The struggle for water access in this strip of fertile land reflects a wider contest for control of the West Bank — and in particular the Jordan Valley, which Palestinians consider the breadbasket of their hoped-for future state and Israelis view as key to protecting their eastern border.

“People are thirsty, the crops are thirsty,” said Hazeh Daraghmeh, a 63-year-old Palestinian date farmer in the Jiftlik area of the valley, where some of his palms have withered in the bone-dry dirt. “They’re trying to squeeze us step by step,” Daraghmeh said.

  • flossdaily@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    We’re dealing with drought and water restrictions in the US, too. Is it because we’re genocidal lunatics who hate citizens of certain states?

    The real complaint here isn’t that the Palestinians are going thirsty. It’s that they aren’t getting enough water to farm?

    I’m not quite sure what Palestinians thought was going to happen when they rejected peace offer after peace offer, and turned instead to non-stop terrorism.

    Did they think Israelis were going to say: “oh, sure, you’re constantly launching thousands of rockets at our kids, but hey, let us spend a ton of money upgrading your infrastructure for you.”

    Palestinians are vastly outmatched militarily, so for decades they’ve had exactly two options: make peace with Israel on their terms, or keep doing terrorism, and hoping that they’ll get international sympathy when Israel retaliates, and that international pressure will force Israel to … accept a peace treaty that leaves Israel with indefensible borders and an influx of Palestinian citizens that would use their vote to turn Israel into a Jew-hating Muslim theocracy.

    At a certain point, you’d think Palestinians would start caring more about their kids’ futures than their hatred of Israel.

    If they’d accepted peace under the offer made during the Oslo Accords, they would have had their own state for about 30 years now, with the ability to grow an economy, manage their own infrastructure, etc.

    • girlfreddy@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      11 months ago

      Palestinians signed both Oslo accords and neither accord created a Palestinian state … so I’m not sure what you’re talking about.

      • flossdaily@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        For those who don’t want to read a whole article:

        The Oslo Accords were a cycle of negotiations and agreements. With every round, it looked like they were getting closer to an agreement.

        In the end the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat killed the negotiation at camp David. He would not budge on several issues, but key among them was “right of return”.

        Essentially “right of return” would instantly give full citizenship and voting rights to a vast amount of fantastic anti-Jewish Arabs, who would very shortly thereafter have been able to vote Israel out of existence by turning it from a democracy into a Muslim theocracy. And like all other Muslim theocracies, they would have been terrible if not genocidal to their Jewish citizens.

        Arafat not only quit the peace process, he declared a “second antifada” … meaning a new call for the most foul terrorism: blowing up school buses, ambulances, targeting Jewish children for death, etc.

        A bit later when Arafat died, we found out WHY he killed the peace process: while his people were impoverished and suffering, Arafat himself was hoarding nearly A BILLION DOLLARS in what was supposed to be humanitarian aid money for this people.

        Arafat stopped the piece process because war was allowing him to retain power, and grow his obscene wealth.

          • american_defector@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            It’s wild to me how anti-Palestine the other comments are. Like somehow Palestinians are the terrorists in this scenario when Israel is the one with US backing.

            Had an old now-former friend try to show me videos of Palestinian kids throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers, while attempting to demonize them. I responded with like 5 videos of Israeli soldiers being needlessly cruel to both kids and adults. The conversation ended right then and there.

            The propaganda runs deep. Fuck the colonial mindset.

            • laylawashere44@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              11 months ago

              The Israeli Security Minister literally has multiple hate speech convictions and a terrorism conviction and notoriously had a Framed photo of a Jew nationalist mass murderer in his living room. He also lives in an illegal settlement.

            • flossdaily@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Palestinians are the terrorists because they literally are the terrorists.

              As in, they deliberately target civilians, often specifically CHILDREN for death.

              Is there misconduct in the Israeli army? Absolutely. But that is WORLDS apart from adopting a government POLICY of targeting children.

              I think Israel has shown extraordinary restraint given that the Palestinians have been actively trying to murder their children for DECADES, including electing a government that had the GENOCIDE of Jews as part of their written charter.

              • american_defector@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                I don’t agree with any of the religious drivers in the scenario, and I definitely don’t agree with targeting children at all, but this is also retaliation for having their land and homes stolen and decimated for decades. You can’t paint an animal into a corner and not expect it to bite you. We’re talking about an army backed by the country with the biggest military budget in the world, vs people that don’t even have a roof over their heads or crops because the aforementioned army has forcefully taken them away. The only outcome of that kind of scenario is going to be desperation and violence.

                So if they’re considered the only terrorists in this scenario, they were forced into that role. These 2 sides could simply share the land like sane people, but religion has yet again become the wedge.

              • xuxebiko@kbin.social
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                11 months ago

                You just minimized the genocide of Palestinians by Israel as the ‘misconduct inthe Israeli army’.

                • flossdaily@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  See, that’s just a profoundly ridiculous take.

                  1. Israel is by most accounts a nuclear power, and their conventional military is one of the strongest in the world. If they were committing genocide it would have been over and done decades ago.

                  2. The Palestinian population is growing, not shrinking.

                  3. There are plenty of Palestinians who are Israel citizens, and they enjoy all the same rights and privileges as any other Israeli citizen, including the ability to hold office in government.

                  There’s only one side of this conflict that is hell-bent on genocide: Palestinians. They elected a government that had GENOCIDE of the Jews in their written charter. We’re just very fortunate that they don’t have the ability to carry out their desires.