Former President Barack Obama said a way forward for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is only possible if people acknowledge the “complexity” of the situation.

“If there’s any chance of us being able to act constructively to do something, it will require an admission of complexity and maintaining what on the surface may seem contradictory ideas that what Hamas did was horrific, and there’s no justification for it. And … that the occupation and what’s happening to Palestinians is unbearable,” Obama said in an interview on the podcast “Pod Save America.”

The former president’s comments come as the Israeli military focuses its offensive against Hamas in Gaza City and northern parts of the enclave.

  • @someguy3
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    -241 year ago

    What’s the complexity?

      • @Rendh
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        71 year ago

        It’s more like one country took over parts of a falling apart country, people moved into these parts because it felt safer than were they were originally from and their relatives lived there already. So now when the time came to hand over the taken over parts to their residents now you can’t just hand it over because the bigger part of the population wants to suppress the smaller part of the population. So the country in charge tries to split the land according to population majority and trying to do everybody right. Majority isn’t happy with that, declines every deal, every attempt at a two state solution that would let the minority have a country of their own where they wouldn’t be suppressed. Date of handing over passes with no deal, minority declares new country, according to last proposed deal. Neighboring countries and former majority instantly declare war against new country, are should they win prepared to kill and suppress every single member of minority and are already carving up region. They lose, and now everything is “really complex”

        • Annoyed_🦀
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          41 year ago

          Trying to explain the whole star wars series by only telling the story of episode 1

          “see, it’s simple.”

        • @[email protected]
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          -31 year ago

          people moved into these parts because it felt safer than were they were originally from and their relatives lived there already

          They felt safer moving into a territory where they would have to kick the people already living there through violence, than in countries where the fascists who had used brutality against them had been defeated?

          and their relatives lived there already

          By “relatives” do you mean they had one kind of distant cousin, or that their family trees shared a few roots from centuries earlier?

          can’t just hand it over because the bigger part of the population wants to suppress the smaller part of the population. So the country in charge tries to split the land according to population majority and trying to do everybody right

          So, rather than imposing rule of law and punish criminal through the guarantees of civil rights, and allow people who had never lived in the land to immigrate, build their own homes and buy land if possible, you kick people who already lived there to make room for an incoming population group? This did get (rightfully) universally condemned when the Soviet Union did it, does this not deserve a clear condemnation because the victims were Arab Muslims, or because the beneficiaries were mostly Western Jews?

          Majority isn’t happy with that, declines every deal

          Ooh boy, I can’t wait to get into the negotiation table to discuss how I’m going to get ethnically cleansed because a dictator in another continent commited massive genocides that had nothing to do with me, my family or my country.

          Date of handing over passes with no deal

          I just remembered a completely unrelated fun fact for no reason. Did you know that the United States threatened or bribed several completely unrelated countries to get the UN vote to pass?

          Don’t know why, but I have a tendency to distrust anyone claiming to want to portray nuance and a gray reality when they consistently omit key facts. Did you know that the situation in Ukraine is very complicated, that Russia feels very threatened in their tiny country with hundreds of nuclear weapons, that their poor paramilitaries that occupied Ukrainian regions weren’t allowed to go everything they wanted with no repercussions? Let’s obfuscate the discussion about the Russian invasion of Ukraine with endless over-complicated arguments that ultimately do not change the fact that the invasion should be opposed, perhaps that will buy time for Israel Russia to commit their war crimes without third parties getting involved.

          • @Rendh
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            31 year ago

            They felt safer moving into a territory where they would have to kick the people already living there through violence, than in countries where the fascists who had used brutality against them had been defeated?

            The Jewish migration to the area begann in the 1880s after pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe. Not sure who you think was defeated at the time. The migration sped up after WW1 and before and during WW2.

            By “relatives” do you mean they had one kind of distant cousin, or that their family trees shared a few roots from centuries earlier?

            After the 1880s? Both.

            So, rather than imposing rule of law and punish criminal through the guarantees of civil rights, and allow people who had never lived in the land to immigrate, build their own homes and buy land if possible, you kick people who already lived there to make room for an incoming population group? This did get (rightfully) universally condemned when the Soviet Union did it, does this not deserve a clear condemnation because the victims were Arab Muslims, or because the beneficiaries were mostly Western Jews?

            Nobody kicked Arabs out before the Arab countries around the newly founded Israel declared war. You seem to be really off on your timeline. Yes there was a few hardliners in what was to become Israel that were arguing for a displacement of Arabs but generally there’s zero proof these people would’ve gained any serious power without the war declared on Israel.

            I > just remembered a completely unrelated fun fact for no reason. Did you know that the United States threatened or bribed several completely unrelated countries to get the UN vote to pass?

            Which UN vote? There’s at this point in time probably been hundreds.

            Don’t know why, but I have a tendency to distrust anyone claiming to want to portray nuance and a gray reality when they consistently omit key facts.

            Pot calling the kettle…

            Did you know that the situation in Ukraine is very complicated, that Russia feels very threatened in their tiny country with hundreds of nuclear weapons, that their poor paramilitaries that occupied Ukrainian regions weren’t allowed to go everything they wanted with no repercussions? Let’s obfuscate the discussion about the Russian invasion of Ukraine with endless over-complicated arguments that ultimately do not change the fact that the invasion should be opposed, perhaps that will buy time for Israel Russia to commit their war crimes without third parties getting involved.

            I don’t even know what to say to this. Of course it should be opposed? Have you forgotten what side the tankies are on? Slava Ukraini

      • @someguy3
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        -141 year ago

        Not very complex.

        • @[email protected]
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          1 year ago

          It is when the vast majority of people alive in the two countries at hand were born there.

    • Annoyed_🦀
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      141 year ago

      If you ask about the complexity of this issue, you tend to get a lot of simplified answer because it’s impossible to summarise without cutting out the complexity. It’s a story of war and politics, there’s no clear cut good guy and bad guy. That’s how complex it is.

    • @parascent
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      01 year ago

      If not complex how can Israel grab all the land?

    • Melkath
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      -101 year ago

      If Israelis stop killing Palestinians, then American military contractors can’t take billions of dollars from the federal government laundered through Israel in the form of arms deals.

      That would make the military industrial complex very sad.

      That complexity.

      • HeartyBeast
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        141 year ago

        You think that’s all there is to it, really? Or are you just being trite?

        • Melkath
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          1 year ago

          I think there is more to it, but if it weren’t for US military industrial complex corruption, a genocide wouldn’t be occurring.

          For context, in 2023, the US has sent aid to Israel that equals roughly half their total GDP.

          If The Party weren’t using Israel to enrich American war contractor billionaires, what is occurring in Gaza would be little more than a squabble. Both sides would be too broke to do anything of note.

          The Party wants to keep their billionaire overlords happy, so genocide is occurring.

      • @[email protected]
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        111 year ago

        That is not only one-sided, but highly reductive of one of the most byzantine and politically convoluted conflicts happening in the world today.

        • Melkath
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          -81 year ago

          Hey, I just want to stop an active genocide.

          Then we can wax philosophical about how complex this conflict is.

          Fuck me, right?