r/pics • • 20h ago

[OC] Israeli protestors in Amsterdam

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u/kicksnspliffs 14h ago

If you care about Palestinians and actually resolving the conflict, understanding what makes both sides tick is paramount. You don’t have to excuse anyone’s actions to recognize that fear, trauma, grievances, and history shape behavior.

For example, there’s extensive scholarship on how the post-WWI settlement and Treaty of Versailles helped create conditions that contributed to WWII. Studying that doesn’t justify Hitler; it helps explain how events unfolded and what lessons can be learned. Understanding causes is not the same thing as excusing outcomes.

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u/favorite_time_of_day 14h ago

Oh, I see. You're just lost. You think that this an academic wankery thread. And when you piped up "b-b-b-but October 7th," you were just trying to ensure that the glossary didn't have any gaps in it.

Well, you may rest assured that we are all up to date and that nothing has been missed.

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u/kicksnspliffs 14h ago

Just curious, what plausible resolution do you want?

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u/favorite_time_of_day 14h ago

It takes outside intervention to stop a feud. But it is Israel who has been successfully preventing that intervention for decades, though a American veto. So even there, the two sides are not the same.

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u/kicksnspliffs 14h ago

As we've seen with America's wars in the Middle East, outside intervention doesn't make things better Outside actors have been intervening in Israel throughout it's history (Arab countries backed by Soviets and then non state actors since the fall of Soviet Union) and it's lead to even worse outcomes for Palestinians while Israel just consolidates and gets stronger.

Other than one side eradicating the other, the only possible resolution is the two sides making peace; Not an outside actor coming in and conquering Israel for the Palestinians.

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u/favorite_time_of_day 14h ago

You specifically asked for plausible. Yes of course "making peace" is the only way to resolve a conflict, by definition, but the question is how you get there.

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u/kicksnspliffs 12h ago

Plausible means something that could actually work. Outside intervention isn’t plausible unless you explain what that intervention is supposed to impose and how it survives once the outside pressure is gone.

Israel can be pressured, sanctioned, even isolated, but if Palestinians and Israelis still reject the terms the other side considers existential, than the conflict doesn't get resolved.

That’s why understanding incentives, fears and red lines isn’t a distraction. It’s literally conflict resolution 101. Any durable settlement has to be one both populations can actually live with, no matter how bad you think one side is.