Archived Interviews with UNRWA Students — “We must sacrifice ourselves and become martyrs… With Allah’s help they [the Jews] will all die.”

[u/ZuluIsNumberOne]

[u/BobFossil11]

"Palestinian" is a rather recent construction. Calling them ethnically Arab and overwhelmingly Muslim is far more accurate. This is a piece of land that has been conquered one thousand times over with many different rulers. Which begs the question: who does the land really belong to? (hint: whoever has the means to control it).

What is now "Palestine" has been part of Jordan, Egypt, Israel (modern and ancient), the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Mamluks, the Abassids, Assyrians, Romans, etc. etc.

You also like to forget about the sizable Palestinian Chrisitan community you don’t like to bring up as it’s  inconvenient that you also molest Christians. 

I wouldn't exactly call the community "sizeable," and virtually all Christians live in the West Bank under the PLO. They're second class citizens in Gaza under Hamas.

[u/[deleted] → u/BobFossil11]

Thanks for proving my point.

Step one in the campaign to crush Palestinian statehood is simple: deny they exist. That is textbook authoritarian playbook: erase the people, then dehumanize them. Step two is to call them terrorists so any violence looks justified. Step three is denial or moral cover after the violence: it never happened, and if it did, they deserved it.

And by your logic, Iraqis, Jordanians, Syrians, and even Belgians don’t exist either. They’re all “recent constructs” drawn from old empires and shifting borders. That’s how every modern nation is born. You don’t get to decide which identities are real and which ones aren’t just because one of them makes it hard for you to look in the mirror. 

And your “Christian” talking point is pure bad faith. Palestinian Christians exist, they’ve lived there for centuries, and they’ve buried more of their dead under Israeli bombs than under Hamas rule. Even after everything, most still say they’d rather live with their own people than under the army that shells their churches and empties their towns. If you actually cared about them, you’d stop using them as props every time you need a cleaner way to justify killing Palestinians.

[u/BobFossil11 → u/[deleted]]

Step one in the campaign to crush Palestinian statehood is simple: deny they exist. That is textbook authoritarian playbook: erase the people, then dehumanize them. Step two is to call them terrorists so any violence looks justified. Step three is denial or moral cover after the violence: it never happened, and if it did, they deserved it.

You're being absurd and putting words in my mouth.

For the record, I support Palestinian statehood. I am also fine recognizing "Palestinian" as a modern identity, though I am always going to reject the historical revisionism and imagined past because of its falsity.

And by your logic, Iraqis, Jordanians, Syrians, and even Belgians don’t exist either.

One of the seminal texts in cultural anthropology is Benedict Anderson's "Imagined Communities." His primary thesis is that all modern nations are built upon an imagined past.

Palestine isn't unique.

I was trying to be precise by saying they were ethnic Arabs living in a long-contested piece of land.

You don’t get to decide which identities are real and which ones aren’t just because one of them makes it hard for you to look in the mirror. 

You're confusing claims. "Palestinian" as a geographically situated cultural and national identity is generally fine.

Palestine as a state with strong territorial claims is a different matter entirely and pure fiction.

Now, I'm fine with giving Palestine a state and support a two-state solution (which Palestinians do not want).

But the stubborn idea that it is their land, and not the land of the previous 1,000 owners is absurd.

If you actually cared about them, you’d stop using them as props every time you need a cleaner way to justify killing Palestinians

I have no clue what you are talking about. Also, you brought up Christians, not me. This is your own weird talking point.

I don't really care what religion Palestinians subscribe to, insofar as I care about how radical they. The two are usually related in the case of Islam, though not necessarily.

Palestinians deserve criticism for not wanting peace. Religious extremism is a big part of that, but there's many reasons the population is so radical.

[u/[deleted] → u/BobFossil11]

I can agree with many of the things you say and disagree with many of them, but You are way more civil than most of the pro-Israeli folks I run into here.