₦airaland Forum

naptu2:
And as I have said before, this response by Israel is exactly what Hamas wants.

In 20, 30, 40 years time you'll see people carrying out terrorist attacks and you'll find out that their father, mother, brother, sister, etc was killed during the Israeli operations in 2023/2024.

How was Hamas formed? Wasn't it formed after Israel put down the 1987 Intifada?

This is how they recruit new members.

naptu2:
1989: Funeral of Emperor Hirohito

1995: Funeral of Yitzhak Rabin.

2017: Funeral of King Bhumibol Adulyadej

naptu2:
2005: Funeral of Pope John Paul II.

naptu2:
I have often written that government officials need security. This is another example of why this is so.


Rabin reached a peace deal with the Palestinians and, if I remember correctly, he and Arafat were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

But extremist Arabs and Jews were not happy about the deal.

Rabin was Prime Minister of Israel, yet he did not like excessive security.

The guy that murdered Rabin said that one of the things that encouraged him to kill Rabin was the fact that he attended a wedding and he saw Rabin there with only one bodyguard.

The guy hated Rabin because of the peace agreement (the murderer was an utlranationalist Jew), but he never thought that it was possible to kill the Prime Minister. It was after he saw him at that wedding, with only one bodyguard, that he began planning to kill him.

He eventually killed Rabin after a peace rally.

I remember the heavy security afterwards.

Yasser Arafat actually crossed into Israel to visit Rabin's widow. The security level was insane.

The Secret Service had a massive operation to safely take President Clinton to Israel to attend the funeral. Several other world leaders were in Israel for the funeral and security was very tight.

naptu2:
Palestinian supporters are reviving an old story, a story of something that happened in 2001. That has reminded me of something even older. It reminded me of watching the news in 1989.

Many people often point out the terrorist attacks that are staged by some Palestinian groups, but Palestinians say that the world often ignores the daily attacks that they suffer. They are reviving this story in order to highlight those attacks.

On many occasions Israelis have used armoured bulldozers to knock down Palestinian homes. Palestinians claim that the Israelis do this in order to steal the land and to punish Palestinian civilians (collective punishment), but the Israelis claim that they demolish these houses because they believe that terrorists are building tunnels under them, or they believe that terrorists once lived there, etc.

Rachel Corrie was an American peace activist and student. She went to Palestine as part of her university work, to study the similarities between the Palestinian town of Rafah and her home town of Olympia in Washington State. While there, she joined a protest against Israel's demolition of Palestinian homes. She stood in front of an Israeli bulldozer, to prevent it from demolishing a Palestinian house, but the bulldozer crushed her. Eye witness accounts differ. Palestinian eyewitnesses claim that the bulldozer driver deliberately crushed her, while Israeli eyewitnesses claim that the driver did not see her.


It reminded me of watching the news in 1989.

There was a massive protest in China and they showed an image of a man standing in front of a line of tanks in order to stop them from moving. We laughed. That could never happen in Nigeria. There's no way that standing in front of a tank would prevent it from moving. They'll simply mow you down.

If I remember correctly, the Tiananmen Square Protest took place immediately after the SAP Riot in Nigeria.

Picture below: Tank Man on Tiananmen Square in 1989.

naptu2:
However, an Israeli extremist killed the Israeli Prime Minister because he signed that peace agreement with the Palestinians. Hamas and other Arab militant groups tried to kill Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, because he signed that agreement.

Eventually Palestinian militants carried out so many attacks that Israelis turned against the political party that signed the agreement and a more extremist party took over. That party began victimising Palestinians which led to even more anger among Palestinians and more attacks.

That’s the way the cycle has continued. Extremists on one side will carry out attacks and extremists on the other side will retaliate. Both sides have done really terrible and unspeakable things.

Israeli soldiers have killed children and prevented ambulances from assisting the wounded. They have carried out blockades that starved Palestinian neighbourhoods, they have turned off electricity and water and so on and so forth. Many Palestinians have been arrested/kidnapped and never heard off again.

Palestinian militants have targeted Israeli civilians with terrorist attacks and kidnappings. They have killed many innocent Israeli men, women and children and caused fear, in fact, terror in Israeli society.

naptu2:
This is the thing that most people in the rest of the world miss. I wrote about it, because I do not want you to miss it, but I don't think my text does justice to it (it was in the middle of a long post).

I told you that the Israelis control electricity and water supply in the Palestinian areas and they can and do turn it off when they feel like. I told you that Israel sometimes prevents ambulances from getting to Palestinians that have been injured in Israeli attacks. I told you that there is serious unemployment in Palestinian areas and they have to cross into Israel for work, but the Israeli Government seriously limits movement to and from Palestine.

This is the daily experience of Palestinians, but it is not reported often enough in the news, because it has become normalised. I know about this because I have been following this issue for around 40 years. Most people do not know about it, so they feel like Palestinians just attack Israel for no reason, but in actual fact, quite often the attacks are a result of daily frustration and suffering that has built up over many years.

Here is a short video about everyday life for a Palestinian.

Here's why Hamas says its attack on Israel wasn't unprovoked. pic.twitter.com/IaXBBTLGdk

— AJ+ (@ajplus) October 13, 2023

naptu2:
Hello ******.

This was one of my favourite topics in the 1980s. I often explained it to people either because (1) they thought it was easy to solve and wondered why it had not been solved (2) they were biased one way or the other (3) they were just curious and asked me about it.

I stopped explaining it in the 1990s because it was too complicated, but I briefly began explaining it in the late 1990s and early 2000s because I was comparing it to the situation in Northern Ireland.

The explanation that I am going to give you now is the exact same explanation that I gave in the 1980s (it will be a little less detailed because I have forgotten some of the details like names of people).


Palestine

In the Bible/Torah you'll read about how God promised to give certain land to the descendants of Abraham and how eventually the Israelites conquered the Land of Canaan/Canaanites. This land of Canaan was the promised land and is also the same with Palestine.

Over time (very many centuries later) the Romans colonised Palestine. The Roman Empire was made up of the "known world" (basically Europe, parts of western Asia and parts of North Africa) and this included Palestine.

At a point the Romans wanted to impose their culture on the place and this led to riots, uprisings and wars by the Israelis against the Romans. The Romans responded with overwhelming force. Many Israelis were arrested and sold into slavery. Some were deported to other parts of the world. In fact, at a point, the Romans banned Israelis from entering Jerusalem except for one day in the year.

The Romans were also fighting many wars to expand their empire or stop invaders and they levied severe taxes in order to finance this war. Because of all of these things, conditions were very difficult for Israelis in Palestine and many Israelis left on their own.

The deportations, selling of Israelis into slavery, harsh taxes and economic circumstances and the pure violence of the Romans led to a massive depletion of the Israeli population in Palestine. Israelis were scattered all over the world, but mostly in Europe. This was not long after the time of Jesus Christ.


Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire and of most of Europe and Palestine changed from being a mostly Jewish area to being a mostly Christian area (this was the time of the Roman Empire and later of the Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire).

However, a few centuries later, the area was taken over by Arabs and it became a mostly Muslim place. Arab Muslims have lived in the area for almost 1,500 years.

In fact, around a thousand years ago, there was an alarm in Europe that Palestine had been taken over by Muslims and this led to the Crusades, in which Christian Europeans tried to take the "Holy Land" from Muslim Arabs. The Crusades only had limited success and the Europeans were usually beaten by highly trained and very experienced Arab warriors. In actual fact the Crusades led to more Muslims coming to Palestine.

Jewish diaspora and exile

Meanwhile, the Israelis had been scattered all over the world. They were usually maltreated by their hosts for many reasons.

Some Jews had to work twice as hard as their hosts to survive and they went into the world of finance. They became money lenders and Europeans either grew jealous of them (because they had money) or wanted to harm them (because the Europeans owed them).

Some Christian Europeans blamed the Jews for the death of Jesus Christ and so they maltreated them for this reason.

All kinds of stereotypes were created about Jews, some of which you can still see today. Old examples include the depiction of Shylock in the play The Merchant of Venice and the depiction of Isaac of York in the novel Ivanhoe. You can even see it in the conspiracy theories about the Rothschild Family today.

In some European cities, Jews were forced to live in terrible conditions in ghettos.

This Antisemitism (hatred of Jews) reached its worst form in Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Jews were deported from German controlled territories all over Europe to concentration camps were they were forced to work as slave labour, tortured and even burnt to death.

At the end of the Second World War, people realised that a solution had to be found to the problem. Jews were being attacked and discriminated against all over the world and the horror of the holocaust, in which Jews were starved and burnt to death, shocked the world.

Zionist Movement

It has been the case in the past few centuries that people that feel oppressed and discriminated against often flee to the United States. The United States is a huge country and many of the Native Americans, who originally owned the land, had been killed and removed from the land. Therefore there was a lot of land and people felt that they could own their own land and not be oppressed by a colonial power in the New World (United States). For example, a lot of Irish people moved to the United States due to the potato famine and oppression by the English in the 1800s.

Many Israelis also moved to the United States. Here, unlike in Europe, they could engage in business and become very wealthy and also get involved in politics and be elected to positions in government. Many people from Europe also emigrated to the United States and they continued their hatred and discrimination against Jews, but there were United States laws to protect the Jews.

Some of these Jewish-Americans began thinking that it would be better for the Jews to have a homeland of their own. A new Israel. This led to the formation of many Zionist groups and they raised a lot of money for a new Jewish homeland. The question was, where would the homeland be?

The British Mandate in Palestine

The First World War was fought between the Allied Powers and the Central Powers. After the war, colonial territories that were controlled by the Central Powers were given to Allied countries to administer. For example, Cameroon was colonised by Germany, but after the First World War it was given to France and Britain to administer.

Palestine was colonised by the Ottoman Empire (basically, Turkey). Britain told the Palestinians (Arabs) that it would grant them independence if they rebel against the Ottomans. The Palestinians rebelled and Britain helped them, but then the British then colonised Palestine after the Ottomans were defeated. Britain and France shared Palestine between themselves and colonised it. The Arabs were angry. Then after the First World War, the League of Nations gave Palestine to Britain to administer.

The British faced very many serious problems in Palestine. Firstly, they began to allow Zionist Jews into Palestine. The Arabs became suspicious of the British and staged many campaigns against them. The British proposed that two countries should be created, one for the Arabs and one for the Jews. The Arabs did not trust the British, so they rejected the plan. The Jews accepted the plan, but one of their leaders, Ben Gurion, secretly said that their acceptance was just the first step to taking the whole territory.

Then came the Second World War and many Jews that were fleeing the Nazis tried to move to Palestine. The numbers were great and the British felt that there would be a problem, so they established quotas for them and anyone that came, beyond the quota, was detained or deported.

The Jews then felt that the British were against them and they set up many armed groups. A British minister was killed by a Jewish armed group when he visited Cairo, Egypt. This further turned the British Government against the Jews.

After the Second World War, people were looking for a homeland for the Jews, so that they will have a place where they would not be discriminated against. The British announced that they had a place in Palestine for the Jews to live. They said that they would create a place in Palestine where the Jews could live in peace.

The problem begins

However, before the British could create that place and before they were ready, many Jews from Zionist movements in the United States began arriving in Palestine. This part is a little bit complicated.

The British and the Americans tried to put forward a plan that would spell out the number of Jews that would be allowed to return. The British did not want Jews to dominate Arabs, neither did they want Arabs to dominate Jews. However, it seemed like the Americans did not completely go along with the idea (they wanted as many Jews as possible to go to Palestine). There were a lot of discussions and disagreements and it seems like the British just got tired of the problem, so they announced that they wanted to end the mandate (that is, their authority) in Palestine and hand it over to the United Nations.

However, there was no orderly withdrawal. As the British began withdrawing, fighting broke out between Jewish and Arab groups. The British evacuated their civil servants and other civilian officials. The British Army occasionally intervened in the fighting, but only to secure their escape route. The British also enforced a blockade of Palestine to prevent neighbouring Arab countries from invading. However, Jewish militas, which were heavily assisted both financially and with equipment by Zionist groups in the United States, were able to expel a large number of Arabs from Palestine. The British helped to evacuate the Arab Palestinian police along with British soldiers.

Fighting raged on. Once the British officially announced the end of their mandate, Jewish groups proclaimed the State of Israel and the United States immediately recognised the country. The British ended the blockade as soon as they finished evacuating their soldiers and the Palestinian Police and neighbouring Arab countries also invaded Palestine. This began the 1948 Arab-Israel War.

Israel was heavily supported by the United States and Zionist groups in the US, while Palestine was supported by neighbouring Arab countries. Israel won that war and the State of Israel was established.

The big problem

Now let’s come to the big problem that I always pointed out in the 1980s.

Israelis say that God gave them Palestine as the promised land and therefore they have a right to the whole of Palestine. They say that they were in Palestine over 2000 years ago. They also say that the whole of Jerusalem is their capital.

The Arabs say that they have lived in Palestine for almost 2,000 years. Their ancestors are buried there. They say that the land was not controlled by Israelis when their ancestors came there and therefore it is their land. They say that East Jerusalem is their capital.

That land has sites that are holy to Christians, Muslims and Jews. The Temple at Jerusalem and the Al Aqsa Mosque are almost on the same site. Therefore, how do you settle this problem?

My 1990s analysis. Peacemakers and extremists

People like to see this issue in terms of angels and demons. They pick a side and say that that side are the angels and the other side are the demons, but that is not true. There are angels on both sides and there are demons on both sides.

The extremists on both sides do not want peace. There have been many attempts to make peace in my lifetime and on each occasion, extremists on both sides will do something to ensure that the peace does not hold.

I compared it to Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland problem is very similar to what is happening in Israel/Palestine. However, the main difference is that the authorities did not allow the extremists to disrupt the peace.

Some people were not happy when the IRA declared a ceasefire and Unionists militants also declared ceasefires. A group created a new IRA to continue the war. They carried out bombings and attacks, but luckily the British Government did not respond to the provocation. They did not attack back. Some Unionists also tried to start trouble, but luckily the IRA did not respond. That’s why there’s now peace in Northern Ireland.

But in the Middle East, as soon as it seems like there will be peace, extremists on both sides will carry out very violent and provocative acts and the peace will die.

For example, in 1994 the Palestinians and the Israeli Government signed a historic peace agreement. It actually looked like the problem might be solved.

However, an Israeli extremist killed the Israeli Prime Minister because he signed that peace agreement with the Palestinians. Hamas and other Arab militant groups tried to kill Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, because he signed that agreement.

Eventually Palestinian militants carried out so many attacks that Israelis turned against the political party that signed the agreement and a more extremist party took over. That party began victimising Palestinians which led to even more anger among Palestinians and more attacks.

That’s the way the cycle has continued. Extremists on one side will carry out attacks and extremists on the other side will retaliate. Both sides have done really terrible and unspeakable things.

Israeli soldiers have killed children and prevented ambulances from assisting the wounded. They have carried out blockades that starved Palestinian neighbourhoods, they have turned off electricity and water and so on and so forth. Many Palestinians have been arrested/kidnapped and never heard off again.

Palestinian militants have targeted Israeli civilians with terrorist attacks and kidnappings. They have killed many innocent Israeli men, women and children and caused fear, in fact, terror in Israeli society.

Supporters

This crisis is also made worse by foreign supporters.

Many American Jews provide money and political assistance to Israel. The United States Government provides enormous military and financial assistance to Israel. Evangelical Christians also provide enormous financial and political assistance to Israel because they believe that God gave that land to the Israelites in the Bible.

Many Muslims from all over the world support the Palestinians because they believe that poor innocent Muslims are being bullied by powerful enemies (the United States and Israel). They believe that they have a duty to support the Palestinians with money and some even go to Palestine to fight against Israel. Once upon a time the Soviet Union also provided covert support to Arab states that were fighting against Israel, because the United States was assisting Israel.


Territory

One of the biggest issues that makes this crisis worse is the issue of territory.

The first Arab-Israeli War took place in 1948 and that led to the creation of the State of Israel. There have been several wars since then and the United States has assisted Israel to win all of them. Israel has taken more territory after each war. It took part of the Golan Heights from Syria after one war, it took part of Egyptian territory after another war and so on and so forth.

The Israelis are taking territory even in peace time. Some Israeli civilians will appear in an Arab village and begin to construct settlements. Then the Israeli Army will move in and evict the Arab villagers and provide security to the Israeli settlers. This particular practice infuriates the Arabs even more.

There have been many United Nations resolutions calling on Israel to respect its 1968 borders and not take any more Palestinian land. These resolutions have been supported by African, European, Asian and other countries, but the United States usually vetoes such resolutions.


That's why I do not think that there can be a solution

Both sides have a point, both sides are fuelled by religious and ethnic extremism which will never allow them to compromise (Israelis believe that God gave them the land, while Palestinians believe that it has been their land since the time of their ancestors) and extremists on both sides will never allow peace to reign.

timilehin007:
Bro I dont know much about all dx happenings o..but i think you are just twisting the question...I'll answer it for you
..Palestinians started this recent ruckus...yea, if you say it's because the Israelites started it as far as centuries ago...they no point taking sides, they thought they could face the the Israelites manly,so they sent deserve anybody's empathy..otherwise, they should have allowed sleeping dog lies..

naptu2:
I have been following this war for over 40 years. How do I explain it to people who just discovered it last year?

Nah!

I am only explaining it to those who need to know and they'll see it on my diary.

ceejay10:
the present issue was caused by Hamas last year October and you know that very much. Stop giving us history lessons to a simple question.

CuriousCart:
Palestine struck first & Israel is responding.

We all watched videos of evil Palestinians torturing tied up Israeli women at the back of their trucks.

Where was your humanity then?

CuriousCart:
Answet the simple question; Who struck first for this current crisis?

Stop diverting.
You are a staunch mozlem from your write up.

Available9:
First in this case is " genocide"...who first committed genocide ?