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Comment by nick3443 | Hacker News Reader

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1. Israel de facto controls the Rafah border.

2. Due to (1), and clear & consistent messaging by Israeli officials on Gaza resettlement as a goal, Egypt understands that “temporary” refugees will be unable to return - i.e., a repeat of 1948 and 1967.

Both sides are using the border as a bargaining chip. Both sides are complicit.

I find it difficult to ignore the not so distant start to this current situation. Not even a hundred years ago foreigners showed up and said this is our place now. Now after decades of oppression, with both sides unhappy with the you get 5% of the land you used live on deal, the party with 95% of the land proposes a new deal, we get 100% of the land and you get uh .. to live somewhere else.

As a comparison saying "Both native Americans and European settlers are complicit in the violence that occurred between them" is technically correct but hardly paints a representative picture. Personally I don't like the both did violence so both are wrong narrative.

Yes. Also, the society that breeds this sort of narrative intentionally obfuscates the difference between oppressive and liberational violence. Even though the Palestinians employ violence no intellectually honest person can call the act the same as the violence perpetrated against them by the maintenance of an apartheid state. A lot of people on HN should read Fanon.

Well put. It’s also quite ironic how the violent struggle for liberation is encouraged in the world of fiction - from Star Wars to Hunger Games - but is emphatically denounced as soon as it bleeds out into the real world.

Funnily enough, I just finished reading The Wretched of the Earth :)

I don't think Israel controlled the Rafah border in the start of the war which is when they made their declaration of not allowing aid.

Correct. The first citation is from when Egypt and Palestinians controlled the border, the second is from later on when Israel controlled the Gaza side of the border. Egypt still controls the Egypt side of the border, regardless whether Israel or Palestine controls the Gaza side.

They say that Israel didn't control it yet you couldn't go through it without their approval.

If the US, or any European country, started letting Palestinian refugees in en masse, a lot of them would manage to get there. Egypt’s culpability here is the most salient because they’re physically closest; but I don’t see how that makes the country uniquely culpable for failing to prevent a preventable situation.

Genuine question, how would they go out?

If the US decided to let all Palestinian refugees in -- This obviously wouldn't happen, but if -- we could definitely get boats with capacity for thousands of people a day to a pier that we built [0], get them to somewhere where they could buy flights or have people donate to a fund to pay for them, etc.

[0] https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/21/politics/us-gaza-pier-aid-not...

I for one think it's good that countries don't constantly meddle in the domestic affairs of their neighbors.

Yes this is cherry-picking but consciously so, to point out the absurdity of the premise.

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