Hamas is not Palestine, Hamas is only currently in power because Israel has not allowed Palestine to have a government election in almost 20 years.
Elections in Gaza and the West Bank are NOT blocked by Israel. International pressure was on Hamas and the PA before October last year to allow for elections to take place. One of the reasons for Hamas to launch the attack was to trigger the cycle of violence that sustains them and the likes of Netanyahu/Likud.
Its also important for context that Israel is an occupying force in the middle east, the Ashkenazi Jews are all Europeans.
Israel has been founded by European occupation (British specifically) who have allowed Jewish Zionists to immigrate en masse because the Brits wanted them out of the UK.
Jewish people are Jewish people. Theyve been in the ME region for well over 4000 years now. If youre Jewish, you have a heritage attached to the place that you are entitled to if you so wish as with any other culture with any place attachment. Its HOW that claim was enforced at the expense of the Arab population also in the space thats the issue. To be clear, the only 'occupation' is the Occupied Territories today.
The British giving the Jews preferential economic treatment (only Jewish people were allowed to operate power factories), combined with the fact that they helped the Jewish population to forcefully remove Muslims from their ancestral homes ultimately led to riots which then led to the Arab revolt, which then led to the massive crackdown and the founding of Israel.
Its true about the British giving preferential treatment to one indigenous group over another in the Palestine Mandate, a copy and paste pattern they used in all their colonial administrations. Again though, Jewish people are Jewish people. Everything today comes from that like in other former colonial possessions they had. 'Mandate' was just another word for it only now with League of Nations approval.
Zionism is the debate about whether Jewish people actually need a homeland. Nothing more, nothing less. It doesnt even specify it has to be in the ME. Its been turned into a pejorative term since. The Jewish population in the region was growing since the 1700's, we know thanks to tax records. . While the rate of immigration increased in the 20s, it was the 30's where it really accelerated, mainly refugees from Europe with nowhere else to go. The State of Israel was going to be re-established in some form be it as a separate entity or within a larger Palestine. The Jewish people in the region are basically the longest running independence movement in history. Negotiations were ongoing right up to the War of Independence/Nakba when some of the settler groups jumped the gun with UN Resolution 181, the proposed partition and again typical of the withdrawing British.
In this case the State of Israel was meant to be the re-establishment of the Jewish homeland they had lost and to be done via British decolonisation, the same as Pakistan was meant to be a homeland for Muslims. That was the thinking at the time anyway and it was horrifically done in each case. Also see Northern Ireland, Cyprus and other territories in Africa.
And ever since Israel became a thing they've been busy illegally annexing and settling what remains of Palestine.
Actually the pattern since the end of the Six Days War is the reverse up till Netanyahu. Resolution 242 in the wake of that particular conflict provided for the end of the Occupation with the recognition of Israel and its right to exist by all concerned parties. What you have had up until the coming of Hamas and Netanyahu is a series of withdrawals timed with peace treaties and recognition. Thats how relations with Egypt and Jordan came about followed with withdrawals from Sinai by 1982 and the very establishment of the PA in Gaza and the West Bank. Golan Heights was under negotiation last I heard with talk of financial compensation. Even with Lebanon, they managed an agreement on a maritime border about 2 years ago and all that border is is a ceasefire line. The settlements are to do with Netanyahu and market governance ie cheap land for development, also the push factor for the evictions in occupied territories. Sure, they wouldn't mind in the slightest if full annexation came about with that but its the building industry in Israel thats pushing it.
Israel is currently an apartheid state, where Palestinians can't move freely and have an entirely separate set of laws applying to them. They also are largely forced to live in ghettos or caged into small areas like animals.
The Israeli Apartheid theory came via the Cold War and the USSR, in particular the heavily antisemitic KGB who was also trying to curry favour with Arab and other unaligned states internationally as a counter to the Western capitalist system, hence their 'aid' packages of hospitals etc along with education of elites in Moscow. Israel didnt fall behind the Iron Curtain hence that move. Its basic Great Replacement theory ie if Jewish people in the area are 'settlers' as in South Africa, then theyre 'illegitimate' and therefore 'worthy of destruction'. Remember, it was tried before in the War of Independence and invasion by several different states (separate to the ethic cleansing of far right paramilitary groups during the Nakba). It was the Soviet Union who proposed apartheid to become a crime against humanity with that specific South Africa context name when a like by like comparison wouldnt work. They had some success with the UN 'Zionism is Racism' resolution 3379 which was later rescinded when the Cold War collapsed. Whats also helped push it is the 'elite capture' of several NGO's in the region. The Amnesty 'report' didnt hold up academically speaking for example, its just to generate headlines.
In terms of dual systems of laws etc, in very broad strokes that was due to the collapse of the peace process in the 90's and the stagnation that occurred in its wake. It was meant to be a process a la Northern Ireland but one interrupted again by the likes of Likud, Hamas etc with international actors also trying to take advantage for their own gains, be it financial or just ego. Basically hundreds of different groups prefer it this way as it justifies their existence with no regard for the people in the area who have been caught in the middle.
Thats the sick reality of whats going on, Its not Israel vs Palestine, its a whole bunch of groups coining out of keeping it all going. Right now its Netanyahu trying to save his own hide via killing 40,000 plus civilians that Hamas couldnt give a flying fuck about, nor do the vast majority of people that pretend to care for their own egos. You can spot them easily enough via the regurgitation of slogans and tropes along with reductive and selective histories.
