I wonder what the American leftists who took to twitter to say they’re not voting for ‘Holocaust Harris’ because Trump would be better for Gaza are thinking. Any self-reflection? Nahh.
The rhetoric is only going to get worse now, alas. Fortunately, this seems impossible to me, so it probably won’t happen.
I suspect this will crumble when the impossibilities of this become clear. Egypt and Jordan won’t take Gazans in. I suspect it’s more bluster to appear the strong man from Trump, like the tariffs that brought Canada and Mexico to do what they were doing before, but with token roles like ‘fentanyl czars’. Meanwhile the USA torches its reputation as any kind of a reasoned diplomatic force.
If the West hadn’t stuck it’s nose in after WW2 none of this would be happening now, as for the orange faced idiot this is right up his street for headline grabbing, completely bonkers idea.
There were plenty of things done wrong by the UK and west on this, not least the UK making promises to more than one party after WWI. However, none of it would have stopped the clashes. Jews would still emigrate to Israel, and were doing so before WWII. There has always been a Jewish presence in the area and there has always been some degree of sectarianism. There were attacks on synagogues before 1945, and antisemitic sentiment existed, as was seen with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in WWII. Likewise, there had been conflicts towards Muslims from some Jewish groups. The Holocaust survivors still would have fled to Israel after 1945 no matter what we did, as would others who tried to rebuild lives in eastern Europe, only to be attacked like in the Kielce pogrom. There still would have been calls to create a state of Israel from the Jews there and pushes for it to happen. There would still have been ethnic conflict in the Middle East where Jews had long had a presence, but were driven out in the wake of the likely formation of Israel. And if Israel didn’t form, there’d have been a situation like the Kurds, with persecution towards Jews from Arabs. None of it would be peace and utopia.
The west isn’t at fault for everything. Tensions have existed in Israel-Palestine for 75 years and there is much blame to be shared around. However, it is shared and both sides need to claim responsibility to clean it up. 75 years of ‘resistance’ has brought nothing but misery for the Palestinians and an emboldened sense of grievances, that often translate to extremism. Bolstering this by making this all about one side serves nothing but to perpetuate it. Much is said about Israeli action driving Palestinian hostility. There are kernels of truth in there, but the opposite is also true. Palestinian ‘resistance’ has driven many Israelis to support people like Netanyahu because they think he can protect them from those who wish them harm. It doesn’t make it right, it doesn’t excuse the excesses, but nor does Palestinian grievances for the existence of Hamas or their atrocities.
The only way I can see for any kind of peace is with a two state solution, but for that to happen there needs to be understanding of both sides. Raging at Israel for existing and feeding Hamas and others’ desires for the evil ‘settler-colonialists’ to go away will do nothing to bring it and only enforce a sense of desire within Israel to have greater protectioin against those they see as having no will to live alongside in peace. Many Israelis have known nowhere else, so we only have a choice to make something work, but that means confronting the problems in both societies. This includes the disgraceful decisions by Trump and Netanyahu. Even if this recent rhetoric is bluster, it’s still shameful and only making hostility even more likely.
As for none of this would be happening now. None of it would be happening without Oct 7th, the biggest folly in the history of the ‘resistance’, which has caused nothing but misery.
For clarity, “Raging at Israel” was meant to be about those I have seen on social media and on marches, and I tried to edit the post to reflect this, but editing time had run out.
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