Eagle367 said:
The answer to why is simple. Israel is oppressive and doesn't like when palestenians protest removal from their homes. The court cases are a sham since settlers always win these cases. Settlers just decided this was their home now and took over. Palestenians protested and Israel didn't like that so they brutalized protestors and worshippers. Hamas gave them a warning and deadline to stop and Israel didn't. Hamas fires the rockers. Israel answered disproportionately, as always and this is how we got here. |
Just for context, before I address your above statements, let's look at the history of Israel/Judah/The Jews in a simplified way:
They established their kingdom and were pretty powerful at first around 1,000 B.C. Then the Assyrians came and wiped a them out. Then the Babylonians came, destroyed their holy temple, and killed many Jews and forced many others to move to Babylon for forced assimilation. Multiple rounds of reconquering, re-killing, and forced re-assimilation occurred with the Babylonians and other nearby people groups. Over the coming centuries, the land was conquered and the people continued being repressed by other people groups such as the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Fatimids, Seljuk Turks, Catholic Crusaders, Egyptians, Mamelukes, Islamists, and more. Jump forward to 1517 and lasting until roughly 1917 they were conquered and ruled by the Ottoman Empire. At this point, Israel had been conquered, their population either killed off or forced into moving by at least 13 major people groups. This number does not include smaller groups, repeat offenders (Hello Babylonians!), or ones that weren't officially recorded in history (if there are any). The VAST majority of history for the Jews up to this point in 1917 had been living under another culture's rule in conditions none of us would want to live in. In 1922 the Balfour Declaration was approved by the League of Nations to restore Jews to their natural and historic homeland dating back thousands of years before they were uprooted and persecuted over, and over again by numerous nations. As Hitler's Nazis eventually started the mass persecution of Jews, the Jews began to flee towards their holy land even more. Israel becomes its own free nation in May 1948 after WW II ends. Immediately after getting it's own nation, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon started the war and invaded the region to restore Muslim control. Cease-fire was reached in 1949 with some territory swapping. In 1956 Egypt took complete control over the Suez canal, followed by Israel defeating them in a short conflict aided by British/French forces and capturing the canal. In 1967 Israel retook territory they lost after the Suez Crisis, (and then some) the Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, and Golan Heights in a surprise attack in a 6 day conflict. In 1973, during the religious day of Yom Kippur, Egypt and Syria launched air strikes on Israel to try to retake Golan Heights, but after two weeks the fight ended and nothing changed. In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon to eject the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was undermining their authority in Israel. In 1987 Palestinians led an uprising in Gaza and West Bank. Hundreds of people died until the Oslo Peace Accords were struck. In 1997 the Israeli army withdrew from parts of the West Bank. In 2000 Palestinians launched suicide bombs and attacks on Israel. Fighting lasted for years until Israel announced troop withdrawal from the Gaza strip in 2005. In 2006 Israel declared war and fought Hezbollah, a militant group, but this only lasted a couple of months. In 2008, 2012, and 2014 Israel and Hamas (another militant group) had major conflicts. Now to your statements:
1. Israel has been giving up their homes and dealing with forced migration for literally thousands of years. Obviously Israel isn't perfect in how they have handled things, but anyone persecuted THAT much is going to be extremely defensive about whatever territory they have or historically had in the past.
2. I have no opinion on the court cases other than the fact that the entire world has sham court cases happening all the time. That isn't even close to a unique to Israel problem.
3. Regarding this modern conflict, the timeline is as follows, according to what I have found, regarding acts of violence:
May 3rd - Clashes around Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood sparked by Jewish settlers multi-year long attempt to take over Arab homes.
May 7th - More clashes break out as tens of thousands of Muslims decide to pack and pray in the Temple Mount (or Al-Aqsa Mosque as Muslims call it) on the last day of Ramadan. Israeli police claim Palestinians hurled stones, bottles, and fireworks at them, which caused them to respond with rubber coated bullets and tear gas (which are a lot less deadly than stones, bottles, and fireworks). Video footage shows Israeli forces storming the plaza and firing sound grenades inside the building (again, not a lethal arm).
May 8th and 9th - More clashes in East Jerusalem.
May 10th - Hundreds of Palestinians and 32 Israeli police officers are wounded in clashes on Israel's national holiday (Jerusalem Day).
------------------------ (So far, up to this point, no one has been killed by anything at least in the timelines I found online.)
May 10th evening - Hamas launches volley of rockets towards Israel (the first intentionally lethal move). Israel responds with deadly counterstrikes.
May 11th - Hamas fires rockets down on Tel Aviv after Israel destroyed a Gaza city tower that was housing Hamas leadership.
May 15th - Israel target air strike kills 10 members of a specific family. Israel then blows up another building where Hamas leadership is located (Hamas decided to occupy a media building either in the hopes that Israel wouldn't attack them for fear or blowing up reporters or with the hope that they would so Hamas could look like the victim).
May 16th - Israel blew up the home of Hamas' political leader in Gaza.
Hamas has launched over 3,000 rockets (many of which misfired and accidentally landed in Muslim areas and hurt/killed their own people). Most of the rockets coming from Israel have been to simply intercept and destroy Hamas rockets as part of their Iron Dome defense system. If anyone responded disproportionally, it was Hamas, at least so far (May 17th).
