I agree with this. People aren't born as bloodthirsty terrorists. Ideologies and environments create them.

A month ago I was in Jerusalem and able to see at first hand the situation in the city, which was peaceful during my stay. I found the local Muslims to be much friendlier and approachable than most of the Jewish residents, especially the orthodox ones.

Hammas and their backers in Iran are the problem. Not the everyday people. Just look at how many of the people in Iran are protesting against their government's extremist attitudes these days. Nor are all of the people in Israel hardliners. Many are secularists and able to understand and even support, a better solution for the Palestinians. It's when the extremes are in control, as they are in both Israel and Gazza that this is the result.

Changing both is ultimately the only answer but it's not going to happen soon. In the meantime, we are going to witness a lot of bloodshed involving the innocent, which could, in turn, drive up the level of hatred rather than diminish it.

It puzzles me why Israel, created as it was after the atrocities in Nazi Germany, following the pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe, does not possess a more natural understanding of why the Palestinians feel as they do. A feeling which breeds the discontent which then allows the extremists to justify their actions to themselves.

Lets imagine you are born in Gaza. Your entire world is literally shrunk to what is barely the size of a small to medium-sized Western city and its metropolis area (for comparison Gaza is 107 square miles as opposed to Londons 607).

Everytime you turn on an electric light or tap, you know that it relies on a foreign power, who are the ones trapping in you that 107 square miles.

A foreign power who use modern fighter bomber jets to level entire buildings by way of response to people firing glorifed fire-works, which can barely fly straight let alone be aimed with any kind of precision.

Who do you vote for? A man who tells you to play nicely or a man who tells you they want to wipe that foreign power off the earth?

I could go on and on but I won't because I know how difficult it is to shake free from the programming we are subjected to about the situation in the Middle East.

Hammas are not the problem in Gazza. Hammas is the product of Gazza and its situation.

Why should any right thinking person in Gazza be anything other than filled with loathing for Israel and what it has done to them?

And act accordingly?

Edited by Matov (11 Oct 2023 6.34am)

It could be Palestine or any other Muslim country/place. Israel is the excuse, defeating the west and all it stands for is the cause. If Hamas could escape Gaza and enter Germany or the uk it would do the same to us. !

That is not how trauma works. The Jews, not known for their tolerance of others anytime, are far more driven by fear and paranoia than by empathy.

The old saying, just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you definitely applies here.

Hamas might be the drivers of violence but as you have seen on our streets, the Arabs are not afraid to show solidarity with people who murder and mutilate children.

I have never supported the idea of Israel. It is Biblical claptrap. However, when a people are persecuted, killed and driven from everywhere they go, you can understand why they wanted a homeland and defend it ruthlessly.