Former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, when asked to explain the apparent about-face that led him to advocate the unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, quoted a beloved Israeli pop ballad. “What you can see from there, you can’t see from here,” he said, referring to the shift in perspective he had supposedly undergone since coming to power.
Israeli-born Holocaust historian Omer Bartov invoked the same line when he was asked how he had come to view Israel’s ferocious assault on Gaza as a genocide. Living in the US, where he has spent more than three decades, he said, had given him the necessary distance to see the annihilation of Gaza for what it was. “I think it’s very hard to be dispassionate when you’re there,” he said.
Bartov did more than simply apply the word genocide to Israel’s actions: he shouted it from the establishment-media rooftops, making the case in a lengthy July 2025 essay in the New York Times titled: I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It. (He had addressed some of the arguments in a Guardian essay the year prior.) Bartov’s declaration cost him several close relationships, he told me, even though subsequent events have not only validated his analysis but further demonstrated the lack of concern for Palestinian suffering that has become prevalent in Israeli society.
His new book, Israel: What Went Wrong?, is an attempt to explain that indifference. The book, which was published on Tuesday, is a detailed account of how Israel was transformed from a hopeful nation that in its founding document promised “complete equality of social and political rights to all its citizens irrespective of religion, race or sex” into one intent on what he bluntly terms “settler colonialism and ethno-nationalism”.
This is my proposal to end the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Egypt will be given the West Bank enlarged by land equivalent to the Gaza Strip. In return, Israel will be given the Gaza Strip and land at least 3 times larger than the West Bank in the Sinai Peninsula. Some of the land will be adjacent to water so Israel can build desalination plants. The Sinai is inhospitable, and Egypt doesn’t have the technology to develop it, but Israel does. With its new land, Egypt can give it to the Palestinians, make it a state within Egypt, or whatever it wants.
Israel wants land. This is a way of giving it land without harming the Palestinians.
You’ve placed the same copy paste blurp multiple times now, and predictably everyone votes you down bectyour idea is just horribly stupid
There could be new people joining the community and others who never read it. People are dying. I offer a solution.
You offer erasure of a people. Nothing more.
To the contrary, they could have their own land. I don’t think Egypt would give them the land but may allow it as a state within Egypt.
They do have their own land. Israel has stolen it.
How do you propose to get it from Israel?
Easy. Stop every red dollar of aid to the country.
According to the article, pro-Israel donors influence US politics. So, how would you stop aid to Israel?
How arrogant. That land isn’t ours to give.
No, it’s up to Egypt and Israel.
No, fascist. It’s up to Palestine. The country that existed before the 1930s. The country where people of multiple religions, Muslim, Christian and Jewish peacefully lived together until Churchill and the brits decided (under pressure from political groups) to sell land they didn’t own to a group with no claim to it.
It’s not up to the people killing civilians, it’s not up to Europe, its not up to the US, it is and has always been Palestine.
This is idiotic on multiple levels.
First of all, it’s NOT up to Palestine. This is not some ideological statement, this is just reality. The geopolitics works by de facto control, not by some idealized notion of righteous ownership. If that was the case the native Americans would be decided US foreign policy, but that’s not how it works now is it? The cold hard reality is that Israel is the true sovereign of the land, and neither Palestine nor any country can do anything substantial without Israeli approval. Therefore, they’re the ones who actually have the deciding power. Whether you agree with it or not doesn’t mean anything, that’s just the way it currently is.
Second of all, Palestine did NOT exist before the 1930s. There has never been sovereign Palestinian state in history. The modern Palestinian national identity was formed in the 1920s as a reaction to Jews getting serious about establishing Israel. Before that point, there was no such thing as a Palestinian identity. The Arabs in the region were indistinguishable from the other Levantese Arabs. The Arabs in what is now Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Palestine have the same exact history, dialect, culture, food, religion, and so on. They’re called both today and historically as Bilad Al Sham which means the Levant nation in Arabic.
What we think of modern Israel and Palestine are both inventions of the British. The borders, for example, like with the other countries in the region are nonsensical and drawn randomly. The Arabs there did not see themselves as Palestinians back then, but as Arabs that were a part of the Arab nation (ummah al arribiyah). If it were up to the Palestinian Arabs back then, there wouldn’t be any borders because these borders were dividing a bigger nation. The British promised both the Jews and the Arabs a state, and this annoyed both which caused them to start segregating and fighting each other trying to make sure that the other one doesn’t get a state. This eventually led to the 1948 war when Israel did end up declaring independence.
Finally, Christians, Jews, and muslims most certainly did NOT live in peace. This delusional idea is only held by ignorant Westerns who have no understanding of the region’s history. No matter how far back in history you go, there’s always a strong presence of revolts, wars, and ethnic cleansing in the region because whichever religious group ruled the region oppressed the others. For example, when the Turks ruled. They applied islamic law which treats non muslim monotheistic believers (polytheism is punishable by death) as second class citizens. Non muslims are forced to pay a tax that muslims don’t have to pay, they’re forced to observe islamic holidays, and they’re saddled with a lot of restrictions that muslims don’t have.
This already makes everyday life very hard, but the exclusively muslim ruling class would made sure to keep minorities down at every turn. For example, whenever the Ottomans had war, they would force entire towns near the frontlines to evacuate, but they only allow muslims to return afterwards. The property and wealth that was left behind would be possessed and distributed among muslim soldiers and officials as spoils of war. The same goes for the places that got conquered, except the non muslim women and children there would also get ensalved. This type of treatment is the reason why the Greeks, Serbs, Armenians, Assyrians, and so many other minorities revolted against the Ottomans and ended up getting genocided as a result. But it’s not just the Ottomans, the Malmuks before them as well as the Umayyads, the Abbasids, the Crusaders, and so on all engaged in similar behavior. You would be hard pressed to find any sustained period of time in this region’s history that didn’t have oppression, war, or violence.
1917 In November (October on the Julian calendar), the Bolsheviks seize power and Russia makes preparations to withdraw from the war. That same month, Britain issues the Balfour Declaration. In December, the British Army led by General Allenby marches victoriously into Jerusalem. Palestine is placed under British military occupation (1917–20). It then had a population of 688,957 Arabs (including Christians, Muslims and other non-Jewish minorities) and a population of 58,728 Jews.
1922 The Council of the League of Nations agrees to the text of the British Mandate of Palestine. The Palestine Order-in-Council of 1 September separates Palestine from the Emirate of Transjordan, which is established to the east of the River Jordan. The Colonial Secretary, Winston Churchill, in a statement on British policy rejects the claim that Palestine was to become ‘as Jewish as England is English’. He declares: ‘His Majesty’s Government regard any such expectation as impracticable and have no such aim in view.’ He adds that: ‘the status of all citizens of Palestine in the eye of the law shall be Palestinian, and it has never been intended that they, or any section of them, should possess any other juridical status. In an exchange of correspondence with the Palestine Arab delegation, Churchill recognizes ‘the people of Palestine’, specifically referring to Palestine’s Arab community.
1948 Civil war breaks out on a wider scale in Palestine. In March, the US concludes that partition is unworkable and reverses its policy. It declares itself in favor of a UN Trusteeship for Palestine in a single unitary state. A UN Trusteeship Agreement is subsequently drafted. The Jewish Agency condemns it, goes on the offensive and avows to proclaim a Hebrew Republic on 16 May. In April, the Haganah (Jewish paramilitary), implements the Plan Dalet. Thirteen military operations follow, eight of which are beyond the boundaries set out for the Arab state in the UN Partition Plan. On 11 April, a massacre is perpetrated by the Irgun with the support of the Haganah in the Palestinian Arab village of Deir Yassin, near Jerusalem. By May, the Zionists have conquered Jaffa (which was supposed to be part of the Arab state as envisaged in the UN Partition Plan) and Haifa, causing their Arab populations to flee to secure ground. At midnight on 14/15 May the last British High Commissioner in Palestine terminates the Mandate and departs Haifa. The Yishuv concomitantly proclaims the establishment of the state of Israel. By this time, over 350,000 Palestinian Arabs have been evicted from their homes. The Arab Legion, commanded by British officers, enters Palestine on the pretext that it is defending the population of Palestine from further attacks by the Haganah and the Irgun (Zionist paramilitary). It is supported by troops from Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Iraq. The fighting escalates. In July, the Haganah captures Lydda, Ramle and Nazareth expelling its Arab populations. By the time hostilities come to an end some 750,000 Palestinian Arabs and 17,000 Jews are displaced by the fighting. In December, the UN General Assembly passes a resolution providing that: ‘the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.
This doesn’t disprove what I said whatsoever. All this shows is that the term “Palestine” exists, and it does. Palestine has been the colloquial term for the region that roughly covers the Abrahamic religion’s holy land since it was coined by the Romans. However, what this does not show is Palestine being an independent sovereign state at any point in history. This region did not have any sort of sovereignty for thousands of years. It was always controlled by external empires. The two modern states are literally the first ones since ancient times to rule the land independently from within. This idea that there was a Palestinian country historically that has always existed before Israel is simply not true. The ethnic cleansing and fighting is real, but Palestine before the modern state was never a country at any point in the past.
Palestinians have no power so they can’t decide.
And why is it that they don’t have power?
Is it because a nuclear capable occupation holds them under what can only described as an apartheid system?
Not only nuclear capable but Israel is the most powerful country in the Middle East.
Israel is the size of Vermont. Its only powerful because of bribes.
It’s strong because it has a technologically advanced military.
How about we give the Palestinians their homeland back, and israel can be remade in america, since so many of the settlers have american passports, if we’re giving away any random country’s land to capitulate to this genocidal state?
Delusional. Israel is not going anywhere. They’re a nuclear power, they’re a military power, they have a massive economy, they have 10 million people, and they can enforce their sovereignty. You can’t be taken seriously if you unironically think that Israel can be destroyed or that’s even a good idea (the current population there will just form another state that will be Israel 2.0).
Reality has shifted, and fixating on what should’ve been will cost you the opportunity to get the best version of what you could get. The reality on the ground right now is that Israel is the sovereign country of the region, and the far right are trying to quickly erase the remnants left of what could be a Palestinian state. If that happens, and we’re quickly heading in that direction, then it’s over. There’s no conversation to be had anymore. However, we’re not there yet, and so it’s a lot more pragmatic and realistic to try hold on to what is left and use that as foundation for establishing an actual Palestinian state.
Your plan is Aesop’s Fable, The Mice in Council. See https://aesopsfables.org/F184_The-Mice-in-Council.html
So you agree that the state of israel is a murderous one, and your solution is to give them the land of the people they murder with impugnity and celebrate the deaths of with champagne?
Read my proposal. Egypt would own the West Bank enlarged by land equivalent to the Gaza Strip, which would be given to Israel.
I understand your proposal, but wholeheartedly reject it at its premise.
It involves giving land that is historically Palestinian, to countries that are not Palestine.
But there is no choice. Israel doesn’t want a Palestinian state.
Removed by mod
Props to you, this is the most unhinged comment I’ve seen on Lemmy this month
Removed by mod
Lmao you’re still going. This is why I keep coming to Lemmy
Show me where I approved of Israel killing 72,000 Gazans. My proposal would end the Israeli Palestinian conflict with no casualties.
The way you talk about them not having power to resist. The way you talk about Israel being the winner and not talking about any other alternative but tolerating their evildoing. You are a Zionist, and if you are not, you are a benefit to them with the things you say, so, people shouldn’t waste their time with you.
Don’t tske this guy seriously . He always has dumb proposals
You have to be realistic, otherwise you will just get people killed. Look what Israel did in Gaza.
Removed by mod
Netanyahu knows his actions are creating antisemitism worldwide, but he does not care. My proposal would end the conflict between Israel and Palestinians.
Counter proposal. Israel prosecutes the IDF solders that carried out the Hannibal Directive and killed all those Israeli Jews on Oct 7th to false flag their nation into committing a genocide against a semite population. For 14 months before Oct 7th, there were constant protests in Tel Aviv about Bibi’s corruption. It’s a bit late to send him to jail over that, but it’s long past time to send him to the Hague and at the very least put him in an electeic chair for his crimes against humanity. And much the same way Germany was funding Israel for all the years for the Holocaust, Israel needs to fund the recreation of Palestine, and much the same way Germany wasn’t allowed a large military after WW2, Jews, especially those in Israel, can’t be allowed to control money for the same time period. Their own, or anybody else’s.
Lemmy has finally stooped down to the level of /pol/ level conspiracies
That’s that place that was started a day after m00t met Epstein, right? The place that claimed that there was an elite pedophile ring where they use code words like Cheese Pizza for Child Porn, right? Whatever happened to those kooks and their crazy conspiracies?
Who knows, I’m not an expert on 4chan’s history, but all i know is that if you’re using their level of conspiracy bullshit then you’re the same level as them
Israel will not fund the recreation of Palestine and the US will back Israel. Remember, the article said that pro-Israel donors have an influence on US politics.
The US also supported Nazi Germany until very late in the game. Germany also had(maybe still do?) reparations to Israel for the Holocaust. There also reparations placed on Germany after WW1(which played a large role in WWII, but seperate story) and one of my main reasoning to put Jews, especially Israeli Jews, on conservatorship, is because of the donor strangehold on America. Saying they won’t, is a pretty good indication that it’s a good punishment though.
It is probably illegal in the US to put Jews on conservatorship.
If committing a genocide against a semite population, if spray painting a swastika on a synagogue, if yelling out “kill all Jews”, if bombing synagogues isn’t enough to change such a law if it exists, what will it take?
I’m sure it’s against the law in the US for the government to control how a group of people spend their money.
Why Egypt and not Jordan? Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, and Palestine are exactly the same. They’re the same people with the same culture, that were only divided by colonial borders drawn by the French and British. The idea of a Palestinian ethnicity is a new phenomenon, it didn’t exist before the 1920s. They’re Levantese Arabs. Egyptians are pretty distinct from Levantese Arabs. They have their own cuisine, history, dialect, ideas about religion, and so on. Your proposal doesn’t make sense on that front alone.
In my proposal, Egypt gives up part of the Sinai to Israel in exchange for Egypt getting the West Bank enlarged by land equivalent to the Gaza Strip which would go to Israel. What land would Jordan give to Israel?
Egypt cannot possibly govern the West Bank, it is too far from the Egyptian heartland and it is also physically separated from the rest of country. Egypt has already tried governing Gaza before and that went horribly wrong.
Jordan and the West Bank are physically connected and they’re the same culturally, therefore it makes sense for them to be together in that sense, but with that being said, Jordan also tried to rule the West Bank before and that went pretty poorly.
The biggest hurdle here is why would Egypt or Jordan participate? What would they get out of it. They would be getting a big headache in exchange for a lot of strategic land (Egypt giving the Sinai also means giving up one side of the Suez Canal and that’s a big no no in geopolitics). Not to mention, that the West Bank already has well over 700,000 settlers. Even if we exclude East Jerusalem, that’s still over 500k settlers. That’s a loooot of people, and they’re also some of most unhinged zealots you’ll find anywhere in the world. That’s even bigger headache than the Palestinians that they’ll have to take on. I just don’t see this as a realistic proposal.
Egypt would be giving up some up the Sinai not all of it. The US governs Alaska and Hawaii despite not being physically connected. Egypt will get peace at its borders. Also, fighting in Gaza and the West Bank could push Palestinian refugees into Egypt.
It’s not the same. The US has unrestricted air and ocean access to both Alaska and Hawaii, Egypt won’t have that. Not to mention, Egypt gains nothing from this deal. The Sinai is more strategically important to them
As part of the deal, Egypt could be given permission to access its new land through a specific land corridor. Egypt would gain peace on its borders. Continual fighting between Israel and Palestinian could cause a flood of migrants into Egypt.
Egypt already has peace with Israel and they’re already blocking any potential wave of Palestinian migrants and have been for decades now. Egypt doesn’t benefit from such a deal
They will have to go somewhere. Under my proposal they will stay in the West Bank, but it will be controlled by Egypt. There will be no humanitarian crisis.
No one cares what Israel wants anymore. Why are you catering to murderers? Could it be that you are on their side?
If someone knocks on your door, panthera, and says they will kill your entire family but they will settle for just eating your little girl, you sound like the type of person to push the girl out the door to them instead of grabbing a weapon and doing whats actually right.
You have to start with ethics and basic human rights, not triangulation and negotiation with what you think evil will be OK with.
But this is precisely the losing mentality that leads countries to their demise. There is a reason why throughout history, weaker nations pursue peace with their stronger neighbors. It’s not because they want to, its because they have to do in order to survive. Palestine, egged on by the other Arab state, bought into the idea that the one and only acceptable solution is the complete destruction of Israel, the removal of Israelis, and the establishment of an Arab Palestinian state that is ruled by Arabs. However, Palestine is very clearly outmatched by Israel, and so every attempt at pursing this goal ended up in them being further away from it.
The question then becomes, what’s the end goal? To keep trying until Palestine is fully destroyed? We’re quickly heading down that path and I don’t want to see it happen. Palestine is very clearly outmatched by Israel and there’s no realistic way for a Palestinian state over the entire region to be established. No country will intervene on their behalf and Israel isn’t going anywhere. I think it’s wise to do what other countries in a similar position have done in the past.
I think Palestine needs to do what Armenia did with Turkey or what Mongolia did with Russia and China or what Ireland did with the UK. I think it’s the pragmatic thing to do.
But Christians, Jews, and Muslims have been murdering each other in the Holy Land for many centuries.
They’re all murderers. What participant has clean hands?
Human beings have an innate right to resist oppression and murder once available peaceful avenues have been tried.
One side is committing genocide and massive human rights abuses right now. One side is not.
This doesn’t disprove his statements though
Agreed. When do you start the clock of oppression, and why at that point specifically? There have been repeated bloody conflicts for longer than we have been alive.
They all want to genocide the other, as they have all repeated constantly (today and in centuries prior)… and they all have committed genocide. No one has clean hands here.
All parties have committed countless human rights abuses for decades or even centuries, and still do right now.
They won’t ever stop until only one people owns “The Holy Land”… and Israel is the only nuclear power. Remember that when you propose “solutions”, you must disarm Israel and/or have their support…
A better analogy would be someone offers this person a vacant lot, in exchange this person would own the place I’m living in.