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Does a historical claim hold weight over a long established later claim? No-one knows the answer to this one - how old must a claim be before it becomes invalid?
Are restrictive religious laws ok? I think the resounding answer is always "mine are, but theirs aren't", which really is just a recipe for war eternal. They never strike me as ok, because most of them focus on making a group of people "the other".
Is murdering civilians to achieve military objectives ok? No, it isn't, everyone knows that really - it's an idea that belongs in the middle ages and should have been left there.
I don't think I could join the Israel vs Palestine camps (both governments are shit - both are out for genocide), I think I prefer the camp filled with people who just want an end to the conflict, people who live on both sides of those ill defined borders.
What does everyone who matters (the people living through this hell) really want? They want their lives back, the ability to be themselves, and carry out their traditions undisturbed. Most of all, they want the killing and persecution to stop, and the time to mourn their losses.
How do we do that? Put the guns down, stop the bombardments and bombings, have each side treat the wounded of the other side, and then figure out the rest without starting the killing again.
Hamas isn't a government, it's a terrorist group. It's also horrible to Palestinians and it undermines the actual government of Palestine, the Palestinian Authority. There was just an article posted to Lemmy that talked about how Likud (the far right party governing Israel that's undermined peace talks multiple times) helped fund Hamas.
Oppressed people can't "put their guns down" because they're being exterminated. Only the oppressor can stop. If you're really against both Hamas and Israel, then you believe that Israel needs to stop committing genocide. If you're pretending "both sides" are equal, then you're playing the same game Trump said when he equated people waving Nazi and confederate flags witj people trying not to be killed by people waving Nazi and confederate flags by saying "both sides are to blame."
Pretending oppressed people have as much power as their oppressors is the game oppressors use to perpetuate their oppression.
Or, I'm looking at people rather than nations, which is the correct way to view any conflict.
My argument is that both sides put their guns down, because that's how a war stops. Both sides treat the injured of the other side, since that is how empathy is built and denial is eliminated. Homes can be rebuilt, and land disagreements can be settled, but nothing will bring the dead back; there are some things that cannot be undone. These are the things we need to stop FIRST.
"POLARIZATION: Extremists drive the groups apart. Hate groups broadcast polarizing propaganda. Motivations for targeting a group are indoctrinated through mass media" ( http://genocidewatch.net/genocide-2/8-stages-of-genocide/)
The people of both sides are already doing that. I'm not sure what the proposal is here. In what hospitals would the Palestinians treat the injured of the other side? The ones that are being levelled by the IDF? With what medical supplies? The ones that are denied to them by the IDF? Palestinians are being exterminated. The people of Israel needs to overthrow Likud and hold them accountable. The people of Israel need fight their government to stop this. The Palestinians, for the most part, are also victims of the same thing.
The US needs to stop supporting Likud, and US citizens need to riot until the government listens to them. Everyone needs to stand together to stop governments from doing this, absolutely. But we need to be realistic about who has power and who actually can take action.
I think I prefer the camp filled with people who just want an end to the conflict, people who live on both sides of those ill defined borders.
I agree, but it's also arguably more complicated than this. I follow a DUI lawyer on youtube who happened to be in Israel (and fairly close to a crossfire) when the war started. He gave this very real and very neutral explanation of things those of us outside the region often miss, covering his upbringing in Israel.
Basically, he said, the most common opinion you can hear from either side is "the only good OTHER SIDE is a dead OTHER SIDE". From the mouths of civilians, from children. They believe it because their parents told them it and because they've lived through conflict that corroborates it.
To want peace at all costs, but to still instinctively dehumanize the other side is a very complicated place to be. And you can understand why both sides' civilians might feel that way about the other. So many people feel a desire for justice, but to both countries, justice is the other side being punished.