Easy to blame BiBi but somehow you are not considering the pressure on Israel, not least from Biden and Obama’s administrations and especially their state departments to play nice with the “poor “ Palestinians. The UN, the EU have all made sure the world sees Israel as the regional bully to be held in check. Israel could have bombed Pale…
Easy to blame BiBi but somehow you are not considering the pressure on Israel, not least from Biden and Obama’s administrations and especially their state departments to play nice with the “poor “ Palestinians. The UN, the EU have all made sure the world sees Israel as the regional bully to be held in check. Israel could have bombed Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza back to the Stone Age after the first and second intifadas but were constrained by world opinion - the same world that did nothing to help Jews during the Nazi era. I hope Israel takes this latest horror as a sign that pleasing the world doesn’t mean as much when you people are at desperate risk of death - or worse. The image of the little boy captive in Gaza being harassed by Palestinian children will stay with me - they can’t even leave innocent children alone.
Their land was not taken. The land comprised of Judah Samaria etc has been home to Jews since well forever. Read up on Palestine history. Was controlled by British until end of WWII. Jew and Arab lived there. Then was divided so Jews and Palestinians would have a home. The Arabs said no. We just want to run the Jews off. With that multiple Arab countries attacked brand new Israel. Trying to in effect kill the infant in the womb. Miraculously the Israelis emerged victorious. And so it has gone for 80 years. Nothing new here. They relinquished Gaza to further try to seek peace w Palestinians. All Israelis were moved out. Nope. Not good enough. The battle cry is to find a Jew where ever they are hiding, behind a rock behind a tree. No, this is not a property dispute, it’s yet another attempt at genocide. Hamas knows that Israel will counter attack, buildings will be leveled and innocent lives lost. They don’t care.
There are children in Palestine along with old women and the Hamas terrorist have always failed to consider them. There is a reason why the terrorists gather in hospitals and similar places to use their families, friends, and neighbors as shields. There is something particularly monsterous about people who disregard the lives of all for their own brutal purposes.
And what? Do you have a solution other than something like 2 states that can live in relative peace? Because -- regardless of the past -- that's the only practical end game. And Hamas will never accept anything that heads in that direction. Hamas have no interest in fixing the problem that keeps them in power.
Their land wasn’t taken. They were driven out after a war they started to kill all the Jews. Sorry. That’s how the world works. In any other era, they’d have all been slaughtered and it’s only thanks to the humanity and ethics of the Jews as a people that the Palestinians exist at all.
Really? Whose land was it exactly? Please enlighten us when there last was an independent state of Palestine.
And just fyi the land surrounding Gaza is not considered part of the "Occupied Palestinian Territory". Of course all of Israel is "occupied" for these monsters.
Hamas takes full advantage of useful idiots to justify their Nazi brutality.
Why haven't the Palestinians built a functioning nation-state for their children that could compete with Israel? Why are they still in refugee camps after 75 years? Why do they not strive to be a functioning nation instead of a giant terrorist group? My family came from Wales, we were conquered by the English time after time over the last 900 years, my grandmother was beaten by her English schoolmaster and yet the Welsh aren't terrorists. India was conquered by the British. India was changed and yet today the Indians are the world's largest democracy, why haven't the Palestinians started to function as a nation? Why must they continue to terrorize Israelis? Does anyone know?
Exactly the question. Despite being surrounded as a nation the size of New Jersey, the Israelis have flourished economically and culturally. And the Palestinians remain in their own squalor. Not hard to see the simple human inferiority playing out here, along with religious extremism.
Dude, read more. They are blockaded from most trade by Egypt and Israel. Terrible policy and it causes terrible harm. And then there are sanctions from the West.
Second, they receive UN and NGO payouts that keep them in welfare state dependency. This isn’t a talking point; it’s a reality and it ruins a people.
So they’re sh*t leaders become entrenched and they keep most of their wealth, and adopt socialism to sustain a low grade life for the population.
Israel unilaterally withdrew completely from Gaza in 2005, leaving behind expensive greenhouses, among other gifts. What did the Palestinians do with this unique opportunity for independence? They elected Hamas, who turned Gaza into a terrorist hellhole instead of building a future for their people.
The blockades came AFTER years of terrorism from Gaza, imposed by both Israel AND Egypt.
Really your are right, their leaders keep them in dependence and they live large. However, they are still living with a culture of death that also hurts them.
"why haven't the Palestinians started to function as a nation? Why must they continue to terrorize Israelis? Does anyone know?"
They're an occupied territory. Hamas won an election there in 2006; per the NY Times:
JERUSALEM, Feb. 13, 2006 - The United States and Israel are discussing ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again, according to Israeli officials and Western diplomats.
Yeah and they've beed living in camps in Jordan and Lebanon for 75 years. They've been in Gaza for over 20 years. They had time to move forward and they did elect Hamas. They are choosing a culture of death rather than life. Unless of course it suits their leaders to keep them in camps.
That is a point worth noting. The Jordanians and Lebanese keep them in camps too. The Egyptians also have blockades. The Palestinians are isolated by their peers. They are true outcasts. This situation is never going to end.
I'm not talking about the leadership alone, the Palestinians don't move forward as a culture. One can only assume they have a culture of death rather than life since they are so willing to send out suicide bombers and attack defenseless people.
Half the Jewish population of Israel comes from the Muslim world. In the wake of Israel's establishment, they were stripped of citizenship and their homes, businesses, and community property were stolen. They were harassed into exile. Mind you, in some of those countries Jewish communities predated the Muslim invasions by centuries. Of course, you say and probably know nothing about this. These Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews have never been compensated for their losses, which have been calculated as significantly greater than what was lost by the Palestinians. Those Palestinian children should have been resettled by their Arab cousins decades ago, just as Israel resettled the Sephardis and Mizrahis. Instead they've been kept in refugee camps and brought up to hate.
True. Every time in the last 100 years there was a meaningful chance at compromise something less egregious but similar to this happened. It is like that old L&M cigarette commercial - somebody would rather fight than switch.
Nor had there ever been a United States until a sufficiently large coalition of British colonists make common cause to declare their independence and sovereignty.
Jordan took half of Palestine when it was created. Why are Palestinians not abducting, torturing, and murdering innocent Jordanian citizens to “liberate” their “homeland”?
There were indeed, and still are, Native American nations. You are very ill-informed and ill-advised. Born in the USSR gave a pretty good summary. Read that. Or look it up. The information is readily available. I find your defense of today's savagery chilling.
You make a claim that some land was taken from Palestinian children. I'm asking which land exactly you are referring to and when it was taken. And this is your response? You don't even know which land you are talking about? Are you talking about Israel proper? The west Bank? Gaza? Anything else? Private land of specific people?
Are you familiar with the concept of land titles? Those who could prove ownership were allowed to stay in Israel - that's why there are so many Israeli Arabs. The squatters were first bought off, and those who still refused to leave were evicted.
Because the Turkish empire collapsed under their own corruption, leaving a feudal political culture in the care of the empires that they had played great power games with for centuries. Because that's how the world was at the time.
Their land was taken? In 1948? In 1967? And that justifies the slaughter of civilians today by people who were not even alive at that time? There are no words and no logic to deal with that excuse.
In 1948 Israel declared independence from British colonial rule. Israel did not take anyone’s land. In 1967 Israel kicked Egypt and Jordan out of Jewish land that Egypt and Jordan were occupying.
OP's point about the pressures of the West dominates the reality here.
People just don't get it, but the big picture is a lot easier than people think. Israel won multiple wars. In the name of compassion and humanitarianism and with an important voice as an ally that helped them achieve the victory, the West then kept Israel from taking the steps a victor normally would take, in order to balance Arab concerns.
That's what leads to 70+ years of ongoing conflict. The fact that the original conflict was never resolved in the way it typically would be if there weren't a larger ally pushing solutions with their interests in mind instead of the warring parties being left alone, and the victorious party doing some quite bad things right away. Instead the bad things happen over a long timeline, with lots of violent pushback.
Ok, since you keep insisting, let’s look beyond the immediate to what came before this, such as senior Hamas political leader Fathi Hammad’s 2019 speech : “We must attack every Jew on the face of the earth. To slaughter and kill them, with the help of Allah.” Or the more recent video proclamation of Hamas senior official Mahmoud al-Zahar in 2022: “The entire 510 million square kilometers of Planet Earth will come under [a system] where there is no injustice, no oppression, no Zionism, no treacherous Christianity...”
That's right, atrocities don't come out of a void. The Nazis committed atrocities agains Jews but we must look at what came before that led to the anger and loss that could lead to Nazi atrocities. The Jews, you see, controlled the banks and with their hook noses they were poisoning the pure Aryan bloodlines in Germany. So what did you expect the Nazis to do?
See what I'm doing here, Maggie? There is good and there is evil. The Nazis were evil. Hamas is evil. Period. End of story.
Little known fact outside of Israel, modestly well-known fact little talked about within Israel: Hamas both exists and thrives because the Israeli right wants it to. Want to know why, or can you guess?
Do you think it came completely out of the blue? Good Lord
It was horrible, but even more horrible is to judge some people as simply evil and having no motivation via previous events that led to their terrible behavior.
You misread her comment. Under Israel mortality rates fell, life expectancy rose all the while additional billions were poured into Gaza. Israel is the only democracy in the region and this government has never, ever gunned down, tortured and kidnapped innocent civilians.
Steven, Bill & I, and SSR below, were all responding to Maggie4. Substack’s method of using indented vertical lines to indicate replies and sub-threads can be confusing
It doesn't matter where it came from. Only where it goes from here. These dumbass permavictims have sorely misjudged what this will cost them. It's gonna be a lot
Here’s your answer: The notion that poverty drives terrorism has been debunked. And in any case, there’s a reason the UN chose 2007 as a starting date. Per capita GDP in the West Bank and Gaza rose tenfold between 1968 (when Israel took control of the disputed territories) and 1991, surpassing the levels of Jordan, Egypt, Turkey and Tunisia. Mortality rates in the West Bank and Gaza fell by more than two-thirds between 1970 and 1990, while life expectancy rose from 48 years in 1967 to 72 in 2000 (compared to an average of 68 years for all the countries of the Middle East and North Africa). Meanwhile countries and NGOs have poured billions into Gaza - most misappropriated by the terrorist- run government whose corrupt leaders enrich themselves at their people’s expense.
No, somebody better tell the UN to at least CONDEMN the Hamas invasion and terror attacks which the Security Council refused to do at yesterday’s meeting. The UN is fast approaching zero moral or factual credibility.
And, yes, terror attacks. Terrorism is defined as "the threat or use of violence to intimidate or coerce in the pursuit of political or ideological goals.” Are you seriously saying this wasn’t terrorism?? Tell that to the young women attending a music festival who according to eyewitness accounts were raped and then paraded through Gaza to the cheers of the crowd (cheers!?!?!) with "blood gushing between their legs."
As for poverty leading to acts of terror, you don’t site any sources for the UN’s assertions, but here’s some of mine: A 2006 study on terrorism for 96 countries between 1986 and 2002 found no link between its economic measures and terrorism. In 2002, Alan Krueger, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton, and Jitka Malecková, an associate professor at the Institute for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Charles University, made the argument in The New Republic against poverty’s role in terrorism with a wide-ranging presentation of evidence including evidence gathered from Hezbollah and Hamas suggesting that upper class and more educated individuals are slightly over-represented in among terrorists because terror groups actively select for those individuals from large populations of potential recruits.’
Again, you cannot absolve the perpetrators of agency for these heinous acts
There you go with "but" again. When someone like you outs themselves as an apologist for atrocities and those who commit them, they deserve no explanations or attention
I'll repeat what I've said elsewhere: Rarely does a nation state come into being without ugliness. Nations exist because they declared they do, because other nations recognized them, because they established their borders, and they defended any attempts to end their existence. That is why any nation exists today. Any nation that cannot do that will not exist for long. IIt is what it is. I'll leave the right or wrong of it for others to argue.
Anyone who would desecrate a naked corpse or machine gun non-uniformed non-soldiers is not worth negotiating with. These are animals who inherit the mentality of the Third Reich. After all, the Nazis surely had reason to do what they did - who are we to judge?
The reality is they started a war against the Jews and lost. That is the way of history. Most groups when given land to start a nation, work on their nation. Instead the Palestinians just try to tear down, when will they try to build a functioning nation state without blaming everyone else? Why are they still in refugee camps after 75 years? What is wrong that they can't seem to flourish and chose hate?
JP, quite simply the Jews never left Palestine but became a minority with the influx of Arabs and others. Other Jews sought safety in Palestine to escape genocide but had to buy back their ancestral land. So, when Israel was declared, it was on land legally owned by Jews. Arabs who left because their brethren were out to destroy the nascent state lament that they left (many returned and are now Israeli) but they have no legal right to land lost in a war they started. Despite that, Israel has bent over backwards to make peace while continuing to supply them with water and electricity because the money Hamas and PA get to provide that goes toward the arms used in today’s attacks. There is absolutely no justification for Hamas’s barbarism. They have been free to govern their people for 18 years but have chosen terror instead. The Palestinians have proven again and again that they can’t be trusted, so yes, security is a huge factor when it comes to holding on to Judea and Samaria.
The West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula are not Palestinian Territories. The WB belonged to Jordan, Gaza and Sinai to Egypt, Golan to Syria. The terms “settlements” and “occupation” are used to vilify and slander Israel by those who don’t know history. And AI is written by programmers who have political preferences.
Probably a mistake, but “West Bank” didn’t belong to Jordan - they illegally occupied it for 19 years, while getting the world to ignore the actual name of the area: Judea and Samaria. Palestinian Arabs in J &S never declared their own nation, thus the territory is legally “disputed.”
Easy to blame BiBi but somehow you are not considering the pressure on Israel, not least from Biden and Obama’s administrations and especially their state departments to play nice with the “poor “ Palestinians. The UN, the EU have all made sure the world sees Israel as the regional bully to be held in check. Israel could have bombed Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza back to the Stone Age after the first and second intifadas but were constrained by world opinion - the same world that did nothing to help Jews during the Nazi era. I hope Israel takes this latest horror as a sign that pleasing the world doesn’t mean as much when you people are at desperate risk of death - or worse. The image of the little boy captive in Gaza being harassed by Palestinian children will stay with me - they can’t even leave innocent children alone.
Terrible. It's like Nakba, Deir Yassin, Lydda and Tantura all rolled into one.
Given the historical record, my advice to Israel would be, "Don't let your guard down for a second, and don't rely on anybody but yourselves."
There are children in Palestine as well. Their land was taken. And?
Their land was not taken. The land comprised of Judah Samaria etc has been home to Jews since well forever. Read up on Palestine history. Was controlled by British until end of WWII. Jew and Arab lived there. Then was divided so Jews and Palestinians would have a home. The Arabs said no. We just want to run the Jews off. With that multiple Arab countries attacked brand new Israel. Trying to in effect kill the infant in the womb. Miraculously the Israelis emerged victorious. And so it has gone for 80 years. Nothing new here. They relinquished Gaza to further try to seek peace w Palestinians. All Israelis were moved out. Nope. Not good enough. The battle cry is to find a Jew where ever they are hiding, behind a rock behind a tree. No, this is not a property dispute, it’s yet another attempt at genocide. Hamas knows that Israel will counter attack, buildings will be leveled and innocent lives lost. They don’t care.
There are children in Palestine along with old women and the Hamas terrorist have always failed to consider them. There is a reason why the terrorists gather in hospitals and similar places to use their families, friends, and neighbors as shields. There is something particularly monsterous about people who disregard the lives of all for their own brutal purposes.
Your disgusting and barbarous moral equivalency exposes you and your cozy friends as the same humans who justified the Shoah.
And what? Do you have a solution other than something like 2 states that can live in relative peace? Because -- regardless of the past -- that's the only practical end game. And Hamas will never accept anything that heads in that direction. Hamas have no interest in fixing the problem that keeps them in power.
Their land wasn’t taken. They were driven out after a war they started to kill all the Jews. Sorry. That’s how the world works. In any other era, they’d have all been slaughtered and it’s only thanks to the humanity and ethics of the Jews as a people that the Palestinians exist at all.
Really? Whose land was it exactly? Please enlighten us when there last was an independent state of Palestine.
And just fyi the land surrounding Gaza is not considered part of the "Occupied Palestinian Territory". Of course all of Israel is "occupied" for these monsters.
Hamas takes full advantage of useful idiots to justify their Nazi brutality.
Why haven't the Palestinians built a functioning nation-state for their children that could compete with Israel? Why are they still in refugee camps after 75 years? Why do they not strive to be a functioning nation instead of a giant terrorist group? My family came from Wales, we were conquered by the English time after time over the last 900 years, my grandmother was beaten by her English schoolmaster and yet the Welsh aren't terrorists. India was conquered by the British. India was changed and yet today the Indians are the world's largest democracy, why haven't the Palestinians started to function as a nation? Why must they continue to terrorize Israelis? Does anyone know?
Exactly the question. Despite being surrounded as a nation the size of New Jersey, the Israelis have flourished economically and culturally. And the Palestinians remain in their own squalor. Not hard to see the simple human inferiority playing out here, along with religious extremism.
Dude, read more. They are blockaded from most trade by Egypt and Israel. Terrible policy and it causes terrible harm. And then there are sanctions from the West.
Second, they receive UN and NGO payouts that keep them in welfare state dependency. This isn’t a talking point; it’s a reality and it ruins a people.
So they’re sh*t leaders become entrenched and they keep most of their wealth, and adopt socialism to sustain a low grade life for the population.
Dude, read more facts.
Israel unilaterally withdrew completely from Gaza in 2005, leaving behind expensive greenhouses, among other gifts. What did the Palestinians do with this unique opportunity for independence? They elected Hamas, who turned Gaza into a terrorist hellhole instead of building a future for their people.
The blockades came AFTER years of terrorism from Gaza, imposed by both Israel AND Egypt.
My friend, legal restrictions on trade and movement with Gaza began in 1991. 1991! They were intensified after 2005.
Really your are right, their leaders keep them in dependence and they live large. However, they are still living with a culture of death that also hurts them.
because the UN monthly payments keeps them in learned helplessness.
Their entire recently-developed culture is built on the values of murdering Jews. It's as simple as that.
"why haven't the Palestinians started to function as a nation? Why must they continue to terrorize Israelis? Does anyone know?"
They're an occupied territory. Hamas won an election there in 2006; per the NY Times:
JERUSALEM, Feb. 13, 2006 - The United States and Israel are discussing ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again, according to Israeli officials and Western diplomats.
Yeah and they've beed living in camps in Jordan and Lebanon for 75 years. They've been in Gaza for over 20 years. They had time to move forward and they did elect Hamas. They are choosing a culture of death rather than life. Unless of course it suits their leaders to keep them in camps.
That is a point worth noting. The Jordanians and Lebanese keep them in camps too. The Egyptians also have blockades. The Palestinians are isolated by their peers. They are true outcasts. This situation is never going to end.
Because any Pal leader who makes a deal with Israel will not see the next day.
I'm not talking about the leadership alone, the Palestinians don't move forward as a culture. One can only assume they have a culture of death rather than life since they are so willing to send out suicide bombers and attack defenseless people.
Half the Jewish population of Israel comes from the Muslim world. In the wake of Israel's establishment, they were stripped of citizenship and their homes, businesses, and community property were stolen. They were harassed into exile. Mind you, in some of those countries Jewish communities predated the Muslim invasions by centuries. Of course, you say and probably know nothing about this. These Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews have never been compensated for their losses, which have been calculated as significantly greater than what was lost by the Palestinians. Those Palestinian children should have been resettled by their Arab cousins decades ago, just as Israel resettled the Sephardis and Mizrahis. Instead they've been kept in refugee camps and brought up to hate.
Spare us.
There has never been a Palestinian state.
Because they haven’t accepted it. Too much responsibility.
True. Every time in the last 100 years there was a meaningful chance at compromise something less egregious but similar to this happened. It is like that old L&M cigarette commercial - somebody would rather fight than switch.
"There has never been a Palestinian state."
Nor had there ever been a United States until a sufficiently large coalition of British colonists make common cause to declare their independence and sovereignty.
You’re forgetting the part where the American colonists committed themselves to the extermination of every British subject.
What are you even talking about?
So. Are you suggesting that today's events are synonymous with the American Revolution?
No, Lynne, I'm just saying that your comment is rather a non sequiter.
Roddy - it's spelled non sequitur. It's Latin. You're not as smart as you think you are.
You're right about the spelling, Pubby. I'm not sure why you think I think I'm especially smart, though?
Your logic is as good as your spelling.
🤣
Their "homeland" was whereever they claimed it was. Pretty awesome arrangement, actually.
Jordan took half of Palestine when it was created. Why are Palestinians not abducting, torturing, and murdering innocent Jordanian citizens to “liberate” their “homeland”?
There were indeed, and still are, Native American nations. You are very ill-informed and ill-advised. Born in the USSR gave a pretty good summary. Read that. Or look it up. The information is readily available. I find your defense of today's savagery chilling.
Really? Israelis have stropped Palestinian women and debased their corpses? Israelis have engaged in hostage taking?
Then don't be offended by what comes next
Look it up. So easy to to say, so without substance.
You're full of shit. You probably think that Hitler had a "legitimate" reason for his Final Solution, too.
Can you be more specific, which land exactly was taken from which Palestinian children, and when?
You make a claim that some land was taken from Palestinian children. I'm asking which land exactly you are referring to and when it was taken. And this is your response? You don't even know which land you are talking about? Are you talking about Israel proper? The west Bank? Gaza? Anything else? Private land of specific people?
Please explain why British colonists or "Israel" had a right to land over those who were
who living on it. And please don't tell me to "look it up." I really want to know how the readers here know it/understand it.
Are you familiar with the concept of land titles? Those who could prove ownership were allowed to stay in Israel - that's why there are so many Israeli Arabs. The squatters were first bought off, and those who still refused to leave were evicted.
Why start there? Why not go back a bit further? Rome?
Because the Turkish empire collapsed under their own corruption, leaving a feudal political culture in the care of the empires that they had played great power games with for centuries. Because that's how the world was at the time.
Can you answer a simple question, which land exactly you are referring to as stolen from Palestinian children, and when exactly it was stolen?
Their land was taken? In 1948? In 1967? And that justifies the slaughter of civilians today by people who were not even alive at that time? There are no words and no logic to deal with that excuse.
Referring to a specific slice of time is the argument of pure ignorance and is only used to propagate a narrative.
Their land was not taken. Arab countries attacked Israel first (every time). Read your history.
In 1948 Israel declared independence from British colonial rule. Israel did not take anyone’s land. In 1967 Israel kicked Egypt and Jordan out of Jewish land that Egypt and Jordan were occupying.
OP's point about the pressures of the West dominates the reality here.
People just don't get it, but the big picture is a lot easier than people think. Israel won multiple wars. In the name of compassion and humanitarianism and with an important voice as an ally that helped them achieve the victory, the West then kept Israel from taking the steps a victor normally would take, in order to balance Arab concerns.
That's what leads to 70+ years of ongoing conflict. The fact that the original conflict was never resolved in the way it typically would be if there weren't a larger ally pushing solutions with their interests in mind instead of the warring parties being left alone, and the victorious party doing some quite bad things right away. Instead the bad things happen over a long timeline, with lots of violent pushback.
They seceded from another state, yes. I’m just making a related note that secession is a legitimate and lawful act and not stealing land.
So, anyone who thinks Texas or another state can’t secede the US because “We FoUgHt a WaR oVeR tHaT” can pound sand and face their own hypocrisy.
Correct.
Judaea & Samaria as well as the desert.
Ok, since you keep insisting, let’s look beyond the immediate to what came before this, such as senior Hamas political leader Fathi Hammad’s 2019 speech : “We must attack every Jew on the face of the earth. To slaughter and kill them, with the help of Allah.” Or the more recent video proclamation of Hamas senior official Mahmoud al-Zahar in 2022: “The entire 510 million square kilometers of Planet Earth will come under [a system] where there is no injustice, no oppression, no Zionism, no treacherous Christianity...”
That's right, atrocities don't come out of a void. The Nazis committed atrocities agains Jews but we must look at what came before that led to the anger and loss that could lead to Nazi atrocities. The Jews, you see, controlled the banks and with their hook noses they were poisoning the pure Aryan bloodlines in Germany. So what did you expect the Nazis to do?
See what I'm doing here, Maggie? There is good and there is evil. The Nazis were evil. Hamas is evil. Period. End of story.
Good (Israel) must defeat evil (Hamas).
You live in the US? Picture your children kidnapped and mutilated by bands of murderous thugs whose land you actually stole.
You are actually trying to justify this??! Good Lord.
Little known fact outside of Israel, modestly well-known fact little talked about within Israel: Hamas both exists and thrives because the Israeli right wants it to. Want to know why, or can you guess?
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/07/30/how-israel-helped-create-hamas/
https://lawliberty.org/israels-darkest-day/
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/2020-02-24/ty-article/.premium/netanyahu-israel-mossad-chief-doha-qatar-continue-hamas-gaza-money-transfer/0000017f-ded8-d856-a37f-ffd88a960000
Do you think it came completely out of the blue? Good Lord
It was horrible, but even more horrible is to judge some people as simply evil and having no motivation via previous events that led to their terrible behavior.
You just stated its more horrible to judge some people than it is to violently murder people? Are you listening to yourself???????
Their motivation is to completely annihilate Israel and wipe the Jews off the planet. Do you also justify the Holocaust?
No these people are evil. Open your eyes and stop auditioning for a job at MSNBC
You misread her comment. Under Israel mortality rates fell, life expectancy rose all the while additional billions were poured into Gaza. Israel is the only democracy in the region and this government has never, ever gunned down, tortured and kidnapped innocent civilians.
Steven, Bill & I, and SSR below, were all responding to Maggie4. Substack’s method of using indented vertical lines to indicate replies and sub-threads can be confusing
I didn’t miss read anyone’s comment. Are you which comment I’m responding to are you responding to mine.
Got it. I apologize to you Bill, Ruth and Steven.
There is no “but”. These atrocities are pure evil. No motivation matters because none could justify it
It doesn't matter where it came from. Only where it goes from here. These dumbass permavictims have sorely misjudged what this will cost them. It's gonna be a lot
Israel will not get surprised again, I'm certain of it. Am Yisrael Chai.
Here’s your answer: The notion that poverty drives terrorism has been debunked. And in any case, there’s a reason the UN chose 2007 as a starting date. Per capita GDP in the West Bank and Gaza rose tenfold between 1968 (when Israel took control of the disputed territories) and 1991, surpassing the levels of Jordan, Egypt, Turkey and Tunisia. Mortality rates in the West Bank and Gaza fell by more than two-thirds between 1970 and 1990, while life expectancy rose from 48 years in 1967 to 72 in 2000 (compared to an average of 68 years for all the countries of the Middle East and North Africa). Meanwhile countries and NGOs have poured billions into Gaza - most misappropriated by the terrorist- run government whose corrupt leaders enrich themselves at their people’s expense.
No, somebody better tell the UN to at least CONDEMN the Hamas invasion and terror attacks which the Security Council refused to do at yesterday’s meeting. The UN is fast approaching zero moral or factual credibility.
And, yes, terror attacks. Terrorism is defined as "the threat or use of violence to intimidate or coerce in the pursuit of political or ideological goals.” Are you seriously saying this wasn’t terrorism?? Tell that to the young women attending a music festival who according to eyewitness accounts were raped and then paraded through Gaza to the cheers of the crowd (cheers!?!?!) with "blood gushing between their legs."
As for poverty leading to acts of terror, you don’t site any sources for the UN’s assertions, but here’s some of mine: A 2006 study on terrorism for 96 countries between 1986 and 2002 found no link between its economic measures and terrorism. In 2002, Alan Krueger, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton, and Jitka Malecková, an associate professor at the Institute for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Charles University, made the argument in The New Republic against poverty’s role in terrorism with a wide-ranging presentation of evidence including evidence gathered from Hezbollah and Hamas suggesting that upper class and more educated individuals are slightly over-represented in among terrorists because terror groups actively select for those individuals from large populations of potential recruits.’
Again, you cannot absolve the perpetrators of agency for these heinous acts
They do. They have.
Please don't waste your time, Lynne.
Thanks for the advice. But I am chilled to the core by anyone who offers a defense of today's horrific events.
Amen
I'm far too outraged to be chilled, though I share your passion. Save your strength and words for those who matter.
Thank you.
There you go with "but" again. When someone like you outs themselves as an apologist for atrocities and those who commit them, they deserve no explanations or attention
Shamima Begum, is that you??? Did they let you back into the UK?
I'll repeat what I've said elsewhere: Rarely does a nation state come into being without ugliness. Nations exist because they declared they do, because other nations recognized them, because they established their borders, and they defended any attempts to end their existence. That is why any nation exists today. Any nation that cannot do that will not exist for long. IIt is what it is. I'll leave the right or wrong of it for others to argue.
Anyone who would desecrate a naked corpse or machine gun non-uniformed non-soldiers is not worth negotiating with. These are animals who inherit the mentality of the Third Reich. After all, the Nazis surely had reason to do what they did - who are we to judge?
Asshole.
The reality is they started a war against the Jews and lost. That is the way of history. Most groups when given land to start a nation, work on their nation. Instead the Palestinians just try to tear down, when will they try to build a functioning nation state without blaming everyone else? Why are they still in refugee camps after 75 years? What is wrong that they can't seem to flourish and chose hate?
Well said.
That anger came from the Quran and the religious zealots that use it to justify their obligation to rid the world of Jews.
Their land was not taken. That is a lie. When was it “taken”?
Evidently JP can't answer any of these questions because JP always responds with another question
JP, quite simply the Jews never left Palestine but became a minority with the influx of Arabs and others. Other Jews sought safety in Palestine to escape genocide but had to buy back their ancestral land. So, when Israel was declared, it was on land legally owned by Jews. Arabs who left because their brethren were out to destroy the nascent state lament that they left (many returned and are now Israeli) but they have no legal right to land lost in a war they started. Despite that, Israel has bent over backwards to make peace while continuing to supply them with water and electricity because the money Hamas and PA get to provide that goes toward the arms used in today’s attacks. There is absolutely no justification for Hamas’s barbarism. They have been free to govern their people for 18 years but have chosen terror instead. The Palestinians have proven again and again that they can’t be trusted, so yes, security is a huge factor when it comes to holding on to Judea and Samaria.
If you hate what happened, why bring up any of the past? How does it matter?
The West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula are not Palestinian Territories. The WB belonged to Jordan, Gaza and Sinai to Egypt, Golan to Syria. The terms “settlements” and “occupation” are used to vilify and slander Israel by those who don’t know history. And AI is written by programmers who have political preferences.
Probably a mistake, but “West Bank” didn’t belong to Jordan - they illegally occupied it for 19 years, while getting the world to ignore the actual name of the area: Judea and Samaria. Palestinian Arabs in J &S never declared their own nation, thus the territory is legally “disputed.”
Correct.
If you are going to make an accusation, please explain it. Who stole land from whom? And when did it happen?
Which land exactly. Name the city and the year when it was stolen. From Palestinian children no less