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Grow Some Labia's avatar

I dunno, this is a very tough one. I have to admit, Tom is bringing up a lot of good points, but you're also saying what I started saying in the last few weeks - yeah, maybe the 'g' word fits the Israelis here too, even if they haven't formally declared war on the Palestinians' existence like Hamas and the Pals' religion has. It's why I really have to hold my nose to say anything supportive of the Pals, because they are *so tainted* with millennia-long Jew hatred - but so are the Jews, with their ancient enemies, and the real tragedy is they're all related genetically. But...and I wrote about this recently, Time pointed out that one doesn't have to declare formal genocide for it to be so. Actions count for a lot, and this is looking very, well, genocidey.

Let's remember, when we're talking about land-stealing to talk about *all* the land-stealers in this scenario, like the ancestors of many of today's Pals who invaded, colonized, settled, and oppressed in the 7th century and after. Let's remember that some Pals *and* Jews have lived there continuously for many hundreds, even thousands of years. Let's remember that many of the people living there now came from somewhere else. That the Jews *literally have no place else to go* because they fled Europe in the last century and the Arab countries pushed many of them out after the creation of Israel. So the Arab world can just suck it. They contributed mightily to this mess.

At this point the Pal death toll is ~25,000 (so sez Al Jazeera and CNN but I don't know how accurate that is) but it's definitely over 20K and that's looooong past payback for October 7.

Still...I vacillate because they *both* have to live there, and *some* on both sides favour a two-state solution, Hamas & Netanyahu agree there shouldn't be, and I come back to WHY THE FUCK DID YOU PEOPLE VOTE FOR THAT YAHOO AGAIN? and HEY, HOW'S THAT HAMAS VOTE WORKING OUT FOR YOU?

What it keeps coming back to is...who's worse? I'm not sure, but I give a slight edge to Hamas/Palestinians because....expressed genocide. Esp in the Koran (where i learned the Jews have *one* tree that protects them.)

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Steve QJ's avatar

"Time pointed out that one doesn't have to declare formal genocide for it to be so"

Yeah, I don't think anybody *declares* genocide. They just start killing people and come up with some justification for it.

I'm honesty totally unmoved by arguments that go back thousands of years about whose land this "really" is. Never mind ones that rely on imaginary tales from an ancient book. As you say, Jews and Muslims have lived alongside each other in that region for centuries. Mostly, it's worth noting, without incident. It's when the Jews and the British decided that a piece of land would belong *only* to Jews, and they would decide all of the laws (and immediately passed laws that discriminated in favour of Jews), that things got really explodey.

As I've pointed out a few times recently, 40% of the people living in Gaza right now weren't even born when Hamas were voted in to power. Another 10-20%, at least, were too young to vote. And besides, the rest of the world could say the same thing to America about Trump. And, it seems terrifyingly likely, will have an opportunity to say it again in November. We all know how rarely leaders truly represent their people.

So yeah, I don't think this is as simple as "who's worse". Because what you're doing is asking that question about the very worst people on either side, and then applying that judgement to everybody else. ~2.297 of the 2.3 million people in Gaza had nothing to do with October 7th. Only a tiny proportion of the ~9 million Jews living in Israel are responsible for the atrocities taking place in Gaza.

As I've been saying all along, I think our attention should be on that overwhelming majority of people who aren't killing or raping anybody.

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Grow Some Labia's avatar

Actually a few do. The Nazis did. So has Hamas and the founder of Islam. They both explicitly state that one needs to kill *all* the Jews. And that's what I keep coming back to. The Pals voted for Hamas *knowing* they want to exterminate the Jews. Plenty of them support it, even if they never take up a weapon themselves. We don't know which ones. I *do* know Pal schools are indoctrinating kids to be antisemitic and express violence against Jews. I've seen a few of the videos. It's why I find it so hard to express sympathy for the Palestinians, even though I *know* they're not all like that, and for all I know today, maybe plenty of Jews are plotting now to get rid of their ancient enemies once and for all. The British proposal may have been bungled badly, but Pals had a problem with jews on their land before 1948. Google the 1929 Hebron Massacre which reads very similarly to the Oct 7 attack but without the hang gliders. And that was before Hamas was invented, so guess who was responsible for *that* one.

They've both been on the land since forever, and both have ancestors that stole, settled, or otherwise colonized land over the centuries. I laugh when I hear campus morons going on about how the Jews are 'oppressors' and 'settlers' and 'colonizers' - apparently they're unaware of how exactly like that Islam has been, seeing as it was founded by a warlord! Apparently these brainiac scholars missed the Great Invasion by the Probably Not Very White Ancestors of the Palestinians in the 7th century. Or how many migrated from other lands in the last 150 years. I mean, call a colonizer a colonizer but call *all* of them out...not just the colonizing oppressors you *like* :)

Anyway. I keep dreaming of holding a massive nuke over the land and saying, "You've got 24 hours to hammer out a lasting peace agreement. you've had enough time already. Figure it out and get back to us or we turn Israel and Gaza and the West Bank into a crater and there will be nothing left to fight over."

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Steve QJ's avatar

"The Pals voted for Hamas *knowing* they want to exterminate the Jews. Plenty of them support it, even if they never take up a weapon themselves."

I've pointed this out many times recently, but 40% of the people in Gaza weren't even born when Hamas was voted into power. Imagine if Trump's little coup had been successful, and he'd gone on to rule America for another 18 years, and he'd done some terrible thing. Would it be fair to say that "the Yanks voted for Trump, *knowing* that he was a dirtbag narcissist?" Especially if 40% of Americans were under 14 and 51% of the country *didn't* vote for Trump?

As I've also said many times recently, the people in Gaza have very good reason to hate Israel. Not Jews, Israel. Any one of us who was born and raised there would feel the same. That in no way justifies Hamas raping women or killing civilians. But it makes it easier to understand why they don't condemn Hamas. Especially given that polls suggest many are unaware of the full horror of what Hamas did.

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Grow Some Labia's avatar

" but 40% of the people in Gaza weren't even born when Hamas was voted into power.". Very true. But ugh, they get indoctrinated into antisemitism early. That's the thing - not the kids' fault how they're raised, but who the fuck is teaching them this? And yes, you're right about Trump, although we already did get attacked by Saudi Arabia on 9/11 and they didn't give a crap how many people they killed. Terrorism sucks, and yes, the Pals have got a lot of reason to hate Israel (and I'll say Israelis rather than Jews).

It's a difficult, ugly situation. I just find the Pals extremely unsympathetic as victims because of the antisemitism that's baked into their religion. And if we didn't have as many haters in the West Bank, where the non-Hamas gang resides, they must surely hate us now.

Honestly? I think Trump's going to be horrendous for Americans if he gets in again - and he's not ruling from jail - and it probably won't involve inviting some enemy to attack us - but I've already considered that anyone who voted for him whose life gets worse deserves it. I felt that way after he got in the first time and many foreign countries, including Canada, hit the red states hard with tariffs in response to his. That surely affected poorly those Americans there who *didn't* vote for him. That's life in the states of unpopular whack jobs, whether it's Trump's America, Hamas's Gaza or Nuttin'-yahoo's Israel.

Bottom line: I know I should feel more sympathy for the Palestinians. Working on it. It would really, really, really really REALLY REALLY help if the Islamic world overall would reject the terrorism in their Koran the way Christians & Jews have rejected much of the violence in the Bible.

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