Middle East Conflict

It saddens my heart that the world has just sat back and watched this for so long.
Whilst I always maintain Israel have the right to defend themselves, I've had tons of discussions with a friend about their over-the-top reaction to a lot of incidents, this is another one of them. Totally disproportionate, and unlawful.

I fkn hate the vile people behind Hamas and Hezbollah, but the Israelis are not helping themselves. They don't care though, as they have the backing of the US.

I still hate politics being brought into football though.
 
I don't think anyone on here is defending the Israeli actions. They're by and large indefensible. But they're not occupying the Gaza Strip although they and Egypt are maintaining a blockade of sorts.

But one question no one ever answers - up to 1967, when Israel did occupy the West Bank & Gaza Strip, the former had been annexed by Jordan and the latter was under military occupation by Egypt. Why didn't they simply hand over the territory to the Palestinians then?

The reason why no one care to answer that said question is because it no longer has any bearing to the current and recent events that have transpired in this conflict. It is a retrospective whataboutery bordering on the pedantic because there were different leaders then, each with different ideologies, there were people with different expectations of their future, there were parties that no longer exist now (eg. UAL) and parties that didn't exist then (e.g. Hamas), different opinions from different political parties including different US presidents with differing stances. Fundamentally, the whole landscape was different then and surely it takes little effort to realise that this intricate situation is dynamic. For such a retrospective query like above, people can come up with hundred others at this current point in time. What if Israel didn't follow through with their six day war? What if Palestinians were not driven from their homes? What if Egypt treated Palestinians like their own citizens? Hundreds of questions. All these questions are pointless because these questions did not become social queries the proceeding years after 1967. You only ask of them because of the hindsight that is now. And debating about them now is an exercise of whataboutery to implicate those affected today based on decisions made by people 50 years ago who god knows what played in their minds, their vested interest, their professional against personal intent.

But let's entertain this question nevertheless. Why didn't they (Jordan and Egypt) simply hand over the territory to the Palestinians then? let's engage this discourse no matter how subjective or speculative it is. Firstly, this is a double barrelled enquiry so we split the circumstance to the West Bank and Gaza.

When Jordan annexed West Bank, the Jordan then treated Palestinians as equal citizens. They had the right to amenities, the right to farm, the right to travel, the right to be part of the government up to the high echelons, were paid salaries, pensions, endowments. There were few if any reasons why Palestinians would despise Jordan because they are treated as lords to their own lands. With such positive conditions, the rhetorical question to ask is why would Palestinians go in haste to request West Bank as a separate state? They may harbour the dream of one day having West Bank as part of a separate state and, who knows, Jordan may perhaps entertain this idea once Palestinians can stand on their two feet. But for Palestine and for Jordan, the Palestine is in the people more than the land and they were content under Jordan occupation. For Jordan, they found this approach better and more advantageous than 'simply returning' it to the Palestinians.

Gazans on the other hand, was in stark contrast to West Bank Palestinians. Egypt was not as open to embracing the Palestines as Jordan was, for their own reasons we can only speculate at best. The area was under military rule, and there were limitations on amenities, rights, travels. There were many reasons why Palestinians do not favour the treatment under the then Egyptian influence. Egypt found this arrangement as more trouble than its worth, yet, having Gaza under their occupation provided various regional advantages which may justify from the Egypt standpoint why keeping Gaza rather than 'simply returning' it to Palestinian is the best course of action for them despite drawing contempt.

The spanner in this two situations were the feda'in. They should not be misconstrued as the Palestinians that have been described in both situations above.The time then, 1950-1960s, highly documented that the arab league was unanimously opposed to the state of Israel. The feda'in, or parties sharing its ideology, operate from West Bank and Gaza. So an argument can be made that these lands were not returned to the Palestines prior to 1967 because they conveniently act as buffers for their host countries, either for trade, military, political, combinations of these...who knows, only those in the boardroom are verbose in these unwritten policies. Despite these buffers, retaliation from Israel spilled into Jordan and Egypt. During the course of the battles in West Bank and eventually Jordan - again with leadership changing hands and dynamic ideologies shifting and parties no longer having shared outcomes - the feda'ins were left on their own, to the point that the feda'in were attacked from the Jordan side. Again, for reasons unknown these decisions were made by the leaders then. A similar fate befall on the feda'ins in Egypt. In this melee, the people of Palestine are caught in the middle. Their sole objective now after being given hard love by Jordan to stand on their two feet in West Bank, and left to strive through hardships and limitations by Egypt in Gaza - is now to have a country of their own - Palestine.

So to answer the question, there was no haste to create a one Palestine state when these two areas were occupied by Jordan and Egypt. Jordan was complementary to West Bank Palestinians, less so for Gazans by Egypt but there was hope of the latter changing which indeed eventually reached once when fair treatment for Gazans were granted, only to again be stifled by a military coup. Once again a change in leadership and ideologies. Jordan at the time was a more stable state than Egypt which was not surprising why there were two contrastive treatments. But the fundamental answer to this question is that back then there was no haste for the two host countries to 'simply return' the territories to the Palestinians. This question only became asked in retrospect with a more intense debate on realising the State of Palestine - because 1) its people were displaced, and 2) those who remained have been oppressed. These two factors did not exist during Jordan and Egypt's occupation.

After the Israeli occupation of these territories, 'Palestine' becomes the land more than the people as the land symbolised not only their home but their dignity.

So why does Israel not 'simply return' these territories to the Palestinians? They can officially declare it tomorrow if they want to. But no, certain individuals have their own forms of leadership, their own ideologies, their own vested interest, their own presumptions of what will happen, their own stakeholders to satisfy, their own mistrusts of the other. Which makes this whole subjective discourse to the very first paragraph pedantic.

Instead, we must certainly come to one point admitting that shooting children is not the answer, and also in this internet media age, the sneakiest of spin doctors control the present and the future.
 
The reason why no one care to answer that said question is because it no longer has any bearing to the current and recent events that have transpired in this conflict. It is a retrospective whataboutery bordering on the pedantic because there were different leaders then, each with different ideologies, there were people with different expectations of their future, there were parties that no longer exist now (eg. UAL) and parties that didn't exist then (e.g. Hamas), different opinions from different political parties including different US presidents with differing stances. Fundamentally, the whole landscape was different then and surely it takes little effort to realise that this intricate situation is dynamic. For such a retrospective query like above, people can come up with hundred others at this current point in time. What if Israel didn't follow through with their six day war? What if Palestinians were not driven from their homes? What if Egypt treated Palestinians like their own citizens? Hundreds of questions. All these questions are pointless because these questions did not become social queries the proceeding years after 1967. You only ask of them because of the hindsight that is now. And debating about them now is an exercise of whataboutery to implicate those affected today based on decisions made by people 50 years ago who god knows what played in their minds, their vested interest, their professional against personal intent.

But let's entertain this question nevertheless. Why didn't they (Jordan and Egypt) simply hand over the territory to the Palestinians then? let's engage this discourse no matter how subjective or speculative it is. Firstly, this is a double barrelled enquiry so we split the circumstance to the West Bank and Gaza.

When Jordan annexed West Bank, the Jordan then treated Palestinians as equal citizens. They had the right to amenities, the right to farm, the right to travel, the right to be part of the government up to the high echelons, were paid salaries, pensions, endowments. There were few if any reasons why Palestinians would despise Jordan because they are treated as lords to their own lands. With such positive conditions, the rhetorical question to ask is why would Palestinians go in haste to request West Bank as a separate state? They may harbour the dream of one day having West Bank as part of a separate state and, who knows, Jordan may perhaps entertain this idea once Palestinians can stand on their two feet. But for Palestine and for Jordan, the Palestine is in the people more than the land and they were content under Jordan occupation. For Jordan, they found this approach better and more advantageous than 'simply returning' it to the Palestinians.

Gazans on the other hand, was in stark contrast to West Bank Palestinians. Egypt was not as open to embracing the Palestines as Jordan was, for their own reasons we can only speculate at best. The area was under military rule, and there were limitations on amenities, rights, travels. There were many reasons why Palestinians do not favour the treatment under the then Egyptian influence. Egypt found this arrangement as more trouble than its worth, yet, having Gaza under their occupation provided various regional advantages which may justify from the Egypt standpoint why keeping Gaza rather than 'simply returning' it to Palestinian is the best course of action for them despite drawing contempt.

The spanner in this two situations were the feda'in. They should not be misconstrued as the Palestinians that have been described in both situations above.The time then, 1950-1960s, highly documented that the arab league was unanimously opposed to the state of Israel. The feda'in, or parties sharing its ideology, operate from West Bank and Gaza. So an argument can be made that these lands were not returned to the Palestines prior to 1967 because they conveniently act as buffers for their host countries, either for trade, military, political, combinations of these...who knows, only those in the boardroom are verbose in these unwritten policies. Despite these buffers, retaliation from Israel spilled into Jordan and Egypt. During the course of the battles in West Bank and eventually Jordan - again with leadership changing hands and dynamic ideologies shifting and parties no longer having shared outcomes - the feda'ins were left on their own, to the point that the feda'in were attacked from the Jordan side. Again, for reasons unknown these decisions were made by the leaders then. A similar fate befall on the feda'ins in Egypt. In this melee, the people of Palestine are caught in the middle. Their sole objective now after being given hard love by Jordan to stand on their two feet in West Bank, and left to strive through hardships and limitations by Egypt in Gaza - is now to have a country of their own - Palestine.

So to answer the question, there was no haste to create a one Palestine state when these two areas were occupied by Jordan and Egypt. Jordan was complementary to West Bank Palestinians, less so for Gazans by Egypt but there was hope of the latter changing which indeed eventually reached once when fair treatment for Gazans were granted, only to again be stifled by a military coup. Once again a change in leadership and ideologies. Jordan at the time was a more stable state than Egypt which was not surprising why there were two contrastive treatments. But the fundamental answer to this question is that back then there was no haste for the two host countries to 'simply return' the territories to the Palestinians. This question only became asked in retrospect with a more intense debate on realising the State of Palestine - because 1) its people were displaced, and 2) those who remained have been oppressed. These two factors did not exist during Jordan and Egypt's occupation.

After the Israeli occupation of these territories, 'Palestine' becomes the land more than the people as the land symbolised not only their home but their dignity.

So why does Israel not 'simply return' these territories to the Palestinians? They can officially declare it tomorrow if they want to. But no, certain individuals have their own forms of leadership, their own ideologies, their own vested interest, their own presumptions of what will happen, their own stakeholders to satisfy, their own mistrusts of the other. Which makes this whole subjective discourse to the very first paragraph pedantic.

Instead, we must certainly come to one point admitting that shooting children is not the answer, and also in this internet media age, the sneakiest of spin doctors control the present and the future.
I don't think you've got the Jordanian - Palestinian relationship quite right. The Jordanians killed 15,000 Palestinians living in Jordan in September 1970 (Black September). I know that was 3 years after the Israelis took over the West Bank, but it does suggest that everything wasn't all sweetness and light between the two peoples.

Anyway, as you say, that is history and the focus should be on today.
 
I fkn hate the vile people behind Hamas and Hezbollah, but the Israelis are not helping themselves. They don't care though, as they have the backing of the US.

That begs the question of how vile you would get if it had been the UK occupied and your families forced out at the point of a gun ?, they were created by the world turning its back on theft and murder so the moral high ground is non existent.
While Israel continues on its merry way with what is by any standards is crimes against humanity these organisations will flourish as the only way to try and fight back, this is not just historical as the last few days actions by Israel have shown, opening up with live rounds at people throwing stones has no justification.
 
That begs the question of how vile you would get if it had been the UK occupied and your families forced out at the point of a gun ?, they were created by the world turning its back on theft and murder so the moral high ground is non existent.
While Israel continues on its merry way with what is by any standards is crimes against humanity these organisations will flourish as the only way to try and fight back, this is not just historical as the last few days actions by Israel have shown, opening up with live rounds at people throwing stones has no justification.
Hezbollah are a Iranian proxy Lebanese army that are nothing to do with the Palestinians.
As for Hamas, here's a recent example of what nice people they are
https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-...eli-humanitarian-aid-destined-for-Gaza-556565
 
Yeah yeah, they are bad people, but then the sten gang and Irgun didn`t play nice did they ?,
 
I don't think you've got the Jordanian - Palestinian relationship quite right. The Jordanians killed 15,000 Palestinians living in Jordan in September 1970 (Black September). I know that was 3 years after the Israelis took over the West Bank, but it does suggest that everything wasn't all sweetness and light between the two peoples.

Anyway, as you say, that is history and the focus should be on today.

I was addressing only the question you asked - why did Jordan not hand over annexed West Bank to the Palestinians. Black September occurred post six day war. They are two very different circumstances to the dynamic Jordan leadership. Different ideologies, different expectations. During Jordan's annexed West Bank, Palestinians were equal citizens and part of the Jordan government. After post six day war, Jordan edicts reduced feda'ins role completely to zero. I rather not write more on this because it deflects from this discussion. Long story short:

feda'ins in Jordan attacked Israel.
Israel retaliated against Jordan.
Jordan fought back but pragmatically predicted high Jordan casualty if they persisted, so..
Jordan attacked Feda'ins to stop them attacking Israel.
Feda'ins attacked Jordan, assassination attempts, etc.
Jordan threw feda'ins out to Lebanon.
Feda'ins in Lebanon attacked Israel.

Everything else on the Jordan vs Palestinian being not all sweetness and light, is in spoiler so as not to detract from this thread's topic and descend it to a different discourse.

Now, close to half of Jordanians population are naturalised Palestinians c.1948. There are no two peoples. Only the bedouin tribes distinct to the Jordan land and the four types of Palestinians that reside there.

1) the Palestinians in refugee camps from both mass influx 1948 and 1967,
2) the middle class Palestinians who embraced Jordanisation,
3) the Palestinian bourgeoisie who also refer themselves as Jordanians, and
4) the Palestinians who have strong affiliations to Palestinisation (e.g. Feda'ins) and who suffer the brunt of selective citizen treatment.

Understand that Jordan in the 1948-50s had a population of only around 1 million, and less than half of those are the Bedu tribes regarded as Jordanian proper (440,000 Bedu). The mass influx of Palestinians to Jordan added to this 1 million. Jordan today is 10m strong with currently 2-3million Palestinian refugees spanning 2-3 generations. After 70 years, how many of these 10m are possibly descendants of the other early 200,000 Palestinians from 1948 who became naturalised Jordanians?

Jordan killing 15000 Palestinians (a number itself that is speculative with 3400 being the lowest and 19000 being the highest if considering only Palestinians) does not equate to a Jordan only vs Palestine only canon. There are no two peoples. There was a group of Arabs (Hashemites, Bedus, Jordanised Palestinian middle class and bourgeoisie) who shared the same aspiration of a Hashemite led Jordan. Hashemites are exalted because of their ancestry. And then there was another group of Arabs (Feda'ins included) who had Palestinisation in mind. Many refugee Palestinians were caught in the crossfire being in the same vicinity as Feda'ins, but to protect the Hashemite dream collateral damage was a foregone conclusion. This conflict, if anything, is a testament to how leadership with different ideologies cannot be blamed for what happens now. They may be antecedents but they are not causal to the decisions made.

'everything wasn't all sweetness and light' in Jordan is not between two peoples, but between two ideologies. It's a big difference to Israel vs Palestine where life is devalued to mere target practice.
 
I was addressing only the question you asked - why did Jordan not hand over annexed West Bank to the Palestinians. Black September occurred post six day war. They are two very different circumstances to the dynamic Jordan leadership. Different ideologies, different expectations. During Jordan's annexed West Bank, Palestinians were equal citizens and part of the Jordan government. After post six day war, Jordan edicts reduced feda'ins role completely to zero. I rather not write more on this because it deflects from this discussion. Long story short:

feda'ins in Jordan attacked Israel.
Israel retaliated against Jordan.
Jordan fought back but pragmatically predicted high Jordan casualty if they persisted, so..
Jordan attacked Feda'ins to stop them attacking Israel.
Feda'ins attacked Jordan, assassination attempts, etc.
Jordan threw feda'ins out to Lebanon.
Feda'ins in Lebanon attacked Israel.

Everything else on the Jordan vs Palestinian being not all sweetness and light, is in spoiler so as not to detract from this thread's topic and descend it to a different discourse.

Now, close to half of Jordanians population are naturalised Palestinians c.1948. There are no two peoples. Only the bedouin tribes distinct to the Jordan land and the four types of Palestinians that reside there.

1) the Palestinians in refugee camps from both mass influx 1948 and 1967,
2) the middle class Palestinians who embraced Jordanisation,
3) the Palestinian bourgeoisie who also refer themselves as Jordanians, and
4) the Palestinians who have strong affiliations to Palestinisation (e.g. Feda'ins) and who suffer the brunt of selective citizen treatment.

Understand that Jordan in the 1948-50s had a population of only around 1 million, and less than half of those are the Bedu tribes regarded as Jordanian proper (440,000 Bedu). The mass influx of Palestinians to Jordan added to this 1 million. Jordan today is 10m strong with currently 2-3million Palestinian refugees spanning 2-3 generations. After 70 years, how many of these 10m are possibly descendants of the other early 200,000 Palestinians from 1948 who became naturalised Jordanians?

Jordan killing 15000 Palestinians (a number itself that is speculative with 3400 being the lowest and 19000 being the highest if considering only Palestinians) does not equate to a Jordan only vs Palestine only canon. There are no two peoples. There was a group of Arabs (Hashemites, Bedus, Jordanised Palestinian middle class and bourgeoisie) who shared the same aspiration of a Hashemite led Jordan. Hashemites are exalted because of their ancestry. And then there was another group of Arabs (Feda'ins included) who had Palestinisation in mind. Many refugee Palestinians were caught in the crossfire being in the same vicinity as Feda'ins, but to protect the Hashemite dream collateral damage was a foregone conclusion. This conflict, if anything, is a testament to how leadership with different ideologies cannot be blamed for what happens now. They may be antecedents but they are not causal to the decisions made.

'everything wasn't all sweetness and light' in Jordan is not between two peoples, but between two ideologies. It's a big difference to Israel vs Palestine where life is devalued to mere target practice.
It wasn't actually me that made the point but you've demonstrated that it's wrong to try and simplify the situation as one side being in the right and the other being in the wrong. It's one of the most complex problems in the world today with both sides having valid arguments and both sides doing things that haven't helped (to put it mildly).

Best to focus on where we are now rather than using history as a justification for anything because there are arguments both ways.

I think most people agree that Israel have a right to defend their border and the Palestinians have a right to protest. What is in question is the apparently disproportionate response by the IDF to Palestinian provocation, which at face value is difficult to justify. Seems to me that Netanyahu's attitude has permeated into the IDF and some soldiers are behaving appallingly. Hopefully things like the video posted the other day showing soldiers deliberately targeting protesters who are not a direct threat will be investigated and the soldiers in question will be brought to justice. In spite of what many think, Israel is a functioning democracy with an independent judiciary, so there is a fair chance that criminal behaviour by individual soldiers will be investigated and the perpetrators dealt with.
 
Hezbollah are a Iranian proxy Lebanese army that are nothing to do with the Palestinians.
As for Hamas, here's a recent example of what nice people they are
https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-...eli-humanitarian-aid-destined-for-Gaza-556565

The first humanitarian aid was always coming it has been considered since February so they have fulfilled this. What would be better though is to end the blockade so fuel can be sent to the generators to power the many medical centres that have been made redundant for a few years.
 

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