When it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict I have to remind myself how absurd the battlegrounds are that we find ourselves fighting over. They are complete red herrings designed to take the world away from the only substantive issue that is worth discussing and which Palestinians wish to avoid all scrutiny of: their total responsibility for the continuation of the conflict as a result of their complete rejection of peace and coexistence.
An example. With boring repetition, pro-Palestinian supremacists try to shift focus onto Israel’s so-called “pink-washing” - the absurd premise that Israel being gay-friendly carries negative consequences. It’s a ridiculous, homophobic notion. But even so, peoples sexuality has zero relevance to the origins of the conflict or what makes the conflict continue. Why is it being discussed when the Israel-Palestine conflict is a land dispute? It’s a war over land. Yet over and over again we see “pink-washing” and other irrelevant arguments come into rotation.
“Falafel is Palestinian food! Israelis stole it!”
Really? I’m not so sure. But none the less, you take some time out to be furious about chick peas. Come back when you accept Jews have a right to live in the Middle East.
“Israelis are sports-washing!!!”
Sure - because arab attempts to destroy Israel in 1948, 1967 and 1973 were actually about a game of ping pong. Let’s discuss snooker and judo because that’s why there’s been war for seventy years.
All these irrelevant arguments are an attempt by Palestinians and their supporters to steer us away from the only practical issue worth discussing: do the Palestinians want peace? Sadly, the answer is no. A big, explicit no.
The thing is, Palestinians don’t even come out looking good in any of the topics they try to distract us with. Gaza and the West Bank are among the worst places on earth to be gay. And if we’re gonna talk about ping pong, the Palestinian sporting calendar includes the “Martyr Muhammad Al-Halabi table tennis tournament”, a celebration of Muhammad Al-Halabi, a terrorist who stabbed two men, a woman and baby in Jerusalem and who sparked a wave of murderous, knife-based terrorism.
So Palestinians look demonstrably shit in every one of these cul-de-sacs they try to drag the world into. But they do it because it’s still better for them to shift focus onto subjects where they look appalling, rather than have the world see their racist rejection of Jewish self-determination as being responsible for the conflict.
Of course a Palestinian state made in the image of its present leadership would be an absolute shithole. Under Hamas a future Palestine would be an intolerant crap-hole for any non-Muslim minority. It would be an homophobic hellscape in which gays are persecuted and murdered. It would be an anti-democratic, no free-speech zone. It would be a theocratic thugocracy devoid of intellectual and personal freedoms. It would be a nightmare for women. It would be all of this and more. But the West has a bigotry of low expectations when it comes to muslims. The West sees all the grim misery above as being nothing more than what’s to be expected from “uncivilised” non-white people.
Palestinians can handle the West knowing all the above grim truths because it won’t lead to the West losing its patience or withdrawing support. But if the West came to focus on the only issue that matters? Palestinian rejectionism? Then perhaps there’s a chance that the West might actually - shock horror - pressure the Palestinians into stopping their bullshit and making peace? And Palestinians know that if the world takes this route, there’s a chance the world will realise that Palestinians don’t want a state if it means Jews also having a state. When the world realises Palestinians can’t abandon their desire to destroy Israel, the world might abandon Palestinians in frustration.
This is why in a week from now the Palestinians and their supporters will be talking about pink-washing, or sports-washing, or falafel, or any old crap except the one discussion that could bring peace.
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