I generally don’t think your understanding of the settler issue is accurate, but I’m also not an expert on those details.
In general Jews living in west bank communities they created seems fine, I don’t think it’s acceptable for Palestinians to ban Jews. Arabs and Jews live in peace alongside each other as equals in Israel. I think Israel does police the violence on their own side.
That land is secured by Israel as the result of previous wars, it’s complicated. The result of losing a war you start can be losing sovereignty. 2005 Gaza withdrawal suggests giving up that control as a gesture for peace is a serious mistake.
With the aid, Israel has and continues to give tons of aid which Hamas steals to fund themselves. This is not a trivial problem to solve, GHF is an attempt. The press has since the start lied repeatedly about this. My personal view is it’s not clear to me that giving aid to the enemy is the responsibility of the people that were attacked, especially when your people are still held hostage. But that’s irrelevant because despite my view (and some others in the gov) they have given tons of aid.
The world generally is morally confused on this broadly and thinks because Hamas is weak, that must mean they’re good or it’s some sort of economic issue. They do not understand Islamic Jihad and the nature of this ideology. They look at it with a western lens and make a serious error.
The truth is those of us in the west are all living in Israel, just some of us haven’t realized it yet.
The West Bank settlement is a clear sign of bad faith, because the only credible chance of peaceful coexistence, the Oslo Accords, earmarked the West Bank exclusively for Palestinians, or more strictly, their state. Sure, I would be delighted if either side of the border Jews and Arabs lived peacefully alongside. But that is not what is happening there.
Settlers, aided by army and militias of unknown status (armed settlers? reservists? real army?) expropriate Palestinian land, destroy their property, threaten and shoot locals. The area, which was supposed to be a core of a Palestinian state, is criss-crossed with Jewish-only roads, settlements, farms, military checkpoints or closed military areas. The settlers enjoy rights their Palestinian neighbours don't have. This is not about some kind of "Palestine for Palestinians" chauvinism, this is a systematic eradication of a people in what was supposed to be reserved land.
Israel simply cannot with a straight face claim that it wanted a peaceful coexistence when it was de facto policy from the get go to make the two state solution impossible.
As for aid... it is not that Israel is somehow being forced to feed its enemies. There are plenty of organisations trying to send the aid in, and Israel is actively stopping them. Israel kicked out reputable aid organisations, with decades of experience in delivering aid even surrounded by hostile warlords, replaced them with some no-name military contractors, and now regularly shoots people queuing for the little food there is. More people have now been shot queing for food than have died on 7th Oct.
I don't think many people are confused as to what Hamas is. Some, sure, are, but most see it as an awful terrorist organisation. Criticism of Israel doesn't stem from people thinking Hamas is good, but from Israel acting murderously in bad faith, in ways incompatible with peaceful goals, while demanding unlimited patience and sympathy from the world.
> Oslo Accords, earmarked the West Bank exclusively for Palestinians, or more strictly, their state
The two Oslo agreements themselves don't contain this sort of earmarking. There was a sort of informal understanding that Oslo would be a stepping stone toward a real Palestinian state, and that hasn't happened, but it would be hard to put most of the blame on Israel. Arafat walked away from a very serious statehood offer in 2000, for example.
From your comments it sounds like you might have been misled by some questionable sources, which would be understandable considering even top UN officials have spread rather blatant disinformation about Israel [1]. E.g. you also mention a famine against civilians, when we're actually about three orders of magnitude short of the number of starvations required to declare a famine.
From my research, well, Palestine may have had various shots at statehood, each time below their expectations. It's a negotiation and balance of power which they didn't have. It's hard to argue with power.
But Israel claims far, far more than "we're more powerful so its our way or the highway". Israel asserts they are in a universally morally superior position, thay it went out of its way to accomodate the Palestinians. And I think this is blatantly untrue. The Palestinians were kicked off their land 70 years ago, for complex reasons, and every year continue to be pushed further by Israel. Theres many ccontradictory things happening in Israel, but this one IMO is a clear indication that Israel is acting in bad faith.
As to your source, let's unpick this. Your link states that a UN representative erroneously claimed 14,000 children will die within 48 hours, due to malnutrition. Instead, he should have said over 12 months. Sure, thats a big difference, but either is beastly - while achieving 0 military or diplomatic effect.
Other sources I follow include the B'tselem institute, who recently called the Israeli governments actions clearly genocidal.
In addition to ~12 months turning into "48 hours", "children aged between six months and five years" turned in "babies", and "acute malnutrition" turned into "death".
When top UN officials are pushing blatant disinformation like this with no consequences, it's hard to know who to trust for unbiased information.
> B'tselem institute, who recently called the Israeli governments actions clearly genocidal
Considering that it's B'tselem, there was never really a possibility of them reaching a different position. I don't think they've ever pushed back on anti-Israeli propaganda, such as the UN statement above.
You're not convincing me. It's also not like you are attacking pivotal issues. You point out that some of what is said about Israel is not right, and clearly that is true. You point at one fact I didn't even rely on. Calling it "blatantly disinformation" isnt right either - it was one statement, quickly corrected.
In any case, "it's not 14,000 babies dead in 48 hours, it is only 14,000 with severe malnutrition over 12 months" isnt an argument I'd like to rely on when my judgment day comes.
There won't be peace when one side has an explicit goal to kill all the Jews, the other side is Jews that don't want to be killed and neither is willing to compromise.
You can ignore that underlying moral framing, but it's the basis of the conflict and it's why Israel has a morally superior position.
The Palestinians have over and over again said they don't want two states, they want to destroy Israel and kill Jews - the idea they want two states only exists in the minds of western leftists, it's a failure to understand Islamic Jihad and the Muslim Brotherhood.
They didn't correct it though; when BBC inquired about it their response was a somewhat evasive "We are pointing to the imperative of getting supplies ..."
I did separately point out a couple misstatements in your comments. My point with the UN thing was just that I wouldn't blame anyone for getting a few things wrong, when sources we expect to be credible are actually spreading disinformation.
> isnt an argument I'd like to rely on when my judgment day comes.
I don't believe there's any justification for spreading disinformation like Fletcher's, or any situation where it's wrong to correct it, no matter what humanitarian agenda is involved.
In general Jews living in west bank communities they created seems fine, I don’t think it’s acceptable for Palestinians to ban Jews. Arabs and Jews live in peace alongside each other as equals in Israel. I think Israel does police the violence on their own side.
That land is secured by Israel as the result of previous wars, it’s complicated. The result of losing a war you start can be losing sovereignty. 2005 Gaza withdrawal suggests giving up that control as a gesture for peace is a serious mistake.
With the aid, Israel has and continues to give tons of aid which Hamas steals to fund themselves. This is not a trivial problem to solve, GHF is an attempt. The press has since the start lied repeatedly about this. My personal view is it’s not clear to me that giving aid to the enemy is the responsibility of the people that were attacked, especially when your people are still held hostage. But that’s irrelevant because despite my view (and some others in the gov) they have given tons of aid.
The world generally is morally confused on this broadly and thinks because Hamas is weak, that must mean they’re good or it’s some sort of economic issue. They do not understand Islamic Jihad and the nature of this ideology. They look at it with a western lens and make a serious error.
The truth is those of us in the west are all living in Israel, just some of us haven’t realized it yet.