Former President Barack Obama said a way forward for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is only possible if people acknowledge the “complexity” of the situation.
“If there’s any chance of us being able to act constructively to do something, it will require an admission of complexity and maintaining what on the surface may seem contradictory ideas that what Hamas did was horrific, and there’s no justification for it. And … that the occupation and what’s happening to Palestinians is unbearable,” Obama said in an interview on the podcast “Pod Save America.”
The former president’s comments come as the Israeli military focuses its offensive against Hamas in Gaza City and northern parts of the enclave.
Reddit probably rotted my brain, but I’m struggling to determine how this is anything but “everyone sucks here.” On this matter, I don’t think anyone has been truly in the right in a century. Can anyone provide a convincing argument otherwise?
It’s the official policy of many of the most powerful nations of the world that only Palestine sucks here and that Israel can do no wrong and must be supported unconditionally. An “everyone sucks here” position would be much closer to the truth.
The victims. They are in the right. But they have no voice. Ironically though, as toxic as social media is, governments can’t get by with the same shit that they did 50 years ago (Sauce: US in Central America).
That’s basically the rational take here. Israel was attacked and is defending itself, but going far and beyond self defense using the extermination of terrorists as an excuse to commit genocide. Palestinian civilians are caught up in the crossfire and are innocent of any wrongdoing, but the Palestinian government knowingly harbors Hamas within their borders and refuses to cooperate with Israel at every opportunity to create a two state system. Finally, there’s Hamas, who are bad guys full stop with no redeeming qualities.
So, Obama’s take is pretty solid. Nobody has their hands clean in all of this and everybody sucks, but there are still ways to stop the bloodshed, but those solutions are complicated. Especially when nobody really wants to come to the negotiation table right now. Israeli citizens right now remind me of American citizens in the wake of 9/11 - bloodthirsty and hungry for vengeance at any cost. So long as they remain furious, Netanyahu has a clear political motivation to continue the attacks.
The government of Gaza is Hamas, elected in 2007.
Israeli civilians have also been caught in the crossfire. You know from the terrorist attack they committed 3 weeks ago that killed 1,400 and then the 200 innocent people they kidnapped and imprisoned as hostages somewhere in Gaza, which is what this is all about?
If Hamas freed the hostages, Israel would have a much harder time conducting this war in the way they are, but you can’t literally kidnap someone’s citizens and expect anything less.
What about Netanyahus relationship with the PLO before Hamas. He’s been playing both sides using the fear of Palestinian militants as a political football, just trying to stay elected and ignoring the views of the average secular Israeli.
Israel is being led by a group of religious extremists.
It’s complicated, and both sides have committed unbelievable atrocities, but Israeli leadership have overplayed their card. Their crimes over the last few weeks will echo for decades to come.
My guess it will have the opposite effect than they intended, Israel will lose out in the long term.
Time will tell.
You’re right that both sides have been awful.
While Israel may be led by a group of religious extremists, so is Palestine and Gaza specifically by extremist terrorists.
This round of tit for tat will echo like all the previous rounds over the last 70 years.
Until Hamas frees the hostages, it’s virtually impossible to overplay the hand.
This will just be another footnote of ugly killing on both sides in a long history of ugly killings.
I’m not so sure. The current geopolitical outlook leaves Israel in a tough spot. With the failure of globalisation and the declining importance of the Middle Eastern hydrocarbons, there is actually a breaking point.
I don’t necessarily think that breaking point would be reached, but if the current government does not restrain themselves and play their card correctly, it will count against them going forward.
Despite what Americans think, their previous actions have counted against them, too.
I’m the modern information age. The old tactics of statecraft and economic dominance fall apart. The opposing axis wanted Israel to respond like this. It’s a huge mistake for them to continue with this approach.
It’s a multipolar world these days.
Which are the poles you see in this multipolar world than were different from the poles over the last 50 years?
Suppose when you take the foreign policy of globalisation out of the equation, the geopolitical arena looks a lot different.
It’s hard to know how the relationships will develop. Israel geographical location has become at least 50% less important.
When you consider the possible impact of climate change and demographics over the next decade, coupled with the increasingly fragile financial outlook.
It’s not unfathomable that Israel ends up in an extremely exposed position without significant support from the West.
China and Russia are bound together by mutual interest in hydrocarbons, and Irans leaders would attempt to capitalise on every opportunity.
In a destabilised world, everyone will try to sieze the opportunity. It’s going to get very busy, Netanyahu is assuming a lot when he thinks that Israel is going to stay relevant in the long term.
Just wanted to add that it’s going to be multifaceted threats along with the multipolar geopolitical outlook. In situations like that, things get very simple. Things start to boil down to very simple decisions.
This doesn’t seem particularly internally consistent.
If the ME doesn’t matter because hydrocarbons don’t matter, why are Russia and China bound by them? Isn’t Russia in even deeper trouble since most of their hard currency is from exporting hydrocarbons?
When is the world being more destabilized than today and by who? Is the world stable right now?
Who is the financial outlook fragile for?
What are the impacts of climate change and demographics over the next decade?
How does this disproportionately work to the detriment of Israel?
I’m not even saying you’re wrong, but there’s a lot missing connecting this to the point you’re trying to make I think.
Palestinians and Israelis are overall fine, except when you have to listen to them talk about each other, it’s their governments that are so fucked.
This entire conflict is a story of overstepping state entities victimizing innocent civilians on both sides of this war nobody but them and their cronies wanted.
I think he’s trying to get around the black and white viewpoints, and bring up the idea that Israel is committing war crimes here, which is outside the Overton window on the subject currently in US politics.
Just come to your own conclusion
Thanks. People want to pretend this started a month ago and not understand the history.
Because the truth is that Israel is WAY worse than Palestine. They’re openly calling for genocide. Resistance to oppression is good, actually, and so basically whatever Palestine does while still being oppressed is morally fine, while Israel continuing to oppress them is not. Anything anybody says criticizing palestine’s reaction to oppression is whataboutism, because they’re literally the victims of genocide.
Hamas is openly calling for genocide too, and they’ve been doing it longer than Israel.
Also, funny story, Israel is also literally the victims of genocide, (the Holocaust?), which is why their motto is “never again”.
There is no “way worse”, just ignorant keyboard warriors, and a shitty situation made worse by shitty people.
Do you think the Holocaust means that the descendents of it’s victims can’t be genociders themselves? It altyally makes more sense, when you consider the cycle of abuse. Israel has been genociding Palestine for longer than Hamas has even existed, so no, that’s false.
Israel is way worse than Palestine, and you are the ignorant one if you disagree based entirely on the US/Israeli propaganda you’ve seen. You should research this yourself if you don’t believe me. Would you rather be right, or correct?
Israel are the beneficiaries of the Holocaust.
Literally, the major bump in population they experienced as a result of WWII was Jews who were able to go through a Nazi/Israel visa program to transfer them and their money. Like Hitler was planning to send them to Madagascar after he seized France, and then Israel reached out to him and negotiated a deal for him to send them settlers.
This agreement was seen as such a “success” the Roma (who unfortunately had a bit of a fascist sympathizing streak at the time) wanted to strike a similar agreement with Mussolini when he invaded Egypt to get their own “Israel” along the Red Sea coast.
The actual place most of the post war victims went to was to America where Jews had found success developing community safety via integration with surrounding communities.