The findings by a Palestinian pollster signal more difficulties ahead for the Biden administration’s postwar vision for Gaza and raise questions about Israel’s stated goal of ending Hamas’ military and governing capabilities.
Washington has called for the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, currently led by Abbas, to eventually assume control of Gaza and run both territories as a precursor to statehood. U.S. officials have said the PA must be revitalized, without letting on whether this would mean leadership changes.
The PA administers pockets of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and has governed Gaza until a takeover by Hamas militants in 2007. The Palestinians have not held elections since 2006 when Hamas won a parliamentary majority.
It’s relative. If you’ve seen people around you being abused you become a little desensitized to what ‘abuse’ is. If abuse is normal every day living for one person, and not for another; the later sees it as abuse and the former sees it as another normal day.
Put yourself in the shoes of a Gaza resident anytime in the last 50+ years and consider yourself lucky that your reality allows you to be able to identify an atrocity when you see one.
Consider the reality these people have experienced for generations before leveling judgement on their opinions.
The entire situation is nauseating. I understand that Israel is a U.S. ally and that sometimes supporting allies means making decisions against better judgement, but… I would rather the U.S. wasn’t involved in this at all. It’s a bloody mess. Literally.
Yeah, no, I don’t think I’m gonna play apologist for the opinion that “Hundreds of Israeli civilians had it coming for the crime of existing, I’m glad that they were gunned down by a terrorist attack, this isn’t a war crime in the least.”
That kind of “But they’ve been living in fear! It’s different!” justification is the same shit Israel has used throughout its history to justify its atrocities, and it’s no more valid in the mouth of Israel than it is in Palestine’s.
You’re missing the point. For whatever it’s worth, I do agree with what you’ve written here. But what I’m talking about is perspective in understanding why the opinion polls shows the numbers they do.
What I’m NOT talking about is it being an excuse for behaviour. Surely you can understand why attitudes and opinions might differ between geographic regions and due to history.
Get off your soapbox, and try to understand why people think the way they do. You may come closer to actually understanding the nuances of reality instead of cocooning yourself in talking points. It’s all about relative perspective if you want to understand numbers being thrown around
Edit:
Just to be more clear, what I’m talking about is the difference between
“Hundreds of Israeli civilians had it coming for the crime of existing, I’m glad that they were gunned down by a terrorist attack, this isn’t a war crime in the least.”
And
“Hundreds of civilians have been killed for years, I’ve seen it happening and nothing has changed over a reasonable period of time. I guess this isn’t a war crime.”
‘Understanding why’ and ‘playing apologist for’ are two entirely different games. I understand why the Nazis garnered support in Weimar Germany. I understand why the Israeli security state developed and has such wide support amongst Israelis. I understand why Palestinians support terrorism while locked in a purgatory of occupation and imprisonment.
I’m not going to play apologist for them. I’m not going to sit here and say “Oh, I guess that’s a little bad, but it’s okay, because they’re suffering too.”
Supporting war crimes is horrifying. “They’ve had atrocities inflicted on them often too!”, yeah, and so have the Israelis, and yet when Israeli polls come out with horrifying numbers like “70%+ of Israelis support bombing Palestinian civilians”, I’m aghast at that horrific shit too.
It’s not okay. It’s not to be justified.
Man, I don’t know what you think I’m doing here. What talking points am I cocooning myself in? Please, give an example.
Dude, maybe I’m not explaining myself properly because I feel like we’re talking about two different things.
You said you “understand why Palestinians support terrorism while locked in a purgatory of occupation and imprisonment” if you understand this, then do you think their (meaning the average person) definitions of certain terms may be different to what we see?
If my definition of normal is not your definition of normal then can you judge the “normalcy”?
Again, I’m not saying this excuses behavior. But I do think it sheds light on why the poll is at 10%. The average Palestinian has seen copious amounts of indiscriminate violence (as has the average Israeli resident), do you reckon they might have a different bar for what constitutes a war crime or atrocity based on what they’ve been seeing around them for years?
Personally, I think this low poll numbers speaks more to what people are defining as an atrocity over there. Shits gotten so bad that murder is common.
As for talking points…man, I want to apologize for that. I felt myself getting emotionally invested in this back and forth and really shouldn’t have said that. I think “apologist” just triggered me because it’s gained a bit of a stigma
My point here is twofold:
That not defining murdering civilians as a war crime is horrifying regardless of whether or not you’ve had war crimes perpetrated on you, and that Israel’s extremists peddle the same basic line of “It’s just paying them back”, and it’s fucking horrifying there too.
That the deliberate denial of atrocities is a common phenomenon amongst radicalized supporters of causes, such as how British imperialists denied their atrocities and ignored evidence to the contrary, or the denial amongst some Americans of US atrocities at home and abroad.
Whether either or both apply, it is fucking disgusting and horrifying. Again, Israel makes the same excuses for their high level of support for murdering Palestinians - it’s no more justified there than it is here.
I agree with you on both points. Whats missing is the difference in definition of “war crime” and “atrocity” by the average citizen. These polls weren’t conducted solely on politicians, dignitaries, intellectuals, and the like.
If you don’t recognize an act as a war crime any more because of your lived experience. Are you able to willfully apply (or not apply) that label correctly?
Again, thinking about why the poll reflects the attitude towards Hamas + atrocities. Its not a matter of tit-for-tat I think; that is, its not “well they’ve been committing these ‘atrocities’ against us, so us doing it to them is valid/justified”. I think its “things have been happening and i don’t know what a war crime is, so when we do the same thing to them it can’t be a war crime…can it?”
In order for “deliberate denial of atrocities” to apply, you have to recognize an atrocity first and then deliberately deny it. Undoubtedly, the case amongst most intellectuals inside Gaza is that they recognize it very well. But I’d argue it isn’t true for the average citizen on either side of the fence. I’m talking about the people that are watching all this unfold from inside the border, Israelis and Palestinians. Shop keepers, taxi drivers, etc.
In fact, I’d wager that if a similar poll was conducted on Israeli citizens they’d most likely have a similar response to “did the IDF commit atrocities”. Its status quo over there. I’m not debating if these people are right or wrong in their thinking, I imagine there’s a whole conversation to be had around the notion.
So while it is definitely not right to say that Hamas did not commit war crimes or that they aren’t responsible for atrocities, I think its important to understand (and not vilify) that the very definitions we’re using for those terms may not be consistent inside that particular region. And that this should play into our accounting for why only 10% of Palestinians think Hamas committed war crimes.
That’s it. That last line, that’s all I’ve been trying to say
I mentioned that, specifically. My point is that that standard is fucking horrible on either side.
Without question. This is the scary part when it comes to “after the conflict”. There is an entire population of people for whom violence on this level has been normalized; but vilifying the people caught up in their respective propaganda machines and the machinations of their respective governments isn’t going to mend fences down the line. At the geo-political level, they may shake hands and even settle differences one day…but the familiarity with intense violence will need to be reckoned with and reconciled for the general population on both sides.