Ukraine’s Jewish president says world must stand united against terror as Hamas launches deadly surprise assault
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose country is fending off a Russian invasion, said Saturday that Israel had an unquestionable right to defend itself from attacks from Palestinian terrorists.
The Hamas terror group launched an unprecedented assault on Israel in the morning, firing thousands of rockets, sending gunmen into Israeli communities and military bases by land, sea and air, killing at least 200 people, injuring over 1,400, and taking hostages.
“Israel’s right to defense is indisputable,” Zelensky, who is Jewish, said on Telegram.
Fun fact about that Zionist army in 1948, it was made up of literal terrorist organizations, one of which (the Lehi) wanted to fight alongside the Nazis during WW2 because they hated the British so much.
Hitler said no to their offer of support. But the offer apparently reached his desk. Well, offers. They tried multiple times in 1940 and 1941.
The sort of mind that it took to want to join with the Nazis after Kristallnacht…
One of the Lehi’s main activities during the build up to the 1948 war, was to assassinate Jews who they viewed as “traitors” i.e. Jews who cooperated with or were friendly with either the British, or Arabs (Palestinians). Add in a few bombings and the odd mass rape/massacre, and you have one of the bloodiest terrorist organizations of the mid-century.
Anyway, in 1980, all the surviving Lehi members got medals of honor from the Israeli government.“for military service towards the establishment of the State of Israel”
This infographic very conveniently leaves out that 1948 is the result of the Arab Israeli War, where civil war tensions resulted in several Arab nations occupying Palestine to take over Israeli land.
I’m not going to say that Israel shouldn’t have given it back to the Palestinians, but it’s very dishonest to leave out the war and simply say Palestinians were expelled.
I’m not taking a side either way on this comment. I would just like to point out that Ukraine claimed their land in 1991 while Israel had theirs since 1948 (according to this image.) If you would argue that Ukraine is Ukraine because they have been since 1991 wouldn’t it be even more fair to say that Israel has been Israel for even longer? If Palestine wants to take back what was theirs pre-1948 why can’t Russia take back what was theirs as recently as 1991?
Coming from someone who is mostly ignorant about Palestine vs Israel politics and happy to be educated!
There are huge differences. One country came into existence due to a federation disintegrating, because its members called for independence. The other country came in existence because an occupier forced it upon the people living there.
There wasn’t also a huge amount of migration involved with Ukraine. People mostly continued their lives when Ukraine became independent. The founding of Israel involved many Jews for all over the world migrating to that area. You can imagine that affects the people already living there.
Thank you for taking the time to post a thoughtful response. Can you provide more information on the point that Jewish people migrated from all over the world? Being non-religious, my understanding is that Jewish people were historically always in that area since pre-Jesus times.
I’m just not entirely convinced that migration, in of itself, is enough of an argument against Israel considering UN Human Rights allow for cross-border movement of people. I can definitely understand if the government gets involved with purposefully displacing people who were already there.
Interested to hear your perspective on this issue.
There’s been like three or more major calls for “repatriation” ie. colonization the last was iirc 2015ish.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Return
To follow up on what the other commenter said, the term “Jew” started as a label for Judahites outside of Judah (part of the historical kingdom of Israel)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_diaspora
Because Ukraine does not suppress ethnic russians and does not currently still takes more land.
badly drawn maps are a major culprit. its clear many commenters are young and don’t know the actual history. i’m a bit surprised by just how many pro-hamas posts ive seen. its a little disturbing. read your history. there is very little that the modern state of Israel could have done to prevent any of this. these extremists want total annihilation of israel. what can israel do against terrorists whose stated goal is to participate in a holy war which they believe is their ticket to heaven? it’s an unwinnable conflict. peace talks only work if all sides actually want peace (and just disagree about how to accomplish it) every insane group of extremists across history has had to be dealt with forcefully, at some point, in some way or another, for all of human history. the japanese, germans, soviets, koreans, all needed to be dealt with, and in all cases it required overwhelming force sustained by wide coalitions over many years.
this is no different. if you are young, don’t know the history, and are sitting in your room thinking there is some special concession Israel could give, that would turn this all around, its time to hit the library. The reality is that there isn’t really any land in the area that would work for that. The available land that is compatible with human civilization in that part of the world, is completely full. There is no “amazon” that could be cut down to build new areas for Palestinians to live. It’s a hot, arid, inhospitable part of the world, and civilization is clustered around natural rivers and mountainous locations. There’s no place for anyone to go.
And then there’s the ideology. Even if Israel and some broad coalition decided to invest trillions in some massive infrastructure project to make Gaza the best place in the world to live, the terrorists would still do exactly what they’re doing today. The point you have to understand, is that Hamas does not care about Palestinians. Repeat that to yourself 10x and commit it to your brain forever. Islamic extremists do not care about achieving peaceful cooperation with people of other faiths and ideologies on planet earth. Nor do they even care about their own people.
People in the west are extremely soft and ignorant in some ways. They’ve grown up immersed in a culture of relative stability, judeo-christian ethics, etc. They have no concept that there are people out there who share none of that. They literally don’t care. And the proof is all over twitter. Go watch, let it soak in.
Only a broad coalition with massive force can end this, just like every other time. otherwise its just on an endless cycle.