Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/5185724
Original link is here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/israel/gaza-war/63691/alan-rusbridger-gaza-war-israel-hamas
Yikes. Tons of neo-lib shit takes in this comment section.
Tons of neo-lib shit takes in this comment section.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
Could you elaborate about which economic takes you’d want to criticize in this comment section, or did you mean to use a different term?
Slavoj Zizek gave a compelling speech along these lines. The reaction from the crowd and the heckling are really revealing about how divorced even progressive audiences have become from humanity.
israeli government and hamas both want never-ending war anyways. i never understood how anyone could think hamas is one valid side in this.
the goal should always be complete non-violence.
This is a false equivalence. Most of the rhetoric I’ve seen about Hamas is that it’s an inevitable consequence of Israel’s treatment of restricting the Palestinian people to an open-air prison. Saying “We can’t support either Hamas or Israel” ignores the fact that most people in favor of Palestine are in favor of the civilians, the people who did nothing and are still bombed and tortured and executed. Not to say that Hamas deserves to be bombed and tortured, they’re citizens as well that shouldn’t be in this situation in the first place, but the large majority of support is in favor of the Palestinian people more broadly that are just unfortunate enough to be adjacent to the conflict and are forced to deal with the consequences of Israel’s bloodlust
to be clear: I do think Palestinians have a right to fight for their own freedom. But with the amount of disinformation at play here i don’t know how many atrocities are actually committed by Hamas and how many are the result of Israeli misinformation campaigns. But the amount of any of that doesn’t change how I feel – Innocent civilians should never die in a conflict like this. I don’t care if Hamas is doing it [edit: or not. The purpose of this statement is to show that I don’t care if Hamas is doing something abhorrent and Israel isn’t, or vice versa because it’s irrelevant to the broader point. Just to clarify, my language was unclear], Israel is very clearly ALSO doing it, and it’s abhorrent and gross no matter who. But in terms of the conceptual “high ground” the west likes to bandy around, Palestinians have a right to fight for its freedom from an occupying colonial force.
Except Hamas aren’t solely fighting for freedom, they specifically want ALL of Israel gone and ALL Jews killed, they literally want a theocratic dictatorship under Islam. And they won’t stop until they get it.
IDF and netanhayu are real dirty here, but Hamas and the (maybe) majority Palestinians that support them are like the anti thesis to a free society. Plus they’re violent homophobes that stone LGBTQ people to death.
That tips me to Israel’s side in this, minus the far right Jewish extremists that literally killed an Israeli prime minister because he was succeeding in brokering peace.
You forgot about the third side of the conflict again. The innocent civlians Israel (and Hamas) are killing are the good guys. The two theocratic pro-genocide states are exactly the same and both on the same side. That side is war and death.
The big thing is the Hamas attack wasnt the start of all this. It wasnt Israel minding their own business and Hamas invading for the glory of Islam. The warning cries of a humanitarian crisis were going off long before this recent war, from international humanitarian agencies like Unicef. Gaza was being militarily oppressed by Israel, blocking humanitarian aid, international trade, even denying access to their own waters for fishing.
Civilians were dying off already as a result of Israel, and Israel ignored the warnings, the international community ignored the warnings, and then its shocked pikachus all around as a dying people fight back for survival.
You can point out back and forth violence going into the 1800s. Nobody has clean hands in this conflict.
Yeah, but siding with Israel here is the logical equivalent of siding with Andrew Jackson and supporting the Indian Removal Act as he committed genocide against the native people.
The power imbalance and how Israel has used it is what makes it imperative that Israel be held accountable by the international community.
I’m glad you bring up the power imbalance. The “both sides have been doing horrible stuff” only works if both sides have equal footing, which they clearly do not. This does not negate the crimes commited by Hamas, but extremism doesn’t come from nowhere and Israël has a responsibility in that.
Except jews, christians and muslims lived pretty much peacefully together during ottoman rule. The violence worsened when britian controlled palestine and then became a lot worse during the nakba and israeli occupation. It’s not about ‘having clean hands’. It’s about stopping genocide and understanding that occupation and colonialism leads to violent pushback. It always has and always will.
You can go back much much further than the 1800s, back to the start of zionism.
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Mostly it goes back to the 1940’s. There was more history of Zionism beforehand, Jewish settlers gradually coming in to live in the holy land. But after WW2 was the large influx and big push for a Jewish ethnostate. Aaand the people living there already opposed it from the start. And since then it’s been very apparent why, because Israel pushes beyond the borders they were already given from Palestinian land, and militarily occupy the Palestinian land they dont yet claim.
It was Arabs who did not accept those borders. They lost and Israel expanded.
What I have more of a problem with is the settlers in the WB and that seems to be Bibi’s doing without much pushback from USA. Fascists gonna fasche.
It was not Palestine at that time though and Jews always lived in the area.
They did a little more than simply “fight back.” They also engaged in widespread and utterly gratuitous acts of violence and torture in ways that can only have been calculated to trigger an overreaction on the part of Israel. They knew exactly what they were doing and what would happen. They obviously don’t give a fuck about their own people.
Where you getting torture from?
Why doesn’t Egypt open the border?
Because Israel will never let them back in if they leave. That is not hypothetical; it happened to thousands of Palestinians during the 6-day war, and their families are still stuck in Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon today.
It’s also because Hamas has its origins in the Muslim Brotherhood which for obvious reasons means that Egypt is very leery of accepting Palestinians from Gaza.
I’m not defending their position, just explaining it; Egypt is basically a military dictatorship at this point and the Muslim Brotherhood is enemy number one for them.
Who is on Hamas’s side? There are plenty of people on Palestine’s side, but no one really wants to be on Hamas’s side
I’ve seen plenty of contrarian tankies who are pro Hamas. Often the same “anti imperialists” who hate the West so much they think supporting Ukraine is bad.
Personally I’m of the opinion that both sides are genocidal and anybody with a clear idea what to do there is lying, but I’ve been banned from !worldnews@lemmy.ml as “genocide denial” for agreeing with Biden that we should be suspicious of the claimed death numbers coming out of Palestine because both sides have a history of lying about violent acts in their conflict.
I know a few people in real life who are referring to them as freedom fighters.
Idunno, I don’t fuss about that because I’m perfectly capable of thinking that they’re both terrorists and freedom fighters.
They’re fighting for the freedom of Gaza… but they use terrorism tactics, refuse to abide by ceasefires, and have genocidal beliefs.
Those don’t seem mutually exclusive for me.
We all contain multitudes.
But that said, somebody who goes to “freedom fighter” as their first noun for them, that’s kind of a red flag.
I’m perfectly capable of thinking that they’re both terrorists and freedom fighters.
It’s not just that they “can” be both, it’s more that they “have to” be both.
“Freedom fighter” is a term reserved for the underdog, the one who can’t use sheer military power to terrorize a whole region (like a couple US Carrier Strike Groups with nukes) or some surrounding countries (like a US funded Israeli military with some nukes of their own). Established democracies and recognized states, can use their “military” to terrorize a whole population by just threatening to bomb the living shit out of the civilians, while “freedom fighters” can only terrorize through surprise attacks and extreme brutality… aka, by being “terrorists”.
Bottom line: all “freedom fighters” need to be “terrorists”, otherwise they’d be called “a military”.
somebody who goes to “freedom fighter” as their first noun for them, that’s kind of a red flag.
That’s a bit harsh, what if they understand the two are synonyms? 🤷
Terrorism is a tactic, so no, not all “freedom fighters” are terrorists. There are and have been throughout history many guerrilla groups that don’t use terrorism tactics but that could still be called “freedom fighters.”
Hm… can you give an example?
Off the top of my head, all I can come up with associated with “freedom fighters”, is using both guerrilla tactics and terrorism to fight against some superior enemy. The next closest thing, are non-terrorist “freedom movements” like Gandhi’s (which comes with a separate can of worms).
