Re: Hamas slams Blinken’s remarks on rejecting Israel’s ‘generous’ ceasefire proposal – Middle East Monitor

I do not see the situation as you frame it. There did not exist a sovereign Palestinian or Israeli state in the 19th century. It was part of the Ottoman empire. When the Ottoman empire fell apart both parties had a right to want a homeland from the same piece of land but for different reasons. In Palestinian case because they were the majority living on it. In the Jewish case because it was their historic homeland. Although each side claims they are are morally right there is no current methodology I know of to determine the moral dilemma. So the issue ends up being resolved with conflict.

This sort of who the “real” owners of land is not are unique to middle east. The same thing happened in the Balkans when the Ottoman empire fell apart. Most conflicts throughout history deal with this issue. Although we all of course argue our own positions there is no global consensus on the matter of who “real” owners are. . However we do have a common pragmatic solution to this issue to situations like yours… two-state solution. We have many examples of this around the world.

There is a saying… Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and thinking you will get a different result. If enough Palestinians keep taking a militaristic all-in approach to this conflict they will lose even more ground. Israel is not only far better militarily equipped but the gap has been widening. IMO Palestinians best shot is a pacifistic movement like Gandhi did. That would move the heart of Jews too. They have an element of fanatics too but they aren’t all the monsters you make them out to be.

They are just scared of being mass killed again as they have been in the past. it’s understandable they feel this way even if most of them erroneously attribute the reasons to antisemetism rather than global national tribalism. Anyone that has a strong sense of identity and feels their homeland is threatened by minorities will feel hostile to them. As Jews didn’t have a homeland of their own they were stuck being a perpetual targets as a minority. Now that they have their state some of them are starting to see it’s not so easy to maintain a homeland without showing preference to the main group or pressure to assimilate..

A trivia question… what is the longest lived empire in history?

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