a nuke explosion is quite short, if we want a long term solution we need…Chernobyl 2.
nuclear boogaloo
What’s the complexity?
If Israelis stop killing Palestinians, then American military contractors can’t take billions of dollars from the federal government laundered through Israel in the form of arms deals.
That would make the military industrial complex very sad.
That complexity.
That is not only one-sided, but highly reductive of one of the most byzantine and politically convoluted conflicts happening in the world today.
Hey, I just want to stop an active genocide.
Then we can wax philosophical about how complex this conflict is.
Fuck me, right?
You think that’s all there is to it, really? Or are you just being trite?
I think there is more to it, but if it weren’t for US military industrial complex corruption, a genocide wouldn’t be occurring.
For context, in 2023, the US has sent aid to Israel that equals roughly half their total GDP.
If The Party weren’t using Israel to enrich American war contractor billionaires, what is occurring in Gaza would be little more than a squabble. Both sides would be too broke to do anything of note.
The Party wants to keep their billionaire overlords happy, so genocide is occurring.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Former President Barack Obama said a way forward for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is only possible if people acknowledge the “complexity” of the situation.
“If there’s any chance of us being able to act constructively to do something, it will require an admission of complexity and maintaining what on the surface may seem contradictory ideas that what Hamas did was horrific, and there’s no justification for it.
And … that the occupation and what’s happening to Palestinians is unbearable,” Obama said in an interview on the podcast “Pod Save America.”
The former president’s comments come as the Israeli military focuses its offensive against Hamas in Gaza City and northern parts of the enclave.
Behind the scenes, American officials also believe there is limited time for Israel to try to accomplish its stated objective of taking out Hamas in its current operation before uproar over the humanitarian suffering and civilian casualties reaches a tipping point.
If you genuinely want to change this … you’ve got to figure out how to speak to somebody on the other side and listen to them and understand what they are talking about and not dismiss it,” Obama said.
The original article contains 268 words, the summary contains 181 words. Saved 32%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
High school never ends [for now]. Remember that, people.
And when you distill complex conduct into easy bites about said high schoolers, the other high schoolers of the world will take high schooler level actions.
Perhaps we need a more educated world to move forward…
maybe I just need coffee but this seems completely incoherent to me
Or did your education stop at middle school?
Education isn’t the problem. It’s self control. People think they prioritize rational decisions but if that were true, cigarettes would be long gone and global warming would be solved. We prioritize feelings which is why GOP loves to fear monger and push religion. Nothing scarier than a eternal suffering, especially since eternity lasts a long time.
In this case, we have two countries that have held a religious divide for decades based on who believes they’re actually worshipping the correct people so they don’t get sent to eternal suffering. Except, they’re willing to kill for their religious text because they feel so deeply that theirs is superior.
How can we as outsiders possibly take the right actions when the irrational people are willing to commit genocide over their feelings brains?
More breaking news. Obama says breathing is good for your health.
And while you say this, this thread is full of people claiming it is actually very simple. sigh
Fuck Israel. They get a free pass every time.
How about Hamas? You seem to be willing to give them a free pass while they still have 200 hostages somewhere in a bunker or tunnel?
Hamas are rotten fucking scumbags. Yet, it’s crystal clear that Israel has been able to do whatever they want for as long as I remember. Which is decades. Fuck Israel.
Are you going to condem the terrorizing and slaughter of countless Palestinian children by Israel?
I think that’s Israel’s problem, not the US’.
Did Israel send aid to the US after 9/11?
um, that’s the current issue
Yes, and in the past did Israel send the US aid when they were attacked?
No? Then why should the US send Israel aid when Israel is responsible for both conflicts and has the money to fund it themselves?
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There are complex issues to solve, sure, but there’s nothing complicated about the fact that we need to let humanitarian aid in and stop killing children, right this fucking minute. There are no excuses for what is happening right now.
Well there are 240 hostages that are held captive in an underground lair by some psychopaths. The PM of Israel may not want to keep those people there any longer than necessary.
Perhaps Hamas should release the hostages so there’s no longer a reason for Israel to deny calls for a ceasefire?
Odd that no one is calling on Hamas to do this, isn’t it? It’s almost like everyone knows Hamas is evil and will continue to keep those people imprisoned. But if we’re demanding Israel to do things we know they won’t do, why not also demand Hamas to do things we know they won’t do?
Of course we all want civilian hostages released. Don’t be dumb.
Except apparently Israel because they are bombing the event living shit out of Gaza. Hostages aren’t bomb proof, so tell me, how does Israel know they’ve not killed some when they kill 30 civilians to kill a Hamas leader (whose name slips them at the moment)
They don’t and i’d characterize much of their bombing as a war crime.
yes no one is calling for the return of hostages
that is a reasonable thing to say
Jesus man, open your eyes and ears. Nobody is saying Hamas should do that. Listen to what Obama is saying in the video, for the love of God.
“Stop killing children” should be enforced in both countries, though. It’s not like Hamas is protecting the children in Gaza. Quite the opposite really.
No argument there, and I did not intend for my comment to say anything else.
I’m not saying the details of it are not complicated.
History is always complicated
Present events are always complicated
But the way this is reported in the western media is as though one needs a PhD in Middle Eastern studies to understand the basic morality of holding a people in a situation in which they don’t have basic rights including the right that we treasure most the franchise the right to vote and then declaring that state a democracy
is actually not that hard to understand.
I’m actually not sure which country you are talking about now. I don’t know of anyone who calls Palestine a democracy. I think the reason people call Israel a democracy is that Israeli citizens have free elections and are not oppressed. I don’t think they factor in oppression of other countries when they call something a democracy. If they did, the US and UK wouldn’t count as democracies either.
If they did, the US and UK wouldn’t count as democracies either
Most political experts agree that they barely classify. The US has a rather unique electoral college system. The UK is most literally a constitutional monarchy. At best, they’re hybrid systems.
holding a people in a situation in which they don’t have basic rights
I’m actually not sure which country you are talking about now.
If the options are Palestine and Israel, which country do you think it is?
Come on, use your brain.
No need to be condescending. With how polarizing this issue is, you are surely aware that there might be people on the Internet who would stand by these claims for either of the two countries. What I use my brain to conclude isn’t relevant, the question is what you used your brain to conclude.
Stella has been all over Lemmy with this BS. They aren’t really worth the effort. Speak to people who might be reading the thread, not to that troll.
Re-read my comment. It applies to you as well.
holding a people in a situation in which they don’t have basic rights
Hamas holding their own population as human shields and failing to provide basic infrastructure, or Israel blocking their own borders that stops Palestine civilians from access to necessity of life.
Im with the other poster, and if you didn’t see both there is already a bias in your head that no reasonable and open discussion of facts would ever overcome.
Lol, what? You’re buying into Israeli propaganda talking points to justify bombing civilians. I’m not going to entertain your bias.
Hamas isn’t denying Gazans basic human rights. Israel is. This isn’t up for debate.
Hamas wasn’t stealing water pipes to make weapons?
(I’m not saying Israel hasn’t done bad things, and I’m not saying one is worse than the other. But Hamas HAS been denying “their people” access to basic human rights in the process of “fighting for their people”.)
The complexity is that Israel (specifically Netanyahu has gone rouge, saying nothing will stop what they are doing) and that is starting to have consequences for Democrats, and the US world image. This, along with Blinkens recent statements, are a subtle way of telling them to stop, without Biden going back on his full support of Israel.
It is the foundations of deniability, so that if the critiques of war crime and genocide come fully to light in the public eye, the US has ground to shift to. Those drones capturing footage over Gaza can quickly be used to support whatever narrative shift the US deems most advantageous. Can the Dems lose support of Arab Americans and their allies? Can/will they lose Jewish support at home if crimes are unmasked and is that number more or less than being on the “right side” of things?
These are likely the questions that are swirling around the White House and State Department as we speak. Time is of the essence, as 2.5 million people are on the verge of succumbing to dehydration and starvation. If those distributions are equal, a heart breaking cataclysm, in the form of a mass casualty event, could occur at any time. 10,000. 100,000. Who knows how many won’t be able to be saved even once aid comes through. Medical capacity is needed to reverse these things and none exists any longer. The UN is warning of this.
If it happens, blame will need to be swift to maintain appearances and Israel is running the risk of becoming the “Voldemort” of the Middle East overnight.
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He wouldn’t be the first powerful guy supported or even brought up by the US going rogue.
We don’t talk about what happened with Sadam…
He also said:
If you want to solve the problem, then you have to take in the whole truth. And you then have to admit nobody’s hands are clean
which is something I totally agree on. There is no “good or bad” team in the Middle East…all parties are involved in this conflict and it’s cause!
Of course. Those kids in refugee camps, hospitals and ambulances have their hands soaked in blood.
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my moms dead
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Hey, don’t forget those of us who made this mess and walked away, and every country on Earth that continues to keep the whole Middle East area relevant through our continued oil addiction.
Hey, don’t forget those of us who made this mess and walked away,
The early 20th century British Empire?
through our continued oil addiction.
Israel, let alone Gaza, don’t exactly produce a lot of oil, and I certainly don’t know that they sell it.
This whole conflict in Israel is more about land, and the West supports Israel bEcAuSe DeMoCrAcY in an otherwise unfriendly region. The region as a whole might be messy “because oil,” but that’s rather tangential to this conflict.
Israel is adjacent to an incredibly strategic shipping location - the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal links the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean without having to go around Africa or around Siberia.
Israel isn’t strategically important because it has big oil reserves. It’s strategically important because it’s near a lot of important things. Oil and shipping play a bigger role than you’d think.
Great point.
You mean the canal that is entirely within Egypt? That argument seems like a stretch to me, and clearly wasn’t the argument the above was trying to make either.
They’re a democracy and have historically been opposed to many counties the West was already opposed to. Their strategic importance is military, not oil.
Israel, the UK and France invaded Egypt in 1956 after Egypt expropriated the Suez Canal from its French & British owners. Then they fought a war in 1967 to keep it open. The conveyance of European trade through the Suez Canal is a major part of Israel’s geopolitical importance.
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look around
“You take my water, burn my olive trees, destroy my house, take my job, steal my land, imprison my father, kill my mother, bombard my country, starve us all, humiliate us all, but I am to blame: I shot a rocket back.”
The problem is that no American has any credibility: historically fucking over poor and indigenous communities has been an average Tuesday for the US. There is no path out of this that makes anyone happy. Killing people is never okay and trying to justify it based upon “complexity” is insulting. Fuck religious zealots.
There is no path out of this that makes anyone happy.
I really wish everyone would accept this so world leaders could just buckle down and resolve any sort of permanent solution. Israel would have to make concessions but oh boo-fucking-hoo. The Palestinians don’t even have anything they could concede in the first place. Hell, the only thing Hamas would have to concede is “No, you don’t get to destroy Israel,” since anything else they’d get in a permanent agreement is going to be a step up from the current situation. The UN is fucking impotent though and partially responsible in the first place, but even with the power they do have seem unwilling to use it to try and fix anything. The whole time the US is happy to sell as many weapons as possible to Israel just on the off chance Iran looks the wrong way, but as long as a bomb lands on an Arab we’re seemingly not too fussed about it. Wonder how quickly Israel would be willing to make concessions towards a two-state solution if the West told them “no more weapons.”
