Like many others in the West I’ve looked at the situation in the Middle East and prayed for peace. Like many other Jews I’ve wanted the children of Isaac and the children of Ishmael to water their sheep in peace together. However as time has gone on I’ve got more realistic or cynical or maybe just accepting that some things are possible and some are not. I’ve come to the conclusion that although peace between the Israelis and the so-called ‘Palestinians’ may be desirable it might not be possible and that’s not because of any failing on the part of the Israelis but a whole host of failings from those who call themselves ‘Palestinians’.
There’s a brilliant post on the X account of David Atherton ( @DaveAtherton20 ) that quotes someone who once worked with these ‘Palestinians’ which shows that whilst we in the West or with a Western Judao-Christian mindset might desire peace, too many of the ‘Palestinians’ do not.
Mr Atherton said:
An Israeli friend of mine Ms Ateret Shmuel has spent a considerable amount of time with Palestinians in the West Bank. It seems many people have tried to reach out with olive branches, but to no avail, it is suicidal empathy.
A warning for Britain. "I worked with Palestinians for YEARS (I technically still do, but in a different context). I became super close to several big families in the West Bank, and even dated a major Palestinian activist. Like all good little social justice warriors, I really believed that peace was possible and that the Palestinians were being “unjustly oppressed and occupied”.
"The deeper I got into Palestinian society, the more time I spent honestly listening and hearing what people were actually saying. The more I stopped trying to view everything through a Jewish or western or humanist perspective, and actually saw Palestinian society on/in its own terms, the more I realized it was a zero sum game.
"When you have a society whose entire identity is completely rooted in ethnic and religious supremacy as well as hatred, rejection, appropriation, and genocide of another group of people, there can never be peace between those 2 groups. "There will never be a reality in which the group whose identity is based in supremacy and hate and violence will ever stop trying to destroy the group they hate. "This is why I abandoned Israeli-Palestinian “peace” activism entirely. It’s a dangerous joke.
"Israelis and those who are not Arab- or Islamist-supremacists - especially those in the west- do NOT understand the people who wish to destroy us. They constantly are trying to view them through their own lens and project their own values and beliefs onto them. It’s suicidally naïve. "Any temporary cease-fire or “peace agreement,” is just a pause in the ultimate plan and goal of the complete annihilation of us everyone and everything that isn’t part of the global caliphate. They will never stop trying to destroy us.
"This is, BTW, the same reality other indigenous peoples of Asia, the Middle East, and Africa face as well- especially those who refused to be converted to Islam. "This is why Pakistan will never stop trying to destroy Hindus, or Isis will never stop trying to destroy the Yazidis, or why any Islamist groups will never stop trying to destroy indigenous communities and religions (Judaism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Yazidism, and all the others). "The longer we ignore this and pretend that they also just want to live in peace and harmony, the longer we prolong our own suffering."
This is a harsh judgement on the ‘Palestinians’ but maybe it’s fairer than you might want to believe. After all even before the re-establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 many Jews of Mandate Palestine wanted to live in harmony with their Muslim Arab neighbours both within the Mandate borders and without. But all too often the ‘Palestinian’ Muslim Arabs refused that olive branch and instead preferred to revert back into standard Islamic Jew hatred and those were olive branches proffered to the ‘Palestinians’ both prior to the re-establishment of Israel and after. The ‘Palestinians’ were offered in 2005 a Jew free part of the region to live in, Gaza, in the hope that a ‘land for peace’ deal would actually bring peace. As we saw on October 7th 2023, it didn’t. It’s also a harsh but accurate judgment of what happens in other parts of the world threatened by militant Islam.
When you are faced with an opponent who is driven by supremacism and a desire for total religious conquest, as it is with the ‘Palestinians’ and the other Islamic extremist groups throughout the world you are not dealing with entities that will compromise for peace. You are instead dealing with groups that will only agree to be quiet until such time as they are strong enough to wage war on you again. Sadly as much as I desire peace and cooperation I don’t see I happening as only one side genuinely wants such peace.