661
submitted 1 year ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to c/world@lemmy.world
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] SwampYankee@mander.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

the supposed chosen children of God literally got given their land after WW2, gave them sympathy, gave them diamonds and global support to promote love, peace and prosperity, then watched them literally turn and slaughter their brothers and sisters next door

Ignoring the borderline antisemitism there, in reality the people of the region were essentially abandoned by the West to fight it out. The Arab League didn't like the results of the UN vote, and so riots broke out and the violence escalated into a war in which the Zionists were victorious against 7 Arab nations. To be clear, I'm not saying it was moral or ethical for the Zionists to settle land that was already inhabited by Arabs in the first place (it wasn't), but that ship had long since sailed by 1948. My point is there was a very serious war over the land and no one was "given" anything. After the war, the Western powers agreed to enforce the 1949 armistice borders, and began supporting Israel materially because they were seen as a counterpoint to Soviet-Arab relations.

It follows that the point of support for Israel has never been "love, peace and prosperity", but a geopolitical calculation, and one that has been wildly successful in maintaining Western hegemony in a region of the world that has never been particularly receptive to Western liberalism. Because of its geopolitical positioning, Israel is under constant threat, as evidenced by the Six Day War, two Intifadas, the bus & cafe bombings of the 90s & 00s, and the frequent rocket attacks of more recent times. Yes, they are under attack because they are unwelcome in the region due to their history of violence against native Arabs, but that doesn't make the fear of Israelis irrational or paranoid - just hypocritical. It doesn't justify the violence, but it does perpetuate it.

And so the clearest route to peace was through the normalization of relations between Israel and its Arab/Islamic neighbors, leading to a gradual detente and eventually a regional consensus. This latest flare-up of the conflict is a major setback in that effort, though, and speculatively, that aspect of it may be intentional on the part of Iran, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc.

this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
661 points (93.0% liked)

World News

39416 readers
2317 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS