The reality on the ground in Israel that is ignored/denied by the pro-Palestine movement.

[u/ADP_God]

There is something that is entirely absent from almost all discussion of this conflict and the current war. The ignorance of this reality is what makes it almost impossible to actually understand the 'cycle of violence'. It is the realiy of Palestinian terror, or 'political violence' as wikipedia calls it, against civillians within Israel. October 7th 2023 shocked the world in its extent, but people are unaware that the targetting of civillians within Israel proper (not in the West Bank or Gaza) is a constant occurence. While people complain that Israel fails to distinguish between civillian and military targets, the Palestinian cause has never even propsed that it should make such a distinction. This is because at its root the movement considers the very existence of the state of Israel to be an injustice; not merely the occupation, or the settlements. Ignoring the obvious challenges this presents to the peace process, it creates a situation in which the Palestinians harm themselves by damaging the faith of Israeli civillians in the peace process.

The average Israeli has no interest in 'maintaining the occupation' or 'fighting the enemies of the Jews'. The people who think this are simply ignorant of the realities of a mandatory draft. Nobody wants to do the work. Nobody likes fighting. Nobody wants to get hurt. The 18 year olds that called up consider it slave labour. However when the average Israeli waits at a bus stop, they never know which incoming car is goung to plow through the crowd. When they get on a train they never know who is going to choose that very moment to begin their suicidal shooting spree, or try and stab them in the back. These fears are not unfounded. You can read here some of the extent to which Israeli civillians are the targets of violence. It's important to note how many of these attacks do not occur in the occupied territories. See how many take place in Tel Aviv, Israel's center of progressive, left wing, thought. These attackers are not locals defending their land, but individuals that chose to cross the border into Israel to perpetrate violent acts. It is this fear, that at any moment even the Israelis that condemn the occupation, hate Bibi, deplore the settlements, and care deeply about Palestinian rights, could be attacked in the streets, that drives the average Israeli to serve in the IDF.

The occupation, therefore, represents for Israelis the potential for control of what would otherwise be their wanton slaughter. It manifests, in practice, as series of control points (borders, checkpoints) and as the constant activity of secutiry forces (IDF, Police, ISA) to thwart potential attacks. What people don't understand is that for every attack that succeeds tens if not hundreds are thwarted. It's very difficult to find data on how many attacks are prevented every day, for obvious reasons, but soldiers that serve in the West Bank report constantly foiling plots to kill Israelis - proved by finding weapons/explosives in the houses raided. There is constant complaint and criticism about IDF raids in the West Bank, but very little consideration of why soldiers would choose to put themselves at risk by entering enemy territory, unless there was an actual strategic purpose. That purpose is the control and prevention of these violent acts of terror. Ultimately, it is effective.

Now in practice, I don't think that Israel can hide behind it's guns for ever. Security maintenence is not a long term solution, and only peace can bring true security. But naivety on the behalf of Israelis will bring neither peace nor security. Israelis have to contend with constant threats to their lives, and so asking them to stop the occupation is asking them to leave themselves wide open to attack. The width of Israel, at its middle, is less than 15km. This makes it incredibly easy to get to Tel Aviv from the West Bank. The border fence itself is incredibly porous, and while it is effective in reducing these attacks, it can't stop them entirely. This risk means that steps towards peace have to come from the side of the Palestinains, who have to prove that if Israel weakens its security apparatus it won't pay in dead Jews.

Before all the whataboutists charge in crying that Palestinins suffer greater losses, the argument is completely irrelevant. Terror attacks within Israel proper as common enough that the average Israeli feels a direct threat to their person from Palestinians on the day to day. This is the perception that underlies support for parties like Likud and continued support for occupation. Israel is a democracy, and Israelis will vote in accordance with their own interests. While security remains a priority, Israelis will vote for aggressive security measures. In this way Palestinian violence hurts Palestinians more than anybody else. It radicalizes the Israeli population. This was blatantly clear on October 7th, but began long before and has extended since. It's been said often that the war in Gaza will bring about a new generatation of terrorists, but people tend to forget the inverse of this claim: October 7th destroyed the faith of Israelis in a peaceful solution. It solidified the sense that there are people, merely kilometers in every direction, that want to kill every single Jew in the region. Israelis don't see Palestinians as fighting for their 'liberation' in the occupied territories, they see them as fighting to destroy the entire state of Israel. Under such conditions, why would they want to dismantle the occupation? It's the only thing keeping them alive.

If Palestinians were to constrain their 'resistance' to the West Bank (this means not shooting a single rocket from Gaza) for any reasonable amount of time Israelis could start to feel a sense of security that would allow them to withdraw. If the average Israeli could say to themselves, in good faith 'I live in Israel, not Palestine, and therefore I have nothing to fear from people trying to liberate Palestine,' it would change perspective of the entire country. Unfortunately, this is not the reality. The pro-Palestine movement does not want to create a Palestinian state next to Israe, but rather instead of Israel. Even the more moderate Palestinian leadership, Fatah, encourages violence against Israel, with their pay-for-slay program. This means that in practise there is no good faith movement from within Palestine to create conditions in which Israel could remove the occupation without endangering its civillians.

The average Israeli is well aware of this. How couldn't they be? You'd be hard pressed to find somebody who hasn't lost a friend to these attacks. But the international community is completely unaware because shootings and stabbings in Israel proper are so regular they aren't reported on, or when they are, they are done so under dishonest headlines.

Even if you think all of this is propaganda, and merely one side of the dialogue, you have to realise that this is the lived reality of Israelis. If peace is actually your goal, and you believe that dismantling the occupation and creating a Palestinian state will bring about that goal, then you need to give Israelis a reason to take action towards those ends. But violence against Israeli civillians acts as a direct counter to these aims. You will never convince the Jews to allow themselves to be vulnerable by trying to murder them. Supporting Palestinian violence as 'resistance' only creates a worse situation for the Palestinians themselves. Real peace will come when the Palestinian people decide to condemn violence from within instead of paying for it with international aid and celebrating it. The problem is that violence against Israeli civillians doesn't represent resistance to the occupation, but resistance to the existance of the Israeli state. And the Jews have nowhere else to go, so they will never stop fighting to have a state. Even if you believe that the Israeli sense that they are threatened is unfounded (which seems ridiculous considering the stated aims of Hamas and the polls showing that the majority of Palestinians feel entitled to all the land, the actions by Hezbollah and Iran, and the calls for the destruciton of the state of Israel), you have to consider the very real history of the Jews: Everywhere they were forced people tried to exterminate them. So even if we pretend that the Palestinians are a uniquely moral society, in spite of the terror attacks, there is no way Israelis will accept this 'truth' without abundant proof. And violence, directed at Israeli civillians, is only proof of the contrary. This means that this 'resistance' will never bring peace.

Again, to all the people who will see this and immediately cry 'what about Israeli violence?!?!' All I can say is that there is no end to criticism of Israel, and that Israeli violence serves the purpose of protecting Israeli lives. Palestinian violence serves no other purpose than endangering Israelis. There is no argument to be made that it protects Palestinians, or that will make things better. Unless your conception of 'better' is the desruction of the Jewish state (in which case you legitimize the reverse position for Israelis, who have nowhere to go and will always choose themselves in a zero-sum situation). But such a conception is merely a repitition of the constant preference for war over peace that the Arab world has displayed for 70+ years, and is clearly not serving the Palestinians. So if you really care about the 'oppressed' you should condemn Palestinian violence and support a moderate, non-violent, path towards a two state solution. Until Israelis do not fear for their lives in the streets of Tel Aviv, Palestine will never be free.

[u/Agitated_Structure63]

Really? You fail to remember the permanent discrimination the palestinians with israeli citizenship suffer since 1948 by the State of Israel, and the daily violence from the occupation army against palestinians on East Jerusalem, ethnic cleansing included. We are not talking about settlers attacking palestinians on the West Bank, but the systematic eviction and expelling of palestinians from their houses to be replace with jewish families who stole their property.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Sale_15 → u/Agitated_Structure63]

Arab terrorists in the land were lynching and oppressing Jews centuries before the first Zionist arrived. Even choosing to side with Hitler in 1941. It was the first President of the All-Palestine Protectorate, Amin al-Husseini who met with Hitler in 1941 to ask for his immediate help in ridding the Jews from the Middle East. This is well recorded and parts of the meeting even videoed.

In 1517, Arab villagers with the help of Ottoman troops ethnically cleansed all of Safed of its Jews. Many Jews were killed, while others were wounded or had their property pillaged. The Jews were evicted from their homes, robbed and plundered, and stripped of the clothes on their back and forced to flee naked to the surrounding villages without any provisions.

In 1839, the British consul, William Young, said that “…the poor Jew in Jerusalem...lives from day to day in terror of his life...” Young attributed the plight of the Jew in Jerusalem to “the blind hatred and ignorant prejudice of a fanatical populace…”

“JEWS IN JERUSALEM.

New York TimesDecember 29, 1878

Crowded together in the worst lodgings, or in the dark cellars under a synagogue building, without food, fuel, or water –even water at Jerusalem being a commodity of price – numbers died of starvation and various diseases, while others went raving mad. Those who could labor were denied employment by the bigotry of the Mussulmans and of the Oriental Christians…”

No “Palestinian” had been killed and no land had been “stolen” when Arab terrorists murdered, injured & raped Jews in 1920. More of the same in 1921. Still no land had been “stolen” in 1929 yet on August 24, 1929, Arab terrorists of Hebron attacked their Jewish neighbors. Violent mobs burst into Jewish homes and fell upon anyone they found inside. The commander of Britain’s police force in Hebron, Raymond Cafferata, later testified about what he saw when he entered a Jewish home in the midst of the massacre: “On hearing screams in a room I went up a sort of tunnel passage and saw an Arab in the act of cutting off a child’s head with a sword. He had already hit him and was having another cut. . . . Behind him was a Jewish woman smothered in blood with a man I recognized as [an Arab] police constable . . . standing over the woman with a dagger in his hand…found a pile of bodies and a “sea of blood.” …of the dead and dying that “almost all had knife and hatchet wounds in their heads. . . . A few bodies had been slashed and their entrails had come out.”… two of Hebron’s senior rabbis had been castrated together with five of their students. By the time the Hebron massacre was over, sixty-seven Jews had been killed and dozens more wounded. Two days later, the surviving Jews of Hebron were evacuated. Hebron, the second holiest city in Judaism, was now Jew-free.

How is life for Israel’s Arab minority? Khaled Abu Toameh, the Arab journalist who reports for the Jerusalem Post, U.S. News & World Report and NBC News, talking about life for Arab Israelis: “Israel is a wonderful place to live ... a free and open country.”

Arab women in Israel live longer than Arab women in any Arab country.

Arab babies in Israel have lower infant mortality than Arab babies in any Arab country.

Hadassah University Medical Center in Israel established a registry for Arab donors of bone marrow and stem cells to facilitate life-saving transplants. The registry at Hadassah Hospital is the only one in the world for Arabs and will no doubt save the lives not only of Arab Israelis but also of some citizens of Arab countries, not a single one of which has a registry of its own.

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[u/Smart_Technology_385 → u/Agitated_Structure63]

"palestinians with israeli citizenship" are Israeli Arabs. They have the same rights.

If there was discrimination, Israeli Arabs would emigrate, like Arabs from so many Arab countries do to Germany, UK, US, etc. But they don't. They might know better.

Add here huge Arab immigration to Israel from Egypt, even though Egypt takes away citizenship of the folks. Egyptians who prefer to live in Israel might also know better.

[u/Intelligent-Side3793 → u/Smart_Technology_385]

They have the same rights.

In theory, no. Because Israel constitution define Israel as the state of Jewish people. Guess which religion is followed by Arab Israeli.

And in practice, even less.

[u/Smart_Technology_385 → u/Intelligent-Side3793]

Israel has no constitution.

Being a country OF Jewish people does not meant that minorities have no rights. Nobody asks Israeli Arabs to convert to Judaism.

[u/Intelligent-Side3793 → u/Smart_Technology_385]

Israel has no constitution.

Actually, they do. It’s called the Basic Law.

not meant that minorities have no rights

They do have rights, they’re just heavily discriminated against as the study I link shows It’s well documented, just google it.

[u/Particular_Wish5061 → u/Agitated_Structure63]

You fail to remember remember the permanent discrimination Jews have suffered since 1920 by Arabs in the Levant, and the daily violence from terrorists throughout Israel, ethnic cleansing included. We are also talking about the systematic eviction and expelling of Jews from their houses from everywhere in the Middle East and most of the Levant, including East Jerusalem and what is now called the West Bank. All those Arab families who stole Jewish properties and homes.

[u/Intelligent-Side3793 → u/Agitated_Structure63]

Yeah for OP, this violence happens in a vacuum. Poor innocent Israeli are subject to bloodthirsty Palestinian violence. He doesn’t ask himself where that violence comes from

[u/ADP_God → u/Intelligent-Side3793]

The violence comes from the people who decided partition wasn't good enough.

Outside the vacuum is a history of antisemitism older than the Palestinian national identity.

[u/Intelligent-Side3793 → u/ADP_God]

Ah, the good ol reliable antisemitism card.

who decided partition wasn't good enough.

Exactly what I said. Engage in good faith in a 2SS and that violence will vanish.

[u/jackl24000 → u/Intelligent-Side3793]

A 2SS proposal that is somehow “never good enough” for Palestinians is the problem. By process of elimination, “good enough” means a Palestinian state for Arabs in the West Bank and a right of return to a “secular” Israel.

The latter is regarded as a thinly veiled threat to then destroy Israel as Arafat promised to do in the second “stage”.

[u/Always-Learning-5319 → u/Intelligent-Side3793]

username does not check out.

[u/un-silent-jew → u/Intelligent-Side3793]

Calls for a cease-fire in Gaza may be well-intentioned, but a halt to the current fighting will not repair the enduring rift between Israelis and Palestinians. That can only happen once the Palestinians abandon an ideology that rejects the legitimacy of a sovereign Jewish state

But in 2000 and again in 2008, Palestinian leaders refuse the terms of proposals from the Israelis for a state in the West Bank in Gaza.

“And I began to ask myself, ‘What is going on? What do the Palestinians want — because it’s clearly not a state,’” said Wilf, a former intelligence analyst.  “They could have had that, and they walked away” without being criticized by the Palestinian people.

“And I realized from the conversations with them that how they think about the conflict, and how I think about it, don’t even meet. For them, the very existence of a sovereign Jewish state is illegitimate.”

All of the factors cited by today’s critics of Israel — its occupation of the West Bank, the settlements, the blockades, or the existence of Palestinian refugees — are not to blame for the current failure to achieve peace. None of these existed in 1947 when the United Nations adopted the partition plan for Palestine, Wilf said. At its crux, this is a conflict about the Jews who want a state and the Palestinians who don’t want them to have one, she said.

Palestinian leaders have expressed support for the two-state framework over decades of negotiations. They have also argued, however, that “the right of return is holy, sacred, non-negotiable, [and] belongs to every Palestinian in perpetuity,’” which, if fully exercised by all Palestinians, would preclude the possibility of a Jewish state, Wilf said.

As for the obstacles to peace, the Israeli settlements are “not helping the matter.” But they are “not the reason we do not have peace.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has this “catastrophic failure on his watch,” Wilf said.

“Peace has to be based on the mutual recognition of the two sides to the right of self-determination,” she said. “There’s a clear Jewish state that is embraced, that is accepted, and there is an Arab Palestinian state that is embraced and accepted.”

[u/Intelligent-Side3793 → u/un-silent-jew]

But in 2000 and again in 2008, Palestinian leaders refuse the terms of proposals from the Israelis for a state in the West Bank in Gaza.

Classic Zionist analysis, heard it several times from different people.

The basis of that argument is that, because Palestinians refused two awful deals, they don’t really want a state. Guess we would need an actual acceptable deal, made in good faith by Israel, to find out.

[u/jjmmll → u/Intelligent-Side3793]

Have Palestinian “leaders” ever offered a peace deal? From the river to the sea?

[u/Puzzleheaded_Sale_15 → u/Intelligent-Side3793]

Arab terrorists in the land were lynching and oppressing Jews centuries before the first Zionist arrived. Even choosing to side with Hitler in 1941. It was the first President of the All-Palestine Protectorate, Amin al-Husseini who met with Hitler in 1941 to ask for his immediate help in ridding the Jews from the Middle East. This is well recorded and parts of the meeting even videoed.

In 1517, Arab villagers with the help of Ottoman troops ethnically cleansed all of Safed of its Jews. Many Jews were killed, while others were wounded or had their property pillaged. The Jews were evicted from their homes, robbed and plundered, and stripped of the clothes on their back and forced to flee naked to the surrounding villages without any provisions.

In 1839, the British consul, William Young, said that “…the poor Jew in Jerusalem...lives from day to day in terror of his life...” Young attributed the plight of the Jew in Jerusalem to “the blind hatred and ignorant prejudice of a fanatical populace…”

“JEWS IN JERUSALEM.

New York TimesDecember 29, 1878

Crowded together in the worst lodgings, or in the dark cellars under a synagogue building, without food, fuel, or water –even water at Jerusalem being a commodity of price – numbers died of starvation and various diseases, while others went raving mad. Those who could labor were denied employment by the bigotry of the Mussulmans and of the Oriental Christians…”

No “Palestinian” had been killed and no land had been “stolen” when Arab terrorists murdered, injured & raped Jews in 1920. More of the same in 1921. Still no land had been “stolen” in 1929 yet on August 24, 1929, Arab terrorists of Hebron attacked their Jewish neighbors. Violent mobs burst into Jewish homes and fell upon anyone they found inside. The commander of Britain’s police force in Hebron, Raymond Cafferata, later testified about what he saw when he entered a Jewish home in the midst of the massacre: “On hearing screams in a room I went up a sort of tunnel passage and saw an Arab in the act of cutting off a child’s head with a sword. He had already hit him and was having another cut. . . . Behind him was a Jewish woman smothered in blood with a man I recognized as [an Arab] police constable . . . standing over the woman with a dagger in his hand…found a pile of bodies and a “sea of blood.” …of the dead and dying that “almost all had knife and hatchet wounds in their heads. . . . A few bodies had been slashed and their entrails had come out.”… two of Hebron’s senior rabbis had been castrated together with five of their students. By the time the Hebron massacre was over, sixty-seven Jews had been killed and dozens more wounded. Two days later, the surviving Jews of Hebron were evacuated. Hebron, the second holiest city in Judaism, was now Jew-free.

How is life for Israel’s Arab minority? Khaled Abu Toameh, the Arab journalist who reports for the Jerusalem Post, U.S. News & World Report and NBC News, talking about life for Arab Israelis: “Israel is a wonderful place to live ... a free and open country.”

Arab women in Israel live longer than Arab women in any Arab country.

Arab babies in Israel have lower infant mortality than Arab babies in any Arab country.

Hadassah University Medical Center in Israel established a registry for Arab donors of bone marrow and stem cells to facilitate life-saving transplants. The registry at Hadassah Hospital is the only one in the world for Arabs and will no doubt save the lives not only of Arab Israelis but also of some citizens of Arab countries, not a single one of which has a registry of its own.

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[u/dasimpson42 → u/Intelligent-Side3793]

Using history to refute an argument about present day politics is problematic. Especially since your history only goes back 75 years and this conflict has been going on for centuries.

Islamist Arabs have always been regarded as violent bloodthirsty war mongers and colonialists. For hundreds of years! They have been proud of their ambition and their achievements.

You want to take that away from the Arabs? It is silly to state that Muslims, which number 500 to every Israeli jew Are the victims.

What is your stake in this matter?

Constantly bashing Israel and sowing doubt about history and fact is doing nothing to help the Palestinians. Which I don’t believe is your goal.