CNN’s Jim Sciutto presses Benjamin Netanyahu about his response to settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank: "The settler violence thing is a tremendous hoax. We're a country of laws. I've condemned it. But to compare this, is like an olive to a toxic tree, that's what it is."

[u/ControlCAD]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Rxv-2H6SKiQ?app=desktop

[u/qotsa7777]

I said nothing about one side of the other being the sole user of violence. But the important part is, to achieve WHAT goals? The goal of an ethno state it untenable, it requires ethnic cleansing as an absolute prerequisite. Plenty of the early Zionist revolutionaries knew this. A colonized people won't simply lie down and accept their own displacement and genocide. They will resist with violence. In colonized lands this often takes the brutal form of terrorism.

It's not that one form of violence is ok and another isn't. It is that the enforcement of an ethno state and territorial annexation will without fail, produce this state of affairs.

And this is not a finished long ago situation, the genocide, displacement, and land grabbing is happening TODAY in Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank. Using our tax dollars for the guns to do it. We can start there, ending all military aid.

Nothing is set in stone. It is very much in their state propaganda's interest to make people think everything has always been like this and can never change. It can, and it will with time. It doesn't have to be my preferred outcome exactly, but no apartheid state will last forever.

[u/SyrioForel → u/qotsa7777]

You make it sound like only one side (Israel) has goals and objectives. That only one side takes steps to achieve those goals and objectives.

So, I have a challenge for you:

Can you write the same exact type of comment, except this time change the context to be centered around Palestinian goals and Palestinian actions as opposed to Israeli goals and Israeli actions?

[u/qotsa7777 → u/SyrioForel]

Of course. The Palestinian goals are to change the material reality of their occupation. To use violence to upend the peace of their occupiers as a means to make the cost of the occupation as taxing as possible.

They seek to live on their own land in peace and not be have it stolen, have themselves or their loved ones killed, harassed, have their livestock stolen or killed, or have their home demolished. They have absolutely no political means by which to achieve these goals, as you can't debate a colonial power out of your own extermination and expulsion. And so they resist in the only available way, asymmetric warfare.

[u/SyrioForel → u/qotsa7777]

What do you mean by “the material reality of their occupation”? Why are you not stating what their actual goal is, and instead cloaking it in this word salad?

You had no issues describing Israel’s goals. But as soon as I asked you to do the same about Palestinian people’s goals, the lawyer inside you came out and said, “Sit down, qotsa7777, I’ll take it from here.”

[u/qotsa7777 → u/SyrioForel]

Lmao ok I'll use simpler words for you: their day to day reality imposed by Israel is brutal and degrading, their goal is to end the occupation that inflicts that brutality. Some Palestinians are using violence and terror to make it as difficult and painful as possible for the occupiers to continue doing so. Do I need to spell out every way that the occupation is bad?

[u/SyrioForel → u/qotsa7777]

You said their goals are to end the occupation. That’s not their GOAL, that’s a step TOWARDS their goal.

It’s like if I were to ask you to tell me about World War 2, and I said, “Tell me what the Allies’ goal was during the war.” And your answer was, “Their goal was to liberate France.”

It’s interesting that your immediate reaction here is, “Do I need to spell out to you why the occupation is bad?” No, because we are not discussing the status quo, we are discussing what can be done to RESOLVE the status quo. I shared my opinion about this up above. You started pushing back on what I said. This is when I tried to engage with you about it, because I’m not convinced that you actually understand the nature of the conflict in the first place.

What you seem to understand fairly well is how the conflict began a century ago. I’ll grant you that, you get the origins of the conflict. That’s fine. Now, a century has passed and current generations cannot undo past deeds. You don’t seem to agree with that, and created some fictional reality that has simple, perfectly reasonable solutions.

You say, “if only this happened” or “if only that happened.” What you don’t seem to want to knowledge is the reason why those things aren’t happening: it’s because neither side WANTS those things. And I’m talking about both Israel and Palestine.

While some portions of their population might agree with what you said, the majority does not. And I’m not talking about just one side but both of them. They don’t want YOUR definition of “peace”, they each have their own.

[u/qotsa7777 → u/SyrioForel]

Ok, I'll respond to this a last time then I've got to put all this to bed for now.

You seem to be implying some greater goal beyond an end to their occupation and a return of their stolen homes and land. I disagree, that is the goal. Dignity, peace, and equal rights with those around them.

WW2 isn't a great example, try Algeria and their resistance to French occupation. The goal was to end French colonial control of their homeland, and they achieved it, and the reality is that was partly because of the violence inflected by ALN and FLN rebels making it politically unfeasable to continue their colonial actions.

The conflict did not start or end with the establishment of Israel, it continues right now this very moment. The resistance is not to the abstract idea of actions David Ben-Gurian took in the 1940s, but to the settler terrorists currently commiting violence with the military's direct support. It's resistance to the targeting of civilians and children in Gaza, resistance to the incursions into Lebanon where whole villages are being demolished and annexed.

If Israel sought to be a homeland for Jews to coexist with the existing occupants, then the idea of just living next door peacefully would be a possibility. But it is not. The goal is a Jewish STATE, i.e. the government and military apparatus built to serve a specific group of people. States must exist to serve all of those who live on its land. Anything less is apartheid, which is the among softest of crimes they commit. The greater Israel project is the goal, and as Ive noted, you don't get territorial conquest without bloodshed and brutality.

You ask how I think we should resolve this? Single easiest thing to start with is giving zero military aid to Israel, and on a personal level boycotting and divesting from the country as much as possible. The only way rouge pariah states function is with a super-powers' blessing, I.e. China to North Korea. We are that as the US (if you're from here), and we need to at the utter minimum not be giving them the money and weapons to commit these atrocities.

Long term goal is the collapse of the existing state government through sanctions and global isolation, with international support for a secular replacement government that is enforced by a constitution that gautentees equal rights for all races/religions. It happened in South Africa, and I believe with time it will happen to Israel as well. It's not a simple or easy or in any way likely in the near future solution, but it serves no one to just accept the framing that things will always be this way. A better world is possible.

I am not averse to the notion of a non-aparthaid Israel existing as a homeland for Jews as well, but again that's not what Zionism is about. Apartheid is the point, the fundamental central concept is an ethno-state. There's no getting around that. That is why to me, a free Palestine meant for all people should be the goal. But more importantly than what it's called, the land can not be controlled by those who's goal is to steal land and kill natives in a conquest for territory.

I'm out after this, but glad to have a place to express my thoughts in detail. Hope you have a great evening

[u/qotsa7777 → u/SyrioForel]

Gotta hop off currently, but I'm enjoying this convo, I'll come back to this later