I don't think you understand the word colonizer. The Muslims conquered and lived among the people. They created a civilization which non-Muslim minorities were a part of. This is very different from European colonialism that extracted resources from the lands and people they conquered for the exclusive benefit of the Empire.
Hamas started this last flare up only if history begins on Oct 7. In fact, Hamas's action on that day is an inevitable reaction to decades of systemic oppression, unprovoked aggression and ethnic cleansing.
This entire region is a clusterfuck of, no that side did this first, no the other side did that. No matter what point you are starting at you can go further back in history to say the other side did X.
That said, oct 7 was a clear escalation by hamas and was much more violent than what came before. Unsurprisingly that garnered a response.
It's not complicated at all. The party of this conflict which is the settler-colonizer would like everyone to believe it's complicated but it's quite simple: A people were ethnically cleansed from the lands they lived on for centuries and those people continue to be oppressed and subjugated till this day, not only denied to return back to the lands they were expelled from, but continue until now to be forcibly expelled from the small amounts they remain on.
I mean, that kind of demonstrates my point though - your narrative could be applied to whichever side you prefer.
"A people were ethnically cleansed from the lands" - From context you are probably referring to the Nakba, but you could just as equally be referring to the Jews being kicked out of Arab countries in the 40's and 50's. Or any number of other events for whichever side you prefer.
There's plenty of blood to go around in this conflict.
What are the "other number of events"? Please be specific. Regarding what happened in various Arab countries in the 40s and 50s (which by the way is after the nakba so the tit-for-tat theory doesn't hold up) what does this have to do with Palestinians being ethnically cleansed? Are you justifying one for the other? It's no different than saying because of the European Holocaust or European antisemitism, the Palestinians deserve to be ethnically cleansed.
> What are the "other number of events"? Please be specific.
Why? Its not relavent to my argument and a full history of the conflict wouldn't fit in a hn comment. I'm sure wikipedia has a big timeline of events of this conflict.
I'm claiming your narrative of events could fit either side. Your narrative only mentioned ethnic cleansing once so i only need a single event to make it fit. There are sadly a number of events that probably fit the bill of ethnic cleansing so i picked the most famous one in the region. It doesnt matter how many so long as its at least one.
> (which by the way is after the nakba so the tit-for-tat theory doesn't hold up)
I did not claim that it was. I only claimed that both events fit your narrative of events.
> what does this have to do with Palestinians being ethnically cleansed?
Nothing? I didn't claim that it had anything to do with that.
> Are you justifying one for the other?
No. Obviously two wrongs don't make a right.
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My claim is that your view of the conflict as "simple" makes no sense as a way to cast judgement on which side is right as the things you mention arguably happened to both sides. So if you think that justifies one side, than logically you should say the same thing about the other.
Unless you want to say both sides are wrong, which i suppose would be logically consistent.
Your argument is that my statement framing the current conflict in Palestine as "A people were ethnically cleansed from the lands they lived on for centuries and those people continue to be oppressed and subjugated till this day, not only denied to return back to the lands they were expelled from, but continue until now to be forcibly expelled from the small amounts they remain on" applies to either side. I charge that you haven't provided any evidence that it applies to the Jews. You bring an example of Jewish expulsion from other parts of the world after 1948 (which does not fit the full description of the statement anyway) but then admit that it has nothing to do with the Palestinian plight or the current conflict.
I believe the example i gave does fit. I understand from your post that you disagree but i can't figure out what specificly about it makes you think it doesn't fit. What is the part that isn't fitting?
Everything from "..continue to be oppressed" until the end.
But again, the main point is how does your example have anything to do with the framing of the current conflict in Palestine and what the Palestinian people are undergoing?
the reality is that past injustices can not be fixed. nothing would undo them, from an ethical or practical perspective. people need to agree on a path to move forward, taking into account the reality of the situation, and if they can, they have to accept the alternative.
Palestinians have some moral high ground with respect to the nekba, as it was a disproportionate escalation. Israel has the highground with respect to de facto power.
If we can all agree that UN resolutions and international law should allowed to be implemented, that would be a path forward better than what's currently happening.
There is a very long list of what would be better than the current status.
None of them can work until the Jews and Palestinians actually want to stop killing each other.
They are currently stuck in a prisoners dilemma.
Who knows, if you are an optimist, maybe the destruction of hamas will be through enough that a successor accepting of current boarders comes to power.
This is the only way I can imagine things moving forward.
This is a false portrayal of the conflict. Israel wants to finish ethnically cleansing the west bank (as they have been doing and continue to do until this day) and want to either keep Gaza as a concentration camp or ethnically cleanse it as well. Palestinians want implementation of international law and UN resolutions which require a return to 67 borders and a right for Palestinian return. There IS a right and wrong side here and portraying the conflict as both sides just wanting to kill each other is obfuscating with the intent of portraying both sides equally at fault and thus the conflict hopelessly unsolvable.
If you agree that you have to let them back as per Geneva, then the solution is obvious: let the 7million refugees back to the lands they were ethnically cleansed from in 1948 and onwards.
I generally agree that for refugees this actually happened to (not their descendents), allowing them back (or compensating them for lost property) is a reasonable request (assuming they are willing to live in peace with their new neighbours). However i think it should apply to all refugees from that conflict including jews who were displaced of which there were a significant number of from what i understand. I can't support anything that is a rule for one side if it isn't applied to the other equally.
For cases where the original person is now dead (1948 was 75 years ago), i think its reasonable that that person's descendents should split appropriate compensation.
What im getting at here is - if someone was driven out and owned a 1 bedroom apartment, they are only owed a 1 bedroom apartment. If they had 50 grandchildren they are still owed only the single apartment not 50 apartments, one for each heir.
The other big issue is this was 75 years ago. Much of this property probably doesn't exist anymore. I think due to pure practicality, cash compensation would have to be the way to address this issue.
Which Jews within Israel were displaced in the conflict? Rather, it was a net gain for the Jews in Israel. People, including Golda Meir the first prime minister, simply moved into existing homes of people who had to flee because of the murderous Zionist mobs and pogroms. Compensating refugees and descendants doesn't solve the problem that they don't have legal status in the land they were born in / driven from. They must be let back to their native land. Israel uses this same logic - although spanning 2k years and reliant on mythology as proof - to let any Jew from anywhere in the world immigrate and gain citizenship in Israel. So if you're committed to being equitable to both sides, why aren't Palestinians given the same right of return to their homeland?
The laws discriminate against non-jews. Below is a list which includes things like restricting who can emigrate or gain residency, who land can be distributed or leased to, restricting commemoration of ethnic cleansing that the state was founded on, etc.
Your argument is not convincing in the least. Are all the Jewish people who criticize Israeli policies anti-Semitic as well? Being against apartheid and for the implementation of UN resolutions doesn't mean one hates the Jewish people.
I used to be an FBA seller and made an exit via sale to private equity (i.e. an aggregator). The FTC will likely fail on all or most fronts imo. Amazon's price fixing helps consumers because they simply don't show you the product if it's not the best price on the web. FBA fees are not "profits" taken by Amazon because logistics is not a profit-center for their business. Copying successful third party sellers' products, as annoying as it is (it happened to me more than once), doesn't appear to break any laws. Advertising costs keep rising yes, but again, how is that illegal? At some point, there may be an opportunity for some young entrepreneurial minded person to create their own marketplace open to third party sellers and undercut Amazon's commission (currently 15pct in most categories) and have cheaper advertising costs due to lower competition. The reason why currently this is likely not viable is that FBA is still faster and cheaper than any other existing fulfillment service last I checked. The margin difference between lower commission+cheaper advertising vs more expensive (and slower) fulfillment is still - I believe - in Amazon's favor. FBA, by the way, is open to use even if you sell on your own website. The service is called Amazon MCF (multi channel fulfillment), but the cost and speed is not as good as real FBA. I often wondered what Amazon gains by offering MCF and can't help but think it has something to do with making the appearance of not being anti-competitive.
Funny because alot of sellers are complaining about high fba fees eating into their profits. If you remove the subsidy (assuming there is one which I doubt) those fees would rise to hurt sellers more.
