If you lock women and children in a ghetto, then bomb and shoot them relentlessly for months and years, people are going to want to know what book you are reading.
> If you lock women and children in a ghetto, then bomb and shoot them relentlessly for months and years, people are going to want to know what book you are reading.
This is an absolutely insane comparison, Hamas is free to surrender and give up their weapons if they want the bombing to stop, the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto had no similar opportunity.
> I don't think even I would think surrender, in those circumstances, makes a great deal of sense.
Why not? That's what typically happens when one side loses a war, I'm not sure how prolonging the conflict is helpful.
> And I'm an atheist.
So am I.
> I'm also British.
Funny enough I am as well(in addition to a couple others). History is full of people losing their homes and becoming refugees like some of my ancestors did, that's often much better than the alternative of staying to fight and die. I am certainly not trying to get their homes back as that is long settled history.
> I've come to believe that it's pretty impossible to understand Israel-Palestine without the lens of religion.
From my understanding according to common Islamic teachings non-Muslims are supposed to be Dhimmi's[0](i.e. second class citizens) and be ruled over by Muslim's. So I think this is probably the source of a lot of the issues with the Israel-Palestine conflict, although there are other factors in play as well.
"Not formally" rather implies you think it was. Northern Ireland was/is part of the UK, so civil war I could probably agree with.
The reason I mentioned religion was nothing to do with the requirements it places on how things should happen, but rather about the entitlement and infallibility that a belief that god has decreed something can grant people's mindset and outlook.
