Unfortunately, it looks like the state of Israel has now become a needless oppressor and are content building an apartheid state without learning from the past.
This isn’t a point about morality, but the simple reality of nations protecting themselves. If you don’t have military superiority then scrupulous non-violence is the only alternative.
Israel is stealing from others (this is an established fact), its victims react, so Israel "protects itself" against that reaction. Are you ok with this? Do you think that robbers have a right to protect themselves from their victims?
In any case, Hamas's existence is completely orthogonal to the reason for Israel's aggression. They want more land and less Palestinians on it.
A much greater level of non-violence from the Palestinian side would result in far stronger international pressure, and also domestic American pressure.
The 2018-2019 Gaza border protests (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%80%932019_Gaza_border_...) began with extended peaceful demonstrations and dancing by Palestinians. This was met with live fire from Israel, maiming tens of thousands and killing well over 200 people.
There was no meaningful international response, with America only voicing support for Israel's "right to defend itself."
Shooting innocents, storming innocent gatherings, espionage, wounding and killing innocent people is always done by Israel especially in land it internationally has no right to (think East Jerusalem).
No government in the world would allow such unchecked aggression and militarism within their borders. Hamas does not allow it either.
The problem is that if you look into it, it is a demographic battle to ensure that Israel keeps the West Bank and also that there is a Jewish majority in that region at whatever cost.
For example, here is a law that prevents family reunifications but only affecting non-Jews: https://www.adalah.org/en/law/view/511
And here is an Israeli ambassador making the case that Jews are reproducing more than Arabs and that is a great thing (although he excludes Gaza, which Israel hopes that Egypt takes over): https://www.jns.org/opinion/blinken-is-wrong-on-israels-demo...
Israel is a really strange nation these days. It is very racist and openly so.
Also, war crimes as a subject is always brought on by the winners, just like the telling of history.
The world is a brutal place. Hamas has proved they are not a military match for israel and the war will continue until israel has complete control of the region. That's how one sided conflicts have happened historically.
Comments like this one are the gears that turn to prevent peace. As with many conflicts, both sides do things that are incompatible with peace, and will not give them up because they see what the other side does. The answer is not to blame one side for reacting to the other.
It's not a novel situation at all. There are well-established, well-studied ways to build trust and peace.
Why does this statement not work against Israel for supporting governments that build settlements? Surely the war crime of building settlements is worse than a chant?
The situation is complicated exactly because there are few ways forward if neither side has any incentives to compromise (partly for real strategic reasons, partly because the people in charge have goals that are not equivalent to making their people better off).
It sucks to have to say, but no one in any position of power on any side of this conflict believes a two-state solution is possible anymore. That ship sailed a decade ago or so, depending on who you ask, and all of the players have moved on; it's only parts of the public who still believe it's possible. It may still be desirable, of course - I certainly desire it - but the "facts of the ground", as the Israelis love to phrase it, don't allow for it, and won't. (Said "facts" have been engineered for precisely that purpose: to make a Palestinian state impossible to achieve in any reasonable and practical sense.)
1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid_(crime)
2. https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/isra...