Israel Tells France It’s Not Interested In Multilateral Peace Talks

[RiverNoord]

23. I'll talk about Palestinian terrorism.

It exists. It has existed. Some Israelis have been violently killed by Palestinian terrorism. Some Israelis have been killed by organizations or nations that have engaged in terrorism ostensibly on behalf of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.

Hostages have been taken, and some have been killed.

Another phrase for terrorism conducted by people under military occupation is 'asymmetrical warfare.' This is historically extraordinarily common when occupied parties have no means to engage in direct armed resistance against the military forces of the occupiers.

The French resistance during WWII, for example, engaged in some acts of extreme terrorism, killing a lot of civilians in the process. And the French resistance to the Nazis and, even to a greater extent, French collaborators, killed way more people than all acts of terrorism directed against the modern state of Israel, ever. And we heavily backed them with military resources.

The French had allies. They broke the German occupation, eradicated the German war machine, and forced an unconditional surrender of Germany. Would you argue that we should have stayed out of WWII in Europe and assumed the formal position that all problems between Nazi Germany and the large number of European nations it had conquered could only be resolved by each of them separately sitting down and negotiating things out?

You think the analog is deeply flawed. You're wrong. It's exactly on point. The only thing that differentiates the scenarios is the question of whether you support one occupying power versus another. That's it. Which means that the argument you make is absurdly hypocritical if you are approaching it from a moral perspective. If you begin with the assumption that there is something morally acceptable about the Israeli occupation of stateless Palestinian civilians, while there wasn't anything morally acceptable about the German occupation of France and French civilians, then make your argument as to why this is the case.

But don't pretend that a militarily occupied people can possibly achieve anything out of exclusively direct negotiations with the occupying power, if there isn't any potential for any kind of pressure brought to bear by others. It's patently absurd.

Do we talk about French terrorism under the German occupation during WWII or do we talk about the French Resistance? You know that answer.

You know who else were considered terrorists around 240 years ago? Rebellious, ungrateful colonists living under British rule on the east coast of the North American continent...