I disagree with cherry-picking and highlighting this incident - wrong as it is to blame all Jews for Israel's atrocities - and using it to defend Israel's escalating genocide of the Palestinian people.
There are numerous examples* from the mainstream press of many countries, of Netanyahu's openly announced plans, well prior to October 7, to expand further and take over more Palestinian territories. It is very clear that October 7 was no beginning of war - Israel and its creators began that over 75 years ago, with their regularly-enacted massacres of Palestinians - but merely a pretext for taking over the Gaza territory Israel has long wanted.
And we know from Israel's warring on areas where its hostages are being held - and from its treatment of them once released - that it does not especially care about Israeli hostages.
We also know that October 7 was a mere response (and not by Hamas alone - by a range of Palestinian parties) to Israel's brutal treatment of Palestinians. We also know that Israel has stepped up its brutality, dispossession and murdering in the West Bank over the last 6 months - again, this is simply not about Hamas.
As for "A major obstacle is that Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organisation whose charter calls for the violent elimination of Israel and the Jews" - well Hamas is only - and very mendaciously - described as a terrorist organisation by its foul allies, like Australia. Other parts of the world recognise that it is ridiculous and meaningless to call a legitimate governing party 'terrorist'. In Gaza, Israel is the terrorist party. International law recognises the right of occupied people to resist (it does not recognise Israel as having rights to war on Gaza).
And we need to see through the twisted line that Israel firing on hospitals means Hamas are the terrorists, had been hiding in hospitals, etc. Israel has consistently failed to present proof of this, but the reality is that if a foreign country came to a hospital where I was a patient or working, I would have the right to fire back at them from within the hospital. You cannot spin this in order to make Israel the victim here.
Re 'There never was any country called “Palestine” and the Jews are not “European colonisers who stole their land”. '
- Honestly, this is picking and misrepresentation in order to distract from larger picture. There are clearly numerous historical and map-based references to a territory called Palestine, even if it has been part of broader empires. And while prior to Israel's establishment, there were Jews living peacefully in the region, very clearly this is not what this is about. We know that Palestinians were expelled en masse from their lands and houses (the first Nakba) - pray tell why, if we are just talking about local Jews, who had already lived there for generations and as such already had homes??? We all know it was the European Jews who were used as the foot-soldiers to establish a Western-friendly base in the region, and settled there via dispossessing Palestinians.
blaming the victim is a frequent tactic of rapists
You will notice that Hamas and their supporters in Australia were out in the streets celebrating, handing out sweets when Hamas attacked civilians in Israel on October 7 and went on the most extraordinarily sadistic rape, torture and murder orgy since Bataclan.
You will remember that Hamas supporters did donuts and let off fireworks in the streets of Sydney and swarmed the Opera House yelling "Gas the Jews" (Police later tried to downplay this as "Where's the Jews" as if that were any better)
Now, when the Israelis have struck back and are trying to remove Hamas, it's all "they did it to themselves"
"They did it on purpose to take our land"
It's just the same as saying "She had a short skirt on, she was asking for it".
Sorry, that just doesn't pass muster.
Hamas is a terrorist organisation because it uses the tactic of deliberately killing civilians in a public way in order to achieve a political goal.
That is the definition of terrorism. It's not mendacious. They are not freedom fighters attacking military targets. They are terrorists who have always attacked civilians deliberately for political ends. They use terrorist tactics as their principle strategy.
Hamas indeed did use al-Shifa hospital as a base. They used it shamelessly. It is entirely in keeping with their entire strategy. There is no point pretending they don't.
Guess what? The Arab Muslims of Gaza and the West Bank wouldn't even be there had the Arab Muslims not declared war on Israel the second it was created in 1948. They had no moral right to all that land. It was never only their land. They weren't the only people living there at all and they did not deserve to have all the land for themselves. That's what they wanted and they lost that war. The 700,000 Arab Muslims displaced by that war should have immediately been resettled in the belligerent Arab Muslim states with their brothers and sisters, and there would be no problem now. That is where they should all be resettled now.
The UN voted to create Israel for the very good reason that the Ottoman Empire had fallen about, was being carved up into new countries, and the Jews living all over the Ottoman lands needed protection including the 125,000 in neighbouring Iraq. About a million Jews subsequently were kicked out of Muslim countries that had been Ottoman Empire lands. They never got their land back either.
Also I will add: this is not "cherrypicking". This incident happened right in front of my face and I filmed it. It was in my face.
Cherrypicking is when there are 100 things in front of your face and you deliberately choose only the one that agrees with you, out of context, to give a false impression of objective reality.
There were not 100 other things - this happened right in front of my face.
Cherrypicking is the corporate media ignoring dissenting scientists and gene-vaccine injured people who try to tell their story and are censored.
Cherrypicking is corporate media ignoring dissenting scientists who say burning fossil fuels does not cause climate change and are censored and then persecuted.
This is not cherrypicking, it's straight reporting of what happened right in front of me. And as to the history, there is just so much ignorance it's like the madness of crowds. There is a physical record of the Arab invasion of Israel the second it was declared a state in 1948, down in the NSW State Library newspaper archives, anyone can go look to see exactly whose fault it is that there were 700,000 Arab Muslim refugees in the first place.
I don’t understand how you can see that the corporate media omit important parts of the story about vaccines and climate, but not about Israel. I think you don’t know just how badly they treat the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood. They are also democidal. They launched a deliberately sadistic rape and murder attack on civilians on October 7 in order to provoke a deadly response. By pushing their own civilian population into harms way, they can advance their political goal of destroying Israel (as they state in their Charter). They deliberately maximise civilian casualties in order to get money and support from the international community and it works. They do it because it works. Millions have rolled in via UNRWA and Islamic charities.
You see how effective their tactic is. It's terrorism not just against Israel but also against the interests of their own people.
A barely recognisable account of the Arab-Israeli conflict which did not commence on October 7. The “solutions” suggested are bordering on the ridiculous.
Yes, this flare up in the war did start on October 7.
I have posted my link to my earlier story on the origins of this conflict, which was again started by the Arab Muslims in 1948, and they lost.
This issue should have been settled then and there by forcing the belligerent Arab Muslim states that lost to take in the 700,000 Arab Muslims who fled that conflict. Their descendents would right now be getting on with their lives peacefully among their fellows.
The lady is out of order to lay her feelings on strangers just because of their appearance, and she clearly has issues with emotional control. However, the outpouring of anger is not surprising in the context of the pure brutal horror being inflicted on the Palestinians by Israelis that we are witnessing daily, and whose government use every ounce of propaganda effort to conflate judaism with zionism.
Your heinous justifications for this absolute massacre frankly put you in a camp with other genocidalists. There is NO justification on earth for this horrific mass murder of innocent people. And the only party who could end it today is the one with all the weaponry.
So you now see that the Hamas snuff propaganda has worked. This is why they do it. This is exactly why they deliberately started that war on October 7. This is why they push their own people into ruin and destruction.
What you reward, you encourage. Show me the incentive, I'll show you the outcome.
Israel has been killing, kidnapping, imprisoning and basically holding Palestinians under a brutal seige in Gaza for decades. Palestinians were not free, could not move, had everything entering the country controlled by ruthless Israeli military. You refuse to see this. Your obsession with 'Islam' as some sort of automatic enemy completely blinds you to seeing human beings. Your buying into never proven stories and almost certain propaganda of 'rape' alone shows your bias. You are unable to give any fair perspective on this situation and blinded by a zealous attempt to deserve the brutal Israeli regime that is committing unspeakable acts in Gaza and the West Bank. And all you can do is call it a 'Hamas snuff' action. There is zero looking into the side of the Palestinians. You are a pure Israeli apologist /propagandist. This is not the stuff of true journalism.
If you were gradually invaded and then imprisoned in horrid, cramped conditions by a race who thought themselves superior to you (nothing in or out without their say so, including to go to hospital), and someone managed to fight for your cause and gain leverage (hostages) and world attention, would you expel those people? I think you would probably champion them. Can you not put yourself in their shoes?
The Arab Muslims were never the only ones living in that region of the Ottoman Empire. It's a fabrication of history. They were the ones who declared war on Israel in 1948 the second it was established and they lost. The Ottoman Empire fell apart and was carved up into countries, with Muslims getting almost all the land but for a tiny sliver set aside to protect the Jews. But they wanted it all for themselves, because of the religious imperative that is written into the Hamas Charter.
Go read the Hamas Charter, because you have no idea of the people you are talking about. That is their founding document. Hamas are Muslim Brotherhood.
There is no such ethnicity as "Palestinian" it's a fabrication made up in the 1970s. They are Arab Muslims. That flag you see waved at the rallies is the flag of the Arab Revolt from when Britain stirred up the Arab Muslims against the Ottoman Muslims in WWI.
I’d like to make a correction to my own comment. When I said “by a race who thought themselves superior”, I meant that the people who participate in the imprisoning of the Gazans believe their own race to be superior (to all others). I didn’t mean ALL Jews believe themselves superior.
That was probably obvious to most, but just wanted to be clear.
I can understand this woman’s outrage at the atrocities happening in Gaza, and I’m not sure how you can defend them to be honest. But she shouldn’t be taking it out on Australian Jews, who have no control over what Netanyahu etc. do.
I do have suspicions that there is a bit of a plan to use the horror of what Israel is doing to do something big... my suspicions is that there will be a push to give the UN more teeth when it comes to its military might. I recall Kissinger saying that Israel won’t exist anymore in ten years, so this may be part of a plan. The globalists don’t like nationalists, after all, and the Israelis are certainly that.
That being said, I think the behaviour of the Israeli government is (and has been for most of its history) abhorrent. They imprison fellow humans in an awful concentration camp (despite what their own ancestors had to endure!), then cry victim when the slaves break free and rebel. They act superior and believe themselves so. They covertly influence almost everything in the United States.
The Israelis are too rooted there to be expected to leave now, but I think they need to let go of Israel and form a new single state, where no race is supreme or favoured. A secular, tolerant society like Australia. I don’t see how else this can end even remotely fairly. Seems to me Israel would prefer to just bomb them out of
Israel and have everyone else deal with the poor people. It’s disgusting.
Israel left Gaza voluntarily in 2005 hoping they would get peace. It wasn't an "open air concentration camp" unless Hamas made it one. It was a self-governing territory that freely elected Hamas in the only election they ever had. They had a stretch of prime Mediterranean coast and a border with Egypt.
Did they spend a good 15 years building a Singapore on the Mediterranean? No. They built tunnels and planned the October 7 attack. That's because they are only concerned with the destruction of Israel. That's their only mission. It's in their founding charter.
As I understand it, when I speak to my friends in Israel, they feel pretty helpless in the face of Netanyahu, too. My friends don't understand how he was elected, but my friends don't understand how Dan Andrews was re-elected, either.
Noticing her accent seems Eastern European, but with some strong Aussie vowels (so she's been here awhile)
Yes, I cannot understand how either of those disgusting men were elected, either. Though my father (he lives in Melbourne), still liked Dan Andrews after covid, so there are real humans that like these despicable creatures.
I do try to remind myself that I wouldn’t have wanted to be assumed to support Australia’s role in Afghanistan just because I’m Australian, so I don’t assume all Israelis are in favour of Netanyahu’s behaviour. Glad to hear your friends don’t like him all the same.
Dan Andrews should be in a prison right now. But that does not make Israel wrong in responding to October 7.
What would you have them do?
Self destruct as a nation? Then you really would see a genocide, a real one. One in which the entire population of Israel were subjected to what you saw on October 7.
Perhaps you are still under the delusion that they are usurpers and invaders, Israel a colonist country. This is a fabrication of history, I've been to the State Library NSW and looked it up as it happened. It's just lies. The Jews were always there all over the Ottoman lands, and they predated the Muslim invasions by thousands of years as did the Greeks and Armenians.
The killing of unarmed civilians is not called 'a war', it is rightly called genocide. By your logic, Australian's should still be slaughtering the Japanese because they bombed Darwin once. We are not, because that would be stupid and tyrannical. You are on the wrong side of history Ali.
2) Hamas could end this violence at any time by surrendering, which is what they should do to save the suffering of their own people. Are you calling for this? If not, please explain your reasoning.
3) Hamas started this war deliberately because they knew this would be the outcome. They crossed the border to kill unarmed civilians in an aggravated manner with rape and torture, in an attack they planned for 2 years. They filmed it gleefully. That sadistic orgy was then celebrated all over Gaza and the West Bank - and by the diaspora in Sydney's south-west.
4) Gazans themselves can end the war at any time by kicking out Hamas and handing them over to Israel. Are they doing this? No? Why not, since they are suffering?
The killing of unarmed civilians can be called many things depending on the circumstances eg: homicide, murder, manslaughter, accidental death. The Americans once called it "collateral damage" in a nasty euphemism after they killed Reuters journalists and tried to cover it up - but genocide has a specific definition. The International Court of Justice did not call it a genocide and nor should they as it is obviously not for the reasons previously stated.
Most good humans say it's genocide. Some fanatics are trying to justify it, and you've just listed all the MSM talking points, paid for by the people comitting the crime. Still say wrong side. But hey, happy to agree to disagree.
Well, I disagree. Most people are recoiling as they see Gazans as a suffering minority at the brutish hands of a larger power.
That's because they don't understand that they are being used as the lamp dangling from the mouth of a much larger angler fish called Islam. They are being used for precisely this response. That is why Yasser Arafat created the fake ethnicity "Palestinian" in the 1970s.
This woman probably thought she was doing a noble thing not understanding that she is literally playing to the hands of our common enemy. Divide and conquer.
yes, precisely. That is the saddest part. She can then be demonised as a vile racist, but in truth she's just a poor old lady trying her best to make the world a better place.
The worst part is that she is evidence of how effective the Hamas terrorism is. This is precisely why they deliberately started this war on October 7. And if things keep going this way, and countries like Australia keep sending our money to Hamas via UNRWA, then it may be that Israel, population 9 million, does indeed collapse. And can you imagine the bloodshed and refugees then. People think the suffering now is bad. Just imagine October 7 x nine million. That's what they want to do. They think that it is righteous to do so. It's in the Hamas Charter.
I don't see any end to this conflict other than resettling the Arab Muslims of Gaza and West Bank into Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, which are some of the original belligerent states who displaced their forebears.
Wow Alison, with the greatest respect, I think you are quite misinformed about the Hamas-Israel situation (and I am saying that as an Israeli Jew who spent half his life in Israel and served in the IDF).
Here's an 'index' of sorts to help you get up-to-speed:
"Why would they bother doing that? They left Gaza in 2005 voluntarily."
That's correct. They didn't have the excuse/trigger back then to do what they are doing now.
"Hamas are like the tide or the weather, something that just happens, without thought or agency."
That is absolutely NOT what I am saying!
What I am saying is that Israel knew well in advance that these attacks were going to take place and has ALLOWED them to happen because doing so served various long-term political and financial objectives.
"It's not Hamas's fault that they ran over the border and started raping, torturing and killing civilians, it's Israel's fault for not stopping them?"
Where did I ever say even anything remotely similar to this? It is absolutely their fault but Israel's political and military leadership has ALLOWED this to happen ON PURPOSE.
For the record: I NEVER said Hamas are the good guys in this story. I literally said there are NONE.
Alleging that Israel "allowed" the attacks to happen, and are therefore to blame, is indeed the exact same thing as saying Hamas are not at fault for running over the border themselves and deliberately raping and killing civilians.
Hamas planned this attack for 2 years and were quite proud of it, publicly.
If Israel failed with its intelligence or were asleep at the wheel, or weren't as competent as their PR alleges, or if as you allege they "deliberately allowed" the attack to happen is all irrelevant.
Because Hamas shouldn't be doing those things. Sometimes fault does actually matter. They cannot be left in place to do it again. This misery and suffering is entirely the fault of Hamas and they can end it tomorrow by surrendering.
And either way it's not our business in Australia, we should send zero aid and take zero refugees.
I’ll give you a reason why they might want to get rid of Hamas, in addition to removing the thorn in their side. The big load of oil that’s recently been discovered in Gaza?
Also, let me get this straight: you think that if someone you’ve never met from Europe just came in to your house, forced you into the laundry, locked you in, and then lived in your house (while occasionally giving you some mouldy bread and dirty water to live on), you would be OK with that? And that if you acted violently to retake your house (or at least get some attention for some better treatment), it would be only your fault, and no blame at all should be placed on the forced occupier?
"it's not our business in Australia, we should send zero aid and take zero refugees."
On that we are in agreement 100%!
If you are interested in learning more about what is actually going on, I highly recommend these videos (in addition to my four articles on the topic):
I agree with you that there are no good guys in history, especially a long-running messy conflict such as this.
I have no dog in this fight, being an atheist, distant descendent of english and greeks, living in australia thousands of miles away.
I did my best to ascertain what objective reality actually is, and I did look up and read about how the situation unfolded at the time, and I am satisfied the newspapers of the day were capable of reporting simple facts such as the UN Vote, the claims of the Arab leadership, the invasion beginning at midnight the day Israel was founded, the 125,000 Jews in need of protection in neighbouring Iraq (formerly ottoman lands), etc.
Just ending the violence is not going to be the best way forward. I wish it were - but can you read the Hamas Charter, knowing they planned for at least 2 years to attack on October 7 (they said it themselves publicly), and really tell me that if Israel just lets Hamas return to rule Gaza that is the best outcome?
What do you think will happen in future if Hamas is allowed to remain?
Why don't you ask for Hamas to surrender? Why isn't that the best way forward? They can end the violence tomorrow by surrendering.
"Just ending the violence is not going to be the best way forward. I wish it were - but can you read the Hamas Charter, knowing they planned for at least 2 years to attack on October 7 (they said it themselves publicly), and really tell me that if Israel just lets Hamas return to rule Gaza that is the best outcome?"
Hamas is a bunch of murderous psychopaths but the current strategy Israel employing has NOTHING to do with getting rid of Hamas.
Please don't buy into Israel's (or Hamas's for that matter) propaganda.
The Israeli leadership has allowed October 7 to happen in order to achieve its long term goal of clearing the Gaza strip of ALL of its Palestinian inhabitants (whether they are members of Hamas or not).
It is literally stated in a policy document issued by Israel's ministry of intelligence a week into the war.
I agree, no good guys, both the hard right groups in power in Israel and Hammas seem pretty damn similar to me. Both kill innocents, both think the other should be irradiated by any means necessary
Wait, who is our common enemy in this situation? Palestinians?! Or are we going bigger here...this can be interpreted in a number of ways, could you please be more specific?
I think that Yale is perfectly capable of transcribing the Hamas Charter accurately.
I think that Reuters is perfectly capable of reporting that Hamas say their death toll is 30,000, accurately.
I think that the US State Department is perfectly capable of reporting the population of Gaza and the West Bank accurately.
You will notice these outlets all refuse to report on the organising engine of Islam - because the US is dependent on the Saudi petro-dollar and other important business and lobby relationships, and corporate media does not upset the US foreign policy blob, ever, as Glenn Greenwald has accurately shown us. They are obsequious flatterers of power.
So as with all sources you have to read widely and think for yourself.
That does not prevent these outlets reporting simple facts accurately.
Well, they factually reported certain facts from covid too, and other situations. It’s usually what they omit that’s the issue, as you know full well!
What is the “organising engine of Islam”, then, in your mind? Because from what I’ve seen, a lot of it is actually fomented and funded by the CIA and Mossad, actually, though I would imagine MI6 shouldn’t be left out. I’m getting a sense you maybe don’t have as full a picture of the situation as you think you do. Which is understandable - we don’t know what we don’t know!
also, a note on the history. I spent quite some time in the NSW State Library looking up the event as it was reported at the time, before the distortions of later interpretations. It is 100% true to say that region was the Ottoman Sultanate (which we call Ottoman Empire). It is 100% true to say that Jews were living all over that region. When the Ottoman Empire fell apart, the Muslims turned on the Greek Orthodox and Armenian Christians and conducted two genocides. A million Greeks were displaced to Greece, despite living in the region for more than 1000 years before Islam was even invented, and before the Turks invaded from Central Asia.
So that had happened in the immediately preceding decades. That is one more reason why the UN voted to create Israel in 1947.
They could all see that there would just be another genocide. There was already violence between the Jews and Arab Muslims living in the land that is now Israel. When Israel was declared a nation all the surrounding Arab Muslim nations attacked, as they said they would, and created about 700,000 Arab Muslim refugees whose descendants (plus others) now make up the 2 million in Gaza and 3 million in the West Bank.
If they had not attacked, those people would still be living there, in peace.
The Muslim Arabs rejected any two-state solution from the start because of the Islamic imperative never to cede land once ruled by Muslims to non-Muslims (doesn't matter that the Muslims themselves were invaders who stole the land from the Roman Greeks, Armenians, Jews and others). There is no escaping this. It is at Article 15 of the Hamas charter. This is the same imperative that caused al Qaeda to murder UN Special Envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello by blowing up UN headquarters in Iraq, 2003. It was because he presided over the liberation of East Timor (Catholic) from Muslim-majority Indonesia.
In addition to that religious imperative is the teaching in the Koran that the Jews are "the worst of people" and the Day of Judgement will not come until the Muslims kill all the Jews . There's no escaping this either. It says it right there in the Hamas charter. It is a religious imperative for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood to wipe out Israel and kill all the Jews. It's got nothing to do with land or dispossession or justice. This is their founding charter, their mission statement.
"Hamas Covenant 1988 The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement
...
Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).
... (Article 7)
"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem)."
Note: Hassan al-Banna was founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Qatar are the main sponsors of the Muslim Brotherhood. Qatar is an energy-rich emirate that owns and runs al-Jazeera. Qatar hosts and shelters the Hamas leadership in 5-star hotels while the Gazans suffer on camera so that you and all Western nations will turn against Israel and let it be destroyed.
Sorry Peter, disproportionality is not what determines a just outcome. Just because one side appears relatively weak, does not automatically make them the "right" side or that giving in to them is the "just" thing to do.
The truth is that the "Palestinians" are the light hanging off the huge sharp-toothed Angler Fish of Islam. They are the lure, and you are the prey. Islam is way bigger and more powerful than you.
That is why the neighbouring Arab Muslim countries who started that original war and created those displaced people refuse to take the Arab Muslims of Gaza and West Bank in, even through they are their brothers and sisters sharing one religion, language, culture, customs.
It's not because "Palestinians are trouble so the neighbours don't want them".
It's because their suffering is useful to the cause of wiping out Israel. They are being used as props in a propaganda snuff film by Islamists who don't care about their welfare. They believe they are martyrs and will go straight to Janaa when they die. Only the afterlife matters, only taking land for Islam matters. Their lives don't matter to Hamas or the surrounding Arab Muslim nations.
They know that you care about civilian casualties though, because Western countries care about suffering in this life. So that makes them useful.
If you want the suffering to stop then the only outcome that could ever ensure peace and prosperity would be to resettle all the Arab Muslims of Gaza and the West Bank into those Arab Muslim nations that displaced them in the first place by declaring war on Israel in 1948. They would then be living with people just like them, able to get on with life. And Israel would have clear, defensible borders, and could just be left alone.
I disagree with cherry-picking and highlighting this incident - wrong as it is to blame all Jews for Israel's atrocities - and using it to defend Israel's escalating genocide of the Palestinian people.
There are numerous examples* from the mainstream press of many countries, of Netanyahu's openly announced plans, well prior to October 7, to expand further and take over more Palestinian territories. It is very clear that October 7 was no beginning of war - Israel and its creators began that over 75 years ago, with their regularly-enacted massacres of Palestinians - but merely a pretext for taking over the Gaza territory Israel has long wanted.
And we know from Israel's warring on areas where its hostages are being held - and from its treatment of them once released - that it does not especially care about Israeli hostages.
We also know that October 7 was a mere response (and not by Hamas alone - by a range of Palestinian parties) to Israel's brutal treatment of Palestinians. We also know that Israel has stepped up its brutality, dispossession and murdering in the West Bank over the last 6 months - again, this is simply not about Hamas.
As for "A major obstacle is that Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organisation whose charter calls for the violent elimination of Israel and the Jews" - well Hamas is only - and very mendaciously - described as a terrorist organisation by its foul allies, like Australia. Other parts of the world recognise that it is ridiculous and meaningless to call a legitimate governing party 'terrorist'. In Gaza, Israel is the terrorist party. International law recognises the right of occupied people to resist (it does not recognise Israel as having rights to war on Gaza).
And we need to see through the twisted line that Israel firing on hospitals means Hamas are the terrorists, had been hiding in hospitals, etc. Israel has consistently failed to present proof of this, but the reality is that if a foreign country came to a hospital where I was a patient or working, I would have the right to fire back at them from within the hospital. You cannot spin this in order to make Israel the victim here.
Re 'There never was any country called “Palestine” and the Jews are not “European colonisers who stole their land”. '
- Honestly, this is picking and misrepresentation in order to distract from larger picture. There are clearly numerous historical and map-based references to a territory called Palestine, even if it has been part of broader empires. And while prior to Israel's establishment, there were Jews living peacefully in the region, very clearly this is not what this is about. We know that Palestinians were expelled en masse from their lands and houses (the first Nakba) - pray tell why, if we are just talking about local Jews, who had already lived there for generations and as such already had homes??? We all know it was the European Jews who were used as the foot-soldiers to establish a Western-friendly base in the region, and settled there via dispossessing Palestinians.
* https://www.dw.com/en/israel-new-netanyahu-government-vows-to-expand-settlements/a-64228466
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/26/israel-approves-plans-for-thousands-of-illegal-settlement-homes
https://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-predicts-an-israel-transformed-in-mideast-has-no-words-for-internal-israeli-peace/ [Several weeks before Oct 7, Netanyahu publicly holds up a map without remaining Palestinian territories, advising Palestinians to just accept Israeli occupation of their lands.]
blaming the victim is a frequent tactic of rapists
You will notice that Hamas and their supporters in Australia were out in the streets celebrating, handing out sweets when Hamas attacked civilians in Israel on October 7 and went on the most extraordinarily sadistic rape, torture and murder orgy since Bataclan.
You will remember that Hamas supporters did donuts and let off fireworks in the streets of Sydney and swarmed the Opera House yelling "Gas the Jews" (Police later tried to downplay this as "Where's the Jews" as if that were any better)
Now, when the Israelis have struck back and are trying to remove Hamas, it's all "they did it to themselves"
"They did it on purpose to take our land"
It's just the same as saying "She had a short skirt on, she was asking for it".
Sorry, that just doesn't pass muster.
Hamas is a terrorist organisation because it uses the tactic of deliberately killing civilians in a public way in order to achieve a political goal.
That is the definition of terrorism. It's not mendacious. They are not freedom fighters attacking military targets. They are terrorists who have always attacked civilians deliberately for political ends. They use terrorist tactics as their principle strategy.
Hamas indeed did use al-Shifa hospital as a base. They used it shamelessly. It is entirely in keeping with their entire strategy. There is no point pretending they don't.
Guess what? The Arab Muslims of Gaza and the West Bank wouldn't even be there had the Arab Muslims not declared war on Israel the second it was created in 1948. They had no moral right to all that land. It was never only their land. They weren't the only people living there at all and they did not deserve to have all the land for themselves. That's what they wanted and they lost that war. The 700,000 Arab Muslims displaced by that war should have immediately been resettled in the belligerent Arab Muslim states with their brothers and sisters, and there would be no problem now. That is where they should all be resettled now.
The UN voted to create Israel for the very good reason that the Ottoman Empire had fallen about, was being carved up into new countries, and the Jews living all over the Ottoman lands needed protection including the 125,000 in neighbouring Iraq. About a million Jews subsequently were kicked out of Muslim countries that had been Ottoman Empire lands. They never got their land back either.
I don’t see why you think the arabs who were already there have no claim to the land, but Jews from Europe did?
Also I will add: this is not "cherrypicking". This incident happened right in front of my face and I filmed it. It was in my face.
Cherrypicking is when there are 100 things in front of your face and you deliberately choose only the one that agrees with you, out of context, to give a false impression of objective reality.
There were not 100 other things - this happened right in front of my face.
Cherrypicking is the corporate media ignoring dissenting scientists and gene-vaccine injured people who try to tell their story and are censored.
Cherrypicking is corporate media ignoring dissenting scientists who say burning fossil fuels does not cause climate change and are censored and then persecuted.
This is not cherrypicking, it's straight reporting of what happened right in front of me. And as to the history, there is just so much ignorance it's like the madness of crowds. There is a physical record of the Arab invasion of Israel the second it was declared a state in 1948, down in the NSW State Library newspaper archives, anyone can go look to see exactly whose fault it is that there were 700,000 Arab Muslim refugees in the first place.
I don’t understand how you can see that the corporate media omit important parts of the story about vaccines and climate, but not about Israel. I think you don’t know just how badly they treat the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Agree entirely, you said everything I intended to come back to say
Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood. They are also democidal. They launched a deliberately sadistic rape and murder attack on civilians on October 7 in order to provoke a deadly response. By pushing their own civilian population into harms way, they can advance their political goal of destroying Israel (as they state in their Charter). They deliberately maximise civilian casualties in order to get money and support from the international community and it works. They do it because it works. Millions have rolled in via UNRWA and Islamic charities.
You see how effective their tactic is. It's terrorism not just against Israel but also against the interests of their own people.
A barely recognisable account of the Arab-Israeli conflict which did not commence on October 7. The “solutions” suggested are bordering on the ridiculous.
Yes, this flare up in the war did start on October 7.
I have posted my link to my earlier story on the origins of this conflict, which was again started by the Arab Muslims in 1948, and they lost.
This issue should have been settled then and there by forcing the belligerent Arab Muslim states that lost to take in the 700,000 Arab Muslims who fled that conflict. Their descendents would right now be getting on with their lives peacefully among their fellows.
The lady is out of order to lay her feelings on strangers just because of their appearance, and she clearly has issues with emotional control. However, the outpouring of anger is not surprising in the context of the pure brutal horror being inflicted on the Palestinians by Israelis that we are witnessing daily, and whose government use every ounce of propaganda effort to conflate judaism with zionism.
Your heinous justifications for this absolute massacre frankly put you in a camp with other genocidalists. There is NO justification on earth for this horrific mass murder of innocent people. And the only party who could end it today is the one with all the weaponry.
So you now see that the Hamas snuff propaganda has worked. This is why they do it. This is exactly why they deliberately started that war on October 7. This is why they push their own people into ruin and destruction.
What you reward, you encourage. Show me the incentive, I'll show you the outcome.
Israel has been killing, kidnapping, imprisoning and basically holding Palestinians under a brutal seige in Gaza for decades. Palestinians were not free, could not move, had everything entering the country controlled by ruthless Israeli military. You refuse to see this. Your obsession with 'Islam' as some sort of automatic enemy completely blinds you to seeing human beings. Your buying into never proven stories and almost certain propaganda of 'rape' alone shows your bias. You are unable to give any fair perspective on this situation and blinded by a zealous attempt to deserve the brutal Israeli regime that is committing unspeakable acts in Gaza and the West Bank. And all you can do is call it a 'Hamas snuff' action. There is zero looking into the side of the Palestinians. You are a pure Israeli apologist /propagandist. This is not the stuff of true journalism.
If you were gradually invaded and then imprisoned in horrid, cramped conditions by a race who thought themselves superior to you (nothing in or out without their say so, including to go to hospital), and someone managed to fight for your cause and gain leverage (hostages) and world attention, would you expel those people? I think you would probably champion them. Can you not put yourself in their shoes?
The Arab Muslims were never the only ones living in that region of the Ottoman Empire. It's a fabrication of history. They were the ones who declared war on Israel in 1948 the second it was established and they lost. The Ottoman Empire fell apart and was carved up into countries, with Muslims getting almost all the land but for a tiny sliver set aside to protect the Jews. But they wanted it all for themselves, because of the religious imperative that is written into the Hamas Charter.
Go read the Hamas Charter, because you have no idea of the people you are talking about. That is their founding document. Hamas are Muslim Brotherhood.
it's here in full
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp
There is no such ethnicity as "Palestinian" it's a fabrication made up in the 1970s. They are Arab Muslims. That flag you see waved at the rallies is the flag of the Arab Revolt from when Britain stirred up the Arab Muslims against the Ottoman Muslims in WWI.
I’d like to make a correction to my own comment. When I said “by a race who thought themselves superior”, I meant that the people who participate in the imprisoning of the Gazans believe their own race to be superior (to all others). I didn’t mean ALL Jews believe themselves superior.
That was probably obvious to most, but just wanted to be clear.
I can understand this woman’s outrage at the atrocities happening in Gaza, and I’m not sure how you can defend them to be honest. But she shouldn’t be taking it out on Australian Jews, who have no control over what Netanyahu etc. do.
I do have suspicions that there is a bit of a plan to use the horror of what Israel is doing to do something big... my suspicions is that there will be a push to give the UN more teeth when it comes to its military might. I recall Kissinger saying that Israel won’t exist anymore in ten years, so this may be part of a plan. The globalists don’t like nationalists, after all, and the Israelis are certainly that.
That being said, I think the behaviour of the Israeli government is (and has been for most of its history) abhorrent. They imprison fellow humans in an awful concentration camp (despite what their own ancestors had to endure!), then cry victim when the slaves break free and rebel. They act superior and believe themselves so. They covertly influence almost everything in the United States.
The Israelis are too rooted there to be expected to leave now, but I think they need to let go of Israel and form a new single state, where no race is supreme or favoured. A secular, tolerant society like Australia. I don’t see how else this can end even remotely fairly. Seems to me Israel would prefer to just bomb them out of
Israel and have everyone else deal with the poor people. It’s disgusting.
Israel left Gaza voluntarily in 2005 hoping they would get peace. It wasn't an "open air concentration camp" unless Hamas made it one. It was a self-governing territory that freely elected Hamas in the only election they ever had. They had a stretch of prime Mediterranean coast and a border with Egypt.
Did they spend a good 15 years building a Singapore on the Mediterranean? No. They built tunnels and planned the October 7 attack. That's because they are only concerned with the destruction of Israel. That's their only mission. It's in their founding charter.
Read it here: Hamas Charter https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp
As I understand it, when I speak to my friends in Israel, they feel pretty helpless in the face of Netanyahu, too. My friends don't understand how he was elected, but my friends don't understand how Dan Andrews was re-elected, either.
Noticing her accent seems Eastern European, but with some strong Aussie vowels (so she's been here awhile)
Yes, I cannot understand how either of those disgusting men were elected, either. Though my father (he lives in Melbourne), still liked Dan Andrews after covid, so there are real humans that like these despicable creatures.
I do try to remind myself that I wouldn’t have wanted to be assumed to support Australia’s role in Afghanistan just because I’m Australian, so I don’t assume all Israelis are in favour of Netanyahu’s behaviour. Glad to hear your friends don’t like him all the same.
Dan Andrews should be in a prison right now. But that does not make Israel wrong in responding to October 7.
What would you have them do?
Self destruct as a nation? Then you really would see a genocide, a real one. One in which the entire population of Israel were subjected to what you saw on October 7.
Perhaps you are still under the delusion that they are usurpers and invaders, Israel a colonist country. This is a fabrication of history, I've been to the State Library NSW and looked it up as it happened. It's just lies. The Jews were always there all over the Ottoman lands, and they predated the Muslim invasions by thousands of years as did the Greeks and Armenians.
The killing of unarmed civilians is not called 'a war', it is rightly called genocide. By your logic, Australian's should still be slaughtering the Japanese because they bombed Darwin once. We are not, because that would be stupid and tyrannical. You are on the wrong side of history Ali.
1) The International Court of Justice doesn't say it's genocide. So you are wrong. It is not "rightly called genocide". Their 26 January ruling is here https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20240126-sum-01-00-en.pdf
2) Hamas could end this violence at any time by surrendering, which is what they should do to save the suffering of their own people. Are you calling for this? If not, please explain your reasoning.
3) Hamas started this war deliberately because they knew this would be the outcome. They crossed the border to kill unarmed civilians in an aggravated manner with rape and torture, in an attack they planned for 2 years. They filmed it gleefully. That sadistic orgy was then celebrated all over Gaza and the West Bank - and by the diaspora in Sydney's south-west.
4) Gazans themselves can end the war at any time by kicking out Hamas and handing them over to Israel. Are they doing this? No? Why not, since they are suffering?
The killing of unarmed civilians can be called many things depending on the circumstances eg: homicide, murder, manslaughter, accidental death. The Americans once called it "collateral damage" in a nasty euphemism after they killed Reuters journalists and tried to cover it up - but genocide has a specific definition. The International Court of Justice did not call it a genocide and nor should they as it is obviously not for the reasons previously stated.
Most good humans say it's genocide. Some fanatics are trying to justify it, and you've just listed all the MSM talking points, paid for by the people comitting the crime. Still say wrong side. But hey, happy to agree to disagree.
Wow you're on the wrong side of right and wrong here, Alison.
Well, I disagree. Most people are recoiling as they see Gazans as a suffering minority at the brutish hands of a larger power.
That's because they don't understand that they are being used as the lamp dangling from the mouth of a much larger angler fish called Islam. They are being used for precisely this response. That is why Yasser Arafat created the fake ethnicity "Palestinian" in the 1970s.
This woman probably thought she was doing a noble thing not understanding that she is literally playing to the hands of our common enemy. Divide and conquer.
yes, precisely. That is the saddest part. She can then be demonised as a vile racist, but in truth she's just a poor old lady trying her best to make the world a better place.
The worst part is that she is evidence of how effective the Hamas terrorism is. This is precisely why they deliberately started this war on October 7. And if things keep going this way, and countries like Australia keep sending our money to Hamas via UNRWA, then it may be that Israel, population 9 million, does indeed collapse. And can you imagine the bloodshed and refugees then. People think the suffering now is bad. Just imagine October 7 x nine million. That's what they want to do. They think that it is righteous to do so. It's in the Hamas Charter.
I don't see any end to this conflict other than resettling the Arab Muslims of Gaza and West Bank into Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, which are some of the original belligerent states who displaced their forebears.
Wow Alison, with the greatest respect, I think you are quite misinformed about the Hamas-Israel situation (and I am saying that as an Israeli Jew who spent half his life in Israel and served in the IDF).
Here's an 'index' of sorts to help you get up-to-speed:
https://actionabletruth.substack.com/p/oct-7-conspiracy/
Ultimately, there are NO good guys in this story and the best way forward is just to end the violence.
I also totally reject the idea that "Israel knew in advance and let it happen on purpose so they could take Gaza".
Think about it, Michael.
Why would they bother doing that? They left Gaza in 2005 voluntarily.
And think about what you are actually saying - that Hamas are like the tide or the weather, something that just happens, without thought or agency.
It's not Hamas's fault that they ran over the border and started raping, torturing and killing civilians, it's Israel's fault for not stopping them?
Is that really what you are trying to tell me?
Have a think about that.
"Why would they bother doing that? They left Gaza in 2005 voluntarily."
That's correct. They didn't have the excuse/trigger back then to do what they are doing now.
"Hamas are like the tide or the weather, something that just happens, without thought or agency."
That is absolutely NOT what I am saying!
What I am saying is that Israel knew well in advance that these attacks were going to take place and has ALLOWED them to happen because doing so served various long-term political and financial objectives.
"It's not Hamas's fault that they ran over the border and started raping, torturing and killing civilians, it's Israel's fault for not stopping them?"
Where did I ever say even anything remotely similar to this? It is absolutely their fault but Israel's political and military leadership has ALLOWED this to happen ON PURPOSE.
For the record: I NEVER said Hamas are the good guys in this story. I literally said there are NONE.
Alleging that Israel "allowed" the attacks to happen, and are therefore to blame, is indeed the exact same thing as saying Hamas are not at fault for running over the border themselves and deliberately raping and killing civilians.
Hamas planned this attack for 2 years and were quite proud of it, publicly.
If Israel failed with its intelligence or were asleep at the wheel, or weren't as competent as their PR alleges, or if as you allege they "deliberately allowed" the attack to happen is all irrelevant.
Because Hamas shouldn't be doing those things. Sometimes fault does actually matter. They cannot be left in place to do it again. This misery and suffering is entirely the fault of Hamas and they can end it tomorrow by surrendering.
And either way it's not our business in Australia, we should send zero aid and take zero refugees.
I’ll give you a reason why they might want to get rid of Hamas, in addition to removing the thorn in their side. The big load of oil that’s recently been discovered in Gaza?
Also, let me get this straight: you think that if someone you’ve never met from Europe just came in to your house, forced you into the laundry, locked you in, and then lived in your house (while occasionally giving you some mouldy bread and dirty water to live on), you would be OK with that? And that if you acted violently to retake your house (or at least get some attention for some better treatment), it would be only your fault, and no blame at all should be placed on the forced occupier?
"it's not our business in Australia, we should send zero aid and take zero refugees."
On that we are in agreement 100%!
If you are interested in learning more about what is actually going on, I highly recommend these videos (in addition to my four articles on the topic):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj5eXrjBY_8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te1y7ahp2LQ
https://rumble.com/v40upax-michal-rotenbergs-testimony-about-the-massacre-in-kfar-aza-on-october-7th-2.html
I agree with you that there are no good guys in history, especially a long-running messy conflict such as this.
I have no dog in this fight, being an atheist, distant descendent of english and greeks, living in australia thousands of miles away.
I did my best to ascertain what objective reality actually is, and I did look up and read about how the situation unfolded at the time, and I am satisfied the newspapers of the day were capable of reporting simple facts such as the UN Vote, the claims of the Arab leadership, the invasion beginning at midnight the day Israel was founded, the 125,000 Jews in need of protection in neighbouring Iraq (formerly ottoman lands), etc.
Just ending the violence is not going to be the best way forward. I wish it were - but can you read the Hamas Charter, knowing they planned for at least 2 years to attack on October 7 (they said it themselves publicly), and really tell me that if Israel just lets Hamas return to rule Gaza that is the best outcome?
What do you think will happen in future if Hamas is allowed to remain?
Why don't you ask for Hamas to surrender? Why isn't that the best way forward? They can end the violence tomorrow by surrendering.
"Just ending the violence is not going to be the best way forward. I wish it were - but can you read the Hamas Charter, knowing they planned for at least 2 years to attack on October 7 (they said it themselves publicly), and really tell me that if Israel just lets Hamas return to rule Gaza that is the best outcome?"
Hamas is a bunch of murderous psychopaths but the current strategy Israel employing has NOTHING to do with getting rid of Hamas.
Please don't buy into Israel's (or Hamas's for that matter) propaganda.
The Israeli leadership has allowed October 7 to happen in order to achieve its long term goal of clearing the Gaza strip of ALL of its Palestinian inhabitants (whether they are members of Hamas or not).
It is literally stated in a policy document issued by Israel's ministry of intelligence a week into the war.
https://actionabletruth.substack.com/i/138624476/the-plan-to-clear-the-gaza-strip-from-its-inhabitants
I agree, no good guys, both the hard right groups in power in Israel and Hammas seem pretty damn similar to me. Both kill innocents, both think the other should be irradiated by any means necessary
Wait, who is our common enemy in this situation? Palestinians?! Or are we going bigger here...this can be interpreted in a number of ways, could you please be more specific?
I find it odd that you appeal to mainstream media authority on this particular issue (only?).
I think that Yale is perfectly capable of transcribing the Hamas Charter accurately.
I think that Reuters is perfectly capable of reporting that Hamas say their death toll is 30,000, accurately.
I think that the US State Department is perfectly capable of reporting the population of Gaza and the West Bank accurately.
You will notice these outlets all refuse to report on the organising engine of Islam - because the US is dependent on the Saudi petro-dollar and other important business and lobby relationships, and corporate media does not upset the US foreign policy blob, ever, as Glenn Greenwald has accurately shown us. They are obsequious flatterers of power.
So as with all sources you have to read widely and think for yourself.
That does not prevent these outlets reporting simple facts accurately.
Well, they factually reported certain facts from covid too, and other situations. It’s usually what they omit that’s the issue, as you know full well!
What is the “organising engine of Islam”, then, in your mind? Because from what I’ve seen, a lot of it is actually fomented and funded by the CIA and Mossad, actually, though I would imagine MI6 shouldn’t be left out. I’m getting a sense you maybe don’t have as full a picture of the situation as you think you do. Which is understandable - we don’t know what we don’t know!
Nor am I suggesting that I have a full picture, mind you. Perhaps just diff parts to you
also, a note on the history. I spent quite some time in the NSW State Library looking up the event as it was reported at the time, before the distortions of later interpretations. It is 100% true to say that region was the Ottoman Sultanate (which we call Ottoman Empire). It is 100% true to say that Jews were living all over that region. When the Ottoman Empire fell apart, the Muslims turned on the Greek Orthodox and Armenian Christians and conducted two genocides. A million Greeks were displaced to Greece, despite living in the region for more than 1000 years before Islam was even invented, and before the Turks invaded from Central Asia.
So that had happened in the immediately preceding decades. That is one more reason why the UN voted to create Israel in 1947.
They could all see that there would just be another genocide. There was already violence between the Jews and Arab Muslims living in the land that is now Israel. When Israel was declared a nation all the surrounding Arab Muslim nations attacked, as they said they would, and created about 700,000 Arab Muslim refugees whose descendants (plus others) now make up the 2 million in Gaza and 3 million in the West Bank.
If they had not attacked, those people would still be living there, in peace.
The Muslim Arabs rejected any two-state solution from the start because of the Islamic imperative never to cede land once ruled by Muslims to non-Muslims (doesn't matter that the Muslims themselves were invaders who stole the land from the Roman Greeks, Armenians, Jews and others). There is no escaping this. It is at Article 15 of the Hamas charter. This is the same imperative that caused al Qaeda to murder UN Special Envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello by blowing up UN headquarters in Iraq, 2003. It was because he presided over the liberation of East Timor (Catholic) from Muslim-majority Indonesia.
In addition to that religious imperative is the teaching in the Koran that the Jews are "the worst of people" and the Day of Judgement will not come until the Muslims kill all the Jews . There's no escaping this either. It says it right there in the Hamas charter. It is a religious imperative for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood to wipe out Israel and kill all the Jews. It's got nothing to do with land or dispossession or justice. This is their founding charter, their mission statement.
Yale has it here in full: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp
"Hamas Covenant 1988 The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement
...
Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).
... (Article 7)
"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem)."
Note: Hassan al-Banna was founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Qatar are the main sponsors of the Muslim Brotherhood. Qatar is an energy-rich emirate that owns and runs al-Jazeera. Qatar hosts and shelters the Hamas leadership in 5-star hotels while the Gazans suffer on camera so that you and all Western nations will turn against Israel and let it be destroyed.
Sorry Peter, disproportionality is not what determines a just outcome. Just because one side appears relatively weak, does not automatically make them the "right" side or that giving in to them is the "just" thing to do.
The truth is that the "Palestinians" are the light hanging off the huge sharp-toothed Angler Fish of Islam. They are the lure, and you are the prey. Islam is way bigger and more powerful than you.
That is why the neighbouring Arab Muslim countries who started that original war and created those displaced people refuse to take the Arab Muslims of Gaza and West Bank in, even through they are their brothers and sisters sharing one religion, language, culture, customs.
It's not because "Palestinians are trouble so the neighbours don't want them".
It's because their suffering is useful to the cause of wiping out Israel. They are being used as props in a propaganda snuff film by Islamists who don't care about their welfare. They believe they are martyrs and will go straight to Janaa when they die. Only the afterlife matters, only taking land for Islam matters. Their lives don't matter to Hamas or the surrounding Arab Muslim nations.
They know that you care about civilian casualties though, because Western countries care about suffering in this life. So that makes them useful.
If you want the suffering to stop then the only outcome that could ever ensure peace and prosperity would be to resettle all the Arab Muslims of Gaza and the West Bank into those Arab Muslim nations that displaced them in the first place by declaring war on Israel in 1948. They would then be living with people just like them, able to get on with life. And Israel would have clear, defensible borders, and could just be left alone.