this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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The problem I have with the "both sides" argument is while I agree we should not approve of Hamas' actions, Israel routinely murders civilians without consequence. We tut and tsk but we still send them basically unlimited aid and approval.
Yes both sides behave badly but one side does so with our explicit support.
Don't forget how Israel sells world-class spyware to despots and dictators, who use it to terrorise journalists and political opponents.
Including their supposed arch nemesis in Saudi Arabia, who used their tech to kill Khashoggi
There's a bit of a moral difference though. When you say 'routinely murders civilians', in a lot of cases we're talking about protestors throwing rocks or molotovs at police or soldiers. Or when Hamas is firing missiles from a schoolyard or the roof of a hospital. Where do you draw the line where police/army/country has the right to defend themselves? Of course it creates a tense situation and Israel is going to close ranks around those who are far too trigger happy.
But there's still a huge difference with Hamas' stated and demonstrated goal to kill off all jews. Israel is trying to bully the muslims so that they would emigrate, but they're not killing civilians to wipe them out (if that were the case they would be failing).
As a comparison Israel is acting more like Morocco colonising the Western Sahara and Hamas is acting like Europeans genociding the Native Americans
IDF soldiers have murdered plenty of children. It is routine and I don't care if they are protesting, they are entitled to protest oppression.
Hamas are disgusting and Israel are cunts but Hamas is because of what Israel does.
Well if you casually leave out that part it becomes a lie by omission. And there's a reason you have to use this lie both to yourself and to others. It has a whole different ring to it when you say "IDF regularly shoot teenagers throwing molotov cocktails in protest" instead of "routinely murdering children".
Mohammed Tamimi is the youngest Palestinian killed in the conflict this year (June 2023)
Shot in the head by Israeli forces.
He was 2.
Siblings Ali and Mayar ed-Din, who were killed in an IDF airstrike on May 9, 2023
Damn teenagers get younger with every cull.
Israel made those men kill hundreds of people at a concert. They had no other choice. Brave protestors. Do you even listen to yourself?
We (the EU at least) also send a lot of aid to Palestinians.
Israel should be sanctioned and decolonized like South Africa was.
And I, for one, believe that that would have happened a long time ago if the Palestinians had followed the Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi playbook.
Perhaps I am wrong. Like the rest of the world, I also don't have the solution for this quagmire.
The experiment has actually been running already. The Gaza Strip is run by Hamas, which is violent and pushes back against Israel however they can. The West Bank is run by Fatah, which has been attempting to keep good relations with Israel and work with them.
Despite that, the West Bank has seen a continuing encroachment of illegal Israeli settlers, continuing violence directed at Palestinians, both by the settlers moving in there and by the Israeli army. The reason the border with Gaza was so ill-defended was because Netanyahu had moved much of the force usually stationed there into the West Bank. Palestinian deaths in the West Bank has been rising.
I don't think the Mahatma Ghandi approach is likely to work in the Middle East. At least no better than any other approach people have been trying has been working there.
The US sends aid to palestine as well, just nowhere near as much as we do to israel.
And there isn't a good solution. No matter what, everybody will be mad. Mad and not violent would be nice, though.
Development aid, not weapons as the west supplies to Israel. But otherwise you're right. The whole region should be disarmed.
The only way to disarm "the whole region" would be to basically level all of it and make it totally uninhabitable.
That thought also crossed my mind.
I’m not saying it’s the right move
But it would solve a whole lot of issues.