How nice it is to hand wave ideological realities away with "they're just victims of colonization". There is a whole slew of countries in the world that were victims of colonization yet somehow managed to move on and make themselves stable productive nations without exporting hate and terror around the globe. The fact that we have homegrown Islamic terrorism in the west, from 2nd/3rd generation immigrants no less, tells me it's an ideological problem that goes well beyond "we want our land back".
The fact that you conflate all Islamic extremism from dozens of countries in multiple continents into a single box tells me how little there is to discuss. Just because terrible things have been done in the name of something doesn't mean there aren't other terrible things that have been done that can simply be ignored. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Algeria, Nigeria, Iraq, each has a sizeable Muslim population, each with separate grievances and goals. Saudis and Americans have committed a lot of terrorist attacks in my lifetime, too. And an Iraqi would say that the US committed terrorism on their country.
That's nice, and I'm sure they are all lovely people.
Unfortunately the people you met are in a tiny minority. Would your Quebecer friend be able to openly embrace his atheism in Gaza? What about the feminist, do you think the average Palestinian in Gaza would tolerate her views?
It's funny, I'm inclined to take the word of the
people who actually lived there over a random dude on the internet. For example, the UN worker said that while she faced significant issues as a woman in Afghanistan, she never had any issues in Palestine. But considering we're throwing all Muslims in the same box, regardless of which corner of the world they come from, I guess it doesn't really matter...
As a Canadian I don't really care who the land belongs to. Both sides believe they have a god given right to be there. My only point of interest is that the people coming here will be a net benefit to our society. Walking around downtown Toronto seeing people celebrating terrorism tells me we do not need anymore refugees from that part of the world.
Have you personally seen people doing that, or watched a few videos online? I've seen videos of Israeli settlers celebrating killing a Palestinian baby, among countless similar examples, but I'm smart enough to understand that doesn't represent all Israelis or even the majority.
That may be the stated reason, but it's only one of convenience. There are a few reasons:
Have Arab nations want nothing to do with have not Arabs. That's just the way it is - they corral them in camps rather than naturalize them.
Containing Palestinian violence inside immigrant communities has always been a challenge. Terror is engrained and accepted in the mindset of many Palestinians - there is no easy way to weed this out. That means every bad Palestinian hurts a good one.
Finally, Gaza and West Bank's Arab neighbors don't want Iranian proxies circulating among them intimidating and destabilizing their local populations. again, It's hard to filter out the bad guys.
I'll take the word of friends and colleagues from Jordan, Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Iran, etc. over some very broad brush painting being done above.
I will agree that the 'have' Arab nations bear as much responsibility for the plight of Palestine as anyone in the West, though. Or at least their governments do. Sadly, those governments are largely autocratic and depend on the goodwill of the US to maintain their hold on power.
I would agree the average Palestinian is not inherently bad. But as a collective, they have made themselves very scary to others. You might blame the media for that, but it's pretty hard to refute the facts.
There were 2.2m Gazans at the time they first raided, 40k of them active Hamas fighters, and another 700K supporting them with financing, transport, logistics, shelter, and other military support services. 75% of Palestinians supported the October 7th terror attacks. Only 7% of Palestinians believe Hamas has anything to do with the Palestinian plight.
This situation didn't start on October 7. It didn't start in 2000. It didn't start in 1967. It didn't even start in 1946. It mostly started in 1918, when the European powers carved up the Middle East with no regard or understanding of regional loyalties or ethnic dividing lines.
The stats that you throw out as 'fact' are meaningless, as they're impossible to actually collect (how do you poll a region under bombardment, in total isolation, with no power and little online connectivity? Who is asking and who is being asked?), have no sources beyond the IDF, and are thrown out there with little questioning by American media, but that's another point of discussion. The IDF has lied multiple times throughout (including about the specifics of October 7th itself), in multiple provable examples, yet we take their statements as gospel.
Regardless, if all friendly nations have been embargoed and regime changed to oblivion, and your children are starving or kidnapped without trial, your neighbors have been bombed to literal bits, your family has been thrown out of their homes so settlers can move in, you rely on the whims of a hostile power to come and go or to seek work, and you have no hope, then who knows where your sympathies will lie? It would certainly be hard to have faith in the West to save you based on 'justice', or have much belief in non-violent resistance as a solution to your fate.
First, I don't think basic human rights are conditional on insisting that everyone agree on relatively recently developed majority opinions around sexuality.
Second, the views you see there are not dissimilar to view you would see in much of the non-Western world, the rural US, and not that different to what you'd get in Canada 40 years ago. They're also not that different to many views expressed in this very forum about trans rights, and other more recent changes to the social debate around gender and sexuality, along with our current public obsession with same, pro or anti. The current moment is not the only moment for opinions and public thought about this, it will be different in the future, and they will look back on our beliefs and things we assume are self-evident with a mixture of bemusement and horror, just as we look back on the beliefs of our forebears the same way.
Lastly, this was linked immediately below that video: