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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The dividing line is easy. Taking land, retaining land, barring right of return. These are of a kind.

Bombing in response to that? I can understand that.

Killing people in a manner on par with serial murderers en masse? Raping women in front of their families? These are of a kind. A very different kind.

But you’re right. I’m trying to square the circle. The situation is not resolvable in any fashion that stands as entirely just. I don’t think it can ever be.

The dividing line is not easy at all. The Israeli Army forces Palestinians off their land and gives it to settlers. You say, might makes right, such is life. Hamas comes back over the fence and massacres the settlers. You say, this is uniquely awful! Uh, no it is isn't. It is a long-running tragedy of two peoples, each convinced (not without reason!) that they are uniquely world-historical victims, and that that justifies their doing awful things to the other side. Both are aggressor and victim, each in their own unique and incommensurable way. To the Israelis, they are few, the victims of centuries of anti-Semitism and then the Holocaust, and the Arabs are many. To the Palestinians, they are powerless and abandoned by other Arabs, victims of a form of European colonialism that is no longer tolerated anywhere else in the world. Each absolutely and justifiably sees the conflict as existential.