It is a conflict that goes back several thousands of years.
Each act of oppression and violence fuels the next generation of fighters, seeing themselves either in the roles of righteous oppressors or righteous victims defending themselves.
Both sides point toward their magic books backing up their position.
The conflict literally became part of the two sides' respective identities. Hard to unravel.
I'll take it with Hannah Arendt here:
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2020/07/13/hannah-arendt-on-zionism/
With the current far-right govt in Israel and a forming coalition between the European, Russian, American, and Jewish far-right with a strong focus on nationalism and reactionary politics, I think we see we see attempts of aiming for the same positions of power they formerly suffered under.
Leading to zionist figures like Yoram Hazony, one of the organizers and speakers of the National Conservatism conference and author of "The Virtues of Nationalism), aligning with far-right and antisemitic figures like Trump, Viktor Orban and even touting antisemitic conspiracy theories like the ones about George Soros.
Hannah Arendt saw this coming 70 years ago when she analyzed the post ww2 track Israel went on. Eventually becoming an oppressor and embracing the pathological aspects of nationalism, wasn't a solution to the problem, but just another chapter of it.
The dehumanization and Us vs. Them mentality Arendt experienced in Nazi Germany was in her eyes a universal recipe for violence along identity lines with interchangeable actors being able to take the roles of oppressor and victim. The violence won't play out in the same way, comparing the treatment of the Palestinians to the Holocaust is completely wrong, because it is not an industrialized effort at extermination, but the underlying mechanisms of vilification and dehumanization along identity lines, and the resulting perception of an existential threat justify the violence in a very similar way.
That said, the fact that Israel would suffer great losses of life on a regular basis if it weren't for the Iron Dome can't be brushed away. Israel's need for defense is legit, but the power dynamic is in its favor, which puts the moral obligation to deescalate on their shoulders, in my opinion.
www.savethechildren.net
irusa.org
www.anera.org
