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> While the whole situation is a mess, Hamas definitely started this particular fist-fight. It's an insanely complicated mess going back a hundred years. Tryin

> While the whole situation is a mess, Hamas definitely started this particular fist-fight. It's an insanely complicated mess going back a hundred years. Trying to figure out "who started it?" is impossible because at this point we're so far from the domain of applicability of "who started it?" that it isn't a coherent or well defined question any more.

marginallen 3y ago
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bawolff 3y ago
That said, i think we can answer the question of who escalated the situation from a mostly cold conflict to the current hot war.
- isilofi 3y ago
  We can also answer (in the same way) about the escalations in the last few decades since 1948. Almost everything Israel did was reactive, they rarely shot first.
  - wizerdrobe 3y ago
    I don’t think you can justify ethnically cleansing the Palestinians in 1948, and I hardly think the (Jewish) Israeli government gets to play the “it was 80 years ago, it’s old news” since playing on the historical misfortunes of the Jewish community is their justification for existing. After Ariel Sharon went full false-flag terrorist in Lebanon, again it’s hard to describe these actions as “reactive”. They were very proactive in their assassination campaigns up to and including their attempts to kill an American ambassador. The sniper killings of civilians throwing rocks in recent years really precipitated the current (can you call it a third Intifada?) It’s no easy task saying who started what, nor can we really consider it a cold conflict. It’s constantly simmering, knife attack here, sniper shots there. It’s just going on to keep going.
    - School-Cotton 3y ago
      Even if one wants to leave what happened in 1948 in the past, Israel is still doing plenty of damage to Palestinians today, for example: 1. Indefinitely blockading the Gaza Strip by sea and air thus not allowing it to trade normally with foreign countries. 2. In the West Bank, applying separate legal systems to Jews (who have Israeli citizenship due to their ethnicity) and Arabs (who have no way to become Israeli citizens) 3. Continuing to expand Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank (remember no country recognizes the West Bank as belonging to Israel, not even Israel themselves, so this is one of the most unambiguously illegal things according to international law that you can possibly imagine). 4. Generally restricting the freedom of movement and property rights of non-Jewish civilians in the West Bank (which, again, does not actually belong to Israel). Something like 99% of building permits in Area C go to Jews only. Does all this justify killing innocent civilians in random parts of Israel proper? No, I don’t think it does. But it’s all still horrible. I wanted to point it out because a standard pro-Israel talking point is that 1948 is so far in the past that wanting to fix it is akin to trying to evict all whites from former Native American land in the US. Be that as it may, Israel is STILL doing plenty of harm TODAY and could at least stop that much.
      - bawolff 3y ago
        > Indefinitely blockading the Gaza Strip by sea and air thus not allowing it to trade normally with foreign countries It should be noted that this didn't just happen, it was in response to threat of violence. Israel wants gaza to stop shooting them with rockets, so they tried to prevent them from importing things that could be used as weapons. I mean, maybe you could argue the blockade is heavy handed and the military benefit didn't justify the other harm it caused. But its not that different from other forms of ecconomic sanctions used by countries when they want to do something but not actually go to war. > In the West Bank, applying separate legal systems to Jews (who have Israeli citizenship due to their ethnicity) and Arabs (who have no way to become Israeli citizens) My understanding is that under the geneva convention it would be a warcrime to apply israeli civilian law to the arabs who live in the west bank. So its not like that is totally in the hands of israel. (I agree that 3 & 4 are fucked up and pretty impossible to defend)
deleted 3y ago
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marginallen 3y ago

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bawolff 3y ago

That said, i think we can answer the question of who escalated the situation from a mostly cold conflict to the current hot war.

isilofi 3y ago
We can also answer (in the same way) about the escalations in the last few decades since 1948. Almost everything Israel did was reactive, they rarely shot first.
- wizerdrobe 3y ago
  I don’t think you can justify ethnically cleansing the Palestinians in 1948, and I hardly think the (Jewish) Israeli government gets to play the “it was 80 years ago, it’s old news” since playing on the historical misfortunes of the Jewish community is their justification for existing. After Ariel Sharon went full false-flag terrorist in Lebanon, again it’s hard to describe these actions as “reactive”. They were very proactive in their assassination campaigns up to and including their attempts to kill an American ambassador. The sniper killings of civilians throwing rocks in recent years really precipitated the current (can you call it a third Intifada?) It’s no easy task saying who started what, nor can we really consider it a cold conflict. It’s constantly simmering, knife attack here, sniper shots there. It’s just going on to keep going.
  - School-Cotton 3y ago
    Even if one wants to leave what happened in 1948 in the past, Israel is still doing plenty of damage to Palestinians today, for example: 1. Indefinitely blockading the Gaza Strip by sea and air thus not allowing it to trade normally with foreign countries. 2. In the West Bank, applying separate legal systems to Jews (who have Israeli citizenship due to their ethnicity) and Arabs (who have no way to become Israeli citizens) 3. Continuing to expand Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank (remember no country recognizes the West Bank as belonging to Israel, not even Israel themselves, so this is one of the most unambiguously illegal things according to international law that you can possibly imagine). 4. Generally restricting the freedom of movement and property rights of non-Jewish civilians in the West Bank (which, again, does not actually belong to Israel). Something like 99% of building permits in Area C go to Jews only. Does all this justify killing innocent civilians in random parts of Israel proper? No, I don’t think it does. But it’s all still horrible. I wanted to point it out because a standard pro-Israel talking point is that 1948 is so far in the past that wanting to fix it is akin to trying to evict all whites from former Native American land in the US. Be that as it may, Israel is STILL doing plenty of harm TODAY and could at least stop that much.
    - bawolff 3y ago
      > Indefinitely blockading the Gaza Strip by sea and air thus not allowing it to trade normally with foreign countries It should be noted that this didn't just happen, it was in response to threat of violence. Israel wants gaza to stop shooting them with rockets, so they tried to prevent them from importing things that could be used as weapons. I mean, maybe you could argue the blockade is heavy handed and the military benefit didn't justify the other harm it caused. But its not that different from other forms of ecconomic sanctions used by countries when they want to do something but not actually go to war. > In the West Bank, applying separate legal systems to Jews (who have Israeli citizenship due to their ethnicity) and Arabs (who have no way to become Israeli citizens) My understanding is that under the geneva convention it would be a warcrime to apply israeli civilian law to the arabs who live in the west bank. So its not like that is totally in the hands of israel. (I agree that 3 & 4 are fucked up and pretty impossible to defend)

deleted 3y ago

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