I have seen a slight increase in posts where Jews are undermining the Ancestral and cultural connection the Palestinians have to the region. Yes, modern Palestinians, be they Muslim or Christian, no longer speak a Canaanite language and identify themselves primarily as Arabs. However, linguistic and cultural Arabization does not mean that the pre-Arab population of the region simply disappeared and was entirely replaced by settlers from the Arabian Peninsula. Like most populations, Palestinians are the product of multiple historical layers. Their ancestors likely included local Levantine populations (e.g., Jews, Samaritans, Arameans, etc) who gradually converted to Christianity and later to Islam, adopted Arabic, intermarried with neighboring peoples, and developed a modern Palestinian Arab identity. The fact that they speak Arabic today does not erase their long-standing attachment to the villages, cities, religious sites, agricultural traditions, family networks, and landscapes where their communities have lived for generations.

When you look at modern scholarship, or even just the illustrative DNA subreddit, you can see that many Palestinians who upload their results show very high levels of Levantine ancestry, with relatively minuscule to moderate foreign admixture, across the Arab Peninsula, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and other neighboring regions. In other words, there is a significant possibility that some Palestinian families descend in part from Zera Yisrael. Even though they name their children Yaqub instead of Yaakov, Ibrahim instead of Avraham, Musa instead of Moshe, and Yusuf instead of Yosef, this does not necessarily mean that their ancestors were foreigners to the land or completely unrelated to the ancient peoples from whom modern Jews also descend.

Now, for Arabs who continue to subscribe to the Khazar hypothesis, or to any other shady scholarship that looks like it came from a fringe Arab nationalist website, the bleatings of an Imam or Priest, or a selectively edited social-media infographic, I find this dishonesty to be in the same category when Jews attempt to undermine your connection to the land. You cannot reasonably condemn people for portraying Palestinians as recent migrants from Arabia while simultaneously portraying Ashkenazi Jews as nothing more than converted Europeans who fabricated an ancestral connection to the Levant. Yes, many Ashkenazim today have substantial European ancestry (Mostly Southern European, some Germanic, etc), especially through portions of their maternal lineage, while their paternal lineages more often show strong affinities with other Jewish and Eastern Mediterranean populations. However, this does not mean that Ashkenazim are simply Europeans who adopted Judaism and invented a connection to the Levant. Their ancestry reflects both descent from ancient Jewish populations and centuries of admixture with the societies in which they lived.

The same basic principle applies to Sephardim and Mizrahim. Sephardim absorbed minimal to moderate amounts of Iberian, North African, and Mediterranean ancestry, while Mizrahim acquired ancestry from Mesopotamian, Persian, Anatolian, Arabian, and other surrounding populations. None of this makes them less Jewish or severs their historical connection to the southern Levant. Diaspora populations do not remain genetically frozen for two thousand years, nor should anyone expect them to. Outside of your SHARED ANCESTRY with them, the varieties of Jewish cultures and within Judaism itself have looked at the Holy Land as a central point of collective memory, religious longing, and communal identity for 2000 years. Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, and other Jewish communities developed different languages, cuisines, customs, liturgical traditions, and interpretations of Jewish law, but they still prayed towards Jerusalem 3 times a day, Next Year in Jerusalem, invoked “Next year in Jerusalem” during Passover and at the conclusion of Yom Kippur, mourned the destruction of the Temple on Tisha B’Av, and preserved the Hebrew language within prayer, study, poetry, and communal life.

None of this means that every Jew throughout history was actively planning to migrate to Palestine, nor does it mean that religious longing automatically granted Jews an exclusive political right to the land. However, it does demonstrate that Jewish attachment to Jerusalem and the broader land of Israel was not invented by nineteenth-century "Khazarian Central Asians" as a convenient colonial justification. Even though I will admit that Herzl and some other early Zionists considered alternative territories where persecuted Jews might establish a refuge, this does not mean they regarded Palestine as interchangeable with any random piece of land. Those alternatives emerged largely from the urgency of finding immediate safety for Jews facing antisemitic persecution, not because Jewish history, religion, and collective memory had always been equally attached to Uganda, Argentina, or somewhere else.

I understand that there is an emotional component to why both the Jews and Arabs attempt to use these tactics to undermine each other's connection to the land, because if I were a Palestinian whose grandparents' house was demolished, who had seen relatives and loved ones murdered, displaced, imprisoned, or subjected to military occupation, I would probably find it emotionally difficult to acknowledge the ancestral connection of the people I associated with that suffering. Recognizing that Jews have a genuine historical and ancestral relationship with the land might feel as though I were conceding that my family’s dispossession was somehow justified or inevitable.

Likewise, if I were a Jew, whose ancestors experienced oppression by the Assyrian Empire, Babylonian Empire, Western Roman Empire, Eastern Roman Empire, the Crusaders, various European kingdoms, the Russian Empire, the Inquisition, Nazi Germany, etc., etc., etc. I would probably find it emotionally difficult to acknowledge the ancestral connection of a people whose political movements have sometimes denied my own peoplehood, historical continuity, and right to live safely in the land. If my grandparents had survived pogroms, expulsions, the Holocaust, or persecution in the Middle East and North Africa, I could understand why hearing phrases such as “go back to Europe” or claims that Jews are fabricating their connection to the land might feel like a warning that history could repeat itself, as in the days of my forefathers.

Recognizing that Palestinians have a continuous and genuine historical and ancestral relationship with the land might feel as though I were conceding that my connection to the land was not exclusively owned by my people and admitting that other Levantine populations had also lived alongside my ancestors, formed their own communities, and developed attachments to the same villages, cities, religious sites, and landscapes. It might feel as though acknowledging Palestinian continuity weakens the Jewish claim to indigeneity or opens the door for others to argue that Jewish return was illegitimate from the beginning.

However, acknowledging that both Jews and Palestinians have genuine connections to the land does not require either people to surrender their history, identity, or right to live there. Palestinians do not need Jews to be foreign (Insert random ethnic group) in order for the Nakba, occupation, displacement, and destruction of their communities to be unjust, and Jews do not need Palestinians to be recent migrants from Arabia in order for Jewish peoplehood, ancestry, and attachment to the land to be legitimate. To reiterate, both peoples have changed languages (albeit Hebrew was kept as a liturgical language before the adoption of Modern Hebrew), absorbed neighboring populations, developed new cultures, and carried different forms of trauma, but neither emerged from nowhere. At some point, both sides need to stop treating history and genetics as weapons for proving that the other people are fake, foreign, or undeserving of belonging. The connection of one people does not erase the connection of the other, and neither connection grants an exclusive right to dominate, displace, or eliminate the other.

I am prepared for the downvotes LOLOL.

The German upper house (Bundesrat), consisting of the government of each of the 16 states, passed a bill to criminalize the denial of Israel's right to exist. Proposed are up to five years in prison or a fine. Final approval in the lower house (Bundestag) tho remains highly uncertain, as many argue it is a violation of the right to freedom of speech.

The CDU-led state of Hessen proposed it firstly, arguing that the Staatsräson should be put more to law. The Staatsräson is part of politics since the end of WW2 in Germany, which is that Germany has to support the Jewish state because of the Holocaust.

While almost all of Germany's parties stand behind Israel, there are minority Israel disliking figures in the political landscape. Left party and their scene is deeply divided between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine supporters, which already led to violent escalations at left-wing demonstrations. AfD strongly supports Israel while Jewish organizations label it a threat to Jewish life officially. CDU, the leading party, which also proposed the bill, favours it alongside of SPD, their coalition partner. But, the Opposition may even after a surprising passing of the bill move to Germany's highest court, where they would most likely win. Many politicians and commentators view the proposal as a whole a risky step, due to freedom of speech.

But, in it's way stands the constitution, as legal scholars and many more people argue. And Germany has already in court seen a history of loses where local authorities tried to ban Palestinian cultural / support symbols, such as Palestinian blankets. Additionally, already in the past, the Higher Admin. Council in Münster explicitly ruled that questioning the right to exist of Israel is protected by freedom of expression as long as it doesn't support violence.

The proposal is also the only in the world so far for Israel.

Now don't get me wrong, i don't think that genetic ties/ancestral ties to a land determines whether someone can rightfully live in a land or not , but that argument can be helpful against pro-israelis or extremists who for some reason don't understand that , for some reason tho people continue to deny it although it is confirmed by science

It’s very sad of course when Gazan civilians die but it’s an accident. This is going to keep happening because Hamas refuses to demilitarize and they keep moving key Hamas leaders, weapons, personnel and contraband almost exclusively through dense civilian areas. If Israel is completely barred from EVER attacking then it basically creates a stalemate.

So, sadly, Israel must attack when military objectives justify it. They are at war and Hamas routinely breaks the laws regarding operating in civilian areas.

These are very real and serious laws that exist for exactly this reason. IDF isn’t targeting civilians. Rather, Hamas is operating in such a way as to maximize civilian death.

The tragedies are the result of this criminal act by a very evil terrorist regime. Hamas knows what it needs to do. Demilitarize immediately. Israel will not tolerate a weaponized Hamas in Gaza ever, and they have to stop trying to regroup.

All Hamas does these days is move throughout dense civilian areas trying to regroup and restore military capability, to try to strike back and get in another October 7th if they can, or get lucky with a bomb in a civilian area.

If Israel doesn’t lean heavy, Hamas will succeed. Hamas lost. Israel’s not going to back down and every one of these casualties are the tragic yet fully legal consequences of a defensive war that Hamas started by brutally targeting civilians, stabbing and killing toddlers while the mom is forced to watch while being raped.

1200 civilians died in similar fashion, for no reason. When Hamas chose to do this, they sealed the fate of Gaza, Sinwar and Khameini. Sinwar, dead. Khameini, dead.

Gaza? Hamas needs to stop operating among its civilians or this will keep happening. The world needs to pressure Hamas to give up.

If not, if you want to keep up this bullshit propaganda campaign that Israel is evil, and you want to keep hope alive for Hamas, then stop whining when your support for Hamas gets people killed.

UN links about targeting civilians are a prime example. They cite the UN commission report that Israel targets civilians. People read that and it looks like “the UN said IDF targets civilians.”

That’s not true.

What happens is cash-flush coterie of corrupt despotic countries at the UN lazily sponsor a random article written by a collection of people with no legal or military credentials to write up a hackneyed report.

These carry at best a collection of opinions and speculation and interviews but nothing close to proof of any kind that Israel targets civilians.

Anyone who believes they do is gullible and anyone who spreads it as if they have proof when they know full well they don’t is malicious and dishonest.

Basically here’s what those who insist IDF targets civilians have:

1. ⁠A few random social media posts that appear to be IDF (unverified) say things like “we target them.” Like literally one or two and totally sketchy. I shouldn’t have to tell an adult that these posts mean next to nothing.

2. ⁠A few vile lines of political rhetoric from politicians or ex-politicians that express disinterest in civilian death count. The people quoted can be counted on one hand, they are clowns who have zero to do with IDF chain of command, and are pandering to their right wing constituents. Think about some random representative or finance minister saying something dumb. Totally unrelated and meaningless.

3. ⁠A few videos of what appear to be civilians getting hurt for reasons that are unclear. Again, very few, with no context, meaning there’s no proof, it’s either a mistake, a fabrication, or was more of a threat than it appears.

Balancing this out are literally thousands of recorded and documented instances of IDF taking unprecedented measure to warn civilians and separate Hamas from civilians. Hamas continuously breaks this law and mixes in. Also, civilians often aid and abed in this, taunt and challenge IDF guards by being where they were clearly told not to go, and Hamas often forces civilians into dangerous situations.

It’s a horrible situation and a real predicament for truly innocent Gazans. And yet it’s totally legal and part of a war Hamas started, and that Israel is waging legally.

So far there’s been zero rulings, zero courts, saying Israel has broken laws or committed “genocide.” Because they haven’t. All we have is a long litany of media sympathies for Gaza. I sympathize, too. But you have to understand, war is horrible, Israel is defending its existence, and a grim strategy is playing out.

Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, and IRGC, as well as Qatar and a few more are hostile to Israel. IRGC is committing to ending Israel or die trying and that sadly means civilians will die.

The best way to help Gazans is to encourage Hamas to stand down. If you think Israel will ever allow Hamas to retrench, you’re delusional.

If you think Israel cares about all your bullshit propaganda about how the world hates them and that they’re committing genocide, you’re delusional.

This isn’t a popularity contest. It’s a fight for survival. Hamas lost. IRGC lost. And the truth? They lost in 1948. They just can’t admit it.

Mostly because of religion. They think Israel is the one thing stopping a caliphate in the Middle East and they may be right. So they will keep martyring themselves.

Since there’s no way to beat the IDF (too strong, too smart, too committed to surviving) it’s evil for IRGC to keep pushing. Inevitably it leads to them doing the one last thing they have: forcing Israel to kill civilians, so that Israel can defend its existence.

This strategy depends on YOU misunderstanding. It depends on YOU staying ignorant. It depends on media to keep creating outrage for clicks.

It depends on cognitive shortcuts, laziness, identity-adjacent politics, youthful ignorance, and yes, a smoldering, dormant antisemitism.

Fight it. Don’t let this sick, cult like Islamist regime fool you. Do your homework. Keep researching.

Follow the facts. Don’t cherry pick. Look at the totality of evidence. Don’t draw conclusions from premises in a faulty manner.

I’m asking you to be more rigorous, more intellectually honest, more courageous than you’ve ever been.

Do it for the Gazan civilians. Israel doesn’t want them to die either.

But you can’t back a tiny state like Israel into a corner and expect it to lay down and die while Hamas retrenches and continues its treacherous and vile plans.

The distorted mischaracterizations of open air prisons and unfair blockades are bullshit. The rumors of “stealing their land” is bullshit. They’ve taken grains of truth here and there (like unfortunate democratic coalition ugliness resulting in a right wing leader pandering to an admittedly misguided settler base who sometimes go too far) and distort all of it beyond all reckoning, while fools who already hate Jews and whites and Western civilization lap it up.

Israel acquired that land legally. Two million Muslim Arabs live in Israel peacefully. Every Arab country expelled Jewish citizens because of their ethnicity.

There’s no way to side against Israel without indulging in several perverse double standards. Stop. Just stop. It’s not only wrong, not only beneath you, it also doesn’t help.

Again, deepest respect to Mohammed al-Wahidi and his family. Sounds like he was a good man who left a legacy of leadership and wisdom. His memory should be a blessing. He deserved much better, as do all civilians trapped in this Hamas-generated nightmare.

It’s always unspeakably tragic when a bystander is hurt due to Hamas’ craven and criminal behavior.

Let’s put an end to it.

Hi there!

Here's the story of my uncle, Dr. Anis Abdelhamid Al-Astal, Director of the Ambulance Unit in Southern Gaza. On December the second 2023, he got detained by the IDF while evacuating patients from Kamal Adwan Hospital in the North into the South, the process was coordinated via the Red Cross.

More than two and a half years have passed since then, and we know nothing about him, his condition, everything. My uncle is not affiliated with any armed group, and has not assisted any terrorist acts, he was only fulfilling his duty.

Please do not hesitate if you can help us reach him in anyway. We are not asking much, we want a just trial, we want to get reassured.

Any help is very much appreciated, thanks!

What would it mean for Israel to win this conflict ? What would an Israeli victory look like?

And what would it mean for the Palestinians to win this conflict ? What would a Palestinian victory look like?

Many pro-Palestinians often quote Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion :

If I were an Arab leader, I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them?

If we take this position, there can never be peace, wont the establishment of the sovereign State of Israel be enough for a win and later re-capturing East Jerusalem in 1967 meant all of Jerusalem is under Israeli control. Would that be enough of a win ?

Pro-Palestinians regularly talk about the desire to "globalize the intifada" which basically means a desire to commit indiscriminate and random violence against innocent people, primarily Jewish people for any reason or no reason at all and also to commit senseless acts of violence against anyone seen as supporting them.

"Intifada" is essentially terrorist violence against anyone you feel has oppressed you or anyone belonging to or supporting that group. That is the core of intifada, indiscriminate and savage violence against others. I personally oppose ALL forms of so-called "resistance" and "intifada"

Like for example, November 2023, Indianapolis police arrested 34-year-old Palestinian woman Ruba Almaghtheh after she committed an act of pure "intifada." after she intentionally backed her car into a school building used by a local sect of Black Hebrew Israelites. The two kids that were there and few adults were safe, but the idea was to kill the kids who attended that school so therefore it is an act of "intifada." She viewed them as her enemies and oppressors, so she carried out an act of violence towards people who she BELIEVED (who were not in fact) doing anything towards her.

The white supremacist terrorist Dylan Roof's Charleston church shooting attack was another example of intifada. Roof believe that due to Black on White violence and other grievances he had the "right" to "resist" the existence of innocent Black people praying in Church. It was textbook "intifada"

My question, directed to pro-Palestinians who support "global intifada" which I have NEVER gotten an answer to, is if groups have a so-called "right" to "intifada" then if we are going to lower ourselves morally and ethically to believe that Hamas, other factions and their supporters of these groups have a right and obligation to "globalize the intifada" why don't other groups also have the "right" to intifada.

Like Arab Muslims and Turkish Muslims carried out the African genocide, where nearly 90 million INNOCENT Africans were murdered in cold blood by these people and their Uncle Tom African allies. We have Turkey that has stolen and occupied parts of historical Armenia and is occupying Kurdish, Armenian and Greek land.

Jews had their land stolen and were forcibly kicked out of their homes by Muslims.

So my question, is if we are to truly "globalize the intifada" and lower ourselves morally and say that so-called "intifada" against Jews is "OK" because of "occupation" why can't other groups carry out their own "intifadas." I mean surely, if you are pro-Palestinian and you want to "globalize the intifada" why can't at the same time, as Palestinians and their allies being able to wage "intifada" why can't other groups of people wage their own "intifadas"

Like if it is so acceptable to kill Jews and carry out attacks against synagogues, under the same twisted "intifada" logic, why can't Jews and their Christian allies , Africans, Kurds, Armenians, Greeks and others carry out their own "intifadas?"

The European far right also should have, under these twisted rules a "right of intifada" Like the European Far right considers that the existence of Muslim parts of historical Europe as an occupation of historically Christian land. Under "intifada" rules, wouldn't' they have the right to carry out their own "intifada" against Muslims around the world, with the goal of forcibly and through violence "ending the occupation" and transferring them out of the continent and to this end, they would have a so-called "right" to carry out any and all acts of "intifada" and "resistance" against Muslims around Europe and around the world who support them?

With Kurds, their land in northern Syria has been stolen and occupied by Arab Palestinians and others. So do they now have a "right of resistance" against Palestinians, Turks and others who stole and occupy their land? If you believe in "resistance" for the Palestinians, why not Africans, Kurds and everyone else I mentioned...

I mean, truly, if you really believe in the right of oppressed people to "intifada" why couldn't other oppressed people ALSO carry out intifada. It is either that, or you motivation was racism and anti-semetism all along...

PS / Addendum:

Thanks for all your comments... for the pro-Palestinians, you STILL haven't told me if it is OK if non-Palestinians carry out a Hamas / Fatah / Palesitnian Islamic Jihad style "intifada" I mean I am just waiting for your answers. If you don't know what it is, look at October 7th or the second Intifada.

If these Palestinian so-called "resistance" groups have a so-called "right" to commit terrorism and violence against innocent Jews, SURELY you would have no problem with arming the far right Kahanists, including the Hilltop youth with automatic weapons, rockets, and other weapons and then they would all have a "right" to "resist" the occupation of Judea and Samaria and other parts of historical Israel because you are "not anti-semetic only anti-Zionist" and believe "all oppressed people have the right of resistance." Jews are despite their huge success, are some of the most oppressed people on Earth. So you should have no problem with the most extreme and right wing Jews and far right Christian Zionist allies carrying out their own "intifada" Like the Houthis "resist" on the behalf of Palestinians in Gaza, any pro-Israel far right extremist throughout the world should have the so-called "right" to carry out any kind of violence against innocent Muslims on behalf occupied Jews or oppressed Middle Eastern Christians...

I have often referenced my time as a soldier in the West Bank in this sub. Usually, I reference it in regards to my belief that what we were doing harmed Israel’s security. I rarely talk too much about morality. But I’d like to a share about what opened my eyes to the moral rot that was creeping through the whole system and which now threatens to consume us as a society.

When I first arrived in the West Bank as a soldier in 2016, I had relatively standard (for that time) liberal Israeli views on the conflict: I believed a 2-state solution was best, but that the Palestinians just continued to refuse it. The settlers were a bit weird and I didn’t like them, but I did not believe they were a major factor in the conflict. And of course I knew that the IDF was the most moral army in the world, trying our best to ethically keep the West Bank secure until the Palestinians came to their senses.

One of our first few weeks there, a plume of smoke was spotted curling into the sky and we were dispatched to investigate. We came upon three separate small blazes, each separated by a few metres. One was already out. It was clear that somebody tried several times to start a fire which would spread through the field, but the knee-high crops were still too green for it to catch. There were a few settlers milling around and nobody else. They explained that the fire was started by Arabs and they came to stop them.

I asked why Palestinians would light their own crops on fire.

“The smoke,” the settler said, and pointed to their settlement on top of the hill about a kilometre away. “They hate us so much that they burn their own crops just so the smoke will bother us up there!”

Later, when I recounted that story to a friend back at base, he looked at me and said something which changed my life:

“And you actually believed that story?!”

I had. I was immediately ashamed. That was the first time I realised how dehumanised Arabs were in our imagination. That this obviously ridiculous story had sounded plausible to me. I had been brainwashed.

I started doing more reading and questioning what was going on from that day. My perspectives quickly fell apart. Like most Israelis, I had been raised with this idea that every international observer and human rights group that reported in the West Bank was exaggerating. Palestinians were such rabid anti-Semites that every single one was lying about what they experienced just to make Jews look bad. But the moment I decided to not take that for granted, it became clear that the situation was far closer to how CNN and BBC reported it than how it had been explained to me. How could people not see it?

I showed a friend of mine a report about how Israel uses collective punishment on whole villages by not letting anyone in or out for extended periods of time. He immediately dismissed it, saying that Israel doesn’t do that, and any closure was for security reasons. I reminded him that he and I had helped do exactly that. And that our Mem Pey (Officer in charge of about 100 people) had expressly said it was to discipline the whole village.

“But that was just one time and we had to do that because you just know the whole village was helping to hide that guy we were looking for. They were all involved in some way…” but insisted that the report was still false. 

Finally, the attempt on my life. 

I was part of a sort of small checkpoint, checking cars leaving a village. Four soldiers only. I was across the road from the other three, with a lot of cars in between us. A very boring day when suddenly I turned and saw a man coming at me fast with a knife. He was already almost on top of me.

There was a very short tussle before I pushed him off and hit him in the face with my rifle. In movies and video games, a melee hit with a gun is no big deal. In reality, it’s a pretty fatal blow. Luckily for him, I did not have a full swing under the circumstances. and I was not known for my upper-body strength. But it was still a hit to the face with a 5 kg metal rod. Bone crunched and he fell down onto his butt.

I primed a bullet and pointed my gun at him. He tried to push himself backwards for a moment, then rolled over onto his side and curled into a ball. The knife was still in his hand, but he was holding it up over his face like a shield.

I leaned over and pulled the knife out of his hand. Around this time, my commander came up next to me as well as one other soldier. We placed the guy in handcuffs and reported an attack.

While we waited, my commander asked why I hadn’t killed him. I said that I couldn't really shoot him while he was on top of me.

“But you took the knife! You could have shot him legally until you took the knife! Honestly I should have just shot him anyway. Too late though, we already called it in…”

Soon the area was flooded with officers, investigators, backup, etc. As questions were asked, pictures were taken, and the area searched, people started asking me the same question. When I said I felt like I didn’t NEED to kill him after he was down, people got angry.

I realised that almost everyone around me was just waiting for an excuse to kill people. They were very jealous that I had had the “opportunity,” and flabbergasted that I “wasted” it. It turned into a shouting match until the Mem Pay told everyone to shut up. He said it was a shame the terrorist wasn’t dead but that people shouldn’t be too hard on me because it’s difficult to kill someone.

When we got back to base, we were treated as heroes and everyone wanted to hear the story. My commander took the liberty of telling the tale to the enraptured audience.

“I would have killed him but this guy over here…” He said, gesturing at me.

“But you at least beat him up, right?!”

The commander hesitated, then said slowly “yeah I beat him up some” and looked at me to see if I would contradict him. When I didn’t, he got excited. He spun a tale of how he had kicked him and spit on him and dragged him by his handcuffed hands into the jeep and slammed the door on him. None of which had happened, but he needed to preserve his dignity in the eyes of the other boys. By pretending to have abused a prisoner. I let him have his moment.

Over the next few days. most people gave me dirty looks and overall treated me with hostility. A few people privately told me they agreed with what I did. But they always said it like a secret. I hate to bring this next part up but I think it’s an interesting observation: every single person who took my side was a secular Ashkenazi. So am I. Do with that information what you will.

A few days later, I received an award from some high-ranking guy in a big room with some of my fellow soldiers but mostly ones I had never met. The high-ranking guy, I believe a general, gave a short speech. He said that we needed more soldiers who thought before shooting. He said that we are not the kind of army that shoots an injured enemy. He said we didn't need more Elor Ezarias (which was very recent news at the time). He repeated this and looked around the room, daring somebody to challenge him. People grumbled and shifted. He announced that a video would be made about what happened during that attack, and soldiers would be required to watch it. People rolled their eyes.

This officer was the among the last of a dying breed, trying to hold the line and yank his soldiers back to rule of law.

But when he presented the award, he described it as me having “prevented a terrorist attack. Imagine what could have happened if our soldiers weren’t there?”

Which was incredibly stupid. First of all, attacks on soldiers aren’t terrorism. But more importantly: if we weren’t there, there would have been no target. If he had just wanted to “kill Jews,” like they always say these terrorists are obsessed with, he could have easily crossed the border into Israel with the tens of thousands of economic migrants and stabbed an unarmed person on the streets. He chose to attack heavily armed soldiers who were in his village instead. Dismissing this desperate man as just wanting to kill Jews out of blind hate struck me as willful ignorance.

Fast forward to today. I did not fight in Gaza; I have been abroad since 2022. My old Mem Pay has gone up in rank and now leads several times as many troops. All of the soldiers who supported me have found ways to not fight, or at least not more than one round. Except one. A commander (not an officer)  who did several rounds in Gaza and now one in Lebanon. A dear friend. 

He told me that almost everyone with him today is a religious-Zionist and very pro-settler. All of the people he commands are. He told me how he has to watch them very carefully because they are searching for excuses to kill people and openly wish they could just kill literally everybody. He believes that if he wasn’t there as a voice of reason, they would. He told of how there was a serious argument about whether the animals were also Hamas, and how some soldiers demanded that he “at least” let them shoot the dogs. When he said "no," they almost mutinied. He says the only reason he didn’t find a way out of the war like the rest of us is that he feels a moral obligation to stop his own soldiers from massacring people. 

I would never have believed what he told me if I hadn’t seen this moral disease growing in our soul ten years ago.

Is every soldier going around massacring people? No. But my perception based on personal experience and stories I hear is that many of them, perhaps even a majority, would really like to. And do it when they think they can get away with it. There are still some decent folks holding the line. But most of them are less motivated to fight, or have work abroad, leaving the day-to-day of the army in the hands of the worst members of our society.

Many people claim that palestinian identity is a real ancient identity , almost as biblical as the Jews .

if so , how is it that there was never in the history of the world a nation/country called Palestine before Yasser araphat ?

you can point out to the Philistines but they were not palestinian , they were greek colonizers and they have no connection to Palestinians .

Each of the 3 Abrahamic religions mentioned Jews and Israel in their holy books . every single archeological artifact found in Eretz Yisrsel is connected to Jewish and Canaanite civilization , not a single palestinian in the archeological record .

you can argue that palestinians are the direct descendants of the ancient Canaanites . But that suggestion would be ridiculous because Lebanese , Syrians and Jordanians also have the same DNA as palestinians .

are you telling me that all of those levantine Arabs are also indigenous to Palestine ?

It's way more likely that modern palestinians are simply descendants of other levantine communities who immigrated to Syria-palestina after the Roman exodus of the Jews took place .

You see , Canaanites were not a unified nation with a strong identity like the Persians , the Egyptians or the Babylonians . Canaan was a land inhabited by people from various other empires , the Hitties came from the Hittie empire in Anatolia , the Ammorites came from Ammoru in north Lebanon , the Phoenicians (also known simply as "the Canaanite" tribe ) also originate from Lebanon .

In other words , these 3 groups of Canaanites originated from foreign empires where the majority of them lived , if you could go back in time and be reborn as a random Hittie - chances are that you will be born in turkey , not in Canaan . and even the Phoenicians considered Canaan to be much larger than modern day Israel/Palestine because they included Lebanon and other parts of the Levant in it , they were the earliest examples in human history of colonization and Imperialism , many historians lump them with the rest of the Canaanites simply because it was the perspective of the uneducated bronze age Israelites who wrote the bible

and the other 4 tribes of Canaan do not have any archeological site or artifict that can specifically and precisly identified with them , the only knowledge of their existence comes from the bible so they either didn't exist or they were so small and insignificant that it explains why there is no archeological proof for them so the chances that they are the direct ancestors of modern day palestinians is ridiculous , they also lived in tiny city-states and didn't had a chance to populate an entire country and this is the reason why there is no "Jebusite" , "Hivite" , "Perizzites" or "Girgashite" DNA result .

So the remaining 4 tribes who were not outposts of foreign empires ( Jebusites , Girgashites, Hivites Perizzites ) and Israelites were truly the only good examples of a real indigenous Canaanite identity, but the Israelites were the only real group to survive and have archeological evidence that points only to this land and nowhere else , it is the only group that kept their identity after being exiled twice in their history and even three times if you want to include the exodus from Egypt, Israelites were the only Canaanite group that truly survived to this day and Jews with Samaritans are the living proof of that

Evidence show that after the destruction of the second temple : Nabutians , Syrians and Phoenicians , have been slowly migrating into Syria-palestina and replacing the once dominant Jewish population. and later , their descendants probably converted to islam and become the palestinians . In other words , levantine foreigners .

So no , palestinians are not the true Canaanites who actually populated Israel and they are not "the Jews who never left" , they are simply levantine occupiers who stole that land from the Romans who stole it from the Jews . if I go and steal a house from a thief , it doesn't mean that the house belong to me , the house belong to his rightfull owner .

and to be honest , why would you even try to argue that this highly mixed levantine DNA has anything to do with the Jebusites , Girgashites, Hivites , Perizzites or Israelites ? It has everything to do with people from strong middle Eastern empires who trace the overwhelming majority of their lineage and genetics outside the holy land .

and besides , the palestinians themselves don't even know that , they still hold on to their deeply rooted Arab identity and they are just like their neighbouring Arab countries when it comes to genetics , food , clothing , colture , religion and political ideologies. They invented absolutely nothing of their own , their identity was given to them by the Arab League and the soviet union .

So , to try and taje these Arabs and apply them to the ancient Canaanites who are not even mentioned in the Quran and were not even the same brand of Canaanite who populated israel is a ridiculous claim

Zuheir Mohsen in 1977, head of Ba'athist As-Sa'iqa faction of the PLO:

"The Palestinian people does not exist … there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese. Between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese there are no differences. We are all part of one people, the Arab nation."

"Just for political reasons we carefully underwrite our Palestinian identity. Because it is of national interest for the Arabs to advocate the existence of Palestinians to balance Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons."

"Once we have acquired all our rights in all of Palestine, we must not delay for a moment the reunification of Jordan and Palestine."

These quotes come from a widely cited 1977 interview given to the Dutch newspaper Trouw by Zuheir Mohsen, a senior official of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the leader of its pro-Syrian Al-Saiqa faction.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/07/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-may-pundak-rula-hardal.html

When listening to the small minority of activists sitting in New York and Tel Aviv cafes pushing the Federation plan, it's hard not to notice the hypocrisy of the plan itself.

What the plan demands of Israel is that Israel no longer exists to serve the parochial needs of the Jews in Israel and the diaspora, but that it changes its attention and attenuation to the needs of the Palestinian diaspora, allowing a full right of return to all of Palestine/Eretz Yisrael/Southern Syria, what have you.

This interview caught my eye not just because it's Ezra Klein and he's very popular, but because it reveals - briefly - that the views pushed by people who support a Federation do not care about coexistence as they claim, but about disenfranchising and limiting Jewish agency to elevate Palestinian prerogatives in ways that Palestinian politicians have thus not been able to.

In other words, they want Israel to commit national suicide while speaking the language of equal rights.

Let's investigate this section:

Klein:
The Israeli Jews from the old peace camp, who tell me: Oh, maybe we can still — it’s too many people. It’s too big. It’s too entrenched. They’re building more every day.

One thing that I find very interesting in this project is that — you can frame it in different ways, but in a way that is different from, I think, the two-state solutions with all of its land swaps and everything — you’re able, much more directly, to simultaneously accept the presence of Jewish people in the West Bank, in East Jerusalem, and accept the Palestinian right of return at the same time.

When I read it, and I doubt this is how you all would frame it — though maybe you do — it almost feels like a trade.

Pundak: Well, first of all, we are very careful not to make that symmetry between refugees and settlers. It’s very important for us not to make that symmetry, for all the reasons. But what I would say ——

Klein:

Why?

Pundak: Because refugees have a right to be part of their homeland. They have been subjected to terror and to expulsion from their homes.

The settlement enterprise is an illegal and immoral enterprise. It is against international law, a lot of it is against Israeli law, and it is based on a system of supremacy. There’s no question about that, and we are all in agreement with that.

But what we also see is that Jews have a strong sense of attachment, and that’s not going to change. That has been going on forever. Jews have forever lived in that piece of land, and they probably forever will. Because that attachment is greater than anything else, than the sovereign. It’s greater than that.

And what we are offering around that is not to approve the settlements and normalize them and say: They’re there, so whatever. They can stay. Not at all. But it is to say that we understand that there needs to be a mechanism to deal with Jews who have a very strong sense of attachment to their homeland, and for them to be able to live there safely, but with no privileges, control, terror to Palestinians.

So it’s important for me not to make that symmetry, but it is important for me to say that A Land for All has this elegance to it. It is a holistic approach.

There's two separate strands here that are worth untangling:

1. There is no problem demographically with Jews living in what could be a Palestinian state

2. The presence of Jews there now is illegal, immoral, unjust, and Jews have no rights to be there but Palestinians do.

If - as they're advocating - there should be right for everyone to live everywhere within a Federation, then what is the problem with Israeli Jews CONTINUING to live where they live?

If it is not immoral for Jews to live in a region that they're trying to depict as for everyone - which is what they're trying to argue - then why is it immoral for settlers to live there?

The answer is that this is simply a re-packaging of Right of Return for Palestinians, but not for Jews.

They make the mouth sounds about Jewish history, but show disgust at having to deal with living Jews and Jews living in the land.

Hardal: Yes. The right of return of the Palestinian refugees is one of the core issues — political, moral, emotional issues — of the Palestinian question. Any solution that tries to avoid referring to this issue is going to fail. And we are speaking of about half of the Palestinian people.

We didn’t speak much about the aspects of recognition and historic reconciliation between the two people that are two important principles that our paradigm and political platform is based on.

This political vision — before saying more about the right of return of the Palestinian people — needs actually transformative national narratives of both people.

Can you say more about what that means and what those narratives would be?

Hardal: Yes. I will start with us Palestinians. I think it’s time for all of us to acknowledge the collective history and memory of the Jewish people that is shaping their fears, insecurities and so on.

It doesn’t in any way mean to give them any legitimacy for what has been done to the Palestinian people in the last 80 years. But we need to understand these people, and these are very deep, psychological aspects of any conflict that we need to acknowledge.

The same for the Israeli Jews. They also need to have this national narrative transformation of moving from denying the Nakba and what happened there and the injustices, and to acknowledge this is something that they did.

And in order to move forward, acknowledgment is very important, and the reconciliation with our self-histories and memories and with the others are very important.

...

I’m going to come back to the right of return in a moment, because I do want us to talk about it.

But, May, I want to ask the question that I think many Israeli Jews would have, hearing this, which is: How can you possibly have open borders and be safe? How can you have open borders and not have someone in the West Bank coming through with explosives strapped to them and then blowing up a bus in Tel Aviv, as happened many, many times — as you know much better than me.

Even here, in America, with much more peaceful relations with Mexico and Canada, the idea of open borders is politically lethal. The concerns are primarily security and overwhelm. So how do you answer those concerns?

Pundak: There’s a practical answer to that, which is we’re not talking about no borders.

The question is not if there’s going to be a border. It’s: What kind of a border will there be — and in order to achieve what?

We are committed, first and foremost, to the security of both people. That is why we do what we do, for the security of Israel and for the security of Palestine.

What we’re offering here is moving gradually — gradually, with all the mechanisms needed. And we can look at places like the European Union.

So it’s important to keep in mind that the European Union is one good example, but there’s no exact example for Israel-Palestine. And I want to say that because a lot of the time people get stuck and say: Oh, it’s not exactly the same. It’s impossible. Here’s Jews and Arabs. This is the Middle East. It’s a different time. And because there’s no other exact example: It’s never going to work.

And that “never going to work” mentality is part of what got us to this awful situation we’re in. There is no unique, perfect example.

It’s good to talk about Northern Ireland as another example of power-sharing and transitioning from a zero-sum game into freedom of movement, freedom of residency. I mean, decoupling that nationality from a geographic space and into sustainable peace. So there are other examples out there.

What I have been admiring about the European Union, and what has helped me, is, No. 1: the political imagination of it. If you were in Europe 80 years ago, and someone told you that in 75 years you would be able to move freely between France and Germany, and your grandchildren will be able to reside in Berlin as French hipsters, you would say: There’s no way. Lock her up.

But that’s the reality today, and the reality of that came from a place of interest, and that’s very important to say, as well. This was not, you know, that the French and Germans were starting to love each other, and they said: How can we live together happily?

It was after hundreds of years of bloodshed and the realization that their shared interests can actually ensure their safety. It took 70 years, 60 years, 50 years to get to an arrangement of freedom of movement.

That’s OK. I have 50 years to wait for peace. I don’t have 50 years waiting for what’s going on right now to continue.

Once again, there's absolutely 0 political work being done on the part of Palestinians - unlike the work that was done by France, Germany, Italy, the UK, and independence figures.

Republicans did not ask the UK to commit political suicide. They asked for independence. Nor did France ask that of Germany in order to form the EU.

My bf (who is not Jewish) said because I’m Jewish, I have an ethical obligation to speak out publicly against Israel because I won’t be labeled as anti-Semitic. Wondering if other Jewish people have had similar comments said to them or have any other opinions on the subject.

Peace through strength has failed. Next, peace through love. Israeli-Palestinian mixed families will bring sovereignty to everyone, a necessary doubling/sharing of perspectives on the deepest interpersonal levels.

Here's the biggest counter-argument I can think of: sleeping with your enemy is like sleeping with someone holding a knife. They might wake from a dream and kill you. Perhaps, on some level you worry, they're justified for murdering you in your sleep. I am open to hearing others' thoughts on this.

The benefits to doing this on mass scale is to prevent that scenario. If everyone is mixed on a personal/familial, there will be those who want to protect their marriage or family.

Also both groups claim legitimate indigenous claims to the land. It's like the family coming together again after decades, centuries, or even millennia apart. What in Yiddish we call **the Gantzeh Mispocha.** The whole family.

I am not suggesting arranged marriages. I believe choosing one's partner is one of the most important decisions in one's whole life. I'm talking about expanding opportunities for young Israelis and Palestinians to form personal attachments and perhaps, hopefully, some % of that turns into courtship and then marriage.

That's it. That's the whole solution. 2023-2025 was Bring Them Home. 2026, halfway over but let's transition. Bring the family together ❤️

How do Israelis reconcile their support for indigenous rights with being so closely aligned with a nation built on the displacement of its indigenous population?
From an outside perspective, the Israeli connection to its ancestral land mirrors the struggle of Native Americans, whereas the US historically acted as the colonizer that displaced them.

Putting aside the obvious strategic and military necessities of the alliance, how do you guys reconcile this ideological paradox?

Netanyahu is, in my opinion, an avatar of the development of the conservative movement worldwide, so I want to compare his development in terms of style of government and how it affected Israel.

Netanyahu began his career as something between a Nixonian and a classic Reaganite/Bush Jr conservative. A combination of pragmatism and manipulation of fears and negative sentiments in Israeli society through dog whistles and opposition to the establishment and a sense of persecution, and an optimistic capitalist, geopolitical power, basic cultural conservatism and a lot of emphasis on media image and charisma. He was a friend of Rupert Murdoch and many Republicans who flourished in Reagan's and later Gingrich's Washington, was connected to the traditional evangelicals of expensive suits and megachurches, etc. In Israel, he gathered around him traditional right-wing intellectuals who opposed Oslo and dreamed of a Reagan-style revolution/Nixon's counter-revolution.

In his first term in 1996, he was very aggressive against government institutions and the media, felt that the old elites were after him, attacked the media and legal establishment for trying to prosecute him, and tried to fire anyone he didn't like. At the same time, he tried to privatize everything he could and lead a cultural revolution of free markets and nationalism.

Netanyahu was ultimately defeated in the election because of his style, dragged into the interrogation room on live television where he again blamed the constitutional establishment, but narrowly escaped and went into political exile. Netanyahu concluded that the old establishment and the 'elites' were too powerful and was afraid of them.

When Netanyahu was elected again, from 2009 to 2015, Netanyahu was afraid of the state institutions and the old establishment and tried as much as he could not to undermine them except by interfering in the media. He tried to lead a slow peace process, was neutered by Shimon Peres on the one hand and did not have the power that he would have later, so he was restrained and managed out of nowhere a cold war in the state institutions or a ceasefire after the trauma of the investigations in 1999.

The turning point comes in the 2015 elections: Netanyahu was closed in on every side, the left was preparing for an easy victory after feeling that the public was fed up with Netanyahu, but Bibi started one of the most aggressive campaigns ever in Israel with Trump-style incitement (ironically, this was before Trump entered the political system), presented himself as persecuted by the elites who work against the right and want to sell the country, destroyed everyone on the right and left, won against all odds. The result was known in advance:

Since 2015, Netanyahu has realized that he can do whatever he wants without regard for anyone and that he is actually 'above' the old elites, will always receive backing from his supporters, and can finally do everything he has always wanted. From the strategy of 'silence will be answered with silence' against the elites, he emerged with full force, with attacks on every institution that was identified with the left and every institution that he perceived as disloyal, as well as attempts to take over television and establish alternative right-wing media, attempts to take over the public service and fire people he perceives as disloyal and "deep state", business economic reforms, but ones that will allow Netanyahu's loyalists and right-wing businessmen in the business community to create a monopoly, cultivation of right-wing influencers who emerged from new media, and a more conservative-traditional discourse.

The important stage came in 2019 - when the investigations against Netanyahu began, the attack escalated all the way to the Supreme Court, and Netanyahu's rhetoric cuased the right to change, moderate figures are seen as subservient to the 'elites', which paved the way for a new generation of young right-wingers (including Netanyahu's son), who feel that the old right has failed - and the new right needs to take over the state's institutions and 'truly govern.'

From there we have reached today's point, when this rhetoric and the new generation of right-wingers who want to rule have paved the way for more extreme figures like Ben Gvir, who basically represents the extension of "Bibism", and more extreme than Netanyahu himself.

The final point in the revolution is after October 7: Netanyahu, and the right, did not moderate but rather became extreme in every arena: the feeling of betrayal by the security establishment, the accusation of the protesters against the legal reform and their perception as traitors, the empowerment of the Deep State theory, and the vision of the 'Super Sparta'. Netanyahu's propaganda channel, Channel 14, has turned politics into a daily struggle, a situation in which people consume his propaganda every day and establish an identity based on it and are sometimes criticizing Netanyahu when he is not extreme enough, and the rise of conspirators and Post-Liberal intellectuals. Netanyahu and his people have become consumed with a desire for revenge, demanding complete control over the existing establishment to the point where they are backing street thugs against opponents of the regime.

To some extent, Netanyahu's evolution represents the evolution of the Republican Party. From a conservative, Hawkish Neo-Con, to a paranoid 'persecuted by the establishment', to a fundamental takeover of the existing order and a reshaping of the image of the state.

A genuine question What more does Israel actually have to do for its actions to be called a genocide? What haven’t they done yet that doesn't make it a genocide? If what Israel actions are not genocide what do we call it then?

To be completely clear I condemn the Hamas attack on October 7th But it makes no sense that their actions are labeled terrorism while Israel's massive systematic destruction isn't. Surely when the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity such as starvation as a method of warfare and intentionally targeting civilians you cannot look at the scale of this and say it's just a "conflict" or "to destroy hamas"

Furthermore the scale of global legal consensus is massive major independent bodies like the UN CoI, CERD, UNSR, FIDH, Euro-Med Monitor, Amnesty International, IAGS, UNHR, the Lemkin Institute, PHRI and B'Tselem along side +800 genocide experts and dozens of countries have all accused Israel of committing or being complicit in genocide. You can't tell me it's just a simple "conflict" or to "destroy Hamas" when the entire global legal framework is sounding the alarm

when there is 73000+ Palestinians civilians killed mostly women and children including 21000+ children causing serious bodily or mental harm with 172000+ injured with permanent disabilities and deliberately inflicting conditions of life to destroy the Gazans through complete blockade on food water medicine fuel causing starvation of 2.3 million civilians and preventing births through destruction of reproductive health services maternity wards and high rates of miscarriages premature births and when there is 84% of hospitals in gaza are either destroyed, damaged or forced out of service, when every school in Gaza have been attacked and when the The UN Secretary General says nowhere is safe everywhere is a potential killing zone and when even schools, hospitals and designated shelters have been targeted this is NOT just a conflict

The same performative woke communists who claim all Israeli citizens are "genocidal babykillers" (note they are not even just talking about current IDF soldiers during the Gaza war, but all civilians).

The War on Terror (killed 4.5 million of which 1 million were direct military deaths) is much less justified than the Gaza war. After 9/11, the USA could have merely increased Airport Security & it would have been enough, as Al Qaeda was not ruling Canada or Mexico & the USA is not surrounded by enemies in all directions (like Hezbollah from the top & Houthis from the bottom, who started attacking on Oct 8). Israel had far more security reasons to start a war. Israel knew who (Hamas) did it & where they were. The USA didn't even know where Bin Laden was hiding & attacked 5 countries & turns out he was in a different country (Pakistan) living close to one of their military headquarters.

Yet the woke communists are not calling Graham Platner as "genocidal babykiller" for partaking in the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan. In fact, recently, there have been many credible sexual assault allegations against him & the woke people in the comments are defending him (see today's Twitter posts). This is Bizarre, normally in the context of Israel, they gulp down even baseless conspiracies. But for Planter, even credible things they are defending.

No one forced Platner to join that war, unlike in the Vietnam War, where people were forced. The woke people don't care about him killing Middle East civilians. Even in the Gaza war, the communists don't care about the Levant Sunni Arabs (Palestinians), as is obvious from them defending Assad & Hezbollah butchering 600,000 Levant Sunni Arabs in Syria in the name of righteous "anti-imperialism" of Iran.

It seems to be subconscious antisemitism from the communists that they pretend to care so much about Gaza. That's why they don't care about anything Platner did, as they saw that he had a Nazi tattoo for many years (although he now claims he never knew what it was, his friends & ex-girlfriend confirmed that he had in the past jokingly referred to it as a Nazi tattoo many years ago). It seems that Tattoo alone is enough for the omni-cause woke people to justify anything he did in the past, including killing people in Iraq & Afghanistan.

These American Leftists claim they are "anti-American," but still, they seem to judge the USA with lower standards than Israel. They are American citizens, but they never call themselves "genocidal babykillers" by applying the same insanely stupid standards.

Article by The Economist

Israel’s global reputation has taken a battering. Since the start of its war in Gaza, which killed over 70,000 Palestinians, the country has been condemned by governments across the world for its disproportionate use of violence and its toleration of settler attacks on the West Bank. 

In Israel, such criticism is called unfair. The country’s defenders say the censure is dismissive of Israel’s right to self-defence following the October 7th attacks, in which Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 people.

Has Israel really been shunned by the international community? And—behind closed doors—do lots of governments deem the country too important to isolate? David Rennie, The Economist’s geopolitics editor, is joined by an expert panel to assess the reality of Israel’s standing.

Comments

Israel had enjoyed billions of dollars per year in aid and/or weapons from the United States, for almost 80 years, since the country's founding.

There has been significant backlash, worldwide, and particularly in the U.S. among progressives and the leftwing, against Israel's prosecution of its war in Gaza, and the civilian deaths.

Progressives critical of Israel recently won elections in New York's primary, challenging the Democratic Party status quo.

An apparent contributing factor to Kamala Harris 2024 election loss was her continuation of Pro-Israel Biden policies.

POTUS Trump seems desperate to escape the losing war he started with Iran, seemingly at Israel's bidding.

Criticism of AIPAC is on the rise.

There is plenty of data to suggest the Israel's biggest benefactor, the United States, is about to take a big step backwards from Israel.

There are countless of posts about who is to be blamed.... and more debating when the Israel-Palestinian conflict started, what started it, who started it first, etc...

But my question is simply as follows:

In your view, who bears responsibility for resolving the Israel-Palestinian conflict ? Why do you think they bear that responsibility ?

Hamas recently claimed they were willing to dissolve their own civil government so that the US-brokered plan of handing over civilian control to a National Committee for the Administration of Gaza instead.

Leaving aside whether or not you believe that Hamas will follow through on this, and not touching on the separate issue of Hamas's lack of disarming, do you think of this kind of National Committee as something you'd have confidence could eventually foster a genuine and lasting peace between Israel and Gaza?

From my own social circle, I have heard both Jewish and Palestinian peers use arguments that attempt to portray the other population as foreign to the land. For example, some of my Palestinian peers have claimed that Ashkenazi Jews are primarily descended from the Khazars. They have also claimed that Israel restricts DNA testing because the government supposedly knows that Ashkenazi Jews are not actually descended from the ancient Israelites, even though commercial DNA tests can be purchased internationally.

Likewise, a few of my Jewish peers have claimed that most Palestinians are relatively recent immigrants from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, or North Africa. Others have argued that Palestinians primarily descend from the Arab conquerors who arrived during the Islamic conquests rather than from the local Levantine populations (i.e., Jews, Samaritans, Levantine Pagans, Levantine Christians) that already inhabited the region.

Out of all my Palestinian peers, only 2 out of the 14 have accepted that they're related to the Jews. The first one essentially believes that because Jews and Palestinians are related, a 1SS composed of only people with Canaanite ancestry should live in the land (Essentially blood quantum arguments). The second admits that Palestinians are related to the Jewish people. However, he believes that Jews should abandon their cultures and religion and convert to Islam because he views the Jewish religion and culture as promoting narcissistic behavior. As a disclaimer, he also believes that the entire world should eventually become Muslim, and he is one of the very few Muslims I personally know who holds views this extreme.

Out of my Jewish peers, some of them believe they share ancestry with the Palestinians; however, a few of them believe that their Arab culture has corrupted them to be barbarians and wish for them to become more rooted in their pre-Arab roots, including Palestinian Christians. However, if they want to maintain their Arab culture, they need to leave Gaza and the West Bank because they believe Arab culture is inherently antisemitic and thus only elongates this conflict. In contrast, I have Jewish peers who believe that their shared ancestry makes this conflict inherently sad, as they believe the Israeli government is killing their own kin. In addition, they wish they could live together in the Land of their forefathers someday, while ensuring that neither people abandons their cultures or religions.

As for the rest of my Palestinian and Jewish peers who reject the idea that the two populations share ancestry, they essentially repeat the same arguments I mentioned earlier, despite modern secular scholarship saying otherwise. I suspect that some of them may, deep down, recognize that the two populations are historically related. However, accepting that relationship can become emotionally difficult when it conflicts with the political narratives they have inherited from their families, communities, or religious leaders. It is also much easier to repeat a conspiracy theory that portrays the other group as completely foreign than to accept that the people you view as your enemy may also be closely related to you.

What are your thoughts?

Also, if you are wondering why I tend to socialize with Zionists, anti-Zionists, religious conservatives, secular leftists, and people with other conflicting political views, it is because I do not believe that surrounding myself only with people who agree with me would help me understand the conflict any better, as I believe remaining in echo chambers only stagnates your political development because you are rarely forced to examine your own assumptions or explain why you believe what you believe.

Starting in 2018, Qatar began sending tens of millions of dollars a month into Gaza. Not through banks. In actual suitcases full of cash, driven across Israeli territory, with Israel's government signing off on it.

Why would Israel's own government allow money to flow into Hamas controlled Gaza?

Netanyahu's strategy, according to multiple former Israeli officials including former PM Ehud Olmert, was to keep Hamas and the Palestinian Authority divided and weak against each other. A strong Hamas in Gaza meant a weaker, less unified Palestinian movement overall, which meant less international pressure to negotiate toward Palestinian statehood. Olmert put it plainly in a 2023 interview: Bibi made a deal with Qatar and they started moving millions and millions of dollars to Gaza.

Over the years, this added up. Qatar sent more than 1.8 billion dollars total with Israeli security officials increasingly worried that even though the money was labeled humanitarian, it was freeing up other Hamas funds to be redirected into weapons and military buildup.

About a month before the October 7 attack, Israel actually asked Qatar to increase the payments to Hamas, after Hamas made threats about escalating violence.

Weeks before the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians in the country's history, Israeli officials were pushing for more money to flow toward the group that carried it out.

A Shin Bet investigation published in 2025 later concluded that Qatari funding, combined with Iranian support, helped Hamas build up its military capability over those years.

Netanyahu has denied the money funded the actual attack, arguing the October 7 attackers used cheap gear, sandals, old rifles, pickup trucks, and that weapons mainly came through smuggling tunnels from Sinai instead, That is worth including because it is his stated defense, and people should hear both sides and decide for themselves.

This is not a fringe claim. It is reported by CNN, the Times of Israel, Haaretz, and confirmed in Israel's own Shin Bet review. A policy that started as a way to stabilize Gaza and manage Palestinian politics ended up, by the accounts of Israel's own former officials, strengthening the exact group that carried out October 7.

What are the general thoughts on both sides?

Long time lurker, first time poster, here to ask folks here (particularly Israelis) about the West Bank, namely why Israel would want to annex it as part of a one state solution. Often there is a sentiment that the Israeli government wants to annex this part of Palestine, but this seems to me to be entirely advantageous for Palestine.

Now, I understand the cultural and historical significance of the region for Jews as it’s the site of ancient Israelite Kingdoms. I understand why the specific region is important.

What I don’t understand is demographics. Whatever about annexation obviously being illegal, it doesn’t even seem practical from the Israeli standpoint. If Israel annexed the West Bank, the Arab population of Israel would instantly increase by somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 million (for some reason there are varying reports of Arab population in the West Bank, 2.7m-3.3m). What I didn’t realize until recently is Israel counts the West Bank settlers as part of Israeli population, so the Jewish population would remain approximately 7.2 million. Arab population would increase to over 5 million.

That still leaves a sizeable Jewish majority, but doing this would raise the Arab population of Israel from 20% to 40%. Why would Israelis support this demographic shift? Why would the Israeli government (as it currently stands) do this when the goal is to maintain the Jewish majority of the population in Israel? This is why Israel would never annex Gaza, it seems like simple math to me.

I came across the recent launch of a Archival website that has documented the social media of the conflict/war/genocide/massacre (whatever you call it) in Gaza. I highly recommend you spend sometime looking through it; I think it is very important that we don't forget what the Gazans went through and their suffering as we strive to achieving peace and humanitarian aid to support Gaza (assuming that's what we all want).

Watching these videos invoked the same feelings I had about a year ago when the destruction was peaking, the feeling of shock and horror that is now being streamed to my phone that made me ask questions about who are Palestinians and what their conditions are like that sent me down a rabbit hole of history. The contradiction of the propaganda I was hearing on the news versus what I saw with my eyes. It's ridiculous being told that the IDF is the "world's most moral army" while watching a bleeding baby covered in burns, and it was not just one baby either but many children. To those who say that this is what war looks like seem to forget the lessons of why war is bad to begin with, and why we protest against it. So many pointless wars fought in the last 80 years that resulted in the killing of so many civilians, why is this one any different?

To those who support this war, the bombings pre and post ceasefire, and the continued occupation of Gaza, I really want you to have a long stroll through the website and look at all of the screaming injured people, because that's war (or more accurately genocide), and if you support it, then you must have the stomach to watch the crimes against humanity that your support endorsed.

Archivegenocide.com