No. I'm not expecting that your reading will necessarily result in us agreeing. But I do expect that it will result in you stopping misrepresenting what I'm saying. If you understand my argument and disagree with it, well, that's totally fair. Especially if you can explain why you disagree with it using facts and/or evidence. Maybe we can dig deeper and see if we can find common ground. But if you repeatedly argue with points I'm not making, we can't get anywhere.
No, in your previous post you don't show that withdrawing from Gaza created an opportunity for coexistence. You stated it. There's a significant difference between these two. How were the Gazans supposed to coexist under the conditions that Israel had created? How could they build a state while under blockade? How were their legitimate grievances regarding the return of their homes in Israel addressed? You haven't shown how Israel created an opportunity for coexistence unless you demonstrate how these questions are addressed. Unless "coexistence" means "meek, unconditional capitulation to an invading force" in your mind.
Peaceful coexistence requires an equal footing and liberty for both parties. Would you agree with this? Or do you think that peaceful coexistence can be achieved while one party is imposing severe restrictions on the other while also stealing the homes and land of their family members a few miles away. Is peaceful coexistence possible when one party refuses to address or make amends for the crimes it has committed against the other party? If you're claiming that peaceful coexistence is possible under these circumstances, then I guess we just fundamentally disagree. But I also don't believe you. Because I don't believe you, or anybody, would accept peaceful coexistence with somebody who did something like this to you.
Egypt has a border with Gaza. As countries all over the world have borders with neighbouring countries. Israel has a blockade on Gaza. Meaning that they prevent any supplies coming into Gaza by any means they don't control. If I'm the President of France, say, and the Spanish government says I can't import something through their our shared land border, I can import it by air or sea instead. No (major) problem. Gaza doesn't have this option. Not because it doesn't have a coast or airspace, but because Israel controls them both militarily (and destroyed Gaza's airport in 2001/2). Gazans leaderships have, in the past, imported items through the Egyptian border. But, of course, this threatens the stability of Egypt's peace with Israel, so they don't/can't allow it.
Yes, Hamas attacked Israel. The idea that this is the causus belli of the conflict is so preposterous that I can't believe you're serious. It's like arguing that the rebellions of slaves like Nat Turner in 1930 were the causus belli of the racial tensions that existed afterwards. Or that, topically enough, Winston Churchill rebuffing Hitler's "peace" offers after he invaded Poland was the causus belli of World War 2. Zionism is the root of the entire conflict. The idea that all Jews, even those from Europe or America, have a unique, god-given right to this land such that they can kill and/or displace people who were already living there for generations, is the causus belli of this conflict. Before that, as many Jews will attest, Jews and Arabs lived on the land mostly in peace.
You seem to have plenty of empathy for murder actually, as long as the people being murdered are Palestinian. I'm on record unequivocally condemning Hamas' attack and Hamas themselves. I've done so countless other times in various conversation and articles. Have you condemned the killing of tens of thousands of innocent people in Gaza?
It is just extremely depressing that so many people see this as a zero-sum game of defending Israel's crimes or defending Hamas' crimes. Something like the Oct 7th attack, whether by Hamas or some other entity, was inevitable. Because you can't treat people the way Israel treats Palestinians and expect that none of them will ever become radicalised and revolt. This doesn't mean I approve of the methods of the revolt or the violence it involved. It means I think that the only way to ensure the safety of Israelis and Palestinians in the region is for the Israeli government to stop its various violations of international law.
Why do you think UN/U.S. involvement in the zionist project means that the zionist project isn't responsible for the violence we've seen in the region?
Man, Ariel Sharon's chief advisor, as well as others, have said in so many words that the withdrawal from Gaza was about preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state. Do you have some way of addressing this admission that you're keeping to yourself? Or of addressing Netanyahu's repeated assurances, going back decades, that there will be no Palestinian state on his watch? I'm actually not equating their respective intransigencies. Because the Palestinian state the Palestinians have been seeking for decades now, long before Hamas, is simply one where Israel keeps its territory within the borders dictated by international law.
As for the "insults," again, reading comprehension my friend:
"If you think Palestinians are foreign invaders and European Jews and settlers are indigenous, you are a moron. But sadly, I don't think you are, I think you're being deliberately disingenuous, which is far worse."
Yes, I think if you make make the mistake I refer to above, you're a moron. But I also don't think you are. Which is what's so frustrating. I also think you are intellectually incurious. That's not an insult, it's a description of the strange, gaping holes in your logic and reasoning. Especially given how incredibly easy it is to fill them. I've seen the same talking points you're providing here hundreds of times before at this point. Some of them, at first, were compelling to me too. So I went and actually read about them to understand the situation better. My position on this conflict has actually nuanced a fair amount in the past 11 months. This option was available to every person who has laid these half truths and one-sided distortions at my feet as "evidence" of their world view. But they didn't take it. Low-information and intellectually incurious seem like fair descriptors. And again, these came only after you started being rude to me.
Accepting that there are certain things you cannot know for sure is not ignorance. It is the starting point of intellectual integrity. Especially as I don't need to know how many people genuinely believe the silly things written in the Quran or the Torah to know that killing innocent people, whether they be Israeli or Palestinian, is wrong.
You talk about the people celebrating the killings on October 7th. Fair enough, I saw the videos too. They were horrifying. But again, you seem unmoved by the videos Israelis posted on TikTok mocking Palestinian mothers and children as they were bombed to death or died of thirst. You seem unmoved by the videos predating October 7th of Israelis shouting "death to Arabs." You seem unmoved by the decades of settler terrorism that has seen hundreds of peaceful Palestinians in the West Bank forced from their homes at gunpoint with the assistance of the IDF. You seem unmoved by the politicians and journalists using openly genocidal rhetoric to the cheers of their audiences. I can understand your objections for the Palestinian who cheered Israeli civilian deaths. What I can't understand is why you don't care about the Israelis doing the same thing.
If you insist that recorded history began on October 7th, if you treat everything that happened before as irrelevant, if you'll rightly condemn Hamas' terrorism but won't condemn (or even recognise) Israel's terrorism, if you're determined to make excuses for the IDF, even as the people of Israel themselves begin to recognise how little they care about the hostages or the actual security of Israel (not to mention as it becomes clearer and clearer that they killed tens and perhaps hundreds of Israelis on Oct 7th), I don't think we're going to get anywhere here. But I think that's going to be a lonely and shame-faced worldview to have in a couple of years' time.
