Don’t fall into the trap of ‘picking sides’ over Gaza: Hamas’s attacks were unconscionable, razing Gaza to the ground would be abhorrent. In both cases, basic humanity is at stake --- [Opinion]

The big thing is the Hamas attack wasnt the start of all this. It wasnt Israel minding their own business and Hamas invading for the glory of Islam. The warning cries of a humanitarian crisis were going off long before this recent war, from international humanitarian agencies like Unicef. Gaza was being militarily oppressed by Israel, blocking humanitarian aid, international trade, even denying access to their own waters for fishing.

Civilians were dying off already as a result of Israel, and Israel ignored the warnings, the international community ignored the warnings, and then its shocked pikachus all around as a dying people fight back for survival.

You can point out back and forth violence going into the 1800s. Nobody has clean hands in this conflict.
- Yeah, but siding with Israel here is the logical equivalent of siding with Andrew Jackson and supporting the Indian Removal Act as he committed genocide against the native people.
  The power imbalance and how Israel has used it is what makes it imperative that Israel be held accountable by the international community.
- Except jews, christians and muslims lived pretty much peacefully together during ottoman rule. The violence worsened when britian controlled palestine and then became a lot worse during the nakba and israeli occupation. It's not about 'having clean hands'. It's about stopping genocide and understanding that occupation and colonialism leads to violent pushback. It always has and always will.
- Mostly it goes back to the 1940's. There was more history of Zionism beforehand, Jewish settlers gradually coming in to live in the holy land. But after WW2 was the large influx and big push for a Jewish ethnostate. Aaand the people living there already opposed it from the start. And since then it's been very apparent why, because Israel pushes beyond the borders they were already given from Palestinian land, and militarily occupy the Palestinian land they dont yet claim.
- You can go back much much further than the 1800s, back to the start of zionism.
I do agree the Hamas attack wasn't the start of this. However tactically it was incredibly silly, honestly what did they think would happen?
They gave Netanyahu, who was finally fumbling at the reigns after almost thirty years aan excuse to execute his wet dreams and all of Israel uniting behind him.
I see no way how they could have thought the attack would benefit their cause.
- I dont think people are appreciating the context of Gazans dying off. It wasnt a stable situation that was fine to continue as it was going, imagine youre locked in a room with a lunatic with a knife trying to kill you. Youre not likely to beat the lunatic, but youre gonna try, you dont have any other options.
  Waiting didnt work, protests didnt work, pleading with the international community didnt work, they cant leave. Everyone keeps saying they shouldnt have fought back, but what should they have done? Nothing is not available as an option.
- Should they have protested instead? How about in the land of the free?
They did a little more than simply "fight back." They also engaged in widespread and utterly gratuitous acts of violence and torture in ways that can only have been calculated to trigger an overreaction on the part of Israel. They knew exactly what they were doing and what would happen. They obviously don't give a fuck about their own people.
- Where you getting torture from?
Why doesn't Egypt open the border?
- Because Israel will never let them back in if they leave. That is not hypothetical; it happened to thousands of Palestinians during the 6-day war, and their families are still stuck in Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon today.
- Why doesn't Israel stop doing things that require other countries to intervene
- They don't want them either.
  All the Arab world may be united in it's hatred of Israel, but that doesn't mean they like each other...
- Israel occupies that border too https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhiladelphiRoute
- Why do you think a Levantine Trail of Tears is an acceptable solution rather than ethnic cleansing?
- @FaulerFuffi assuming that's a genuine question there are a bunch of reasons and one is they don't want to open themselves up to being attacked by Israel.
  Why Egypt Won't Open The Border To Its Palestinian Neighbours.
  500 people came through recently iirc.
It all started when Israel showed up on the block and forcibly removed 700000 Palestinians from their homes. There's no history before that worth discussing as it is archeological records, not history.
Areas that were once 90% Palestinian, suddenly became 90% Jewish. Those people are still fighting to get their homes back, and Israel is continuing to evict Palestinians daily.
The first step to a solution is to recognize that Israel's goals are to ethnically cleanse the area and then work from there.

This is a false equivalence. Most of the rhetoric I've seen about Hamas is that it's an inevitable consequence of Israel's treatment of restricting the Palestinian people to an open-air prison. Saying "We can't support either Hamas or Israel" ignores the fact that most people in favor of Palestine are in favor of the civilians, the people who did nothing and are still bombed and tortured and executed. Not to say that Hamas deserves to be bombed and tortured, they're citizens as well that shouldn't be in this situation in the first place, but the large majority of support is in favor of the Palestinian people more broadly that are just unfortunate enough to be adjacent to the conflict and are forced to deal with the consequences of Israel's bloodlust

to be clear: I do think Palestinians have a right to fight for their own freedom. But with the amount of disinformation at play here i don't know how many atrocities are actually committed by Hamas and how many are the result of Israeli misinformation campaigns. But the amount of any of that doesn't change how I feel -- Innocent civilians should never die in a conflict like this. I don't care if Hamas is doing it [edit: or not. The purpose of this statement is to show that I don't care if Hamas is doing something abhorrent and Israel isn't, or vice versa because it's irrelevant to the broader point. Just to clarify, my language was unclear], Israel is very clearly ALSO doing it, and it's abhorrent and gross no matter who. But in terms of the conceptual "high ground" the west likes to bandy around, Palestinians have a right to fight for its freedom from an occupying colonial force.

Ok, so if I just take quite exactly your argument and say: I don't care if Israel is doing it, but Hamas is using violence, and THAT is abhorrent. Then what?
Sorry, but this abstraction and contextualisation is exactly wrong. This conflict is never ever going to be resolved if people do obviously wrong things for some abstract justification from A past they conceive.
Also your conspiracy take which makes you simply discard large chunk of information based on your gut feeling is just crazy. I find it quite audacious to say stuff like that and still fake a reasonable argumentation.
- I don't care who is doing it because it's abhorrent from both ends, regardless of the frequency or scale. It's bad no matter what.
  But the ends don't justify the means in either case, so in stead we need to evaluate what's being fought for in the first place for context, because both sides are commiting atrocities on various scales so you can try to one up whichever side you disagree with so we need to look at the context of the fight and what's being fought for. Under that lens, israel is an occupying colonial force by any metric and was given it's current territory by other colonial, imperial forces. It's claim to the state of Palestine is tenuous at best and isn't even consistent with the Jewish faith, where Jews see themselves as perpetually in exile until their Messiah comes. Israel leverages it's position as a colonial ethnostate to make people correlate support of the Jewish faith with support of their apartheid ethnostate, which is also a false equivalence. None of this is a conspiracy theory, it's rooted in fact and also agnostic to which side is committing more atrocities. I'm not saying Hamas is doing nothing wrong, I'm saying relative to this point it doesn't matter if they are or not. Hamas are Palestinians that had their homes robbed from them, Israelis are not.
- Israel and Hamas are on the same side. That side is war. They're both the bad guys. The good guys are the civilians.
Nothing justifies bombing children. Noone's 'right to defend themselves' should include this.
- Hamas also killed children and fires at Israel, so is Libanon. That children die is a consequence of the bombing. People pretend as if Israel is explicitly targeting groups of children to throw bombs at them. What you are saying is that people should not be at war and I agree.
- I agree.
thanks for this, seems like the most reasonable take.
- You forgot about the third side of the conflict again. The innocent civlians Israel (and Hamas) are killing are the good guys. The two theocratic pro-genocide states are exactly the same and both on the same side. That side is war and death.
Even the misinformation is very one-sided.

The article opens with "what about America's response to 9/11?". JFC, what a shitty justification. America was clearly wrong to war crime all over Iraq just as Israel is in the wrong for warcriming all over Palestine. I refuse to "both sides" imperialists and their victims. Frankly, "both sides" is the trap one should avoid.

Iraq
Afghanistan, Iraq was later and about fake WMDs.
- Iraq was also a consequence of 9/11. It would never have happened without it.
- Yes, first was Afghanistan. But the Iraq invasion was still under the "war on terror". Besides, I was simply referring to the author's argument:
  But he added that we had to consider what the US did when attacked on 9/11: it invaded Iraq, with 200,000 [his figures] killed in three years.
Look at the OP's domain and then ask yourself why their post might have nazi vibes to it.

https://i.imgur.com/DS57Lrk.png

MAS*H was an amazing show and it was moments like that that had a lasting effect on my world view. I did not realize it as a kid watching it, but I do now.
- Also, even though it was set in Korea, it was really about Vietnam, which seems obvious now, but never occurred to me watching it as a kid.
- @pbjamm me too.
I thought I was going to downvote this for just being an image link, however that's a great point.
For those curious, it's a meme-formatted exposition by Mash's Hawkeye on why the saying 'war is hell' is wrong, it actually being worse then hell.
War is usually a war between STATES that has very little to do with its people. People are just the cannon fodder of the state interest.
In cases like Gaza one side actually does have PEOPLE involved, Gazans, vs a STATE. It makes it much more clear who is in the wrong.

The organizations are the ones that can fuck off. It's the people that are suffering.

Who is on Hamas's side? There are plenty of people on Palestine's side, but no one really wants to be on Hamas's side

I've seen plenty of contrarian tankies who are pro Hamas. Often the same "anti imperialists" who hate the West so much they think supporting Ukraine is bad.
Personally I'm of the opinion that both sides are genocidal and anybody with a clear idea what to do there is lying, but I've been banned from !worldnews@lemmy.ml as "genocide denial" for agreeing with Biden that we should be suspicious of the claimed death numbers coming out of Palestine because both sides have a history of lying about violent acts in their conflict.
- I know a few people in real life who are referring to them as freedom fighters.
- A problem with Lemmy (and a bigger one with Reddit) is that conversations can include context and nuance, while mods don't always can or want to take them into account, so you better make each comment stand on its own, or you can get the boot "out of the blue".
@Robin.Net
I would agree, but there are people here on Lemmy and elsewhere who don't distinguish between Palestinian people and the Hamas. It's like a 'tankie' versus 'anti-tankie' game, 'us and them', and nothing in between. If you don't choose, each side accuses you of being the enemy.
Addition:
Just watched this interview (video + transcript). A journalist tells about his visit of tbe occupied territories in Palestine. At some point he arrives at one of the many checkpoints.
And I was walking to the checkpoint, and an Israeli guard stepped out, probably about the age of my son. And he said to me, “What’s your religion, bro?” And I said, “Well, you know, I’m not really religious.” And he said, “Come on. Stop messing around. What is your religion?” I said, “I’m not playing. I’m not really religious.” And it became clear to me that unless I professed my religion, and the right religion, I wasn’t going to be allowed to walk forward. So, he said, “Well, OK, so what was your parents’ religion?” I said, “Well, they weren’t that religious, either.” He says, “What were your grandparents’ religion?” And I said, “My grandmother was a Christian.” And then he allowed me to pass.
So there, even as you just walk around, you seem to be checked 'to whom you belong'.
- The selective outrage is also very telling. Palestinian civilians killed by indiscriminate bombing? Apoplectic red-faced spittle-flying fury!
  Ukrainian civilians or even Syrian civilians killed by the same? Relative silence even though in both cases it was even less provoked. What's really going on here? And I don't mean that as a rhetorical question either; I honestly don't know. I have a theory, but I'm not entirely confident in it just yet.
- The problem is very simple. Israel and their neoliberal allies want you to think the only sides are Israel and Hamas. But you and I support the third side, the civilians. You simply have to redefine the argument. You tell them, "I am against Israel. And I'm against Hamas too. I've picked my side, and it's the innocents".
People like that: https://lemm.ee/comment/5671897

I pick the "innocent Gazan civilians just trying to live their lives but keep getting murdered by disproportionate force from the IDF" side.

Fuck Hamas. Fuck the IDF.

New hot take in the rhetoric war: Both Sides

What a crock of shit.

Are you a bot?
- No, I'm a disused blender from a Margaritaville. They let me use the computer in the managers office.
Is anyone both siding the invasion of Ukraine?
I find the crock of shit next to the original crock of shit is the narrative that nothing happened before October 7th.
- I'm pretty sure the both sides take is being lifted directly from the US politics shit show and is probably an early fall back position to diffuse argument and lessen culpability in the aftermath of war crimes. I'm with you though, there's a lot of crocks in relatively proximity.
  Oh and on Ukraine. No? Well, maybe Alex Jones?

Terrorists and Religious zealots (a Venn diagram which is nearly a perfect, single circle) will never recognize basic humanity, because power and control are more important than any human life. To expect peace in a land claimed as sacred by multiple groups is simply guaranteeing unending violence.

Except literally the hundreds of years those same religions lived peacefully together during ottoman rule...
- Was it with an iron fist though? Genuine question because I know zero about that period.
- Indeed. A relatively lightly administered area which was predominantly (3/4) Muslim. Then Britain took it over following WW1 and said "The Zionists supported us during the war so we're going to carve out a Jewish homeland in this space where they say they used to live a couple millenia ago and we're going to pretty much ignore that there's someone already living there."
  Now you have people displaced who felt their homeland was taken and people transplanted who believe their homeland is due them and the most extreme factions have guns and bombs to argue about it. There is no solution where Israel remains and stays at peace with it's neighbors, some of whom were displaced to make space or Israel.
  It saddens me that this is the case. My great grand-parents were Jewish and fled the pogroms in western Russia to come to the US. Zionists are a stain on our religion.
- Probably because the Ottoman empire would just crush everyone's cock with a rock if they so much as started anything. I highly doubt anyone around there voted for the Ottoman empire to occupy their lands and take their resources, haha.
  Generally, strongman rule makes things pretty peaceful. Vlad the impaler had a low crime rule, but he also impaled 20,000 enemy troops in a "Forest of the imapaled" and also impaled any criminals, which somehow kept crime remarkably low. But it wasn't exactly a happy rule, and people cheered when he was eventually ambushed, beheaded, and (fittingly) impaled on the walls above Constantinople...ironically by Mehmed II, ruler of the Ottoman empire. xD
  He fought the Ottoman empire's encroach his entire life and ended up getting ambushed and dying stupidly. But he went down in legend for being crazy hardcore (and his wife, queen Justinia too, who was absolutely mental as well, iirc)
Bibi is in power because of religious zealots (and just under half of Israel hated him for it).
For decades terrorism was primarily a tool of secular political organizations like the PLO and IRA. Combining terrorism with religious zealotry is a more recent phenomenon.
- Brendan Behan quote: The terrorist is the one with the small bomb.

Not a fan of the framing here, 'were' vs 'would be' as if the later is just a hypothetical rather than the reality of civilians in Gaza.

Slavoj Zizek gave a compelling speech along these lines. The reaction from the crowd and the heckling are really revealing about how divorced even progressive audiences have become from humanity.

Yeah, I thought the default opinion would be that killing is bad. The pearl-clutching at the idea of not killing, it's fucked up

Yikes. Tons of neo-lib shit takes in this comment section.

Tons of neo-lib shit takes in this comment section.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
Could you elaborate about which economic takes you'd want to criticize in this comment section, or did you mean to use a different term?

I actually never picked sides in that conflict. Both sides are nuts, the Hamas are terrorists, the IDF commits war crimes, they are both evil.

I propose putting a wall around the whole area and wait for the noise to stop, either by them getting their acts together, or by having killed each other.

No one ever wants to try it, but I say instead of the US giving Israel money for military aid we instead give Jordan money to host the world's largest fried chicken festival, everyone loves fried chicken. We get Israel and Palestine empty and we give them all "I ❤️ NY" shirts so no one knows where anyone else is from. While they're all gone we completely fucking glass the "holy land." Nuke it all so no one can live there for 200+ years.
Maybe by then the people that exist as Israeli and Palestinians can stop with their religious war bullshit over a plot of land and maybe just get on with living a "good" life.
- glass the "holy land." Nuke it all so no one can live there for 200+ years.
  Maybe by then [...]
  Not long enough.
  Conflict in the area has been going on for anywhere between 4000 and 200,000 years (lower paleolithic). Since the invention of writing, people of different origins have been able to transmit their religious claims to the region for thousands of years.
  200 years would barely put a dent on it.
If we do that, they'll still kill unaligned civilians

After closely following the Ukrainian War and learning all the nuances and history in that....I just don't have the energy or time to do the same about a whole new conflict.

Wait until you hear about Macron's travel to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to sign economic agreements... just like the EU did with Ukraine right before 2014... only this time, next week there's going to be a new sanctions package against Russia.
Did I mention Kazakhstan borders with both Russia and China, Russia already has a recent history of "helping" a pro-Russia government stay in power by sending in troops to shoot against civilians, and China would love to build a railway through Kazakhstan and Ukraine right to the EU... with just a tiny bit of Russia lying in the way north of Georgia?

Aside from brainwashing them all into forgetting about their religions, what other solution is there?

Ending apartheid, giving the common everyday civilian a future they can build toward, hope for, and participate in. Give people no hope, and they will lash out.
Having a secular government in the region, not a theocratic one, would go a long way to maintaining equality and joint prosperity.
Nothing buys forgiveness like mutual economics.
Forever war. Back in the day, the stronger side would just kill everyone in a march to the sea, salt the earth, and nothing would grow there for 300 years until humans finally scraped the dirt and made a small community again. It's been happening over every religious war, every empire, and every tribe for all time.
Now, we don't do that. But that means bad blood and prolonged conflict essentially forever, in a long simmering he said/she said involving beheadings and rockets. Best thing we can hope for is either a Korea situation, or some sort of "we'll make this area into a national park where everyone can visit", but neither side wants to live anywhere else, and hell will freeze over before all the Palestinians or Israelis are welcomed into the neighboring countries with open arms, lol.
My last bit of hope died when I learned that Hamas executed one of their generals on the rumor that he might have had sex with a guy. The fact that they stripped someone of their 1,000 person command, whipped him, forced him to not sleep, and then shot him three times over something so trivial is a really, reallllly bad sign for any hint of a two state solution. Or worse, cohabitation in a host country. They hate each other to an extreme I didn't think was possible.
Other than completely eradicate one side off the face of the earth, I guess nothing.
Israel and Palestine (+Muslim world) hate each others.
Religious conflict has only taken hold in the Middle East because SOME PEOPLE overthrew all of the (more) secular left-wing governments and replaced them with right-wing theocratic regimes.

Yeah pretty much.

israeli government and hamas both want never-ending war anyways. i never understood how anyone could think hamas is one valid side in this.

the goal should always be complete non-violence.

Yet another reason why fedditde needs to be defedditerated, jesus fucking christ can you guys have a normal one for like 3 minutes?

If an asteroid fell from space onto Tel Aviv, I'd be on the asteroids side. It's not about ideology, it's about removing a fascist ethnostate from the world.

Israel wants you to think the only two sides in this conflict are Israel and Hamas

There are three sides: Israel, Hamas, and the innocent civilians dying.