The greatest source of anti Semitic and anti Israel attitudes (which, frankly, are 2 different things) right now is a man desperately trying to avoid conviction for his own corruption—Netanyahu. Just like the US squandered its international support after 9/11 by starting a war under a false flag, so too did the Israeli government by attacking innocent Palestinians and literally destroying Gaza. Both the US and Israel today have fallen far from their initial founding principles.
As a US-born dual citizen who has lived in Australia for almost 40 years, I have three comments:
1. Australia got it largely right (albeit not perfectly) back in 1996 after the Port Arthur Massacre when Liberal PM John Howard and state governments worked together to introduce the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Agreement. In his first comments after the Bondi shooting, our current PM Anthony Albanese (who is head of the Labor Party and NOT antisemitic) has pledged to tighten firearm laws. And since most Australians have hugely better manners (yes, even our politicians!), they don’t think it’s seemly to keep telling the US how WRONG it is when it come to gun control. In other words, they know when to keep their mouths shut. Which,
2 You bloody septics (look it up) DON’T know how to zip your respective lips.. It’s been a continuous loop of the salmon dinner in Monty Python’s Holy Grail. I side with Death: “Shut up. Shut up you Americans . . .”
3. We gave you Rupert. You deserve the especially odious Fox News at this point in time and history.
Thank you Will. I hope someone at the Bulwark does a piece about the BS conflation of some in the pro-Palestinian movement’s (mainly some possibly naive college students) using slogans like “globalize the intifada” with antisemitism violence against Jews. What is motivating anti-Israel sentiment are the atrocities Israel has been committing against the Palestinians. There have always been Palestinians interested in living in peace with Israel but Israel has always find its best to sideline and delegitimize then. This has only fed the most violent Palestinian factions. It’s Bibi’s actions in the West Bank and Gaza that feeds anti-Israel sentiment not student chants. But this is all irrelevant to the motivations of the Bondi shooters, who appear to have been radicalized to commit violence against Jews by the Islamic State. But people will always fit these tragic events into their own preconceived notions, and so we are seeing the folks who have been arguing that the BDS movement promotes antisemitism violence citing the Bondi massacre as proof they were right - it’s quite tendentious.
That Netanyahu has the chutzpah to blame Australia when his own policies led to 1200+ people in Israel getting killed is truly remarkable.The argument is also transparent nonsense. Over 150 countries recognize the State of Palestine but somehow Australia is to blame. The countries that don't recognize Palestine are the outliers.
So tired of support for war criminal Netanyahu. And let's deal with the FACT that support for Israel, as it currently exists, entails violence against Palestinians. And also, let's not equate Jews with Israelis, or even Israelis with the current government. There are PLENTY of American Jews who are horrified at what is going on.
Will, I want you and the others at the Bulwark to wrestle with the idea that Israel is OK with not being a democratic state (or being a democratic state for Jewish Israelis only). I mean, what you write is entirely correct, but it is not currently clear to me that Israel wants to live at peace with the Palestinians. It appears more that they want to subjugate them. This is inherently inconsistent with democracy - I grant you that the United States has tried the subjugation thing, and even now there are many apologists for this, but it is not consistent with our highest ideals, and anyone who has read the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence should know this.
Yes, this is the implication many opponents of a Palestinian state don’t want to face. You can have these millions of people in their place or in your place. But it can’t be no place. Hence the latest fantasy of shipping them all off to a resort hosted by one of the many Arab governments eager to welcome them.
I want to address the assertion that antisemitism exists EQUALLY in America, on both the Left and the Right.
We've all seen the rampant anti-semitic texts among the young Republican leaders who are in line to be future GOP officeholders.
And on the Left, what's been identified by some as anti-semitism is the campus protests that were not against Jewish people, but a reflection of young people's horror at the cruelty being inflicted on everyone in Gaza, women, children, grandparents, doctors... ALL the people.
Not that there isn't anti-semitism in America, as there is across the world, but to use these college protests as PROOF that the Left is as anti-semitic as the Right is not acceptable.
If these shooters were ISIS as it now appears, it's possible the victims weren't chosen because they were Jewish but because they were celebrating a religious occasion in public. They could have been people of any religion and that's something everyone needs to keep in mind because ISIS is an international terrorist group which hates almost every human being on the planet and is prepared to perform the most heinous acts.
Just a reminder, ISIS has targeted and killed far more Muslims and Christians that they have targeted and killed Jews.
Further, it was a coalition of Muslim and Christian countries (forgive me for calling America a "Christian country"), that went to war against ISIS, destroying them.
At no point did Israel enter the fray against ISIS, and ISIS has never attacked Israel. In fact ... well ... I'll let you do a little research on the relationship between Israel and ISIS.
I made my point particularly in relation to the number of Muslims killed by ISIS. This will be something completely ignored as hard right Australian politicians use this tragedy in an attempt to divide us for their own political goals. There will be Liberals looking to use it in their various 'battles' with One Nation and for control of the Liberal Party and the National Party and LNP will use it for hate and to support the gun lobby.
Australians of all religions and no religion are about to become pawns in a sprawling and vicious political game, and neo-nazis and any other ISIS supporters will be rubbing their hands with glee. Hopefully, that's all they will get to do.
Coming on the back of the vicious, hate-filled campaign against the Voice referendum, neo-nazi violence against First Nations Australians and extremist Christian violence against the LGBTQ+ community, this mass shooting is even more horrific. But, the majority of Australians did reject such hate as part of our repudiation of the hard right and far right in the federal election less than a year ago, so hopefully we will be up for this horrendous challenge too.
I think its the opposite. If you support only Israel, and you support their slaughter of Gazans, you are responsible for the very thing causing the hatred of Israel.
This isn't to say there would be hatred of Israel irrespective of Gaza. But if all you give Palestinians is more pain, and zero hope of eventually having a freed Palestine, then the alternative is more terrorism, which feds on desperation.
There has been no slaughter of Gazans. Indeed, the only party engaged in slaughter has been the Gazans. Repeating these lies only makes Jews everywhere a greater target.
As someone who has always been pro-Judaism, pro-Israeli statehood, and bothered by oversimplification of the situation as though it is equivalent to European settler colonialism, but also pro-two-state solution and very anti-Netanyahu going back well before October 7, 2023, the idea that "there has been no slaughter of Gazans" that involved the IDF - you do realize that most of the world finds this idea completely ridiculous? What, are we supposed to "not trust our lyin' eyes" here? The October 7 massacre was horrible, detaining the hostages for years was horrible, Hamas is a horrible terrorist organization - but none of that washes Israel's hands of how it conducted this war as it dragged on and on, or how it is currently behaving in the West Bank now...no doubt I will be accused of holding Israel to an impossible standard, but really, things like not intentionally creating a famine by refusing to allow food and medical aid trucks in is not an impossible standard...
And your argument that taking issue with the actions of Israel "only make Jews everywhere a greater target" conflates two issues here that Saletan is also working to disentangle - the existence of the religion and ethnic identity of Jews globally versus the immediate political activities of the Israeli government. It's failing to draw a distinction here that endangers Jews everywhere and conflates political grievances with Netanyahu and the Israeli government with anti-Semitism. The collapse of the space between the two is what is dangerous and supported by fanatics on both sides.
The alleged shooters (the son is in hospital & therefore might be able to facd criminal charges so
Being careful here) have been identified as Pakistani origin, not Middle Eastern, not Palestinian & the homemade flags apparently recovered from their vehicle are ISIS based, not the Palestinian flag & the destruction of Gaza is not that cause.
To opportunistically conflate the matters to attack a country & leaders that have long been a friend of Israel and a Government(s) that gave strong support support and made many back channel representations to its friend over a long time over concerns with overreach & apparent breaches of humanitarian & international law (Gaza war & civilian harms escalating & huge illegal settlement growth in West Bank) that were harming Israel’s cause & opposed by significant portions within Israel, and did not do formal Palestine recognition until another 140 countries had is misguided at best and reprehensible at worst.
There's still a lot we don't know, still a lot of heroics are coming forth, Ahmed al-Ahmed , the surf life savers, another Muslim called "AB", but that has not stopped some of the worst people in the world using this terrorist attack to score political points.
It seems the terrorists were affiliated with ISIS. ISIS is not affiliated with Hamas, nor Iran, (but in conflict with them), even though the NYT and the Israelis are currently making the claim that this attack was for the benefit of Palestinians.
I enjoy most of Will's writing and podcasts, but in this case he is way off base. This is a classic case of suicidal empathy and an apparent lack of knowledge about regional history. With Hamas, the Israelis are dealing with a death cult, nothing more, nothing less. They have said it time and time again...they are not interested in a state, they only want Israel gone, wiped out, with all the other Jews on the planet.
What I'm wondering about in this assessment is the assertion that Hamas is the reason a two-state solution cannot be enacted, when the Australian position CLEARLY states that Hamas cannot be involved, and
Gaza must disarm.
It appears to me that there are objections asserted to reject the two-state solution that are ALREADY addressed?!?
When Israel (and the western world) say "there can NOT be a two-state solution while Hamas is in power" ... while SIMULTANEOUSLY supporting Hamas to keep them in power, then perhaps you'll agree that Israel (and the western world) do not actually want a two-state solution?
Using Hamas in this way is not the first time Israel has used this technique. For decades, Israel couldn't "negotiate peace" because they had no "partner in the peace process", all the while, Israel was using this delay to continue to take more and more Palestinian land for themselves, to settle more and more illegal settlers, and to kill and humiliate Palestinians.
The missing "partner in peace" claim has always been bad faith.
But let's assume success. Let's assume Hamas lays down all its weapons and surrenders itself. Israel has WON! Woo hoo! What do you think will happen to the people of Gaza?
Well, we have a pretty good example, because this is what happened in the West Bank and the Golan Heights. Were these people freed? Were they granted peace? No, they were not. When you give up your weapons to Israel, you ensure your own subjugation.
As grateful as I am that some Western countries are finally "recognizing Palestine", placing contingencies on that recognition, on the human rights of the Palestinians, is wrong.
It really is.
And it would never be done anywhere else in the world.
People's human rights are innate - they don't need approval or negotiation. You cannot hold 4.5 million people under occupation, for decades, because you don't like some of their political leaders - if that were true, think of what would happen with regard to Americans living under Trump or George W. Bush?
One last example - as bad as Oct 7 was, and it WAS bad - it doesn't come close to the Sabra and Shatilla massacres by Israel. Did the world allow for the complete and total subjugation of the Israeli people, in perpetuity, because of those terrorist attacks?
You make excellent points, most of which I am in complete agreement with. And yet... how CAN there be a two-state solution that involves the perpetrators of Oct. 7? I understand Palestinian anger, but Oct. 7 was a setback for them. And it was also a setback for Israel...
... the majority of the world is horrified with Israel's reaction to Oct. 7, and many American Jews ARE horrified and fearful that the Netanyahu government will set Israel back for generations. One thing we know for sure: Trump can't solve this... I'm not sure anyone can.
"And yet... how CAN there be a two-state solution that involves the perpetrators of Oct. 7?"
This is not a novel problem, Diane. We have diplomatic and military mechanisms for precisely this.
Right now, there are at least 4 countries pointing thermo-nuclear weapons at us. We deal with those countries every day, both economically and diplomatically, both directly, through intermediaries, and via the UN. We recognize the borders and governments of those countries.
So, as bad as Hamas is, and they ARE bad, they are not nearly as bad as countries pointing thermo-nuclear weapons at us.
Also, as I mentioned previously, as bad as Oct 7 was, and it WAS bad, it pales against the Sabra and Shatilla massacres (to pick just one such atrocitiy from many). We deal with Israel every day. In fact, we consider them our most "sacrosanct" ally.
By any metric you wish to choose, by any way you want to measure terrorism or violation of human rights, Israel is worse than Hamas. Hamas has never attacked the United States. Israel has. Hamas has never spied on the United States. Israel has. Repeatedly. AFAIK, Israel has killed more American civilians than Hamas has.
So, the existence of Hamas is not a sufficient justification to hold millions of Palestinian civilians under occupation for decades, to kill them, to steal from them, to imprison them without charge.
We have a very well-paid and very large diplomatic corps and military for a reason: to deal with organizations like Hamas. We shouldn't make Palestinians an exception to these processes.
America would need a moral awakening to seek the justice we'd like to see, unless it were in our country's interest... then it's not really moral, is it?
Can you conjure the image of an American politician who would undertake these kinds of changes in the Middle East?
The Arab countries don't even seem to give a fig about the Palestinians.
Thanks for the thought-provoking discussion... much to chew on!
There's been a lot of talk since the attack about how tolerating anti-Zionism or anti-Israel speech, even angry and scary speech, was the same as anti-Semitism. I suspect some people do hate Jews and hate Israel because it's an easy and very visible target whatever it does. But Israel has also done some things very much worth pushing back against.
I'm part Jewish myself, so seeing that hatred has been very painful and scary this week. One thing I keep coming back to, though, is that being safe and fighting anti-Semitism cannot be the same as papering over what Israel's done wrong, and Jewish safety certainly can't be bought at another people's expense, any more than *their* safety can come at the cost of our own. God doesn't trade lives like that, and we have to find a way to fight for both.
"Jewish safety certainly can't be bought at another people's expense"
Ahhhh - but is that not the very definition of Zionism? Israel was supposed to be a place of Jewish refuge ... safety ... but it HAS come at another people's expense, has it not? A very great expense. And an expense that HAD to be paid to form Israel as a Jewish majority state.
When you look back to all the events since 1948 - and even before - has Israel "been good for the Jews"?
And so is the problem..I don't know any intelligent Palestinian living in the west who does not want to return to 1948. My friends will abhor the tactics but support the policies of any group who will kick out the Israelis and enable the "Right of Return"…Hamas, the PA Isis, Assad, Nasser, Saddam et.al. It took Saladin only 70 years to kick the Christians out of Jerusalem..We're past that now..let's compromise!
How many Palestinians do you truly know? And why do you use the phrase, “any intelligent Palestinian?” It smacks of the old “good Negro” label. If I were those friends of yours, I’d be distancing myself from your obvious, and perhaps subconscious (to be charitable) racism.
My doctor, a lawyer and my friend the real estate mogul, all Palestinians, and my friends in "Codepink". 2,4,6,8 we don't want a stupid Two-State..let's go back to '48…Wayne State protest outside Detroit. I only mentioned it because NOBODY wants to compromise. These are smart, intelligent people who should know better. When I present any number of "peace" plans they all say no. I can also count some Jewish friends (my Accountant) who also don't want compromise.
Just to be clear, I'm not a Zionist. I actually believe all religions are at their most useful, sociologically-speaking, when they exist outside the power structure of normal politics. Any time you've got a religious group acting like a political state, bad politics but also bad theology/spirituality/whatever quickly follow. Judaism's messier than most because it's this whole mash of culture and ethnicity and theology in a way I don't think most religions end up being in the 21st century. But the concern's still there.
I really need a better understanding of what the history of the area was before the Balfour Declaration to answer that question - how populated the area was, whether the Palestinians were a distinct ethnic group being displaced vs. part of a larger group that went on living in other areas, all that. Doing absolutely no research to refresh my memory, I remember when the Brits declared a Jewish state was to be formed in Palestine back in the 1910s, the declaration also recognized the right of non-Jewish people already living there to *continue* living there and have certain civil rights. I also remember there being a lot of legal debates at the time on whether the Jews just had a right to set up a state in the region, whether the *whole* region was to be a Jewish state, and whether Jewish state meant, like, exclusively Jewish vs. friendly and welcome to Jews but also to others. There's a whole lot of interesting history there, but I'm grasping at straws to remember it.
Tl;dr: I think Israel was *intended* to be only one part of that region not the whole area, and a space Jews could flee to for protection but not *exclusively* Jewish and not-Palestinian. Whether that was ever possible, I don't know. A lot of it comes down to that old historical tragedy: a British man drawing lines on a map. That, and people getting displaced millennia ago but holding on to that sense of connection long after history has moved on and other people have built a community and history there. If you asked me I'd argue Jews would be better served in lots of ways by building up safe havens in the countries they've lived in more recent histories. I definitely think if they're set on making that space in Israel, they need to act like other people have a claim to live in that area, too. At a minimum.
Then again, I'm deeply uncomfortable with the whole idea of a political state giving more rights to some based on their religion or race. You know, for the obvious reasons of not being racist.
Back to paid work, I'm afraid! I don't feel like I've really answered your questions, but maybe my meandering thoughts at least help you understand where I'm coming from on this topic.
Has Bibi mentioned where he wants set-in-stone borders of Israel to be?
The greatest source of anti Semitic and anti Israel attitudes (which, frankly, are 2 different things) right now is a man desperately trying to avoid conviction for his own corruption—Netanyahu. Just like the US squandered its international support after 9/11 by starting a war under a false flag, so too did the Israeli government by attacking innocent Palestinians and literally destroying Gaza. Both the US and Israel today have fallen far from their initial founding principles.
As a US-born dual citizen who has lived in Australia for almost 40 years, I have three comments:
1. Australia got it largely right (albeit not perfectly) back in 1996 after the Port Arthur Massacre when Liberal PM John Howard and state governments worked together to introduce the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Agreement. In his first comments after the Bondi shooting, our current PM Anthony Albanese (who is head of the Labor Party and NOT antisemitic) has pledged to tighten firearm laws. And since most Australians have hugely better manners (yes, even our politicians!), they don’t think it’s seemly to keep telling the US how WRONG it is when it come to gun control. In other words, they know when to keep their mouths shut. Which,
2 You bloody septics (look it up) DON’T know how to zip your respective lips.. It’s been a continuous loop of the salmon dinner in Monty Python’s Holy Grail. I side with Death: “Shut up. Shut up you Americans . . .”
3. We gave you Rupert. You deserve the especially odious Fox News at this point in time and history.
Good luck. And “Advance Australia Fair”
Thank you Will. I hope someone at the Bulwark does a piece about the BS conflation of some in the pro-Palestinian movement’s (mainly some possibly naive college students) using slogans like “globalize the intifada” with antisemitism violence against Jews. What is motivating anti-Israel sentiment are the atrocities Israel has been committing against the Palestinians. There have always been Palestinians interested in living in peace with Israel but Israel has always find its best to sideline and delegitimize then. This has only fed the most violent Palestinian factions. It’s Bibi’s actions in the West Bank and Gaza that feeds anti-Israel sentiment not student chants. But this is all irrelevant to the motivations of the Bondi shooters, who appear to have been radicalized to commit violence against Jews by the Islamic State. But people will always fit these tragic events into their own preconceived notions, and so we are seeing the folks who have been arguing that the BDS movement promotes antisemitism violence citing the Bondi massacre as proof they were right - it’s quite tendentious.
Living DownUnder I am incensed that those on the Right are using the shooting to push their lies.
That Netanyahu has the chutzpah to blame Australia when his own policies led to 1200+ people in Israel getting killed is truly remarkable.The argument is also transparent nonsense. Over 150 countries recognize the State of Palestine but somehow Australia is to blame. The countries that don't recognize Palestine are the outliers.
https://www.cnn.com/world/middleeast/countries-recognize-palestinian-state-intl-vis
So tired of support for war criminal Netanyahu. And let's deal with the FACT that support for Israel, as it currently exists, entails violence against Palestinians. And also, let's not equate Jews with Israelis, or even Israelis with the current government. There are PLENTY of American Jews who are horrified at what is going on.
Exactly
Thank you for your clarity, Will.
Will, I want you and the others at the Bulwark to wrestle with the idea that Israel is OK with not being a democratic state (or being a democratic state for Jewish Israelis only). I mean, what you write is entirely correct, but it is not currently clear to me that Israel wants to live at peace with the Palestinians. It appears more that they want to subjugate them. This is inherently inconsistent with democracy - I grant you that the United States has tried the subjugation thing, and even now there are many apologists for this, but it is not consistent with our highest ideals, and anyone who has read the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence should know this.
Yes, this is the implication many opponents of a Palestinian state don’t want to face. You can have these millions of people in their place or in your place. But it can’t be no place. Hence the latest fantasy of shipping them all off to a resort hosted by one of the many Arab governments eager to welcome them.
I want to address the assertion that antisemitism exists EQUALLY in America, on both the Left and the Right.
We've all seen the rampant anti-semitic texts among the young Republican leaders who are in line to be future GOP officeholders.
And on the Left, what's been identified by some as anti-semitism is the campus protests that were not against Jewish people, but a reflection of young people's horror at the cruelty being inflicted on everyone in Gaza, women, children, grandparents, doctors... ALL the people.
Not that there isn't anti-semitism in America, as there is across the world, but to use these college protests as PROOF that the Left is as anti-semitic as the Right is not acceptable.
Many of those campus demonstrators were Jewish.
If these shooters were ISIS as it now appears, it's possible the victims weren't chosen because they were Jewish but because they were celebrating a religious occasion in public. They could have been people of any religion and that's something everyone needs to keep in mind because ISIS is an international terrorist group which hates almost every human being on the planet and is prepared to perform the most heinous acts.
Just a reminder, ISIS has targeted and killed far more Muslims and Christians that they have targeted and killed Jews.
Further, it was a coalition of Muslim and Christian countries (forgive me for calling America a "Christian country"), that went to war against ISIS, destroying them.
At no point did Israel enter the fray against ISIS, and ISIS has never attacked Israel. In fact ... well ... I'll let you do a little research on the relationship between Israel and ISIS.
I made my point particularly in relation to the number of Muslims killed by ISIS. This will be something completely ignored as hard right Australian politicians use this tragedy in an attempt to divide us for their own political goals. There will be Liberals looking to use it in their various 'battles' with One Nation and for control of the Liberal Party and the National Party and LNP will use it for hate and to support the gun lobby.
Australians of all religions and no religion are about to become pawns in a sprawling and vicious political game, and neo-nazis and any other ISIS supporters will be rubbing their hands with glee. Hopefully, that's all they will get to do.
Coming on the back of the vicious, hate-filled campaign against the Voice referendum, neo-nazi violence against First Nations Australians and extremist Christian violence against the LGBTQ+ community, this mass shooting is even more horrific. But, the majority of Australians did reject such hate as part of our repudiation of the hard right and far right in the federal election less than a year ago, so hopefully we will be up for this horrendous challenge too.
String agree, Sandra*.
I’ll be very interested to see if Australian support for Palestine suffers because of this attack.
More specifically, will the Prime Minister be able to weather the bad faith attacks?
*Sandra is such a GREAT Australian name.
Way to go, Will.
I think its the opposite. If you support only Israel, and you support their slaughter of Gazans, you are responsible for the very thing causing the hatred of Israel.
This isn't to say there would be hatred of Israel irrespective of Gaza. But if all you give Palestinians is more pain, and zero hope of eventually having a freed Palestine, then the alternative is more terrorism, which feds on desperation.
There has been no slaughter of Gazans. Indeed, the only party engaged in slaughter has been the Gazans. Repeating these lies only makes Jews everywhere a greater target.
You would have to be blind, deaf, and dumb.
As someone who has always been pro-Judaism, pro-Israeli statehood, and bothered by oversimplification of the situation as though it is equivalent to European settler colonialism, but also pro-two-state solution and very anti-Netanyahu going back well before October 7, 2023, the idea that "there has been no slaughter of Gazans" that involved the IDF - you do realize that most of the world finds this idea completely ridiculous? What, are we supposed to "not trust our lyin' eyes" here? The October 7 massacre was horrible, detaining the hostages for years was horrible, Hamas is a horrible terrorist organization - but none of that washes Israel's hands of how it conducted this war as it dragged on and on, or how it is currently behaving in the West Bank now...no doubt I will be accused of holding Israel to an impossible standard, but really, things like not intentionally creating a famine by refusing to allow food and medical aid trucks in is not an impossible standard...
And your argument that taking issue with the actions of Israel "only make Jews everywhere a greater target" conflates two issues here that Saletan is also working to disentangle - the existence of the religion and ethnic identity of Jews globally versus the immediate political activities of the Israeli government. It's failing to draw a distinction here that endangers Jews everywhere and conflates political grievances with Netanyahu and the Israeli government with anti-Semitism. The collapse of the space between the two is what is dangerous and supported by fanatics on both sides.
Israel has successfully "otherized" Palestinians, as Trump is in the process of otherizing Hispanics and most non-white people in America.
Once a group is seen as "not quite one of us," it's easy to demonize and dehumanize them...
... just ask the Nazis; they were very successful at it.
Thank you Will, very much, from Australia
The alleged shooters (the son is in hospital & therefore might be able to facd criminal charges so
Being careful here) have been identified as Pakistani origin, not Middle Eastern, not Palestinian & the homemade flags apparently recovered from their vehicle are ISIS based, not the Palestinian flag & the destruction of Gaza is not that cause.
To opportunistically conflate the matters to attack a country & leaders that have long been a friend of Israel and a Government(s) that gave strong support support and made many back channel representations to its friend over a long time over concerns with overreach & apparent breaches of humanitarian & international law (Gaza war & civilian harms escalating & huge illegal settlement growth in West Bank) that were harming Israel’s cause & opposed by significant portions within Israel, and did not do formal Palestine recognition until another 140 countries had is misguided at best and reprehensible at worst.
Hi Georgina,
Thanks for your words.
There's still a lot we don't know, still a lot of heroics are coming forth, Ahmed al-Ahmed , the surf life savers, another Muslim called "AB", but that has not stopped some of the worst people in the world using this terrorist attack to score political points.
It seems the terrorists were affiliated with ISIS. ISIS is not affiliated with Hamas, nor Iran, (but in conflict with them), even though the NYT and the Israelis are currently making the claim that this attack was for the benefit of Palestinians.
Thanks again.
I enjoy most of Will's writing and podcasts, but in this case he is way off base. This is a classic case of suicidal empathy and an apparent lack of knowledge about regional history. With Hamas, the Israelis are dealing with a death cult, nothing more, nothing less. They have said it time and time again...they are not interested in a state, they only want Israel gone, wiped out, with all the other Jews on the planet.
"With Hamas, the Israelis are dealing with a death cult, nothing more, nothing less"
Then why did Netanyahu fund them? Why did Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich say "Hamas is an asset, the Palestinian Authority is a liability"?
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
https://theintercept.com/2023/10/14/hamas-israel-palestinian-authority/
What I'm wondering about in this assessment is the assertion that Hamas is the reason a two-state solution cannot be enacted, when the Australian position CLEARLY states that Hamas cannot be involved, and
Gaza must disarm.
It appears to me that there are objections asserted to reject the two-state solution that are ALREADY addressed?!?
Hi Diane -
When Israel (and the western world) say "there can NOT be a two-state solution while Hamas is in power" ... while SIMULTANEOUSLY supporting Hamas to keep them in power, then perhaps you'll agree that Israel (and the western world) do not actually want a two-state solution?
Using Hamas in this way is not the first time Israel has used this technique. For decades, Israel couldn't "negotiate peace" because they had no "partner in the peace process", all the while, Israel was using this delay to continue to take more and more Palestinian land for themselves, to settle more and more illegal settlers, and to kill and humiliate Palestinians.
The missing "partner in peace" claim has always been bad faith.
But let's assume success. Let's assume Hamas lays down all its weapons and surrenders itself. Israel has WON! Woo hoo! What do you think will happen to the people of Gaza?
Well, we have a pretty good example, because this is what happened in the West Bank and the Golan Heights. Were these people freed? Were they granted peace? No, they were not. When you give up your weapons to Israel, you ensure your own subjugation.
As grateful as I am that some Western countries are finally "recognizing Palestine", placing contingencies on that recognition, on the human rights of the Palestinians, is wrong.
It really is.
And it would never be done anywhere else in the world.
People's human rights are innate - they don't need approval or negotiation. You cannot hold 4.5 million people under occupation, for decades, because you don't like some of their political leaders - if that were true, think of what would happen with regard to Americans living under Trump or George W. Bush?
One last example - as bad as Oct 7 was, and it WAS bad - it doesn't come close to the Sabra and Shatilla massacres by Israel. Did the world allow for the complete and total subjugation of the Israeli people, in perpetuity, because of those terrorist attacks?
You make excellent points, most of which I am in complete agreement with. And yet... how CAN there be a two-state solution that involves the perpetrators of Oct. 7? I understand Palestinian anger, but Oct. 7 was a setback for them. And it was also a setback for Israel...
... the majority of the world is horrified with Israel's reaction to Oct. 7, and many American Jews ARE horrified and fearful that the Netanyahu government will set Israel back for generations. One thing we know for sure: Trump can't solve this... I'm not sure anyone can.
"And yet... how CAN there be a two-state solution that involves the perpetrators of Oct. 7?"
This is not a novel problem, Diane. We have diplomatic and military mechanisms for precisely this.
Right now, there are at least 4 countries pointing thermo-nuclear weapons at us. We deal with those countries every day, both economically and diplomatically, both directly, through intermediaries, and via the UN. We recognize the borders and governments of those countries.
So, as bad as Hamas is, and they ARE bad, they are not nearly as bad as countries pointing thermo-nuclear weapons at us.
Also, as I mentioned previously, as bad as Oct 7 was, and it WAS bad, it pales against the Sabra and Shatilla massacres (to pick just one such atrocitiy from many). We deal with Israel every day. In fact, we consider them our most "sacrosanct" ally.
By any metric you wish to choose, by any way you want to measure terrorism or violation of human rights, Israel is worse than Hamas. Hamas has never attacked the United States. Israel has. Hamas has never spied on the United States. Israel has. Repeatedly. AFAIK, Israel has killed more American civilians than Hamas has.
So, the existence of Hamas is not a sufficient justification to hold millions of Palestinian civilians under occupation for decades, to kill them, to steal from them, to imprison them without charge.
We have a very well-paid and very large diplomatic corps and military for a reason: to deal with organizations like Hamas. We shouldn't make Palestinians an exception to these processes.
America would need a moral awakening to seek the justice we'd like to see, unless it were in our country's interest... then it's not really moral, is it?
Can you conjure the image of an American politician who would undertake these kinds of changes in the Middle East?
The Arab countries don't even seem to give a fig about the Palestinians.
Thanks for the thought-provoking discussion... much to chew on!
There's been a lot of talk since the attack about how tolerating anti-Zionism or anti-Israel speech, even angry and scary speech, was the same as anti-Semitism. I suspect some people do hate Jews and hate Israel because it's an easy and very visible target whatever it does. But Israel has also done some things very much worth pushing back against.
I'm part Jewish myself, so seeing that hatred has been very painful and scary this week. One thing I keep coming back to, though, is that being safe and fighting anti-Semitism cannot be the same as papering over what Israel's done wrong, and Jewish safety certainly can't be bought at another people's expense, any more than *their* safety can come at the cost of our own. God doesn't trade lives like that, and we have to find a way to fight for both.
"Jewish safety certainly can't be bought at another people's expense"
Ahhhh - but is that not the very definition of Zionism? Israel was supposed to be a place of Jewish refuge ... safety ... but it HAS come at another people's expense, has it not? A very great expense. And an expense that HAD to be paid to form Israel as a Jewish majority state.
When you look back to all the events since 1948 - and even before - has Israel "been good for the Jews"?
Genuine question.
And so is the problem..I don't know any intelligent Palestinian living in the west who does not want to return to 1948. My friends will abhor the tactics but support the policies of any group who will kick out the Israelis and enable the "Right of Return"…Hamas, the PA Isis, Assad, Nasser, Saddam et.al. It took Saladin only 70 years to kick the Christians out of Jerusalem..We're past that now..let's compromise!
How many Palestinians do you truly know? And why do you use the phrase, “any intelligent Palestinian?” It smacks of the old “good Negro” label. If I were those friends of yours, I’d be distancing myself from your obvious, and perhaps subconscious (to be charitable) racism.
My doctor, a lawyer and my friend the real estate mogul, all Palestinians, and my friends in "Codepink". 2,4,6,8 we don't want a stupid Two-State..let's go back to '48…Wayne State protest outside Detroit. I only mentioned it because NOBODY wants to compromise. These are smart, intelligent people who should know better. When I present any number of "peace" plans they all say no. I can also count some Jewish friends (my Accountant) who also don't want compromise.
Perhaps you need to expand your circle of friends.
Just to be clear, I'm not a Zionist. I actually believe all religions are at their most useful, sociologically-speaking, when they exist outside the power structure of normal politics. Any time you've got a religious group acting like a political state, bad politics but also bad theology/spirituality/whatever quickly follow. Judaism's messier than most because it's this whole mash of culture and ethnicity and theology in a way I don't think most religions end up being in the 21st century. But the concern's still there.
I really need a better understanding of what the history of the area was before the Balfour Declaration to answer that question - how populated the area was, whether the Palestinians were a distinct ethnic group being displaced vs. part of a larger group that went on living in other areas, all that. Doing absolutely no research to refresh my memory, I remember when the Brits declared a Jewish state was to be formed in Palestine back in the 1910s, the declaration also recognized the right of non-Jewish people already living there to *continue* living there and have certain civil rights. I also remember there being a lot of legal debates at the time on whether the Jews just had a right to set up a state in the region, whether the *whole* region was to be a Jewish state, and whether Jewish state meant, like, exclusively Jewish vs. friendly and welcome to Jews but also to others. There's a whole lot of interesting history there, but I'm grasping at straws to remember it.
Tl;dr: I think Israel was *intended* to be only one part of that region not the whole area, and a space Jews could flee to for protection but not *exclusively* Jewish and not-Palestinian. Whether that was ever possible, I don't know. A lot of it comes down to that old historical tragedy: a British man drawing lines on a map. That, and people getting displaced millennia ago but holding on to that sense of connection long after history has moved on and other people have built a community and history there. If you asked me I'd argue Jews would be better served in lots of ways by building up safe havens in the countries they've lived in more recent histories. I definitely think if they're set on making that space in Israel, they need to act like other people have a claim to live in that area, too. At a minimum.
Then again, I'm deeply uncomfortable with the whole idea of a political state giving more rights to some based on their religion or race. You know, for the obvious reasons of not being racist.
Back to paid work, I'm afraid! I don't feel like I've really answered your questions, but maybe my meandering thoughts at least help you understand where I'm coming from on this topic.