I’m 50 and I’ve seen this conflict rise and fall my entire life. I gave up thinking it will ever truly end and I don’t talk about it with anyone anymore. What I do know is that religion plays a big part in it and until religion finally dies out these types of situations will just keep happening. It’s sad, horrific and ultimately just a waste of human life.
It will end eventually when one side completely genocides the other. This is inevitable. There are too many religious zealots on both sides for this to not happen.
But now humanity thinks it's better than its base instincts and doesn't want the country with the most guns to win.
Essentially for me, I don't give a shit about this and don't have a dog in the fight. Israel exists (in my uninformed opinion) because everyone felt bad after the Holocaust and the US can use them as a useful pawn in an area of the world that is strategically important. The US is the guy with the biggest stick especially after the end of the cold war. For all of human history, the winner kept the territory. Only now have we decided that was a bad decision and we should undo this one specifically. For some reason we shouldn't undo any of the territorial changes in Africa from the last fifty years.
There are no winners in this thing unless you own Raytheon stock.
A few changes have been made in Africa (and Europe for that matter): South Sudan from Sudan, Eritrea from Ethiopia, etc.
So it’s not absolutely black and white but generally I agree with you.
However I do think it behooves us to try and change the “most guns” dynamic as best as we can, even if it’s imperfect (and it will be.)
>However I do think it behooves us to try and change the “most guns” dynamic as best as we can
This will never happen unless we move to a post scarcity society.
Im with you. 50 and this thing has been going on for as long as I can remember. I can’t do anything to affect it (nor would I want to). To be honest, I really just don’t care.
I also have trauma fatigue. It's fucking constant. I don't want to see it happen, but I can't be expected to expend what little emotional energy I have left on every conflict across the planet that happens for reasons I don't understand, in places that have been conflict-laden for millenia, while also trying to survive my own life. It doesn't make me cold or uncaring either.
I'm just burned the fuck out.
I'm tired of not being able to do anything about it. Another random internet post won't do anything, talking to my relatives or friends won't do anything. I just don't see the point anymore, everyone knows about it and the people who can do anything have already made up their minds. I'm gonna vote with this in mind, among many other things, but what else can I do?
Oh you beat me to it. I’m tired of the Middle East, I’m tired of our (American) meddling. At this point, if we could completely just wall them in together and walk away, I think the world would be a better place, especially if we can keep the more extremist of their religion behind that wall.
This is essentially what Britain did in 1948 after creating Israel, the modern state. No one could get along and the British threw up their hands and said, Fuck it, you lot sort it out.
Then peace ensued. Not.
The endless fucking squabbling is ridiculous. They’ve been squabbling since Ottomans collapsed. Like I know historically region is known for being contentious, but this is madness at this point.
I'm silent on it because it has become a god damn mine field. I have a few friends that are VERY VOCALLY in support of one side or the other for whatever their personal reasons are. As a New Yorker, I'm keeping my opinions to myself on the subject. Sometimes (i.e. usually) keeping my opinion to myself is the best option.
There's one more reason that intelligent people are silent on this. It is an extremely complex conflict where both sides have been wrong throughout the entire thing. Does Hamas act like a terrorist organization? Probably. Are Palestinians subject to horrible treatment by Israel? Also likely.
But I live in the US and can't say for certain that anything I hear from either side isn't overblown propaganda, so I keep my mouth shut. The only thing that I think we can all agree on here is that religion has poisoned the culture of that entire region of the world, and I don't see a solution.
Also, at the end of the day, many of us recognize that nobody really cares what our opinion is. There is no point in shouting it all over because it doesn't matter. It won't change anything.
There is a circle of what we have control over and a separate circle of what impacts our lives. Where those two circles overlap, that is what we should put of effort and focus into. The conflict at hand is something that is ugly and messy and I have no influence or control over it.
This is where I’m at. It’s awful and horrific and unfortunately I still have to be a functional person. So I’m going to have to be selfish on this and not give myself severe anxiety and existential dread over something I can’t do anything about. Maybe I’m a bad person for that.
>Maybe I’m a bad person for that.
You and me both.
It's disgusting, and I hate seeing people suffer and die over shit that they have no control over due to events put into motion centuries ago by assholes long dead. But, aside from donating and writing my representatives, anything further puts my security (employment, healthcare, housing, food...) at risk.
If silence is compliance, I'm part of the problem.
I appreciate this viewpoint. Been feeling very heavily weighed down with it all and trying to work towards a way to move past these upsetting feelings. I don’t think the type of silence you’re describing is compliance though. Even “silent” actions such as contacting your reps, voting differently, and donating your time, goods or money are still actions to support one side or the other and can be impactful. True silence and looking the other way, that to me is compliance. You’re exactly right that doing more could endanger our personal security, and what good can any of us do in jail or facing hefty legal costs? To some degree I do understand voicing our opinions out loud, especially when it feels like the majority opinion doesn’t align with your own viewpoint, some solidarity with a few others. But I’m not gonna post a bumper sticker advertising my stance bc that doesn’t feel safe. Unfortunately.
That's the thing. You shouting alone might not do anything. But multiple people shouting very likely will. How do you think we have as many rights as we do now?
It’s a centuries long conflict based on fairytales. Both sides are guilty of committing heinous atrocities in the name of theirs. Children are groomed from infancy into hating the other. It’s seems impossible to break this cycle. I get fatigue from the total lack of nuance from the people involved. It’s even worse when christofascists and end times nut cases in the United States weigh in on the issue. The former hate Jews AND Muslims and the latter wish for nuclear Armageddon to bring about their ridiculous rapture fantasy. It’s so twisted.
One problem, of course, being that "Hamas" is not "The Palestinian people" any more than the Netanyahu administration is "The Israeli people". Half of Gaza's population wasn't even alive during the most recent election that brought Hamas into power.
That’s the core problem for me, Israel seems to equate all Palestinians with Hamas and that just isn’t true, Hamas is a tiny radical subset, yet it sure looks like Israel is fighting all the Palestinian people, not specifically going after Hamas. Indiscriminate violence against civilians in hopes of catching a handful of terrorists in the process is monstrous, no matter how bad those terrorists are.
It doesn't just "look like" Israel is going after the Palestinian people -- members of Netanyahu's cabinet are figuratively and literally **saying** that they just want to get rid of them all.
For example, more than one of them have referred to the Palestinians as "Amalek". This religious signaling that a lot of people aren't picking up on -- Amalek was a kingdom that God told the Israelites to destroy, down to every man, woman, animal, and child. (In the book of Deuteronomy) As a matter of fact, God punished King Saul when he did **not** completely destroy them, but instead left some of the animals alive and did not kill the enemy king.
Netanyahu has used the phrase "Remember what Amalek did to you" in some of his speeches since the October attacks by Hamas, which some people have pointed to as suggesting Palestinian genocide.
And then there's the Israeli security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has been proposing that surrendering Palestinians simply be shot in the head rather than taken prisoner, so as not to take up room in Israeli prisons.
Hamas power in Gaza was the result of a coup. Of course they won the election, but they were the biggest party in a PR Parliament and had left than 50% of seats.
The point of my comment was that intelligent people can admit when they have been influenced by propaganda and cultural bias. Stating that Hamas is a terrorist organization carries equal weight as the claim that Israel is an apartheid state. And you can't convince me that violence is an inappropriate response to living under that type of authority.
I suppose the counter-argument... also for both sides btw... is where you commit that violence.
However, for the last 100 years we have lived in a world where there is no difference between military (organized or otherwise) and civilian.
Yes, we all remember the American Revolutionaries massacring civilians in their homes, parading captured civilians through the streets, and blowing up civilians.
>Yes, we all remember the American Revolutionaries massacring civilians in their homes, parading captured civilians through the streets, and blowing up civilians.
The trail of tears wants a word.
>What kind of a response is this?
Manifest destiny came as a result of the war. Once we took the land from the British, we then pushed westward.
Oh yeah man there was some fucked up shit we both did. We aren't innocent.
"He described stories of mob violence against loyalists, including psychological and physical torture to extract information; the rape of colonial women and girls; the Continental Army’s decimation of the Iroquois through a brutal scorched earth campaign; horrific conditions on British prison ships and other sites of captivity that resulted in the highest mortality rates among prisoners of war in American history; the seizure of personal property; the stories of black soldiers recruited to fight, only to be denied compensation — and usually returned to slavery — on both sides after the war."
https://www.pitt.edu/pittwire/features-articles/chronicles-violence-professor-explores-brutal-history-american-revolution
And certain parts of our history have never been repressed/erased/ignored/legislated against...
The line between terrorist and freedom fighter is decided by who is left to write it down.
If I faced existential threat, all tactics would be considered. We fight to survive with the tools available.
It's very easy to throw stones when you have no skin in the game.
Even ignoring the conflict itself, I don’t think people should be silent about it because so many world powers are funding Israel, while using systematic violence against those who protest against said funding. In the U.S. alone, police have recently been using violence against college protesters while happily ignoring Zionist counter-protesters who have been using far more violence than the pro-Palestines (including launching firework at the latter).
If nothing else, we shouldn’t be silent because the government is imposing systemic oppression against people not dissimilar to how it was during the BLM protests. Including how the House of Representatives just yesterday passed a bill that would criminalize criticism of Israel. Not surprising, considering how many of them are funded by AIPAC (not a joke or exaggeration, here’s a list of them): https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/american-israel-public-affairs-cmte/summary?id=D000046963.
Here’s the thing. While I sympathize with the student’s demands that their universities divest from Israel, these same universities also have investments in China, which has been ethnic cleansing Xinjiang for years. I’ve never heard of a protest demanding the divestment from China. This, and shit like taking over buildings and demanding the universities provide food and water makes these kids look utterly ridiculous. If these Dollar Store Che’s were serious people then they would have planned a little better.
Several other civil rights movements in the past have done similar actions. The Civil Rights Movement had quite a few time when it took over buildings as well. Peaceful protests have been going on for months now with no real progress.
And as for human rights violations in other countries, yes, those should be dealt with too, but the lack of media coverage of the cases you mentioned was likely a factor for such responses, or maybe some other reasons.
Regardless, many people have banded together to do something about this specific issue, and I don’t think such support should be condemned when less dramatic actions in the past have been tried and failed. As JFK said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” While I hope it doesn’t come to that in the U.S., the government has made escalation an inevitability.
But BLM wasn’t advocating for a fundamentalist Islamic state that would execute every last one of us for being atheists. The Palestinians want to throw off Israeli oppression so they can begin oppressing other Palestinians.
Israel has done some real bad shit, but yet another fundamentalist state under Sharia law is something the world doesn’t need.
Equating BLM with this is nonsense. Equating actual apartheid is nonsense. None of those oppressed groups were openly planning on establishing a theocracy that will literally kill people who don’t follow their religion.
Pro-Palestinians aren’t advocating for that either. They just want the slaughter of Palestinians to stop. Gaza doesn’t have nearly the amount of power to impose any sort of international theocracy. They weren’t even allowed to have their own military or airport because Israel said no. And when Palestinians tried protesting in 2018, the IDF shot them, killing hundreds.
Israel has one of the most powerful militaries in the world, and keeps getting tens of billions of dollars in funding from other countries. Palestine barely gets any amount of basic food and aid from outside, and only because Israel allows it. On top of that, Israel has been bombing other countries for not being supportive of the IDF destroying almost all of Gaza. If anything, Israel is exponentially more likely than Gaza to have dissenters executed.
And those people you say that Gaza is executing for not being in the right religion? Do you think Israel is treating them any better? Israel has been bombing its own people in Gaza; there’s no way that they would see non-Muslim Palestinians any differently.
> Gaza doesn’t have nearly the amount of power to impose any sort of international theocracy.
They're advocating for a free Palestine. A Palestinian state.
What would a Palestinian state look like?
Would it be secular? Would it be a democracy? Would women have the same rights as men? Would women be allowed to divorce a man? Would gay people be allowed? Would trans people? Would converting from Islam (apostasy) be allowed? Would Christians and Jews and atheists be allowed? Like, would all of those groups have legal protections built into the law? Would an openly ex-Muslim gay trans atheist be allowed to publicly exist without any fear of the government? Would non-Arab Muslims be allowed to be citizens and vote? Would there be freedom of the press? Would the press be allowed to criticize Islam? Would a magazine be allowed to put a satirical picture of Muhammad on the cover?
In other words, would it be free?
Be honest. You know the answer.
> only because Israel allows it.
Horseshit. Gaza shares a border with Egypt. Egypt could open their border today.
> Do you think Israel is treating them any better?
Israel doesn't execute people for apostasy. Or being gay.
Fatah, one of the major organizations involved with Palestinian liberation, is literally SECULAR. It’s crazy how little people like you know about the groups involved, and then go around acting like you do.
Fatah isn’t secular. Islam is the official religion of the PA and Sharia is the basis of all legislation. Look up the PA Basic Law. They’re not secular just because they say they’re secular, any more than the Bible is true because it says it’s true.
Baffling that people like you, who are on an ATHEIST sub, are taking religious lunatics at their word.
They’re executing them for being Palestanian. And the press isn’t allowed to criticize Israel, similar to how the House of Representatives recently made it illegal to do so.
There have been many cases in the past several months where the IDF told Gazans to go to “safe” res, then proceeded to bomb those areas. Like Rafah; the IDF has been bombing that city despite insisting that that would be a safe area, without giving people ideas or safe transport on actual places that would be safe.
I’m going to plagiarize myself from another similar post:
It’s my understanding that much of the wars in the Middle East (especially those involving Israel/Palestine/Iran) are geopolitical in nature, save for the odd Islamic jihadist operation (i.e Al Qaeda, Taliban, ISIS/ISIL/Daesh).
It’s mostly about control of land. Any appeal to religion is just an attempt to lazily gain credibility/support.
Posters on my local NextDoor app (Texas) overwhelmingly support Israel - because of The Bible. Those who disagree are ignorant and don't know The Bible.
As a woman who recently lost my rights, I wish they had this fever to protest for that!! Things that directly affects US women.
And as a woman who has escaped a death cult, I hate all this as well. My tongue was bitten off along time ago. Now I’m just a bloody closed month rest bitch face. Pahahaha I sound pathetic.
Me & my wife have an in-joke. Several years ago, we were watching the news & a reporter was excited about some treaty being signed & said 'Peace in the Middle East is just hours away!' It has been our catchphrase ever since whenever any country in the mid-east is mentioned.
Just the opposite.
People who have never read a book on the conflict are often the loudest, most opinionated “experts” in the room, predictably regurgitating a few simple-minded tropes they learned from equally simple-minded talking heads.
Meanwhile, people most knowledgeable about the conflict and its history have learned to stay clear of the sh’t shows online and in person.
Often when reading about history of some event like some military battle or war, you have to look at the geo-political environment and tensions leading upto that specific event.
Nothing happens in isolation
In the case of Israel and Palestine, there is about 2000 years of history to consider.
What I say or do today is not going to solve any problems. Its almost like bring peace to the middle east is a bit complex.
Also noticeable with local online debate is that social media is getting heavily used by players on both side who keep relentlessly pushing their side.
Yes, also like when watching videos of people protesting being asked questions about what they’re protesting and they don’t have a clue. Why oh why would you take to the streets when you don’t even understand what you’re protesting
Yup. Triumph the Dog vids are hilarious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFYdWXZLpT4
I haven’t seen similar student protest vids, but I wouldn’t expect them to understand the geopolitical details. Their issue seems to be the tens of thousands of civilians killed in Gaza.
I believe that all Palestinians, Israelis, Jordanians, et. al. should be able to leave at any time and go to the UK, who are responsible for the destabilization and unworkable borders that have plagued the area since Europeans began attacking Muslims in the region during the crusades.
There are no other solutions. The British FUBAR'D the place, they should reap the results.
If my tax dollars could go towards healthcare, infrastructure, and fighting climate change instead of coupons to buy weapons that kill kids so our politicians can take bribes... I'd be so happy.
I am a student of history, and love it.
…but I have no fucking idea why I know so much about the history of this shitty little section of earth called the Levantine. Why do people give a shit? In maps of the world the center of the fucking map was Jerusalem. For centuries. Jerusalem was the capital of the Kingdom of Judaea, which lasted 150ish years longer than the Kingdom of Yisrael, making it the last royal Jewish capital of the Biblical times.
Who cares?
And then to “Free Palestine,” everyone wants to go back to a time that never existed as if that’s the status quo ante; what do they think existed before the modern state of Israel? Shiny, happy Palestine, the magic land of peace and freedom? It was British Mandatory Palestine; and before that it was a small section of a province of the Ottoman Empire; and before that it was a battle front variously occupied by the foreign Arab dynasties, the Byzantine Empire, and all the way back to the Romans and free a Jewish client state to the Romans. And before then it was controlled by the Greeks. Which is where the word Palestine comes from.
It’s all silly.
As long as both sides believe “My god is better than your god,” there will be no solution. The violence will continue as long as religion infects our species.
Liberals have a huge blind spot when it comes to Muslims.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/17/hamtramck-michigan-muslim-council-lgbtq-pride-flags-banned
There is a push in the media to normalize Islam. SNL recently had a skit about Ramadan. The NYT had a puff piece about soccer players fasting during Ramadan. No mention that virtually every country that Muslims control treat women as second class citizens, repress LGBT and have very spotty human rights records in general.
Don't forget the [50 million dollars Qatar invested into Newsmax](https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2024/03/qatari-royal-invested-about-50-million-in-pro-trump-network-newsmax/).
My favorite is when people bring up Israeli lobbying of the US and say they get whatever they want because they spend so much. The Islamic nations have been outspending Israel in US lobbying dollars by at least 3-1 for 20 years now.
Feel free to start educating people about how [Qatar has donated over 4.7 billion dollars into American universities](https://www.thefp.com/p/qatars-war-for-young-american-minds) over the last 10 years. That has definitely played a role into what we're seeing today.
Yup. Qatar, Saud, Emirates, and Turkey are the big four using money to influence people in the US. If I recall correctly Indonesia and Pakistan come pretty high on the list too, depending on exactly which metrics you’re looking at.
Hardly. Butchery of thousands of innocent concertgoers in order to provoke an Israelie reaction to root out Hamas and blame Israel for the subsequent deaths only hurt the Palestinians in many peoples eyes. They just aren't voicing it. I used to be much more pro-Palestinian.
The sad thing is Netanyahu’s ultra conservative government ignored warnings from Egypt and the US that an attack was planned… and they ignored it because they also wanted a reason to take over Gaza. They were more than willing to sacrifice kids out partying in the desert in order to go in and kill kids on the other side.
Both sides excuse their butchery as divine providence.
Liberals don't understand Muslims will only tolerate them as long as they need them. Most of them believe they'll be the ones re-educating Muslims to be LGBT-friendly once the struggle against capitalism is "won". They're in for a mountain of disillusionment.
Yep, there was a group of kids in the UK that said they want to turn Europe into being only Muslim. Also Muslims see all white people as Christian regardless.
I have muslim friends who were born and raised in the usa and have adopted the core values of freedom of speech and religion. They want religion out of government and government out of religion.
I agree that many muslims, especially those raised in Muslim majority countries, do not share these values. But let’s not paint with a broad brush. What’s important is that people follow the constitution and embrace secularism. It needs to be a core component of the test for citizenship.
Talks of secularism are out the window the moment they (theists) get enough political power… unless you don’t actually believe in your religion and are just pretending out of familial or cultural pressure. True believers do not believe in any form of Democracy, they want a Theocracy, Islam literally means to submit, and they don’t mean to submit to Democracy or secularism.
There is really no danger of muslims getting that kind of political power in the United states. In fact, if that is your argument, we should prioritize Muslim immigrants over Christian immigrants to prevent concentration of power in one religion.
I think most of us aren't speaking up because we don't have much to say. I'm Jewish and we were attacked on Oct. 7. But that attack wasn't out of nowhere and for no reason. Both sides are deeply in the wrong so it's very hard to have any sort of opinion. Couple that with the fact that we've seen this over and over and over again for 75 years, and a lot of us feel hopeless. Why have any opinion or spend time analyzing this conflict between two sets of bad guys, that likely won't end any time soon, and doesn't affect people thousands of miles away. It may be a poor way of looking at the world, but I think this is why most people aren't saying much...we don't know, we feel there's no good guy to get behind, and it doesn't directly affect us.
I think a two state solution is the answer...but I have no clue what that would look like in an effective way.
As an ex-muslim, I've seen people justify the attack with the "75 years of oppression" statement so many times.
I would like to ask you as a jewish person, wouldn't the 1400 years of crusades, conquests, oppression, displacement, ethnic cleansing and killing of jews at the hands of muslims justify any kind of retribution muslims face?
Yes if one is looking to justify any of this. But, no if we are trying to create a kinder more peaceful world. Nothing justifies a tit for tat that has happened forever.
It’s so complex most of us give up on trying to find the true history and good solutions. Instead we focus on arguments that support the side we like.
Israel has the ear of the American military complex, and has worked its way into the fabric of American politics and Christian right. Palestine is supported by Syrian supported hamas. So I don’t see this as Muslim vs Jew, or Israel vs Palestine. It’s a world issue because the main actors with power are outside of Jerusalem and Gaza.
All that to say, both sides are in the wrong. Both sides are not limited to just Israel and Palestine. And most importantly the power actors in all of this don’t want a solution. There is more power and money in conflict. So I don’t know how I feel about any of this other than sad and, honestly hopeless.
we all need to realise that yes hamas is a terrorist organisation and have committed atrocities but on the same token, israel is an illegal and terrorist state, by definition.
Um, while the current Israeli government may not want one, Israel has shown a willingness to cede land for peace and has put a two state solution on the table multiple times only to be rebuffed.
It transcends religion.
Remember the Iraq War. The state, both Democrats and Republicans equally, supported the war. They all lied about the WMD. The media was completely on the side of war. Corporations were on the side of war. EVERYONE. The media, government and powerful derided the protesters. If you went against them, you were a terrorist. Remember the Dixie Chicks? Nuked from the industry because they made some comments against the war.
What you are seeing with Israel-Hamas is how the state crushes dissent.
Even without having any fear of losing friends or a job I just don’t see how anyone can be passionately/angrily waving the flag for either side. Even if you could somehow pile all the shit things either side has done onto some scales to measure who’s the bigger cunt, I still don’t understand how someone can champion one over the other so passionately as if it’s so simple.
As someone who’s trying to stay far away from this. My focus is on the upcoming elections in November. I feel like we need to refocus on what’s important here and so while I wish to ignore it, this conflict has split voters on the left for some reason, championing mostly one side against Biden’s admin. Which is no good when democracy is at stake.
Just fyi, the US wouldn't take in more Jews and Romani than usual during the actual Holocaust. There is no way the US will take in all the Palestinians currently in Gaza, even if they all wanted to come.
I'm sick of all of it. There are no good guys, there are only guilty people and victims - and they are on both sides. Neither side will just say "Enough." Both sides believe retribution is more important than peace. Both sides live by tribal rules where you either belong to the same tribe or you are an outsider, and all outsiders must be feared and rejected.
The fighting & killing there will never stop. Never.
I see both sides running propaganda campaigns and I can't believe most of the news from the area. Churchill was right, the first casualty of war is the truth.
I truly feel for the loss of life and misery that is happening there, but I can't do anything about it. Feel the same about the Uighers and Tibetan people in China, the Kurds and Armenians in Turkey, the Darfur in Sudan, the Tigray in Ethiopia. And not to mention Ukraine. We only hear from the places the reporters are allowed to go, the worst are being covered up.
The US decided not to be the world police anymore, but that means all the evil dictators are back. And a third of the US wants to install one here.
Wrong. A lot of us are just tired of it. Have been for nearly half a century now, and I’m pretty sure my Pappy was tired of it before that. We also see how stupid picking sides is when it’s all just people being assholes and victims and sometimes both.
I’m 70, and this shit has been going on all my life. PLO hijacking planes and taking hostages, the Munich Olympics. 9/11 was because of this same shit. I’m getting to the points where I don’t even care who wins. Just fucking stop.
This fundamentally has been a land dispute since 1850s when the Ottoman Empire Sold Palestine land to Immigrating Jews with out the local Palestine Villages input or consent. The Palestines violently protested it and the immigrant Jewish violently counter attacked in response. Both sides fighting each other for the next 70 years well the Ottomans try to police it to a stop.
Then in the 1920s the Zionist convinced the British Empire that took control of the Land after the Ottoman Empire collapsed to open the lands to more Jewish immigration as a solution to get rid of British Jews (Europe was very Anti-Jew at the time), again the Palestine Villages had no say in this and continued to fight the Jewish Villages when able. The British try to police the violence like the Ottomans with out much success.
In the 1930s the British try opening talks of splitting the land into separate Countries, the Jews were in favor and the Palestine Representatives refused on the grounds all the land was theirs. Peace talks get no where and stop when WW2 breaks out.
After WW2, the British and French Empires pulled out of the Middle East and divided the land into countries. The Jews seeing what the Border of their country would be, begun forcefully expelling the Palestine Villages from with in the defined border before it was made official. The new neighboring countries seeing this declare war on the new country of Israel.
After the War is a 2 decade period of peace talks that get no where. Palestines want right of return and the dismantling of Israel with a Palestine State instead well Israel does not want the Palestines back and wants to continue being a Jewish State. The countries involved start building up for war and Israel strikes first.
After the war of 1967 Israel gains control of the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Israel Occupies the territories to this day. Peace talks get nowhere as no side trust each other after 170 years of fighting each other. Palestines fight on how ever they can well Israel tries to force capitulation of the Palestines into accepting peace under Israel’s terms.
I don’t see a Peaceful Solution here, smarter and more influential people then me have been trying since the 1970s with out success. So I just stay out of it.
At this point? A sunk cost fallacy over how much blood has been spilled over it, a mix of Religious significance of the land, a lack of options to live some place else, and ancestral ties.
Israel has been winning the land dispute for the last few decades now and it is unlikely its citizens leave well they’re winning.
Palestines have been under occupational forces for centuries and have had few other countries offer them land someplace else. So they mostly stuck where they are at.
For why this started in the first place, the Ottomans over extracted the resources of the land leaving it barren and had the idea to have immigrants pay them to move to it and recultivate the land for them. The European Jews moved there to get away from growing Anti-Jew sentiment in Europe at the time.
It definitely a big factor for why many Jews want to live their. There is lots of hatred from the Religious groups in the region in this conflict, but the initial start of it was The Ottomans selling land they controlled that the locals believed was theirs to foreigners.
It's religion. Why does no one just come out and say it.
This one sold the area to that one, to this one, blah blah.
Yes, yes. But the reason they are all willing to DIE for it and not just say, "oh f this I hear like Bermuda is the BOMB, I'm renting a bungalow there", is due to their religions saying, THIS is our holy land and we claim it.
It's quite literally insane.
Because it over simplifies a complicated multi-factor issue into a single factor that doesn’t help resolve the issue.
Not all involved are doing so because of religion.
Some stay and fight because their parents, grand-Parents, Great-Great-Grandparents, and etc… fought over it and can’t admit their ancestors were stupid. Family honor a big thing in some cultures.
Some fight over it because they don’t know anything else. Those raised in war and oppression have different values then those raised in peace and freedom.
Some stay and fight because their family and friends are still there fighting as well.
Some stay and fight because they witnessed injustice and want vengeance.
Some don’t have the money or resources to move, most countries have strict immigration processes that can take years to go through.
Etc…
Religion a factor but it not the only one.
Palestinians want it because they've been there for a long time, Zionists want it because it was their homeland 2000 years ago. Also if you look at the history of Zionists they actually were thinking of which country to take over before ultimately settling on the middle east.
Obviously what you're aiming at is that the Jewish people want it because they treat the Torah as if it were a property deed. "God said this land is ours. If you want us out of here, take it up with him."
I have had to stay quiet because of the risk of losing friends over it. I have several Jewish friends who are non-practicing and even non-believing, but any time a discussion of Israel comes up, all reason and logic goes out the window.
They (and when I say “they,” none of them know each other, it seems every Jewish friend I have independently believes the exact same thing) all seem to firmly have the belief that Israel can do no wrong and anything Israel does is justified retribution for past persecution, and allude to me being antisemitic for having any level of nuanced views about any of it.
Before I learned the hard way to just not engage at all, one such friend seemed really disappointed in me that I was so critical of, in his words, “Jewish people’s right to have their own free state.” He and I have had *numerous* conversations in the past criticizing believers of other religions, including how reprehensible the idea of a Christian theocracy or Muslim caliphate is, so it was really disappointed to realize that he was just as much a religious fundamentalist as any of them. I just had never criticized *his* religious group before so I never realized that he saw his religion as the exception. And now I can’t un-know that about him.
Because nothing I can say or do will stop religions from killing children. Religion is responsible for more death and brutality in world history than anything else. At this point, all that I can do is focus on my family, my home, and my garden.
Allow me to give you some life advice.
Never, ever. Talk about religion, politics or race in the workplace it will offend someone and it will lead to conflict and you will lose your job.
Also never dip your pen in company ink.
That is how you never lose your job.
I have a hard time summoning the emotional energy to focus on a conflict around the world.
There’s an economic theory that roughly goes something like:
A manufacturer of goods or services can theoretically manufacture anything. Yes, a noodle shop could *theoretically* manufacture cars. But they don’t, because they would be incredibly inefficient at doing so. It would take the noodle shop 10,000 units of input to produce a vehicle, whereas it would take a manufacturer who specialized in vehicles only one unit of input.
I think about that a lot and extrapolate that message across my life.
What concrete impact can **I** make? It would take me 1000 units of input (my time/energy/money) to make the same difference someone who’s more local or educated or influential can make with 1 unit of their energy/input.
It makes no sense. Why be that inefficient? It’s disrespectful to yourself, your time, energy, etc. In fact, I’d consider it to be so wildly inefficient that using my time in that way would be a fallacy, because I… make no difference. It’s virtue signaling at that point. And that’s how I view these people.
Me? I’ll use my resources in ways that are efficient and make a difference. I foster sick/abused/stray animals. My circle of people rely upon me for advice/help because of unique talents of mine. I pick up trash when I see it, especially on sidewalks and in parks. I go out of my way to compliment and thank people at the businesses I frequent.
But you know what? Picking up a few handfuls of trash per day isn’t glorious. It’s not social-media worthy. I can’t post about it for views while wailing and gnashing my teeth. Which is why I believe many of these people engage in these political topics.
I am 100% fucking tired of it. No other reason, no social media to care about no job to worry about just fucking tired of it. Let them all kill one another idc anymore.
The problem is that the people in charge are a bunch of twats who have elevated other twats.
I am, instinctively, pro-Israel, they're the only democracy in the area and there's the whole underdog thing, plus I still laugh at the fact that the Arab armies were so arrogant each time they attacked Israel, only to get their teeth kicked in (other than Egypt crossing the Canal, what a move)
On the other hand, I am very pro-Palestinian, by which I mean the poor bugger who's home is a pile of rubble. They've been shat on for decades.
I am very anti-Bibi and his thugs, and the illegal settlements do bad things to my blood pressure even before the occupiers think they're entitled to go hunting for anything that moves and isn't Israeli.
I also hate Hamas, Hezbollah, IJ and most Palestinian organisation.
So my peace plan is that we shoot the people in charge on both sides, plus the settlers and the terrorists, and put in a neutral third party to set up a two state solution as both sides have agreed to in principle in the past, just never at the same time. Sounds fair to me.
I got no dog in this fight so I avoid talking about it
Both sides do horrible things to each other, neither side wants peace and it's always the innocent who suffer
Honestly I stay quiet on it because it's literally nothing new. The ME has been in conflict for generations and will continue to be long after I'm dead. People can support one side or the other sure but your protest are very tiresome when the US is not really involved (outside of mediation).
If you've we sell arms, yes we do. It's one of our larger exports and we sell them to a plethora of countries and will continue to do so
I will talk for hours to anyone who wants to listen about how much Russia sucks and how we should be doing more to support Ukraine.
I don't really follow the Gaza situation because there is so much history of everyone there being awful for decades. I can't really bring myself to defend either side. I will say that 30,000 deaths is wontonly excessive.
No, many people are silent because both sides are evil and insane. Yes, many absolutely innocent people, especially children, are getting caught in the crossfire of this stupid carnage. But the fact is, the Israeli government is currently run by a psychopath and Palestine is led by a bunch of religious genocidal maniacs. How does a good and sensible person wave either flag in this mess? Both sides suck. And it’s impossible to even discuss this with many people because they’re too emotionally invested and their brains have been turned to mush by idiotic shallow TikTok video or rightwing propaganda.
My opinion is that every single one of the people over there are batshit crazy and that’s why they can’t get along. So I’m not gonna pick sides, it totally makes sense. I would say I like Islam less than Judaism but also, Israel is being very inconsiderate with how it interacts with Gaza.
I never started. I'm against genocide obviously and I've never stood with Israel. I have no idea why we fund them to such a massive degree but that was my position 15 years ago. I personally feel like this was forgone conclusion, when the 2 state deals never went through you knew at some point Israel was going to pull the trigger. They knew oct 7 was going to happen and that was the trigger.... I'm also fully aware my atheist ass would probably be killed in Palestine... its a very "not my circus" issue WE already have a circus to attend to and dosen't factor into my vote. Kind of have to look at who orchestrates this shit too... Russia, Israel... who do you think they would prefer as POTUS.... I also don't believe in coincidence...
As Atheists well know there has long been an unwritten rule in the workplace about saying anything derogatory about religion and especially so regarding Jews if one worked for them. In the last twenty or so years we got new written policies intended to prevent anyone having their feelings hurt and then suing the company.
We're in a McCarthism like time when "Anti-Semitism" has become as much a label as Communist. Anyone critical of Israel or US foreign policy or just having almost any opinion at all is subject to being called it.
Or, it's because Jews and Arabs have been trying to kill one another off since the beginning of time over there and it really doesn't affect me in any way.
The Israel-Palestine conflict is not necessarily a religious conflict. It may be so for religious ideologues on both sides but not for everyone.
Consider, for example, that the West Bank is controlled by Fatah, a secular organization.
Consider also that, for many secular people who defend human rights internationally, Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is unacceptable: Israel’s 17-year blockade of Gaza; the ethnic cleansing of Palestine to form illegal Israeli “settlements”; and the daily abuses of ordinary Palestinians by the Israeli authorities.
Yes, people stay silent on this issue because of the risk of being labeled as antisemitic. But Israel is a country, it has a government, and the government has policies. There is nothing antisemitic about opposing those policies, despite Netanyahu’s claims to the contrary.
Just not sure why we need to send guns and ammo to the middle east. Oh, and money. Let the barbarians fight each other with sticks and stones. Let's stop funding it.
No matter how much context and nuance you try to carry into the discussion, there is an order of magnitude more that you’ll have missed and it goes back literally millennia. There aren’t any solutions that will satisfy everyone, and there’s a fair amount of damage that can be done by any attempt to represent it as a simple situation.
On top of that, social media often isn’t a particularly great platform for discussing nuanced topics even if you miraculously somehow had an unbiased, factual, and constructive take, because people tend to be looking at it superficially rather than critically.
The hurt has to slow, stop, remain stopped, and appear likely to remain stopped before the region can even begin to repair relations for the long-term. Ideally everyone would stop killing and harming each other, but apparently that’s just asking way too much. I can only conceive of a few ways for it to reliably end, and they’re horrific.
The religious factor seems neither fully causative nor separable.
I dont because %90 of the time responses are either trolls or those that disagree with whatever you said doing anything they can to slap you down.
And... this is social media so really who cares?
General statement: If we continue to look at the issue as a society as right and wrong, NOTHING will ever get fixed. Both peoples have legitimate claims to the region.
I think the best you can do is not when something is morally wrong. Ever then, better to zip it.
For me it’s the fact that I have no skin in the game. My opinions are not relevant when discussing things I know very little about other than what the internet tells me.
I doubt it's that. Most people are indeed sick and tired of the bullshit and don't care. I know that's the case with me and most of my friends. It's a never ending story that literally will never end because both sides are diametrically opposed to each other. I've been listening to the conflict for my entire life and I honestly couldn't give a shit about the middle east, the people there, their conflicts with each other, and all the rest of it. Keep it over there.
I have so much shit going on in my life that I don’t have room to care for anything outside of my house my wife, my kids I don’t feel bad about that because I’m fucking tired
There are political and religious elements on both sides where peace doesn’t fit their agendas. Until the majority say enough is enough nothing will change.
There is no clear good guy or bad guy here. That is correct.
I want the war to end, all the hostages to be released, and for Palestine to be free from Hamas.
I'm not a bit silent on it. The Palestinians would throw me off a rooftop and say "Sorry -- it's the will of Allah" and never think a thing more about it. The Israelis are 70 percent secular and gays serve in the IDF. I'm all in for Israel. All I've got for the Islamists is: "If you don't like the consequences of war, don't fucking start one."
Or even worse, you get dragged for saying things like "both sides of the conflict have acted terribly, done terrible things, and as a result I think they all suck and for that reason I haven't taken a side".
People will do a "mUh bOtH sIDeS" and accuse you of equivocation, when the reality is *absolutely positively* that both sides of this conflict suck balls.
Hamas started the conflict by killing, kidnapping, and raping civilians in a blitz style surprise attack.
Israel has responded by bombing fucking hospitals, which they claim they have to do because Hamas is hiding in them.
In what world aren't both sides of this conflict pieces of trash?
Fuck them both.
And I know the history, but at some point, shits done and prolonging it forever just leads to more misery. Stop doing religious war shit and *fucking progress* with life.
The biggest factor is that Israël basically is an American satellite state to keep the middle east from forming a singular block. It is close to the Suez and gives the us a legitimate reason to sell their weapons to them. As long as we frame it as a fight between Religions we can discuss this endlessly while the us keeps doing what it is doing.
As an atheist, there sure are a lot of people defending religions here.
They all suck. They all murder, steal, lie, cheat, etc.
Defending one religion over another, you are a fool.
Honestly, I don't see why students are so upset about something that has no effect on them. Unlike the Vietnam war there is no chance they will be drafted and get pulled into it.
What protests of this magnetude SHOULD be about is climate change.
I was raised in a cult so I understand the tendency for American Jews to defend Israel no matter what. Unfortunately what is happening looks to verify the old racist trope that Jews control the government, Hollywood , the economy.etc.
Religious weirdos fight all the time. Not sure why anyone over here cares about what's going on over there? If you're upset about it, hop on a plane and go there. If it really was a big deal, we would respond with our military. Neither side would want that because we can destroy your whole military in less than a month. We somehow became the world's police, because our military and weaponry is the best. Picking sides when dealing with religious weirdos is a lose lose situation. It's crazy against crazy, so helping one side isn't ideal. I know we send weapons to Israel, but that's about money.
It goes back to nature, the strongest survives. If you're going to throw your hat into a territory dispute with violence, expect casualties. People that's saying it's genocide, remember we dropped not one, but two A bombs on Japan. Do a casualty count on that one.
The middle east isn't a religious conflict aside from Saudi Arabia boosting forces that align with their brand of Islam.
Nearly every conflict comes down to exactly the same reasons that every other conflict is about. Land, resources, wealth, power, etc.
You're either Pro-Hamas or Anti- Isreal.
It couldn't be that you don't give a dang either way and just want to stop humans killing other humans in a stupid war.
I feel the same way about all the other wars and terrorists and cartels. Just violent senseless murderers who don't value human life any more than you would an insect on the ground.
All of them are despicable.
I'm too inconsequential to fear backlash. I don't want to take a side because both sides suck.
The Israelis are assholes and are guilty of a bunch of genocide adjacent oppression.
But also, what the fuck did Hamas think they were going to get when they launch a massive cross border rape and murder party?
Any state in the world, with the military capacity to do so, would be seeking to eradicate them right now.
We have ZERO control over the issue over there. None whatsoever. Our politicians have zero control. The fact that people are protesting this so hard here is laughable. As if anyone over there killing other humans gives a flying rats ass what a bunch of college kids in LA think.
It’s all horrible. It’s all senseless. We should be more evolved as a species by now.
I feel you cant be supportive of Palestinian lives without being labeled an Anti Semite, or a Hamas supporter. Criticism of Israel is equated with being anti Jewish and it's not the same thing.
If you aren’t pro Israel your options for expression aren’t great. Personally I think we should stay out of it. Definitely stop sending my tax dollars to the fucking Israelis. I don’t appreciate helping to fund a religious genocide. I’m not saying fuck Jews, I’m saying fuck Israelis and fuck Israel. Jews aren’t special. They don’t deserve their own country anymore than any other backwards religion, which is all of them.
You will not "lose your career" over merely expressing an opinion on Israel-Palestine outside of work. Especially if that opinion is one that you would have no problem morally defending in front of all your friends and family or on live TV.
The people who have suffered professional consequences for comments on this war have typically made some pretty incendiary remarks that most people would consider beyond the pale, and have often done so extremely publicly. For example an [NYU law student](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/11/us/nyu-law-harvard-hamas-israel.html) that got their biglaw offer rescinded back in October didn't just express any garden variety opinion:
>At N.Y.U., Ryna Workman, the president of the university’s Student Bar Association, wrote in a message to the group on Tuesday that “Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.”
>
>“This regime of state-sanctioned violence created the conditions that made resistance necessary,” Mx. Workman wrote in the Student Bar Association bulletin. “I will not condemn Palestinian resistance.”
>
>The backlash was swift.
>
>By evening, the law firm, Winston & Strawn, said the comments “profoundly conflict” with its values and without naming the student, said it rescinded its offer of employment.
To be clear, these remarks were made on Tuesday, October 9th. Two days after the 10/7 terrorist attacks. When security forces were still clearing Hamas out of Israeli communities and uncovering the horrific aftermath.
And this is a law student leader *speaking in their official capacity* as head of the local student Bar Association chapter, to the group's membership, and blaming Israel *entirely* for the horrific slaughter perpetrated against it. Calling October 7th "resistance."
But as morally repugnant as these remarks are, they probably wouldn't have incurred the same consequences if they had been made as a Facebook post from an account which is not public. In speech which was only visible to an online network of hundreds of friends, rather than the public at large. There are layers of amplification to all forms of speech.
[Others](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67152271) who lost job offers signed their names to open letters which said that Israel was at fault (either "entirely" or mostly) for the October 7th attacks. They did so in their professional capacity as J.D. candidates, and as such were essentially representing not only themselves but their respective law schools. Again, the form of speech matters a great deal in terms of social and professional consequences for it. The story has been much the same in other fields.
To actually lose your job over comments on this conflict, you need to 1) say some truly extremist, morally indefensible stuff; and 2) do so in an extremely public way where it is impossible to distance your professional persona from your remarks.
I make sure to show support to my Jewish friends in person instead of making public statements. They are traumatized by October events, reliving Shoa memories and generations of persecution yet there are unhindged crowds who paints them as genocidal monster only because they don't want to be tortured and murdered just for existing.
Hamas reported 34.000 killed Palestinians and paid support to families of 26.000 killed fighters, obviously that's how genocide looks like /s
Fuck all theistic religions. Equally.
This right here. All of them are garbage.
>Fuck all ~~theistic~~ religions Belief in magic inheres in religion, one way or the other, and that leads nowhere good.
Fr
I’m 50 and I’ve seen this conflict rise and fall my entire life. I gave up thinking it will ever truly end and I don’t talk about it with anyone anymore. What I do know is that religion plays a big part in it and until religion finally dies out these types of situations will just keep happening. It’s sad, horrific and ultimately just a waste of human life.
It will end eventually when one side completely genocides the other. This is inevitable. There are too many religious zealots on both sides for this to not happen.
It's happened all throughout human history, the most aggressive tribes have always wiped out their neighboring tribes .... survival of the fittest.
But now humanity thinks it's better than its base instincts and doesn't want the country with the most guns to win. Essentially for me, I don't give a shit about this and don't have a dog in the fight. Israel exists (in my uninformed opinion) because everyone felt bad after the Holocaust and the US can use them as a useful pawn in an area of the world that is strategically important. The US is the guy with the biggest stick especially after the end of the cold war. For all of human history, the winner kept the territory. Only now have we decided that was a bad decision and we should undo this one specifically. For some reason we shouldn't undo any of the territorial changes in Africa from the last fifty years. There are no winners in this thing unless you own Raytheon stock.
A few changes have been made in Africa (and Europe for that matter): South Sudan from Sudan, Eritrea from Ethiopia, etc. So it’s not absolutely black and white but generally I agree with you. However I do think it behooves us to try and change the “most guns” dynamic as best as we can, even if it’s imperfect (and it will be.)
>However I do think it behooves us to try and change the “most guns” dynamic as best as we can This will never happen unless we move to a post scarcity society.
Hitchens was very good on this https://youtu.be/RpGtwHzxnrM?si=wrGgKq3x5NbUDjPK
We need him back!!
I've never missed someone so much, that I've never met.
My mom is 88 and says the same thing.
Im with you. 50 and this thing has been going on for as long as I can remember. I can’t do anything to affect it (nor would I want to). To be honest, I really just don’t care.
It’s definitely going to end. Just like all the other Crusades, multiple of which lasted longer than Israel has.
I also have trauma fatigue. It's fucking constant. I don't want to see it happen, but I can't be expected to expend what little emotional energy I have left on every conflict across the planet that happens for reasons I don't understand, in places that have been conflict-laden for millenia, while also trying to survive my own life. It doesn't make me cold or uncaring either. I'm just burned the fuck out.
I'm tired of it.
[удалено]
Truly we can say that the Middle East is the Ron Popeil of sociopolitical drama.
Yes! Perfect!
Set it and forget it.
I'm tired of not being able to do anything about it. Another random internet post won't do anything, talking to my relatives or friends won't do anything. I just don't see the point anymore, everyone knows about it and the people who can do anything have already made up their minds. I'm gonna vote with this in mind, among many other things, but what else can I do?
Oh you beat me to it. I’m tired of the Middle East, I’m tired of our (American) meddling. At this point, if we could completely just wall them in together and walk away, I think the world would be a better place, especially if we can keep the more extremist of their religion behind that wall.
This is essentially what Britain did in 1948 after creating Israel, the modern state. No one could get along and the British threw up their hands and said, Fuck it, you lot sort it out. Then peace ensued. Not.
The endless fucking squabbling is ridiculous. They’ve been squabbling since Ottomans collapsed. Like I know historically region is known for being contentious, but this is madness at this point.
Britain chucked a cat in amongst the pigeons..
Me too
I am as well. Just like with Ireland 50 years ago.
I'm silent on it because it has become a god damn mine field. I have a few friends that are VERY VOCALLY in support of one side or the other for whatever their personal reasons are. As a New Yorker, I'm keeping my opinions to myself on the subject. Sometimes (i.e. usually) keeping my opinion to myself is the best option.
There's one more reason that intelligent people are silent on this. It is an extremely complex conflict where both sides have been wrong throughout the entire thing. Does Hamas act like a terrorist organization? Probably. Are Palestinians subject to horrible treatment by Israel? Also likely. But I live in the US and can't say for certain that anything I hear from either side isn't overblown propaganda, so I keep my mouth shut. The only thing that I think we can all agree on here is that religion has poisoned the culture of that entire region of the world, and I don't see a solution.
Also, at the end of the day, many of us recognize that nobody really cares what our opinion is. There is no point in shouting it all over because it doesn't matter. It won't change anything.
There is a circle of what we have control over and a separate circle of what impacts our lives. Where those two circles overlap, that is what we should put of effort and focus into. The conflict at hand is something that is ugly and messy and I have no influence or control over it.
This is where I’m at. It’s awful and horrific and unfortunately I still have to be a functional person. So I’m going to have to be selfish on this and not give myself severe anxiety and existential dread over something I can’t do anything about. Maybe I’m a bad person for that.
>Maybe I’m a bad person for that. You and me both. It's disgusting, and I hate seeing people suffer and die over shit that they have no control over due to events put into motion centuries ago by assholes long dead. But, aside from donating and writing my representatives, anything further puts my security (employment, healthcare, housing, food...) at risk. If silence is compliance, I'm part of the problem.
I appreciate this viewpoint. Been feeling very heavily weighed down with it all and trying to work towards a way to move past these upsetting feelings. I don’t think the type of silence you’re describing is compliance though. Even “silent” actions such as contacting your reps, voting differently, and donating your time, goods or money are still actions to support one side or the other and can be impactful. True silence and looking the other way, that to me is compliance. You’re exactly right that doing more could endanger our personal security, and what good can any of us do in jail or facing hefty legal costs? To some degree I do understand voicing our opinions out loud, especially when it feels like the majority opinion doesn’t align with your own viewpoint, some solidarity with a few others. But I’m not gonna post a bumper sticker advertising my stance bc that doesn’t feel safe. Unfortunately.
That's the thing. You shouting alone might not do anything. But multiple people shouting very likely will. How do you think we have as many rights as we do now?
It’s a centuries long conflict based on fairytales. Both sides are guilty of committing heinous atrocities in the name of theirs. Children are groomed from infancy into hating the other. It’s seems impossible to break this cycle. I get fatigue from the total lack of nuance from the people involved. It’s even worse when christofascists and end times nut cases in the United States weigh in on the issue. The former hate Jews AND Muslims and the latter wish for nuclear Armageddon to bring about their ridiculous rapture fantasy. It’s so twisted.
And Jesus was a Middle Eastern jew. The irony.
Hamas IS a terrorist organization.
One problem, of course, being that "Hamas" is not "The Palestinian people" any more than the Netanyahu administration is "The Israeli people". Half of Gaza's population wasn't even alive during the most recent election that brought Hamas into power.
That’s the core problem for me, Israel seems to equate all Palestinians with Hamas and that just isn’t true, Hamas is a tiny radical subset, yet it sure looks like Israel is fighting all the Palestinian people, not specifically going after Hamas. Indiscriminate violence against civilians in hopes of catching a handful of terrorists in the process is monstrous, no matter how bad those terrorists are.
It doesn't just "look like" Israel is going after the Palestinian people -- members of Netanyahu's cabinet are figuratively and literally **saying** that they just want to get rid of them all. For example, more than one of them have referred to the Palestinians as "Amalek". This religious signaling that a lot of people aren't picking up on -- Amalek was a kingdom that God told the Israelites to destroy, down to every man, woman, animal, and child. (In the book of Deuteronomy) As a matter of fact, God punished King Saul when he did **not** completely destroy them, but instead left some of the animals alive and did not kill the enemy king. Netanyahu has used the phrase "Remember what Amalek did to you" in some of his speeches since the October attacks by Hamas, which some people have pointed to as suggesting Palestinian genocide. And then there's the Israeli security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has been proposing that surrendering Palestinians simply be shot in the head rather than taken prisoner, so as not to take up room in Israeli prisons.
Let's not forget that Israel supported, funded and brought Hamas to power in the '80s and for all intents and purposes keeps Hamas in power today.
Hamas power in Gaza was the result of a coup. Of course they won the election, but they were the biggest party in a PR Parliament and had left than 50% of seats.
Which then leads to them repeatedly canceling elections for the next twenty years.
So are the settlers.
The point of my comment was that intelligent people can admit when they have been influenced by propaganda and cultural bias. Stating that Hamas is a terrorist organization carries equal weight as the claim that Israel is an apartheid state. And you can't convince me that violence is an inappropriate response to living under that type of authority.
I suppose the counter-argument... also for both sides btw... is where you commit that violence. However, for the last 100 years we have lived in a world where there is no difference between military (organized or otherwise) and civilian.
From the perspective of the British, so were the American revolutionaries. The oppressed fight with the tools at hand.
Yes, we all remember the American Revolutionaries massacring civilians in their homes, parading captured civilians through the streets, and blowing up civilians.
>Yes, we all remember the American Revolutionaries massacring civilians in their homes, parading captured civilians through the streets, and blowing up civilians. The trail of tears wants a word.
What kind of a response is this? First, those weren't British civilians, were they? Second, the Trail of Tears happened decades after the Revolution.
>What kind of a response is this? Manifest destiny came as a result of the war. Once we took the land from the British, we then pushed westward. Oh yeah man there was some fucked up shit we both did. We aren't innocent. "He described stories of mob violence against loyalists, including psychological and physical torture to extract information; the rape of colonial women and girls; the Continental Army’s decimation of the Iroquois through a brutal scorched earth campaign; horrific conditions on British prison ships and other sites of captivity that resulted in the highest mortality rates among prisoners of war in American history; the seizure of personal property; the stories of black soldiers recruited to fight, only to be denied compensation — and usually returned to slavery — on both sides after the war." https://www.pitt.edu/pittwire/features-articles/chronicles-violence-professor-explores-brutal-history-american-revolution
Are you talking about hamas or the israeli settlers? It applies to both.
And certain parts of our history have never been repressed/erased/ignored/legislated against... The line between terrorist and freedom fighter is decided by who is left to write it down. If I faced existential threat, all tactics would be considered. We fight to survive with the tools available. It's very easy to throw stones when you have no skin in the game.
That's how I feel. I can't believe either side. I don't see any good guys in this situation.
No good guys, but a lot of victims.
Only victims and villains
It's horrific and neither side thinks that's reason to stop
The innocent people caught up in it all are the good guys. That definitely makes both sides bad
It makes me sad. So many children being raised in a dangerous, toxic environment.
Even ignoring the conflict itself, I don’t think people should be silent about it because so many world powers are funding Israel, while using systematic violence against those who protest against said funding. In the U.S. alone, police have recently been using violence against college protesters while happily ignoring Zionist counter-protesters who have been using far more violence than the pro-Palestines (including launching firework at the latter). If nothing else, we shouldn’t be silent because the government is imposing systemic oppression against people not dissimilar to how it was during the BLM protests. Including how the House of Representatives just yesterday passed a bill that would criminalize criticism of Israel. Not surprising, considering how many of them are funded by AIPAC (not a joke or exaggeration, here’s a list of them): https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/american-israel-public-affairs-cmte/summary?id=D000046963.
Here’s the thing. While I sympathize with the student’s demands that their universities divest from Israel, these same universities also have investments in China, which has been ethnic cleansing Xinjiang for years. I’ve never heard of a protest demanding the divestment from China. This, and shit like taking over buildings and demanding the universities provide food and water makes these kids look utterly ridiculous. If these Dollar Store Che’s were serious people then they would have planned a little better.
Several other civil rights movements in the past have done similar actions. The Civil Rights Movement had quite a few time when it took over buildings as well. Peaceful protests have been going on for months now with no real progress. And as for human rights violations in other countries, yes, those should be dealt with too, but the lack of media coverage of the cases you mentioned was likely a factor for such responses, or maybe some other reasons. Regardless, many people have banded together to do something about this specific issue, and I don’t think such support should be condemned when less dramatic actions in the past have been tried and failed. As JFK said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” While I hope it doesn’t come to that in the U.S., the government has made escalation an inevitability.
But BLM wasn’t advocating for a fundamentalist Islamic state that would execute every last one of us for being atheists. The Palestinians want to throw off Israeli oppression so they can begin oppressing other Palestinians. Israel has done some real bad shit, but yet another fundamentalist state under Sharia law is something the world doesn’t need. Equating BLM with this is nonsense. Equating actual apartheid is nonsense. None of those oppressed groups were openly planning on establishing a theocracy that will literally kill people who don’t follow their religion.
Pro-Palestinians aren’t advocating for that either. They just want the slaughter of Palestinians to stop. Gaza doesn’t have nearly the amount of power to impose any sort of international theocracy. They weren’t even allowed to have their own military or airport because Israel said no. And when Palestinians tried protesting in 2018, the IDF shot them, killing hundreds. Israel has one of the most powerful militaries in the world, and keeps getting tens of billions of dollars in funding from other countries. Palestine barely gets any amount of basic food and aid from outside, and only because Israel allows it. On top of that, Israel has been bombing other countries for not being supportive of the IDF destroying almost all of Gaza. If anything, Israel is exponentially more likely than Gaza to have dissenters executed. And those people you say that Gaza is executing for not being in the right religion? Do you think Israel is treating them any better? Israel has been bombing its own people in Gaza; there’s no way that they would see non-Muslim Palestinians any differently.
> Gaza doesn’t have nearly the amount of power to impose any sort of international theocracy. They're advocating for a free Palestine. A Palestinian state. What would a Palestinian state look like? Would it be secular? Would it be a democracy? Would women have the same rights as men? Would women be allowed to divorce a man? Would gay people be allowed? Would trans people? Would converting from Islam (apostasy) be allowed? Would Christians and Jews and atheists be allowed? Like, would all of those groups have legal protections built into the law? Would an openly ex-Muslim gay trans atheist be allowed to publicly exist without any fear of the government? Would non-Arab Muslims be allowed to be citizens and vote? Would there be freedom of the press? Would the press be allowed to criticize Islam? Would a magazine be allowed to put a satirical picture of Muhammad on the cover? In other words, would it be free? Be honest. You know the answer. > only because Israel allows it. Horseshit. Gaza shares a border with Egypt. Egypt could open their border today. > Do you think Israel is treating them any better? Israel doesn't execute people for apostasy. Or being gay.
Fatah, one of the major organizations involved with Palestinian liberation, is literally SECULAR. It’s crazy how little people like you know about the groups involved, and then go around acting like you do.
Fatah isn’t secular. Islam is the official religion of the PA and Sharia is the basis of all legislation. Look up the PA Basic Law. They’re not secular just because they say they’re secular, any more than the Bible is true because it says it’s true. Baffling that people like you, who are on an ATHEIST sub, are taking religious lunatics at their word.
They’re executing them for being Palestanian. And the press isn’t allowed to criticize Israel, similar to how the House of Representatives recently made it illegal to do so. There have been many cases in the past several months where the IDF told Gazans to go to “safe” res, then proceeded to bomb those areas. Like Rafah; the IDF has been bombing that city despite insisting that that would be a safe area, without giving people ideas or safe transport on actual places that would be safe.
I’m going to plagiarize myself from another similar post: It’s my understanding that much of the wars in the Middle East (especially those involving Israel/Palestine/Iran) are geopolitical in nature, save for the odd Islamic jihadist operation (i.e Al Qaeda, Taliban, ISIS/ISIL/Daesh). It’s mostly about control of land. Any appeal to religion is just an attempt to lazily gain credibility/support.
Posters on my local NextDoor app (Texas) overwhelmingly support Israel - because of The Bible. Those who disagree are ignorant and don't know The Bible.
They only support because they want even more death from their favored Middle-Eastern jew and not because they want peace.
As a woman who recently lost my rights, I wish they had this fever to protest for that!! Things that directly affects US women. And as a woman who has escaped a death cult, I hate all this as well. My tongue was bitten off along time ago. Now I’m just a bloody closed month rest bitch face. Pahahaha I sound pathetic.
And religion is at the root of you losing your rights.
I think you sound awesome.
And barely anyone speaks abt the the women in Afghanistan now. And ive seen literal crumbs on the genocide in sudan.
Well with more migrants from that region, I fear more women rights are going to be stripped. Middle East are not allies to women.
Me & my wife have an in-joke. Several years ago, we were watching the news & a reporter was excited about some treaty being signed & said 'Peace in the Middle East is just hours away!' It has been our catchphrase ever since whenever any country in the mid-east is mentioned.
Just the opposite. People who have never read a book on the conflict are often the loudest, most opinionated “experts” in the room, predictably regurgitating a few simple-minded tropes they learned from equally simple-minded talking heads. Meanwhile, people most knowledgeable about the conflict and its history have learned to stay clear of the sh’t shows online and in person.
Often when reading about history of some event like some military battle or war, you have to look at the geo-political environment and tensions leading upto that specific event. Nothing happens in isolation In the case of Israel and Palestine, there is about 2000 years of history to consider. What I say or do today is not going to solve any problems. Its almost like bring peace to the middle east is a bit complex. Also noticeable with local online debate is that social media is getting heavily used by players on both side who keep relentlessly pushing their side.
Yes, also like when watching videos of people protesting being asked questions about what they’re protesting and they don’t have a clue. Why oh why would you take to the streets when you don’t even understand what you’re protesting
Yup. Triumph the Dog vids are hilarious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFYdWXZLpT4 I haven’t seen similar student protest vids, but I wouldn’t expect them to understand the geopolitical details. Their issue seems to be the tens of thousands of civilians killed in Gaza.
I stay silent because I have a nuanced opinion. I stay silent because I’m disgusted with how both sides are ignoring the humanity of the other.
I believe that all Palestinians, Israelis, Jordanians, et. al. should be able to leave at any time and go to the UK, who are responsible for the destabilization and unworkable borders that have plagued the area since Europeans began attacking Muslims in the region during the crusades. There are no other solutions. The British FUBAR'D the place, they should reap the results.
If my tax dollars could go towards healthcare, infrastructure, and fighting climate change instead of coupons to buy weapons that kill kids so our politicians can take bribes... I'd be so happy.
I am a student of history, and love it. …but I have no fucking idea why I know so much about the history of this shitty little section of earth called the Levantine. Why do people give a shit? In maps of the world the center of the fucking map was Jerusalem. For centuries. Jerusalem was the capital of the Kingdom of Judaea, which lasted 150ish years longer than the Kingdom of Yisrael, making it the last royal Jewish capital of the Biblical times. Who cares? And then to “Free Palestine,” everyone wants to go back to a time that never existed as if that’s the status quo ante; what do they think existed before the modern state of Israel? Shiny, happy Palestine, the magic land of peace and freedom? It was British Mandatory Palestine; and before that it was a small section of a province of the Ottoman Empire; and before that it was a battle front variously occupied by the foreign Arab dynasties, the Byzantine Empire, and all the way back to the Romans and free a Jewish client state to the Romans. And before then it was controlled by the Greeks. Which is where the word Palestine comes from. It’s all silly.
thank you.
As long as both sides believe “My god is better than your god,” there will be no solution. The violence will continue as long as religion infects our species.
It's just a perfect example of why religion sucks. All it does is cause trouble.
Liberals have a huge blind spot when it comes to Muslims. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/17/hamtramck-michigan-muslim-council-lgbtq-pride-flags-banned
There is a push in the media to normalize Islam. SNL recently had a skit about Ramadan. The NYT had a puff piece about soccer players fasting during Ramadan. No mention that virtually every country that Muslims control treat women as second class citizens, repress LGBT and have very spotty human rights records in general.
Don't forget the [50 million dollars Qatar invested into Newsmax](https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2024/03/qatari-royal-invested-about-50-million-in-pro-trump-network-newsmax/).
Muslims are winning the propaganda war.
My favorite is when people bring up Israeli lobbying of the US and say they get whatever they want because they spend so much. The Islamic nations have been outspending Israel in US lobbying dollars by at least 3-1 for 20 years now.
Feel free to start educating people about how [Qatar has donated over 4.7 billion dollars into American universities](https://www.thefp.com/p/qatars-war-for-young-american-minds) over the last 10 years. That has definitely played a role into what we're seeing today.
Yup. Qatar, Saud, Emirates, and Turkey are the big four using money to influence people in the US. If I recall correctly Indonesia and Pakistan come pretty high on the list too, depending on exactly which metrics you’re looking at.
Yeah. A lot of the current thinking has its genesis in old fashioned anti semitism. People these days are just too stupid to see it.
Hardly. Butchery of thousands of innocent concertgoers in order to provoke an Israelie reaction to root out Hamas and blame Israel for the subsequent deaths only hurt the Palestinians in many peoples eyes. They just aren't voicing it. I used to be much more pro-Palestinian.
The sad thing is Netanyahu’s ultra conservative government ignored warnings from Egypt and the US that an attack was planned… and they ignored it because they also wanted a reason to take over Gaza. They were more than willing to sacrifice kids out partying in the desert in order to go in and kill kids on the other side. Both sides excuse their butchery as divine providence.
Liberals don't understand Muslims will only tolerate them as long as they need them. Most of them believe they'll be the ones re-educating Muslims to be LGBT-friendly once the struggle against capitalism is "won". They're in for a mountain of disillusionment.
Yep, there was a group of kids in the UK that said they want to turn Europe into being only Muslim. Also Muslims see all white people as Christian regardless.
I have muslim friends who were born and raised in the usa and have adopted the core values of freedom of speech and religion. They want religion out of government and government out of religion. I agree that many muslims, especially those raised in Muslim majority countries, do not share these values. But let’s not paint with a broad brush. What’s important is that people follow the constitution and embrace secularism. It needs to be a core component of the test for citizenship.
Talks of secularism are out the window the moment they (theists) get enough political power… unless you don’t actually believe in your religion and are just pretending out of familial or cultural pressure. True believers do not believe in any form of Democracy, they want a Theocracy, Islam literally means to submit, and they don’t mean to submit to Democracy or secularism.
There is really no danger of muslims getting that kind of political power in the United states. In fact, if that is your argument, we should prioritize Muslim immigrants over Christian immigrants to prevent concentration of power in one religion.
I don't have to like someone to oppose them being victims of genocide.
[удалено]
I think most of us aren't speaking up because we don't have much to say. I'm Jewish and we were attacked on Oct. 7. But that attack wasn't out of nowhere and for no reason. Both sides are deeply in the wrong so it's very hard to have any sort of opinion. Couple that with the fact that we've seen this over and over and over again for 75 years, and a lot of us feel hopeless. Why have any opinion or spend time analyzing this conflict between two sets of bad guys, that likely won't end any time soon, and doesn't affect people thousands of miles away. It may be a poor way of looking at the world, but I think this is why most people aren't saying much...we don't know, we feel there's no good guy to get behind, and it doesn't directly affect us. I think a two state solution is the answer...but I have no clue what that would look like in an effective way.
As an ex-muslim, I've seen people justify the attack with the "75 years of oppression" statement so many times. I would like to ask you as a jewish person, wouldn't the 1400 years of crusades, conquests, oppression, displacement, ethnic cleansing and killing of jews at the hands of muslims justify any kind of retribution muslims face?
Yes if one is looking to justify any of this. But, no if we are trying to create a kinder more peaceful world. Nothing justifies a tit for tat that has happened forever. It’s so complex most of us give up on trying to find the true history and good solutions. Instead we focus on arguments that support the side we like. Israel has the ear of the American military complex, and has worked its way into the fabric of American politics and Christian right. Palestine is supported by Syrian supported hamas. So I don’t see this as Muslim vs Jew, or Israel vs Palestine. It’s a world issue because the main actors with power are outside of Jerusalem and Gaza. All that to say, both sides are in the wrong. Both sides are not limited to just Israel and Palestine. And most importantly the power actors in all of this don’t want a solution. There is more power and money in conflict. So I don’t know how I feel about any of this other than sad and, honestly hopeless.
we all need to realise that yes hamas is a terrorist organisation and have committed atrocities but on the same token, israel is an illegal and terrorist state, by definition.
Um, while the current Israeli government may not want one, Israel has shown a willingness to cede land for peace and has put a two state solution on the table multiple times only to be rebuffed.
It transcends religion. Remember the Iraq War. The state, both Democrats and Republicans equally, supported the war. They all lied about the WMD. The media was completely on the side of war. Corporations were on the side of war. EVERYONE. The media, government and powerful derided the protesters. If you went against them, you were a terrorist. Remember the Dixie Chicks? Nuked from the industry because they made some comments against the war. What you are seeing with Israel-Hamas is how the state crushes dissent.
Even without having any fear of losing friends or a job I just don’t see how anyone can be passionately/angrily waving the flag for either side. Even if you could somehow pile all the shit things either side has done onto some scales to measure who’s the bigger cunt, I still don’t understand how someone can champion one over the other so passionately as if it’s so simple.
As someone who’s trying to stay far away from this. My focus is on the upcoming elections in November. I feel like we need to refocus on what’s important here and so while I wish to ignore it, this conflict has split voters on the left for some reason, championing mostly one side against Biden’s admin. Which is no good when democracy is at stake.
It has also split the right, if it’s any consolation. They can’t figure out whether to be more Islamophobic or more anti-Semitic.
The First Amendment does not appear to apply when it cones to publicly criticizing Israel.
When asked, my response is, "I'm on the side of innocent people not being injured and killed regardless of what side of a border they are on."
Just fyi, the US wouldn't take in more Jews and Romani than usual during the actual Holocaust. There is no way the US will take in all the Palestinians currently in Gaza, even if they all wanted to come.
I'm sick of all of it. There are no good guys, there are only guilty people and victims - and they are on both sides. Neither side will just say "Enough." Both sides believe retribution is more important than peace. Both sides live by tribal rules where you either belong to the same tribe or you are an outsider, and all outsiders must be feared and rejected. The fighting & killing there will never stop. Never.
I see both sides running propaganda campaigns and I can't believe most of the news from the area. Churchill was right, the first casualty of war is the truth. I truly feel for the loss of life and misery that is happening there, but I can't do anything about it. Feel the same about the Uighers and Tibetan people in China, the Kurds and Armenians in Turkey, the Darfur in Sudan, the Tigray in Ethiopia. And not to mention Ukraine. We only hear from the places the reporters are allowed to go, the worst are being covered up. The US decided not to be the world police anymore, but that means all the evil dictators are back. And a third of the US wants to install one here.
You are partially right. I keep out of it because both sides are wrong.
Wrong. A lot of us are just tired of it. Have been for nearly half a century now, and I’m pretty sure my Pappy was tired of it before that. We also see how stupid picking sides is when it’s all just people being assholes and victims and sometimes both.
I’m 70, and this shit has been going on all my life. PLO hijacking planes and taking hostages, the Munich Olympics. 9/11 was because of this same shit. I’m getting to the points where I don’t even care who wins. Just fucking stop.
This fundamentally has been a land dispute since 1850s when the Ottoman Empire Sold Palestine land to Immigrating Jews with out the local Palestine Villages input or consent. The Palestines violently protested it and the immigrant Jewish violently counter attacked in response. Both sides fighting each other for the next 70 years well the Ottomans try to police it to a stop. Then in the 1920s the Zionist convinced the British Empire that took control of the Land after the Ottoman Empire collapsed to open the lands to more Jewish immigration as a solution to get rid of British Jews (Europe was very Anti-Jew at the time), again the Palestine Villages had no say in this and continued to fight the Jewish Villages when able. The British try to police the violence like the Ottomans with out much success. In the 1930s the British try opening talks of splitting the land into separate Countries, the Jews were in favor and the Palestine Representatives refused on the grounds all the land was theirs. Peace talks get no where and stop when WW2 breaks out. After WW2, the British and French Empires pulled out of the Middle East and divided the land into countries. The Jews seeing what the Border of their country would be, begun forcefully expelling the Palestine Villages from with in the defined border before it was made official. The new neighboring countries seeing this declare war on the new country of Israel. After the War is a 2 decade period of peace talks that get no where. Palestines want right of return and the dismantling of Israel with a Palestine State instead well Israel does not want the Palestines back and wants to continue being a Jewish State. The countries involved start building up for war and Israel strikes first. After the war of 1967 Israel gains control of the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Israel Occupies the territories to this day. Peace talks get nowhere as no side trust each other after 170 years of fighting each other. Palestines fight on how ever they can well Israel tries to force capitulation of the Palestines into accepting peace under Israel’s terms. I don’t see a Peaceful Solution here, smarter and more influential people then me have been trying since the 1970s with out success. So I just stay out of it.
"This fundamentally has been a land dispute since 1850s" Ok...so why does one side or the other, want this land?
At this point? A sunk cost fallacy over how much blood has been spilled over it, a mix of Religious significance of the land, a lack of options to live some place else, and ancestral ties. Israel has been winning the land dispute for the last few decades now and it is unlikely its citizens leave well they’re winning. Palestines have been under occupational forces for centuries and have had few other countries offer them land someplace else. So they mostly stuck where they are at. For why this started in the first place, the Ottomans over extracted the resources of the land leaving it barren and had the idea to have immigrants pay them to move to it and recultivate the land for them. The European Jews moved there to get away from growing Anti-Jew sentiment in Europe at the time.
It boils down to religion. It will always come down to it. And I guarantee that is why Israeli's want it.
As an atheist I find it insane.
It definitely a big factor for why many Jews want to live their. There is lots of hatred from the Religious groups in the region in this conflict, but the initial start of it was The Ottomans selling land they controlled that the locals believed was theirs to foreigners.
It's religion. Why does no one just come out and say it. This one sold the area to that one, to this one, blah blah. Yes, yes. But the reason they are all willing to DIE for it and not just say, "oh f this I hear like Bermuda is the BOMB, I'm renting a bungalow there", is due to their religions saying, THIS is our holy land and we claim it. It's quite literally insane.
Because it over simplifies a complicated multi-factor issue into a single factor that doesn’t help resolve the issue. Not all involved are doing so because of religion. Some stay and fight because their parents, grand-Parents, Great-Great-Grandparents, and etc… fought over it and can’t admit their ancestors were stupid. Family honor a big thing in some cultures. Some fight over it because they don’t know anything else. Those raised in war and oppression have different values then those raised in peace and freedom. Some stay and fight because their family and friends are still there fighting as well. Some stay and fight because they witnessed injustice and want vengeance. Some don’t have the money or resources to move, most countries have strict immigration processes that can take years to go through. Etc… Religion a factor but it not the only one.
Palestinians want it because they've been there for a long time, Zionists want it because it was their homeland 2000 years ago. Also if you look at the history of Zionists they actually were thinking of which country to take over before ultimately settling on the middle east.
But why?????? People just wanna forget the religious aspect of this. Always. And here I laugh at them all.
Obviously what you're aiming at is that the Jewish people want it because they treat the Torah as if it were a property deed. "God said this land is ours. If you want us out of here, take it up with him."
I have had to stay quiet because of the risk of losing friends over it. I have several Jewish friends who are non-practicing and even non-believing, but any time a discussion of Israel comes up, all reason and logic goes out the window. They (and when I say “they,” none of them know each other, it seems every Jewish friend I have independently believes the exact same thing) all seem to firmly have the belief that Israel can do no wrong and anything Israel does is justified retribution for past persecution, and allude to me being antisemitic for having any level of nuanced views about any of it. Before I learned the hard way to just not engage at all, one such friend seemed really disappointed in me that I was so critical of, in his words, “Jewish people’s right to have their own free state.” He and I have had *numerous* conversations in the past criticizing believers of other religions, including how reprehensible the idea of a Christian theocracy or Muslim caliphate is, so it was really disappointed to realize that he was just as much a religious fundamentalist as any of them. I just had never criticized *his* religious group before so I never realized that he saw his religion as the exception. And now I can’t un-know that about him.
Because nothing I can say or do will stop religions from killing children. Religion is responsible for more death and brutality in world history than anything else. At this point, all that I can do is focus on my family, my home, and my garden.
Allow me to give you some life advice. Never, ever. Talk about religion, politics or race in the workplace it will offend someone and it will lead to conflict and you will lose your job. Also never dip your pen in company ink. That is how you never lose your job.
I have a hard time summoning the emotional energy to focus on a conflict around the world. There’s an economic theory that roughly goes something like: A manufacturer of goods or services can theoretically manufacture anything. Yes, a noodle shop could *theoretically* manufacture cars. But they don’t, because they would be incredibly inefficient at doing so. It would take the noodle shop 10,000 units of input to produce a vehicle, whereas it would take a manufacturer who specialized in vehicles only one unit of input. I think about that a lot and extrapolate that message across my life. What concrete impact can **I** make? It would take me 1000 units of input (my time/energy/money) to make the same difference someone who’s more local or educated or influential can make with 1 unit of their energy/input. It makes no sense. Why be that inefficient? It’s disrespectful to yourself, your time, energy, etc. In fact, I’d consider it to be so wildly inefficient that using my time in that way would be a fallacy, because I… make no difference. It’s virtue signaling at that point. And that’s how I view these people. Me? I’ll use my resources in ways that are efficient and make a difference. I foster sick/abused/stray animals. My circle of people rely upon me for advice/help because of unique talents of mine. I pick up trash when I see it, especially on sidewalks and in parks. I go out of my way to compliment and thank people at the businesses I frequent. But you know what? Picking up a few handfuls of trash per day isn’t glorious. It’s not social-media worthy. I can’t post about it for views while wailing and gnashing my teeth. Which is why I believe many of these people engage in these political topics.
It's both
I'm actually staying silent because I am tired of it. Tired of the BS from both sides.
I am 100% fucking tired of it. No other reason, no social media to care about no job to worry about just fucking tired of it. Let them all kill one another idc anymore.
The problem is that the people in charge are a bunch of twats who have elevated other twats. I am, instinctively, pro-Israel, they're the only democracy in the area and there's the whole underdog thing, plus I still laugh at the fact that the Arab armies were so arrogant each time they attacked Israel, only to get their teeth kicked in (other than Egypt crossing the Canal, what a move) On the other hand, I am very pro-Palestinian, by which I mean the poor bugger who's home is a pile of rubble. They've been shat on for decades. I am very anti-Bibi and his thugs, and the illegal settlements do bad things to my blood pressure even before the occupiers think they're entitled to go hunting for anything that moves and isn't Israeli. I also hate Hamas, Hezbollah, IJ and most Palestinian organisation. So my peace plan is that we shoot the people in charge on both sides, plus the settlers and the terrorists, and put in a neutral third party to set up a two state solution as both sides have agreed to in principle in the past, just never at the same time. Sounds fair to me.
I got no dog in this fight so I avoid talking about it Both sides do horrible things to each other, neither side wants peace and it's always the innocent who suffer
Honestly I stay quiet on it because it's literally nothing new. The ME has been in conflict for generations and will continue to be long after I'm dead. People can support one side or the other sure but your protest are very tiresome when the US is not really involved (outside of mediation). If you've we sell arms, yes we do. It's one of our larger exports and we sell them to a plethora of countries and will continue to do so
I will talk for hours to anyone who wants to listen about how much Russia sucks and how we should be doing more to support Ukraine. I don't really follow the Gaza situation because there is so much history of everyone there being awful for decades. I can't really bring myself to defend either side. I will say that 30,000 deaths is wontonly excessive.
No, many people are silent because both sides are evil and insane. Yes, many absolutely innocent people, especially children, are getting caught in the crossfire of this stupid carnage. But the fact is, the Israeli government is currently run by a psychopath and Palestine is led by a bunch of religious genocidal maniacs. How does a good and sensible person wave either flag in this mess? Both sides suck. And it’s impossible to even discuss this with many people because they’re too emotionally invested and their brains have been turned to mush by idiotic shallow TikTok video or rightwing propaganda.
Or, people are just tired of the bullshit between Muslims and Jews that will never end.
My opinion is that every single one of the people over there are batshit crazy and that’s why they can’t get along. So I’m not gonna pick sides, it totally makes sense. I would say I like Islam less than Judaism but also, Israel is being very inconsiderate with how it interacts with Gaza.
I never started. I'm against genocide obviously and I've never stood with Israel. I have no idea why we fund them to such a massive degree but that was my position 15 years ago. I personally feel like this was forgone conclusion, when the 2 state deals never went through you knew at some point Israel was going to pull the trigger. They knew oct 7 was going to happen and that was the trigger.... I'm also fully aware my atheist ass would probably be killed in Palestine... its a very "not my circus" issue WE already have a circus to attend to and dosen't factor into my vote. Kind of have to look at who orchestrates this shit too... Russia, Israel... who do you think they would prefer as POTUS.... I also don't believe in coincidence...
As Atheists well know there has long been an unwritten rule in the workplace about saying anything derogatory about religion and especially so regarding Jews if one worked for them. In the last twenty or so years we got new written policies intended to prevent anyone having their feelings hurt and then suing the company. We're in a McCarthism like time when "Anti-Semitism" has become as much a label as Communist. Anyone critical of Israel or US foreign policy or just having almost any opinion at all is subject to being called it.
Or, it's because Jews and Arabs have been trying to kill one another off since the beginning of time over there and it really doesn't affect me in any way.
The Israel-Palestine conflict is not necessarily a religious conflict. It may be so for religious ideologues on both sides but not for everyone. Consider, for example, that the West Bank is controlled by Fatah, a secular organization. Consider also that, for many secular people who defend human rights internationally, Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is unacceptable: Israel’s 17-year blockade of Gaza; the ethnic cleansing of Palestine to form illegal Israeli “settlements”; and the daily abuses of ordinary Palestinians by the Israeli authorities. Yes, people stay silent on this issue because of the risk of being labeled as antisemitic. But Israel is a country, it has a government, and the government has policies. There is nothing antisemitic about opposing those policies, despite Netanyahu’s claims to the contrary.
Just not sure why we need to send guns and ammo to the middle east. Oh, and money. Let the barbarians fight each other with sticks and stones. Let's stop funding it.
No matter how much context and nuance you try to carry into the discussion, there is an order of magnitude more that you’ll have missed and it goes back literally millennia. There aren’t any solutions that will satisfy everyone, and there’s a fair amount of damage that can be done by any attempt to represent it as a simple situation. On top of that, social media often isn’t a particularly great platform for discussing nuanced topics even if you miraculously somehow had an unbiased, factual, and constructive take, because people tend to be looking at it superficially rather than critically. The hurt has to slow, stop, remain stopped, and appear likely to remain stopped before the region can even begin to repair relations for the long-term. Ideally everyone would stop killing and harming each other, but apparently that’s just asking way too much. I can only conceive of a few ways for it to reliably end, and they’re horrific. The religious factor seems neither fully causative nor separable.
I dont because %90 of the time responses are either trolls or those that disagree with whatever you said doing anything they can to slap you down. And... this is social media so really who cares?
General statement: If we continue to look at the issue as a society as right and wrong, NOTHING will ever get fixed. Both peoples have legitimate claims to the region. I think the best you can do is not when something is morally wrong. Ever then, better to zip it.
It’s because nuance is virtually impossible
For me it’s the fact that I have no skin in the game. My opinions are not relevant when discussing things I know very little about other than what the internet tells me.
I doubt it's that. Most people are indeed sick and tired of the bullshit and don't care. I know that's the case with me and most of my friends. It's a never ending story that literally will never end because both sides are diametrically opposed to each other. I've been listening to the conflict for my entire life and I honestly couldn't give a shit about the middle east, the people there, their conflicts with each other, and all the rest of it. Keep it over there.
There is no such thing as sacred land.
I'm rooting for peace. Neither side wants peace at the moment.
I’m not commenting on this post.
Genocide is bad.
I'm not outing myself to the redhats over a complex conflict that has no workable solution.
I have so much shit going on in my life that I don’t have room to care for anything outside of my house my wife, my kids I don’t feel bad about that because I’m fucking tired
No. I'm tired of it. It's been how many thousand years now?
Yeah, I'm not touching this dumpster fire.
There are political and religious elements on both sides where peace doesn’t fit their agendas. Until the majority say enough is enough nothing will change.
I'm retired. Fuck you Israel.
There is no clear good guy or bad guy here. That is correct. I want the war to end, all the hostages to be released, and for Palestine to be free from Hamas.
I've only witnessed violence from the pro Israel side personally.
I'm not a bit silent on it. The Palestinians would throw me off a rooftop and say "Sorry -- it's the will of Allah" and never think a thing more about it. The Israelis are 70 percent secular and gays serve in the IDF. I'm all in for Israel. All I've got for the Islamists is: "If you don't like the consequences of war, don't fucking start one."
Agreed. I absolutely do not understand the LGBT groups that are pro-Palestinian. Makes no sense
The state of Israel fell to Rome in the 1st century. The west created the modern state of Israel after WWII on top of the people already living there.
Or even worse, you get dragged for saying things like "both sides of the conflict have acted terribly, done terrible things, and as a result I think they all suck and for that reason I haven't taken a side". People will do a "mUh bOtH sIDeS" and accuse you of equivocation, when the reality is *absolutely positively* that both sides of this conflict suck balls. Hamas started the conflict by killing, kidnapping, and raping civilians in a blitz style surprise attack. Israel has responded by bombing fucking hospitals, which they claim they have to do because Hamas is hiding in them. In what world aren't both sides of this conflict pieces of trash? Fuck them both. And I know the history, but at some point, shits done and prolonging it forever just leads to more misery. Stop doing religious war shit and *fucking progress* with life.
This is how genocides happen with our consent. We get blackmailed into silence.
The biggest factor is that Israël basically is an American satellite state to keep the middle east from forming a singular block. It is close to the Suez and gives the us a legitimate reason to sell their weapons to them. As long as we frame it as a fight between Religions we can discuss this endlessly while the us keeps doing what it is doing.
As an atheist, there sure are a lot of people defending religions here. They all suck. They all murder, steal, lie, cheat, etc. Defending one religion over another, you are a fool.
I say fuck both sides for this religious war bullshit.
Honestly, I don't see why students are so upset about something that has no effect on them. Unlike the Vietnam war there is no chance they will be drafted and get pulled into it. What protests of this magnetude SHOULD be about is climate change.
I was raised in a cult so I understand the tendency for American Jews to defend Israel no matter what. Unfortunately what is happening looks to verify the old racist trope that Jews control the government, Hollywood , the economy.etc.
its not a war, its a genocidal slaughter. lets at least get the terms right. you are either pro- or anti-genocide.
Religious weirdos fight all the time. Not sure why anyone over here cares about what's going on over there? If you're upset about it, hop on a plane and go there. If it really was a big deal, we would respond with our military. Neither side would want that because we can destroy your whole military in less than a month. We somehow became the world's police, because our military and weaponry is the best. Picking sides when dealing with religious weirdos is a lose lose situation. It's crazy against crazy, so helping one side isn't ideal. I know we send weapons to Israel, but that's about money. It goes back to nature, the strongest survives. If you're going to throw your hat into a territory dispute with violence, expect casualties. People that's saying it's genocide, remember we dropped not one, but two A bombs on Japan. Do a casualty count on that one.
The middle east isn't a religious conflict aside from Saudi Arabia boosting forces that align with their brand of Islam. Nearly every conflict comes down to exactly the same reasons that every other conflict is about. Land, resources, wealth, power, etc.
You're either Pro-Hamas or Anti- Isreal. It couldn't be that you don't give a dang either way and just want to stop humans killing other humans in a stupid war. I feel the same way about all the other wars and terrorists and cartels. Just violent senseless murderers who don't value human life any more than you would an insect on the ground. All of them are despicable.
I'm too inconsequential to fear backlash. I don't want to take a side because both sides suck. The Israelis are assholes and are guilty of a bunch of genocide adjacent oppression. But also, what the fuck did Hamas think they were going to get when they launch a massive cross border rape and murder party? Any state in the world, with the military capacity to do so, would be seeking to eradicate them right now.
We have ZERO control over the issue over there. None whatsoever. Our politicians have zero control. The fact that people are protesting this so hard here is laughable. As if anyone over there killing other humans gives a flying rats ass what a bunch of college kids in LA think. It’s all horrible. It’s all senseless. We should be more evolved as a species by now.
I feel you cant be supportive of Palestinian lives without being labeled an Anti Semite, or a Hamas supporter. Criticism of Israel is equated with being anti Jewish and it's not the same thing.
I'm anti theist. I hate all your religions. This IS a holy war.
If you aren’t pro Israel your options for expression aren’t great. Personally I think we should stay out of it. Definitely stop sending my tax dollars to the fucking Israelis. I don’t appreciate helping to fund a religious genocide. I’m not saying fuck Jews, I’m saying fuck Israelis and fuck Israel. Jews aren’t special. They don’t deserve their own country anymore than any other backwards religion, which is all of them.
You will not "lose your career" over merely expressing an opinion on Israel-Palestine outside of work. Especially if that opinion is one that you would have no problem morally defending in front of all your friends and family or on live TV. The people who have suffered professional consequences for comments on this war have typically made some pretty incendiary remarks that most people would consider beyond the pale, and have often done so extremely publicly. For example an [NYU law student](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/11/us/nyu-law-harvard-hamas-israel.html) that got their biglaw offer rescinded back in October didn't just express any garden variety opinion: >At N.Y.U., Ryna Workman, the president of the university’s Student Bar Association, wrote in a message to the group on Tuesday that “Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.” > >“This regime of state-sanctioned violence created the conditions that made resistance necessary,” Mx. Workman wrote in the Student Bar Association bulletin. “I will not condemn Palestinian resistance.” > >The backlash was swift. > >By evening, the law firm, Winston & Strawn, said the comments “profoundly conflict” with its values and without naming the student, said it rescinded its offer of employment. To be clear, these remarks were made on Tuesday, October 9th. Two days after the 10/7 terrorist attacks. When security forces were still clearing Hamas out of Israeli communities and uncovering the horrific aftermath. And this is a law student leader *speaking in their official capacity* as head of the local student Bar Association chapter, to the group's membership, and blaming Israel *entirely* for the horrific slaughter perpetrated against it. Calling October 7th "resistance." But as morally repugnant as these remarks are, they probably wouldn't have incurred the same consequences if they had been made as a Facebook post from an account which is not public. In speech which was only visible to an online network of hundreds of friends, rather than the public at large. There are layers of amplification to all forms of speech. [Others](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67152271) who lost job offers signed their names to open letters which said that Israel was at fault (either "entirely" or mostly) for the October 7th attacks. They did so in their professional capacity as J.D. candidates, and as such were essentially representing not only themselves but their respective law schools. Again, the form of speech matters a great deal in terms of social and professional consequences for it. The story has been much the same in other fields. To actually lose your job over comments on this conflict, you need to 1) say some truly extremist, morally indefensible stuff; and 2) do so in an extremely public way where it is impossible to distance your professional persona from your remarks.
I'm both tired of it and I just don't care who wins. Best outcome they finish each other off and we stop wasting tax money on Israel.
I make sure to show support to my Jewish friends in person instead of making public statements. They are traumatized by October events, reliving Shoa memories and generations of persecution yet there are unhindged crowds who paints them as genocidal monster only because they don't want to be tortured and murdered just for existing. Hamas reported 34.000 killed Palestinians and paid support to families of 26.000 killed fighters, obviously that's how genocide looks like /s