By David Gritten BBC News
Israel has demanded that the UN’s secretary general retract comments he made about the Gaza war and apologise.
António Guterres said in a speech to the Security Council on Tuesday that he condemned unequivocally Hamas’s deadly attacks in Israel two weeks ago but that they “did not happen in a vacuum”.
Israeli ambassador Gilad Erdan accused him of “justifying terrorism” and called for his immediate resignation.
Likely not. That’s the Israeli government’s position too. That the West Bank settlers starting a ruckus risks the conflict’s expansion.
The UN Sec Gen is essentially saying that a region that has had self rule for 20 years has been under a smothering occupation for 56 years. That’s simply untrue.
The self rule is fairly irrelevant when it’s a very small territory under a land, air, and sea blockade. The area is densely populated, unable to be self sufficient in terms of water, fuel, and agriculture, and has a huge refugee population. There isn’t a chance for a good outcome in a situation like that.
I mean if you ignore the billions of aid dollars that it’s been provided then yes. But there has been more than enough aid for it to build infrastructure and live peaceably with it’s neighbors. They’ve just squandered it on constant, useless war.
Providing a small amount of aid for basic necessities they are otherwise denied due to land theft is literally the bare minimum, nobody is living a good life in those conditions. War is inevitable because terrible conditions are inflicted upon people which causes radicalization. It’s literally a “the beatings will continue until morale improves” situation.
It’s not the bare minimum anywhere else in the world. Imagine if we had redirected the last decade’s worth of aid to Guatemala or the Dominican Republic how much more effective that aid would have been.
There are a thousand places on the planet with less than Gazans, none of them demand the God given right to genocide their neighbors.
You don’t know enough about this situation and should go learn about it before you embarrass yourself like this again.
I know plenty about this situation. Palestinians widely believe that they don’t have to accept a two state solution, and that they can and are entitled to terrorism their way to victory against Israel on the dime of international aid.