Hello I just created this Account for this Question. Is it okay to support Israel in the middle east conflict? I’m from Europe and have no ties at all to any Side. Its just that I lean more to the Side of Israel then any other. Is this okay? Is it up to debate which Side is to support or is one of them clearly in the Wrong? (Like Russia is in the Wrong attacking Ukraine or Germany attacking Polland 1939).
EDIT: For clarification: Im talking about their Settlements and their military campaigns NOT about their government.
If this Post is too political please remove and I’m deeply sorry for that.
The Israel and Palestine situation is way too complicated to be left to “I support Israel.” Support in what way? Their existence? Their military campaigns? Their government? Their settlements? Everything they’ve ever done ever?
Do you then oppose everything done by people from Palestine? Do you then oppose the existence of Palestine?
In my opinion it’s not okay to leave your opinion as that simple. If that’s all you’ve got your opinion is bad because it’s simplistic, not because it supports a particular side.
People supporting a side like it’s a bloody football match
I support Israel ownership of the Land they won in the War, their Settlements and their military campaigns. I dont support their goverment. (Sorry I thought that might be clear because i was talking about the Conflict itself not just about Israel as a State)
Just as something to think about, would you support the nazi and soviet campaign into poland, and the land they won from that?
Or the british empire winning land all over the globe?
This is exactly my Question! I’ve never learnd anything about this conflict in School or elsewhere. Is it that simple like Russia/Ukraine or Nazi-Germany/Poland?
I think a big part of this is being open to having your opinions changed. This is true for me, even on topics that I know about and have years of experience with.
As for your main point, I’d like to reiterate again: You don’t need to pick a side, and you especially shouldn’t feel forced to pick a side when you have yet to learn more about the issue.
I will try! It just came up and I wasn’t sure about anything ._. Maybe I will just say “I dont know enough to have a stance” in the future.
I just wanna say no matter your opinion, as long as it is followed by the openmindedness you just showed, you’re gonna be fine
Maybe I will just say “I don’t know enough to have a stance”
This is an amazing attitude, one more of us would be wise to adopt.
Anyone that is familiar with that sentence immediately garners my respect
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People will claim it is, but it really isn’t. Honestly, you’ll read a lot of biased answers here.
The safest bet is to condemn the rape, murder and torture of civilians, but accept that there are no ‘good’ guys in this conflict.
To give you an idea:
You’ll read a lot of comments about how Israelis stole land from the Palestinian Arabs. But Palestinains also stole land from Palestinian Jews.
Many middle-eastern countries had significant Jewish populations before that, but almost all were forced to flee to Israel. Something like a third of Israelis are ‘Arab’ Jews or Mizrahi as the prefer to be called. They’re not ‘foreign invaders’. They’re (the family of) locals or refugees from neighbouring countries.
Hamas are horrible, and what the last few days have been deplorable, but arguably Israel helped create them.
Also, recent right-wing Israeli governments have consistently undermined any hope of a peace deal, meaning there’s no real alternative for Palestinians.
But, back in 2000 Israel did offer far reaching concessions to the Palestinians, so much so that IRC the Saudi ambassador said it would be a crime not to accept them or at least continue negotiating. But Arafat, the Palestinian leader at the time, did just that.
Also, neighbouring Arab countries claim to support Palestine, but often only on paper. When they accepted Palestinian refugees this caused them huge issues. For example in Lebanon:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damour_massacre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karantina_massacre
Also, a lot of arab nationalist groups, including Palestinian ones, are virulently anti-semitic and have actual historical ties to the nazis who supported them in their fight against the colonial powers (Britain, France, etc.):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mein_Kampf_in_Arabic#Mein_Kampf_and_Arab_nationalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amin_al-Husseini#Ties_with_the_Axis_Powers_during_World_War_II
But then the current Israeli government contains ultra-nationalists. One of the ministers once belonged to a banned far right terrorist organisation, labeled as such by the US and Israel. They were openly racist and supported terrorist attacks against Palestinians.
Most of Israeli immigration has been from the former Soviet Union, not the middle East… Unless you count the FSU as the Middle East… Which depending on how you want to count things for displaced peoples may be valid… And it really kicked off in the early 70s.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/total-immigration-to-israel-by-year
not the middle East…
If you re-read my comment, you’ll note I said that something like a third of Israelis are (originally from) from the middle-east or arab countries.
Wikipedia:
Mizrahi Jews (Hebrew: יהודי המִזְרָח), also known as Mizrahim (מִזְרָחִים) or Mizrachi (מִזְרָחִי) and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or Edot HaMizrach (עֲדוֹת-הַמִּזְרָח, lit. ‘Communities of the East’),[2] are a grouping of Jewish communities comprising those who remained in the Land of Israel and those who existed in diaspora throughout and around the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) from biblical times into the modern era. … Regions with significant populations … Israel … 3,200,000
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizrahi_Jews
3.2 million / 9.5 million = 33.7%.
Most of Israeli immigration has been from the former Soviet Union
Wikipedia:
So 33% from the MENA.
15% Soviet.
Ashkenazi(mainly Europe): 2.8 million / 9.5 = 29.4%
IRC the rest are non-Jews.
That took far too long to google, which is why most people debating the whole conflict simply don’t bother. Why would they when they’ve already come to a conclusion and chosen a side? Why let the facts get in the way?
Honestly, this is why I’d rather swim in a septic tank, than spend too long debating the whole thing.
It’s closer to United States vs indigenous Americans
Nothing about the Ukrainian-Russian conflict is simple. This is based on decades of disagreements, and it’s only becoming more complicated, because history is written by the loudest asshole around
I mean it’s pretty simple to say that Russia invaded Ukraine. Twice.
That I can’t deny. They are very clearly known for agitating their neighbors, and their nationalists causing mass chaos in places that they think belong to them
Yeah Russia are pretty good at kicking the dirt up and spreading a lot of propaganda, but if you look at the hard points it’s pretty clear cut.
The same isn’t true of Israel and Palestine. Going through what each side has done to the other and trying to weigh it and figure out which side is worse is a futile exercise that does nothing to stop further violence from happening.
It’s very simple actually. Russia invaded a souvereign country. The end.
That is a factually correct statement, I never said it isn’t
Israel’s wars have been defensive.
That wasn’t part of the question/example. I was responding to “land won in war”
Maybe think if by the same logic you also support Russia’s “ownership” of Crimea and Eastern Ukranine territory. If you don’t support that, then maybe you’ve been propaganded.
Uh… Since you seem new to the topic, I’d recommend you look up Israeli treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, East Palestine and Israel proper (they’re all bad for different reasons, but the order of badness goes like this), and how the settlement process works. Note: It usually involves Palestinians being forced off their homes.
This is a hard question.
Israel was magicked into existence not very long ago(1948), immediately started breaking agreements and compacts… Displaced millions of people from their homes and has killed thousands upon thousands more… Many innocents. It is run by an extremist religious military organization.
Hamas is a brutal, far right religious extremist movement that kills indiscriminately, even it’s own people.
Objectively they are both in the wrong.
Israel has stolen and murdered the Palestinian land and people for decades while continuously lying about their intentions.
Hamas is a shit show of an organization that is probably objectively worse… But their actions make sense when you realize that their families and property have been stolen when murdered for the last several generations. The only life most Palestine people know is one of suffering and loss… And this is directly Israels fault.
In your Russia/Ukraine scenario, Israel is Russia (mostly foreign invaders) and Ukraine is Palestine(natives fighting for their land and freedom). But it’s not quite as simple because Hamas is so objectively horrible…
Israel was magicked into existence not very long ago(1948), immediately started breaking agreements and compacts
This is not really an accurate portrayal of events. Literally on the day that Israel was founded, Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen launched an invasion - for those keeping score at home, that’s all of their neighbors at the time, plus some of the larger countries in the region. This immediate and unflinching antagonism - very specifically on the heels of Jewish people being subjected to the Holocaust, and in combination with rhetoric from their neighbors calling for “the eradication of Israel” - seems to have largely set the tone of Israeli-Arab relations since then, and Israel has fought more than one existential conflict against its neighbors since then.
Now, I’m not saying Israel is blameless here, nor am I saying that the UK/UN was blameless in arbitrarily drawing some lines on a map in a very geopolitically fraught area. But I do find the narrative that Israel is solely responsible for the situation in entirety to be woefully naive at best, and maliciously disingenuous at worst. Sure, they’ve made a LOT of bad calls over the years, but the situation cannot be placed entirely at the feet of Israel.
That is a fair critique. Israel isn’t solely at fault, but they do share blame. It’s difficult to fit the entirety of the history, but from the Palestinian point of view what I said isn’t wrong. There may be confounding external causes, but Israel has absolutely been in the wrong from nearly the beginning of its existence.
There are arguments about preventing genocide that are valid, but most of these arguments start from racist ethnostate positions that have very little moral credibility.
How on earth do you claim Israel immediately started ‘breaking agreements’ when they were attacked on multiple fronts as soon as they became a country?
That’s some wild revisionist history.
Israel not only defended themselves but took land in the war. They then returned that land later on as a gesture of goodwill. Only to be attacked again and again…
Thank you for your answer! You seem to understand my Problem. I dont wanted to spark such a huge Discussion. ._.
The British fucked up a bunch of things when they divided up political power as they abandoned their territories… Israel/Palestine and India/Pakistan…
Don’t forget basically all the country lines in Africa, although that was Europe’s fault as a whole.
I dont wanted to spark such a huge Discussion
Discussion can be good, it’s how we can all learn more :)
It’s perfectly acceptable to support civilians, and support peace- we can and should be critical of the Israeli government and Hamas- both have inflicted horrible wrongs on the other.
In fact that’s really the only way out of this, I think. This conflict has gone on long enough into history that… there’s really no side that’s justified; and it’s mired in a lot of violence and hatred to the point that it won’t be a simple path forward.
I think with a topic like this, you can’t NOT spark a huge discussion. I hope you still got some useful answers out of it :)
I imagine Ukraine’s resistance would become objectively horrible if the Russians were still there after decades, claiming more and more land, bulldozing homes and creating an Apartheid. I once watched a documentary about Palestine (one of many) and the documentary maker was talking to a Palestinian woman while children were playing in the background. The children were playing a game of being suicide bombers. The reporter asked the woman about the children’s game. She said that t the children had no hope for the future, their only hope for a better life was after death.
That really stuck with me. The Palestinian people have been treated like animals for generations by Israel, lied to, robbed, kept in poverty and forced to live in apartheid. I am not surprised they are fighting back. Yes, HAMAS are definitely bad guys too, but Israel is worse and till they are held to account over their behaviour and made to return Palestinian land and homes that have been illegally annexed ,things will not get better.
If Hamas didn’t exist, life in Palestine would be totally different, so this is a bit of a misleading conciliation you’re making.
Rejecting peace deals then acting as if your rights are violated because you don’t have a peace deal, which then justifies your terrorism, is not something that helps the people of your nation
So if the Israeli military hadn’t funneled resources to Hamas in the 80s and 90s it’d be pretty different, good point. Maybe the moderate coalition would’ve been comparatively powerful enough to gain leadership instead of literal terrorists.
Yeah that would’ve been great. Ideal, even.
Unfortunately the only thing to do now is completely dismantle Hamas. Current Israelis did not make this bed, but they’re the ones stuck sleeping in it.
Israel has been a huge crybully virtually since it was founded. It’s been annexing Palestinian land from the beginning, running a shitty apartheid state, committing ongoing slow genocide on the Palestinian people, then crying the innocent victim whenever they hit back - and guzzling unlimited billions in US military aid to do so.
Hurt people hurt people, and oppression breeds radicalism. Hamas are not nice people, but they’re from a place where nice people don’t live long enough to matter. As with any abusive relationship, there’s going to be toxic coping mechanisms as a result, and it’s important to acknowledge that it’s not okay to do those things.
But Israel (the country, not the people) sure as hell rakes in a lot of money and influence from being constantly under threat from the mean nasty baddies that they just have to keep oppressing and killing and oh look more money.
Hamas is awful. But still and all, fuck Israel.
Fuck Hamas as well. 😉
They are both wrong and they are both right. Up until this past week, I tended to be more sympathetic towards Palestine. Unfortunately, the most recent terrorist attack by Hamas was against more than just Israel or its military. It was a terrorist attack at a music festival, and Hamas attacked citizens of multiple nations.
It’s a lot easier to support Israel right now. It sounds like they’re about to commit their own atrocities though, so you might have to flip your position tomorrow.
Israel responded by blowing up mosques and apartment buildings. They cut off power to everything, including hospitals. They’re blockading to prevent any supplies from entering Gaza. Both sides are committing war crimes and intentionally targeting civilians. Nobody is right here. Supporting either side is encouraging a religious war.
The problem is hamas hides amongst the population, knowing that if Israel hits them, civilians will die too, further fanning the flames.
Those dead civilians obviously radicalize survivors, adding to the ranks. The uninvolved civilians have no power to remove hamas from their space, so their fate is coupled.
This is no comment on the demolitions or other general brutality Israel has been up to, just a discussion on how hamas operates
That’s mostly because of logistics, they have much less resources, Israel is supported majorly by the US, Israel has stuff like the Iron Dome. If Palestine/Hamas would set up any dedicated posts, they’d simply be bombed to oblivion, and that would be that. If they want to fight, being covert about it is their literal only choice.
Still shitty of course, but I’m pretty sure they don’t want to do it if there were any better alternatives to keep the fight up.
The other Problem is that Israel is using Civilians as Settlers to establish a Claim in illegally occupied territories (determined so by the UN, not me)
just to be very clear: fuck Hamas and all the shit they did, and i hope that they pay very very heavily for all the atrocities they’ve committed. But i just wanted to show you, that noone in the Region really takes international law seriously
Both sides suck. Any more elaboration is likely to piss off a lot of people, so let’s keep it simple.
Problem is Hamas is Israel’s own creation. They funnelled them money.
they’re both absolutely awful pieces of shit.
but here are my thoughts:
- They’re both awful religious theocracies that want to exterminate the other side
- Israel tends to leave citizens from other countries in peace, whereas Hamas has shown no mercy to germans or british citizens they’ve captured
- Israeli soldiers don’t rape and parade prisoners
- Israel has however been brutalizing Palestinians, with evidence of individual soldiers killing Palestinian children at random. It doesn’t seem to be Doctrine though. Israel also has Apartheid Structures discriminating against Palestinians
- The People captured by Hamas mostly were in a Zone that the UN has declared to be illegally occupied by Israel
- There are Reports of Hamas Fighters going around and rounding up civilians for mass-executions
So yeah, it is a really really complicated Situation with no clear good or bad side. My personal stance on this is:
- I hope the Israeli Military can free the hostages taken by Hamas and bring the Perpetrators of the Massacres we hear about to justice (if the Reports of the Massacres are true)
- I am afraid that the hard-line anti-Palestinian Government of Israel will use this as an excuse to terrorize Palestinians and make them suffer
- I hope that in the End the internationally recognized and agreed-upon borders will be restored. I do hope however, that it will not happen as a Consequence of this military action, as it would embolden the use of Terrorism, Massacres and Hostage-Taking as a negotiation Tactic.
It’s been a long time since I’ve read such a sensible comment from this situation.
To OP, I don’t know how to put it, but I feel there’s no real side to pick, expect for zealots and fanatics. A colonizing oppressive state is 150% wrong. Execution of civilians and exploiting your people misery to lead them to a theocratic disaster is 150% wrong.
I’m from a both jew and muslim family and… I’m glad they feel the same way.
Israel bombed some building in Palestine. The whole towers were flattened. That’s a war crime. Just because you do it with a fighter jet doesn’t make it more humane.
The apartheid is also a slow murder. I’d be interested to see statistics for all the people who died because of the blocus and the apartheid.
When Isreal openly advocates for Jews of other nationalities to come illegally occupy land that has supposedly been set aside for Palestinians they’re doing so to displace and replace them. How many resolutions about Palestine have been vetoed by only the US and Isreal with the rest of the world unilaterally telling Israel to cut it out? Shit, this one is from 7 years ago and was one of 18(!!!) similar resolutions against Isreal that year…
What Isreal is doing is genocide. I don’t for a minute condone all the methods Hamas is employing, but what’s happening is a predictable response from an increasingly desperate people
It’s not complicated. One side is doing a genocide, the other is resisting it. Screw everyone saying this is a complicated issue, it’s not. The only thing complicated about it is trying to justify it when you’re on the side of the Illegal Occupation of Palestine, because yes, it’s really ‘complicated’ to try and spin that like they’re not overwhelmingly in the wrong.
You’re right. There’s zero Jewish representation in the Arab world while Arabs make up about 20% of the Israeli population (and hold positions of power within the country). Israel is a tolerant society while saud, Qatar, etc. are largely intolerant of Jewish existence (they genocided their own Jewish populations).
You said they’re both pieces of shit and then went on to outline how one group doesn’t commit the atrocities of the other group, and generally just wants to exist. They’re not the same.
People on both sides just want to exists. Palestinians are suffocating under the occupation and vote for the “fuck them” party. Palestinians bite on the hand that’s hitting them and then Israelis vote for the “fuck them” party. Israelis bomb everything from apartments to hospitals in Gaza every now and then and Palestinian women get harassed at check points when they have to open the trunk of their car for soldiers.
This thing happening is beneficial to both parties in power to maintain power so going back to the status quo is actually very likely after Israel carpet bombs Gaza and rolls over them with tanks.
I mean, this is bad. It’s bad for everyone. It’s going to make everything 10x more tense and break down trust that Palestinians have been building with Israelis over the last 20 years. Even 40% of the left of the Knesset said they would be open for a government with Palestinian parties, up from 10% in 2017.
Then Hamas is royally fucking over West Bank Palestinians since they closed the check points and people can’t get to work, meet friends and vice versa for Palestinians living under Israeli rule.
I personally it’s wrong to support either since both violate human rights but please, doing something bad one time over 3 days is absolutely nothing compared to doing the same over 3 months for 70 years.
TBF they didn’t say they were equally shit, just that they both were.
I could be tall and be 6’2" or 7’, still tall in both cases, but one is taller.
It’s also ok to support neither or to say it’s too complicated to pick a side.
Speaking as an Israeli, both sides are fuckwits.
Don’t support either side.Our fight in this world, is not against islam, it’s against religion.
Jim jeffries.
Support critical rational evidence based thinking, and you made the world a tiny bit better.
If you are comfortable with your understanding of the situation and arguing for whichever side you choose to support instead of just refusing to hear anything to the contrary then support whoever you want.
Just know this isn’t like a sports team where there’s only superficial differences. It’s also ok to say I’m not informed enough to take one side or the other, or maybe only lean one way. You can point to unethical behavior on both sides, but I think it’s not unreasonable for people to hold one side more at blame than the other. Look into the history of the region and the ongoing discussion.
Thanks for being perhaps the only comment here trying to be helpful to those who aren’t deeply familiar with the conflict.
I think an important emphasis here is that people shouldn’t accept explanations of the situation that make things easy to understand.
Support peace. It is the only correct stance. There is zero reason for conflict, find a peaceful resolution.
Damn, should have told them sooner!
I think everyone loves hummus however.
Peace can only be achieved once one side has been destroyed, for the simple fact that neither can tolerate the others existence.
I wish peace was a viable option, but it just isn’t.
Yet if you’re not part of the conflict there’s no reason to support one side over the other.
I think that’s good advice for social situations, but if you truly believe there is genocide occurring, or exploration, then there is nothing wrong with supporting one side over the other.
Yeah there is. If you’re antifascist and anti-imperialist you should support the oppressed people.
If you don’t side explicitly against fascist states and American imperialism then you support it.
And support terrorism? Tell me how will these large scale attack make life better for Palestinians?
Terrorism or liberation?
How will the opposite help?
Injustice can happen under peace, so peace is not the answer. Peace is the language of the oppressor, liberation and justice is the language of the oppressed.
Also if America backs someone and calls their opponents terrorists even through they funded them, does that mean the opponents are actually terrorists?
It’s terrorism when you attack civilians. It’s liberation when you attack the military. I mean they must not give a shit about getting any kind of support because it looks really bad when you murder and kidnap people from a music festival especially when many of them were foreigners. That passes everyone off. And the Palestinians are gonna get murdered for it. I’m sure the ireaeli government is just giddy to have a huge excuse for their current invasion… the Gaza strip really needs to become a neutral zone at this point lol…
Even if they only hit military targets they would still be labeled as terrorists. You need a different word that hasn’t been massively overused.
If the support is conditional its not really support.
Did you even do any research before you came up with this bulshit liberal stance? The Gaza Strip a neutral zone? That’s like saying Israel needs to become a neutral zone.
What liberation will there be here? Do you expect the hamas to win anything against Israel? They would fight actual military targets if they could win anything.
Can you tell what this show of violence from the hamas will bring to Palestine? What will Palestine earn from this?
I’m all for fighting oppression. But I’m skeptical of sacrificing people for nothing.
Yes Israel is a fascist and terrorist country. And the US are hypocrite to support them. That being said, will a shower of rockets on civilians change any of that? No, on the contrary.
If any, Israel is the only one that will win from this new war.
The US aren’t hypocrites when they support fascist states its what they’ve always done unless public support hasn’t let them.
Hamas isn’t Palestine. I expect when the people rise up together they will win. There are way more organisations than Hama’s currently in this fight btw.
Last I’ve seen is that the Palestinian offensive is 10 km away from splitting Israel in two. We’ll see what the situation is when the dust settles.
For the moment I will continue to uncritically support the Palestinian struggle and call out those that don’t because they support genocide as the status quo.
It is. If Israel moves.
Israeli people and Palestinian people both have a legitimate claim to live in the land surrounding Jerusalem. Palestinians are mostly muslim, and there are other muslim places to live. Israeli people are mostly jewish, and there are no other jewish places to live. That said, religion isn’t ethnicity. Palestinians may be the same religion as other muslims, but they’re not the same race. Just like black americans are mostly christian, but that doesn’t mean they’re the same race as white americans. Israeli people can’t be guaranteed fair treatment elsewhere. Palestinian people have a right to live in their homes.
Israeli and Palestianian people both have a valid and important need to live in the holy land. So the simple solution is, they should both live there. That’s a solution supported by a lot of Isreali and Palestinian people. But it’s not a solution supported by the government of Israel. The government of Israel wants political control over the whole region, and to be able to legally and systemically put jews first.
I don’t think the correct answer is “support” or “don’t support”, because that’s too broad. I think the correct answer is to support the people’s rights, and support the government’s desire for safety for its people, but not to support the government’s treatment of palestinians.
there are no other Jewish places to live
This is such a weird stance. What even is this position that is nonchalantly thrown into the argument as if it even matters.
It’s the position of zionists. I threw it in for completeness, and added a counterargument. If you want me to explain their position more thoroughly, zionists believe that Jewish safety can only be guaranteed by Jewish independence. In any democracy, minorities are only protected as long as the majority vote for their interests. Zionists desire a state with a jewish majority, to guarantee safety. I don’t believe in states because I’m an anarchist, but I empathise with wanting the protection of a state.
In the United States, I find the Zionist argument to mostly be a racist Christian push to remove Jews from the US.
I recognize that people may believe it without that racism… But it’s just a crazy argument to me… And I think the way you originally presented it is the way that is normalized by extreme Christian organizations in the US which is why I called it out.
I like to fight against my opponent’s strongest position. If I were to ignore my opponent’s best arguments, then those I educate could change their minds later when they run into those arguments. If I acknowledge their best argument and refute it, then there’s nothing more they can do in the debate. OP didn’t know the first thing about Israel when I made that first comment. They ought to know why Israel thinks it’s in the right. If I say Israel are bad and don’t explain why they’re being bad, then I’m not properly educating OP. Every hateful or evil group in the world has some kind of reason they think they’re in the right. Understanding these reasons is essential.
Excellent.
That’s a solution supported by a lot of Isreali and Palestinian people. But it’s not a solution supported by the government of Israel. The government of Israel wants political control over the whole region, and to be able to legally and systemically put jews first.
Bro/sis you took the words off my tongue.
Nonbinary sib.
I don’t think religion is just a justification for owning any land. That’s kind of a backwards take. Regressive, really.
Huh. Okay that makes Sense to me. Thank you!
Which part?
I don’t think the correct answer is “support” or “don’t support”, because that’s too broad. I think the correct answer is to support the people’s rights, and support the government’s desire for safety for its people, but not to support the government’s treatment of palestinians.
So you’re saying disband both governments, replace with an international peace keeping force. That actually makes sense.
Also a lot of both Jews and Arabs just hate the other side so it’s not really the govt problem here.
Dog shit vs. cat shit; neither Israel nor Hamas give a shit about the well-being, territorial integrity or human rights of the other’s people. Now, as for Ukraine and Russia the latter is obviously in the wrong- anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves.
Here’s the thing, at the core of it, neither the people living in the israelian part nor the ones living in the palestinian one are really at fault here. The general public in general has no time for petty politics, being to busy to make a life. What you really want to blame are the agitators, the people who make it their life to create issues where there are none.
The majority of the population on both sides just want to live their own life in peace and they are not allowed to. So if you want to side wkth someone, side with them.
Blame the politicians who promote discord and occupation, blame the guerillas who attack innocent civilians, blame the religious proponents who spread hatred and bile. And plead with the general public to stop being such a bunch of pussies and actually put a stop to all the warmongering for everyone’s sake. Which is something we should all do, everywhere. But we won’t because we’re all pussies as well.
We’re not pussies; we’re poor.
By the way we trash talk on the internet, i’d say we’re pretty rich… in spirit.
Being for a very large group of people is illogical because (with the noteable exception of groups whose membership is defined solely by the actual actions of the members, i.e. " people who have commited gruesome murders") the group doesn’t need to have that many people for there to be an absolute certainty that at last one of its members are complete total shits, by which point a reductionist “supporting a group” ends up in part being “supporting some people who are complete total shits” and if you have any principles you don’t really lead your support in such a vague and open-ended way that you’re supporting such people.
The only reasons for a person to be for a group of people such as a nation are emotional, either tribalism or emotional reacting to things you hear about “them” or done to “them” (and not having the intellectual filters to read said “them” as reductionist bollocks), which is why Propaganda works so well in this domain.
By the way, this logic also applies to being against a group, which is the core of a lot of “-isms” such as racism (again, from some complete total shits there is a generalization to all members of a group not defined by their actions), making the person against the group be de facto against some very good people.
Being against doing bad shit, without the reductionism, obfuscation and and dehumanization of looking it as “sides” rather than people, is probably the only logical thing to do as there you have a path from morably reprehensible actions to the people who did them without diffusing to meaninglessness the actual judgments about “specific people who chose to do or not do certain things”.
PS: By the way, this is also why I dislike news about “Company X/Government Y did bad thing” - the company or government are not self-aware entities with agency, it’s people in positions of power there making the choices and I think we would have a much better world if the Press did its job and named names rather than willfully going along with the diffusing and obfuscating of responsability.
This conflict is so ridiculously complicated.
Short answer: Sure, why would you need our approval anyway.
Longer answer: it’s a complicated conflict where shitty things are done by both sides and it’s probably not as simple as supporting one side over the other all the time.
I’d say a lot of it is politicians being political for their own gains and normal people (Israeli and Palestinian) getting fucked. But who am I eh?
