Israeli-Palestinian conflict
For this page:
- We are going to criticize both sides on their violations of human rights.
- We are not going to be idiotic pro-status-quo centrists who equivocate on everything.
- We must re-appropriate the talking points from the idiots who use them wrongly.
You might get called a "jihadist" if you say this, but it's true:
- Israel drops bombs on Palestinians - civilians are killed. discussion TODO: add death toll statistics; far more Palestinians die than Israelis in this conflict
- Israel also demolishes palestinian homes in other ways[ELABORATION needed]
- Israeli checkpoints within Palestinian territories: Palestinians can't even travel within their own land without being stopped (almost every day, for many people). discussion TODO: map out the checkpoints; show how many Palestinians need to pass through them almost every day Ambulences are stopped; this delays medical emergency treatment, causing patients to die. discussion TODO: add statistics of how many patients die due to this
- Gaza is one of the most population-dense territories in the world. Palestinians need more land. discussion Add side note about how little agricultural land per capita - impossible to feed themselves without imports, which Israel controls heavily. Also note that Israel is also fairly low in that statistic too, but less so, and they have far more access to imports.
- Empty homes in Israel, previously owned by Palestinians before Israel gained that land. discussion todo: add timeline Palestinian right to return.
- Israel self-identifies as a Jewish state. This affects its bottom line and strategy: In order to maintain a Jewish majority population, it has to severely limit the number of Palestinians that can live within its borders. [QUANTIFICATION needed- population of each country]
- Israel uses human shields too (more covertly), by building settlements in the West Bank and encouraging Israeli citizens to live there. Israel also encourages construction of Israeli homes near the Israel-Gaza border. This is despite the fact that there are other places Israelis could live - Israel has more land per capita than Palestine [QUANTIFICATION needed]. This causes Israelis to fear the possibility of Palestine getting back any land.
- Israel skirts accountability by misusing the "Palestinians use human shields" narrative. Most Palestinian civilians that Israel killed, were not being used as human shields. discussion Also talk about why hospitals are so close to military bases - is it Hamas's intention, or is there just not enough land? A bit of both?
- Israel skirts accountability by too-readily labelling anyone as "Hamas". discussion todo: add examples This is a way that Israel tries to justify mass murder.
- Israel's actions are effectively a genocide against Palestinians (despite not being officially one).[ELABORATION needed] discussion TODO: also mention somewhere about that time (post oct 7) Israel told all Palestinians to move to one side of Gaza before bombing the other side (short deadline). In theory, that sounds courteous; in practice, there was no physical way for so many Palestinians to move that quickly (traffic jams etc) - therefore, Israel's actions were equivalent to directly bombing civilians
- Nakba: Israel was founded on displacing 700,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1948. discussion Also need to mention: This does not justify kicking Israelis off their homes today just to return the land. People don't deserve to suffer for the sins of their grandparents. Analogy: North America and indigenous people. Also, explore the moral implications of using "such and such land belongs to such and such people historically" as a justification for kicking people off their homes - what horrible atrocities it would excuse (past, present and future) - it's just not a viable moral framework. discussion Also debunk the zionist talking point "But the Palestinians democratically voted for Hamas" - No, most Palestinians alive today weren't even around when Hamas was elected. Lastly, your logic is invalid even if it were true: For example: If God forbid our president decided to bomb Russia, does that mean we all deserve to die at the hands of Russia just because "we elected the guy"? No.
TALK: What order to put these in? Chronological?
You might get called a "Zionist fascist" if you say this, but it's true:
- Hamas terrorizes Israeli civilians.[ELABORATION needed]
- October 7, 2023 (Hamas's attack on Israel) was an atrocity. The victims did NOT deserve what they got.
- Hamas uses human shields.[ELABORATION needed]
- Women do not have equal rights under Hamas. discussion Add statistics about domestic violence, and local laws that unfairly favor the men. Significantly worse than in the Western world
- Openly LGBTQ people are beaten, imprisoned and/or killed under Hamas.
- While it's true that Hamas kills fewer people than Israel does, that's only because Hamas has less power.
- If Hamas could gain more land from Israel, it would kill or oppress any Jews that currently live on that land. discussion TODO: explain the evidence for this, and how relevant is the Hamas constitution in this discussion
- The ethical value of "From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free!" depends entirely on which Palestinian leadership is involved. Under Hamas, it would be genocide against Jews. Under a secular Palestinian state that respects human rights
(...)( allows Jews & Muslims to coexist, allows LGBTQ people to freely exist, etc. ) , it could be a fair liberation of Palestinians. discussion page issue: this very last clause doesn't fit in this "might get called a zionist" section, but it needs to flow from the clause before it. solutions?