this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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Does a historical claim hold weight over a long established later claim? No-one knows the answer to this one - how old must a claim be before it becomes invalid?
Are restrictive religious laws ok? I think the resounding answer is always "mine are, but theirs aren't", which really is just a recipe for war eternal. They never strike me as ok, because most of them focus on making a group of people "the other".
Is murdering civilians to achieve military objectives ok? No, it isn't, everyone knows that really - it's an idea that belongs in the middle ages and should have been left there.
I don't think I could join the Israel vs Palestine camps (both governments are shit - both are out for genocide), I think I prefer the camp filled with people who just want an end to the conflict, people who live on both sides of those ill defined borders.
What does everyone who matters (the people living through this hell) really want? They want their lives back, the ability to be themselves, and carry out their traditions undisturbed. Most of all, they want the killing and persecution to stop, and the time to mourn their losses.
How do we do that? Put the guns down, stop the bombardments and bombings, have each side treat the wounded of the other side, and then figure out the rest without starting the killing again.
Hamas isn't a government, it's a terrorist group. It's also horrible to Palestinians and it undermines the actual government of Palestine, the Palestinian Authority. There was just an article posted to Lemmy that talked about how Likud (the far right party governing Israel that's undermined peace talks multiple times) helped fund Hamas.
Oppressed people can't "put their guns down" because they're being exterminated. Only the oppressor can stop. If you're really against both Hamas and Israel, then you believe that Israel needs to stop committing genocide. If you're pretending "both sides" are equal, then you're playing the same game Trump said when he equated people waving Nazi and confederate flags witj people trying not to be killed by people waving Nazi and confederate flags by saying "both sides are to blame."
Pretending oppressed people have as much power as their oppressors is the game oppressors use to perpetuate their oppression.
You mean based on the election that happened 17 years ago? Considering the average age in Gaza is 18 it's pretty likely the people who voted for Hamas aren't even alive anymore.
So you're holding people accountable for something most of them never even had a say in?
Normally the people here are always saying it's the obligation of the people to go against their evil government. Why not in this case? How many protests took place in Palestine against Hamas? Or against the violence they used against their own people?
There's an evil government right next to the border ready to make their lives hell if they do that, and it's people don't give a fuck.
You think Israel would go against people in Gaza or the Westbank when they would try to change their laws to the better? Or go against the terrorists in their own country? There is no indication for that to be true.
People in Gaza and Westbank regularly protest, but exclusively against Israel. That does seem a lot like they are happy with the status of their own government. Which includes regular attacks on civilian targets in Israel, the oppression and sometimes murder of gay people, oppression of women and minorities, corruption and seizing of global aids and a call for a pure muslim country.
You don't think the near-permanent humanitarian crisis, half the population being children and Israel still effectively controlling Gaza gives Palestine the exception from the normality? Nothing is normal about Palestine so why should we treat them normally?
Or, I'm looking at people rather than nations, which is the correct way to view any conflict.
My argument is that both sides put their guns down, because that's how a war stops. Both sides treat the injured of the other side, since that is how empathy is built and denial is eliminated. Homes can be rebuilt, and land disagreements can be settled, but nothing will bring the dead back; there are some things that cannot be undone. These are the things we need to stop FIRST.
"POLARIZATION: Extremists drive the groups apart. Hate groups broadcast polarizing propaganda. Motivations for targeting a group are indoctrinated through mass media" ( http://genocidewatch.net/genocide-2/8-stages-of-genocide/)
The people of both sides are already doing that. I'm not sure what the proposal is here. In what hospitals would the Palestinians treat the injured of the other side? The ones that are being levelled by the IDF? With what medical supplies? The ones that are denied to them by the IDF? Palestinians are being exterminated. The people of Israel needs to overthrow Likud and hold them accountable. The people of Israel need fight their government to stop this. The Palestinians, for the most part, are also victims of the same thing.
The US needs to stop supporting Likud, and US citizens need to riot until the government listens to them. Everyone needs to stand together to stop governments from doing this, absolutely. But we need to be realistic about who has power and who actually can take action.
Hamas is the government of Gaza. Claiming otherwise is spreading misinformation.
The government of Gaza is currently holding hostages. The government of Israel has said it's not stopping until those hostages are released.
To claim the Palestinians have no power is spreading misinformation. They absolutely have the power to stop this war.
None of this is to say what Israel's government is doing is acceptable.
I agree, but it's also arguably more complicated than this. I follow a DUI lawyer on youtube who happened to be in Israel (and fairly close to a crossfire) when the war started. He gave this very real and very neutral explanation of things those of us outside the region often miss, covering his upbringing in Israel.
Basically, he said, the most common opinion you can hear from either side is "the only good OTHER SIDE is a dead OTHER SIDE". From the mouths of civilians, from children. They believe it because their parents told them it and because they've lived through conflict that corroborates it.
To want peace at all costs, but to still instinctively dehumanize the other side is a very complicated place to be. And you can understand why both sides' civilians might feel that way about the other. So many people feel a desire for justice, but to both countries, justice is the other side being punished.
When you describe a group of people as a rabid dog and when you describe mass murderers as having more of a good reason for it, you need to stop and rethink your entire view. Something in your reasoning is just morally broken.
There are plenty of good people. There are plenty of non-combatants in both Palestine and Israel who really wish the violence could end tomorrow, and they really wouldn't follow it up with other attacks. You know how I know? Because there's people like that in every country in the world. Of course some people are way into violence, but many other people just want to live their lives. And we all agree that it's difficult to make that happen.
You wrote that in Palestinian culture many people would happily sacrifice their own life just to kill some Israelis. Surely that's true for some people. But which is worse, sacrificing your own life to take out an enemy, or sacrificing your friend's life to take out an enemy? They're both pretty horrible, and I see no need to go into any further analysis, except to remark that this is where your reasoning leads.
I feel you showed great restraint by not putting reason in inverted commas there.
What's Israel's superior justification, and where's any evidence of restraint beyond keeping things juuuust below the threshold where the US will be forced to withdraw support from it's regional toehold?