this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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The thing is you also have to admit the power imbalance at play here.
Both sides suck, but one side has the power to stop making the situation worse and stop abusing millions as they colonise their land.
This can never end or start to heal until the fucked up treatment of Palestinians stops. All they are doing is breeding tomorrow’s fighters.
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I think an apt comparison is Russia and Ukraine right now. I fully support Ukraine in this war, and part of that is not just because they're the underdog who got unjustifiably invaded, but because they take care to avoid targetting innocent civilians. For example, when they strike Sevastopol, they strike military facilities, never residential areas. Whereas Russia intentionally terrorizes the Ukrainian people, kidnaps Ukrainian children, targets residential areas, and commits so frickin many war crimes.
If the attack by Hamas were against legitimate military targets, I don't think there would be many people out here questioning it. But they didn't. They are a fundamentalist religious group that wishes to commit genocide, and they intentionally targeted and mass-murdered civilians. Beyond that, by attacking a music festival, they targeted people who were statistically more likely to be sympathetic to their cause. Clearly their goal is not simply self defense, but genocide.
Also a good comparison is the PLO in West Bank, as they aren't Hamas and had no hand in this attack. In fact, they and Hamas hate each other. And as far as I'm aware, PLO just wants the two-state solution and haven't officially sanctioned terrorist attacks in ages. Unfortunately, Hamas has likely managed to discredit the PLO cause, despite them not having any guilt in this.
And as far as I’m aware, PLO just wants the two-state solution and haven’t officially sanctioned terrorist attacks in ages.
That's... complicated. There is a fund that the PA pays the PLO to administer called the Palestinian Authority Martyrs Fund. It pays out stipends to the family of Palestinians who have been killed, imprisoned, or hurt while attacking Israel. This has been a point of contention for a long time, but it's apparently very popular among Palestinians so politicians are loath to touch it.
how are they similar atrocities?
did hamas lock 2.5 million people in the worlds most dense open air prison?
did hamas systematically crushed their buildings and not let concrete inside?
did hamas shoot little kids just for throwing rocks?
did hamas systematically murdered press, medics on the field?
did hamas control israelis food intake?
did hamas very deliberately snipe the knees of people peacefully protesting?
did hamas cut electricity, water, food?
did hamas bombed places that palestinian prisoners stayed?
did hamas tell people to leave the city and bomb the only way out?
what did hamas do? the only thing left to do when you do all of those things to a people.
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so tell me then, how would you behave if you were a palestinian? just accept death?
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Exactly. It's not a choice between "murder innocent civilians" and "do nothing"; it's a choice between "murder innocent civilians" and "target legitimate targets such as the military apparatus that actually murders Palestinians regularly or the right-wing political apparatus that pursues a policy of military hyper-aggressiom, apartheid, and settler colonialism".
If they chose to do the latter, I doubt nearly as many people would take issue with them, they'd receive vastly more sympathy, and they could finally end the systemic murder and oppression of Palestinians faster.
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Are you saying the only options are handing out collective punishment or accepting death?
First, that’s doubtable. But if so, I’d indeed accept death. I’m not killing innocents.
I’d rather die than become a living monster.
no im not saying that, youre saying that. you are equating what israel has done for 75 years to mere reaction to that. you may not believe that hamas is not killing civilians on purpose and i cannot change that, but that does not change reality.
we have seen just war crimes over war crimes from israel just for the past few days. this is on top of decades of apartheid.
i could accept death for myself, too. but not for my daughter.
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asymmetric warfare. i would figure it out. sorry about your palestinians but im different. /s
Yes both sides are targeting innocent civilians, and this is not cool.
But only one side is colonising a people’s land, imprisoning them in ghettos, and destroying their future.
Hence why criticism of Israel should always be greater
Hamas knows this. And they knew that Israel would respond with disproportionate force. They only care about destroying Israel and the Jews, per their charter, and they aren’t afraid to sacrifice as many Palestinian lives as it takes.
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Yup. The meme and simple “everyone is bad” explanation doesn’t touch on the fact that this is an asymmetrical war.
But one side lives in suburbs and the other in an open-air prison, without medical supplies, under permanent drone surveillance, oh and every 5 years all the buildings get flattened.
I don't know what's so hard about admitting that both sides are indeed at fault here.
Well that perspective disagrees with both flavors of propaganda. It's fucking true but nobody with a horse in the race will agree with you ever.
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It’s understandable too, how do you convince someone to stop fighting back so their enemy will stop punching them?
Like, remember when your parents told you that the best way to stop arguing with someone was to just stop arguing?
This is the same situation but instead of just arguing they’re literally committing war crimes and terrorist acts against each other.
Hard to say who started it in the moment when both are acting, and when everyone is acting in it frankly the who started it becomes irrelevant when there is only one good solution, for everyone to stop.
how do you convince someone to stop fighting back so their enemy will stop punching them?
Heck, part of it is you have to convince people to stop treating others as a monolith. Even the language of "their enemy will stop punching them" implies the entire populace of Israel is one monolith united in oppressing the Palestinians and that the entire population of Palestine is one monolith united in actively fighting Israel.
People need to be able to take a step back and recognize that their enemies are not the common folk, the innocent civilians. Most people just want to live their lives. Only a small minority is ever actually actively engaged in the fighting, or the political decisions to continue fighting.
Israelis (at least those that support Netanyahu and the apartheid state) need to collectively realize that having an apartheid state is not "fighting back"; it's just punishing 99% innocents. Likewise, Hamas needs to realize that mass murdering civilians is not "fighting back"; it's just punishing 99% innocents. True fighting back requires actually finding the people responsible for harming you, not ascribing blame to rando civilians just because they happen to have been born on the same side of the border as your true enemies.
...and you're treated as culturally insensitive if you point out that it's partially motivated because of two bullshit ass religions, and the reason they won't stop is because they've each just got to prove their God has the bigger dick, even though they're technically the same God.
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It's crazy how people seem to think they have to take sides in an argument. It's okay to say both sides are fucked up. There's plenty of videos showing Israeli kids talking about how they want to kill the Arabs, and there was that whole ass Disney/sesame street knock-off in Palistine that sang about AK-47s.
You got a line on that singalong?
I'll get you the song when I (re)find it, but for now here's the Wikipedia page.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow%27s_Pioneers
For transparency, it appears they did eventually cancel the show, but I don't know if it had to do with the content or the use of a very clearly Mickey Mouse-based character.
Edit: here's the video. To correct myself, it seems to be a poem and not a song. I should also clarify I don't speak Arabic, so I am relying on the provided subtitles.
https://youtu.be/gi-c6lbFGC4?si=YQZQ6Kr7b8cdeDPu
The line in question is near the 2:30 mark.
Listen fam I know we need to condemn the war crimes and violence of both sides. But a message we can rally behind was taught to me by The Kavernacle.
Hamas is, like the IRA, an extreme and desperate response to dehumanizing conditions laid out by Israel. Israel has put these people into worse than third world conditions. They use Hamas as a wedge to treat all Gazans worse. Israel has the power in this situation.
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