Jesus, in this sea of hysteria and ad hominem, can I just say how much I appreciate this good faith response. I've had hundreds of conversations about this conflict at this point, and this one of only a handful of responses that sounds like it came from a sane human being.😅

I know exactly what you mean when you talk about frustration with this whole thing. So thank you for not adding to mine.

1) The history. Yes, as I've said many times, I have very little interest in litigating whose "ancestral claim to the land" is more legitimate. Both Jews and Arabs have lived there for centuries. I don't believe in ether of their Gods, so I don't care who they think gave them the land. And besides, I don't think very highly of any God who would let his chosen people fight and die for centuries over a scrap of land instead of just building them their own idyllic little planet.

I have to take issue with your claim that the United Nations created Israel to atone for historical injustices though. Britain gave the land to the Jews partly due to Jewish persecution, yes, but mostly to avoid having to take Jewish refugees into Britain and other European countries.

As Theodor Herzl, the architect of Zionism, said, "the Governments of all countries scourged by Anti-Semitism will be keenly interested in assisting us to obtain [the] sovereignty we want" because they were more than happy to see the Jews leave Europe too.

You're right though, none of this has any relation to slavery. This history is irrelevant to the analogy I ws trying to draw.

2. Egypt. Yes, Egypt used to control Gaza. Then Israel occupied it after the six-day war (but never officially controlled it), and after the Oslo accords, it fell under Palestinian control.

But you're drawing a false equivalence between Israel and Egypt.

Egypt completely ceded control of Gaza when they withdrew. All that was left was a border, which is perfectly reasonable for any country. But when Israel left, they retained total control of access to Gaza by land, air and sea. They also took control of Gaza's access to water and power. This is not a border, it's a siege. The distinction has nothing to do with races or antisemitism but the clear, material differences in the way that Egypt and Israel behaved.

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I won't quibble about the median age. It doesn't make much difference whether most of the people in Gaza weren't quite born or were a few months old when Hamas came to power. The point remains that they obviously had nothing to do with electing Hamas. Again, I think, if the slaves had been allowed to form a government, they would very likely have ended up with "extremists" populating it. That extremism, of course, being very much a matter of perspective. And if that government carried out attacks like Turner's, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the slaves continued to support them.

As you say, in the case of Hamas, over 90% of Palestinians disbelieve or are unaware of the reports of atrocities committed by Hamas. They think it was a legitimate military strike, not a massacre. So it's even easier to understand why they continue to support Hamas' actions. To be very clear, that's not a defence of Hamas, but an explanation of why Palestinians don't condemn them.

Yes, after all these years of killing, Israel has no choice but to defend itself. And beyond that, I don’t blame them for just wanting revenge after an attack of this savagery. I was absolutely horrified by the October 7th attack. But their response has gone far beyond any sense of proportionality. And as I said in the article, can’t possibly hope to achieve its aims of destroying Hamas.

I don’t think there’s been a single case in history where a terrorist group has been destroyed by military action. Al Qaeda, ISIS, the Taliban, they’re all still with us. And after six months of bombing, Hamas’ tunnels are still 80% intact, Israel has eroded near-universal international support (at least in the West), and they’ve created thousands of orphans and grieving parents who will gladly carry out the next series of attacks on Israel.

So the point I'm making is that if we open our minds, if we genuinely try to put ourselves in the place of the people from Southampton Country, we can understand that they would have been equally horrified by Turner’s attack. They believed they were good and just people. And by the standards of the time, they were. They were “kind” to their slaves. They saw the oppression in their midst, but believed they were doing it in the most humane way possible. And yet, the slaves returned their kindness by slaughtering innocent people.

They also felt they had no choice but to retaliate. And in many ways they didn't. If they hadn't, Turner would have killed more innocent people, news of the rebellion would have spread, other slave communities might have been inspired to do the same thing. So they responded with overwhelming force, killed everybody who even might have been a threat, and secured their safety.

But none of this addressed the central problem, which was that they were holding human beings in captivity. Until they addressed this point, there was always the fear and the danger of future attacks. The same is true for Israel.

And finally, no, Palestine doesn't really have much recourse in the halls of power. There is a resolution in the UN right now, has been since 1998, that lays out a proposal for a two-state solution that Palestine will accept. All it requires of Israel is that they stop breaking international law.

It has overwhelming international support. In fact, in its first vote, 138 countries supported it, two abstained, and only two objected. I'll let you guess which two. Since then, it's been voted on around a dozen times. Pretty much the exact same result each time. As long as the U.S. uses its VETO as a proxy for Israeli interests, there's nothing Palestine or any other member state of the UN can do.

Sorry for the very long rsponse. I wanted to make sure I addresed each of your points. Thanks again for being an example of good faith discourse on the internet.