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Israel-Gaza Megathread #3

This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.

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The analogy you set up differs in important respects from the Israel-Palestine situation. Notably, the Ottomans repeatedly refused mass Jewish immigration to the region, which continued due to their limited state capacity. The temporary period of imperial promotion of Zionism occurred during the British Mandate, which would be more like China taking temporary control of the western United States following WWIII and initially encouraging the foreign immigration before reversing course when the policy provokes a rebellion.

Again, the bad situation arose from the settlement and the whole project. By the 1940’s, partition was a reasonable least-bad option.

So the original sin is illegal immigration and porous borders, if we can use such terms when discussing the Ottoman Empire?

The original sin (which isn’t a real thing) was setting up a new ethnic enclave in inhabited territory with ethnonationalist aims. It’s creating a Bosnia/Lebanon/Syria/Kresy-type situation where there didn’t need to be one.

Edit: But yes, that was a crucial contributing factor, and I think that large-scale Muslim immigration to Europe is a potential catastrophe (due to mission creep on the part of immigrants as they gain relative power)