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Based on the steady torrent of Israel-Palestine threads, the general impression I get is that a majority of people here is quite solidly pro-Israel in this conflict. I would like to understand the pro-Israel position better; in particular, I wonder if there are arguments for the Israeli position in the current war that don't mostly rest on one of the following:
An arbitrary cutoff of historical reckoning either shortly before the most recent Hamas attack, or else somewhere in the early '90s following the general Western mode of thinking about other geopolitical conflicts. Unilaterally declaring all scores settled is not a persuasive or universalizable moral principle.
Invocation of inherent superior qualities of Israeli Jews relative to Palestinians, be it intelligence, education or general "civilizedness". You would almost certainly either need to cut out a very contrived set of conditions to make the principle only apply to this case, or accept some hypothetical corollary you probably don't want that involves similar abuse being heaped on morally/intellectually/civilizationally inferior people that you care about or feel kinship to.
The way I see it, the moral case for Palestine is pretty clear, and unlike some seem to assume does not require you to subscribe to a lot of oppressed-are-always-right slave morality (though you do need to stop short of maximally might-makes-right master morality). The present ruling population of Israel mostly moved to that territory in the late '40s, and from the start has continued violently expelling the ancestors of present Palestinians from their homes to acquire their land for themselves. I do not think that Palestinians' stupidity or backwardness or whatever are so great that they can't be afforded what we otherwise consider basic human rights to property and safety, even if the people who want to take those from them for themselves were all literal Von Neumanns.
I don't think that this original wrong has been made right to the Palestinians, and the argument that some Palestinians submitted and got to live better lives under the Israelis than they would have had in an independent Palestine does not morally convince me either. If Bill Gates steals the plots some rednecks built their houses on, builds a mansion in its place and then offers them lavish jobs as domestic servants, do the ones who don't accept forfeit their right to complain about the theft? Another counterargument seems to rest on something like statute of limitations (like, the Palestinians and Israelis alive nowadays are not the ones who got robbed and their robbers), which would be more persuasive if Israeli settlements were not still expanding, and there weren't still Palestinians who are quite directly being made to suffer at the hands of the Israeli men with guns for no other reason than that they do not accept the "become Bill Gates's domestic servant" deal. It seems pretty clear to me that there is no recourse left to the Palestinians who do not want to to take this deal that preserves their human dignity - their conquerors certainly won't hear them out themselves, and they are backed by the US machine which not only could produce a personal cruise missile for every Palestinian if it put its mind to it but also has enough intellectual and propaganda firepower that they could make even the Palestinians doubt that they are themselves humans with rights.
If you are continuously denied justice in an existential matter, though, I don't think it's at all an alien viewpoint that you are morally entitled to do whatever you find appropriate to seize justice for yourself, including ineffectual and vile acts of revenge such as murdering the women and children of those who wronged you. To claim otherwise, to me, seems to amount to claiming that you can be absolved for arbitrary wrongs if you just amass enough power to make effective resistance impossible, and I don't like that even before we start taking into the account that the targets of Hamas terror were intended and more often than not happy beneficiaries of the original wrongs committed. (If you have been driven out of your house and into a corner at gunpoint by the mafia, the mafia boss's kid stands by watching the show and mocking you, and, seeing an opening, you shoot the kid, I will find it hard to fault you for the murder even though the kid is technically innocent of the misfortunes that befell you and this did absolutely nothing to help your situation. As a bonus, the corrupt police (my country) is then called in to arrest you, after sharing a smoke with the mafiosi.)
Though I said that the moral case for Palestine is clear, this is emphatically not to say that I rule out the possibility of a clear moral case for Israel existing at the same time. "They're both justified to continue murdering each other" is a sad reality of a lot of tribal conflict. However, in this particular case, I actually do not even see that case, or at least what I have seen seems much weaker to me, given that Israelis still have the option to leave Israel at any time as a large part of the world would welcome them with open arms (while the anti-Palestinians like reiterating that not even other Muslim countries want to take in the Palestinians, as if that helps their case), and even though in some sense they would also then be "driven from their homes" it's not like they are usually unaware of those homes' provenance.
edit: Thanks for everyone's responses, there were certainly a lot of interesting points to think about there. I'm too overwhelmed with the volume to respond to everyone, though to the extent there were some overlaps between the points I would be grateful if you could check my answers to sibling posts.
I'm "Pro-Palestine" in the sense that I find the most defensible solution to the conflict would be two states on 1949 borders, PA in charge of the whole State of Palestine (undemocratically if necessarily), right to return to those who actually have been expelled but not to descendants, resettlement with compensation to descendants in their current countries of habitation, and international security guarantees to the two countries in a suitable way. Furthermore, I find that Israel and its policy of settlement are chiefly responsible for this not being achieved and the onus would be on Israel to take most of the steps to actualize this.
I do not base this on any moral claims on either party but simply on my understanding of what would be the most consistent solution in lieu of the international law; clearly no matter what historical injustices were perpetrated to establish Israel, its existence is fait accompli at this point, and the forceful ending of a generally internationally recognized state would have drastic international consequences. At the same time, the one question I've never seen Israel defenders answer in a proper way is; considering that Israel has in fact never claimed that West Bank and Gaza belong to it, who do they belong to? Israel still, in some weird vague way? Then why isn't it claiming them, or offering the inhabitants citizenship? Egypt and Jordan?
But those countries recognize them as a part of the State of Palestine. To some "Hamastan", in case of Gaza? Hamas is not claiming independence for Gaza. Are they completely out of jurisdiction by any state? This does not apply to any other part of the Earth apart from Antarctica, covered by an international treaty, and has not itself been defined by a treaty, so clearly this claim is just an attempt to create a new international status to some territory for the specific purpose of benefitting Israel.
The only answer that seems consistent would be that the territories are already a part of the State of Palestine, the Western countries are hypocritical in not recognizing it, and the only task would be making this situation into an internationally accepted reality. At the same time, it seems unlikely that this would happen strictly in this form, but one has to have some starting point to try and figure it all out.
The internationally recognized status of Gaza and the West Bank were hammered out in the Oslo Accords. This status does not match the facts on the ground, but that's not actually Israel's doing -- it's that the Palestinian Authority was driven from Gaza, by Hamas. Gaza is (or was, until the current offensive) an unrecognized (including by Egypt and Jordan, who I believe recognize the Palestinian Authority) but de facto independent state. This is not some novel status; it happens every time some separatist movement becomes strong enough to hold territory. For another current example, there's Somaliland.
Not getting to whether the "de facto" actually means that much insofar as international law is concerned, the obvious difference would be that Hamas has never actually claimed Gaza to be an independent state, unlike the Somaliland government.
The proper response to the Hamas occupation of Gaza should be the Palestinian Authority, probably backed by an international coalition, asserting its de facto jurisdiction over Gaza, by force if needed. Of course there is a great variety of reasons why that's not happening, but the clear majority of those reasons are, when it gets to the roots, "Israel".
It is quite risible for Israel supporters to refer to confusion and chaos in Palestine when it's obvious that Israel isn't in any way willing to have the internationally recognized authority of the State of Palestine act as states normally attempt to do when some group is occupying a part of their territory, or have the armed forces that could even theoretically attempt it.
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