So, a lot of the "hate America" left likes to talk about "decolonization" a lot. Like they talk about decolonization with Israel, and let's talk about what that means. Israel wants the land, Palestine wants the land. israel currently controls most of it and is obviously the big dog in the region. Palestine isn't. Israel is a state established by the UN and the post british mandate situation and is seen as a colonial state. Israelis are seen as oppressors of the palestinians. While I think it's fair to sympathize with the plight of a palestinian civilians caught in the crossfire of this horrendous conflict, when I see the left talk of decolonization, let's talk about what they mean. THey talk about removing the state of Israel. But if this were to happen, what would it look like? While in the best case scenario, we're talking a mass exodus back to their home countries, or the end of an apartheid regime in the region, odds are what you're gonna get is the palestinians just forcibly removing the israelis and possibly killing them en masse. And that's literally the same genocide the leftists wont stop accusing the israelis of.
Btw, not totally 100% pro israel here. My opinion is documented, but i merely default to them being a lesser evil as I see the alternative to be basically letting the barbarians run through the gates and sack rome. And that's...literally what I would view decolonization as in practice. All the arab states backing palestine and fighting a massive war with them, and the Israelis being slaughtered en masse as the world watches on with horror. if youre for decolonization, this is what youre for.
I know some have said that "from the river to the sea" is just a phrase about not oppressing the palestinians, and i wish it was that simple, but in reality i think it has a much darker meaning which is why some push back against it. It does really seem to come off as this call to drive out and/or genocide the israelis in the region.
Look, even if im willing to concede that what israel is doing...isn't really great, to put it lightly, anything calling for an end to the state of israel is a hard red line for me. It's there's get used to it, move on. The proper time to litigate this was 75 years ago in 1948. And it was litigated. And Palestine lost. Just like people like to say "elections have consequences", so do wars. At the end of the war, wars determine who wins, who loses, who owns land, who doesn't. All nation states that exist and their borders are essentially enforced by...force. Heck, thats actually why im so defensive of say, Ukraine, and Europe, and America's allies. I'm basically pro status quo on borders. I see trying to take over land as old school crap that post 1945 is looked down on very severely and for good reason. But...yeah. Israel and Palestine had a war, and Israel won. To the victors go the spoils. So it was litigated, they won. They altered the deal, and im praying they dont alter it further. But every time we start a new war, like on october 7th, this crap gets relitigated, and israel, in their position of overwhelming force, is just further strengthening their position as they can easily bomb palestine into oblivion, and seem to be doing a decent job doing so..
Ideally, the two sides would coexist. I mean, I hoenstly think palestine, the losers, have to make do with their inferior position. I can understand an MLK or Nelson mandela style push for better rights and integration in the existing society. Heck, I'd welcome that. But when hamas started killing civilians, yeah no. That's just keeping the situation on a hair trigger and leading us back into wars. And that generally goes badly for the palestinians.
If the pro palestine positon was as simple as "hey dont oppress these people", i could probably sympathize with that. But the terrorism crap just justifies everything israel ends up doing against palestine. And i end up losing most sympathy that i had for palestine.
Because it isnt as simple, it's literally more "israel bad, they shouldnt even be there", and its like....get over it. Seriously. its been 75 years, get over it people. Israel exists, they're gonna continue to exist, deal with it. Try to integrate into their society peacefully, that's the best hope i can give you. This two state solution isnt gonna work. We kinda quasi have that now with gaza and the west bank, and it aint working and gaza is being likened to a concentration camp or open air prison. But thats what a two state solution is gonna look like. ANd these guys arent really interested in a two state solution, "from the river to the sea" basically means they want it all and they want israel GONE. And thats where i start turning on palestine because its like "no, that's not acceptable".
Look. Im not interested in litigating the past. Im interested in where things are now, and moving on from here. Justice for me means integration into the dominant society. Or at least being respected enough to be left alone by indepentarian principles (should israel have a UBI and should palestinians get it too? probably).
It's the same thing with native americans. Some edgy leftists love to belabor our previous genocides of native americans and push for all americans to be forcefully removed and go back to europe. Which would be a logistical nightmare. And probably as bad if not worse than the original genocide that happened. Two wrongs dont make a right. The past is the past. It happened, it sucks, but let's get over it and move on. Dwelling on it doesnt help, and the suggestions of these weirdo leftists are insane. And given its thanksgiving, yeah, some people are gonna push these narratives surrounding this holiday too. And it's like...can we not? As I said, i find the anti american circlejerk of the far left to be as annoying as the far right "everyone who doesn't think america is perfect is an evil commie" people. If anything, these guys just give those guys energy and vice versa.
Look, any talk of forced relocation of tons of people should not be entertained. it sucked that the past events happened. But belaboring the point and wanting it to happen again as a matter of some weird principle of justice is just sick and perverted. No, israel should not give the land back to palestine, no the US shouldnt give it back to the native americans. Who owns the land owns the land, unless it happened relatively recently, like within the past couple of decades or something, just freaking let it go and move on already. When you get to the point that there are entire generations who lived on the land for their entire lives and know no different, trying to "right the wrongs of the past" is just creating new ones.
As for those who are minorities in these new nationstates....i guess it sucks if you want self determination, but the answer to that should be through reforms like equal rights, citizenship, and stuff like UBI to give people as much freedom to live as they want as possible. It's not forcibly relocating everyone back to whatever their ancestoral homeland was however many decades or centuries ago and giving the land back to the original owners who...lets face it, probably stole it from someone else anyway.
If you really studied history enough, Im sure there isn't any habitable land that hasnt been "stolen" from some other people at some point in history. It's really just a matter of where the statute of limitations on that stuff is. Given an average life span of 80 years and how in 40 a majority of the people alive in the land in question were probably born there, I'm gonna say 40 is a nice rule of thumb. If you're going on 75-80, it's like get over it, if something happened just 10 years ago like the crimea situation in Ukraine, then yeah it should be returned to Ukraine. As I said the scales should tip one way or another around the 40 year mark in theory. But dont quote me on that exactly, it might vary by the exact situation and where it is now.
But yeah, israel owns that land, deal with it. The US owns the US. Deal with it. I'm not interested in relitigating our past in a serious way. The circlejerking is bad enough but the weirdos who talk about decolonization are just scary.
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