Former President Barack Obama said a way forward for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is only possible if people acknowledge the “complexity” of the situation.
“If there’s any chance of us being able to act constructively to do something, it will require an admission of complexity and maintaining what on the surface may seem contradictory ideas that what Hamas did was horrific, and there’s no justification for it. And … that the occupation and what’s happening to Palestinians is unbearable,” Obama said in an interview on the podcast “Pod Save America.”
The former president’s comments come as the Israeli military focuses its offensive against Hamas in Gaza City and northern parts of the enclave.
It’s actually pretty easy if you stop requiring support for settler colonialism. The rest of the world left that behind 70 years ago. Israel doesn’t get to be special they can either give Palestinians voting rights (which would obliterate the idea of a Jewish state) or submit to a UN peacekeeping force between them and the Palestinians on the 1949 borders.
The only reason this is hard is because we keep bending over backwards to support their Apartheid. We know these answers. They’ve been done before.
Reddit probably rotted my brain, but I’m struggling to determine how this is anything but “everyone sucks here.” On this matter, I don’t think anyone has been truly in the right in a century. Can anyone provide a convincing argument otherwise?
“It’s complicated” is a constantly used rhetorical strategy by those in power to put off moral judgement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxC5HhKQ5ks 80 second video. This situation isn’t complicated at all.
That’s basically the rational take here. Israel was attacked and is defending itself, but going far and beyond self defense using the extermination of terrorists as an excuse to commit genocide. Palestinian civilians are caught up in the crossfire and are innocent of any wrongdoing, but the Palestinian government knowingly harbors Hamas within their borders and refuses to cooperate with Israel at every opportunity to create a two state system. Finally, there’s Hamas, who are bad guys full stop with no redeeming qualities.
So, Obama’s take is pretty solid. Nobody has their hands clean in all of this and everybody sucks, but there are still ways to stop the bloodshed, but those solutions are complicated. Especially when nobody really wants to come to the negotiation table right now. Israeli citizens right now remind me of American citizens in the wake of 9/11 - bloodthirsty and hungry for vengeance at any cost. So long as they remain furious, Netanyahu has a clear political motivation to continue the attacks.
This did not start this past October. Israel has been treating Gaza as an open air prison for over a decade. And before that there’s all the settler bullshit and decades of war crimes justified by dehumanizing Palestinians.
Of course the Palestinians haven’t been peaceful. Neither side has been peaceful since the 1940’s.
The government of Gaza is Hamas, elected in 2007.
Israeli civilians have also been caught in the crossfire. You know from the terrorist attack they committed 3 weeks ago that killed 1,400 and then the 200 innocent people they kidnapped and imprisoned as hostages somewhere in Gaza, which is what this is all about?
If Hamas freed the hostages, Israel would have a much harder time conducting this war in the way they are, but you can’t literally kidnap someone’s citizens and expect anything less.
Could we have this guy back, please?
The drone strike guy who didn’t close gitmo?
What israel is doing in Palestine is what oBomber did during his entire presidency.
Let’s judge people on their actions instead of hollow words. Even the walking orange did better than Obama when it comes to foreign policy by withdrawing from Afghanistan.
Does noise constantly echo in your empty skull?
No because the words of western leaders are so hollow that the echo cancels out. You should try taking both your eye patches off.
No. I need my left eye patch. I’m a pirate. You’re a loser.
Don’t forget the tan suit and bicycle helmet!
Worst president ever, ever!
/S
Obama is a Centrist-Democrat. Right-wingers AGREED with his policies enough that all they complained about was how much melanin his clothes lacked and lack of head protection. That meant the policies and actions were favorable to Right-wing nuts :-( Cancelling student debt, bailing out families in need, reinforcing the Social-Security, VA, CDC, EPA, FDA and making Roe-Wade into law ( along with the ACA ) in so many ways were sidelined and ignored while 2008 taught the lessons that werent learnt, 2019 hit so hard and so fast nothing could have been effective at stopping the long plunge into the depths.
Centrists do nothing except maintain the status-quo while silently allowing everything that failed to stay broken, while the next cycle of things to break happens over and over again until that deep dark pit becomes the new reality.
The guy who doesn’t understand that genocide is not at all complex? The guy who bombed a wedding and a hospital? And intentionally targeted American citizens with drone strikes? No thanks.
He also said:
If you want to solve the problem, then you have to take in the whole truth. And you then have to admit nobody’s hands are clean
which is something I totally agree on. There is no “good or bad” team in the Middle East…all parties are involved in this conflict and it’s cause!
Of course. Those kids in refugee camps, hospitals and ambulances have their hands soaked in blood.
Hey, don’t forget those of us who made this mess and walked away, and every country on Earth that continues to keep the whole Middle East area relevant through our continued oil addiction.
Hey, don’t forget those of us who made this mess and walked away,
The early 20th century British Empire?
through our continued oil addiction.
Israel, let alone Gaza, don’t exactly produce a lot of oil, and I certainly don’t know that they sell it.
This whole conflict in Israel is more about land, and the West supports Israel bEcAuSe DeMoCrAcY in an otherwise unfriendly region. The region as a whole might be messy “because oil,” but that’s rather tangential to this conflict.
Israel is adjacent to an incredibly strategic shipping location - the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal links the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean without having to go around Africa or around Siberia.
Israel isn’t strategically important because it has big oil reserves. It’s strategically important because it’s near a lot of important things. Oil and shipping play a bigger role than you’d think.
You mean the canal that is entirely within Egypt? That argument seems like a stretch to me, and clearly wasn’t the argument the above was trying to make either.
They’re a democracy and have historically been opposed to many counties the West was already opposed to. Their strategic importance is military, not oil.
Israel, the UK and France invaded Egypt in 1956 after Egypt expropriated the Suez Canal from its French & British owners. Then they fought a war in 1967 to keep it open. The conveyance of European trade through the Suez Canal is a major part of Israel’s geopolitical importance.
