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Comment by dontTREATonme | Hacker News Reader

Can you name a single Palestinian who has actually moved the needle on a functioning democratic Palestinian state? Every single current and former Palestinian leader has been heavily theocratic, has pledged to kill Jews wherever they are and has never considered sharing any of whatever power he’s gotten with anyone else.

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Do you stop to ask what creates the environment where the most extreme views flourish and gain traction?

Islamist majority?

Nope, Islamism is an extreme position so that gets you no further in the answering the question. What set the stage for an Islamist majority? Again I assert that extreme politics don't develop in vacuums.

The thing is it doesn't help. Yes of course the horrible situation of the palestinians promotes extremism, but you still have to face that there is a lot of extremism. What was Israel to do before October 7 (besides making sure Oct 7 could not happen)? Of course there are ppints where history could have gone in a better direction but I really don't see an easy way for Israel to achieve a better situation. Say they had withdraw from the west bank in 2018 for some reason. Who says that Oct 7 would still not have happened on a much greater scale? In fact I find it quite likely that it would. And then you might be looking at 3000 dead Israelis instead. The only rational reason for the Oct 7 attacks I can see is that Hamas wants to incite as much violence as possible to put as much political pressure as possible on Israel due to the inevitable retaliation. So Oct 7 would have made even more sense, as the deoccupation of the west bank is far from the total of their political goals.

And here you are continuing to dehumanize and remove all agency for an entire religion now. Truly the bigotry required to hold these beliefs is breathtaking.

I'm not doing that in any way. Islamism != Islam, and I'm not suggesting that the entire population of following Islamist beliefs, only that there's an environment where it can gain traction.

Please explain your reading if you're going to make such personal attacks.

You’re missing the point because you’re so unaware of your own enormous bigotry.

All Muslims have their own agency. They are all humans capable of making their own decisions. And like all humans are happy to be held responsible for the decisions they make.

You do not believe the above.

I'm honestly not sure if this is satire or why you feel the need to tell me what I believe.

> All Muslims have their own agency. They are all humans capable of making their own decisions. And like all humans are happy to be held responsible for the decisions they make.

And I'm not sure why you feel I don't recognise the agency of Muslims?

As I said previously please make an argument or explain your position and I'll respond to it, but it feels absurd to entertain these seemingly baseless ad hominems.

I grew up in a conflict zone and feel that I have some understanding of the group dynamics. That's totally reasonable and I encourage you to ask yourself if your apparent anger and incredulity here is misplaced.

You’re speaking in innuendo so I’m responding in kind. Plainly state your argument, which you haven’t done yet, instead opting for an odd vaguely veiled bigotry about Muslims’ ability to make their own choices.

I'm saying that Western colonial practices and violent Zionism created a situation where many people in Palestine, and beyond, felt no other choice but to support a violent counter campaign. Your turn.

Oh lol. So you’re just ignorant. There was no serious attempt at western colonialism in Judea and Samaria or any part of the ME. As soon as the Ottoman Empire fell the LoN immediately created a plan for self rule in that area that ended up having a shorter timeline than the occupation of Germany following WWII. Look up when Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, etc all became independent nations. Even Israel’s timeline from the end of WWI to its establishment was less than 30 years.

“Violent Zionism” was inconsequential in comparison to the violence the Muslim population visited upon their Jewish (Zionist) neighbors/subjects/citizens from 700CE when Islam was formed through 1947 when the partition plan was proposed, and all the way to the present day.

So again, I say, you’re dehumanizing Muslims by refusing to acknowledge that they are responsible for their own actions. Because even if everything you claim was true (it isn’t), you are still claiming they are not capable of bearing responsibility for their own actions and instead any violence they commit is the responsibility of nebulous “western colonialism” and inchoate “violent zionism”. The bigotry requires to totally remove an entire religion’s agency is, as I said before: breathtaking.

This is like complaining that Nat Turner didn't move the needle on moving the US toward universal suffrage.

Right because slaves in the American south were offered freedom tens of times but refused it always bec it might have involved some compromise they didn’t like. These childish comparisons don’t even pass the sniff test.

When were the Palestinians able to exercise their legally affirmed right of return? I must have missed that.

In 1947 when they chose to leave. In 1948-1967 when the Arab states controlled 95% of the land that these Arabs want to return to. Wars have consequences, if you initiate a war and lose, you’re not gonna get everything back. That’s the risk of war.

I have no idea what “legally affirmed” means in the context of sovereign states. The UN, or even the UNSC passing something doesn’t actually mean anything as it applies to sovereign nations. Paraphrasing Andrew Jackson: a law is only as good as the ability to enforce it. A bunch of random people agreeing to something even if they call themselves “The United Nations” doesn’t mean anything if that group of friends doesn’t have the will or ability to enforce whatever they’ve agreed to. They’re akin to you and your drinking buddies passing out edicts after one to many dry martinis.

No? The issue US had with the PLF is that it was controlled by Marxist. the theocratic pro-palestine movements didn't start until the 90s.

Totally false. Every single palestinian org has been founded by and for Muslims.

Yeah, PLFP was not at all Marxist-Leninist, used islamic arguments and not ethnomarxist ones, opposed women taking a role in politics and forced them to wear the hijab, didnt allow Coptic Christians or Jews in the movement, and talked about god and not oppression of workers /s

You just have no idea of what you're talking about.

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