Former President Barack Obama said a way forward for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is only possible if people acknowledge the “complexity” of the situation.
“If there’s any chance of us being able to act constructively to do something, it will require an admission of complexity and maintaining what on the surface may seem contradictory ideas that what Hamas did was horrific, and there’s no justification for it. And … that the occupation and what’s happening to Palestinians is unbearable,” Obama said in an interview on the podcast “Pod Save America.”
The former president’s comments come as the Israeli military focuses its offensive against Hamas in Gaza City and northern parts of the enclave.
He also said:
If you want to solve the problem, then you have to take in the whole truth. And you then have to admit nobody’s hands are clean
which is something I totally agree on. There is no “good or bad” team in the Middle East…all parties are involved in this conflict and it’s cause!
Hey, don’t forget those of us who made this mess and walked away, and every country on Earth that continues to keep the whole Middle East area relevant through our continued oil addiction.
Hey, don’t forget those of us who made this mess and walked away,
The early 20th century British Empire?
through our continued oil addiction.
Israel, let alone Gaza, don’t exactly produce a lot of oil, and I certainly don’t know that they sell it.
This whole conflict in Israel is more about land, and the West supports Israel bEcAuSe DeMoCrAcY in an otherwise unfriendly region. The region as a whole might be messy “because oil,” but that’s rather tangential to this conflict.
Israel is adjacent to an incredibly strategic shipping location - the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal links the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean without having to go around Africa or around Siberia.
Israel isn’t strategically important because it has big oil reserves. It’s strategically important because it’s near a lot of important things. Oil and shipping play a bigger role than you’d think.
You mean the canal that is entirely within Egypt? That argument seems like a stretch to me, and clearly wasn’t the argument the above was trying to make either.
They’re a democracy and have historically been opposed to many counties the West was already opposed to. Their strategic importance is military, not oil.
Israel, the UK and France invaded Egypt in 1956 after Egypt expropriated the Suez Canal from its French & British owners. Then they fought a war in 1967 to keep it open. The conveyance of European trade through the Suez Canal is a major part of Israel’s geopolitical importance.
Great point.
“You take my water, burn my olive trees, destroy my house, take my job, steal my land, imprison my father, kill my mother, bombard my country, starve us all, humiliate us all, but I am to blame: I shot a rocket back.”
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look around
Of course. Those kids in refugee camps, hospitals and ambulances have their hands soaked in blood.
The ones after the 7th of October, they did for sure. Palestinians right now, yes they too. Like Obama said NOBODY has clean hands here, but you don’t like that opinion here, do you?
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she does not. and your mommy loves me too 😘
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Sadly, there is no way forward. The leaders of both sides want the complete elimination of the other.
So remove the leaders of both sides.
Unfortunately Hamas hasn’t held a single election since they were elected in 2006, and Netanyahu is looking similarly autocratic. The recent escalation is only going to make both sides more antagonistic.
In other words, this shit ain’t going away any time soon.
Why should hamas keep down their arms when they see what is happening in disarmed Westbank?
Do you think an armed Westbank would fair any better?
Yes. If Arabs had helped they’d have their own state by now. But the monarchies helped suppress and kill Palestinian state hood because they are afraid of what the Levant Arab mindset represents. They are afraid of both islamist and secular Levant arab politics because they represent unity beyond borders.
Take away their toys and put them in time oot.
Exactly. I’ve been recently thinking that maybe Israel and Palestine become a new country run by the world. It becomes a neutral globally enforced and patrolled market or exchange. Almost like a U.N. country, but somehow better because the U.N seems like a fucking joke. I’m not sure exactly what I mean here, but essentially, the world removes the two and force them to be one.
Even though it is complex, there are obvious crimes, let alone war crimes happening there. Looking at you IDF with your repeated bombing of civilians and the wounded.
I think you’ve just created a tinderbox of like…well…biblical proportions.
Umm… it’s already burning.
Just saying.
The UN is a pull organization. It has to request forces & money for operations. No nation or nation collective in their right mind would want to shell out the billions required to basically occupy the region, even with Jerusalem.
Make it a global trade hub. All nations will have an interest. With global trade comes investment, and the next thing you know, this small patch of the earth is the most valuable piece on it.
So make a place a global trade hub in theory can be as simple as saying it is so and watching every country trade there, only in one’s imagination.
So now the region is going to be made into a great Singapore for the Mediterranean using billions of dollars of tax money from nations including Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, etc?
That’s not a global trade hub. That’s a globally subsidized tax haven. Whose long-term stability Congress from the whim of nations like the USA, China, Russia, the EU, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc…
With that, it would be infinitely easier and more attractive for any nearby nation to create a special economic area to handle regional trade & take the jobs, and the best part? This would be funded by the respective nation itself.
The way you describe it is a tax haven. Make it not so.
Literally the only way that would not be the case is if the area was self-governing (maybe with UN headquarters there, but still self-governing) with a heavy business focus, very secure and fair (to both sides) business legislation, relatively lax currency controls and a long-held track record of stability and property rights. And of course extensive networks to move goods and services for some.
Like, Tel Aviv with a fuck ton of effort may be able to do this.
Not whatever UN controlled oppresive hellscape you’re trying to create. To do that, you’d have to sink billions of dollars to first occupy the area then stabilize it enough that businesses even look then give incentives for them to settle there.
This is almost an appealing idea in a parallel universe where religion doesn’t exist, but unfortunately that’s not the one we live in. This conflict is one that extends to nearly every avenue, but at it’s core, it’s a religious one. Unless we’re ready as a global community to finally denounce religion and call the practice of it a silly and fruitless endeavor, which to be clear, we aren’t, then we’re never going to get anywhere pretending we can ignore the religious aspect of it. And that includes your utopian suggestion, which aside from all of its other very real problems would also likely enrage an enormous religious segment of the world who would see some of their holiest lands reduced to mere merchants dens. Even if you perhaps try to protect the religious sites, now you’re effectively enforcing a concept of religious sanctity on the global community, which is no less likely to offend.
Your idea is well-intended and nice to think about, but unfortunately unrealistic for many reasons, starting on the ground floor with problem of religion.
Yes, that’s why we don’t stop trying. I might not make a difference, but maybe the next generation or the next after that. The point is I’m not going to stop trying. There is no answer that everyone is going to like, but there is an answer that will help everyone. I mean Israel IS man made.
And make sure they are both secular.
Exactly, change the leader or change the leader
It’s a never-ending organic entity. You have to keep at it The problem with the insanity analogy is that it takes a billion times to do something sometimes before even beginning to see the start of a change.
Lol not true. Palestine disarmed in the Westbank and got nothing except brutal apartheid and evictions as a result.
It’s not the government who is settling the West Bank. Yes, it is their policy, but it’s regular Israeli citizens who are killing Palestinians, burning their homes down or taking their homes from them and driving them away.
I mean, the government is incentivizing it and enabling it.
Settlers wouldn’t settle the West Bank if the Israeli military wasn’t protecting them. The government is absolutely the problem.
Go try and take someone’s home by force. It won’t go well. But it will go a lot better when it’s sanctioned by an overwhelming military force.
enact a european style democratic state with no official religious affiliation. problem solved. jews and muslims don’t actually hate each other. they live side by side all the time.
Reddit probably rotted my brain, but I’m struggling to determine how this is anything but “everyone sucks here.” On this matter, I don’t think anyone has been truly in the right in a century. Can anyone provide a convincing argument otherwise?
Nah, you can go through the comments here and find people taking the easy, position here too. “Bombing kids is bad, so Israel is bad, so Palestine must be good, therefore I support Palestine.” No nuance, no attempts to look at a more complex situation or consider anything other than the most basic information.
Both sides suck, both sides will happily commit war crimes, and civilians on both sides are getting hurt. One side is getting more hurt than the other, but that’s just a difference in capability, not belief.
Palestinians and Israelis are overall fine, except when you have to listen to them talk about each other, it’s their governments that are so fucked.
This entire conflict is a story of overstepping state entities victimizing innocent civilians on both sides of this war nobody but them and their cronies wanted.
The victims. They are in the right. But they have no voice. Ironically though, as toxic as social media is, governments can’t get by with the same shit that they did 50 years ago (Sauce: US in Central America).
Here is a 2 minute video about being able to hold the idea that Hamas and Israel are both in the wrong and civilians are getting hurt on both sides as a result.
It’s not true that civilians are getting hurt in Gaza because of Hamas. They were already being killed off before the attacks.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/L0Zb9iUi0JM
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Because the truth is that Israel is WAY worse than Palestine. They’re openly calling for genocide. Resistance to oppression is good, actually, and so basically whatever Palestine does while still being oppressed is morally fine, while Israel continuing to oppress them is not. Anything anybody says criticizing palestine’s reaction to oppression is whataboutism, because they’re literally the victims of genocide.
If the entire holy land was nuked and radioactive, people would still try to occupy the wasteland so they could get back in first. Don’t think there is a solution
Honestly, this is nonsense.
They aren’t fighting over Jerusalem or Bethlehem or Jericho. This is a war over grazing lands and a beach town.
If you look away from Gaza for a moment to the other Palestinian territory – the occupied West Bank – you’ll see gangs of a hooligans in pickup trucks with ski masks smashing water wells and killing cattle in small desert towns like it’s high noon at the O.K. Corral.
The whole religious component is largely a distraction. There are people living on real estate that other people who have much bigger guns want. The solution is the same as it’s always been: give folks a fair deal.
It’s not a coincidence that this latest conflict is in Gaza. Gaza isn’t religiously significant. It’s just the densest, most brutal concentration camp in Israel. This is not over religion.
But it’s in the name of religion, so it draws in the Christo-fascist zionists alongside the Israeli ones. They don’t need educated support, just support. Religious nuance helps increase that.
That’s totally true. I only mean to say that the fundamental drivers are typical to those outside of the holy lands. But you’re right that the religious component is definitely leveraged. I’ll also credit @keardap@lemmy.selfhost.quest for pointing out that the American Evangelical Christian nationalist movement is a huge contributor to the conflict. They’re far more numerous than American Jews, and seem to be have greater influence on American policy in Israel than American Jews do.
There is oil just off Gaza’s coast. But Israhell already controls that.
Tiktok says this is all about the Ben Gurion Canal Project. I haven’t had the time to validate the potential veracity, but it seemed like an interesting rabbit hole.
There are people living on real estate that other people who have much bigger guns want.
What is the big distinction between the “people” and the “other people” that makes them different groups of people? Hint: the word starts with an “r” and ends with “eligion”.
Flood it. God.did; worked apparently.
*Albeit briefly. So, I reckon we can shift the gulf some.
I think the proposal to nuke it may also leave it flooded - depends on the yield and qty.
Mythology won’t help here. That’s partly the problem already.
disregarding that fucked-ass comment,
God.did
is this a DJ Khaled reference?
Genesis
so it’s racism then
The radioactive halflife of a nuke explosion is quite short, if we want a long term solution we need…Chernobyl 2.
nuclear boogaloo
how about an agnostic democracy that israelis and palestinians can both live in? like a european country or something…
Yeah, but the whole point of Israel, is that it’s a home for Jewish people. That this apparently means an ethno apartheid state, is revolting. I have yet to hear a zionist to provide a good solution.
On that front Obama is correct: how are you going to create a Jewish state surrounded by Muslim states that oppose your existence fundamentally?
But at this point you can argue that living as a Palestinian in Israel and the occupied territories is worse than living in many (but clearly not all) Muslim countries as a non-Muslim.
So religious states, democracies or not, do exist and kinda can make it work in some cases, even if I would prefer a secular democracy for myself any day.
why the fuck do we need a jewish state? do we have a christian state? a buddhist state? not really. religious states are an outdated way to do government.
Breaking my own rule here, but whatever.
There’s no need for a Jewish state per se. There’s a need for a state for Jews, so they can live without fear of being persecuted, like they have been for hundreds of years.
Same reason there’s a need for a Palestinian state.
so a european style democracy with a constitution that has “congress shall make no law” types of sentences in it
And yet, Muslim states exist.
they shouldn’t. it’s an ultra conservative old way of doing government.
As someone living in muslim state: no, religious state shouldn’t exists.
It’s actually pretty easy if you stop requiring support for settler colonialism. The rest of the world left that behind 70 years ago. Israel doesn’t get to be special they can either give Palestinians voting rights (which would obliterate the idea of a Jewish state) or submit to a UN peacekeeping force between them and the Palestinians on the 1949 borders.
The only reason this is hard is because we keep bending over backwards to support their Apartheid. We know these answers. They’ve been done before.
The rest of the world left that behind 70 years ago.
lol
Okay. Where else in the world is settler colonialism actively being practiced? I’d really like to know, because they need to be put on blast too.
The complexity is that Israel (specifically Netanyahu has gone rouge, saying nothing will stop what they are doing) and that is starting to have consequences for Democrats, and the US world image. This, along with Blinkens recent statements, are a subtle way of telling them to stop, without Biden going back on his full support of Israel.
It is the foundations of deniability, so that if the critiques of war crime and genocide come fully to light in the public eye, the US has ground to shift to. Those drones capturing footage over Gaza can quickly be used to support whatever narrative shift the US deems most advantageous. Can the Dems lose support of Arab Americans and their allies? Can/will they lose Jewish support at home if crimes are unmasked and is that number more or less than being on the “right side” of things?
These are likely the questions that are swirling around the White House and State Department as we speak. Time is of the essence, as 2.5 million people are on the verge of succumbing to dehydration and starvation. If those distributions are equal, a heart breaking cataclysm, in the form of a mass casualty event, could occur at any time. 10,000. 100,000. Who knows how many won’t be able to be saved even once aid comes through. Medical capacity is needed to reverse these things and none exists any longer. The UN is warning of this.
If it happens, blame will need to be swift to maintain appearances and Israel is running the risk of becoming the “Voldemort” of the Middle East overnight.
He wouldn’t be the first powerful guy supported or even brought up by the US going rogue.
We don’t talk about what happened with Sadam…
.
“Genocide is bad and we should halt donated weapons to countries committing genocide” - very easy policy most people will agree on.
“We should halt all aid to terrorists and terrorist states.” - very easy policy most people will agree on.
Absolutely not. Citizens can be just as much a victim of terrorist states as those they affect beyond their borders, and are just as deserving of humanitarian aid as any other civilian in an active warzone.
but they won’t agree on what constitutes genocide
Nuance? What’s that? Just say horrific fuckin things to the people who disagree with you! Much more fun that way!
A plea for nuance from the enablers and backers of the apartheid regime is not something I’m going to take on board.
I’m aware of the historical context and Israel has a right to exist and Jews to be safe. But I stand firmly with the Palestinians as the victims of generations of aggression.
It’s weird that Obama is being nuanced here, yet the US has been unwavering in supporting Israel, including during Obama’s term. Maybe his stance has changed. Or maybe it’s easy for him to say things when he doesn’t have to act on it at all. Talk is cheap, after all.
The calls to nuance and complexity is insulting, like people can’t see what’s right infront of them and form an opinion of their own. What complexity is there in bombing hospitals, ambulances, schools and refugee camps, while denying food, water, and medical supplies to millions
I think the nuance is understanding the evils of the Israeli state without blaming Jews or endorsing violence against Israeli civilians. You aren’t doing that here, but lots of people are doing this right now (the people “forming an opinion on their own” aren’t always forming great opinions). Anyone suggesting that nuance is unnecessary is begging you to only see their side of things. There are zero issues in the world that don’t require some degree of nuance; why you would think such a complex and long-standing conflict like this one is better without critical thinking is the real insult here.
People have a right to be safe but no state has a right to exist, let alone a state defined by being a settler colonial project.
Maybe I could agree with you, but they did face an injustice like no other. They have a right to a homeland but it should never have been Israel.
What the hell does ‘right to a homeland’ mean?
Where’s the homeland to rest of the genocides around the world? let’s bring in Uyghur population to Israel too, Rohingya Muslims? Ugandan genocide?
When are they going to get their own homeland?
oh oh but this one is so much more special because it ties in with your religious beliefs in the west, right?
the rest? they just can fucking just get wiped out for all you care.
lose the facade you ducking hypocrites.
Man fuck off, that was a lot of shite you typed. I don’t have religious beliefs for one and you can scroll through my history to see my strong support for Palestine.
Fuck you.
There are complex issues to solve, sure, but there’s nothing complicated about the fact that we need to let humanitarian aid in and stop killing children, right this fucking minute. There are no excuses for what is happening right now.
“Stop killing children” should be enforced in both countries, though. It’s not like Hamas is protecting the children in Gaza. Quite the opposite really.
No argument there, and I did not intend for my statement to claim otherwise.
I’m not saying the details of it are not complicated.
History is always complicated
Present events are always complicated
But the way this is reported in the western media is as though one needs a PhD in Middle Eastern studies to understand the basic morality of holding a people in a situation in which they don’t have basic rights including the right that we treasure most the franchise the right to vote and then declaring that state a democracy
is actually not that hard to understand.
I’m actually not sure which country you are talking about now. I don’t know of anyone who calls Palestine a democracy. I think the reason people call Israel a democracy is that Israeli citizens have free elections and are not oppressed. I don’t think they factor in oppression of other countries when they call something a democracy. If they did, the US and UK wouldn’t count as democracies either.
If they did, the US and UK wouldn’t count as democracies either
Most political experts agree that they barely classify. The US has a rather unique electoral college system. The UK is most literally a constitutional monarchy. At best, they’re hybrid systems.
holding a people in a situation in which they don’t have basic rights
I’m actually not sure which country you are talking about now.
If the options are Palestine and Israel, which country do you think it is?
Come on, use your brain.
No need to be condescending. With how polarizing this issue is, you are surely aware that there might be people on the Internet who would stand by these claims for either of the two countries. What I use my brain to conclude isn’t relevant, the question is what you used your brain to conclude.
Re-read my comment. It applies to you as well.
holding a people in a situation in which they don’t have basic rights
Hamas holding their own population as human shields and failing to provide basic infrastructure, or Israel blocking their own borders that stops Palestine civilians from access to necessity of life.
Im with the other poster, and if you didn’t see both there is already a bias in your head that no reasonable and open discussion of facts would ever overcome.
Lol, what? You’re buying into Israeli propaganda talking points to justify bombing civilians. I’m not going to entertain your bias.
Hamas isn’t denying Gazans basic human rights. Israel is. This isn’t up for debate.
Well there are 240 hostages that are held captive in an underground lair by some psychopaths. The PM of Israel may not want to keep those people there any longer than necessary.
Perhaps Hamas should release the hostages so there’s no longer a reason for Israel to deny calls for a ceasefire?
Odd that no one is calling on Hamas to do this, isn’t it? It’s almost like everyone knows Hamas is evil and will continue to keep those people imprisoned. But if we’re demanding Israel to do things we know they won’t do, why not also demand Hamas to do things we know they won’t do?
yes no one is calling for the return of hostages
that is a reasonable thing to say
Jesus man, open your eyes and ears. Nobody is saying Hamas should do that. Listen to what Obama is saying in the video, for the love of God.
Of course we all want civilian hostages released. Don’t be dumb.
Except apparently Israel because they are bombing the event living shit out of Gaza. Hostages aren’t bomb proof, so tell me, how does Israel know they’ve not killed some when they kill 30 civilians to kill a Hamas leader (whose name slips them at the moment)
They don’t and i’d characterize much of their bombing as a war crime.
Ok, it’s get real time: the ONLY reason the US supports Israel is because it’s a staging area if shit kicks off in the middle east. That’s it. The “Jesus” stuff if just an excuse to appease the zealots. And my opinion isn’t anti-Semitism. It’s anti-genocide.
Probably one of the most complex issues that I don’t see being brought up is Gaza’s culture built around Sharia law.
Yeah, there are plenty of innocent people are children suffering. This still doesn’t mean that if Gazans had there way, Israel would be a better place.
That said, the US should end all aid to Israel and let them fund their own genocide. They can afford it. They have a fucking intel fab for fuck’s sake.
Do you have any understanding of the Palestinian history? Isreal funded religious extremism in order to opposed the leftist secularist political organizing within Gaza.
Do you have any understanding of the Palestinian history?
why would they? it’s not like the west has painted muslims and the middle east people as the bad guy for decadessss. From media to hollywood, middle east is a lawless hellhole and they had no hand it making it that way. like at all…
most of them probably can’t even find them in a map, but once they see a middle eastern anywhere, they know they have to instantly hate on them.
Fuck Israel. They get a free pass every time.
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How about Hamas? You seem to be willing to give them a free pass while they still have 200 hostages somewhere in a bunker or tunnel?
Hamas are rotten fucking scumbags. Yet, it’s crystal clear that Israel has been able to do whatever they want for as long as I remember. Which is decades. Fuck Israel.
I think that’s Israel’s problem, not the US’.
Did Israel send aid to the US after 9/11?
um, that’s the current issue
Are you going to condem the terrorizing and slaughter of countless Palestinian children by Israel?
‘we didn’t realise they were going to use the weapons like that’
Christopher Hitchens made an argument regarding the religious undertones of the conflict and why peace cannot easily be found. https://piped.video/watch?v=rc90pcx6kNU
Of course, by this point there’s also hate passed on from one generation to the next.
More breaking news. Obama says breathing is good for your health.
And while you say this, this thread is full of people claiming it is actually very simple. sigh
No shit Sherlock! But the keyboard warriors on the internet with dumb takes aren’t the ones enabling and funding the killing of civilians though, are they?
This guy has been, since well, he’s a US president so it must come naturally.
