this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2025
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I don't know of any cases of imperialism recently, though I see what appear to be conflicts incorrectly framed as such.
For example, many say this about the Israeli/Arab conflict. However, this conflict is thousands of years old. The Israelis solidly lost a war to keep their land in the BC era, then after WWII, leaders decided to undo the loss, again by force. Predictably, the Arabs, having lived there for thousands of years now (since they were Babylonians!) were not happy. It is not simple.
The Israeli return may have been orchestrated by the imperial powers, but I would argue this is not imperialism or even a bad thing. Consider the colonial invasion of the Americas. That was clearly imperialism because my ancestors had never lived there, and had no claim to the land. We just wanted it. At best, we thought we could make better use of it than the natives. That was not the case with Israel, whose ancestors largely were the natives.
Of course, persecuting Palestinians is wrong. Imagine if thousands of years from now, the American Indians, supported by the international community, forced Americans to adopt their customs and religion or leave. That would not be right either, even though maybe they should have their land back!
We need to share in these cases, and are unfortunately bad at sharing.
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This is incredibly historically illiterate on multiple fronts. The Israeli/Palestine conflict only dates back to 1948, with precursors in 1930s. First, Israel wasn't lost to "Arabs" in "the BC". The Babylonians were not Arab and the exile of Jews in the 6th century BC were cultural elites and not the broader population. It was part of an attempt to assimilate Judah into the broader Babylon empire. That was defeated by the Persian empire and Judeans were allowed to return to Judea (now Southern Israel). The traditional idea of the beginning of the Diaspora was the destruction of the second temple in 70 AD and the violent expulsion of parts of Jerusalem by the Romans. Though the vast majority of the real diaspora was from immigrants to major Roman cities predating the destruction of the Second Temple and not Jerusalem exiles.
The majority of people that were living in what is now considered Israel were not Arab invaders, but the native peoples that have always lived there that, after the Arab conquest of the 8th century, started to speak Arabic and convert to Islam. The difference between a Mizrahi Jew and a Palestinian is most likely whether one of their ancestors converted to Islam in the last 13 centuries.
Not that Iron Age Philistines, Samaritans, Canaanites, etc. were secret proto-muslims secretly waiting for the Romans to purge Jews so that two millennia later "real Arabs" could occupy the "promised land".
That's an interesting and far more detailed view of the situation. To summarize, various people came and were violently expelled. As a matter of virtue, I disagree with violent expulsion. Also as a matter of virtue, I believe people who once lived an area should be allowed to exist there in peace. These two virtues are in tension at this part of the world.
Just as I believe it's right for the Israelis to be there, as the first people in the area, it's right for the Palestinians (and more general Arab groups with roots in the area) to be-- they have a stake too. It's wrong to steal land from people living on it and to make their lives difficult. It was wrong thousands of years ago, wrong in the '40s, and is wrong today. You shouldn't need to be Jewish to vote there or have rights. That's horrible, from my western individualistic lens.
My goal here was to comment on the absurdity of this cycle, specifically the extremist viewpoints that one side or another should be entirely removed from the area. I tried to illustrate that with the Native American example. These groups of people need to put the violence aside and figure out how to live together. Other countries need to stop picking favorites and avoid going beyond promoting lasting peace and mutual respect in the region.
Excuse my uncareful wording-- I took a lot more time to write this post. Hopefully it is more precise and clear.