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.
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?
I think he’s trying to get around the black and white viewpoints, and bring up the idea that Israel is committing war crimes here, which is outside the Overton window on the subject currently in US politics.
Exactly. One does not do politics and convince their opposition if they don’t use conciliating language.
It’s the official policy of many of the most powerful nations of the world that only Palestine sucks here and that Israel can do no wrong and must be supported unconditionally. An “everyone sucks here” position would be much closer to the truth.
That’s basically the rational take here. Israel was attacked and is defending itself, but going far and beyond self defense using the extermination of terrorists as an excuse to commit genocide. Palestinian civilians are caught up in the crossfire and are innocent of any wrongdoing, but the Palestinian government knowingly harbors Hamas within their borders and refuses to cooperate with Israel at every opportunity to create a two state system. Finally, there’s Hamas, who are bad guys full stop with no redeeming qualities.
So, Obama’s take is pretty solid. Nobody has their hands clean in all of this and everybody sucks, but there are still ways to stop the bloodshed, but those solutions are complicated. Especially when nobody really wants to come to the negotiation table right now. Israeli citizens right now remind me of American citizens in the wake of 9/11 - bloodthirsty and hungry for vengeance at any cost. So long as they remain furious, Netanyahu has a clear political motivation to continue the attacks.
This did not start this past October. Israel has been treating Gaza as an open air prison for over a decade. And before that there’s all the settler bullshit and decades of war crimes justified by dehumanizing Palestinians.
Of course the Palestinians haven’t been peaceful. Neither side has been peaceful since the 1940’s.
The government of Gaza is Hamas, elected in 2007.
Israeli civilians have also been caught in the crossfire. You know from the terrorist attack they committed 3 weeks ago that killed 1,400 and then the 200 innocent people they kidnapped and imprisoned as hostages somewhere in Gaza, which is what this is all about?
If Hamas freed the hostages, Israel would have a much harder time conducting this war in the way they are, but you can’t literally kidnap someone’s citizens and expect anything less.
What about Netanyahus relationship with the PLO before Hamas. He’s been playing both sides using the fear of Palestinian militants as a political football, just trying to stay elected and ignoring the views of the average secular Israeli.
Israel is being led by a group of religious extremists.
It’s complicated, and both sides have committed unbelievable atrocities, but Israeli leadership have overplayed their card. Their crimes over the last few weeks will echo for decades to come.
My guess it will have the opposite effect than they intended, Israel will lose out in the long term.
Time will tell.
You’re right that both sides have been awful.
While Israel may be led by a group of religious extremists, so is Palestine and Gaza specifically by extremist terrorists.
This round of tit for tat will echo like all the previous rounds over the last 70 years.
Until Hamas frees the hostages, it’s virtually impossible to overplay the hand.
This will just be another footnote of ugly killing on both sides in a long history of ugly killings.
I’m not so sure. The current geopolitical outlook leaves Israel in a tough spot. With the failure of globalisation and the declining importance of the Middle Eastern hydrocarbons, there is actually a breaking point.
I don’t necessarily think that breaking point would be reached, but if the current government does not restrain themselves and play their card correctly, it will count against them going forward.
Despite what Americans think, their previous actions have counted against them, too.
I’m the modern information age. The old tactics of statecraft and economic dominance fall apart. The opposing axis wanted Israel to respond like this. It’s a huge mistake for them to continue with this approach.
It’s a multipolar world these days.
Which are the poles you see in this multipolar world than were different from the poles over the last 50 years?
Suppose when you take the foreign policy of globalisation out of the equation, the geopolitical arena looks a lot different.
It’s hard to know how the relationships will develop. Israel geographical location has become at least 50% less important.
When you consider the possible impact of climate change and demographics over the next decade, coupled with the increasingly fragile financial outlook.
It’s not unfathomable that Israel ends up in an extremely exposed position without significant support from the West.
China and Russia are bound together by mutual interest in hydrocarbons, and Irans leaders would attempt to capitalise on every opportunity.
In a destabilised world, everyone will try size the opportunity. It’s going to get very busy, Netanyahu is assuming a lot when he thinks that Israel is going to stay relevant in the long term.
Nothing justifies war crimes.
But people justify Hamas attacks all the time by claiming they just defend themselves.
Did you really just just conflate every Hamas operation as a war crime?
That’s… Impressive.
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.
As much as we all hate comments like this…
“This.”
(Well said. Short, to the point, and the best summary I’ve seen in a while.)
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).
I think that’s basically what he’s saying with more words. You’re not wrong in this case, but the “everybody sucks here” line is most often used by people who don’t actually know the details of what they’re talking about, but need to have an opinion on the record. (Other recent example being the Ukraine war situation)
In my opinion, this whole situation is too drunk guys who got in a fight over something stupid. Palestine got knocked out early, and so Israel is being vilified simply for being the one still standing, but now Palestine has got up and kidney punched Israel while it was turned away, and people are rooting for the underdog since they got back up. The problem with this, and the reason that Obama is speaking the way that he is, is because people seem to be forgetting all of the other horrible things that Hamas has done too, because they’re currently the crowd favorite.
So yes, everybody sucks here, and I think people are having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that, sometimes in a fight, there isn’t actually a 100% good guy. It’s just too drunk guys getting in a fight over something stupid.
Agree or disagree with other people’s opinions, so be it. But this comment is such a unearned hand waving away of other people’s thoughtful comments/opinions made on the subject, and it’s not a true representation of what’s going on.
See, reading your comment makes me think that you didn’t actually read the rest of mine, because that’s not what I said. I’m not talking about the people here… Mostly.
I did.
Well then I’m not sure where to go from here, because you’re implying that I said things which I didn’t.
What I quoted, which is what you did say, is very explicit…
There’s truly no reason for us to continue to go back and forth on this endlessly, that text is very specific and straightforward.
Your analogy assumes some sort of equivalency between the two drunk men, but in reality there’s a huge discrepancy of power between Israel and Palestine, one so vast that your analogy comes off as reductive. It’s not just “two drunk guys in a fight”, it’s more like a drunk guy and a child, which the drunk guy has been picking fights with since the child was born, and all of the drunk guy’s friends keep helping him beat this child up.
There’s a power discrepancy now, but there wasn’t always.
By this analogy, Palestine is a drunk 17 year old, who along with a bunch of 20-something friends jumped one another kid when he just turned 18. Except the 18 year old won the fight and the older pals of the original drunk kid have backed off. Beaten to shit, the 17 year old keeps trying to swing at the 18 year old, who continues just kicking him while he’s down and everyone is looking on in horror but unwilling to jump back in the fight.
The fact they went 1 v 8 probably contributes a lot to Israel’s absolute unwillingness to not put themselves in a position where they are less powerful.
I see where your coming from, and I suppose I should clarify: in this case, the reason that I invoke the simile, is that the original reason for ALL this drama, is religion. There is more than enough physical space for them both to live in the region happily, but because this is the Land of Israel that we’re talking about, they both claim exclusive right to it, and only one can have it.
Events since this original issue obviously can’t go overlooked, but it all stems from this unreasonable unwillingness to share plenty.
It’s a tale as old as time. Just like the Hatfields and McCoys. They’ve hated each other for so long neither side remembers what started it and both sides have a list of grievances longer than they can keep track of and the score can never be settled. It’s to the point where there is no right side; both are wrong. You can make arguments that one side is more wrong than the other, but I’m not in favor of a “let the least wrong win” approach. Both sides are objectively wrong and both sides must stop.
This is simply not true. Palestinians were copacetic before the British mandate, the Balfour declaration, the declaration of the state of Israel and the Nakba.
Just come to your own conclusion
Thanks. People want to pretend this started a month ago and not understand the history.
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.
https://youtu.be/L0Zb9iUi0JM
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.
It’s not true that civilians are getting hurt in Gaza because of Hamas. They were already being killed off before the attacks.
“It’s complicated” is a constantly used rhetorical strategy by those in power to put off moral judgement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxC5HhKQ5ks 80 second video. This situation isn’t complicated at all.
Michael Brooks is missed. Great name btw.
I truly do think that Islamophobia and the United States having a lot of historical and economic ties to Israel are why we’ve allowed this to go on unchecked for decades.
Public opinion is definitely shifting in favor of Palestine though.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=RxC5HhKQ5ks
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.
Hamas is openly calling for genocide too, and they’ve been doing it longer than Israel.
Also, funny story, Israel is also literally the victims of genocide, (the Holocaust?), which is why their motto is “never again”.
There is no “way worse”, just ignorant keyboard warriors, and a shitty situation made worse by shitty people.
Israel are the beneficiaries of the Holocaust.
Literally, the major bump in population they experienced as a result of WWII was Jews who were able to go through a Nazi/Israel visa program to transfer them and their money. Like Hitler was planning to send them to Madagascar after he seized France, and then Israel reached out to him and negotiated a deal for him to send them settlers.
This agreement was seen as such a “success” the Roma (who unfortunately had a bit of a fascist sympathizing streak at the time) wanted to strike a similar agreement with Mussolini when he invaded Egypt to get their own “Israel” along the Red Sea coast.
The actual place most of the post war victims went to was to America where Jews had found success developing community safety via integration with surrounding communities.
Do you think the Holocaust means that the descendents of it’s victims can’t be genociders themselves? It altyally makes more sense, when you consider the cycle of abuse. Israel has been genociding Palestine for longer than Hamas has even existed, so no, that’s false.
Israel is way worse than Palestine, and you are the ignorant one if you disagree based entirely on the US/Israeli propaganda you’ve seen. You should research this yourself if you don’t believe me. Would you rather be right, or correct?
You said:
I’m saying: you’re an idiot with mental retardation if you think that that “because” means anything, since BOTH SIDES are victims of genocide.
Either you’re a holocaust denier, (and my diagnosis of you stands) or you’re just a plain old idiot with mental retardation who isn’t a holocaust denier, and is just stupid.
I’m not getting involved in the “who was worse” game. Worse doesn’t justify anything, you idiot.
Found the retarded sovcit / anti-vaxxer/ russian worshipper.
No, they are not both victims of genocide. One side is doing genocide (Israel), and the other would very much like to kill all the people genociding them. If you disagree, go look at deaths data over the last 30 years. Palestinians are 90% of the deaths.
Doing genocide justifies getting killed for doing genocide. And I’m a Russia worshipper because I told you to verify the facts you believe? Okay cool, I’m not going to continue wasting my time on a trolll then
I think we’ve all learnt all we need to learn about you right here.
Now you can fuck off to whatever nazi hole you crawled out of and never come back, please and thank you.