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SDEROT, ISRAEL - MAY 14: Israeli soldiers prepare thier artillery unit near the border with Gaza Strip on May 14, 2021 in Sderot, Israel. This follows days of violence and cross-border fighting between militants in the Gaza Strip, who have fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, and Israeli airstrikes that have killed dozens across the Palestinian coastal enclave. (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images)
Earlier this week, an Israeli soldier was wounded by a Hamas mortar bomb while guarding a convoy of heavy trucks loaded with medical supplies, food and fuel at the Erez crossing between Israel and Gaza. Yes, it was in Israel’s interest to reduce the suffering of Gaza’s inhabitants while it pursued its campaign to protect its own population by finding and destroying Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets stored in basements and underground tunnels: the less suffering and death, the less diplomatic pressure on Israel (particularly from the US) to call off its campaign unilaterally.
For the same reason, it was in Israel’s interest to accept extraordinary limitations on its bombing. Before attacking any occupied building, whether to destroy command posts or stored rockets or mortar bombs, the residents are warned with phone calls and often also by a “knock on the roof” — a guided weapon with no explosive that delivers a shock at impact but hardly ever hurts anyone. If civilians are spotted in or near the targeted building, attacks are delayed or called off.
All this sacrifices military gains for Israel; Hamas, naturally, takes full advantage of the bombing warnings to move out its personnel and portable equipment. But lost military gains are better than added political costs, and by now even Israeli corporals know that in warfare only political victories count.
And so it’s worth noting that in spite of all the imagery of death and destruction, in spite of the incessant media talk of genocide, the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry reported a total of 232 killed just after the ceasefire. Yesterday, by comparison, Israel’s estimate was that it had killed at least roughly 215 combatants, including 25 “senior commanders’ — but in the Hamas count they mysteriously become innocent civilians, with some becoming children. (Note Hamas does have some teenage recruits).
There were, of course, actual civilians among the dead and wounded. For one thing, according to a senior military source, of the 4,200 or so rockets launched from the Gaza Strip, approximately 650 fell inside the Gaza Strip. And unlike Israel’s guided weapons, they fell at random, and they definitely caused civilian casualties, including a family of six in one case. (Of the remaining rockets, roughly 1,950 were not intercepted because they were projected to fall in empty ground — and did. Another 1,440 were successfully engaged by Israel’s Iron Dome batteries, while 160 fell inside Israeli residential areas, causing minimal casualties thanks to Israel’s system of bomb shelters).
But putting figures to one side, the most obvious asymmetry in this endless conflict is how Hamas, unlike Israel, is not subject to the imperative of minimising civilian casualties. On the contrary, it gains a propaganda advantage in the Arab world — as well as Iran’s approval — for any civilian or military casualties it inflicts on the Jews, while also garnering support in the West from any casualties suffered by Gaza’s population — so much so that after Israeli attacks, doctored images purporting to show dead Gazan children are often circulated.
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SubscribeAs a Jew and someone who tries to apply the same values to everyone and every country, I am not taken in for one second by Hamas. In Gaza, it runs a vicious (Islamist) dictatorship. It executes opponents. It stifles opposition. It has no real concern for what its strategy means for the lives of trapped civilians. Hamas has only two real concerns, its continued and future expanded power and the destruction of Israel. Hamas merely aims to extend its rule of terror throughout Israel and the occupied territories of the West Bank.
I do not, however, have any Illusions about Netanyahu and his often ghastly allies. The refusal to accept the two state solution and sincerely to seek a peaceful and equitable resolution to the conflict undermines Israel’s long term security and its democratic future. Nor am I convinced by the claims that Israeli Arabs enjoy equal citizenship. The demotion of Arabic from official language status and the denial of Arab claims to self-determination put paid to the validity of this claim.
I as a South African Jew know that oppression breeds violent resistance and instability. This does not mean incidentally that I believe that the claim that Israel is an Apartheid state has validity. Anyone who actually knows anything in detail about South African Apartheid would know this is nonsense. In Israel, I have for instance sat on beaches and in restaurants next to Arabs. That was never possible under Apartheid.
I do not, however, have any Illusions about Netanyahu and his often ghastly allies. When this sentence follows the paragraph listing Hamas’ activities, it appears you do have illusions, that you are straining to manufacture one of those “both sides” false equivalencies. Bibi is hardly the first PM to have seen this sort of thing and history suggests that the “refusal to accept the two-state solution” leans heavily toward the Palestinian side.
I don’t ‘lean’ towards the Palestinian side. I want justice for both Jews and Arabs. I am a strong supporter of Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself with proportionate means. What Netanyahu does merely breeds more hatred while also making Israel less secure. Netanyahu is Hamas’s PR dream born as flesh.
Talk is cheap. Other than defending his people, what else does he do that breeds hatred?
David Lazar, you suffer from Netanyahu Derangement Syndrome. And… you talk out of both sides of your mouth. Refusal to allow hoards of hostile Palestinians back into Israel is not behaving as an apartheid state. Expressions of Israel’s right to exist is easy to say. You are speaking to the wrong audience when you say it.
The two state solution has now, unfortunately, become essentially a fantasy promoted by those who wish to destroy Israel in stages, whether politically, militarily or swamping it demographically through the ‘right of return’ offered to the great grandchildren of people who fled in over 70 years ago. (It is perhaps a good thing for peace that no-one expects this same principle to apply in the Indian subcontinent, where there were vastly more refugees, vastly more brutally treated, at the same period).
Let’s not be shy about this, many of the Left are active anti-Semites in a pretty crude sense (oh, no we can’t be, the Arabs are Semites too, didn’t you know? Now let me see if I can draw this hooked nose properly….)
Those haters of Israel and sometimes the Jews are of course aided by the usual Western ‘useful idiots’ who are either actively hostile to Israel, or wallow in bad faith false equivalences. Hamas fires rockets, Israel responds; Israel wants peace, Hamas war. It could not be morally simpler.
Israel withdrew from Gaza, instead of concentrating on building up a civilian economy, Hamas has ever since militarised the strip using vast amounts of donated aid so that it can continue killing Jews. If you want a peace settlement, stop reigniting war whenever you feel there might be some military, political or propaganda advantage in doing so.
Decades of Labour government did not bring peace to Israel, not did the de facto existence of that very two-state ‘solution’ between 1948 and 1967, nor did Arafat being offered 99% of what he demanded at Camp David. Etc etc.
Recall that Transjordan and later Jordan formed part of the British mandate of Palestine, and Palestinians were given Jordanian citizenship. In other words an overwhelmingly Arab state and a predominantly Jewish one (but with civic rights for the minority in that case) already existed.
Likud and Netanyahu have long since stopped believing in self-deluding fantasies, which again and again have shown themselves existentially dangerous for Israel and the Jewish people. This is probably one reason they are loathed so much by left liberals of all stripes.
What would “proportionate means” look like – 4500 unguided missiles launched on Gaza?
As to the two state solution, lost in the hagiography of the peace martyr Yitzhak Rabin was his final Knesset speech in which he laid out his vision which, now forgotten, was not an independent State of Palestine but some form of autonomy plus.
No Palestinian ruler has shown any interest in a “two states for two peoples” – and they never tire repeating their opposition, confident that the West will dismiss their foundational opposition to Jewish self-determination as mere posturing.
Considering the continuing worldwide unease with the concept of an independent Jewish state capable of defending its people, one might say that, for all his faults (glaring and otherwise), Netanyahu has played Israel’s security hand rather skillfully. After all, the recent Sunni Arab rapprochement, long in the making before seeing the light of day as the Abraham Accords, does not represent a sudden outburst of Judeophilia but rather a cold calculation of each state’s national interest.
I suggest you read Jonathan Freedland’s article in today’s Guardian 922 May) if you believe Netanyahu is skilfully looking after Israel’s long term security. Repression is never a sensible solution for a liberal democracy. It undermines what makes us distinctive: tolerance, accountability and the rule of law.
Repressing terrorism is a positive in my book.
And yet Israeli Arabs have made it abundantly clear that in any peace settlement, they absolutely do not want the border to shift so that they wake up to fund themselves in the newborn State of Palestine. Perhaps they know something about life in Israel that either you don’t or cannot address.
You made that up. There is no evidence that Palestinian citizens of Israel don’t want a border shift, none.
I believe surveys have revealed that most Israeli ARABS (not “Palestinian citizens of Israel”, no such thing) definitely do not want to give up their Israeli citizenship if a Palestinian state is established, so presumably they don’t want to live in a state controlled by a Palestinian Arab government either.
In arguing on behalf of Israel, there is never a need to invent or exaggerate claims – something that, as we have most recently seen in the past few days with all manner of faked photographs and uninformed or fact-adjacent assertions, cannot honestly be said of the “pro”-Palestinian side.
The border change idea in the Triangle and the opposition of those Israeli Arabs is so well known, and had been so well publicized at the time, that it even has its own Wikipedia page.
In particular, you should read the section on the poll of Israeli Arab residents.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieberman_Plan
David, SURVIVAL of the liberal democracy is the first order of business to REMAIN a liberal democracy. Israel already has a hostile Arab population living in its borders, as was demonstrated in the past 2 weeks. Muslim Arabs do not care to share the land. They want Palestine “From the River to the Sea.” What don’t you understand about these words. They are quite clear.
It is not about Arabs, it is about the Palestinian people, denied their rights, their land, their homes, their possessions, justice and freedom by the Israeli colonial military regime because they are not Jews.
The only distinctive thing about Israel, and hardly a first, is that by its nature it is an apartheid State demanding full power rests in the hands of members of the Jewish religion, and denying human and civil rights to non-Jews.
There is no accountability, tolerance or rule of law in such a State except for Jews.
I suggest the conflict might just defy what may seem obvious, somewhat simple solutions, on a reading of JF’s article. He knows only too well, like many who are not of the more cynical, rather antisemitic, wing of the Left, that liberal notions of “justice” and “equity” are not so easy to negotiate with an islamist foe, for whom calls for genocide of the Jews trips as lightly off the tongue as a “good morning” greeting.
The problem is that the Abraham Accords also seem to have emboldend thuggish Israeli settlers–and united Israeli Arabs with Paelstinians across the border.
Shouldn’t you be dividing your foes, rather than uniting them?
Nice that Luttwak can still go to Arab restaurants, though…
If Israel did not have policies granting elevated status to Jews, would it not cease to be a Jewish nation/homeland and become another Arab country in a sea of Arab countries? If that were to occur, how long do you think Israel would remain a democracy?
Firstly, a nation which has policies granting elevated status to followers of one religion, Jews, is not a democracy. How could it be? But at least you admit the foundational policy of the Israeli State.
And why should one religion get rights to a homeland when others do not? Where is it written in international law that any religion should have rights to land where followers once lived?
More critical, why should a claimed Jewish right to a homeland mean the bloody dispossession of Palestinian Christians and Muslims, from their land, homes, country and the denial of all rights to their descendants?
israel needs a strong leader and in netanyahu they ve got one.i fail to see why anyone would see anything wrong in israels response to hamas,in fact i think they ve been very restrained ,all things considered.maybe the israelis would be better served if their government ordered an all out attack to bomb hamas out of existence.
The mistake Israelis and their supporters are making is that the world at large does not actually care about history, whether actual or religious. Younger generations know little about what happened nearly 100 years ago, and would not care if they did, so distant is it. And care even less about the fact that followers of Judaism, spent time in Palestine thousands of years ago as have many others.
It doesn’t matter that a Palestinian State has never existed as yet. It is utterly irrelevant.
The only thing which does matter is that 6 million people called Palestinians, live in the remains of a country called Occupied Palestine and are denied human and civil rights, justice and freedom by their occupiers, i.e. the Israelis who set up as colonists 74 years ago.
That is the only reality on the table of justice.
The two state solution, according to Hamas, should look like what, exactly?
It’s interesting what The Struggle in SA yielded, in spite of all the liberal, utopian dreams.
Of course, the near collapse of the state through state capture and under the keen guidance of the ANC would never stop old guiding lights of That Struggle still having the gall to condemn Israel.
Israel should and will ignore the Jonathan Freedlands at The Guardian and his motley crew ideological compadres, not least over at Haaretz. If only their pontifications ever did a scintilla of good for anyone, I might think differently.
Sam Harris wrote an excellent article on this conflict in 2014 and it is just as relevant today. He is critical of both parties but in summation asks what either would do if they had the power to do anything they wanted. We already know what Israel would do, because it already has the power to wipe out every citizen in Gaza in one day and it has not done so. We also know what Hamas would do, because contained in its charter is the intent to obliterate Israel and kill all the Jews. Elsewhere this is called genocide.
Harris puts it more eloquently of course.
https://samharris.org/podcasts/why-dont-i-criticize-israel/
I note you disingenuously put “CONTAINED in it’s charter” because they renounced that years ago and have long accepted a 2vstate solution. Meanwhile of course Israel continues to make that impossible by land theft, expropriation of property under Israeli “absentee law” and using extremist armed “settlers”(illegal colonists) to render a viable 2 state solution impossible.
I see you were fooled by the Iranian terrorists. All that has changed is that will now accept a state inside 67 borders (which will never happen) in order to pull another Gaza and keep war going. Were you also fooled when Iran said they would stop executing children? Islamic Jihad and Hamas are Shiite oppressors of the Sunni Arabs. There were no bombings in the west bank but there were 267 executions in Iran in 2020.
Clearly you did not read the link.
I did and it’s irrelevant to RM’s point.
He was so clumsy that he didn’t read my comment, or the article. This is specifically what Sam Harris said, yet he attributed it to me. That said, I still believe it to be essentially true. There is a revised, somewhat sanitised version of the charter because of the huge blowback from its original disgraceful utterances, but frankly nothing has changed in respect of their attitude and action towards Jews and Israelis – and indeed fellow Palestinians. They are still a terrorist organisation.
clever perspective that i had not encountered this week
The international criminal court is busy only with Israel,,I ask my self way all the planet do not take China to criminal court for the spreed coronavirus ??????
It is interesting when someone in the media points out the incongruities in the press coverage of Israel and Hamas. Hamas, by every definition of the word, is a terrorist organization. They purposefully inflict civilian casualties for political purposes and ignore the affects of their actions, and the inevitable retaliation, on those they claim to be fighting for. Any damage to their own is dismissed as a ‘necessary sacrifice.’ When is the Arab world, and the Palestinians in particular, going to realize they are being played?
‘They purposefully inflict civilian casualties for political purposes and ignore the affects of their actions, and the inevitable retaliation, on those they claim to be fighting for. Any damage to their own is dismissed as a ‘necessary sacrifice.’
Could you explain why that isn’t also a description of Israeli military action?
If you would take your head out of its warm, dark resting place, you wouldn’t need anyone to explain to you. However:
As someone so wisely asked, When is the … world … going to realize they are being played?
The “inevitable retaliation” just keeps happening first. It was Hamas’s torrent of rockets that started this round, as it so often does.
What preceded Hamas firing those rockets?
What preceded it? (1): There was a chance that a couple of Jewish landlords would finally win their decades-old legal battle to evict a handful of deadbeat Palestinian tenants from properties they own in Sheikh Jarrah, though we don’t know because the court hasn’t opined yet. (2): The Jerusalem police decided that it wasn’t right for some Palestinian youths to celebrate Ramadan by lobbing rocks & fireworks from the Temple Mount onto Jews in the Western Wall plaza below.
Those were what Hamas said it was reacting to. If you think rocketing civilians are an appropriate way to protest either one, I’d like to hear more of your thoughts on “disproportionate response”. Or maybe I wouldn’t.
Is it too far fetched to say as Moshe Dayan did, that because Israel had stolen the Palestinian land and property they should expect to be attacked, and that this observtion settles the prime cause debate ?
Yes, it is too far fetched, especially in the Sheikh Jarrah case where it is established beyond doubt that Jews bought the land. Source your quote.
Moshe Dayan had the honesty to say Israel should expect to be attacked because they stolen the Palestinian land.
Can’t get clearer than that.
Source?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_and_eulogy_of_Roi_Rotberg
Of course Dayan wanted to say something completely different: The Jews should not be naive. The Arabs are no Swedes. It is a primitive and tribal society. You cannot expect them to look for peace, they will not accept the legitimate rights and the historical legacy of the Jews. They will not look for a compromise or for a peaceful coexistence. So Jews must fight back.
Even if he did say that, I very much doubt he intended it to mean Israel should just submit to those attacks without defending itself.
It never was “Palestinian land” anyway; it was Ottoman land. Probably what he was referring to was the privately-owned Arab properties left behind when Arabs fled the new state of Israel during the war in 1948. They had expected to get them back in a few days, after the Arab armies defeated the Israelis as they had assured them they would do. It didn’t happen, so obviously that would have made them furious.
Are you saying the bombing of residential blocks wasn’t done for political purposes? That’s not what the Israeli military say. They bomb blocks knowing non-combatants live there because Hamas also have a presence there.
‘You started it’ arguments are pointless when one area is under permanent occupation and one under permanent threat of terrorism.
But the Israeli government escalated conflict (as does Hamas) knowing it will result in casualties.
???
Gaza isn’t under “permanent occupation”. It hasn’t been occupied since 2005.
Those blocks also contain Hamas infrastructure and as stated in the article the Israelis give everyone in the block time to evacuate before destroying it.
Furthermore the purposes are military rather than political – reducing the fighting capability of an organization that had started indiscriminate rocket attacks.
In summary: in bombing tower blocks they are not purposefully inflicting civilian casualties, and the purpose is military rather than political.
It’s as if you never ready the article…
You’ve been misinformed. The IDF has said explicitly that Hamas or PIJ situating military assets in civilian structures turns them into legitimate military targets. That is the position of the laws of war as internationally accepted and responsibility for civilian harm falls on the party using human shields. If you care about the protection of civilians you will understand it can be no other way.
Palestinians are under permanent occupation because Israel is under permanent threat of terrorism, though as Kathy Prendergast says, the Gaza part of it ended 16 years ago. The result gave proof, if any was needed, that the occupation is not the problem. In Gaza occupation ended and the terror increased.
When the competing leaders of the Palestinians unambiguously acknowledge that the Jews are in their land by right, that they have a right to self-determination and that their home is not going to become yet another Arab state, we will start on the road to peace. All of this they can do without surrendering a gram of their legitimate demand for their own self-determination. They just have to accept, once and for all, that they can’t do it and have the Jewish state too.
A lot of people getting their pants in a twist on here. People talking of unsubscribing or being close to it. If that’s how you feel then leave, or are we all supposed to say “oh no please don’t go”! Outward exclamations of frustration do little more than satisfy yourself that everyone knows how you feel. I come to unherd not because I agree with every artical or every view in the comments, I often don’t but there has never been anything wrong with reading and listening to veiws that can be at times different from your own.
Agree totally.
If the ‘flouncers’ aren’t part of the proverbial solution then they’re part of the problem.
Fear of and the killing of debate is what largely helped to get us into this mess in the first place.
Nobody should form an opinion instantaneously any more than they should change one instantaneously, and nor should one’s views forever be set in stone if you like to think of yourself as genuinely intellectually curious.
Reading stuff in one place that represents a diverse range of views ultimately helps to inform and challenge your own opinions and possibly change them over time but you, as an autonomous individual, are the only one who can decide to do that.
.
Excellent, insightful article. I would be very interested to hear Ed Luttwak’s perspective on the settlements in the West Bank. As we know the Gaza settlements were ended more than a decade ago. Could the United States make further aid to Israel conditional on withdrawal of the settlements? Or does Israel take the view that the settlements are essential to its security? To many outsiders they seem manifestly unfair and a crucial barrier to a lasting peace.
It might be worth noting that amongst the many objections by Israeli politicians and military strategists to the withdrawal from Gaza, was the view that it would simply become a centre for terrorist attacks against Israel.
That view is also held about an absolute withdrawal from the West Bank. The PA and its leadership, especially Mahmoud Abbas, do little to counter this view by continuing to reward Palestinian terrorists in Israeli jails and the families of terrorists killed whilst trying to attack Israelis. Their continued demonisation of Israel and Jews, particularly in material taught in Palestinian schools provides little evidence of their goodwill or desire for peace.
Exactly this. It is only children and the ignorant who believe there are ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ answers to complex issues.
In isolation, Israel’s settlement strategy and its policy of occupation without annexation look wrong. However, taken into religious, demographic and geopolitical context, Israel has chosen what it sees it as the least bad option available to it.
The UN to our eternal shame was not there to help Israel in ‘48, ‘67 or ‘73, so it seems eminently sensible that Israel would seek security without it’s support.
I’ve always put my money on Israel in this conflict. Not least for the fact that they’re the only true democracy for miles around and they are repeatedly attacked by an internationally recognized terrorist organization in Hamas. I don’t see that as a difficult position to take and still acknowledge that it’s highly unlikely that Israel has never done anything to earn a red card.
Hamas is clearly the problem and the perennial roadblock to any sort of workable peace. Why the Palestinians can’t seem to cipher that is a mystery to me.
However, it’s remarkable how much media support they get in the West. Vice has a YT video up – 3 million views, over 100K likes – for 20 min of “poor us” Palestinian support. Apparently if you’re an Israeli and you can’t find a house just say the word, we’ll evict a Palestinian family out of a house they own and you can move in next week. A lot of people seem ready, willing and able to support that narrative.
Peace seems a long way off.
What a brilliant piece of journalism .. let this important article be read out by the BBC, Channel 4 and let the EU & UN wake up to reality .. well written !
Good article.
Is a good view,,I knowledge abaut Arabs in Israel,,and olso Israelies,,I one of them,,the information is accurate,,the world media are&parrots&chikens progresives &leftist that for some historical reasons are brain washing, believe that Hamas&Iran&Hizbollah are marxists&Lenin’s fanatics.
There are so many people on this thread who have no clue whatsoever in what is going on in the Middle East. Somehow this conflict attracts the type that has no clue but certainly has to send a virtue signal—what a bunch of schmucks.
The article is good, though. Short and good.
A shocking number of people seem to have no idea where and what Gaza and the West Bank actually are (they seem to believe they are Apartheid-era South Africa-like disenfranchised “townships” within Israel itself), or realize that Israel has been out of Gaza for 16 years and not a single Israeli settler lives there anymore, or that most of the West Bank is Arab-governed and has been for over two decades.
For all the ‘couch analysts’ and ‘joystick warriors’ before they start to comment on the Arab-Israeli conflict, it would be nice to know something about Theodor Herzl and the Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini, the British mandate to rule Palestine and the Independence War, the Camp David Accords, the 1967 war (“six days war”) and the 1973 war (“Yom Kippur War” ), Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, Count Folke Bernadotte and Vladimir Jabotinsky, Balfour declaration, Black September, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, Oslo accords, HAMAS, PLO, the terrorist attack at the Olympic Games in Munich and Hezbollah …
That would be the minimum. Otherwise, just please shut up!
Is something more that I want mention,,no one with the tinformation about Hamas&Iran Ayatollahs&Hizbollah said the truths story’s,,if does ,,have a destiny,,Charly Hebdo magazine,,death in hands of terrorists.
Even though the Western media has a tendency to be opposed to Israel, choosing to see it as the too powerful aggressor in any conflict, it is surely clear to any rational person that Israel is populated by sane, reasonable people who are doing nothing more than defend themselves, whereas HAMAS and their kind are nothing more than foaming savages motivated only by bloodlust and visceral hatred.
As Egypt existed for thousands of years, then so too does the state of Isarel.
Palestine is not a country never was. What these people are, is probably the largest large tribe on the planet that have been ostracized by their kin and tossed onto their absent neighbour’s lot. Lip service from corporate media sponsors and ambitious politicians is then trotted out (beating up on Isarel etc, etc) for a handsome profit, and carreer advancement, just for the select few.
Even this discussion on the “Palestinian Israeli conflict or war” is contributing to the profiteers bank account.
This is nothing more that a ghoulish business enterprise, where mothers and grandmothers pay the ultimate price. The unnecessary cyclical sacrifice of thier children’s lives.
Thank you for stating the facts about the recent conflict. The Abraham Accords seem even more pertinent as the way forward for peace, stability and mutual benefit.
This seems complacent to a reckless degree.
I wish reasonable Palestinians and Israelis could simultaneously breakthrough to change the situation. Why should it continue? The longer it goes on, the more religionist terrorism and religionist incursion increases – feeding off each other. Israel needs security. As does a secular Palestinian state.
Hamas does not share your view. The Arabs have been offered several opportunities to live in their own state in peace but they want to push the Jews into the sea. It continues because Iran and Hamas want it to.
You said it: “have been offered”. What’s on offer now? Nada. More slow colonization of the West Bank.
More colonisation by Iranian shite terrorist over an Arab Sunni population. The Persians have always wanted to rule Arabia.
Actually it’s normally written as ‘Shiite’, but then perhaps they are shite terrorists.
Also, I don’t think the arabs actually want to”push the Jews into the sea,” I think machine gunning them on the beach would be a more likely preference.
Or even according to a recent news article
A senior Hamas official has reportedly called on Jerusalem residents to buy “five shekel knives” to “cut off the heads of Jews” in a recent video.
https://www.memri.org/tv/snr-hamas-official-fathi-hammad-urges-people-jerusalem-cut-off-heads-jews-knives-day-reckoning-moment-destruction
why does anything have to be on offer now? When one side is offered something repeatedly and consistently turns it down, it is not incumbent on the other to keep making offers. At some point, you take the one side’s ‘no’ for an answer.
You assume a responsible monolithic Palestinian counterparty. They (the people, not the leaders) are victims of their disorganized and corrupt governance.
Unfortunately, they (the people) don’t get to decide policy and actions.
Useless and corrupt as they (Hamas) are, the ‘people’ voted them into power.
The first offer was made by the International Community in the 1948 partition which was accepted by Israel, universally rejected by the Arab States and led to the first Arab Israeli War.
In point of fact, the first “offer” by the international community which was fully implemented by mid-century was to return 99% of former Ottoman lands to their prior imperial conquerors. This was the system of Mandates created by the League of Nations in the post-WWI settlement.
The only indigenous group allowed to reassert their sovereignty in their historical homeland was the Jewish people. But the 1% of lands they were initially allocated proved intolerable to the Arabs who took a first partition of some three-quarters in 1923 that led to today’s Jordan (which could just as easily be called East Palestine because that how its borders came to be).
Today, including all “disputed” territories, Israel sits on 0.25% of former Ottoman holdings. All other indigenous groups in total have no land to call their own. That’s the larger context for what it may be worth.
Arabs were offered in 1948 more Palestine Mandate territory than were the Jews. They went to war instead and were joined by five invading Arab states. They lost territory as a result. In 1967, Nasser said they would drive the Jews into the sea. They lost more territory. Why not try peaceful politics for a change?
Arabs talk endlessly about the undoubted tragedy of hundreds of thousands fleeing or being driven from their homes. They never mention the 800,000 Jews in North Africa and the Middle East expelled and dispossessed merely because they were Jews.
This is the thing I don’t understand – every time the Arab nations attempt to weaken Israel, land is lost and the Palestinians suffer. Even the events of the past month were probably fomented by Iran (OK, it’s not strictly Arab but Persian…) and once again only served to hurt ordinary Palestinians.
In which case should they be given a slither of an excuse to open hostilities?
Going round in circles… Israel has to defend itself but surely any ‘pre-emptive’ defense/’show of strength’ has to be carried out so carefully?
Obviously without honest brokers there will be no progress.
Yes, Hamas does not accept Israel’s right to exist. Indeed, its foundation document suggests a wish to kill all Jews. I suggest readers do a web search to see how extreme this document is in its hatred of Jews per se.
I think quite a few here have read it and some still need to. Why not post a link to this abhorrent document.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/hamas-covenant-excerpt
Thanks, it is a must read.
Is there a link to the original site that the covenant appeared on or an unbiased third party site?
This first link is colloquial English but if you compare you will see that the second is a much more literal translation. No doubt your prejudice will assume it to be biased because a Jewish academic translated it. Either way you will find that is drivel obviously written by a deranged death cult.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hamas-2017-document-full
https://fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/880818.htm
As Joe Biden said “not Hamas”
para 12
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/05/20/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-middle-east/
Increasingly I find unmediated politics more gratifying. The Journalists spin is mostly just that.
Move on nothing to see. Its a small side show in the context of Iran executing 267 people this year including minors; the Iranian backed Houthis causing 150,000 deaths including 18,000 civilians including 3000 children since 2014; 400,000 deaths in Syria, 5m external and 6m internal refugees; Iraq 600,000 dead; Libya 25,000 dead; Rohingya 25,000 dead; Uyghurs 25,000 dead etc. Why the focus on Israel?
I think there is a structural shift in global opinion away from Israel, towards the Palestinians, I think this piece is obviously very pro-Israel. That is not a good approach to Israel’s future, because Israel should now realise it needs a long-term deal with its neighbours. The significance of this latest spell of fighting is that Israel has realised two important facts 1) US support for Israel is waning 2) the Iron Dome is not impregnable, and next time will certain;y be worse for Israelis, especially if Hezbollah is involved.
It is not true that there is global shift from Israel. Probably the opposite is true. Europe, India and the US’ GOP have never been so pro Israel. But it is true that the US progressive left became a new powerful pro Palestinian force to reckon with.
Why do people keep talking about Arabs, a culture and Jews, a religion? Surely if you are talking about cultures then you use that definition for both sides, or you talk about religion – Jewish, Christian, Muslim.
Or, even more radical, talk about Israelis and Palestinians.
It is patently clear that Israel has never had a problem with Arabs or Palestinians because in 1947 it offered immediate citizenship to all Arab Palestinian Jews. Clearly religion can sanitize anything.
And surely the only reason why 6 million Palestinians are held under military occupation and colonial rule, is not because they are Arab or Palestinian but because they are Christians and Muslims.
Who is not aware that the sole reason Israel has not done what other countries founded through colonisation have done, particularly those who call themselves Western democracies – create one state with equal rights as citizens for the indigenous people and their colonisers – is because, drumroll, Israel demands that Jews remain totally in control as a majority.
Israel is entitled to be a theocracy but is it entitled to call itself a democracy and is it entitled to deny freedom, justice, and human and civil rights, in perpetuity, to millions of Palestinians in the name of religious intolerance?
… surely the only reason why 6 million Palestinians are held under military occupation and colonial rule, is not because they are Arab or Palestinian but because they are Christians and Muslims.
Surely not, because there are many Arab (and non-Arab) Christians & Muslims who are full citizens of Israel. So, surely 3 (not 6) million Palestinians are under (mostly non-military) occupation in the West Bank because they have chosen leaders who refuse to come to terms with Israel as a Jewish state.
Israel is not governed by clerics and so is not a theocracy. We’re well into the 21st century; it’s time you got your head around the idea that “Jew” is not just a religious designation. Even the Nazis understood, almost a century ago, that we were a people (though they said “race”). The Nuremberg Laws and Nazi fixation on Jews’ supposed physical characteristics are the proof. Do you think my handsomely-proportioned nose would shrink if I converted to C of E? I can tell you that it hasn’t even after a lifetime of atheism—and also that, atheist though I am, I remain a Jew. If you want to see a theocracy in the Middle East, try Iran. If you’d like to see another, let Hamas have its way.
It really seems that you don’t know enough about Jews, Israel or the Middle East to have an opinion worth sharing. Do a little studying.
Spot on, Peter. I am tired of hearing the views of people like Ms Jones – whatever religious fanatics may say, it is quite obviously wrong to declare that a nation should be destroyed “from the river to the sea”.
Weird that, in spite of their murderous agenda, Hamas and co. are regularly defended by the world’s media.
Deaths are not the only measure of suffering. Bombardment from the air creates long lasting trauma on the people within a large radius. The bean counting of dead is not the way to look at this.
This part gives away the author’s bias, believing Israel by default whereas the Palestinian estimate is “mysterious”:
“Israel’s estimate was that it had killed at least roughly 215 combatants, including 25 “senior commanders’ — but in the Hamas count they mysteriously become innocent civilians, with some becoming children.”
Both sides place the numbers dead as being in the low to mid 200s. The claims of genocide are simple propaganda.
Perhaps this might alleviate your skepticism. In every past conflict with Hamas, Israel’s numbers have been proven to be far more accurate than anything emanating from the Hamas controlled Ministry of Health.
While everyone regrets a life lost, surely you can appreciate the difference between a recognized civilian and a combatant and why that sorting is important. What is actually unknown at the moment is the number of Palestinian dead at the hands of malfunctioning Hamas missiles.
There is a reason that all Western militaries have closely examined Israel’s methods and tactics precisely because of their success in minimizing just those types of casualties Hamas seeks to maximize. Ironically from the vantage point of our armchair warriors,, some of those same militaries fault Israel for setting the bar too high for them.
Nice sales pitch.
But we have to accept that, until we impose a peace on both of these politically incompetent sides, this will happen every few years, if not more often.
The roadside bomb, the suicide bomber, the car-as-weapon were all first developed to fight Israel. This is “The Lab” that has cost thousands of American lives, in Iraq and elsewhere.
Technological change can make things like Iron Dome obsolete very quickly. The new Turkish TB-2 drone was devastating against the Russian-armed Armenians. The Iranians are doubtless working on similar innovations.
The Israeli stock market may be fine. But the Abraham Accords have only united Palestinians more than ever.
Looks like Hamas won this round.
Suicide bombing was ‘invented’ by the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) before the Islamists and Arabs took it up.
“we impose a peace” if we stopped interfering in things we don’t understand they would find a peace. It is all the nonsense spread around by MSM and others that keeps this going.
I don’t have a dog in this fight. I’m dead against radical Islam and would just like to see a peaceful solution in Israel/Palestine. But the Israeli bias on this site is now laughable. A heavily-armed nuclear state against dispossessed farmers trapped like sitting ducks with a few smuggled-in rockets doesn’t look like a fair fight to me. Luttwak is a notorious neo-con grifter, nothing more. Unsubscribe. I’m not wading through reams of Israeli flag-waving, obsolete hippy feminist nonsense and economically illiterate ‘civil society’ romanticism just to encounter the occasional half-decent article from someone like Embery, Roussinos or Fazi.
‘Nuclear state against dispossessed farmers’. Wow! Does that seem unbiased to even the most casual of readers?
The population of Israel is 9m (of which 20% are Arab), while that of Iran is 83m, to select but one state which is absolutely clear about its plans.
Since you boil down the conflict to the fact free Orientalist fantasy of “A heavily-armed nuclear state against dispossessed farmers trapped like sitting ducks with a few smuggled-in rockets”, I can well understand your frustration that leads you to dismiss hard reality as Israeli bias. It certainly simplified your argument to substitute performative emoting for any substantive analysis. Please address the merits of Luttwak’s piece … if you can.
what might happen if those dispossessed farmers eschewed the rockets. Seems like Israel is the lone candle in the wind that refuses to rationalize radical Islam, that refuses to indulge in the ritual excuse-making for jihadis that characterizes the western left, the one place that takes those threats at face value.
Its disgusting that Unherd allow scum like this man space to air his biased and frankly false claims. He cannot possibly know how many Palestinian children and non combatants were killed by Israel and to claim they are “teen age Hamas recruits” is foul calumny. I’m not sure why I still follow Unherd.
If you’re not sure then leave. Just because you disagree with him does not make him scum.
This is the third article in recent weeks that is biased towards Israel. It would be better for Unherd’s credibility to be more even handed.
Ah, right…so we should just have articles that damn Israel and laud Hamas. Like in almost every other media….
no need, the BBC manages that
edit: apologies, you already mentioned other media
No that was not the comment. The comment called for more balanced reporting.
Sooo… unherd should be biased one way because other media are biased the other way?
The Guardian is free to access and is overflowing with articles to pander to your prejudice
The Guardian has taken a very pro Israel view. It questions the actions of the Israeli government when it damages the potential for the future of Israel as a peaceful secure nation.
What’s so wrong about a one state multi ethnic democracy? Nobody trusts or believes the other side.
Nor do I. Including all the influencers/agitators from outside the region.
Its the rest of the Press that have no credibility. Hamas are terrorists same as they guy who bombed Manchester Arena. Their sponsors Iran (and the MSMM) have no respect for the Human rights and International law.
Unherd generally offers a rightwing bias but this is a new low: no mention of Israeli intimidation of Palestinian civilians: no mention of the murderous IDF invading mosques: no mention of bombs hitting hospitals and schools: no mention of land theft and ongoing breaches of international law: no mention of bombing vital water and power facilities: and to add much injury to incredible insult calling the murder of innocent children fake news! I’m close to unsubscribing from Unherd. Must do better. Must do a great deal better! Shame on you!
“and to add much injury to incredible insult calling the murder of innocent children fake news!”
The fact that you feel the need to exaggerate to the point of fake news yourself tends to dim the intended point.
No mention of Zaghari Ratcliffe, No mention of the gay beheadings. No mention 400,00 dead in Syria. What is you affinity to Islamic Jihad? You seem to seek balance between the Firefighters and the Fire.
The kids who die in Gaza are not responsible for the Iranian government.
The kids who died in the Allied firebombing of Tokyo and almost every other major Japanese city during WW II were not responsble for the Japanese government, either. So I’m not sure what your point is.
Its the Iranian government who are responsible for the kids dying in Gaza. No deaths in the west bank where the Iranian terrorist are not in charge.
from the unherd mission statement: UnHerd aims to do two things: to push back against the herd mentality with new and bold thinking, and to provide a platform for otherwise unheard ideas, people and places.
That’s where you’ve gone wrong, you were looking for a site which panders exclusively to your prejudices, i suggest the The Guardian, or The Independent, would serve you better.
Agree. Still, maybe you found the stock market reference useful? (sarcasm)
Maybe it seems like a bias because this is among the very few places not constantly hammering on Israel and treating the Hamas side as innocents. Who started this thing? It wasn’t the “murderous” Jews.
Yes, Unherd, why this pro-Israel rant, after some recent articles on this topic which were much more balanced ? The pro-Israel rant is going out of fashion, fast.
The article may not be fashionable, but it is factual. I know which I prefer…
It’s clearly pro-Israel, but not a rant based on fake facts.
Are you suggesting that a modern day Lord Haw Haw be hired? That’s the only type of journalist worthy of publicizing your fact and/or context free list of talking points.
No mention of murderous Hamas attacks that were very successful either, so here you go, straight from the Hamas operative who planned a very succesfull attack on a pizza restaurant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq28f0VztYw
The bomb denoted killing 16 people including women and children and injured 130
Note not only the way that this vile woman gloats over the casualties including a baby, but also the Arab passenger on the bus she was traveling on all smile and applaud at the news.
I think about this and all the other similar terrorist attacks to be reminded how Islam mandated Jew hatred will not easily change.
I have never heard of any examples of Israelis showing delight over the deaths of innocent Palestinian civilians.
If you scroll up, you can find links to the Hamas charter that another reader has posted.
You should read it.