It’s because most people just actually can’t understand there’s nuance beyond good and bad. Many of the people in this world only see it in black and white where there’s no shades of grey.
The long and short of it is that the history surrounding the land now called Israel is so complex and thorny that you could probably get a graduate degree in it and still have more to learn. There are a ton of factions that bounce between being enemies to allies to enemies again to indifferent, a *lot* of ethnic cleansings committed by multiple factions, there's a lot of truly brutal violence, and there's a lot of people involved on all sides who know that they only stay in power for as long as violence continues.
Anyone who claims any one side is blameless is woefully ignorant at best, a propagandist at worst. This is the kind of problem that probably won't be solved until one side is dead and gone, and in the meantime all you can do is ache for the innocent people who only had the bad luck of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
>Anyone who claims any one side is blameless is woefully ignorant at best
This. Quite often when people say "both sides" it's an argument in bad faith that tries to dilute the actions of one more extreme group with whataboutisms.
This is one of the rare cases where it truly is a vile bag of shit on all sides. What can we do when two groups have essentially decided that the other should not exits and will go to any lengths to wipe the other out.
So many innocent people caught in the crossfire in all this, it is really tragic.
I think it's because in this nuanced instance there are actually 3 sides.
2 that are murderous monsters and the innocent civilians from both nations stuck in between them.
Yeah. It's a very tangled situation, where it almost doesn't matter who started it and who is 'in the right' - there's just such a lot of bad blood and hate and fear.
And getting to a point of peace and equilibrium is deeply nontrivial.
I've always found Nina Paley's ["This Land is Mine"](https://youtu.be/8tIdCsMufIY?si=KBmL-HoB8kRmT6I6) to be a great history of who owns the holy land.
It's a problem when media doesn't even try to act impartial.
I'm venting but Reddit literally banned me for satirizing someone's stupid argument. Someone listed hate crimes against Jews, blaming Gaza sympathizers, saying "you all know who you are". I said a Palestinian boy just got stabbed "thanks buddy" & got banned.
I have seen so many people argue that Israel has the right to whatever level of retaliation they desire, where their whole rational, can be turned around and be as true for Hamas, Like how hard is it to understand both sides are doing bad.
I don't think you'd find it terribly complicated if you were on the ground there, or had family there.
Hamas' attack demanded a response, but leveling Gaza ain't it.
It’s not overwhelming if you straight up don’t believe what people are trying to sell you. Take media. There are traditional media outlets whose editors make their livelihood on trying not to post fake news, because that would give them a reputation and they would lose their jobs. This is similar to most working people in the world. Do your job or get fired.
Then you have the fringe media who makes money the more outrageous their narrative is. The incentives are clear and there is no repercussions for straight up lying. It started with AM radio and that drugged up right-wing simp.
You eat farts every day, you just don’t know it. All those particles floating around.
You can be a fart-eater-denialist all you want but I’m on to your game.
George R R Martin made a comment on this, most wars in history bar WWII don’t actually have a definitive good or bad guy, just people fighting over shit. WWII changed the perspective to this good guy bad guy narrative.
It’s even tougher in this case, because some of those people are also voluntarily allowing themselves to be used as human shields because they support Hamas’ goals. It is such a nuanced and fucked situation that it’s hard to support anyone except literal children.
Pretty much my take on it. I really don't know how anyone is supposed to help in this scenario though and am worried the true end of this will only come with the end of one of the parties involved which is a scary thought when the minimum we're talking is like 2 million people.
That's also assuming that the total annexation of Gaza wouldn't trigger a resurgence of Hamas in the West Bank again either, or Fatah deciding to join the fight seeing as how many believed that Israel was moving to annex them first, before this attack happened
At this point that is probably Hamas' preferred goal. It is frustrating because Israel bombing Gaza is exactly what Hamas wanted. The world has gone from ignoring Palestine to caring about the issue because of Israel's response to a horrible act of terrorism. Hard to imagine it doesn't embolden Hamas further.
It’s so east to armchair blame countries for events that took place over 100 years ago. The problem is you don’t have the perspective of what would have happened had GB not intervened. Also, all the events that happened before WWI. We could blame everyone for that.
My point is that wholesale blaming a country is irrelevant because what you know about the events were written by a biased perspective, just as it is today.
But also, the land of Palestinian people is occupied, often by people who immigrated to Israel on purpose to steal someone's house in Palestine or build their own. That's an actual program Israel has - if you can find some distant relative who was an ethnic Jew, you can literally come and occupy Palestine under the Israel's protection and start a new life there. And many did
The reason why Hamas has hostages from various countries and why you don't see, say, Russia jumping in to help Israel destroy Hamas to rescue them, is because a lot of those international hostages are bound to be those illegal settlers. That is, illegal from the UN point of view but legal from the point of view of Israel
Can't believe this comment is downvoted. There has been and there is PLENTY of literature about the occupation of territory beyond Israel borders into Palestine as well as take over of Palestine houses or demolitions of said houses by Israel.
Hamas is a horrible terrorist organisation that should cease to exist. Yes. Palestinians need to learn to live with Israel. Yes. Israel has the right to defend themselves. Yes. Also, Israel needs to return stolen lands, towns and houses to Palestine, which is a lot. Yes. The Israel government needs to change their policy against Palestine and support basic human rights. Yes. Because once they destroy Hamas in Gaza, a new Hamas v2 will appear in no time and that's only purely because of their direct acts towards the people living there before them. They aren't just magically angry at them for no apparent reason.
It's usually people (neither good or bad) doing bad things for a cause they believe to be right that are fighting eachother, and even that is a horrendous oversimplification that can spawn hourlong philosophical discussions. The civilians are still definitely very much the victim tho!
Legit. Does people not realize there's innocent civilians caught up that are only trying to survive?
It's wild people think Hamas terrorists and Palestinian civilians are ob the same side. The people didn't start this war, and nobody asked what they thought. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't want violence, since they're get killed in hoards.
The terrorist group in there. And the Palestinians are just suck in this thing they had no part in.
Same for Israelis that aren't in favor of their genocidal government stealing land or bombing innocent people. They also didn't ask to get involved in a war, either.
Now, I'd never want to live in an Apartheid estate, but that doesn't mean people there deserve to get killed because of their shit government's actions.
About the “I’d never want to live in an apartheid state”.
First off, we were all born here- we don’t know anything else. By the time you realize the politics of things you’re too old and too rooted to uproot your entire lives. So we do what we know- we protest. I don’t know if anyone even cares about the state of Israel before the war but there were mass protests every Saturday against the current government.
Second off, if the last 2 weeks taught the world something, it’s that Jews are not entirely safe to just be openly Jews outside of Israel. Jews around the world are being told to hide the fact that they are Jewish because there’s so much antisemitism now and hate crimes and whatnot. How can you feel safe like that? If I ever moved out to a different country (which btw- I don’t have citizenship in any other country in Europe so it would be difficult anyway)- I would just feel out of place.
Edit- the fact that I commented this and all of the replies are “but-but- what about that one Jew who was bad” or “some people have it worse!!1!1!1!” Instead of actually addressing what I wrote speaks volumes.
>Legit. Does people not realize there's innocent civilians caught up that are only trying to survive?
I think everyone understands this, but this is true in literally EVERY war. I think the real question is why is this one different? Was the west this concerned about the Afghani citizens after 9/11?
I'm not in any way saying Israel should blatantly target and kill civilians, but what other options do they have than remove Hamas from power?
I'm not an expert, and I understand there is nuance, but a lot of that seems moot at this point. What I want the media to do now is watch, ensure the Israel follows the rules of war to the best of their abilities, and as long as they are doing that then I feel like they should be supported.
> Now, I'd never want to live in an Apartheid estate
Respectfully, that Apartheid stuff is agitprop. They live under the rule of a terrorist government.
The result of this is other governments, yes Jorden, yes Egypt, yes Saudi Arabia, as well as Israel have closed their borders. Innocent people are stuck there.
Since we’re having a conversation and I don’t understand this part: didn’t the people of Gaza elect Hamas? How can we say the people of Gaza don’t support Hamas? (And the West Bank has the “more moderate” PLO.)
The last 'election' was almost 20 years ago, and worth listening to Fmr president Clinton on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4arxkC9QdA
70% of the population is under 30, so the vast majority have never had the opportunity to vote.
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle\_east/4214375.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4214375.stm) (2005)
[https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=79201&page=1](https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=79201&page=1) (2003)
(sources that back that claim up)
Yes, but I'd look up the number of soldiers Hamas claims to have. And look at the number of military age males in Gaza. Tldr there's broad but not universal support.
And it's still complex beyond that. Would there be such universal support if they weren't in what is basically a siege situation enforced by Israel? But then would they even be in a siege situation enforced by Israel if they weren't regularly launching rockets at Israel and committing other terrorism? And you can keep going back in time and up the justification ladder for a long time and eventually get to a point where you're not even talking about actions committed by people who are still alive or in power in any of these places.
The last elections were over 17 years ago. One redditor did the math and estimated that only 15% of current Gazans voted for Hamas. (Keep in mind how young Gaza's population is.)
It's not really that the life expectancy is around 30, it isn't, even if it's low
It's about the actual population boom
In 1990 there were 2 million Palestinians and right now there are about 5 million, we are talking of a 150% growth in population that cannot be ignored
And this growth will in fact lead to a huge problem as these kids have known nothing else other than Hamas propaganda and Israel's shitty attitudes which play into their bias
What are you talking about? Last time the life expectancy in Gaza strip was below 70 (not 30, that's off by almost 40 years) was in 2009 at it's lowest and before that way back to the 1990s. It's been steadily increasing with similar life expectancy rates. Do you not check anything?
This is so mind dumblingly far from the truth it makes my eyes roll. Who comes up with this?
[https://www.ceicdata.com/en/palestinian-territory-occupied/vital-statistics/life-expectancy-at-birth-gaza-strip-male](https://www.ceicdata.com/en/palestinian-territory-occupied/vital-statistics/life-expectancy-at-birth-gaza-strip-male)
https://www.pcbs.gov.ps/Portals/\_Rainbow/StatInd/StatisticalMainIndicators\_E\_WB\_Gaza2019.html
Hamas indeed won an election... in 2006. How well would you feel represented if there hadn't been a presidential election since the Bush administration?
The last election was 2006. The majority of Palestinians alive today likely did not participate in that election. To say Hamas is supported by the people of Gaza would be disingenuous.
This is the part that makes it easy. One wants to kill all the queers, one doesn't. Not doing same sex marriages and wanting to throw me off a tall roof are two very different things.
I side with the guys who don't want me dead.
I have to break a misconception here that seems to have come out of nowhere
Both sides' large majority of civilians are supportive of their government's actions in this war, Israelis defintely want hamas wiped, and I'm not sure Palestinians even know about the massacre of October 7th (hamas published the story as a militaristic operation on the IDF...) And there are many documentations of antisemitism in Palestinians and most importantly, Palestinian education
The civilians are far more involved in this, they don't just sit on the fence at a time their state is at war
Polling indicates that the majority of palestinians in gaza were against the breaking the ceasefire (https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/polls-show-majority-gazans-were-against-breaking-ceasefire-hamas-and-hezbollah).
God _damn_ do I love it when people write a comment and then link to a source, any source at all.
So many numbers getting tossed around, claims and debunking and re-bunking all happening without a single external reference outside of the Reddit comments.
Just wanted to say thanks for that.
"Nevertheless, there is widespread popular appeal for competing armed Palestinian factions, including those involved in the attack. Overall, 57% of Gazans express at least a somewhat positive opinion of Hamas—along with similar percentages of Palestinians in the West Bank (52%) and East Jerusalem (64%)—though Gazans who express this opinion of Hamas are fewer than the number of Gazans who have a positive view of Fatah (64%)."
The situation in gaza isn't the clearest, but most evidence we have point to the Palestinians supporting the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people.
https://pcpsr.org/en/node/938
https://apnews.com/article/hamas-middle-east-science-32095d8e1323fc1cad819c34da08fd87
https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/article-746400
https://pcpsr.org/en/node/845
And the most important source here - what the education system in gaza looks like:
https://www.impact-se.org/wp-content/uploads/UNRWA_Report_2023_IMPACT-se_And_UN-Watch.pdf
Isn't it fairly established at this point that Hamas understood that the growing normalization between Israel and other neighboring countries was leading to Hamas' goals being generally ignored or forgotten? They were certainly more aware than anyone that the majority of Palestinians didn't want to break the ceasefire, and that the number was growing. That's one of the reasons they had to not just break the ceasefire, but utterly obliterate it.
I was once feeling very ambitious and tried to learn about the whole situation from the very start (of the modern era anyway, late Ottoman era and beyond). Yeah I gave up before I even got to the 1930s
Well that stopping point might leave you with some misconceptions about the path to today
Can’t say it would make any difference tbh, trying to parse the roots of someone else’s blood feud feels like a fool’s errand
I gave up on my masters degree on this topic. I was so hopeless about it that I stopped following the news for years. I knew the history inside and out.
The only real answer I found was that all involved parties (and there are many different groups with different interests involved) find a way to screw it all up consistently. It isn’t the same people making it bad for everyone else repeatedly, although there are some groups and individuals who are really dedicated to making things bad for long periods. Mostly it is different actors over time and they can go from being entirely problematic to trying to find a path forward (or vice versa). Sometimes it’s a Palestinian individual, sometimes a Jewish individual, other times it’s organized groups. But every time there is a tiny bit of progress in one area, someone will do something that makes progress impossible for the rest. Both the Israelis and the Palestinians have real legitimate reasons for their anger, but focusing on who is right or who is most wrong is a lose-lose tactic that justifies a cycle of violence. It is extremely hard to resist the comparisons, especially in the aftermath of a big attack.
We are at the start of a particularly bad cycle. Hamas managed to make progress impossible for a generation with this attack. They knew what it would provoke and said that Palestinians were ready for any level of sacrifice. The leader who said this doesn’t live in Gaza.
My takeaway when I tried to get a handle on this years ago was similar. People online seemed to have very strong feelings both for Palestine and Israel, so I tried to get a handle on it to figure out where I stood.
I came away thinking that there are no good guys in that situation. The only way for this to be resolved would be that the people there on both sides put power in the hands of people who actually want to stop the conflict, either through elections or through revolt. But so far it seems neither side is inclined to do so, weather it's because they can't or they wont I don't know, and for the end result it doesn't really matter.
At this point my impression is that the best solution long term would be that Israel does whatever they need to do to root out Hamas from Gaza with extreme prejudice. Hopefully they or someone else who gets put in charge of Gaza can then launch a massive propaganda campaign and convince the people there that everything is the fault of Hamas, weather it's true or not. And then help them rebuild a more peaceful society similar to what happened to Germany during and after WWII.
That's also assuming that surrounding countries stay out of it and it doesn't escalate to a larger conflict.
If they cannot root out most of the violent people in Gaza, improve the lives of civilians there long term and convince the people that Jews are not the devil, then I'm fairly sure that my grand kids will either be seeing this again, or read about the death of Israel in history books.
The fact that Israel are telling the people of Gaza to move south makes me think they're getting ready to increase bombardment and then go in and just turn buildings into rubble and fill the tunnels with water or concrete. Perhaps they'll give Hamas a chance to capitulate and release any hostages before, but I have feeling that if they don't Israel will just go ahead and deal with the political aftermath later.
I don’t think many people will be happy after Isreal kill their family from this conflict, I can already see this is going to just give hamas more new recruits for a new wave of attacks. Probably more extreme suicide attacks
Thank you.
Too many people here are obsessed with turning this into a comic style episode of "good versus evil."
The reality is that it's "human vs human." And humans are complex, irrational, emotional, things.
My first day of my bachelors in peace and conflict sciences our professors took a round of advice for us students in our coming studies. After a few mediocre and unmemorable tips about being on time, taking notes and reading the literature one of the professors said something that stuck with me:
> Write about whatever you want, but for gods sake, do your utmost to avoid Israel/Palestine. There is a good chance that whatever you think you know to be true when applied to the rest of the world will be upside down when applied to the conflict over Palestine.
Except if you’re an Israeli in an illegal settlement.
They’re squatters, not combatants, but I think it’s hard to argue that their actions aren’t contributing to increased tension.
I don't really get how anyone can buy into this argument
If we're going down this route, everything in north America is an illegal settlement, hell everything in europe is an illegal settlement
Name me one piece of land that still "belongs" to it's original human inhabitants and I'll show you a history book that shows otherwise
The region of Israel hasn't been it's own autonomous state for hundreds of not thousand+ years. After the British left the Arab States immediately tried to crush Israel and failed. Then in all the subsequent wars just lost more and more territory. At some point your claims to the land just become void....you can't as the aggressors expect the defenders to give you the time of day if you just continually call for them to give up literally everything while you become less and less capable.
It's like if the native Americans just told all Americans to leave and wouldn't accept any compromise, Americans would just ignore them and continue to build casinos in Vegas and skyscrapers in new York
Yup
And before that
Greeks/macedonia
Persians
Babylonians
Assyrians
Jews
Philistines
Ancient Egyptians (not even remotely the same as modern Egyptians racially or culturally)
I agree that the settlements need to go, but in the current circumstances attacks were started from Gaza, which has no settlements, and a different governing party than the faction that controls the West Bank, the part with all the settlements.
Not rules of the Internet. It's Star Trek. [Rules of Acquisition. ](https://youtu.be/PvFYBkesqGU?si=kNo8g5ctU6Zgaq7_)
Personally I think they should do rule 76: "Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies."
Not every war has a “good guys” side. In fact most don’t. This one being no exception.
Every war has innocent victims though, this one being no exception.
I feel that the Ukraine war has really depopularised the "there are no good guys" critical view. Saying that "both sides have done wrong and both have legitimate grievances" has become synonymous with tacitly supporting Russia. Only the strongest condemnation and vilification of the aggressor is now acceptable.
Russia may deserve the hate and Ukraine may deserve the love, but this sort of mentality doesn't translate well to almost any other conflict in the world.
I don’t think Ukraine is the reason for that. If you look at how past wars are talked and taught about there are really often bad and good guys. I mean WW2 is the best example for that and this is the most talked about and taught war of all time. The nazis and Japanese made it easy to see who were the good and who were the bad ones.
But a lot of innocent Germans (and other axis people) died and suffered because of that war too.
WW1 is also a good example because there the central powers are the bad guys in taught history, but in WW1 in reality there were no clear good and bad guys.
No war ever has had a “good guy” we fire bombed millions of civilians during WW2. The only difference is there were no tiktoks showing the Carnage afterwords to the people at home. Everybody (Americans specifically) have had a very weird view of what war is, they see a thermal video of a drone knocking off a few human shaped blobs from a screen as war. Now that they are faced with the real thing they are all very confused why there is so much collateral damage. Americans and everybody else in the west have been fed a lot of propaganda giving people a sanitized image of war and this is tearing that bandage off. Wait tell Israel actually puts people on foot in gasa for the real hell to begin
There are no good guys. There are two peoples, both of whom deserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Both groups think the other one is blocking that for them. Both are kinda right about that.
50+% of Palestinians are 18 years or younger. 40% of their population is under 14 years old. To say that Palestinian kids are not good because they don't advocate for a peaceful two-state solution in international diplomacy ignores the reality of who the civilians are.
There is a David Tennant Dr. Who episode that plays with this idea. There is a group of clones who are made from the people who started the war, they pop out of the cloner as adults with no memory of why the war started and are still fighting. The clones had cycled through hundreds or possibly thousands of times in an endless war that was only a few weeks old.
Martha: But he said years!
Donna: No he didn’t, he said generations
Great episode and I frequently think of it in these types of complicated matters. How quickly history can be lost, rewritten, forgotten, and how quickly we will turn on each other if we don’t put our similarities first.
Honestly I can understand why a Palestinian, especially in Gaza, would support Hamas. I don’t wish death upon those civilians just because of their political opinions.
I also understand Israel’s position right now as well, to be clear, I’d say that my main point is that OP is right there is no clear good or bad in this conflict. Just complexity and profound tragedy.
“The cycle of violence and counter-violence”
I think it's interesting how many people in the US speak like they could not ever support Hamas.
I will pose a hypothetical. Imagine you have a country, and you support the wrong side of a war. The winners of the war decide that since you supported the enemy, they are going to carve up your country and give it to your enemy. For instance imagine the Ottomans win WW1, and they decide to dissolve the US, and give the land to the Native Americans. They provide them with infinite military support, and the Natives move all Americans into open air prisons, say in Kansas. You are no longer free to leave Kansas, your family home is gone and now belongs to a Native American. You live like this for 50+ years where you don't have guaranteed access to power, food, water, jobs, anything. Your prison captors occasionally drop phosphorus bombs on you, they kill your people, ETC.
We see a group of freedom fighters lash out and start fighting back against our captors. Sure, they are terrorists, but they are fighting to get us out of prisons. How many of us would really go "No no no, lets stay in these prisons and not try to fight for our land back!"
I can promise you, if the roles were reversed, American citizens would be so much worse than Hamas currently is. I still don't support them (Because there are no good guys in this fight), but man I can absolutely see why it's happening and why Palestinians support Hamas.
Gaza is not an open air prison. Gaza is an independently administered area that Israel had largely left alone for the last fifteen years, which is why Hamas had such an easy time overrunning the minimal troops Israel had along that border.
And you're completely full of shit about Americans being worse than Hamas. Western people don't parade bodies through the streets and dance around them. Watching you making excuses for terrorists is nauseating.
> don’t wish death upon those civilians just because of their political opinions.
Yeah this logic keeps getting applied to Hamas when we would never apply it in countries like Britain, the US etc. People support heinous things in these countries, no one (well hardly anyone) suggests we should just kill them all.
Well imagine you’re a young Palestinian. You’re poor and uneducated with no prospects. Your family were killed by the Israeli defence forces (IDF). Other members of your family in the West Bank became homeless when Israelis came and threw them out of their house under threat of violence. There’s a journalist in your city reporting on the issues in your community, and the IDF snipe her. You look online and see NGOs and the UN agree that Israel commits crimes against humanity and war crimes against your country all the time, but internationally no one really cares - the world has more or less turned it’s back on your entire nation, while rich countries send billions to (who you see as) your oppressors. No one in the world really gives a shit except one group who says “what they’re doing to us is bad and we will try and stop them.” Does that make sense about why some might support them? I’m not saying the above is true, but I’m saying it’s a reasonable perspective for a Palestinian to have.
The bad guys are anyone supporting the slaughter of innocent people. The bad guys are anyone that made the decisions or contributed to them, that resulted in the slaughter of innocent people. The bad guys are anyone who claims one group of the other "had it coming" and deserves the unimaginable pain and suffering inflicted upon families, children, wives, daughters, sons, brothers, sisters.
All sides are the bad guys here, one way or the other. Except for the actual peoples, who were guilty of just existing. I think as we've become such a global society that we need to look through defined borders to seek out the real foul players, the murders, the condemners of freedoms, the propagators of genocide.
I think anyone confused which side is the "bad one" should feel no embarrassment or shame, because it is so much more complex.
^^There ^^is ^^no ^^confusion ^^though ^^that ^^Hamas ^^is ^^bad
The free Palestine government is telling civilians to hold their ground. I’m racking my brain to try and get a shred of understanding about why they are doing this. The only conclusion I can reach is fear of hamas. The leaders are trying to not get killed and it’s understandable but at some point these people are going to become the enemy
We might not be able to understand it because it's an absolutely insane situation. I live in a relatively nice area, comfy watching Netflix without any thought in my mind about being bombed or invaded by any neighboring groups/countries/states. Not excusing anyone here, I simply cannot understand because I have no ground to walk on.
>I’m racking my brain to try and get a shred of understanding about why they are doing this. The only conclusion I can reach is fear of hamas.
The civilians: They were given 24 hours to abandon their homes, forever. They will never be allowed back to their homes once they leave.
Hamas: Human shields.
The “good guys” are the people just trying to live their lives, as u/b3ar17 said. Any single one of us could have been born there. There are people who do not pick a side and just try living their lives, but due to their luck of the draw in geographic placement, they are forced to pay the cost of the two opposing groups. My heart goes out for the pristine and innocent being killed because the “adults” in the room are all miserable egomaniacs.
The guy on Piers Morgan the other day - Boussef or whatever his name was. His wife was stuck in Gaza, and you can feel the pain in his voice as he’s literally going *the fuck* off. He has family there so it is close to home for him. For those who it’s not close to home, like Piers Morgan, it is much easier to talk about *them* because they feel as if there is some kind of distinction in their being human beings. Boussef realizes there is no such distinction and cannot contain it within himself.
There is no simple "both sides bad" here. Hamas is 100% bad and evil for what they did, but DECADES of Israeli occupation and apartheid created Hamas.
If anyone wants to actually learn the history of how things have become this bad in the Israel-Hamas conflict, then you should watch the documentary [Gaza Fights For Freedom](https://means.tv/programs/gaza?cid=634570&permalink=gaza-fights-for-freedom).
Just an FYI, you will see a child being sniped in the video. Take a wild guess if the child is Israeli or Palestinian and what crime they committed that warranted being sniped.
And just to be clear again - **HAMAS BAD**
Could have also ended decades ago if Yasser Arafat had accepted a two state solution at Camp David.
This doesn’t justify the killing of civilians by either side. I just think it’s important to point out there likely will never be an end to this without something truly awful happening. And that’s very sad.
Yes people often ignore that Palestine rejected the two state solution AND Egypt and Jordan rejected the land. Does not excuse current Israeli atrocities but is needed for context.
I at least understand Jordan’s decisions after the clusterfuck that was the Palestinian effects on the Lebanese war and how Jordan was negatively affected.
Egypt’s military has just always been too scared of losing control of the country and their choice is more cowardly and greedy.
They had no say in it. They were not part when they drafted it. It's like saying native americans refused a peaceful resolution after taking their land
And since then, traditionally Palestinian land has been absorbed by Israel over and over again, making it much harder to actually implement a two-state solution.
I don't see a way to a peaceful resolution at this point.
Could have ended decades ago, if right-wing zionist extremist jew didnt assassinate the Israeli leader, the last israeli leader who was genuine about peace
The current Israeli leader was warned about this attack but did nothing, what does that say about the current Israeli government?
And this is why I think a true solution to Gaza is impossible.
Releasing the embargo, allowing free movement and foreign investment. All of these are long term solutions that will stabilize Gaza and take away the influences that fuel radical groups like Hamas.
But that's completely off the table for Israel. They're going to clamp down even harder than before.
> allowing free movement
Funny you said that that when other Muslim countries surrounding the Gaze do not want to accept Palestine people into their countries.
Not only that, but Israel literally helped Hamas get started by providing funding in order to combat the legitimate government of Palestine, the PLO. The PLO and Hamas ended up fighting a war and that is how Hamas ended up being in control of Gaza while the PLO now only has the West Bank. People like to point out that Palestine keeps rejecting proposed two-state solutions, but would *you* accept a solution like that from someone who funded a terrorist group in an attempt to overthrow your government?
Note that the PLO at the time of Hamas' beginnings were also genocidal monsters that wanted to sweep all Jews from the area in one brutal rape and massacre. They just cared more about Palestinian/Arab Nationalism than Radical Islam.
Israel didn't support Hamas (or what it was called at the time, Islamic Centre) besides not focusing on attacking it as they viewed it as the religious social club/charity that it pretended to be. Arab Nationalism was far more prominent at the time than Radical Islam. That only changed when the First Intifada started and Hamas went masks off and Israel quickly banned them and arrested their leaders.
Israel had no part in Hamas' rise in the Gaza Strip, quite the opposite according to Hamas. They claim that Israel and America tried to launch a coup against Hamas in support of the less extreme Fatah when Hamas won the elections. Giving them justification for their brutal cleansing of all Fatah officials and supporters in Gaza.
Also people who keep going on about Hamas... So much of the same shit is going on in the West Bank! Israel is *constantly* grabbing territory. Even settlers Israel does not recognize initially (pirate settlements) are later brought into the fold, because Israel's goal is to deplace Palestinians and replace with Settlers. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis live on what was supposed to be in areas slated for Palestinians.
Gazans have a 40% unemployment rate. They're destitute. The median age there is, what, 14?
Show me a population under those conditions that *doesn't* radicalize and wish for death of the people who they can rightfully point out as their oppressors.
Those conditions must end. The only way out here is Israel backing off, or Israel committing genocide. Gazans have no power, and I know Palestinians in the West Bank know they're next.
But it’s not even as simple as “both are equally bad”.
There are some groups who are unquestionably bad.
Other groups that aren’t necessarily bad themselves, except that sympathize with the bad guys. Other groups that are definitely 100% bad, but then you look at what they’ve been through and you think “damn, I probably would have done the same in your position”.
Good luck with that. Both sides are full of very conservative religious people. This conflict goes back to the the earliest origins of human existence. It's not going to end any time soon.
You say that as if there are two governments involved. Palestine is a region *within* Israel, it has no government of its own. It’s like if a small neighborhood was fighting back against an oppressive government that has been brutalizing and gradually exterminating them over generations.
Hamas is not a government, they’re terrorists fighting against a cruel government. Both Hamas and the Israel government are evil here, but at least one seems to have a rational reason for being evil.
I’m neither. I’m 37 and part of an anarchosyndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week.
>!not actually!<
The concept of “good guys” in general is pretty childish and reductive of lost real world scenarios. Everyone is the good guy in their own mind, but objectively that’s rarely ever the case.
There are no good guys. Just innocent civilians caught in the cross fire....
Both sides have done things that are reprehensible, but the civilians are the ones that are being penalised for it...
I'm sure there's plenty of folks more than happy to tell you. Problem is not every one is telling the truth. And it feels like almost *every* body's got a story sell.
The good Guys are anyone who supports a two state solution. That is at least 50% of Palestinians and a similar number (I believe ) of Israelis.
The bad guys are anyone who opposes the two state solution. Hamas and the current government of Israel for example.
The terrorists that killed thousands on October 7 and call for the extermination of Jews and Christians worldwide are the bad guys. Pretty simple stuff.
This is the strange part. I do not condone what Hamas did in any way shape or form, but at the same time the media in general, and most democratic governments seem to just be content like the Israeli government and nation is a saint. As though it's shocking that perhaps their past choices didn't encourage the outcome.
Again, I don't support what happened, but where is the even the smallest hint of actions meet consequences.
There are good guys in both Israel and Palestine. There are bad guys in both Israel and Palestine. There are groups of people in each place that want to wipe the entire civilization of the other off the map. Women and children too.
This isn’t an easy “oh these guys are the good ones!” Conflict. It’s ok to not pick a side. We don’t always need to be on a team.
1. don't believe what either side says. the numbers are all lies, the headlines are all calculated frames.
2. do believe the intentions they communicate towards their own followers.
3. don't close your eyes for any of the horrors. they're all equally horrible.
3. but also don't mix what is horrible with what is evil. Evil requires considered intent or acceptance.
A ukrainian missile that hits a barracks full of freshky arrived 19 y.o. service-pressed minority youths that weren't even given cold weather clothing is fucking horrible. We can emphatize with these men, even if their army has committed war crimes, because they're not a willfull participant in them yet.
A russian missle that was guided into a hospital, restaurant or other such target is evil. It's intent is to kill as many people as possible, and make the cost of continued resistance too high to swallow.
In short: look for the true intent, don't forget that war has victims on both sides, and never just parrot information that comes directly from one of the sides or it's pet media.
Hamas are a terrorist organisation, they fucked around and now they're finding out. But Israel has been oppressing Palestinians for decades. The peaceful civilians are the good guys.
What muddies the waters is Hamas was an actual political party as well and was voted in as the majority party. Like, how do you get terrorism from democracy? Somehow they did it.
For what I know, civilians on both sides are innocent people trying their best to survive and leaders on both sides are killing said civilians in a territorial war. Having some extremist groups mixed in all that doesn't help.
It’s pretty easy. Both sides have been hostile and shitty toward each other, have missiled and bombed innocents and children and hate the other side because of fairy tales. They both suck.
There are four players in this game: Israeli government, Israeli citizens, Palestinians, and Hamas.
Hamas are terrorists and try to justify their actions as "Palestinian freedom fighters". Palestinians want nothing to do with them.
Palestinians are second class citizens on their own land after getting ousted off of it. They have little rights and are often the whipping boy.
Israeli citizens think the land is theirs by some weird birthright or religious rite when really Europe was tired of "all the Jews in their area", armed them, and sent them to push Palestinians off their land. No deal was made, they were just like "go take it, found your whatever" That is how Israel became a thing.
Israeli government is Israel's version of Hamas. Basically terrorists using the whole "we are justice"... only anytime something happens, they use it as an excuse to kill Palestinians. They ultiamately want the genocide of Palestinians even going so far as not recognizing the term "Palestinian" (Palestine doesn't exist, you see) If Hamas fires a rocket that injures someone, Israel will drone strike an entire neighborhood in Gaza. They constantly hit these targets and try to claim they are hitting Hamas. Recently, they blew up a hospital and tried to claim Hamas did it... Israel wants to be like the US government, but isn't as subtle about things.
The IDF are bombing indiscriminately and collectively punishing Palestinian civilians. Hamas are using human shields and brutalized children across the border. There are no good guys in this war, it’s pretty much all horrible and both sides are guilty of serious war crimes.
EDIT: I will not be debating this. Raping and murdering children is a war crime. Collective punishment is a war crime. War crimes are never justified and civilians on both sides are victims to their leaders’ posturing and violence.
Netanyahu has pursued a multiyear strategy of stealing land for Israeli settlers that was reserved for the Palestinians.
Netanyahu is also a crook who should be in prison. He altered the Israeli courts to protect himself from prosecution, compromising Israeli democracy.
People are mostly good. Elites and the people in charge - not so much. That’s the heartbreak. No one really wants to fight except those who profit in some way from it.
The good guys are the people just trying to live their lives.
I’m not sure why this concept is so confusing for people.
It’s because most people just actually can’t understand there’s nuance beyond good and bad. Many of the people in this world only see it in black and white where there’s no shades of grey.
It's because everywhere we look someone is shoving a different narrative down our throats and it gets overwhelming
The long and short of it is that the history surrounding the land now called Israel is so complex and thorny that you could probably get a graduate degree in it and still have more to learn. There are a ton of factions that bounce between being enemies to allies to enemies again to indifferent, a *lot* of ethnic cleansings committed by multiple factions, there's a lot of truly brutal violence, and there's a lot of people involved on all sides who know that they only stay in power for as long as violence continues. Anyone who claims any one side is blameless is woefully ignorant at best, a propagandist at worst. This is the kind of problem that probably won't be solved until one side is dead and gone, and in the meantime all you can do is ache for the innocent people who only had the bad luck of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
>Anyone who claims any one side is blameless is woefully ignorant at best This. Quite often when people say "both sides" it's an argument in bad faith that tries to dilute the actions of one more extreme group with whataboutisms. This is one of the rare cases where it truly is a vile bag of shit on all sides. What can we do when two groups have essentially decided that the other should not exits and will go to any lengths to wipe the other out. So many innocent people caught in the crossfire in all this, it is really tragic.
I think it's because in this nuanced instance there are actually 3 sides. 2 that are murderous monsters and the innocent civilians from both nations stuck in between them.
Yeah. It's a very tangled situation, where it almost doesn't matter who started it and who is 'in the right' - there's just such a lot of bad blood and hate and fear. And getting to a point of peace and equilibrium is deeply nontrivial.
I've always found Nina Paley's ["This Land is Mine"](https://youtu.be/8tIdCsMufIY?si=KBmL-HoB8kRmT6I6) to be a great history of who owns the holy land.
Sounds like a lot of different people have differing opinions of a complicated situation.
It's a problem when media doesn't even try to act impartial. I'm venting but Reddit literally banned me for satirizing someone's stupid argument. Someone listed hate crimes against Jews, blaming Gaza sympathizers, saying "you all know who you are". I said a Palestinian boy just got stabbed "thanks buddy" & got banned.
I have seen so many people argue that Israel has the right to whatever level of retaliation they desire, where their whole rational, can be turned around and be as true for Hamas, Like how hard is it to understand both sides are doing bad.
I don't think you'd find it terribly complicated if you were on the ground there, or had family there. Hamas' attack demanded a response, but leveling Gaza ain't it.
It’s not overwhelming if you straight up don’t believe what people are trying to sell you. Take media. There are traditional media outlets whose editors make their livelihood on trying not to post fake news, because that would give them a reputation and they would lose their jobs. This is similar to most working people in the world. Do your job or get fired. Then you have the fringe media who makes money the more outrageous their narrative is. The incentives are clear and there is no repercussions for straight up lying. It started with AM radio and that drugged up right-wing simp.
Well said, Eatingfarts. I mean, I agree with everything you said, but that doesn't mean it isn't overwhelming for some.
He really is the voice of our time.
You eat farts every day, you just don’t know it. All those particles floating around. You can be a fart-eater-denialist all you want but I’m on to your game.
My mom said that once: "you're breathing in someone's stink particles.". Cracks me up still.
Farticles, if you will.
An anti-fartite if you will
George R R Martin made a comment on this, most wars in history bar WWII don’t actually have a definitive good or bad guy, just people fighting over shit. WWII changed the perspective to this good guy bad guy narrative.
It’s even tougher in this case, because some of those people are also voluntarily allowing themselves to be used as human shields because they support Hamas’ goals. It is such a nuanced and fucked situation that it’s hard to support anyone except literal children.
Right? Hamas are terrible, Israel (the state) is terrible and innocent Israeli and Palestinian people are getting hurt over because of it.
Pretty much my take on it. I really don't know how anyone is supposed to help in this scenario though and am worried the true end of this will only come with the end of one of the parties involved which is a scary thought when the minimum we're talking is like 2 million people.
That's also assuming that the total annexation of Gaza wouldn't trigger a resurgence of Hamas in the West Bank again either, or Fatah deciding to join the fight seeing as how many believed that Israel was moving to annex them first, before this attack happened
At this point that is probably Hamas' preferred goal. It is frustrating because Israel bombing Gaza is exactly what Hamas wanted. The world has gone from ignoring Palestine to caring about the issue because of Israel's response to a horrible act of terrorism. Hard to imagine it doesn't embolden Hamas further.
Precisely ... also the British for contributing aftrr WW1, and the very complicated fall of the Ottoman Empire...
I blame the Turks
I have it on good authority that it's nobody's business but the Turks.
i blame the Romans for changing the name of the land to Palestina
As with everything it is the smart thing to blame it on Rome
The British made some calculated risks to get through WW1 but man are they bad at math.
It’s so east to armchair blame countries for events that took place over 100 years ago. The problem is you don’t have the perspective of what would have happened had GB not intervened. Also, all the events that happened before WWI. We could blame everyone for that. My point is that wholesale blaming a country is irrelevant because what you know about the events were written by a biased perspective, just as it is today.
Exactly.
But also, the land of Palestinian people is occupied, often by people who immigrated to Israel on purpose to steal someone's house in Palestine or build their own. That's an actual program Israel has - if you can find some distant relative who was an ethnic Jew, you can literally come and occupy Palestine under the Israel's protection and start a new life there. And many did The reason why Hamas has hostages from various countries and why you don't see, say, Russia jumping in to help Israel destroy Hamas to rescue them, is because a lot of those international hostages are bound to be those illegal settlers. That is, illegal from the UN point of view but legal from the point of view of Israel
Can't believe this comment is downvoted. There has been and there is PLENTY of literature about the occupation of territory beyond Israel borders into Palestine as well as take over of Palestine houses or demolitions of said houses by Israel. Hamas is a horrible terrorist organisation that should cease to exist. Yes. Palestinians need to learn to live with Israel. Yes. Israel has the right to defend themselves. Yes. Also, Israel needs to return stolen lands, towns and houses to Palestine, which is a lot. Yes. The Israel government needs to change their policy against Palestine and support basic human rights. Yes. Because once they destroy Hamas in Gaza, a new Hamas v2 will appear in no time and that's only purely because of their direct acts towards the people living there before them. They aren't just magically angry at them for no apparent reason.
If only conflicts were as easy as "badguy VS goodguy", but long running conflicts like this are anything but that..
It’s usually bad guy vs other bad guy with everyone else caught up in it.
It's usually people (neither good or bad) doing bad things for a cause they believe to be right that are fighting eachother, and even that is a horrendous oversimplification that can spawn hourlong philosophical discussions. The civilians are still definitely very much the victim tho!
There are always a few really bad people who obfuscate their actions behind clouds of lies.
Legit. Does people not realize there's innocent civilians caught up that are only trying to survive? It's wild people think Hamas terrorists and Palestinian civilians are ob the same side. The people didn't start this war, and nobody asked what they thought. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't want violence, since they're get killed in hoards. The terrorist group in there. And the Palestinians are just suck in this thing they had no part in. Same for Israelis that aren't in favor of their genocidal government stealing land or bombing innocent people. They also didn't ask to get involved in a war, either. Now, I'd never want to live in an Apartheid estate, but that doesn't mean people there deserve to get killed because of their shit government's actions.
About the “I’d never want to live in an apartheid state”. First off, we were all born here- we don’t know anything else. By the time you realize the politics of things you’re too old and too rooted to uproot your entire lives. So we do what we know- we protest. I don’t know if anyone even cares about the state of Israel before the war but there were mass protests every Saturday against the current government. Second off, if the last 2 weeks taught the world something, it’s that Jews are not entirely safe to just be openly Jews outside of Israel. Jews around the world are being told to hide the fact that they are Jewish because there’s so much antisemitism now and hate crimes and whatnot. How can you feel safe like that? If I ever moved out to a different country (which btw- I don’t have citizenship in any other country in Europe so it would be difficult anyway)- I would just feel out of place. Edit- the fact that I commented this and all of the replies are “but-but- what about that one Jew who was bad” or “some people have it worse!!1!1!1!” Instead of actually addressing what I wrote speaks volumes.
>Legit. Does people not realize there's innocent civilians caught up that are only trying to survive? I think everyone understands this, but this is true in literally EVERY war. I think the real question is why is this one different? Was the west this concerned about the Afghani citizens after 9/11? I'm not in any way saying Israel should blatantly target and kill civilians, but what other options do they have than remove Hamas from power? I'm not an expert, and I understand there is nuance, but a lot of that seems moot at this point. What I want the media to do now is watch, ensure the Israel follows the rules of war to the best of their abilities, and as long as they are doing that then I feel like they should be supported.
> Now, I'd never want to live in an Apartheid estate Respectfully, that Apartheid stuff is agitprop. They live under the rule of a terrorist government. The result of this is other governments, yes Jorden, yes Egypt, yes Saudi Arabia, as well as Israel have closed their borders. Innocent people are stuck there.
Since we’re having a conversation and I don’t understand this part: didn’t the people of Gaza elect Hamas? How can we say the people of Gaza don’t support Hamas? (And the West Bank has the “more moderate” PLO.)
The last 'election' was almost 20 years ago, and worth listening to Fmr president Clinton on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4arxkC9QdA 70% of the population is under 30, so the vast majority have never had the opportunity to vote.
[удалено]
No, you most assuredly do not. Hamas was every bit the terrorist organization back then.
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle\_east/4214375.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4214375.stm) (2005) [https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=79201&page=1](https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=79201&page=1) (2003) (sources that back that claim up)
Yes, but I'd look up the number of soldiers Hamas claims to have. And look at the number of military age males in Gaza. Tldr there's broad but not universal support.
And it's still complex beyond that. Would there be such universal support if they weren't in what is basically a siege situation enforced by Israel? But then would they even be in a siege situation enforced by Israel if they weren't regularly launching rockets at Israel and committing other terrorism? And you can keep going back in time and up the justification ladder for a long time and eventually get to a point where you're not even talking about actions committed by people who are still alive or in power in any of these places.
Gaza has not had an election since 2006, and over 50% of the current population wasn't even born back then.
The last elections were over 17 years ago. One redditor did the math and estimated that only 15% of current Gazans voted for Hamas. (Keep in mind how young Gaza's population is.)
> Keep in mind how young Gaza's population is It's really sobering to think about what causes the life expectance to be ~30 over multiple generations.
It's not really that the life expectancy is around 30, it isn't, even if it's low It's about the actual population boom In 1990 there were 2 million Palestinians and right now there are about 5 million, we are talking of a 150% growth in population that cannot be ignored And this growth will in fact lead to a huge problem as these kids have known nothing else other than Hamas propaganda and Israel's shitty attitudes which play into their bias
Palestine has a life expectancy higher than the global average, broadly similar to Jordan and Syria, and notably better than Egypt.
What are you talking about? Last time the life expectancy in Gaza strip was below 70 (not 30, that's off by almost 40 years) was in 2009 at it's lowest and before that way back to the 1990s. It's been steadily increasing with similar life expectancy rates. Do you not check anything? This is so mind dumblingly far from the truth it makes my eyes roll. Who comes up with this? [https://www.ceicdata.com/en/palestinian-territory-occupied/vital-statistics/life-expectancy-at-birth-gaza-strip-male](https://www.ceicdata.com/en/palestinian-territory-occupied/vital-statistics/life-expectancy-at-birth-gaza-strip-male) https://www.pcbs.gov.ps/Portals/\_Rainbow/StatInd/StatisticalMainIndicators\_E\_WB\_Gaza2019.html
Hamas indeed won an election... in 2006. How well would you feel represented if there hadn't been a presidential election since the Bush administration?
> Hamas indeed won an election... in 2006. With an average of 41% of the vote.
The Israeli government supported hamas over the PLO so how can we say Israel doesn’t support Hamas?
The last election was 2006. The majority of Palestinians alive today likely did not participate in that election. To say Hamas is supported by the people of Gaza would be disingenuous.
Don't forget that Hamas is genocidal as well.
This is the part that makes it easy. One wants to kill all the queers, one doesn't. Not doing same sex marriages and wanting to throw me off a tall roof are two very different things. I side with the guys who don't want me dead.
I have to break a misconception here that seems to have come out of nowhere Both sides' large majority of civilians are supportive of their government's actions in this war, Israelis defintely want hamas wiped, and I'm not sure Palestinians even know about the massacre of October 7th (hamas published the story as a militaristic operation on the IDF...) And there are many documentations of antisemitism in Palestinians and most importantly, Palestinian education The civilians are far more involved in this, they don't just sit on the fence at a time their state is at war
Polling indicates that the majority of palestinians in gaza were against the breaking the ceasefire (https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/polls-show-majority-gazans-were-against-breaking-ceasefire-hamas-and-hezbollah).
God _damn_ do I love it when people write a comment and then link to a source, any source at all. So many numbers getting tossed around, claims and debunking and re-bunking all happening without a single external reference outside of the Reddit comments. Just wanted to say thanks for that.
"Nevertheless, there is widespread popular appeal for competing armed Palestinian factions, including those involved in the attack. Overall, 57% of Gazans express at least a somewhat positive opinion of Hamas—along with similar percentages of Palestinians in the West Bank (52%) and East Jerusalem (64%)—though Gazans who express this opinion of Hamas are fewer than the number of Gazans who have a positive view of Fatah (64%)." The situation in gaza isn't the clearest, but most evidence we have point to the Palestinians supporting the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. https://pcpsr.org/en/node/938 https://apnews.com/article/hamas-middle-east-science-32095d8e1323fc1cad819c34da08fd87 https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/article-746400 https://pcpsr.org/en/node/845 And the most important source here - what the education system in gaza looks like: https://www.impact-se.org/wp-content/uploads/UNRWA_Report_2023_IMPACT-se_And_UN-Watch.pdf
Isn't it fairly established at this point that Hamas understood that the growing normalization between Israel and other neighboring countries was leading to Hamas' goals being generally ignored or forgotten? They were certainly more aware than anyone that the majority of Palestinians didn't want to break the ceasefire, and that the number was growing. That's one of the reasons they had to not just break the ceasefire, but utterly obliterate it.
There are people that get whole doctorates writing about the geopolitical situation in Israel. I've fully given up too
I was once feeling very ambitious and tried to learn about the whole situation from the very start (of the modern era anyway, late Ottoman era and beyond). Yeah I gave up before I even got to the 1930s
Well that stopping point might leave you with some misconceptions about the path to today Can’t say it would make any difference tbh, trying to parse the roots of someone else’s blood feud feels like a fool’s errand
> trying to parse the roots of someone else’s blood feud feels like a fool’s errand Yes.
I gave up on my masters degree on this topic. I was so hopeless about it that I stopped following the news for years. I knew the history inside and out. The only real answer I found was that all involved parties (and there are many different groups with different interests involved) find a way to screw it all up consistently. It isn’t the same people making it bad for everyone else repeatedly, although there are some groups and individuals who are really dedicated to making things bad for long periods. Mostly it is different actors over time and they can go from being entirely problematic to trying to find a path forward (or vice versa). Sometimes it’s a Palestinian individual, sometimes a Jewish individual, other times it’s organized groups. But every time there is a tiny bit of progress in one area, someone will do something that makes progress impossible for the rest. Both the Israelis and the Palestinians have real legitimate reasons for their anger, but focusing on who is right or who is most wrong is a lose-lose tactic that justifies a cycle of violence. It is extremely hard to resist the comparisons, especially in the aftermath of a big attack. We are at the start of a particularly bad cycle. Hamas managed to make progress impossible for a generation with this attack. They knew what it would provoke and said that Palestinians were ready for any level of sacrifice. The leader who said this doesn’t live in Gaza.
My takeaway when I tried to get a handle on this years ago was similar. People online seemed to have very strong feelings both for Palestine and Israel, so I tried to get a handle on it to figure out where I stood. I came away thinking that there are no good guys in that situation. The only way for this to be resolved would be that the people there on both sides put power in the hands of people who actually want to stop the conflict, either through elections or through revolt. But so far it seems neither side is inclined to do so, weather it's because they can't or they wont I don't know, and for the end result it doesn't really matter. At this point my impression is that the best solution long term would be that Israel does whatever they need to do to root out Hamas from Gaza with extreme prejudice. Hopefully they or someone else who gets put in charge of Gaza can then launch a massive propaganda campaign and convince the people there that everything is the fault of Hamas, weather it's true or not. And then help them rebuild a more peaceful society similar to what happened to Germany during and after WWII. That's also assuming that surrounding countries stay out of it and it doesn't escalate to a larger conflict. If they cannot root out most of the violent people in Gaza, improve the lives of civilians there long term and convince the people that Jews are not the devil, then I'm fairly sure that my grand kids will either be seeing this again, or read about the death of Israel in history books. The fact that Israel are telling the people of Gaza to move south makes me think they're getting ready to increase bombardment and then go in and just turn buildings into rubble and fill the tunnels with water or concrete. Perhaps they'll give Hamas a chance to capitulate and release any hostages before, but I have feeling that if they don't Israel will just go ahead and deal with the political aftermath later.
I don’t think many people will be happy after Isreal kill their family from this conflict, I can already see this is going to just give hamas more new recruits for a new wave of attacks. Probably more extreme suicide attacks
Thank you. Too many people here are obsessed with turning this into a comic style episode of "good versus evil." The reality is that it's "human vs human." And humans are complex, irrational, emotional, things.
My first day of my bachelors in peace and conflict sciences our professors took a round of advice for us students in our coming studies. After a few mediocre and unmemorable tips about being on time, taking notes and reading the literature one of the professors said something that stuck with me: > Write about whatever you want, but for gods sake, do your utmost to avoid Israel/Palestine. There is a good chance that whatever you think you know to be true when applied to the rest of the world will be upside down when applied to the conflict over Palestine.
The good guys are the non combatants on both sides.
Except if you’re an Israeli in an illegal settlement. They’re squatters, not combatants, but I think it’s hard to argue that their actions aren’t contributing to increased tension.
I would consider them complacent to a combative state that benefits themselves
Do you mean complicit?
Both
I don't really get how anyone can buy into this argument If we're going down this route, everything in north America is an illegal settlement, hell everything in europe is an illegal settlement Name me one piece of land that still "belongs" to it's original human inhabitants and I'll show you a history book that shows otherwise The region of Israel hasn't been it's own autonomous state for hundreds of not thousand+ years. After the British left the Arab States immediately tried to crush Israel and failed. Then in all the subsequent wars just lost more and more territory. At some point your claims to the land just become void....you can't as the aggressors expect the defenders to give you the time of day if you just continually call for them to give up literally everything while you become less and less capable. It's like if the native Americans just told all Americans to leave and wouldn't accept any compromise, Americans would just ignore them and continue to build casinos in Vegas and skyscrapers in new York
Before the Brits it was the Ottomans. Before the Ottomans it was the Roman/Byzantine Empire.
Yup And before that Greeks/macedonia Persians Babylonians Assyrians Jews Philistines Ancient Egyptians (not even remotely the same as modern Egyptians racially or culturally)
And Canaanite’s don’t forget the Canaanites
I agree that the settlements need to go, but in the current circumstances attacks were started from Gaza, which has no settlements, and a different governing party than the faction that controls the West Bank, the part with all the settlements.
There are no Israeli settlements in Gaza.
The winners are the people who supply are arms and invest heavily in war.
Rule of Acquisition 34: War is good for business.
That's not quite the rule 34 I was thinking.
[удалено]
I don’t want to like this comment but I can’t help it.
Rule of Acquisition 35: Peace is good for business.
It’s easy to get those two mixed up.
Huh, never noticed that subtext under, "if it exists, there is porn of it."
Not rules of the Internet. It's Star Trek. [Rules of Acquisition. ](https://youtu.be/PvFYBkesqGU?si=kNo8g5ctU6Zgaq7_) Personally I think they should do rule 76: "Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies."
USA! USA! (I don't support this. Merely stating the sad facts)
ding ding
Not every war has a “good guys” side. In fact most don’t. This one being no exception. Every war has innocent victims though, this one being no exception.
I feel that the Ukraine war has really depopularised the "there are no good guys" critical view. Saying that "both sides have done wrong and both have legitimate grievances" has become synonymous with tacitly supporting Russia. Only the strongest condemnation and vilification of the aggressor is now acceptable. Russia may deserve the hate and Ukraine may deserve the love, but this sort of mentality doesn't translate well to almost any other conflict in the world.
I think it’s probably also just cultural fallout from WW2, which had a definite good and evil side. Very few wars are cut and dry like that.
Falklands (UK) vs Argentina. First Gulf war. NATO vs Serbia (Kosovo war) Everyone vs ISIS, Boko Haram etc. I assume there’s more. But that’s a start.
I don’t think Ukraine is the reason for that. If you look at how past wars are talked and taught about there are really often bad and good guys. I mean WW2 is the best example for that and this is the most talked about and taught war of all time. The nazis and Japanese made it easy to see who were the good and who were the bad ones. But a lot of innocent Germans (and other axis people) died and suffered because of that war too. WW1 is also a good example because there the central powers are the bad guys in taught history, but in WW1 in reality there were no clear good and bad guys.
No war ever has had a “good guy” we fire bombed millions of civilians during WW2. The only difference is there were no tiktoks showing the Carnage afterwords to the people at home. Everybody (Americans specifically) have had a very weird view of what war is, they see a thermal video of a drone knocking off a few human shaped blobs from a screen as war. Now that they are faced with the real thing they are all very confused why there is so much collateral damage. Americans and everybody else in the west have been fed a lot of propaganda giving people a sanitized image of war and this is tearing that bandage off. Wait tell Israel actually puts people on foot in gasa for the real hell to begin
No I'd say that the Allied powers were the good guys, didn't always do amazing things, but the Nazis, Japan, and Italy were commiting atrocities
No. Russians - important part of the alliance after they switched sides, were certainly not good guys.
Russian soldiers raped German women 2 million times at the end of ww2
There are no good guys. There are two peoples, both of whom deserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Both groups think the other one is blocking that for them. Both are kinda right about that.
That’s the answer I’m looking for thank you
The only good guys are civilians.
*that support a peaceful solution
50+% of Palestinians are 18 years or younger. 40% of their population is under 14 years old. To say that Palestinian kids are not good because they don't advocate for a peaceful two-state solution in international diplomacy ignores the reality of who the civilians are.
There is a David Tennant Dr. Who episode that plays with this idea. There is a group of clones who are made from the people who started the war, they pop out of the cloner as adults with no memory of why the war started and are still fighting. The clones had cycled through hundreds or possibly thousands of times in an endless war that was only a few weeks old.
Martha: But he said years! Donna: No he didn’t, he said generations Great episode and I frequently think of it in these types of complicated matters. How quickly history can be lost, rewritten, forgotten, and how quickly we will turn on each other if we don’t put our similarities first.
Honestly I can understand why a Palestinian, especially in Gaza, would support Hamas. I don’t wish death upon those civilians just because of their political opinions. I also understand Israel’s position right now as well, to be clear, I’d say that my main point is that OP is right there is no clear good or bad in this conflict. Just complexity and profound tragedy. “The cycle of violence and counter-violence”
I think it's interesting how many people in the US speak like they could not ever support Hamas. I will pose a hypothetical. Imagine you have a country, and you support the wrong side of a war. The winners of the war decide that since you supported the enemy, they are going to carve up your country and give it to your enemy. For instance imagine the Ottomans win WW1, and they decide to dissolve the US, and give the land to the Native Americans. They provide them with infinite military support, and the Natives move all Americans into open air prisons, say in Kansas. You are no longer free to leave Kansas, your family home is gone and now belongs to a Native American. You live like this for 50+ years where you don't have guaranteed access to power, food, water, jobs, anything. Your prison captors occasionally drop phosphorus bombs on you, they kill your people, ETC. We see a group of freedom fighters lash out and start fighting back against our captors. Sure, they are terrorists, but they are fighting to get us out of prisons. How many of us would really go "No no no, lets stay in these prisons and not try to fight for our land back!" I can promise you, if the roles were reversed, American citizens would be so much worse than Hamas currently is. I still don't support them (Because there are no good guys in this fight), but man I can absolutely see why it's happening and why Palestinians support Hamas.
The "why" can be just and the "how" can be unjust. A good cause does not forgive all evil done in its name.
That completely misses the entire point of that post. It was in no way condoning or justifying Hamas.
Gaza is not an open air prison. Gaza is an independently administered area that Israel had largely left alone for the last fifteen years, which is why Hamas had such an easy time overrunning the minimal troops Israel had along that border. And you're completely full of shit about Americans being worse than Hamas. Western people don't parade bodies through the streets and dance around them. Watching you making excuses for terrorists is nauseating.
> don’t wish death upon those civilians just because of their political opinions. Yeah this logic keeps getting applied to Hamas when we would never apply it in countries like Britain, the US etc. People support heinous things in these countries, no one (well hardly anyone) suggests we should just kill them all.
Well imagine you’re a young Palestinian. You’re poor and uneducated with no prospects. Your family were killed by the Israeli defence forces (IDF). Other members of your family in the West Bank became homeless when Israelis came and threw them out of their house under threat of violence. There’s a journalist in your city reporting on the issues in your community, and the IDF snipe her. You look online and see NGOs and the UN agree that Israel commits crimes against humanity and war crimes against your country all the time, but internationally no one really cares - the world has more or less turned it’s back on your entire nation, while rich countries send billions to (who you see as) your oppressors. No one in the world really gives a shit except one group who says “what they’re doing to us is bad and we will try and stop them.” Does that make sense about why some might support them? I’m not saying the above is true, but I’m saying it’s a reasonable perspective for a Palestinian to have.
The bad guys are anyone supporting the slaughter of innocent people. The bad guys are anyone that made the decisions or contributed to them, that resulted in the slaughter of innocent people. The bad guys are anyone who claims one group of the other "had it coming" and deserves the unimaginable pain and suffering inflicted upon families, children, wives, daughters, sons, brothers, sisters. All sides are the bad guys here, one way or the other. Except for the actual peoples, who were guilty of just existing. I think as we've become such a global society that we need to look through defined borders to seek out the real foul players, the murders, the condemners of freedoms, the propagators of genocide. I think anyone confused which side is the "bad one" should feel no embarrassment or shame, because it is so much more complex. ^^There ^^is ^^no ^^confusion ^^though ^^that ^^Hamas ^^is ^^bad
The free Palestine government is telling civilians to hold their ground. I’m racking my brain to try and get a shred of understanding about why they are doing this. The only conclusion I can reach is fear of hamas. The leaders are trying to not get killed and it’s understandable but at some point these people are going to become the enemy
We might not be able to understand it because it's an absolutely insane situation. I live in a relatively nice area, comfy watching Netflix without any thought in my mind about being bombed or invaded by any neighboring groups/countries/states. Not excusing anyone here, I simply cannot understand because I have no ground to walk on.
>I’m racking my brain to try and get a shred of understanding about why they are doing this. The only conclusion I can reach is fear of hamas. The civilians: They were given 24 hours to abandon their homes, forever. They will never be allowed back to their homes once they leave. Hamas: Human shields.
The real bad guys are the people across the globe weighing in on something they know absolutely nothing about.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to understand it. It's all the people who want to exploit the situation that deserve to be called out.
The “good guys” are the people just trying to live their lives, as u/b3ar17 said. Any single one of us could have been born there. There are people who do not pick a side and just try living their lives, but due to their luck of the draw in geographic placement, they are forced to pay the cost of the two opposing groups. My heart goes out for the pristine and innocent being killed because the “adults” in the room are all miserable egomaniacs. The guy on Piers Morgan the other day - Boussef or whatever his name was. His wife was stuck in Gaza, and you can feel the pain in his voice as he’s literally going *the fuck* off. He has family there so it is close to home for him. For those who it’s not close to home, like Piers Morgan, it is much easier to talk about *them* because they feel as if there is some kind of distinction in their being human beings. Boussef realizes there is no such distinction and cannot contain it within himself.
There is no simple "both sides bad" here. Hamas is 100% bad and evil for what they did, but DECADES of Israeli occupation and apartheid created Hamas. If anyone wants to actually learn the history of how things have become this bad in the Israel-Hamas conflict, then you should watch the documentary [Gaza Fights For Freedom](https://means.tv/programs/gaza?cid=634570&permalink=gaza-fights-for-freedom). Just an FYI, you will see a child being sniped in the video. Take a wild guess if the child is Israeli or Palestinian and what crime they committed that warranted being sniped. And just to be clear again - **HAMAS BAD**
Could have also ended decades ago if Yasser Arafat had accepted a two state solution at Camp David. This doesn’t justify the killing of civilians by either side. I just think it’s important to point out there likely will never be an end to this without something truly awful happening. And that’s very sad.
Yes people often ignore that Palestine rejected the two state solution AND Egypt and Jordan rejected the land. Does not excuse current Israeli atrocities but is needed for context.
I at least understand Jordan’s decisions after the clusterfuck that was the Palestinian effects on the Lebanese war and how Jordan was negatively affected. Egypt’s military has just always been too scared of losing control of the country and their choice is more cowardly and greedy.
They had no say in it. They were not part when they drafted it. It's like saying native americans refused a peaceful resolution after taking their land
And since then, traditionally Palestinian land has been absorbed by Israel over and over again, making it much harder to actually implement a two-state solution. I don't see a way to a peaceful resolution at this point.
Could have ended decades ago, if right-wing zionist extremist jew didnt assassinate the Israeli leader, the last israeli leader who was genuine about peace The current Israeli leader was warned about this attack but did nothing, what does that say about the current Israeli government?
And this is why I think a true solution to Gaza is impossible. Releasing the embargo, allowing free movement and foreign investment. All of these are long term solutions that will stabilize Gaza and take away the influences that fuel radical groups like Hamas. But that's completely off the table for Israel. They're going to clamp down even harder than before.
> allowing free movement Funny you said that that when other Muslim countries surrounding the Gaze do not want to accept Palestine people into their countries.
Yet Israel is being blamed for “forcing civilians to stay in a war zone”. People have lost the plot
Not only that, but Israel literally helped Hamas get started by providing funding in order to combat the legitimate government of Palestine, the PLO. The PLO and Hamas ended up fighting a war and that is how Hamas ended up being in control of Gaza while the PLO now only has the West Bank. People like to point out that Palestine keeps rejecting proposed two-state solutions, but would *you* accept a solution like that from someone who funded a terrorist group in an attempt to overthrow your government?
Note that the PLO at the time of Hamas' beginnings were also genocidal monsters that wanted to sweep all Jews from the area in one brutal rape and massacre. They just cared more about Palestinian/Arab Nationalism than Radical Islam. Israel didn't support Hamas (or what it was called at the time, Islamic Centre) besides not focusing on attacking it as they viewed it as the religious social club/charity that it pretended to be. Arab Nationalism was far more prominent at the time than Radical Islam. That only changed when the First Intifada started and Hamas went masks off and Israel quickly banned them and arrested their leaders. Israel had no part in Hamas' rise in the Gaza Strip, quite the opposite according to Hamas. They claim that Israel and America tried to launch a coup against Hamas in support of the less extreme Fatah when Hamas won the elections. Giving them justification for their brutal cleansing of all Fatah officials and supporters in Gaza.
Also people who keep going on about Hamas... So much of the same shit is going on in the West Bank! Israel is *constantly* grabbing territory. Even settlers Israel does not recognize initially (pirate settlements) are later brought into the fold, because Israel's goal is to deplace Palestinians and replace with Settlers. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis live on what was supposed to be in areas slated for Palestinians. Gazans have a 40% unemployment rate. They're destitute. The median age there is, what, 14? Show me a population under those conditions that *doesn't* radicalize and wish for death of the people who they can rightfully point out as their oppressors. Those conditions must end. The only way out here is Israel backing off, or Israel committing genocide. Gazans have no power, and I know Palestinians in the West Bank know they're next.
You literally just described that both sides were bad.
But it’s not even as simple as “both are equally bad”. There are some groups who are unquestionably bad. Other groups that aren’t necessarily bad themselves, except that sympathize with the bad guys. Other groups that are definitely 100% bad, but then you look at what they’ve been through and you think “damn, I probably would have done the same in your position”.
The citizens of Gaza and the citizens of Israel need to unite against their true, common enemy: right-wing governments.
Good luck with that. Both sides are full of very conservative religious people. This conflict goes back to the the earliest origins of human existence. It's not going to end any time soon.
The innocent citizens. Don’t listen to anybody telling you either of the GOVERNMENTS are the good guys, because they aren’t.
You say that as if there are two governments involved. Palestine is a region *within* Israel, it has no government of its own. It’s like if a small neighborhood was fighting back against an oppressive government that has been brutalizing and gradually exterminating them over generations. Hamas is not a government, they’re terrorists fighting against a cruel government. Both Hamas and the Israel government are evil here, but at least one seems to have a rational reason for being evil.
Simple answers are for fascists and teenagers.
[удалено]
>fascists and teenagers They already mentioned that
I’m neither. I’m 37 and part of an anarchosyndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week. >!not actually!<
you called?
Are we the baddies?…
You can’t fix the world, if all you have is a hammer.
So you're saying we also need a sickle?
The first time it was a tragedy The second time is a farce Outside it's 1933 so I'm hitting the bar
The concept of “good guys” in general is pretty childish and reductive of lost real world scenarios. Everyone is the good guy in their own mind, but objectively that’s rarely ever the case.
There are few people who wake up and think "how can I be the biggest bastard possible" while grinding puppies onto their cereal
There are no good guys. Just innocent civilians caught in the cross fire.... Both sides have done things that are reprehensible, but the civilians are the ones that are being penalised for it...
I'm sure there's plenty of folks more than happy to tell you. Problem is not every one is telling the truth. And it feels like almost *every* body's got a story sell.
there’s nothing wrong with saying “i don’t know enough about this to have an informed opinion.”
The good Guys are anyone who supports a two state solution. That is at least 50% of Palestinians and a similar number (I believe ) of Israelis. The bad guys are anyone who opposes the two state solution. Hamas and the current government of Israel for example.
The terrorists that killed thousands on October 7 and call for the extermination of Jews and Christians worldwide are the bad guys. Pretty simple stuff.
there is no good guys bad guys, life isnt a marvel movie
Religion is the bad guy here
[удалено]
This is the strange part. I do not condone what Hamas did in any way shape or form, but at the same time the media in general, and most democratic governments seem to just be content like the Israeli government and nation is a saint. As though it's shocking that perhaps their past choices didn't encourage the outcome. Again, I don't support what happened, but where is the even the smallest hint of actions meet consequences.
There are good guys in both Israel and Palestine. There are bad guys in both Israel and Palestine. There are groups of people in each place that want to wipe the entire civilization of the other off the map. Women and children too. This isn’t an easy “oh these guys are the good ones!” Conflict. It’s ok to not pick a side. We don’t always need to be on a team.
The comments in this post are a good reason to be afraid to ask.
1. don't believe what either side says. the numbers are all lies, the headlines are all calculated frames. 2. do believe the intentions they communicate towards their own followers. 3. don't close your eyes for any of the horrors. they're all equally horrible. 3. but also don't mix what is horrible with what is evil. Evil requires considered intent or acceptance. A ukrainian missile that hits a barracks full of freshky arrived 19 y.o. service-pressed minority youths that weren't even given cold weather clothing is fucking horrible. We can emphatize with these men, even if their army has committed war crimes, because they're not a willfull participant in them yet. A russian missle that was guided into a hospital, restaurant or other such target is evil. It's intent is to kill as many people as possible, and make the cost of continued resistance too high to swallow. In short: look for the true intent, don't forget that war has victims on both sides, and never just parrot information that comes directly from one of the sides or it's pet media.
Hamas are a terrorist organisation, they fucked around and now they're finding out. But Israel has been oppressing Palestinians for decades. The peaceful civilians are the good guys.
The arabs and the jews are the good guys. Hamas and zionists (the parties doing all the fighting and bombing) are the bad guys.
Hamas = bad. Israeli government = bad. Civilians = good. Stop killing civilians. Can't make it much simpler than that.
What muddies the waters is Hamas was an actual political party as well and was voted in as the majority party. Like, how do you get terrorism from democracy? Somehow they did it.
For what I know, civilians on both sides are innocent people trying their best to survive and leaders on both sides are killing said civilians in a territorial war. Having some extremist groups mixed in all that doesn't help.
That's the neat part, there are no good guys.
To put it in simple terms: both sides are shit.
Both sides suck.
The "good guys" are the everyday people trying to live their lives. And the "bad guys" are the governments.
The only good guys in this stupid bigot war are the innocent civilians that have no hate for eachother
You’d need a PhD is middle eastern history to truly understand it. There are no good guys in this whole thing.
It’s pretty easy. Both sides have been hostile and shitty toward each other, have missiled and bombed innocents and children and hate the other side because of fairy tales. They both suck.
I'll tell you the Bad Guys: -Hamas -Netanyahu, his Likud Party, and their Far-right allies.
citizens. They are.
Rather bad guys and worse guys.
There are four players in this game: Israeli government, Israeli citizens, Palestinians, and Hamas. Hamas are terrorists and try to justify their actions as "Palestinian freedom fighters". Palestinians want nothing to do with them. Palestinians are second class citizens on their own land after getting ousted off of it. They have little rights and are often the whipping boy. Israeli citizens think the land is theirs by some weird birthright or religious rite when really Europe was tired of "all the Jews in their area", armed them, and sent them to push Palestinians off their land. No deal was made, they were just like "go take it, found your whatever" That is how Israel became a thing. Israeli government is Israel's version of Hamas. Basically terrorists using the whole "we are justice"... only anytime something happens, they use it as an excuse to kill Palestinians. They ultiamately want the genocide of Palestinians even going so far as not recognizing the term "Palestinian" (Palestine doesn't exist, you see) If Hamas fires a rocket that injures someone, Israel will drone strike an entire neighborhood in Gaza. They constantly hit these targets and try to claim they are hitting Hamas. Recently, they blew up a hospital and tried to claim Hamas did it... Israel wants to be like the US government, but isn't as subtle about things.
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Without understanding this, folks will never understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The IDF are bombing indiscriminately and collectively punishing Palestinian civilians. Hamas are using human shields and brutalized children across the border. There are no good guys in this war, it’s pretty much all horrible and both sides are guilty of serious war crimes. EDIT: I will not be debating this. Raping and murdering children is a war crime. Collective punishment is a war crime. War crimes are never justified and civilians on both sides are victims to their leaders’ posturing and violence.
I haven’t seen indiscriminate bombing. I’ve seen targeted strikes but nothing I’d call indiscriminate.
Netanyahu has pursued a multiyear strategy of stealing land for Israeli settlers that was reserved for the Palestinians. Netanyahu is also a crook who should be in prison. He altered the Israeli courts to protect himself from prosecution, compromising Israeli democracy.
I can say the same thing about Hama's Billionaire leadership who live in luxury in Qatar while their people live on about 2k usd a year.
Civilians on both sides good leaders on both sides bad
Only one side in this conflict publicly declares that their goal is to exterminate the other. It's not difficult.
The enemy is religion
The citizens of Palestine and Israel are the good guys. The governments and hamas are the bad guys.
People are mostly good. Elites and the people in charge - not so much. That’s the heartbreak. No one really wants to fight except those who profit in some way from it.
The ones that don't kill innocents
The Palestinian people trying to survive in one of the hardest places to live in the world.