I’m glad that I could provide some understanding, I’ve been learning a lot myself. It was an interesting exercise to sum up the basis for my position in one post since there’s a lot going on in this conflict, (I hit the character count limit.)
we can see from your sources Hamas barely won by a small margin.
Hamas and Fatah, a group with its own history of terrorism, combined got 86% of the vote. This combined with the survey linked above paint a clear picture of overwhelming approval of intifada.
Also, you claim instigation on the side of the Palestinians, when Israel was literally made from Palestinian land that the British government was in administration of. I fail to see how they instigated that.
They started off legally buying the land, Most of the early massacres under mandatory Palestine were instigated by Palestinian Arabs. Arab nationalism and xenophobia got the cycle of violence going in earnest, leading to militancy and reprisals and riots, causing the British to conclude that a one-state solution was not viable. Had they not, Israel and Palestine might have been one, a pluralistic state.
The British left, kicking the problem to the UN. Israel declared themselves a nation with the borders the UN created for them, then they immediately had war declared on them by Arab nations all around them on behalf of the Palestinians, who did not like the borders. Israel won against incredible odds, then annexed the lands of those who left. Descendants of Arab Palestinians who stayed are now Israeli citizens, ~20% of the population there.
I have a hard time seeing immigrating somewhere and legally buying the land as cause for violence or as an instigating cause for this long, violent conflict, nor can I fault Israel for annexing the lands of a those who declared war on them and lost.
But it just further proves the situation is a grey area where the only “good sides” are the civilians crushed in conflict.
Indeed. Sadly, in war, civilians usually suffer. At some point both sides are going to have to decide they like peace more than their ideal political goals.
