Jews can call any place they live "home." There are lots of Jews in America who call America "home." Jews in Europe who call Europe "home." I'm not going to try to minimise anti-semitism, but I'm also not going to indulge this victimhood fantasy that Jews are hated pariahs all over the world and Israel is the only place where they can exist in safety. The evidence of the world we currently live in proves that false.
Secondly, Israel is a settler colonial project. The Jews who were living in the Levant (whether you prefer to refer to it today as Israel or Palestine makes little difference) never claimed to own the land or tried to drive anybody else from it, they lived in peace, alongside their Muslim and Christian neighbours for thousands of years. That changed with Zionism, nothing else. So yes, Jews have lived in the Levant for thousands of years, those Jews are obviously not settlers or colonisers. But as I say in the article, that doesn't mean that ALL Jews get to claim indigeneity. The idea is absolutely preposterous.
I, quite obviously, have African ancestry. But I have no claim to indigeneity in Africa! I can't rock up and displace a white family living there because my ancestors lived here. That's not and never has been how this works.
Lastly, in answer to the eternal question of what Israel should do, Israel should follow international law. It's really that simple. Israel should respect the 1967 borders, it should remove (and if there were any justice, imprison) its terrorist, illegal settlers, and it should commit itself to living in peace with the Palestinians.
It should go without saying, but let me say it anyway, that the Palestinians should also commit to living in peace under these terms. And I'd even go further and say that they should make concessions such as demilitarisation and the eradication of Hamas to ease Israel's security concerns.
The thing is, and not a lot of people seem to know this, this deal is already on the floor of the UN. It has been for decades. Palestine has already agreed (minus demilitarisation, but I think this would be pretty easy to negotiate as long as the UN agreed to address their security concerns). The international community has voted on it several times, always with overwhelming international support. The last vote was in 2022, I believe, with 153 countries in favour, just 10 abstentions, and only 9 countries against. Only two of these countries consistently vote against. I'll let you guess which two.
So yes, Hamas are terrible and the world would be a better place without them. But they have only been a real factor for ~18 years.And the world would be without them if Netanyahu wasn't so determined to undermine a Palestinian state that he funded a group that was actively launching terror attacks in Israelis. Meanwhile, this situation has been going on for over a century. The appearance of a group like Hamas is inevitable if you oppress people for long enough. The solution, as scary as I understand that it is, is to stop oppressing them.
