I do think the situation is more complicated than Lemmy would have you believe.
Both Iran and Hamas have been geopolitical issues for a long time. And it’s worth remembering that all of this was kicked off by a large scale terrorist attack perpetrated by Hamas.
It’s also worth noting that Iran is a Russian puppet, and Europe obviously has some “neighbor problems” with Russia at the moment, so there’s a sort of baked in desire to oppose their vassal states.
And, while I think everyone would agree that the loss of civilian life is terrible, there is a huge amount of misinformation that makes it hard to be sure what’s going on. Hamas does have a long history of screwing over the civilian Palestinian population to further it’s political goals, and so people are willing to give Israel a little more credence than they deserve when they claim things like “Hamas was hiding in that hospital” or “we’re blocking aid because Hamas is hoarding it all to drive up tensions” or “it was Hamas who shot those civilians,” because it actually wouldn’t be the first time any of that had credibly happened. Something of a boy-cried-wolf scenario.
Add into that genuine desire to combat real anti-Semitism that’s been a fallout of this whole situation (a problem that hits pretty close to home in Europe due to events of the past century), and you can see why some people might be a bit over-eager to support Israel in this conflict.
It’s worth noting there are no good guys here. Israel is obviously in the wrong, and are committing horrible atrocities. I think that much is plain on its face. But Hamas and Iran have both had “the destruction of the state of Israel” as stated policy goals for the past 80 years. The reason Israel has the Iron Dome is because they’ve been getting missiles lobbed at them non-stop for decades.
And when there are no good guys, people tend to just align themselves with who they like more, or who they owe more to.
Israel has commited genocide and ethnic cleansing since the first day it was conceived and reducing this to “both sides are bad” because the Palestinian way of resisting is not perfect is not an fair assessment of the situation.
This is a great example why we should be really careful discussing history here. Yes, the Nakba did happen. But what did happen before the Nakba? The arab attack on Israel right after it was founded. What did happen before that? The arab revolt from 1936-1939. What did happen after the Nakba? The deportation of Jews from nearly all arab countries. What did happen after that? Several wars, intifadas, terror acts from both sides and so on. There can’t be peace when you use history like that. Both sides can point to atrocities of the other side and continue fighting - to take your words, palestinians were killing Jews even before Israel was founded and Israel was attacked several times with a clear genocidal intention and there are people living in Israel who were ethnical cleansed out of arab states.
I feel like the saying “an eye for an eye makes the while world blind” fits here.
However, also,
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
Yeah and you´re totally sane when you ignore what happened before that, of course. Extremists from both sides have been trying to put a genocide on the other to claim the soon-to-be-independent territory for more than a hundred years
Both Iran and Hamas have been geopolitical issues for a long time. And it’s worth remembering that all of this was kicked off by a large scale terrorist attack perpetrated by Hamas.
Propaganda is deeply effective because most people’s world events attention span is like a dog that sees a squirrel. History starts at the chosen squirrel event, and of course, geopolitics is viewed as “Us the good guys” vs. “those who fail to obey us”.
Your rant was praised as balanced, but is simply the official justification for colonial apartheid turned genocide our rulers, in submission to our own colonial masters, dictate upon us.
I do think the situation is more complicated than Lemmy would have you believe.
Both Iran and Hamas have been geopolitical issues for a long time. And it’s worth remembering that all of this was kicked off by a large scale terrorist attack perpetrated by Hamas.
It’s also worth noting that Iran is a Russian puppet, and Europe obviously has some “neighbor problems” with Russia at the moment, so there’s a sort of baked in desire to oppose their vassal states.
And, while I think everyone would agree that the loss of civilian life is terrible, there is a huge amount of misinformation that makes it hard to be sure what’s going on. Hamas does have a long history of screwing over the civilian Palestinian population to further it’s political goals, and so people are willing to give Israel a little more credence than they deserve when they claim things like “Hamas was hiding in that hospital” or “we’re blocking aid because Hamas is hoarding it all to drive up tensions” or “it was Hamas who shot those civilians,” because it actually wouldn’t be the first time any of that had credibly happened. Something of a boy-cried-wolf scenario.
Add into that genuine desire to combat real anti-Semitism that’s been a fallout of this whole situation (a problem that hits pretty close to home in Europe due to events of the past century), and you can see why some people might be a bit over-eager to support Israel in this conflict.
It’s worth noting there are no good guys here. Israel is obviously in the wrong, and are committing horrible atrocities. I think that much is plain on its face. But Hamas and Iran have both had “the destruction of the state of Israel” as stated policy goals for the past 80 years. The reason Israel has the Iron Dome is because they’ve been getting missiles lobbed at them non-stop for decades.
And when there are no good guys, people tend to just align themselves with who they like more, or who they owe more to.
This is insane when Israel was killing Palestinians years before Hamas even existed.
The Nakba happened 40 years before they existed.
Israel has commited genocide and ethnic cleansing since the first day it was conceived and reducing this to “both sides are bad” because the Palestinian way of resisting is not perfect is not an fair assessment of the situation.
This is a great example why we should be really careful discussing history here. Yes, the Nakba did happen. But what did happen before the Nakba? The arab attack on Israel right after it was founded. What did happen before that? The arab revolt from 1936-1939. What did happen after the Nakba? The deportation of Jews from nearly all arab countries. What did happen after that? Several wars, intifadas, terror acts from both sides and so on. There can’t be peace when you use history like that. Both sides can point to atrocities of the other side and continue fighting - to take your words, palestinians were killing Jews even before Israel was founded and Israel was attacked several times with a clear genocidal intention and there are people living in Israel who were ethnical cleansed out of arab states.
I feel like the saying “an eye for an eye makes the while world blind” fits here.
However, also,
— Desmond Tutu
Yeah and you´re totally sane when you ignore what happened before that, of course. Extremists from both sides have been trying to put a genocide on the other to claim the soon-to-be-independent territory for more than a hundred years
Propaganda is deeply effective because most people’s world events attention span is like a dog that sees a squirrel. History starts at the chosen squirrel event, and of course, geopolitics is viewed as “Us the good guys” vs. “those who fail to obey us”.
Your rant was praised as balanced, but is simply the official justification for colonial apartheid turned genocide our rulers, in submission to our own colonial masters, dictate upon us.
That’s a really balanced comment and I’m sorry you’re getting downvoted for it.