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[Reelya]

The USA bears a big part. UN resolutions going back to the mid 1970s have pressured Israel to accept the 2-state solution, which was already accepted by the Palestinians (who initially were opposed in the first half of the 1970s). But the USA has used their UN security council veto virtually every year for this.

The UN has voted to sanction Israel 43 times now, with the USA vetoing it every time. They literally get international sanctions voted against them pretty much every year since 1970, that what they've done is in flagrant breach of international law. It's not just some Palestinians getting upset: international legal experts worldwide all pretty much agree that Israel is in continuous breach of basic international law that was ratified in the wake of WWII.

e.g. we kill half a million Iraqis because Saddam breached one resolution. And then we're expected to buy that another nation that's weaseled out of 43 resolutions in a row, but is protected by a powerful ally bending the rules, is apparently equally to blame with the people they invaded. That's like saying Saddam Hussein is equally to blame with Kuwait for the 1991 Gulf War.

No, America could have stopped vetoing everything the UN tried to do, then we could have put UN peacekeeper troops in, and then we could have enacted the goddamn two-state settlement that's already been decided on 40 years ago.

[Sheb]

The uprising is just as much of a reaction on the walling in, as the walling in was a reaction to constant suicide attacks and threats towards Israel.
Before the walls and checkpoints, busses getting blown up and people getting their throats slit were an everyday fear for Israeli. Maybe you are too young to remember that, but I grew up with suicide attacks on Israel being a recurring item in the news.

The current clusterfuck is as much Israeli rightwing politic's fault as it is Hamas'.
Don't forget that it's Hamas who forcibly removed their fellow Palestinians from Gaza and took control, with their only agenda being 'drive all jews into the ocean'.
Don't forget it was Hamas that called for another intifada at a time when peace talks were finally seeming to lead somewhere (a 2 state solution, even).
Also let's not forget that the Grand Mufti allied with Hitler because Hitler promised to help deal with the Jews in Palestine.
Just saying that the hatred and attempt at driving out the jews goes way further back than the wall.It's not like Hamas, or molotov throwing Palestines are such poor innocent people.
And while the people in Gaza indeed live in a terrrible situation, their Hamas leaders are leading the good life in their Gaza villas.

Well, the entire conflict has been going on for almost a century now, so you can find plenty to point at on both sides. For each of your point there is a counterpoint too. (And likely one for each of my own counterpoint). The wall is one thing, but the economic blockade of Gaza was another, aimed at least as much at making the population suffer in the hope that they would throw of hamas as anything else. Not only were construction material banned, but all kind of food and household products have been banned at time (although it did softened a bit after 2010).

Hamas removed the PA from Gaza, but only after it won a fair election and was denied power. And it's platform extended out from simply anti-Zionism to other things such as better delivery of public services that the corrupt PA wasn't able to provide.

The Grand Mufti did ally with Hitler, but he didn't really represent all Palestinians (after all, he got his job as a British appointee), and after the quite violent putdown of the Arab revolt by the British, he really didn't have much choice. One could argue that his position is similar to Finland's in many ways.

So yeah. Of course, the Palestinians's enmity to Israel isn't something that happened over the last few years. Israel was, after all, litterally built on their land. Asking them to like it would be similar to asking Native Americans to like the US government. The current Israeli policy hasn't created hatred for Israel (although it certainly hasn't helped in any way, shape or form to lessen it). But when you try to put yourself in a Palestinian's shoes, when your choice as a nation seems to be between being peaceful and watch the colonies grow as you keep being denied statehood and lashing our violently at your oppressor, when your choice as a person is between being stuck in hopeless poverty in Gaza or lashing out at an IDF soldier, you understand how they can come to that position better.

P.S. Don't we have a mid-east thread?

[Jopax]

Israel just won the eurovision, this clearly belongs in the euro-thread

[Reelya]

also it's worth mentioning that the Grand Mufti wasn't actually in any sort of position of power in Palestine at the time he made those statements, nor was the "position" he held actually a real position:

He'd been appointed by the British as "Grand Mufti of Jerusalem" which was nothing more than a position concocted by the British themselves when they beat the Ottomans in 1918. The role's only duties were to be responsible for the holy places in Jerusalem, e.g. to manage the mosques so Britain didn't have to. Then, when the Arabs revolted in 1937, the British tried to arrest him as a scapegoat and he fled, eventually relocating to Italy and Germany as a collaborator. So sure, he said those things, but it wasn't like he held some sort of traditional role with authority to speak for all Palestinians or anything of the sort, nor was he located in Palestine at the time. Sure, he was still "Grand Mufti" at the time, but purely because the British never bothered to appoint someone else. e.g the role was so "important" that Britain's so-called "Grand Mufti of Jerusalem" wasn't even in the country for 11 years from 1937-1948.

(also we have the benefit of hindsight knowing how terrible the holocaust would be, but the mufti teamed up with the Axis around 1941, well before the holocaust had even begun, and couldn't have known the details we know today. the #1 main reason he did that is pretty clear: Germany was fighting England, who were the current occupiers of Palestine).

e.g. I could grant myself the title "Grand Duke of Washington DC" and then I could sit here in Australia, bad-mouthing Chinese people on Twitter. And people could then say "what, the Grand Duke of Washington DC is racist? Fuck those Americans!" That's about as relevant as the Grand Mufti was to actual Palestinian society.

[Sheb]

Well, it's not entirely true. First of all, while the title of "Grand Mufti" was created by the Brits, there had been a Mufti in Jerusalem before (Kamil al-Husayni, who was given the title of Grand Mufti by the Brits and was the brother of the one that famously became a propagandist for the Nazis. The guy was also generally accomodating to the British and the Jews, belying the claim that Palestinian Islam has always been anti-semitic). The reason there wasn't a "Grand Mufti" is that the Grand Mufti is the highest religious official in the land, and before 1918 the land was the Ottoman Empire and the Grand Mufti was in Constantinople.

It's also misleading to say he had no influence whatsoever. His position was one of the few major official position held by Arabs (another one being the office of Mayor of Jerusalem), and he certainly had influence. He was also free from the restrictions on travel most Arabs faced in Mandate Palestine which gave him the mean to prusue politics. In  the absence of any recognized body representing all Arabs, he was a kind of leader.

[Reelya]

I didn't really mean to say he didn't have "influence", but i did say that his role wasn't some sort of traditional role that represented Palestinian society.

e.g. as you mentioned they took the title "Grand Mufti of Constantinople" then grafted it onto the fabricated position "Grand Mufti of Jerusalem". The idea clearly was to break up Ottoman power into regional sectors, under British control, but to give it the veneer of legitimacy by borrowing Muslim terminology from elsewhere. e.g. "Grand Duke Of Luxembourg" is a real existing position, but I can't just, as I said, make a "Grand Duke of Washington DC" then externally appoint someone to that and act like they're some spokesperson for all Americans, even if "Grand Duke of <somewhere else>" is a pre-existing position. That's just co-opting the terminology, nothing else.

And the rest, as you said, is that basically that he had excess influence purely because the British heavily clamped down on the traditional leadership, but didn't clamp down on him - e.g. he was their puppet with the fake title, so they gave him leeway denied to everyone else. e.g. the Brits appointed him to a fabricated role with a grafted-on title then suppressed most other Arab leadership. Sure, that gave him power, but it doesn't necessarily make him a legitimate representative of his people, any more than Vichy France's ruler Marshal Philippe Pétain is seen as being a legitimate representative of French people, despite Petain's influence on France being far greater than the Mufti's on Palestine: Petain was the actual ruler of much of France, and his subordinates were demonstrably active in deporting Jews to the death-camps, yet we aren't sitting here holding French people as a whole accountable for that, right? The "Mufti" wasn't even in Palestine when any of this stuff was going on, so how are we holding Palestinians responsible for his views on Nazi germany, when we're not holding French people's feet to the fire for actually sending off Jews to be killed?

[smjjames]

P.S. Don't we have a mid-east thread?

It's tangentially related due to the embassy move.

Aside from the MidEast stuff, I'd want to know what the heck is up with Trump deciding to boost ZTE because 'Chinese jobs'. Obviously it's a concession, but for what? And it'll definetly anger his base who will go 'WTF? WTF happened to AMERICAN jobs?!?!?'

[Frumple]

China funding construction involving trump brand buildings, that's what happened to american jobs. E: Ah, right, link. First I could dig up again.

[Reelya]

Trump's obviously been advised by someone with a brain that ZTE completely going out of business would basically be a pretty bad thing. The America vs China zero-sum game logic isn't reality, which I'm sure is obvious to everyone here.

e.g. ZTE goes down, then you have knock-on effects with a number of their suppliers and distributors etc going out of business too. And e.g. if a supplier for ZTE parts goes down, then you might find out that they were a supplier for parts for something else, and now that other company also can't get parts because the guy who was making them for both ZTE and the other company had cash-flow problems so went out of business, or the economy of scale no longer works out and the price has to rise, making that part not cost-effective.

It's the same as the car manufacturers: the good reason to prop them up in 2008 was because them going out of business would take down half the car-related ecosystem of businesses. e.g. if you save X number of jobs at the car plant, you're really saving X * 5 total jobs.

EDIT: to give you an idea why ZTE is being rushed back to life:

In a sign that both sides are trying to avoid a trade war, Chinese regulators restarted their review of Qualcomm Inc.'s application to acquire NXP Semiconductors NV, according to people familiar with the process. The work had been shelved earlier in response to growing trade tensions with the US. San Diego-based Qualcomm supplies semiconductors to ZTE.

e.g. just what I said, if you take down ZTE, you might take down someone like Qualcomm, or another American supplier, and that would mean other customers that use Qualcomm parts also become compromised. e.g. both vertical and horizontal market-fuckery on both sides of the Pacific.

[Sheb]

The way ZTE was taken down was specifically by banning US companies to sell components to it, so that's not a bug, it's a feature.

[Reelya]

The core problem with the "feature" is that it dissuades foreign companies from sourcing critical parts from the USA, if they can help it, on the fear that they're the next ZTE.

e.g. right now if I was running a company in China i'd be thinking twice before relying on parts sourced from the USA, because Trump is too unpredictable. Maybe he's going to block my suppliers, maybe not. Depends on what he had for breakfast that day. It's certainly not a risk that you'd bank your business on. Maybe the Taiwanese or South Koreans make equivalent parts, maybe they're not as good or as cost-effective as the Qualcomm ones. But hey, you'd sacrifice some profit margins on the basis that South Korea and Taiwan basically couldn't give a fuck and will keep selling you parts, and won't suddenly sever your supply lines.

Also, a ban on sales is effectively like an infinite tariff. e.g. the logic behind why Trump wants tariffs kicks in: since those particular parts will be harder to come by in China, companies will look for alternative options, alternative countries to act as suppliers, or a local company might decide it's suddenly viable to start making that part themselves, where it wasn't economically viable to compete with Qualcomm as the established supplier before that. e.g. say that the start-up costs to create and sell that chip were too high to be viable, but once that's paid off then the Chinese version out-competes the Qualcomm version.

[Shazbot]

P.S. Don't we have a mid-east thread?

It's tangentially related due to the embassy move.

Aside from the MidEast stuff, I'd want to know what the heck is up with Trump deciding to boost ZTE because 'Chinese jobs'. Obviously it's a concession, but for what? And it'll definetly anger his base who will go 'WTF? WTF happened to AMERICAN jobs?!?!?'

"Hey China. Its Xi, right? I hear ZTE is really hurting after these new economic sanctions. That's like, your IBM, right? Well listen Xi, buddy. We can work something out. You want to save ZTE jobs? Okay. Yeah, I can help."

"But listen Xi."

"My base isn't gonna like it. You know how it is. I gotta go home with something. But frankly, frankly. I don't like what I hear about all this spying stuff in Chinese microchips. Right? And ZTE? Well they're one of the bigly names about that. And you, I mean... ZTE. They export technology to Iran and North Korea. US technology. Illegally. So we put that seven year sanction on them. But that's the only reason why they're hurting, right?"

"And ZTE is like, a hundred billion dollars in assets. You don't want to lose that."

"So your people can get with my people. Good talk, Xi."

[Shazbot]

They are throwing molotov cocktails at soldiers, lighting kites on fire and releasing them over the fence to try and start brush fires, and generally demonstrating which is the civilized side of the border.

Sure, the civilized side is the one with most gun, right? Israel pretty much live by:
"Whatever happens, we have got The Maxim gun, and they have not. "

I mean, it's pretty hilarious that you manage to convince yourself that the side that killed close to 100 since those protests began is the nice, civilized one and the side that killed zero and injured 1 are the only baddies.

Which side of the fence would you walk down the street on? Would you let your un-escorted, unwed sister walk on? Its a little judgmental and unevolved of me, sure, but that same lizard brain kept every one of my ancestors alive to survive until reproduction.

Is it Israel's fault the Palestinians use horrific methods for press pity? Hamas throws out martyr bounties, organizes break in attempts and tries to lay explosives in the ensuing protests. Is it the fault of a violent sociopath who mailed in death threats for seventy years when the homeowner puts buckshot in him while he's trying to break the front door down? Saudi Arabia has it right, they need to settle down, negotiate reasonably over a peace  and land agreement, or plain shut up. They have been losing territory because generations of watching "kill the Jews" propaganda since Gaza Sesame Street renders them unreasonable to make peace with.

Until Hamas is out of power and relative calm is maintained voluntarily, Israel has no reason to trust the signatories of a peace deal. And until Iran stops funding Hamas and like-minded extremists, the radicals won't fall out of power. Peace not parity.

Sending your own children to get killed on another nation's borders didn't work for Iran against those Iraqi minefields anyway. Some people don't learn.

[Sheb]

Until Hamas is out of power and relative calm is maintained voluntarily, Israel has no reason to trust the signatories of a peace deal. And until Iran stops funding Hamas and like-minded extremists, the radicals won't fall out of power. Peace not parity.

Sending your own children to get killed on another nation's borders didn't work for Iran against those Iraqi minefields anyway. Some people don't learn.

Okay then please tell me. Why is Israel still building settlements in the West bank?

[Trekkin]

Which side of the fence would you walk down the street on? Would you let your un-escorted, unwed sister walk on? Its a little judgmental and unevolved of me, sure, but that same lizard brain kept every one of my ancestors alive to survive until reproduction.

The triune brain hypothesis (from which we get the reptilian complex you've simplified into "lizard brain") has been strongly contradicted by both behavioral studies of modern sauropsids and paleontological evidence for earlier origins of neocortex-like pallial anatomy than was understood in MacLean's day. The synapsid ancestors to which you presumably refer benefited in a reproductive fitness sense from "paleomammalian" nurturant behaviors (and altruism more broadly) as much or more as they did the kind of stereotypical reptilian behavior you're now using to defend your geopolitical views on the grounds that 320 million years ago it helped a bunch of lizards get laid.