Seems like the discourse has broken down to picking sides.
Hamas is a terrorist organization and does nothing to help the Palestinian people. Israel is indiscriminately leveling a city with absolutely zero regard for innocent lives.
Maybe this situation is full of nuance and grey areas that a single tweet or article or comic can’t fully encapsulate.
Hamas is the the elected ruling group of Palestine. Even referring to the current Israeli government and army as Israel, but then making a distinction between Hamas and Palestine is hypocritical.
They “governed” in the gaza strip, yes, but when was the last election exactly? In 2006 they got in power, then they murdered their political opponents and have kept their power through force ever since
Saying that they’re elected by and represent the people would be a bit of a stretch
Right, but folks say Israel is one, the whole nation, but Hamas is the other, they aren’t Palestine. The differenciation in one and not the other is hypocritical and problematic.
Say Palestine vs Israel, accepting that it’s assumed it their ruling body and army at war, and not the average people.
What’s frustrating to me as a person who’s generally against violence is that Israel has a pretty elite secret police force and pretty elite special forces that they (apparently) haven’t used at all to deal with the actual perpetrators of the October 7th massacre & kidnapping.
They just started bombing thousands of civilians to kill dozens, maybe hundreds of Hamas militants.
Like, surely they could have cut the head off the Hamas Snake with surgical strike teams infiltrating Gaza, probably the West Bank, and international locations in Qatar or wherever the leadership is.
Reasonable people could conclude that Israel had to respond to Oct 7th, and that the best target would be Hamas. I can’t fathom how any reasonable people could conclude that bombing groups of people with 90% or more innocent civilians and the rest possible militants is a good response.
I can imagine that UNreasonable people might conclude that all Palestinians are guilty by association (because Hamas is their Netanyahu-supported elected government) and they’re all militants (even the babies). Or those unreasonable people might believe that Palestinians aren’t people worthy of protection.
Israel could simply have not starved the people living in the Gaza strip to death over the course of decades while occasionally flicking airstrikes at them, which they were doing long before October.
I often wonder how people can forget this considering Isreal has been commiting genocide, ethnic cleansing, hate crimes since it’s inception like wtf ?
It's actually surprising that Hamas didn't get more votes in the election, when the other option was getting ruled by Fatah. Who would want the enemy's puppet governing them?
What’s the point of voting when you could have your entire family obliterated at any instant ? Women in palestine have said that their only wish when their children dies in a strike is to find their bodies intact and not pieces by pieces. Just remembering these words is making me sick and They’re living it. Fuck Isreal and anyone that defend it.
I think you are overestimating the value of special forces. We kind of mythologize them with our media, but they are not action heroes. You arnt going to send them into a hostile city where Hamas is not in uniform, planned for the retaliation, had time to prepare, and expect them to come out with low casualties.
Even the US after 9-11 didn’t just send in spec ops after Osama, they went in whole hog. And that was estimated at about 4.5 million casualties all around.
It sucks, but Hamas isn’t going to start wearing uniforms and abiding by the Geneva convention any time soon.
Actually, weren’t they severely embarrassed by those recent attacks, having been totally caught off guard? Maybe we’re overestimating just how good their forces really are.
What you’re saying is during an active war they haven’t heavily publicised what their special forces and secret agents have been doing?
I say heavily because they have mentioned various success their covert units have had, one example is them sneaking into a tunnel while everyone was busy firing rockets at Israel then taking all the secret documents revealing the location of other tunnel networks and fighters.
Of course Israel wants to find the kidnapped people and free them, of course they want to kill or capture the Hamas leaders, and of course they don’t want to kill innocent people. Those aren’t easy things in the situation they’re in.
The leader of Hamas assuming he’s back from his recent trip to Iran is at home in Doha, the local commanders are in their bases deep under hospitals, the fighters are dressed as civilians and of course get added to the civilian casualties lists - especially the teenagers fighting for Hamas…
People act like Israel is in an easy position but that really isn’t close to reality.
A terrorist attack that targeted civilians exclusively and subsequently slowly killing hostages while using them for propaganda videos and shooting at fleeing Palestinians is not “fighting for freedom”.
Educate yourself on the entire conflict before you publicly support terrorism.
Don’t worry i read the long list of Israel crimes, saw enough video,images of what’s Israel has done to Palestinians to be well educated. At least enough that you’re bullshit pro Isreal propaganda doesn’t work.
Sorry not playing your stupid game of who is worse and whataboutism
Both are doing horrible things to people. We should highlight each of those. If you think one action justify the other, you will get in a vicious circle And we should fight for human rights, not against each other.
Hamas are fighting for their freedom. They’re killing/kidnapping civilians because Isreal has been doing it for decades and been cheered for it. Massacre can go both ways.
It’s called fight for freedom. The fuck are they supposed to do ? accept being massacre , just wait for the next bomb to kill their entire family ? Wtf ?
That’s a very difficult question to answer but they’re doing it your way and now there’s just more massacre on both sides with seemingly no end in sight. Is it really freedom if everyone is dead?
Have you ever read about any colonized country ? The colonizers commited the most heinous acts to the natives and when they inevitably insurge they’d massacre them. These countries are free because they fought until they become free. Death is inevitable until freedom is gained.
I see your point but there’s gotta be a better example. The natives didn’t have any allies that could stand up to the colonizers or even a way to ask for outside help. Today, we have the internet.
I’m just spitballing here in my privileged American home, but if Hamas was vocal about not stooping to Israel’s civilian-killing level, and did major damage to a political building without harming anyone, that could have given Palestinians more sympathy on the world stage. Even if it’s the thing that “must be done for survival”, it’s really hard to be on the side of innocent killing. I personally can’t be on either side of this conflict, and many feel the same.
So the the several decades of massacre, ethnic cleansing , forced land seizing and house demolishing to give to fucking settlers that Isreal has been commiting towards the Palestinian was okey ? When palistinians attack the fucking settlers that stole their land it’s too much ?
You didn’t read my post. I’m on nobody’s side. What Isreal has done is 100% not okay, and at scale much worse than what Hamas has collectively done in response.
I read it. Not siding with the ones that are fighting for freedom because they’re fighting for freedom doesn’t make sense to me. Have you ever read about any colonized country ? Reading about the fight of the colonized for freedom and the tactics used by colonizers to delegitimize their fights from killing civilians as punishment, calling the freedom fighters terrorists to playing the victim and lying to achieve that status. It’s eye opening.
If Palestine continues with their eye for an eye approach, they are going to lose their fight for freedom. They need strong allies, like every other country fighting for their freedom. Ukraine is the best example I have, but I know it’s not the same. I hope Palestine gets their freedom my friend, it doesn’t look good so far. This is the last comment I’m gonna make.
but if Hamas was vocal about not stooping to Israel’s civilian-killing level, and did major damage to a political building without harming anyone, that could have given Palestinians more sympathy on the world stage.
How? their rockets barely do anything. The only way for them to do damage is a ground invasion, and for that to happen they'd need the help of radicalized Gazans, and those Gazans will 100% do harm to civilians.
Plus "sympathy on the world stage" isn't worth two Qasam rockets.
Even if it’s the thing that “must be done for survival”, it’s really hard to be on the side of innocent killing. I personally can’t be on either side of this conflict, and many feel the same.
It doesn't matter, if you're a citizen of the US or Europe, then you're automatically assigned to the occupation terrorists side by your government. Hamas wasn't looking for your support, because you can do nothing, only your glorious supreme leader can.
Your argumentation is pretty shortened. Its the same argument if somebody say, Israel is fighting for its freedom after anti semitic movements and nazism in central and eastern europe.
There are no rights, when it comes to harming innocent civilians.
Edit: On both sides of course, same.goes for the army of Israel and not helping civilians.
Isreal is killing civilians deliberately to punish them for their fight freedom. Colonizers in the past used this tactic with every country they colonized. The colonizer must not feel safe in the land he’s stealing. The colonizer need to fucking leave.
Earth is dying, ressources depleting and temperature are rising. Do you expect a bright future ahead ? By 2050, the Middle East will have unbearable heat waves and it will be getting worse from there. It’s there now , yes, but doubt it’ll be there in the next century. Most humanity either, but that’s a bonus.
you mean attacking military infrastructure one year+ of shelling?
That's not as bad as 17years of starvation and oppression.
Ukraine is very organized compared to Hamas; they have an actual government that's allowed to function and can instruct it's troops.
If Russia was surrounding Ukraine while the US wasn't giving aid to them, the Ukrainian government would either not exist, or become a "terrorist group" that's divided into a dozen militants that are barely organized. An attack formed by this group would be devastating to Russian civilians, because even if the head of this organization intends on not hurting civilians, will the militant groups that are mostly comprised of radicalized Ukrainians looking for revenge care?
Thats something completely different. If Ukraine did or does war crimes, they should be condemned.
Ukraine should start committing war crimes, maybe that would get them more US support.
Or they would get completely wiped out. Like look at the occupied territory of Ukraine.
Oh, so if you are fighting a bigger country and don't have allies, just die. Very smart move.
If the purpose of the comment is to show that the occupation is being merciful by not wiping out Palestine, then you might be ignoring that they're doing just that.
Just look at how much space settlements are taking up in the West bank. They're just doing it more slowly because they'll have useful agents like you to defend them after Palestinians inevitably resort to violence.
The US wouldn't even condemn the building of these settlements, even though their condemnation would do absolutely nothing.
Yea lets commit war crimes, who doesn’t want to live in such a world.
Defending what? Is it their land they're defending? Last time I checked Russia was claiming that the land belonged either to them or to an independent state. That would be attacking.
Yeah, the fact that your president sided with the colonizer was the most ironic shit ever . You’re fight for freedom is a terrorist act to Russia but i don’t side with a colonizer ever.
i’m not defending anything, i have no knowledge of the situation in israel and am not qualified to talk about the good and bad, but i’ve seen what hamas did, and i see that as a terrorism. and i will not let the comparison of us and hamas slide.
Just don’t engage with anyone who unfairly accuses you of “antisemitism”. Antisemitism is indeed a serious problem, but it doesn’t apply here. There is a huge difference between criticizing a government and criticizing a religion, but some people can’t/won’t accept that.
People who casually throw the word “antisemitism” around are usually too emotionally invested to have a real conversation, and/or they’re just trying to put you on the defensive. Never be afraid to abandon a conversation. You are not required to respond to anything someone says.
The peoblem is that at demonstrations against Israel there are a lot of people who confuse that. So there actually is a lot of antisemitism happening. Some people who are strongly antisemitic just take the whole conflict as an excuse. Ofc not the majority, but there are allways idiots.
It just means we have to do a bit of extra labour to make sure our movements are not infiltrated by shitbirds. I was just at a protest this weekend, and was pleased by the handful of signs I saw specifically denouncing anti-semitism.
Yes, it sucks that we have to throw in what feels like a parenthetical, while people are bleeding out under tonnes of rubble, but y’know, I guess that’s just where we’re at as a species right now.
Here in France, you even have the far right who is 100% racist and antisemitic , who start to be accepted by the average population, as defensor of the Jews and being seen as an wall to protect them…
Because here in France, they have made the movement against antisemitic a movement against Arabs and assimilated.
American here. The progressives among us despise the fact that bigotry is becoming more and more acceptable. We’re supposed to be outgrowing that shit, not encouraging it!
This whole thing has given antisemites plausible deniability to express their hateful views. It’s impossible to tell who is anti-Israel because of antisemitism and who is anti-Israel for other reasons.
I’m not a fan of this war. Just a reminder of the massive war crimes hamas committed to reignite this though. Zero justification for either side to commit them but also seems strange ignoring theirs in favour of Israel’s
There is a huge difference between criticizing a government and criticizing a religion
Agreed, but I don’t think it’s religious bigotry; I think it’s racial bigotry. Antisemitism is a form of racism. Do you think the Nazis gave atheist Jews a free pass?
Criticising Judaism doesn’t make you an anti-semite. There’s valid criticisms to be raised against most religions, this can be done without resorting to hostility or prejudice.
Some can’t voice their views without putting their livelihoods on the line. We need protections for people to voice their opinions on Zionism without being labeled an anti-Semite.
The worst part is I can’t tell if this if people genuinely thinking this and commenting, or if the comments are the results are part of an Israeli cyber operation to sway public sentiment after bombing civilians.
Could be that they both decided to make accounts because they had something important that needed saying.
While new/seemingly single issue accounts can be an aggravating factor when you suspect someone of being a troll or otherwise dishonest actor, it shouldn’t be considered suspicious for their first posts/comments to be a completely reasonable take on a controversial topic.
I don’t remember what my first comment on Lemmy was, but there’s a 50/50 chance it was something honest about a controversial political topic.
The other 50 are 30% chance of trying to be funny on a meme post and 20% commenting on how adorable an animal is.
That line of arguing might have worked a few weeks ago, but we have seen numerous times people were bombed in the place they were specifically told to evacuate to. 11,000+ people killed so far, over 4,000 children. If they aren’t terrorists then they are prisoners like you said, so why are they being slaughtered by IDF bombing?
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