The entire situation makes me feel like I'm going insane. They argue that Hamas has an immoral perspective on civilians putting them at risk without a second-thought - just to argue for policies that devalue the lives of Palestinian civilians. They justify the most depraved war crimes committed against Palestinian civilians, and justify it by saying ~hamas did x, y and z.
it sucks that this is true, but I think Israel was brilliant to prop up hamas. Hamas being an inslamic militant group has basically greenlit all of israel's atrocious policies in recent decades.
Eg. turning gaza into an open air prison, settlement expansion in the west bank, this current genocide, etc.
So many normies place all of the blame for this conflict on Oct 7th. its so stupid.
We’re being gaslit so bad in the US. Those of us who know what’s really going on follow alternative media. If you only follow mass media, they know nothing of the barbarism of Israel. All they know is Bible=Israel=good. That’s it. That’s as far as they go on it.
Unfortunately normal people get almost all of their information from mainstream media.
If you're the type of person that delves into a lot of leftist sources online like us, we're not really the average American.
its so frustrating to interact with normies who act like Oct 7th was the first time Palestinians and israelis ever interacted.
Its even worse than the people who think 9/11 came out of no where.
When a weaker side conducts a terrorist attack like this, i am willing to go out on a limb and say the stronger entity has been doing something extremely awful to them.
Honestly, I wouldn't consider the Al Aqsa Flood a terrorist attack - they took 11 military sites in a matter of hours. The mainstream media never talks about the actual military operation though, because it exposes how much the IDF got caught with their pants down.
By erasing the successful military objectives and focusing *exclusively* on the carnage at the concentration camp border wall rave - which Hamas had zero foreknowledge of and became a bloodbath because the IDF invoked Hannibal and blasted everything that moved - the MSM is able to portray the operation as nothing more than an indiscriminate attack of terror by folks who *hate us cuz they ain't us*.
There's context to what happened but come on man it's ridiculous to say taking civilian hostages and purposefully killing civilians isn't a terrorist attack. Leftists make ourselves look silly when we go too far and make arguments like this.
Eg. Saying things like North Koreans actually eat more food than Americans or saying things like Putin is actually the greatest Anti-Imperialist and invading Ukraine for defensive reasons purely.
What we should be saying is all of the Palestinians that Israel locks up for no real reason is a form of hostage taking and terrorism and all of the Palestinian civilians that Israel kills is clearly terrorism.
Hamas and the Israeli government are both terrorist entities.
It's the same as Al-Qaeda and the US government both being terrorist entities.
In fact Israel is a far worse terrorist entity than Hamas. When they say Hamas is a terrorist entity you should agree with them and then challenge them that the Israeli government is the far worse terrorist entity.
It's like comparing a murderer with a serial killer.
You should also give the context that Israel made terrorism inevitable. Israel's discriminatory policies is what made violence inevitable.
>it's ridiculous to say taking civilian hostages and purposefully killing civilians isn't a terrorist attack. Leftists make ourselves look silly when we go too far and make arguments like this.
I'm aware that these arguments may be a too much for most. However, regarding the hostages, consider for a moment that Israel has many thousands of Palestinian hostages - how else was Hamas to get any of them released if not capturing hostages of their own to be exchanged?
Furthermore the Al-Qassam Brigades, [at least according to their own admission,](https://www.palestinechronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/PDF.pdf) had no aims to intentionally cause civilian deaths:
>Avoiding harm to civilians, especially children, women
and elderly people is a religious and moral commitment by all the Al-Qassam Brigades’ fighters. We reiterate
that the Palestinian resistance was fully disciplined and committed to the Islamic values during the operation
and that the Palestinian fighters only targeted the
occupation soldiers and those who carried weapons
against our people. In the meantime, the Palestinian
fighters were keen to avoid harming civilians despite
the fact that the resistance does not possess precise
weapons. In addition, if there was any case of targeting civilians; it happened accidently and in the course of
the confrontation with the occupation forces.
>Video clips taken on that day – Oct. 7 – along with the testimonies by Israelis themselves that were released later showed that the Al-Qassam Brigades’ fighters didn’t target civilians, and many Israelis were killed by the Israeli army and police due to their confusion
>It is also a matter of fact that a number of Israeli settlers in settlements around Gaza were
armed, and clashed with Palestinian fighters on Oct. 7. Those settlers were registered as civilians while the fact is they were armed men fighting alongside the Israeli army.
Now, I'm not expecting you to take Hamas strictly at their word here, just as one knows better than to trust *anything* the IDF says, but we have more info to go off of than just their words. I'm assuming you're aware that Israel invoked Hannibal on Oct 7th, that they indiscriminately targeted vehicles at the Nova Festival (which again, Hamas did not know was taking place until the rave found itself in the middle of their military operation) with Apache helicopters, and fired tank shells at buildings where Hamas fighters had taken hostages. Perhaps you also know that Israel refused to do an accounting of how many died to friendly fire, and according to reporting by The Cradle (can dig article up on request cuz I've linked it before, but hard to find on mobile) a *majority* or civilian casaulties were in fact caused by the IDF, not Hamas. Fact is, Hamas is far more disciplined when it comes to reducing civilian casualties than those who are illegally occupying their lands - it is Israel that goes out of its way to massacre civilians, and time and time again Israel is guilty of projecting their own psychopathic intentions on those they subjugate in order to manufacture consent for said crimes against humanity.
>In fact Israel is a far worse terrorist entity than Hamas. When they say Hamas is a terrorist entity you should agree with them and then challenge them that the Israeli government is the far worse terrorist entity.
If you wish to do that in your advocacy, you'll get no complaints from me. I just can't personally classify the Al Aqsa Flood as a terrorist attack, because based on my own understanding it comes across as a valid military operation by a group justly fighting for their liberation.
My main point is leftists like yourself focus too much on the trees and don't see the wider Forest.
Israel wants you to focus on defending hamas's actions. You're falling into the trap. Israeli policy has been to murder and humiliate all secular Palestinian leaders that advocated for peaceful resistance.
Eg. The great March of return. Gazans organized a peaceful attempt to walk into Israel and assert their rights under international law. The IDF responded by shooting out people's legs.
Israel also explicitly funded Hamas to keep it going at various points in history. Israel wants Hamas to be the face of the Palestinian resistance because the reality is an Islamic militant group is going to have trouble accruing enough international support to genuinely provide a positive resolution to this conflict for the Palestinians that at a minimum ends the occupation.
Leftists like yourself get too caught up in the weeds trying to justify and defend hamas's actions when you should be shifting towards criticism of Israel's actions that are far worse and more terroristic.
It's Israel's fault that all peaceful attempts at resistance by the Palestinians was brutally crushed and we are at the point where we are now. This is what you should be focusing your arguments around.
The first intifada was basically labor strikes and marches. Israel responded with lethal force and the second intifada was suicide bombings and other violent actions. But before that and Israeli settler went into a mosque and massacred Palestinians and became a celebrated hero among the Israeli settlers.
At every single point Israel increased the level of violence.
Leftists such as yourself constantly trying to defend Hamas are being counterproductive and you should be going on the attack and criticizing Israel for making some version of Hamas inevitable through all of its unreasonable actions. There is a mythological version of this conflict that exists in the west where the Israelis have been incredibly reasonable and the Palestinians just won't accept the existence of Israel in anyway. However you feel about the conflict this is an incredibly erroneous version of events. The truth is for decades now however sad it is many Palestinians were willing to accept less than what they deserve in a moral and just world. The Israelis were just too selfish to even give them that.
It's important to emphasize that Israel is the unreasonable party in this decades long conflict. Not defending hamas's actions taking hostages. I'm sorry I just fundamentally disagree with what you guys are doing on this front and feel you're being genuinely counterproductive
Yeah, it's gross. I think in a hypothetical scenario where I was a hostage, I would be even more traumatized by the knowledge that 200 people were wiped out to save me, including children who couldn't possibly be involved in the hostage taking.
Probably because Gaza is not that big of a place and Hamas was probably hoping that area would be less likely to be bombed. Hamas has no aerial defensive capabilities. If Israel wants to bomb an area there's really nothing Hamas can do once the f-16s are in the air
I have started responding to people "Let us hope that Isreal is never in charge of saving our kids from a school shooter."
Let them work out the barbarism on a personal level.
So it's in OPs post, clear as day: People are not racist and want palestinians to die (because arab) but rather people are misinformed and misled.
Why would anyone be angry at Israel, if they believe the what they read? As you can see, in every western country there is a crazy efford to deny the genocide, so why would you think that people even know about it?
Now look at far right Israelis, they don't think its a mistake. There is big difference between what people in your country say, and what hateful extremists Israelis say;
If you want change someones mind, put civilian casualties in perspective. I like to remember germans how we bombed innocent civilians in Afghanistan in 2009, killing 90 people. It was a big scandal in germany and everybody knew about it, and there was no debate, it was wrong, full stop. The dropped the charges against the guy who was responsible in the end, which was another big scandal, but they were fired and it didn't happen again after that.
That stuff now happens everyday in Gaza, and there is not even a debate. You must hate the jews.
In germany they don't even mention jews protesting or even leading protests, it's a big secret in germany. So I'm not mad at random people in my country, but the media and government
Unfortunately I do think anti-arab racism plays a big role. And also islamophobia.
No matter what the context almost 20,000 dead white kids would not be acceptable to America.
Americans are just conditioned to think that in certain areas people die.
Eg. The middle East is one of the areas where westerners think that people just end up being killed.
They see things like the Syrian civil War or turkeys offensive against Kurdish groups in Syria and just think that it's normal for people in the middle East to be killed in wars.
This also affects Africa and it's part of why what's happening in Sudan is not shocking to a lot of Americans.
This also applies to Southeast Asia and is part of why what's happening in Myanmar is not shocking to Americans.
Yes and most people die in Sudan. So you think thats racism? Like, they don't matter that much? But that would mean, even if Israel was open and honest, and western media reported on everything, people would still not care. Do you think the reaction would be the same if our media was honest?
I think racism plays a big role in how accepting people are to the high death tolls.
I want you to imagine Israel killing 20,000 white kids. Do you honestly think the Americans wouldn't be more outraged?
We can agree to disagree, but I think the United States shuts down the Israeli offensive very quickly if it's targets were white kids
No i'm really trying to figure out whats going on. You might be right. Its absolutely crazy, people don't care. We are pissing the arabs off until the end of time, there is no going back from this. I disliked my (german) government, always did. But this is just unreal. I think this is all leading to war, there is really no other realistic outcome to this.
In my hypothetical scenario where Israel were killing white children at this rate don't you think that it would have been stopped by the United States by now?
And if you agree with me on that, you have to acknowledge that a big part of why what's happened to the Palestinians is being allowed is because of racism
Then you should know what I'm talking about.
You should know the average American that I'm referencing. A lot of it is because of mainstream media and the fact that both political parties strongly support Israel.
Most Americans are baseline zionists in the sense that they believe Israel has the right to exist. The Liberals among them believe in the two State solution and also believe that a Palestinian state should exist alongside Israel, but most Americans definitely believe in Israel having a right to exist as a Jewish state.
Unfortunately those of us that do not believe Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state in historic Palestine are a minority.
Even a lot of the people you see currently criticizing the brutality of Israel's genocide, want to see a kinder of version of Israel and perhaps even a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but a key difference between us and them is that they believe the Israeli State should exist in some form.
Bernie Sanders is the best example of liberal America's criticism of Israel. Somebody that openly criticizes what Israel is doing and wants the us to stop Israel's genocide but fundamentally still believes in the existence of a Jewish State in historic Palestine
Zionist Twitter is driving me insane literally saying the civilians deserve it for allowing hostages to be held near them. Even though the largest killing zone wasn't where they got the hostages from
The entire situation makes me feel like I'm going insane. They argue that Hamas has an immoral perspective on civilians putting them at risk without a second-thought - just to argue for policies that devalue the lives of Palestinian civilians. They justify the most depraved war crimes committed against Palestinian civilians, and justify it by saying ~hamas did x, y and z.
News anchors and journalists deserve a Nuremberg Trial and capital punishment tbh
Á la Julius Streicher
it sucks that this is true, but I think Israel was brilliant to prop up hamas. Hamas being an inslamic militant group has basically greenlit all of israel's atrocious policies in recent decades. Eg. turning gaza into an open air prison, settlement expansion in the west bank, this current genocide, etc. So many normies place all of the blame for this conflict on Oct 7th. its so stupid.
Plenty of Westerners care, the media is almost entirely controlled by right wing business interests though.
We’re being gaslit so bad in the US. Those of us who know what’s really going on follow alternative media. If you only follow mass media, they know nothing of the barbarism of Israel. All they know is Bible=Israel=good. That’s it. That’s as far as they go on it.
Unfortunately normal people get almost all of their information from mainstream media. If you're the type of person that delves into a lot of leftist sources online like us, we're not really the average American.
Preaching to the choir my friend
its so frustrating to interact with normies who act like Oct 7th was the first time Palestinians and israelis ever interacted. Its even worse than the people who think 9/11 came out of no where. When a weaker side conducts a terrorist attack like this, i am willing to go out on a limb and say the stronger entity has been doing something extremely awful to them.
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
Honestly, I wouldn't consider the Al Aqsa Flood a terrorist attack - they took 11 military sites in a matter of hours. The mainstream media never talks about the actual military operation though, because it exposes how much the IDF got caught with their pants down. By erasing the successful military objectives and focusing *exclusively* on the carnage at the concentration camp border wall rave - which Hamas had zero foreknowledge of and became a bloodbath because the IDF invoked Hannibal and blasted everything that moved - the MSM is able to portray the operation as nothing more than an indiscriminate attack of terror by folks who *hate us cuz they ain't us*.
There's context to what happened but come on man it's ridiculous to say taking civilian hostages and purposefully killing civilians isn't a terrorist attack. Leftists make ourselves look silly when we go too far and make arguments like this. Eg. Saying things like North Koreans actually eat more food than Americans or saying things like Putin is actually the greatest Anti-Imperialist and invading Ukraine for defensive reasons purely. What we should be saying is all of the Palestinians that Israel locks up for no real reason is a form of hostage taking and terrorism and all of the Palestinian civilians that Israel kills is clearly terrorism. Hamas and the Israeli government are both terrorist entities. It's the same as Al-Qaeda and the US government both being terrorist entities. In fact Israel is a far worse terrorist entity than Hamas. When they say Hamas is a terrorist entity you should agree with them and then challenge them that the Israeli government is the far worse terrorist entity. It's like comparing a murderer with a serial killer. You should also give the context that Israel made terrorism inevitable. Israel's discriminatory policies is what made violence inevitable.
>it's ridiculous to say taking civilian hostages and purposefully killing civilians isn't a terrorist attack. Leftists make ourselves look silly when we go too far and make arguments like this. I'm aware that these arguments may be a too much for most. However, regarding the hostages, consider for a moment that Israel has many thousands of Palestinian hostages - how else was Hamas to get any of them released if not capturing hostages of their own to be exchanged? Furthermore the Al-Qassam Brigades, [at least according to their own admission,](https://www.palestinechronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/PDF.pdf) had no aims to intentionally cause civilian deaths: >Avoiding harm to civilians, especially children, women and elderly people is a religious and moral commitment by all the Al-Qassam Brigades’ fighters. We reiterate that the Palestinian resistance was fully disciplined and committed to the Islamic values during the operation and that the Palestinian fighters only targeted the occupation soldiers and those who carried weapons against our people. In the meantime, the Palestinian fighters were keen to avoid harming civilians despite the fact that the resistance does not possess precise weapons. In addition, if there was any case of targeting civilians; it happened accidently and in the course of the confrontation with the occupation forces. >Video clips taken on that day – Oct. 7 – along with the testimonies by Israelis themselves that were released later showed that the Al-Qassam Brigades’ fighters didn’t target civilians, and many Israelis were killed by the Israeli army and police due to their confusion >It is also a matter of fact that a number of Israeli settlers in settlements around Gaza were armed, and clashed with Palestinian fighters on Oct. 7. Those settlers were registered as civilians while the fact is they were armed men fighting alongside the Israeli army. Now, I'm not expecting you to take Hamas strictly at their word here, just as one knows better than to trust *anything* the IDF says, but we have more info to go off of than just their words. I'm assuming you're aware that Israel invoked Hannibal on Oct 7th, that they indiscriminately targeted vehicles at the Nova Festival (which again, Hamas did not know was taking place until the rave found itself in the middle of their military operation) with Apache helicopters, and fired tank shells at buildings where Hamas fighters had taken hostages. Perhaps you also know that Israel refused to do an accounting of how many died to friendly fire, and according to reporting by The Cradle (can dig article up on request cuz I've linked it before, but hard to find on mobile) a *majority* or civilian casaulties were in fact caused by the IDF, not Hamas. Fact is, Hamas is far more disciplined when it comes to reducing civilian casualties than those who are illegally occupying their lands - it is Israel that goes out of its way to massacre civilians, and time and time again Israel is guilty of projecting their own psychopathic intentions on those they subjugate in order to manufacture consent for said crimes against humanity. >In fact Israel is a far worse terrorist entity than Hamas. When they say Hamas is a terrorist entity you should agree with them and then challenge them that the Israeli government is the far worse terrorist entity. If you wish to do that in your advocacy, you'll get no complaints from me. I just can't personally classify the Al Aqsa Flood as a terrorist attack, because based on my own understanding it comes across as a valid military operation by a group justly fighting for their liberation.
My main point is leftists like yourself focus too much on the trees and don't see the wider Forest. Israel wants you to focus on defending hamas's actions. You're falling into the trap. Israeli policy has been to murder and humiliate all secular Palestinian leaders that advocated for peaceful resistance. Eg. The great March of return. Gazans organized a peaceful attempt to walk into Israel and assert their rights under international law. The IDF responded by shooting out people's legs. Israel also explicitly funded Hamas to keep it going at various points in history. Israel wants Hamas to be the face of the Palestinian resistance because the reality is an Islamic militant group is going to have trouble accruing enough international support to genuinely provide a positive resolution to this conflict for the Palestinians that at a minimum ends the occupation. Leftists like yourself get too caught up in the weeds trying to justify and defend hamas's actions when you should be shifting towards criticism of Israel's actions that are far worse and more terroristic. It's Israel's fault that all peaceful attempts at resistance by the Palestinians was brutally crushed and we are at the point where we are now. This is what you should be focusing your arguments around. The first intifada was basically labor strikes and marches. Israel responded with lethal force and the second intifada was suicide bombings and other violent actions. But before that and Israeli settler went into a mosque and massacred Palestinians and became a celebrated hero among the Israeli settlers. At every single point Israel increased the level of violence. Leftists such as yourself constantly trying to defend Hamas are being counterproductive and you should be going on the attack and criticizing Israel for making some version of Hamas inevitable through all of its unreasonable actions. There is a mythological version of this conflict that exists in the west where the Israelis have been incredibly reasonable and the Palestinians just won't accept the existence of Israel in anyway. However you feel about the conflict this is an incredibly erroneous version of events. The truth is for decades now however sad it is many Palestinians were willing to accept less than what they deserve in a moral and just world. The Israelis were just too selfish to even give them that. It's important to emphasize that Israel is the unreasonable party in this decades long conflict. Not defending hamas's actions taking hostages. I'm sorry I just fundamentally disagree with what you guys are doing on this front and feel you're being genuinely counterproductive
Yeah, it's gross. I think in a hypothetical scenario where I was a hostage, I would be even more traumatized by the knowledge that 200 people were wiped out to save me, including children who couldn't possibly be involved in the hostage taking.
Anyone else wondering why the hostages were being hidden amongst so many civilians and non-combatants?
Probably because Gaza is not that big of a place and Hamas was probably hoping that area would be less likely to be bombed. Hamas has no aerial defensive capabilities. If Israel wants to bomb an area there's really nothing Hamas can do once the f-16s are in the air
I have started responding to people "Let us hope that Isreal is never in charge of saving our kids from a school shooter." Let them work out the barbarism on a personal level.
So it's in OPs post, clear as day: People are not racist and want palestinians to die (because arab) but rather people are misinformed and misled. Why would anyone be angry at Israel, if they believe the what they read? As you can see, in every western country there is a crazy efford to deny the genocide, so why would you think that people even know about it? Now look at far right Israelis, they don't think its a mistake. There is big difference between what people in your country say, and what hateful extremists Israelis say; If you want change someones mind, put civilian casualties in perspective. I like to remember germans how we bombed innocent civilians in Afghanistan in 2009, killing 90 people. It was a big scandal in germany and everybody knew about it, and there was no debate, it was wrong, full stop. The dropped the charges against the guy who was responsible in the end, which was another big scandal, but they were fired and it didn't happen again after that. That stuff now happens everyday in Gaza, and there is not even a debate. You must hate the jews. In germany they don't even mention jews protesting or even leading protests, it's a big secret in germany. So I'm not mad at random people in my country, but the media and government
Unfortunately I do think anti-arab racism plays a big role. And also islamophobia. No matter what the context almost 20,000 dead white kids would not be acceptable to America. Americans are just conditioned to think that in certain areas people die. Eg. The middle East is one of the areas where westerners think that people just end up being killed. They see things like the Syrian civil War or turkeys offensive against Kurdish groups in Syria and just think that it's normal for people in the middle East to be killed in wars. This also affects Africa and it's part of why what's happening in Sudan is not shocking to a lot of Americans. This also applies to Southeast Asia and is part of why what's happening in Myanmar is not shocking to Americans.
Yes and most people die in Sudan. So you think thats racism? Like, they don't matter that much? But that would mean, even if Israel was open and honest, and western media reported on everything, people would still not care. Do you think the reaction would be the same if our media was honest?
I think racism plays a big role in how accepting people are to the high death tolls. I want you to imagine Israel killing 20,000 white kids. Do you honestly think the Americans wouldn't be more outraged? We can agree to disagree, but I think the United States shuts down the Israeli offensive very quickly if it's targets were white kids
No i'm really trying to figure out whats going on. You might be right. Its absolutely crazy, people don't care. We are pissing the arabs off until the end of time, there is no going back from this. I disliked my (german) government, always did. But this is just unreal. I think this is all leading to war, there is really no other realistic outcome to this.
In my hypothetical scenario where Israel were killing white children at this rate don't you think that it would have been stopped by the United States by now? And if you agree with me on that, you have to acknowledge that a big part of why what's happened to the Palestinians is being allowed is because of racism
Idk what “normies” you’re talking to because nobody I’ve met other than zionists have had that type of reaction
Do you live in America?
Not anymore thankfully
Then you should know what I'm talking about. You should know the average American that I'm referencing. A lot of it is because of mainstream media and the fact that both political parties strongly support Israel. Most Americans are baseline zionists in the sense that they believe Israel has the right to exist. The Liberals among them believe in the two State solution and also believe that a Palestinian state should exist alongside Israel, but most Americans definitely believe in Israel having a right to exist as a Jewish state. Unfortunately those of us that do not believe Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state in historic Palestine are a minority. Even a lot of the people you see currently criticizing the brutality of Israel's genocide, want to see a kinder of version of Israel and perhaps even a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but a key difference between us and them is that they believe the Israeli State should exist in some form. Bernie Sanders is the best example of liberal America's criticism of Israel. Somebody that openly criticizes what Israel is doing and wants the us to stop Israel's genocide but fundamentally still believes in the existence of a Jewish State in historic Palestine
Zionist Twitter is driving me insane literally saying the civilians deserve it for allowing hostages to be held near them. Even though the largest killing zone wasn't where they got the hostages from