r/IsraelPalestine

Hi everyone - I'm trying to learn more about the conflict, so I'm looking for as unbiased answers as possible, but I'm trying to objectively understand the geopolitics behind why neighboring Muslim-majority countries have firmly refused to accept Palestinian refugees since 2023.

Specifically looking at:

- Jordan (maintains a strict closed-border policy to new Palestinian asylum seekers)

- Egypt (enforces an absolute physical seal on Palestinian crossings from Gaza)

- Turkey (limits admission strictly to medical evacuation quotas for wounded Palestinians)

- Lebanon (bars new Palestinian entry under its existing internal security laws)

- Syria (prohibits new Palestinian refugee intake via border controls)

- UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia (restrict entry strictly to temporary, state-funded hospital stays for Palestinian patients without any asylum path).

In other conflicts, like Ukraine, neighbors immediately opened their borders and set up massive refugee support networks right away, so I'm confused why countries sharing a similar culture and religion are keeping theirs closed. Much of the west seems to be willing to accept refugees, at least from what I can understand from things like Canada's extended visa pathways for Gazan families or European asylum frameworks, so I'm confused about why nearby countries wouldn't do the same. Most online sources are heavily biased, so I'm just looking for a neutral explanation of the actual reasons behind why most of these countries have the same "no refugee" rules in place for Palestine.

(Genuinely seeking to understand. This isn't a question of if Palestinians should need to leave Gaza, but a question of why neighbouring countries aren't welcoming Palestinian refugees who choose to leave Gaza. Please don't make arguments of "Palestinians shouldn't need to leave in the first place", as that isn't the question. Thank you.)

Reposting from another sub where I was banned, hence the edit lol

What’s with the normalization of hate on Israel citizens?

Peoples obsession with Israeli people, and thus Jewish people, is becoming increasingly concerning. None is shooting, stalking, kicking people out, solely based on someone’s nationality. Even in countries that are committing active war crimes (I.e, Iraq, Yemen, etc) people would still be outraged if they were attacked because of their said nationality.

**Edit**: okay a lot of people are putting words in my mouth so please read what I actually said above (media literacy is truly out of control).

For those genuinely wondering why I say Israeli people, and thus Jewish people please let me explain!

Around 70% of the population in Israel is Jewish while the rest are Christian’s, muslims, etc. **The state of Israel itself was established as a Jewish state, and safe heaven for the Jewish people.** This piece of land (specifically, Jerusalem) was specifically chosen because of its historical significance to the Jewish people. Hebrew and the Jewish people have been known to occupy that land around a thousand years ago and is the birthplace of both. Hence that is where they lived prior to be exodus.

While many zionists, **the belief that the Jewish people have a right to their ancestral homeland**, aren’t Jewish, most Jewish people are.

While you may not think critiqizing the Israeli government means being antisemetic (very true, many Israelis themselves critique the same government) the rise in antisemitism is a very real thing with places like Synagogues, Jewish shops, etc. being targeting solely due to their Jewish identity. This isn’t an opinion it’s simply facts. Because of the rampant hate that is being pushed about Zionism people who are, actully, anti-senetic are now given free access to defend their blatant antisemitism as anti Zionism.

I also want to point out that Jews are a group that tend to be too “white” for the left and not “white enough” for the right. They’re at an odd stand still because of this. I think a lot of people on the left (the white ones) have a sense of white guilt and since they think most, if not all, Jews aren’t visible minorities they see them as the “colonizers” thus the “bad guys”. This also gives ammunition to actual anti semites because they’re given free access to say whatever they want since Jews are the “evil colonizers” and “Zionists”.

Why do people condemn Israel so much about not giving enough aid to Palestinians?

1. In war the countries that are fighting never give aid to one another
2. No one is condemning Egypt even though they share a border with Palestine
3. It’s been confirmed that Hamas has litterally obstructed aid for Palestinian citizens

I'm curious as to what Israelis think their engagement with the international community, as both a country and a citizenry, will be like when the Gaza war is effectively over?

For discussion's sake let's assume this happens in the relative near future, and roughly under the Board of Peace process in some way. Hamas disarms or is at least made completely militarily ineffective, along with the other anti-Israel militant groups, and building starts.

Do you think anything will change? Do you think the surge in popular animosity towards Israel will last, and will it change the policy towards Israel in many foreign countries? Do you think an Israeli on some kind of world tour will have a noticeably different experience to one that did so 10 years ago?

Non-Israelis are free to answer (I can't exactly stop you) but at least try to keep your answer at least somewhat grounded in actual Israeli experience.

I'm going to propose that being a pariah state (if the term has any real meaning at all) is of less consequences in the future than it would have had in the past.

First what does it even mean? Does it mean Israel be locked out of all international markets? (Has any nation been locked out all ALL markets? Even North Korea has China) That israeli citizens are not welcome to travel? Anywhere?

Since the definition itself is a bit weak let's just define a version of it.

Israel can't sell to Europe or buy weapons from Western nations. (Even in the most strongly enforced boycott they would still have access to food and raw material markets, but I suspect some of the pro Palestinians might want even that blocked)

Now in the past and up to the present I would think this would create significant hardship...but going into the future...less so.

Why, a couple of reasons

1. manufacturing is becoming more automated, and micro or specialized manufacturing is becoming easier. Economy of scale is still a factor but a receding one.

2. Recovery and recycling is much more advanced today than in the past. There a economic threshold where it becomes more efficient to recycle than to mine raw materials and make from scratch. So even if cut off from some major raw material sources , it maybe possible to make due at least for a while.

3. Automation, especially of the humanoid robot type, can make production in isolation much more economic than ever before. You will not need millions of human workers to manufactor the goods to meet the civil and military needs of even an isolated people.

4. much of business travel is vertual today already, if Israeli citizens are made to feel unwelcome, then they will just not come. But they will then invest on creating the experiences they want locally.

5. energy has in the past been a major anchor to bind a nation to the international community, but the writing is on the wall. Large solar farms and electric power will be more important than coal and oil in the future.

With the changes in technology that are clearly on the horizon today could a nation like Israel meets it's needs by just going it alone?

Someone reconstructed every Gaza strike where Palestinian Islamic Jihad later published the dead person as one of their own commanders. Not IDF claims. PIJ's own obituary posters, names, photos, unit affiliations, matched against the Gaza Health Ministry casualty list. 364 incidents, 1,547 identified dead. Read it before the usual fight kicks off.

What stuck with me:

Nearly every incident had an actual militant in it, by PIJ's own word. And the author bent over backwards to be conservative. He didn't count anyone as a fighter off Israeli say-so. Only when PIJ or another faction published them as one themselves. So that's the floor. The real militant count is higher.

The fighters are exactly who you'd expect if strikes were aimed at fighters. Median age 35. Among men 35 to 39 in his data, 80% were identified militants. Almost no kids or elderly in the combatant column. Random, indiscriminate killing does not produce that shape. Targeted killing does.

Now run the ratio. 451 combatants against 1,096 collateral dead in these incidents. That's about 2.4 civilians per fighter, and remember that's the floor, because the "collateral" bucket still includes adult men who keep getting reclassified as fighters in later PIJ releases. Put that next to the benchmarks. The UN's historical average for urban warfare is around 9 civilians per combatant. Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, has said the best ratio ever achieved before this was 4 to 1. West Point's John Spencer, who studies this for a living, puts Israel between 1.5 and 3 to 1. This dataset lands right in that range, built entirely from the militants' own records. That is not a massacre stat. That is the best civilian-to-combatant ratio in the history of urban warfare. It's not even close.

Then there's where the commanders died. Houses were 38% of the incidents but 58% of the dead. Read that again. The single biggest driver of civilian casualties in this data is PIJ commanders operating out of family homes. Not fighters caught in the open, fighters who parked their command roles inside a house with their relatives in it. Every one of those family deaths traces back to that choice.

Schools and hospitals, same story. Seven school incidents, every single one had identified fighters in it, Al-Tabi'een included. Hospitals too. You can argue the strikes all day, but the militants were there. They put themselves there.

And some of the dead held civilian jobs and militant roles at the same time. Doctors, journalists, professors who also turn up in PIJ military obituaries. So a chunk of those "Israel killed a journalist" stories were, by PIJ's own posters, also killing someone inside the military wing. The public only ever saw the first half of the resume.

This doesn't prove any single strike was proportionate, I'm not going to pretend it does. If you want to argue Israel's conduct, proportionality is the honest place to do it. But "indiscriminate" is a different word with a specific meaning: no target, no distinction. This data is the opposite. It's strikes hitting a real, named militant network, with the civilian deaths bunched tightly around the fighters instead of scattered across the population.

Two straight questions for anyone who still wants to say "indiscriminate" or wants to stick to the ridiculous claim of genocide. Does data built from the militants' own records move you at all? And if it doesn't, what actually would?

Source is a substack reconstruction, Palestinian and factional records plus MoH IDs. I'll drop the link in the comments.

What will you do if the ICJ rules that Israel is not committing genocide.

I’m someone who at first thought that legally a genocide has taken place.

Now after looking at the evidence required specifically the sole intent threshold (please Google: Only Reasonable Inference) and the chain that needs to be connected, my prediction is that the ICJ will not rule that it’s legally a genocide.

So if this happens will this not cause Pro Palestine activists that have been saying “genocide” to lose legitimacy in the eyes of unbiased independents?

Will you continue to say “genocide” and if so, would that not be detrimental to efforts to bring unbiased independents to your side?

I've heard some Pro-Palestinians (mostly Westerners) say that the goal of the Pro-Palestinian movement is to create a one state new country, where all Jews and Palestinians will be equal citizens, and it will be a vibrant democracy, and everyone will be free.

Israelis will often say that if this were to happen, Palestinians will go on a murder rampage to try and kill or displace all the Jews and establish an Arab supremacist dictatorship.

Pro-Palestinians respond something like "That's racist, Palestinians aren't evil" or whatever.I think Pro-Palestinians are fundamentally misunderstanding how Palestinian society works when they say that.

Palestinian society — really Arab society more generally, but especially Palestinian — is not centralized like Israeli society is. There is no universal authority with a monopoly on violence in Palestinian society. Instead, you have various militant groups appear grow and try to take over, disappear, fight with other groups, whatever. The most powerful Arab militant groups are the ones who successfully take over, not like, enlightened Englishmen wanting to establish Roman-style republics.

That means that as long as, even say, 1% of Palestinian society who want to conquer this new country and rule it as a dictatorship (probably killing or displacing the Jews, let's be real) and is willing to take arms up to do it, then those 50,000 people will form militias and form and try to conquer.

So ... Who is going to stop them? You need a military force stronger than them to stop them.

Presumably this would be the new country's half Muslim half Jewish police/army. So you are imagining that this new country has somehow conducted a brand new country identity so powerful that everyone in the country identifies more with the country than being Jewish/Muslim, and the Muslims and Jews in the army will die to defend their new country. Can you tell me how this is supposed to happen?

Because it seems obvious to me this simply isn't ever going to happen. Most Palestinians, including the ones in this army, are not going to sacrifice their own lives and the lives other other Muslims to save Jews for the sake of the integrity of this yet-to-exist country. Probably Jews won't either.

So when violence inevitably breaks out between Jews and Muslims, the Muslims in the army will take the Muslim side, and the Jews will take the Jewish side. Civil War. Basically 1948 all over again, except with much more powerful weapons and more decades of animosity. Expect millions to die.

Now some will say: "Don't worry, an international force will make sure it's all fine." But you'd need an international force to conquer the country indefinitely for that to work.

My question to Pro-Palestinians is: How practically, step by step, do you imagine this working? This new bi-ethnic national identity that makes most Muslims support killing other Muslims to preserve partial Jewish power — how does this come about? And given that no other Arab countries are democracies with equal rights for minorities, why should Israelis bet their lives on that this will be the first?

I understand that they do not represent all Israelis and their actions can unintentionally paint a bad picture for the whole population, I'm simply just curious to know how jews generally feel about Israeli settlers considering how they can affect Israel's reputation internationally, rightfully or not.

Hamas was one of the biggest obstacles to peace/calm in the conflict. There's a good chance they might not be in power after this war is over. I have seen a lot of people advocating for an end to the ceasefire, but I have seen few advocating for a plan for peace since the ceasefire/surrender entered into by Hamas. What would do people think should happen in Gaza to ensure a lasting a peace?

This question is geared towards setting up a peaceful governing body in Gaza, and not how the land should be divided.

I've heard people say Israel is trying to kill all the Palestinians.

My question: Why is it taking so long?

Israel has had a military force capable of killing or at least displacing most Palestinians for most of the last 70 years. We can all agree on that, right? So why haven't they don't it yet? The Palestinian population has grown every year for the last century. If Israel is trying to kill them all, why are there more of them every year?

Do IDF soldiers just not know how to use guns?

Some people will say Israel isn't trying to kill all the Palestinians, just the Gazans. But that has the same problem: Why aren't all or at least most of the Gazans dead yet? It's been over two years. About 75,000 Palestinians have died. That's about 70 Gazans dying a day, including militants. This is sad, but it's not the work of an army trying to kill as many civilians as possible. Angry mobs with axes can kill thousands in a day, how is it that the Israeli army, with all its might, can only kill 70?

Do IDF soldiers just not know how to use guns?

Some will say — well, Israel simply hasn't killed all the Palestinians yet because it's afraid of international blowback. So they think Israel is sneakily pretending not to kill all the Palestinians ... by not killing all the Palestinians? lol.

Some may say, well, even though only a couple hundred at most people have died of hunger during this war — which is, by the way, the normal global average even for countries at peace — all the Palestinians will drop dead of famine any day now. But like — that's not how famines work, and frankly, it's hard for me to believe anyone believes that. I don't hear this explanation so often anymore, I think everyone's figured out the Gazans aren't starving to death. But you never know, could get this retro explanation for kicks.

Some will say, "Actually, there must be hundreds of thousands/ millions buried beneath the rubble and it's all literally being covered up."

To which I say — there's really no way to convince a conspiracy theorist of anything because they dismiss any data they disagree with as "part of the conspiracy." These are the same people who believe the earth is flat.

People who say that Israeli is trying to kill all the Palestinians: are you knowingly saying this exaggerated thing to like, tell a white lie to help Palestinians, or express your anger, or something?

Or if you really believe this, then please explain: if Israel is a powerful military force, and Palestinians are weak and defenseless victims, and Israel is trying to kill them all, then why aren't they dead yet? (I'd prefer if you answer that question instead of posting a miscellaneous bag of unrelated "Israel bad" points, but you do you.)

Any guys/women from Gaza here? As an Israeli atheist, I would love to speak to you about all we've gone through. A group chat, if you want. Discord would be nice; send me a DM. Toxic people will be reported.

I have lived in Israel most of my life. I was born in Russia and moved to Israel when I was young. I grew up in a kibbutz, then studied and moved to Haifa—which is arguably the most diverse city in Israel. I lived with Muslims, Druze, Arab Christians, Jews, non-Jews... You name it. I have always been surrounded by different cultures, and I appreciate that.

Since October 7th, something has changed in our world, in our perception, and I admit it has changed mine as well. It’s hard not to be affected by the things happening around us. That is exactly why I would like to sincerely talk with people on the other side. I'm especially interested in talking to you to understand the opposing gender's point of view from Islam's perspective, though I am open to talking to anyone who wants a real conversation.

I want to hear your honest opinions on difficult questions: why did you let Hamas take over? Why are Jews seen as bad in your society? Why is Israel viewed as the occupation in your eyes? I have my own perspectives, but I want to hear yours without filters. However, I'm not interested in just exchanging text in a chat. Text is too easy to misunderstand. I want a live conversation with a human being, so emotion can be shared from both sides. Maybe even a video share of moments from both our lives so we can actually see each other's reality.

Sometimes I think about what human life really is, and how much of our existence is shaped just by where we happened to be born. I deeply believe we are all human first. Even when there are massive borders between us—physical walls, mental barriers, national identities, and religious differences—we are being artificially separated from each other. Too often, our only connection to the "other side" is through the news, politicians, or the extremists who shout the loudest. I want to completely bypass all of that noise.

My ultimate goal here isn't to sit and debate who is right or wrong historically, or to score political points. My goal is genuine understanding. Both of our societies are going through immense trauma right now, experiencing a kind of grief that is hard to put into words. If there is ever going to be a peaceful future in this region, I truly believe it has to start with conversations exactly like this one—regular people choosing to look past the endless conflict and see the human being on the other side of the fence.

If you are open to a respectful, honest, and safe conversation, please reach out. Let's build a tiny bridge of empathy, even while everything else around us seems broken. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Many pro-Palestine activists use the words “occupation” and “apartheid” to describe Israel’s presence/policies in the West Bank.

My question is how these two terms interact, and how the two accusations can be made at the same time (at the same protests, on the same signs etc).

If Israel is occupying the West Bank, this means it has an illegal presence in sovereign Palestinian territory. Thus, the obvious remedy is a withdrawal and ideally a full Palestinian state.

Apartheid involves a single governing authority ruling over two groups unequally. If Israel has instituted an apartheid in the West Bank, then the obvious remedy is to give Palestinians equal rights to Israelis. In other words, the West Bank is effectively part of Israel, its Arab residents are Israeli citizens, but they’ve been denied the rights enjoyed by Israeli citizens.

Isn’t this a basic incompatibility? Solving the “occupation” (by withdrawing and supporting Palestinian statehood) won’t give Arabs in the West Bank the same rights that Israelis enjoy, since it would be a totally separate country. Solving the “apartheid” (by giving Palestinians the same rights as Israelis) suggests that Israel doesn’t illegally occupy that land and doesn’t need to withdraw, since it has obligations to its citizens there.

I'm born and raised in Israel, fighting for a free Palestine and planning to refuse military service. And as I see the way israeli propaganda is affecting Israeli society, I genuinely think that If you believe Jews should be kicked out of Palestine as an act of decolonisation, you're not only undermining the core reason for advocating for palestinian rights, you're unknowingly falling for Israeli propaganda.

1. There is no reason for a democratic person to believe that Jews shouldn't be allowed to live in a free and independent Palestine - seems quite self explanatory to be honest, the reason we advocate for Palestine is because we advocate for freedom for all people and specifically for people who are being robbed of their rights on their own land.

2. The Israeli propaganda machine really doesn't want you to separate the Jewish people from the Israeli colonisation project - Israeli propaganda is trying as hard as it can to blur the difference between the Jewish people and the Israeli colonisation project/occupation, when in fact, there can be a Jewish population in Palestine without Israeli apartheid and occupation. The thing most people don't understand is that this line of propaganda is mainly directed at Israelis - the Israeli government, as fascist governments do, makes it's people feel trapped within it as if there is no other way to live as Jews on this land, and it's working beautifully. I can say first hand that Israelis are convinced that if they don't enlist into the army and support palestinian genocide, they will die.

3. Changing Israeli society - you can only look at Israeli society from a place seeking change if you wish to go forward. I can genuinely see a future where Jews live freely in a democratic Palestine free from apartheid and genocide. And for what it's worth, I see most Israelis as well meaning people and it will usually take a simple conversation to make them just start at least questioning what they've been taught.

Strange people aren't more aware that Abdul El Sayed's sister Eman Abdelhadi is an outspoken extremist. Facing two counts of felony assault on law enforcement officers at an ICE protest by the way. Everyone gets their day in court. But the things she says in public should be a warning.

Some people will say it doesn't matter what his sister does. Abdul El Sayed is a politician and more careful about what he says, but one way you can tell what politicians think is by listening to the people around them. He clearly does share some radical ideas with his more transparently radical sister.

She's a stereotypical activist professor, sociologist at the University of Chicago. They're apparently investigating her for disparaging the university at the Socialism 2025 conference in Chicago. She said . “I don’t care about this institution. Like I don’t—like fuck the University of Chicago, it’s evil. Like, you know? It’s a colonial landlord.” She then went on to explain that she sees her role there as using the university to organize students.

Here are a few of her X Posts. We've never had a serious senatorial candidate with a sibling who says such things about America.

• July 5, 2024. “All I want for Independence Day is a world independent of US empire.”
• November 20, 2024. “No one hates us for our freedom. Everyone hates us for being an empire of death and destruction.”
• February 6, 2025. “I hope the whole world rises against US empire.”

We've also never had a senatorial candidate whose father in law has such odd links to the Muslim Brotherhood through CAIR and Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). That's a can of worms. I guess the legal status of these organizations varies by state now and is being contested in courts. Some of their founding members are in prison for their roles in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation case.

Some people will say that's anti-Islam. It isn't about being Muslim. In America, you can be whatever religion you want. It's about being extremist. Same way as happened in places like the UK, France, and the Netherlands. leftists who would be skeptical of Christian political organizations close their eyes to extremely conservative Islamicist political forces. Turned out bad elsewhere.

The Democratic party is in a weird place. How do we bring it back to its patriotic, working class roots?

just wanted to share something positive about the other side, kind of getting sick of all of the negativity coming from people.

i live in columbus, the capital of ohio. in columbus there are many suburbs. one of them is called bexley.

during the segregation and redlining era of america, jews weren’t allowed to purchase homes in upper arlington (which is a neighboring suburb of bexley). only white people could live in upper arlington. so jews built houses next to upper arlington and formed a community which today is called bexley.

today bexley is around 25% jewish but it used to be much higher before columbus became more cosmopolitan. my husband who is jordanian/syrian used to live in bexley and went to school with a lot of jewish people. earlier this week we were helping his parents move out of their bexley home to retire and live somewhere that’s more eventful lol.

but being in bexley for the first time ever (i’m from michigan) was pretty cool. driving past stores i saw the star of david next to storefronts advertising kosher products, saw a lot of people wearing kippahs, etc. it looked very jewish.

what surprised me the most is that i learned the jewish residents of bexley are mostly democrats despite bexley being an affluent suburb. usually affluent suburbs here lean more republican/MAGA. but bexley is different.

driving around i saw homes with israeli flags and palestinian flags placed together on people’s lawns, anti-trump and anti-netanyahu signs, etc.

honestly it felt so inclusive and oddly felt at home.

i even had a nice convo with a jewish family at a grocery store there. when they told me i look arab, i said well indeed i am, i am palestinian lol. they were so kind and invited me and my husband to their home for dinner.

and another interesting thing about bexley. amy acton, the democratic candidate for governor of ohio running against vivek ramaswamy, is jewish and lives in bexley. and white supremacists in the surrounding suburbs are calling this election “the death of ohio” because it’s a jewish candidate running against an indian candidate and there won’t be a white governor for the next at least 4 years.

i like bexley and honestly i wish i knew more about bexley before my husband and i bought our house, bc i would definitely buy a house there.