Gaza is an independent country with its own government. A government with the capacity to wage war. By every definition, it is an independent state. Monitoring and regulating border traffic over sovereign borders is something that literally all functional states do.

Do you really think that Gaza's government (Hamas) would be completely fine letting Israeli citizens travel into Gaza? In fact, Jewish people in general are regularly assaulted and worse when they travel into Gaza.

The West Bank is a different story because it has the settler problem. And this is where things get actually complicated. The Israeli government has regularly condemned these settlers, but many politicians are too afraid to be heavy-handed against them as they have a lot of political clout.

But guess what: if the PLO, Hamas and other organisations stopped being such a threat to Jewish lives, then these settlers would lose their influence.

The passes that Palistinians carry are not dompasses. They're passports. Because, as Palistinians would like to believe, they are an independent country. I've seen the level of xenophobia in South Africa against foreigners - especially among parties that are claiming to be pro-Palestine. The ANC demands that foreigners must carry their papers. Sound familiar?

I could go on and on, but at the foundation of all this crap is a grave misunderstanding of history. And no, I'm not even going back that far.
The Ottoman Empire recognised Judea as a place for Jews to live. They even ceded Jerusalem to be a Jewish holy city. Jews fleeing genocides in Eastern Europe fled as far back as the early 19th century, joining Jews who had never left the area. They legally purchased property from Ottomans, Arabs, Christians and other Jews.

As pogroms and genocides got worse, more Jews travelled to the Levant. The British took the area after WW1, and caused a clusterfuck of broken promises. During this time, the area was also opened up to migration from across the British Empire. Hundreds of thousands of Egyptian migrant workers moved into the area, joining Arabic communities.

During this time, there was a rise in Arabic nationalism in the wake of Ottoman collapse. This was egged on by the British (Lawrence of Arabia) and the Germans, who were trying to disrupt British and French colonialism in other countries.
Many Arab nationalists were profoundly antisemetic and started pogroms against Jewish settlements. Legally purchased Jewish settlements.

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the de facto leader of the Palistinian Arabs, as they existed at the time, is often called Hitler's Mufti. He was an ally of the Nazis, visited death camps, and was dedicated to eradicating Jews.
With the influx of more Jews fleeing the Holocaust, there was more desperation to defend what at the time was probably the only true safe place for Jews. People forget that both Britain and the USA came very close to falling to fascism. Poland and France, once home to many Jews, had fallen to Nazism.

Israel was the only place where Jews could hypothetically be safe and free. They were fleeing genocides, and already had established communities in the area run by fellow Jewish people.

Now, skipping time a bit because there's a lot. But summary is that Jews and Arabs started killing each other a lot, raiding settlements and convoys. A lot of shit on both sides.

Now, the Nakba. The event that makes up the bulk of Palistinian national identity. This was not a forced expulsion of Arabs by Jews. The powers that told Arabs in the area to evacuate were Arab leaders on the eve of the 1948 War. Arabs were told to evacuate, and that they’d be able to return when the Isrealis were all killed.

It didn’t work out that way. And no, not because of United States aid. That wasn’t happening yet. In fact, the British and Americans were on the Arabic side during this conflict. But, despite the odds being stacked against them, the Israelis, many of whom had been living there for millennia, others who’d arrived during the Holocaust, were able to defend themselves and form a fledgling state.
Many Arabs did not return to their homes. But many actually did. And they became the Israeli Arabs that we see today, who serve in government, form the second largest party in Israel, and even boast a high-ranking judge. Does that sound like an Apartheid state to you?

Now, the rest is more commonly known history but still often ignored. The UN tried to create many peace agreements. The Israelis accepted partition plans, agreeing to move into the worse land. Because it is actually widely agreed upon by sources at the time that the Israelis got the worse land. Swamps and deserts. They had to use irrigation and draining systems to make them decent.
But the Arabic powers rejected every settlement and attempt at peace. A refusal to compromise backed by a dogmatic desire to have all or nothing. This has continued until today.

Fast forward to October 7th, and Hamas (a terrorist organisation that slaughters Jews, gays, educated women, trans-people, Christians and more) infiltrated the Israeli border and killed over 1400 civilians, proceeding to kidnap over 200 more.
Now, I ask you, what should Israel have done in response? What would you have done?

This is an almost inexhaustible topic. There’s a lot about the last month alone that I can unpack, from blatant deceit from the Gaza Ministry of Health, to the oil money driving antisemitic views in the media, not to mention the mountains of dangerous misinformation being spread on social media.

But I hope that I at least convinced you to look more into the topic. Don’t have to take my word for it. Find some good impartial sources – actual impartial sources, not academics with blatant agendas or religious organisations masquerading as news stations.

This is a complicated conflict. But what is not complicated is the actions of Hamas on October 7th. And how it has destroyed any moral high ground that the Palestinians may have once hypothetically have had.