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midlanderyesterday at 5:13 PM2 repliesview on HN

> The oppressors and the victim are clear in the Israel - Palestine conflict

Only if you zoom in and focus on one tiny sliver. If you look at the bigger picture, Israel is surrounded by dozens of countries 100s of times its size, that have all been ethnically cleansed of Jews, many of them in different stages of open or proxy war with Israel, militarily or politically.


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direwolf20yesterday at 5:19 PM

If you look at the even bigger picture, it was Israel that decided to pick fights with all those countries.

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thisislife2yesterday at 5:30 PM

Unlike the west, the Arabs or Persians have never nurtured any hatred of Jews till the British (and later the Americans) forcefully backed the creation of a Jewish state in the middle-east. Even today, muslims around the world don't give a damn about Jews or antisemitism unless it is in the context of Palestinians. This is in stark contrast to the christian west, which still harbours a lot of antisemitism and is the factory that still generates most of the modern Jewish conspiracy political tropes (some of which do find their way to religious fundamentalists in the east too). The Israeli-right, ofcourse, has a vested interest in painting Arabs and muslims as antisemites, because otherwise "Israel" can't showcase itself as a "victim". I do believe the Israelis are victims too though not in the way the Israeli-right depicts it - early Zionists never realised that the bigger plan of the western superpowers in forcing them to the middle-east (instead of giving them their own country in Europe) was part of their "divide and rule" policy for the middle-east. Frankly, Israel and Palestine will never be at peace because it is not in the interest of western superpowers. (The Israeli-right have latched on to this too, and are trying to exploit it to increase their own power and influence in the region. Unfortunately for them, that is undesirable for the west and worse, they did it in a way that brings unwanted attention to the west - the Trump and Blair lead Board of Peace is the western response to cut Israel down to size, in the coming future).

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