50 Fascinating Historical Photos That Might Change The Way You Perceive The Past (New Pics)

Jayjay 2/2 In case anyone gets me wrong: I've got no problem with Jews. I grew up with Jews. Jews are fine. Térrorist murderers aren't fine and being Jewish doesn't give you an excuse for térrorist murdering.

@Forrest Hobbs: agreed and neither gives being Hamas you the right to k**l your own and Jews.

Jayjay, no-one has a right to murder anyone. Just imagine what we'd have if Zionist extremists hadn't conspired to murder Yitzhak Rabin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Yitzhak_Rabin. But they couldn't accept the idea of Palestinians having the right to live in peace, could they?

I do care for the Palestinians killed, especially when they are killed by their own terrorists. You have only half the story. You left out that Israel paid for their social wellfare and medical needs. So, NO, I am definitely NOT a fan of colonists and Netanyahu. I said that I understand their "putative self defense" and that the only road to peace is that Hamas is gone. If Hamas would change their agenda to live in peaceful coexistence with Israel? I would applaud that. But how will you live with a neighbour who's only goal is to k**l you? I don't think you will be that tolerant to let them k**l you. You would do anything not to be killed.

1/2 Jayjay, I have most of the story. Israel never paid a penny of compensation to the Palestinians they evicted to create Israel. Israel never paid a penny of compensation to the Palestinians they've been térrorising from their homes since the original theft. Isreal never paid a penny of compensation to the families of the stone-throwing Palestinian children the IDF has been murdering all my life. Israel is an exercise in brutal colonialism. The fact that Israel has provided a trivial amount of social welfare and medical care doesn't excuse anything.

2/2 Jayjay, Hamas exists because Israel's only goal is to eliminate all trace of Palestinians from the region Likud and its political allies consider to belong to Israel. Palestinians are incredibly tolerant of Israelis, given how disgracefully they've been mistreated by Israel over the decades. Israel's existence isn't threatened by Hamas. Israel does pose an existential threat to the Palestinians who of course are willing to do anything to survive the threat Israel continues to pose. The only road to peace is for Israel to stop its persecution of the Palestinians - which is what created Hamas in the first place.

XenoMurph: the IDF is a thousand times worse than Hamas - Hamas hasn't existed long enough to have committed the huge number of murders the IDF is responsible for. Hamas only exists because of Zionist térrorism against Palestinians which began before the creation of Israel and hasn't let up. For those who object to my view of history: if the IDF aren't a bunch of murderous térrorists, then neither is Hamas. I think both organizations are guilty - but the IDF is far more guilty than Hamas. In case anyone gets me wrong: I've got no problem with Jews. I grew up with Jews. Jews are fine. Térrorist murderers aren't fine and being Jewish doesn't give you an excuse for térrorist murdering.

You seem to be under the illusion that is somehow had started in 1948, and that before that point, it was all peace and flowers and sunshine. The origins of the conflict were in 1917 but actual violence started in 1929 with attacks by Palestinian mobs that destroyed Jewish settlements and neighborhoods. The Jewish organizations responded with organized attacks on Palestinian neighborhoods. For the next 20 years, both sides engaged in a civil war, attacking each other's civilian targets, which culminated in the 1947-1949 war, in which Israel gained independence, while the Palestinian attempts at independence were lost when they lost the war and when Egypt and Jordan annexed whatever the Palestinians did manage to hold. The Palestinians aimed at total destruction of the Jewish communities, and the Israelis wanted a country for themselves and the refugees in Europe, without consideration for who was already living there.

Another thing to consider is that the majority of Israeli Jews are descended from refugees from Muslim countries. They do not see Palestinians as a unique ethnicity that want their own country. They see them as part of the same group which oppressed them or their parents of grandparents. The October 7th attacks triggered all of their fears and paranoia. The atrocities that are being committed in Gaza are not mostly being done as part of some organized terror, they are part of revenge fantasies. They are "we'll do to them what they want and tried to do to us". The Hamas planned their attack specifically to evoke this response in the fantasy that it would result in the Arab world attacking Israel. You are correct in your assertion that the Likud, Netanyahu specifically, are responsible for the rise of Hamas, just like the Republicans were responsible for the rise of Al Qaeda, and for the same fvcked-up reasons.

Max Fox, you're guilty of another bit of shameless historical revisionism when you say: Israeli Jews "see [Palestinians] as part of the same group which oppressed them or their parents of grandparents." Why not mention that the Palestinians see Israelis as being part of the group which continues to térrorise and slaughter them, as has been going on since the late 1940s? It's a funny thing, isn't it? The way Jews and Muslims had coexisted peacefully for centuries in Palestine but for some strange reason trouble kicked off in the 1920s. Call me Mr Suspicious if you like, but there does seem to be a link between what you call "oppression of Jews" and the beginning of Zionist dispossession and oppression of Palestinians - Zionist trouble-making causing a backlash from the existing population. Admittedly, the British authorities were also guilty, having reneged on their promise to give independence to the Arabs.

Max Fox: about Sephardic vs Ashkenazi Jews in Israel - it seems that the "local" Jewish population is rather looked down upon by those with European ancestry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Israel#Intra-Jewish_racism

Max Fox: a nice bit of historical revisionism on your part which glosses over the troublemaking done by Zionists way back then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Palestine_riots. But of course, Zionists always ignore their own guilt and blame everything on their victims, don't they? 😁 The idea that the Palestinians wanted total destruction of Jewish communities is utter nonsense - they had no problems at all with Jews until their own existence was threatened by Zionist térrorism: Israel was created by Zionists totally destroying Palestinian communities. I knew someone who'd escaped the Názi h*******t; German and Jewish. I also knew someone whose mates were múrdered by Zionist térrorists - serving with the British army in Palestine, a bit after the 1939-45 war. There was a lot of nastiness going on back then. If the evicted Palestinians had been looked after properly back then, things wouldn't be as they are now - but the UK (the Power in charge of Palestine) couldn't have done it, what with the UK being pretty much broke back then. The UN should have got involved.

Yeah, of course I get downvotes - downvotes here exist to hide posts from view. Who can't cope with discussion, eh? Or someone pointing out that Israel was in fact created by Palestinians being evicted from their homes at gunpoint with no-one giving a thought to their rights? "They're only Arabs" seems to have been the general point of view... Yes, what the Názis did to the Jews was an unforgivably atrocious crime. Yes, creating Israel was necessary. But it was not necessary that the Palestinians should have been evicted without anyone even seeming to think of looking after them properly.

Somewhat one-sided, Forrest. Israel was created in order to give Jews a homeland state, rather than being the constant subject of holocausts or pogroms. I'm no lover of what they've done since - I think they've behaved appallingly and their expansionism has been despicable, but I think they deserve a home state just as much as the Palestinians. I just wish that both sides would agree boundaries and stick to them.

Apatheist Account2: not at all one sided. I know why Israel was created - it was necessary. The problem is that the way in which Israel was created caused the problems which we see now. The rightful inhabitants of the area were evicted at gun-point, their homes and land and farms and factories stolen from them with no compensation given. If the Palestinians had been looked after, if their remaining land had been secured from further Israeli theft, we'd not have the current situation where Israel has a government which takes the view that Palestinians have no right to any land inside the area Netanyahu and his cronies consider to be Israel. The situation is totally one sided: Israelis have never stopped térrorising, murdering, and evicting Palestinians following the policy that they used to create Israel in the first place. Of course some Palestinians have fought back - but they've been losing every step of the way. The situation is horrible and entirely the fault of Israel.