r/politics • u/Particular_Log_3594 • 6d ago

No Paywall Obama: Israel 'took the land' from Palestinians, 'ceded moral ground' in Gaza

https://www.jpost.com/international/article-911851
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u/elihu 6d ago

The Palestinians, he said, have to understand that they will not "outkill" or "outweaponize the Israelis...We have to look to other examples of how change comes about," he said, pointing toward "nonviolent strategies."

"That's going to take some time," the former president acknowledged.

I'm all for non-violent resistance, but this is a pretty out-of-touch thing to say. Israel is doing what they do because the US supports them. Palestinians can't change that.

As president, Obama actively discouraged Palestinians from taking their case for statehood to the UN and their case against Israel for war crimes to the ICC, actively denying them a peaceful means of improving their situation.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-15014037

https://www.timesofisrael.com/obama-reassures-netanyahu-on-iran-icc/

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u/Tiaan 6d ago

I think he's just saying that it's not realistic to have the goal of "destroying Israel" and that peace takes two sides.

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u/Zealousideal-Film982 6d ago edited 6d ago

Yeah I mean. Let’s hold both sides to the same standard. If Netanyahu’s gov = Israel, then Hamas = Palestine. In this fair view, Palestine absolutely attempted a genocide.

Peace takes two sides. Before 10/7, Israel had not occupied Gaza for almost two decades. If Palestine had not invaded Israel and killed 1,200 innocent people in one day, this war would not have happened.

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u/onepareil New York 6d ago

Before October 7th, 2023 was already the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank in 20 years. How long are the Palestinians expected to wait quietly for the international community to do something about the illegal occupation of their land? Israel has never been held to account for that, so if we’re going to be “fair,” let’s start there.

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u/Top-Passage2914 6d ago

Maybe if they would stop doubling down on violently trying to wipe Israel from the map like they've done for the past 80 years and just accept what they have, they would be in a much better spot. See: Germany after WWI, and Germany after WWII (and a few decades of hardship).

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u/disisathrowaway 5d ago

The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has been playing nice for quite some time and yet Israel continues to encroach with settlements and displacing Palestinians from their homes and farms.

Gaza looked to them and saw that peacefully waiting for something to change wasn't working out.

Not saying what Hamas did on the 7th is justified, but I can understand where they're coming from.

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u/Throwaway5432154322 California 5d ago

“I have to say I didn’t like it, but I totally vibe with it”

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u/disisathrowaway 5d ago

Not at all.

I'm saying that I'm not all that surprised that an oppressed people with little peaceful recourse resort to violence. You can understand something without condoning it.

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u/currogator 6d ago

And how was Israel established on the map in the first place? Oh, that’s right – through a massive campaign of mass murder and ethnic cleansing called the Nakba.

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u/Top-Passage2914 5d ago

Who started the war that led to the Nakba? Hint: It wasn't Israel...

And listen times were different back then. The world played by different rules. Land was owned by those who could take and keep it by force. What happened in 1948 may not have been right, but the 80 years since of Palestinians refusing to just accept their losses and move towards peace has only entrenched them much, much further into suffering. 

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

[deleted]

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u/Top-Passage2914 5d ago

Also, there are no "victims" in this conflict. I know it would be easier if that were the case, but both sides have been terrible to each other for a century. That's kinda why it's such an enduring conflict that splits people's opinions--you really think if Israel was just evil incarnate and Palestine was an innocent victim who did nothing wrong, that pretty much every non Arab nation in the world would've just sat around and supported Israel for eight decades? Both sides are locked in a cycle of hatred and violence that makes them do terrible things to each other.

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u/Top-Passage2914 5d ago

I am blaming the people that began the violence. I am not saying what happened and has happened to Palestine is fully right, of course not, but if you provoke war and then lose, you tend to end up facing pretty severe consequences. That is how it has always worked through history--Southern Reconstruction after the Civil War, Germany losing territory after WWI, the occupation of Germany and Japan after WWII including decades of suffering in East Germany...

The only time you hear people complaining about a country facing hardship after starting and losing a war is when it's Jews that won. Wonder why that is

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u/currogator 5d ago edited 5d ago

It absolutely was Israel. The Nakba was literally preceded by decades of colonization and a campaign of terrorism designed to lay down the foundations for a future state.

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u/Top-Passage2914 5d ago

Wrong. See this is what happens when you just parrot what TikTok told you without actually learning the history.

The civil war started in 1947 because Arabs started revolting in response to the UN splitting Palestine into two, then it escalated to a full scale war when other Arab nations invaded the next year. 

Israel did not start the 1948 war, Palestinian Arabs did. In fact pretty much every year since then with the exception of maybe the 1956 and 1967 one, has been the result of Palestinians or other nations attacking Israel. And every time they get their shit rocked, and end up in an even worse position than they started out, but instead of learning their lesson they just keep doubling down on violence. And now their strategy is brainwashing naive western minds through social media with narratives like the one you're parroting, in the hope that if the international community also hates Israel, that they'll finally get their way.

Please, go do even some basic historical research, I beg you.

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u/Throwaway5432154322 California 5d ago

Nope, due to 3 generations of migrations of Jews joining and augmenting the preexisting community of Jews in the region

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u/Throwaway5432154322 California 5d ago

>2023 was already the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank in years

But WHY? Why? You can’t just say that like it’s some kind of conclusion.

The West Bank is also not part of Hamas’ territory.