I chose not to up- or downvote your reply. I disagree that the comment above adds nothing to the conversation. It adds historical context that otherwise may not be apparent to the current generation who must grow up and deal with the problems that ignoring the past has created and will continue to create.

I'm a bit older than a lot of y'all and I grew up reading stories on the founding of Israel, the true stories of the holocaust written by those who witnessed and experienced the horrors first-hand, etc. All of these books that I read were written from the Israeli perspective for an American or western audience in order to inform people who had no concept of the depths of depravity that a modern industrialized society could allow themselves to be dragged into.

The information and the stories related steered my own opinions and feelings towards supporting Israel in the wars and other significant events that have happened during my own lifetime - 1967 Six Day War, 1973 Yom Kippur War, 1978 Camp David Accords, 1982 Israeli intervention in Lebanon, 1983 US Marine Barracks bombing and the fallout from that, and all the bullshit conflicts since.

I was able to follow these things as a kid and later a teen into adulthood because my parents maintained a book club subscription that was regularly improved by addition of new, current books on many subjects. As kids we were encouraged to select books for the collection and to read them when they were delivered.

Knowledge is power. By ignoring the historical context you are effectively censoring events that did happen and whose repercussions still resonate in the region.

You should not cherry-pick your own version of history. That is effectively propaganda, a tool used by authoritarians to indoctrinate. The original books that I read were written from the Israeli perspective in order to gain international influence. There were no novels or historical biographies of Arab leaders or of the region that were written in the context of providing historical background information that would help someone in the west understand the situation from the Arab perspective. To get that you needed to read newspapers and magazines, which I also did. Over time I began to understand just how complex everything is in the region and how constant support, especially from the United States, paid for the Israeli side of every conflict and situation.

For anyone to support Israel's current leadership in what can only be described as a genocide on the same level employed against Jews by the Nazis or the US Cavalry against Native American tribes is wrong.

Perhaps you should read a book about genocide and the origin of the term. I recommend the excellent book:

Samantha Power: A Problem from Hell - America and the Age of Genocide[0]

Sadat and Begin showed a path forward if other players had the courage to follow. Too bad that it took thousands of deaths on all sides and nearly 50 years and huge financial incentives and arms deals to bring others into agreement that living as neighbors in the same region requires some level of cooperation in order to guarantee mutual survival. Unfortunately the current players simply picked a common enemy and focused their efforts on destroying that enemy so that they could control the resources of the region.

I hope you agree that this comment has added something useful to the conversation.

[0]https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/368731._A_Problem_from_H...

The Arab States post-1948 genocide of indigenous middle eastern Jews has been far more complete than Israel's genocide of Muslims. There are almost zero indigenous middle eastern Jews left in the Arab states, vs two million Muslims living in Israel (20% of Israel's population).

>I hope you agree that this comment has added something useful to the conversation.

No. It's a distraction. If every time the middle east is discussed people have to argue about the last century or two millennia of conflict, nothing at all will actually be discussed. If every time someone uses the term genocide, there has to be a whole thread about "well actually" and some wildly expanded context, nothing will ever be discussed. People, in their attempts to be more morally correct going around nitpicking somebody's language are not assisting in understanding.

Your context adds nothing to what was being discussed. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with it, I'm just saying it's not helpful to expand every mention to the entire damn history of a thing.

Sure, people should know more history, but every thread devolving into a group of people insisting this point or that can't be made without mentioning a whole pile of history... nothing at all will ever get discussed.