The only thing I care about and what makes the difference is international law and the 50+ years illegal occupation.
Regardless of what's happening now, it's not limited to Gaza, it's the West Bank as well. None of this changes the fact that racial discrimination means people are having their homes bulldozed by court order and handed over to Israelis, people are being taken and imprisoned without charge (for years in many cases), children are being killed by soldiers on the streets of Nablus and Jenin, settlers are taking over people's land in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. There has in effect been systematic ethnic cleansing going on for decades.
Human rights has become a dirty phrase in recent years, but if ever there was a people in the modern world that have had their human rights, their dignity, and their right to self determination, taken away, the Palestinians are right up there. And if it was any other country in the world doing what Israel has been for the past 50+ yrs it would be considered a pariah state (as we're seeing now with Russia). In that sense I'll back the oppressed not the oppressor.
I also detest the double standards our leaders have over these things as well. It's pathetic the way they present faux righteousness in their defence for some when it suits them while ignoring other equally serious cases when it doesn't.
I sympathise with this point and have said many times that I don't see settlements or their expansion as conducive at all to bringing peace.
But every single point you or I raise will always be a chicken and egg question, as the 'other side' will always have a counter claim to make that hinges on exactly the same point.
International law should be applied equally. Therefore, Hamas should immediately and unconditionally recognise Israel's right to exist and remove the multiple clauses from its Charter that contradict this. It should also immediately release the hostages it holds in breach of international law.
The point I keep raising is that international law and its application in the real world of a democracy first and foremost requires the majority of that democracy's public to want the application of international law.
Speeches and drafts drawn up in New York, Geneva or the Hague count for **** if ultimately they make the Israeli public feel unsafe.
This is such basic political philosophy I'm genuinely staggered how few people seem to take it into account.
The equation in short:
The Israeli public won't want the application of international law if it makes them feel less safe.
This is so, so simple.
The trick is how to break the cycle of people like Netanyahu getting into office over and over again.
The key to that, in a democracy with one of the most open and fair voting systems in the world with very, very few 'wasted votes' (some might argue that this very openness is part of the problem), is the general public: How do we get them to believe in peace again?
Once the Israeli public believes in peace again, you'll see more Rabins and Peres, and fewer Netanyahus and Ben Gvirs.
And in this question, Israelis will only vote for the next Rabin or Peres if they feel safe in the knowledge that whatever concessions are made, they won't wake up one morning to news that their brother and his wife have been beheaded and their children abducted from their beds.
You are determined and fixated on Israel making the first move. But that isn't how a democracy works. A democracy is fundamentally selfish. People vote for what they think best serves their interests.
Perhaps Hamas needs to make the first move? Perhaps by releasing the 229 hostages unconditionally and immediately recognising Israel as a sovereign state along the 1967 borders, Hamas itself will go a long way to turning the opinion on the streets of Tel Aviv?
