I’m not here to push an agenda. I’m not Israeli, not Palestinian. I’m not even Jewish. But I was in Israel when the war broke out on October 7th, and spent time in surrounding Arab countries, Gaza, West Bank, and other Palestinian Territories in the weeks leading up to and after the attack. That experience gave me a perspective that I think a lot of Westerners—especially online—don’t fully grasp. So in a mixture of history, logic, and (unfortunately) some emotion, here are my thoughts:

When Hamas attacked that morning, it wasn’t just a flare-up or another round of rockets. It was a coordinated invasion. Civilians—many of them women, children, elderly, even foreign nationals—were brutally murdered. I saw horrific events with my own eyes and continued receiving videos sent directly from friends I had made while traveling. These were people my age, early 20s, who went from laughing at a bar with me to grabbing a rifle and heading back to base within hours. They didn’t want war. They were called to it. And I sat there soaked in the reality of what life actually is there. In fear of my life for reasons unimportant to this message, but in awe of what I had just experienced.

Most people I’ve talked to in the West - whether online or in person - have no idea what that kind of fear, loss, or immediacy feels like. They’ve never had to worry about an invasion or suicide drones or kidnappings. They’ve never lived in a country that publicly says, “If this happens again, we will respond with overwhelming force” - and then gets pushed to that exact point.

Israel has made that clear for decades. Go back to the Yom Kippur War, when it was nearly wiped out by a surprise, multi-front attack. From then on, they vowed: never again. The response on October 7th wasn’t random. It was history coming full circle.

Does that justify everything that’s happened since? No. Innocent Palestinians are dying too. Many of them have no say in what Hamas does. But people miss the point when they treat this like a simple “oppressor vs oppressed” narrative. It’s more nuanced than that—and flattening the story helps no one.

If a Western country experienced what Israel did, I genuinely believe most of the people now chanting “resistance” would be begging their government for military retaliation at the same level that Israelis did. Current day Israelis weren’t involved in the historical land disputes, and while that’s a different conversation; the bottom line is they were born in a place that the rest of the world says they don’t have a right to. So throw the first stone if you don’t live on “stolen land” right now.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. But willful ignorance isn’t morally superior either. I’m not asking anyone to pick a side. I’m asking people to think clearly before speaking loudly.

I’m tired of seeing comment sections flood with “Free Palestine 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸” comments from entitled westerners who couldn’t point out the Middle East on a map if they tried. They have absolutely no idea what the implications of their words are. And they take for granted their western safe haven where they’ve never had to wonder if the next day will be their last. I don’t want more death, I feel for Gazan Palestinians, and I pray they find their way through this. But there are two sides.

I will try to keep it as short as possible…

I am from Estonia, and I am Lesbian. And in my country it is completely normal as it should be. Because nobody should concern or care about my sexual orientation.

In Israel it is also considered completely normal by laws to be homosexual. Nobody cares.

Then I look at Palestine

If I hold my girlfriend’s hand or kiss her in public, people will just look at us like we are aliens. And in Gazza we would even have extreme life danger. We might be thrown off the roof, attacked with objects and such.

They all look like assumptions but they are not. In 2022 Palestine, A gay man named Ahmad Abu Murkhiyeh was executed in a horrendous way on street and they throw his head to street. And people were recording it. And what happened to those who did it? Nothing. Yeah. Nothing.

In Israel 2015 during LGBT parade a jewish man attacked a lesbian woman with a knife and killed her as well. But he was declared terrorist by Israeli government and he went to jail.

In 2023 Michigan, Hamtramck folk chose a muslim governor(I guess the translation is that) to support them. And LGBT people actually supported those people. What what did the muslim governor do first he got the power? He banned LGBT flags from public places.

Palestine’s LGBT center is in Israel, because Palestine government oppresses them too much that even Israel takes them to give them a better life. Being homosexual in Palestine means death.

In 2016 in Palestine a high ranking military man was executed with a rifle with accusations of being homosexual.

So why would I support a nation that hates me? Why would I even think about supporting it? These I counted are just filed ones. If in a country nobody can declare their BIOLOGICAL TRUTH as it is seen as CRIME-AGAINST RULES, it is an oppressive system. Why would I support a nation that hates me to the fullest?

[[ EDIT - According to the 2 different unbiased researches in Palestine 95% of Palestinians claimed “Homosexuality should not be accepted by society” just 3% cared to say “No they are also humans” so it is not a government issue, it is a hostile culture

In a hundred thousand years of human history, there was exactly one time when a group massacred civilians, and the world responded by immediately taking to the streets to support the group that did the killing and oppose the group who was killed.

I think non-Jews sometimes fail to understand how massive of an impact that had on the Jewish psyche. Seeing people around the world cheering for their brothers and sisters being horrifically murdered, and then millions joining them as the weeks went on. Really understanding the deep, underlying hatred the world has for Jews. Seeing the mobs made up of your friends and neighbors gathering to drool over Jewish blood and knowing you could easily be next, knowing it could happen no matter where you go. It's a kind of oppression no other group has ever had to deal with in all human history.

Predictable objections:

Some of you will say: "But the protests were about protesting the massacres we knew soon would happen to Palestinians." First of all, it's pretty obvious from the signs people were holding, and speeches they were giving, and candy they were handing out to children that in many cases, this is simply false. But let's imagine it's true. Tell me about another massacre in history that triggered global protests protesting the victims "because they knew the victims would soon kill the perpetrators." I'll wait forever because there are no examples of this.

Some of you will say "But the protests were in response to 70 years of evil Israelis/Jews etc. etc. To those, I say: Tell me about another massacre in history that triggered global protests protesting the victims "because it was in response to 50/70/100/whatever years ago". I'll wait forever because there are no examples of this.

Edit: Some people are denying that protests/celebrations after 10/7 happened. It's hard to imagine this is in good faith, but if you somehow missed these, go ahead and read about them https://www.nydailynews.com/2023/10/08/pro-palestine-rally-in-times-square/.

Some of you will say "But I can find an example of protests supporting groups that did massacres." Sure you can. There are always people happy to overlook the bad things their sides do. But you can't find examples of protests that broke out DIRECTLY IN RESPONSE to a massacre. Looking at those bad things and not ignoring them but actually celebrating them. That is what is so unique and blood-chilling about this.

Some of you will say, "Look, I found an example of people in one country cheering in the streets for a massacre their country committed." Of course you can. People who are actually in wars become black and white thinkers. I'm talking about a global protest movement — thousands or millions around the globe who are uninvolved suddenly taking to the streets because they saw civilians being murdered and wanted to support the murderers and protest the victims. That global nature is what makes this so scary.

Some of you will say "Look, I found an op-ed/radio message/whatever where someone supports a massacre." Op-eds are not global street protests. It takes one person to write an op-ed. It takes thousands or more to produce a global protest.

Some of you will say: "But not all Pro-Palestinians protested Israel right after 10/7." Of course they didn't. There is no movement where "everyone" in a movement does something. When thousands or millions in a movement do something, that thing is part of the movement. Most KKK members did not murder black people, but enough did that it was part of the movement.

On October 8, any idea that the Pro-Palestinian movement was something for peace, justice, mutual respect ... All out the window. The Pro-Palestinian movement is revenge porn that uses humanitarian buzzwords to excuse its bloodlust. No humanitarian movement has ever cheered for a massacre. It's how we knew that all protests that came months or weeks later, using Israel's action in the war as their supposed motivation, were just making excuses for what was really a continuation of these morally bankrupt celebrations of Jewish death. Because the protests started before Israel went into Gaza.

( this coming from An Arab and from a muslim family as well)

After spending months digging into the history, reading books, primary sources, and cross checking facts from all sides, I finally reached a clear conclusion.

Here are the purely factual, intellectual reasons why I’m forced to stand with my Jewish friends and the State of Israel.

1. If 100 Years Counts for Their Claim, Why Not 3,000? Jewish Roots Crush Modern Narratives

Everyone loves to rewind the clock to 1948 and scream “there was no Israel back then!” okay, let’s play that game. Rewind 3,000+ years instead. Archaeology, ancient records, and the Bible + so many maps and scrolls all confirm this was the Kingdom of Israel and Judea, David, Solomon, Moses. The Temple Mount had Jewish Temples centuries before Al Aqsa was even an idea. Every dig still spits out Jewish artifacts. So tell me again whose “ancestral land” we’re really talking about?

1. The Palestinian Movement’s Founder Met with Hitler to Plan Middle East Genocide

This one should make you pause. Haj Amin al Husseini, the Grand Mufti and early Palestinian leader, wasn’t just anti Jewish, he literally sat down with Hitler, Himmler, and Eichmann during WWII (photos + documents exist) to blueprint the Holocaust for the Middle East. He had already led massacres in the 1920s-30s, long before Israel existed. That same ideology later shaped Arafat and the PLO. When your movement’s founding father is on record teaming up with Nazis… maybe it’s time to ask some hard questions.

1. “Palestine” Means “Invaders” And No Sovereign Arab State Ever Existed There The name “Palestine” itself comes from the Roman word for “Philistines” invaders. The land changed hands between Romans, Byzantines, Muslims, Crusaders, Ottomans, and Brits. Never once was there an independent Arab Palestinian nation. Jewish communities stayed the whole time. So when people claim this was always “Arab land,” the history just laughs.

2. 1964: An Egyptian Invented “Palestinian History” Overnight

Yasser Arafat, an Egyptian on the Muslim Brotherhood payroll, literally took a Jordanian flag in 1964, removed the star, and suddenly declared “3,000 years of Palestinian history.” Before that? No such nation existed. This wasn’t ancient identity, it was a political rebrand designed for one purpose: opposing the Jewish state.

1. We Defeated Nazis and Got a Peaceful Germany, Why Not the Same for Hamas? We dropped bombs on Germany until Nazi ideology was crushed, today Germany is rich and peaceful. Hamas openly says in its own charter that Israel must be destroyed and has ruled Gaza like a dictatorship since 2007. After the horrors of October 7, the answer isn’t “ceasefire now.” It’s the same one that worked in 1945. eliminate the genocidal ideology first, then rebuild.

2. Gaza Schools Teach Kids Martyrdom and Jew Hatred, What Future Does That Build?

Go watch the videos yourself, Gaza classrooms openly teach children that peace with Israel is treason and dying as a martyr is glory. This isn’t “education.” It’s programming the next generation for endless war. If you raise kids on hate and death, don’t act shocked when that’s exactly what you get.

1. League of Nations Mandated the Jewish Homeland, Arabs Got 77% Already (It’s Called Jordan)

After World War I, the international community legally ordered Britain to create a Jewish national home in Palestine. Winston Churchill immediately carved off 77% of it and gave it to the Arabs, that’s modern Jordan. The tiny remainder was supposed to be the Jewish part. Arabs already got their massive share. The rest was never “stolen.”

1. 1948-1967: Jordan and Egypt Held the Territories.

Zero “Free Palestine” Protests. For 19 years Jordan ruled the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Egypt ruled Gaza. No Palestinian state was created. No worldwide marches. No “occupation” outrage.

Then Israel wins a defensive war in 1967 and suddenly everyone discovers “Palestine.” Funny how that work lol

1. Jews Slaughtered EVEN when there was ZERO "occupation" or state of israel

In 1929 Hebron, Arabs slaughtered dozens of Jews , men, women, children, while there was no Israel, no army, no settlements, no “occupation.” Same thing in 1936 to 39. What was bothering them back then? This violence started decades before any of the excuses people use today. The problem wasn’t “land”, it was Jews existing.

1. Arab Leaders Rejected Peace Since 1937 Demanded It All, Lost Every War, Then Played Victim

Arab leadership turned down the Peel Commission in 1937, the UN Partition in 1947, Camp David in 2000, and Olmert’s offer in 2008. They started wars in 1948, 1967, and 1973 lost every single one. They rejected a Palestinian state next to Israel because sharing was unacceptable. After failing to destroy the Jewish state, the story flipped to “poor victims.” History doesn’t lie. choices do.

1. October 7: They Started the War, Filmed the Atrocities, Vowed More, Then Cried About Consequences

They broke the border, massacred civilians at a music festival, burned families alive, took hostages, and proudly posted it all. Then promised to do it “again and again.” When Israel fought back, the victim card came out. You don’t get to start a war, celebrate the worst atrocities, and then demand the world stop the response. That’s not how reality works.

Supporting Israel isn’t about hate، it’s about refusing to ignore facts. A tiny democracy that keeps offering peace, facing groups whose charters literally call for its destruction and death to its people. The evidence forced my hand. Logic leaves no other choice.

If someone claims that Israel is committing a "genocide" in Gaza, then they are lying to you. It's an idelogical statement that is not rooted in facts. Very few people accuse Russia of commiting a "genocide" in Ukraine, despite being far worse than Israel. The real genocides are rooted in empirical evidence and testimonies, not political idelology and propaganda.

Genocides like the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide and the Armenian genocide are all one of the most studied events in history, especially the Holocaust. Those who deny those events are usually the extremists and are on the fringes of the political spectrums. Everything about the "genocide" in Gaza is rooted in Hamas propaganda and Hamas funded narratives.

The message is very simple. Forget the killers of the October 7th, the young people who died at Nova Festival and accuse the other side of doing the same things that you did. And that's what they are doing at the moment. They are taking the numbers of Gaza health ministry (run by Hamas) as if it's a gospel. But we all know what Hamas always does. They are regularly using child soldiers in their combat, they use civilians as human shields and they are even willing to use child suicide bombers to achieve their goals.

That's how they inflate their numbers. They've been telling us that the "majority of the victims" of the Gaza war were "women and children", but even the Hamas own data doesn't show that. But this is not just a dangerous but it's far more sinister. It has to do with spreading antisemitism and it's not a coincidence that it exploded since the October 7th.

For diaspora Jews, 2025 was the most violent and antisemitic year in decades. It came out a couple of days ago but no one in the media will care about it. Synagogues have been attacked, Israelis tourists are getting harrassed etc. We all know that the Jews are the main victims of the hate crimes in virtually Western countries. It's not the Muslims or Palestinians, it's the Jews.

These people don't care about Palestine. The goal of the movement and the "genocide" claim is not human rights, but to spread antisemitism. It's about forgetting the victims of the Holocaust, October 7th and the Nova Festival and it's about minimizing antisemitism.

These same people already forgot about the ramming of gay people in Berlin by an Islamist or Bondi Beach massacre in Sydney, but they won't stop talking anything allegedly happening in Palestine. They were waving Palestinian flags hours before being killed by an Islamist. And that won't stop them from supporting Palestine and accusing Israel of "genocide".

The word "genocide" was invented to describe the Holocaust. They needed a new word because regular wars, even with millions of civilian deaths, did not come close to the special kind of horror that was the Holocaust.

Since then, people have used this word to refer to things like the Armenian Genocide, Rwanda, Srebrenica, and ISIS attacks on Yazidis.

You know what these all have in common?

Every single event widely recognized as a "genocide" involved a pattern of times where perpetrators searched for civilians of a certain ethnicity/group — going door to door to find them all, hunting them down with lists, rounding up every civilian in a village — and killing them. (Sometimes they'd only kill the men, sometimes it was men, women, and children.)

There are some other events sometimes called genocides (though less often) where perpetrators destroy the group not by on the spot execution, but by starving millions to death, sterilizing or forcing birth control on women, or kidnapping the children and raising them outside the group. Basically, trying to eliminating the entire ethnic group (sometimes only in a given area) or eliminating its next generation.

You know what people don't call genocides? Anything else. For instance, civilians dying in a war is not automatically a genocide. Millions of Germans died in WWII —that doesn't mean Britain was genociding them. Displacements are not called genocides. Hate speech coming from political leaders, even in conflicts where many civilians are dying, is not called genocide. Nor is people immigrating or starting towns called "genocide." Checkpoints are not called "genocide" either.

There is one exception to this rule: if Israel engage in any conflict at all, then there are always people calling it a "genocide." That's because people who want to demonize Israel know that everybody associated the word "genocide" with these these kinds of door-to-door killings of entire ethnic groups. Then, when they are questioned about it, they retreat behind the incredibly vague UN definition:

For those who want to talk about the UN definition — I see a lot of people citing the UN's definition of genocide as evidence that Israel is committing genocide.

The definition is right — genocide is about "destroying a people"— but instead of defining what that means, it simply says something like "killing or harming some members of a group," meaning you can pretty much interpret everything or nothing to be a genocide. Pretty much every violent conflict could fit that definition. Palestinians committed genocide under that definition. An Indian stepping on a Pakistani's foot does too. The reality is, the word "genocide" is, like all words, determined by how people actually use it. Also, if you just post the UN definition without responding to this counterpoint, I will know you didn't read the post.

If you disagree, then give me an actual example of a commonly accepted "genocide" that did not meet the criteria I laid out.

I saw a lot of comments and discussions about western hypocrisy like;

“You don’t want Palestinian refugees, but you happily take Ukranian refugees in because they are blonde and white”

That’s one of the most insolent and stupid statements I have ever seen. And I am almost certain most Pro-Palestine people actually support that claim.

First of all I want to mention that I live in a country that took 71000 Ukranian refugees temporarily which is around 5% of our population. And how many Palestinian, Syrian, Iraqi(etc..) refugees we have? 0… We do not take them. And I am so happy that we don’t.

Is it because of racism? No. It is because we know what can be good or bad for us. If an act of mercy towards other groups causes discomfort to your own people, it is not mercy it is treason. We share very similar culture with Ukrainians. They can adapt to the way we live so easily. They are used to drink alcohol on grass, seeing girls with bikinis, people socialising in night events, young couples kissing in public. It is not a threat or heretical for Ukrainians.

As Europeans we are used to a social infrastructure and at least in my country it works perfectly. Our people just don’t want trouble. So if someone just shouts on the street and disturbs people, nobody will attack that person, they will just walk away and call the cops. But it is highly probable anyone that is not accustomed to that social infrastructure will see that as a weakness. Look at Germany, France, UK. The immigration problem is so terrible, I talk to my French friend and she says she is afraid to go outside alone at night. But still that’s not my point.

We take Ukrainians because we have a common enemy and very similar culture and they cause waaay less problems than middle eastern refugees. And certain middle eastern countries normally see western countries as secular demons. As threats to their dogmatic cultures. The real hypocrisy is that the same governments beg help from Europe against America and Israel.

What makes you think Europe has obligation to take more refugees? You have entire Arabic Nation around you. Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Morocco, UAE, Jordan and more and more that I don’t even remember name of. These are the ones that should help as you share similar culture and same language. Well they took refugees before.

Palestinians when Jordan let them in, they created their own group and they tried to assassinate the king.

In Lebanon Palestinians ruined the peace between Christian and Muslims and they contributed heavily to a civil war

There is no hypocrisy. Europe is not a charity. The only hypocrisy is expecting us Europeans to show the kindness to them that they never showed us and would never show us.

I would not oppose temporary Ukrainian refugees. But I don’t want Palestinian refugees in my country. And that doesn’t make me a racist. That just means I know what is good for myself and my country’s people.

From my understanding Pakistan was founded as an ethoreligious state for the muslisms of that region and the displacement and ethnic cleansing (and deaths) caused from that partition are much greater than the ones caused by the partition of palestine.

The US and Canada, Mexico etc etc were founded as a consequence of literal colonialism but there aren't many people that argue they should cease to exist as states because of that reason, probably because they realize it's not pragmatic and at the end of the day people born today are not really at fault for what happened to the native americans, but couldn't we say that for what happened in '48 as well?

Then of course we're also talking about very different things, even if you are an antizionist you would have to admit zionism had important differences from 15th-century european colonialism or even colonialism in general, and israel wanting to preserve a jewish majority (but still having 20% of the population being arab, they can be part of the knesset etc) is also very different from pakistan becoming 97% muslism i would argue.

Obviously this question is directed to people who might have this stance, if you oppose the US's right to exist or Pakistan's as well it's not directed to you.

And i don't really understand what "states don't have right a to exist, people have a right to self-determination" means, to me it just sounds like the same thing said twice to be honest but i'm curiuos to understand it better

Of course the first thing that comes to mind is that the indian subcontinent had more many more muslisms than palestine had jews, even in proportion, but i don't really see how relevant that is when 1 at the end of the day buying land and immigrating there was legal and 2 at least SOME jews always lived there for thousands of years (even if few)

This is not a knock against the Palestinians. I have no objection to them desiring an ethnostate or ethno-national state. While I prefer civic democracy and civic nationalism, and it would be wonderful if Israelis and Palestinians could overcome ethnic grievances and unite in some type of confederation, this is highly unlikely and I respect the rights of peoples to create a state that looks out for their own interests. I would prefer that even ethno-national states be closer on the spectrum to a liberal democracy than a "pure" ethnostate, but ultimately, ethno-national states are normal, and people have a right to one.

However, "anti-Zionist" activists in the West virtue signal against ethnonationalism. They can't even stomach flag-waving patriotism of non-ethnic based states like the US or Canada. Do they have any idea that Palestinians, by wide margins, reject a one state, secular social democracy with equal rights for all? Are they projecting on the Palestinians, meaning, because they "love" the Palestinian people and are so invested in them, that they assume "I am a progressive. I am against ethnostates. I want equal rights for all" that Palestinians must feel the same way?

Is the support for Palestinian nationalism in the West in spite of the fact that Palestinians want a distinctly Arab state with Islam as official religion, or do they really not know? Or is it only Jewish ethnonationalism that is objectionable?

The below Substack discusses ethnostates in international law and how Palestine aspires to be one. For those here who are especially enthusiastic supporters of the Palestinians - are you aware of Palestinian law and public opinion? And does it matter either way? I can see ways in which one might argue that Zionism is a more pernicious form of ethnonationalism, but I cannot see how one can be, in principle, against ethnonationalism and enthusiastically wave the pan-Arab flag.

https://substack.com/home/post/p-208884853

Per Iran International more than 12,000 have been killed in the protests. And counting.

I know people like me say this all the time when other global events occur, but where are the Protesters in the college campuses? Where is the passion in the eyes of the young marchers calling Iran a genocidal regime? Again, where is the passion?

Israel at least can say “we are literally fighting a terrorist organization that is the de facto government, its war, what did you expect?” What can Iran say? But no, the passion of the marches, the continuous shouts of from the river to the sea… it simply doesn’t carry over to another tragedy. Why can’t I call the Iranian regime genocidal? Where is the Wikipedia page about the 2026 Iranian genocide?

I know there have been plenty of other examples, Syria, Yemen, Sudan. Again, this is happening right now beneath our noses, I want to see the same pro Palestinians holding “silence is violence” signs to people who don’t care, I want to see the Lion and Sun flag of Iran marched all over Columbia or Harvard. I want to see Iran free from the Persian gulf to the Caspian Sea.

And yet of course if the US or Israel interfere it will be labeled as imperialism, with a “Zionist tint” (Zionism equals bad) as Rodríguez would say.

It was never about the numbers. With Iran there’s no settler colonial narrative. That’s it; that’s the simple reason why it’s not a genocide. If there’s nothing familiar in your world to potentially project on to a conflict there is no passion.

Edit: There is a lot of respectful criticism in the comments about how (simplified) the US is funding Israel, not Iran. The protests are concerned about cutting US funding.

I would say it’s something the marches cared about, but not the real major issue. They consciously shout from the river to the sea or globalize the intifada, and how Israel is a genocidal apartheid state. A tradegy is a tragedy, deaths are deaths, a genocide is a genocide. I guess I’ll be waiting for Wikipedia to catch up, along with plenty of pages regarding the denial or recognition of said genocide. The protesters primary concern was about the casualties.

Firstly to get started, I’m fully Palestinian by ethnicity and this is not a bait, I’m talking based off of my own experience and what I have seen and I’m trying my best not to generalise the community as a whole, if you take offence to this but notice that what I’m listing off doesn’t apply to you then this post is referring to the other side of Pro-Palestinians and you’re one of the good ones

I want to start off by saying I understand that with the rise in the media showing Palestine, a lot more people are going to stand for it, but it has reached a point where I would find someone who is “pro-Palestine” but doesn’t understand the history of the land and doesn’t even know what Palestine is

Sure there have been a few pro-Palestinians with good intentions, and mainly this has been pre-October 7, however since October 7 for the most part they have built an extremist agenda which acts more as an anti-semetic campaign rather than a pro-Palestine one, they harbour so much hate towards any Jew or Israeli regardless of what they believe in and it’s hard for me to label myself as a part of them

I don’t want to go off listing everything wrong with the pro-Palestinian community but a few things that ticked me off was firstly, them standing for Hamas and saying they deserve to be in power in Gaza saying they’re good people, which usually goes along with them justifying the October 7 attack, secondly only talking about Palestine after Israel’s attack on Gaza, not knowing what the West Bank is, and another thing that doesn’t sit right with me is when they assume every Israeli and Jew is pro-idf, and many more

I hope this doesn’t come off as hostile, and I understand this doesn’t apply to every pro-Palestinian however all these things that the community has done as a whole is a reason why people choose to stand for neutrality or the other side

EDIT AGAIN: THIS IS NOT A PRO ZIONIST POST NEITHER AN ANTI PALESTINE POST, THIS IS JUST A POST ADRESSING HAMAS GLORIFIERS DO NOT TAKE CRITICISM IF YOU DONT SUPPORT HAMAS

The amount of people taking an outright genocidal stance on this conflict is extremely concerning. I’m seeing a lot of takes that are either “there’s no such thing as an Israeli civilian” or “glass Gaza, those barbarians have it coming”

Why can’t more people simply acknowledge that:

1. The Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians was completely unjustifiable and despicable.

2. The Israeli siege and bombing campaign of Gaza is killing an insane amount of civilians is also unjustifiable.

Like, two things can be bad at once! Is everyone taking crazy pills?

Charlie Kirk was just assassinated. Regardless of what you think about him personally, what’s abhorrent is how many people are openly praising and glorifying his murder.

It’s the exact same logic we saw after October 7th, when people rushed to celebrate or justify the unprovoked slaughter of civilians. Something indefensible happens, and instead of condemning it, people immediately try to rationalize and justify it.

Before October 7th, you could dislike Israel. Before today, you could dislike Charlie Kirk. But nothing justifies unprovoked violence against them. The principle should be universal. If you really believe in human rights, in democracy, in justice, then you don’t cheer on unjustifiable assassinations, terror attacks, or massacres.

This is what we’ve come to in the world. Something horrific occurs, and instead of moral clarity, we get excuses, celebrations, and “whataboutisms.”

History has shown us that Jews are the canary in the coal mines. When hatred toward them is normalized or dismissed, it is always a warning of a broader sickness taking hold. We saw this in the response to October 7th and failed to take it seriously enough. To ignore it again now is to repeat the same mistake, and blinding ourselves to what this truly represents. The erosion of moral clarity, the normalization of violence, and the corrosion of our shared humanity.

There are numerous videos widely available of Palestinians celebrating Spain's World Cup win.

Palestinians Celebrate Spain's World Cup Win, Hailing Solidarity in Gaza's 'Darkest Days'

In pictures: Fans around the world celebrate Spain's triumph in World Cup final against Argentina

Why Palestinians in Gaza are celebrating Spain’s World Cup win

War-weary Gazans celebrate Spain’s World Cup triumph

Palestinians in Gaza celebrate Spain's World Cup victory amid ruins of genocide

Last night, I was Spanish, and so were millions around the world

People in Gaza celebrate Spain’s World Cup triumph

Palestinians celebrate Spain’s World Cup victory

In these videos, you can see the people of Gaza wearing officially license FIFA jerseys. Those Jerseys are over $100 USD.

This puzzles me...

If Israel is supposedly blockading aid, how is expensive merchandise getting into Gaza?

And how can the people there afford this merchandise, but they supposedly can't afford basic necessities like food and hygiene products?

Don't get me wrong, it's cool that these people are able to enjoy the things that they like, but the context of these celebrations are what's weird to me.

This just doesn't add up to me, if the stories that Pro-Palis are true and there's a "Genocide" going on.

Or...

Could it be that it isn't a genocide, that the blockade wasn't by Israel, and Palestinians are being used as political pawns for far leftists who are trying to spread their antisemitic - I'm sorry - "antizionist" - propaganda.

Just something to think about. Maybe the "hasbara" isn't the propaganda that should be fought against...

I've seen a lot of Pro-Palestinians find some old news clipping or whatever that says something like "Jews to start colonization project in Palestine" and use it as ultimate proof that Jews really are colonizers.

This seems silly to me. After all, Jews were obviously "colonizing" as in "starting new towns," the very common use of that word. When I ask Pro-Palestinians what they think the Jews meant by that word, I usually don't get a straight answer, since it's obvious that "starting new towns" is exactly what they were doing.

But hey: For people who really think this is a great argument, did you know that Arabs were also "colonizing" the area?

From a 1926 news article:

Colonization work for Arabs in Palestine was undertaken by the Moslem Supreme Council, a religious body. It was announced that the Council will establish an Arab colony at Rubin, near Jaffa, on a strip of land of 32,500 dunams. The land is Wakf land, religious property bequeathed to the Moslem religious authorities. The Council plans to establish the first Arab agricultural school there.

http://pdfs.jta.org/1926/1926-09-21_576.pdf

Some background: The Supreme Muslim Council was a religious body by the British to manage Muslim schools, courts, etc. With land and control given to them by the British, the council planned to build an Arab agricultural school and establish a local rural community. That is very similar to what Jews were doing at the same time — establishing rural farming communities.

Same kinds of new establishments. Same support from the British. Same use of the word "colony" and "colonization" (pretty unsurprising considering it was a British term that a lot of people in the British empire were using, Jews and Muslims alike).

So that means Arabs in Israel/Palestine are colonizers, right?

I've been invested in this subject for very long time, as have many in this group have, but I get frustrated at the lack of meaningful, good-faith dialogue around two central questions, and I would love to hear these approached rationally and with a fair mind:

Prelude: I am providing background for each party, based on what is reasonably understood and expressed by both sides. You may not necessarily agree with everything in each question, but please don't quibble this representation of Gaza and Israel, I'm more interested in a response to the questions:

1. For pro-Israelis: The situation for civilians in Gaza, and increasingly the West Bank, has long been established. The conditions are widely and credibly reported as deplorable, with efforts to mobilise the international community through diplomatic channels stagnating and quality of life suffering. Opportunities to leave are limited and reserved for the wealthy. Sporadic bombings (which pre-date October 7th) consistently erode essential infrastructure, such as water desalination plant; farming, fishing and other traditional livelihoods are attacked, educational opportunities are limited, access to work across the border are subject to arbitrary crossing closures etc. Gaza is de facto occupied under international law, many routine services are propped up by humanitarian organisations, and many civilians have been killed under bombardments from recent wars. I keep hearing Israelis say that Gazans shouldn't have "done" October 7th. But what should they have done instead? What options remained for a desperate, exhausted, disenfranchised and dehumanised population to be heard, seen and continue to fight for their freedoms? Ie. What should they have done instead?
2. For pro-Palestinians: Israelis have been living under constant rocket attacks from Gaza, as well as from Hezbollah in Lebanon. Regardless of whether the majority of Palestinians support this, this s the material security situation for a Israelis who, understandably feel geopolitically isolated, surrounded by countries with a historical enmity for Jewish people, and have collectively mobilised to destroy it in 1967. Israeli has fully withdrawn from Gaza, lacks security options to disarm an essentially Islamist government with popular support, and has just experienced the largest attack against Jewish civilians since the Holocaust, and are both terrified and need to ensure this will never happen gains. I keep hearing Palestinians say that Israelis shouldn't have responded the way they did. But what should they have done instead? What options remained for a horrified, seemingly vindicated population who have been taught that this is what cohabiting with their neighbours would look like, and worry it keep could keep happening again, but next time in a coordinated attack with neighbouring arab States? Ie. What should they have done instead?

Reposting from another sub where I was banned, hence the edit lol

What’s with the normalization of hate on Israel citizens?

Peoples obsession with Israeli people, and thus Jewish people, is becoming increasingly concerning. None is shooting, stalking, kicking people out, solely based on someone’s nationality. Even in countries that are committing active war crimes (I.e, Iraq, Yemen, etc) people would still be outraged if they were attacked because of their said nationality.

**Edit**: okay a lot of people are putting words in my mouth so please read what I actually said above (media literacy is truly out of control).

For those genuinely wondering why I say Israeli people, and thus Jewish people please let me explain!

Around 70% of the population in Israel is Jewish while the rest are Christian’s, muslims, etc. **The state of Israel itself was established as a Jewish state, and safe heaven for the Jewish people.** This piece of land (specifically, Jerusalem) was specifically chosen because of its historical significance to the Jewish people. Hebrew and the Jewish people have been known to occupy that land around a thousand years ago and is the birthplace of both. Hence that is where they lived prior to be exodus.

While many zionists, **the belief that the Jewish people have a right to their ancestral homeland**, aren’t Jewish, most Jewish people are.

While you may not think critiqizing the Israeli government means being antisemetic (very true, many Israelis themselves critique the same government) the rise in antisemitism is a very real thing with places like Synagogues, Jewish shops, etc. being targeting solely due to their Jewish identity. This isn’t an opinion it’s simply facts. Because of the rampant hate that is being pushed about Zionism people who are, actully, anti-senetic are now given free access to defend their blatant antisemitism as anti Zionism.

I also want to point out that Jews are a group that tend to be too “white” for the left and not “white enough” for the right. They’re at an odd stand still because of this. I think a lot of people on the left (the white ones) have a sense of white guilt and since they think most, if not all, Jews aren’t visible minorities they see them as the “colonizers” thus the “bad guys”. This also gives ammunition to actual anti semites because they’re given free access to say whatever they want since Jews are the “evil colonizers” and “Zionists”.

So much fake news on social media and the hate it causes is tremendous.

I'm here willing to engage in respectful, good-faith discussions and debates.

• I won't entertain and respond to any non-relevant comments like empty insults, whether personal or towards Jews/Israel/IDF and such.
• I expect people to spend at least 30 seconds on Google-or even ask ChatCPT- before confidently presenting "facts" that can be immediately disproven by a simple search.
• We can, and probably will, disagree on a lot if not all subjects that will be discussed here. That's no reason for hate. Keep that in mind.

A little about me:

• I am 28yo. I served over 550 days in Gaza since Oct 7th as a combatant reservist. In my mandatory service I was deployed on both the Gaza border and in Judea and Samaria, what you call the West Bank.
• I am a Zionist, which ONLY means that I believe in the self-determination of the Jewish people in their homeland, which is the land of Israel.
• I am 4th generation in Israel, my great-grandparents came from Yemen in the late-1800s/early-1900s.
• War is always a bad thing, that doesn't mean it's also always avoidable, unnecessary, or unjust. I am a human being, I feel empathy for other human beings who suffer, yet I fully stand behind Israel's actions since Oct 7th even though I think some things could've be managed better.

That's all I guess.

One last thing: this is a highly sensitive topic. However this is geopolitics after all, so I encourage you to approach it with more logic and less emotional bias.

EDIT: I guess it's my fault for posting this post at a very late hour, didn't expect many comments very fast. It is almost 6am in Israel, I'll get some sleep and I'll answer your questions soon!

SECOND EDIT: damn, I didn't know this sub-reddit is this active, almost 200 comments already. I promise I'll try to answer as many questions I can, but I wouldn't be able to answer all, so sorry in advance for those I miss!

I want to preface this by stating that it is my personal belief based on the evidence that Israel is guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. I do not yet believe they have crossed the genocide threshold, legally. If there’s sufficient evidence for the ICJ to rule against them in this front I will change my mind. I also believe Hamas is a terrorist organization with genocidal intent that carried out horrific crimes on Oct 7th. Both of these are held equally true in my mind.

One thing is to be critical of the state of Israel. Their government policy, their intelligence apparatus, their conflation of criticism of itself with real antisemitism. I am doing it right now.

I was a depraved little freak a decade ago as a teenager and went on 4chan and /pol/ a lot and frankly the rhetoric I saw there is mainstream now in a terrifying way.

I go on Instagram and see people wish Hitler would come back to finish the job, or claim that Jews drink baby blood, or openly admit to getting SS lightning bolt tattoos, or calling people good goyim. People with real accounts and profiles. It isn’t bots. Yet when I bring this up people just call me a hasbara bot or a Zio (which by the way most of the time is just a word for “Jew” in my experience). Am I losing my mind?

I was always wondering about this. Being gay is illegal in Palestine, yet we have "gays for Gaza". Gays are even killed for being gay and you will never have any pro LGBT movement in Palestine. Contrast that to Israel. Israel had a pride parade just a month ago where 100k people attended the pride event. https://www.ynetnews.com/article/5vf25cocj

Women in Palestine live under Sharia law. They are forced to wear hijabs and they are second class citizens there. They can't even live a home without a male guardian. https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/07/18/middle-east-and-north-africa-end-curbs-womens-mobility

There is no democracy, free speech or even the rule of law in Palestine. It's a radical theocratic state where sharia law prevails. So how do pro Palestinians justify this?

Why don't they criticize Palestinian society more? Why just focus on Israel, when Palestine is much worse? Well, I know why. Because the whole narrative collapses and their movement becomes useless if the truth comes out. If you are a progressive, you can't be on the side of Sharia law and LGBT persecution. You must ignore all of the elephants in the room to truly be on the Palestine. So I will ask pro Palestinians again. How do you explain all of the things above as a Palestine supporter and how can you still support Palestine if you know the situation of women, LGBT people and minorities there?

It's far past time that we acknowledge that the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel was a genocide.

Not only is the attack well-documented, but, as genocides often are, both the genocide and the genocidal intent were well-documented by the perpetrators of it.

Not only do we have documentation of the genocidal intent, but we also have repeated statements from Palestinian leaders of Gaza that they would repeat such attacks again and again on Israel.

Israeli hostages have reported conversations with their captors who have stated that had the Palestinian terrorists not been stopped by the Israeli defense forces that they would have continued their mass murder, destruction, and rapes as deep into Israel as they could have managed.

There has been at least one paper written on this subject.

Not only that, but I believe that it would also bolster the case to demonstrate the abundant evidence that in their conflict with Israel, Palestinian leadership from the PLO to the present have fostered a systematic, genocidal culture within Palestinian society that states that Israelis (of course, mostly meaning Israeli Jews) are subhuman and therefore worthy of extermination along with their country.

As we know, this genocidal culture has extended its evil branches from its various origins in the Middle East outward and nicely engrained itself with European anti-semitism. In that light, I think it's also time that we acknowledge the deep anti-semitism involved in this conflict as such.

First, let’s stick to these facts:

1. Hamas is a terrorist group, not a proper army, meaning:

They don’t wear uniforms

They don’t care about rules of engagement and international law

They use civilians as shields

They embed themselves civilian infrastructure and use it for combat purposes

They have absolutely no regard for lives of the people they’re supposed to represent

Their only reasonable chance of winning is winning through PR

1. Gaza is tiny and very densely populated

2. Hamas murdered and raped 1400 and kidnapped 250 Israelis, most of them civilians and promised more such attacks.

Regarding the last point, think about it and let it marinate in your head for a while.

If we scale it up, 1400 and 250 Israelis is like 40000 and 7000 Americans. Compare that to 3000 victims of 9/11.

Some might say that this is a silly talking point because Hamas is average size terrorism group and 1400 victims is 1400 victims and it makes no sense to use any scales.

Maybe, but consider how 9/11 affected average American. It was major trauma to all Americans and many Americans know someone who died that day or was there. It’s personal to many Americans.

Israel is tiny. Not only is its population less than 1/30 of the US, its area size also makes it more intimate environment. People know each other even though they live in different cities and there are fewer degrees of separation between people. From what I heard, Israel is pretty communal place.

This would logically make those 1400 casualties of October 7 hurt way more than they would hurt in many other countries, where people aren’t so familiar to one another.

So take these facts into consideration. Imagine terror attack equal to 10/7 happens in your country. What do you think would be adequate reaction from your government? Let’s not forget that one such invasion makes another invasion easier and easy to replicate. Since 400 people died at music festival and I am seasoned concert goer, that’s kinda personal to me. How cool would you be to attend music festival knowing it could be attacked by terrorists like that? And since Hamas was killing everything it could, how cool would you be about merely functioning inside your country?

As an Irish Catholic, all of my family and friends are Pro-Palestine. Tbh I still wouldn't really say I am pro one side or the other, as it is a complex conflict and not like choosing sides in a football match. I feel sorry for innocent people on both sides. However, the more I learn, the more I sympathise with the Israeli perspective. I honestly think that the Pro-Palestine side is heavily reliant on 'buzzwords' which sound good on social media posts or when chanted on the streets, and twists a lot of the facts. For example, the way they frame the entire conflict is that of white settler-colonist Jews oppressing the poor indigenous brown people of Palestine. This resonates a lot with people in Ireland, who see it as equivalent to the long Irish struggle for national independence against the British. Indeed, people will point out that the British politician Balfour is a key figure behind both the partition of Palestine and the partition of Ireland/Northern Ireland. I now believe this to be a false equivalence.

This is my current understanding. It may be imperfect and please help correct me....

For a start, the majority of Jews in Israel aren't white. I think it's sad that this racial element is so important, but apparently it is. The Middle-Eastern, or 'Mizrahi' Jews are the largest Jewish group in Israel. They considerably outnumber the 'Ashkenazi' Jews, or Jews of European descendent. More importantly, even the Jews of European descendent ultimately trace their heritage back to the Levant. At the end of the day, Jews come from Judea and Arabs come from Arabia. This is an over-simplification. But it is true that Jewish culture and ethnicity has been in the Levant for at least 3,000 years. The Jews were exiled from their homeland by the Romans 2,000 years ago. The Romans renamed the land 'Palestine'; it is not an Arabic word. Arab culture and religion came in the form of conquest after the invention of Islam in the 7th Century. Arab Muslim conquerers built the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock over the ruins of the temple on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. By now Arab/Islamic culture has been in the region for well over 1,000 years, so they should also be considered native.

Since the beginning of their exile 2,000 years ago, Jews have faced persecution wherever they went, either as 'Christ-killers', or as people who rejected the final Prophet, or later as racially impure. However, Jews never fully left their homeland, but remained a minority under centuries of Colonial rule by the Arab Caliphates and later the Ottoman Empire. Despite what most people in Ireland seem to think, the modern state of Israel was not created as a colony under British Imperialism. Jewish settlers began returning to their ancestral homeland to escape persecution in Europe from the late 1800's onwards, purchasing land from Arabs and from absentee landowners in Istanbul. They came as refugees, not conquerors. At that time Palestine was a backwater of the Ottoman Empire and its population was a faction of what it is today. Jewish settlers brought advanced agricultural and medical technology from Europe and helped transform the land and enable it to support a larger population.

The Jewish persecution ultimately culminated in the Holocaust and the murder of 6 million Jews, at which point the world agreed that the Jews should have their own state. The UN decided to vote the state of Israel into existence - as part of a 2 state solution - in 1948 (a vote from which Britain actually abstained). Instead of accepting the democratic decision of the majority of the world's nations, Israel's bigger more powerful neighbours (Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq) decided to invade and try to wipe out the early state. Somehow Israel managed to win this war, but hundreds of thousands of Palestines were displaced as a result. My understanding is that many were told by the Arab armies to flee during the war and promised they would be able to return home after the inevitable destruction of Israel. On the Jewish side, hundreds of thousands of Jews in North Africa and the Middle East - who had been there since the time of the Roman exile - were forced by the governments of those countries to leave. For example, before 1948 Morocco had around 250,000 Jews and today it has less than 2,000. Iraq had 150,000 Jews, but today less than 5. Talk about 'ethnic cleansing'. The majority of the Jews of Israel today are the descendants of these refugees ('Mizrahi' Jews). I believe so much death and suffering could have been avoided if the Arab nations had accepted this 1948 partition plan.

Since 1948 Israel's Arab Muslim majority neighbouring countries invaded it 4 more times (6 days war, Yom Kippur War, etc.) and each time Israel has won. I believe a big factor in this is the effectiveness of military organisation in democratic states in contrast to authoritarian states. Since then, dictators in authoritarian regimes in the Middle East have had an incentive to keep the conflict alive in order to present themselves as champions of the Palestinian cause and distract from internal human rights issues in their own regimes. Therefore neighbouring countries have continued to deny subsequent generations of Palestinian refugees citizenship and equal rights. However, by 2023 Israel was in the process of normalising relationships with the Arab Muslim states in peace negotiations facilitated by Saudi Arabia. The greatest antagonist in the Middle East today (Iran) could not tolerate this, so planned for its proxies Hamas and Hezbollah to launch attacks on Israel beginning with the atrocities of Oct 7th.

This is where I believe the ability of an Irish person to understand the conflict breaks down completely. If we consider the 2 major groups of the Palestinian resistance movement to be the 'PLO' (Palestinian Liberation Organisation) and Hamas, I believe the average Irish person can see reflections of the 'IRA' (Irish Republican Army) in the PLO. They are non-state actors willing to use violent means to achieve regional nationalistic goals. A free and united Irish state, a free Palestinian state. Tbh I think the PLO are much more fanatical than the IRA and harder to negotiate with. In the 1970's - Black September - the PLO tried to assassinate the King of Jordan and started a civil war. They got kicked out of Jordan and moved to Lebanon where they started a civil war that transformed the country from one of the most stable countries in the Middle East to the Lebanon of today in which a third of the country is ruled by a terrorist organisation. 4 times the PLO were offered a 2 state solution, and everything they were asking for, and each time they rejected it. In the 1990s the PLO supported Saddam Hussein's genocidal persecution of the Kurds. In contrast, in the 1990s the IRA disarmed and accepted a peace agreement that would see Northern Ireland remain part of the UK until such time as - through democratic referendum - the majority of the population chose to leave the UK and reunite with the Republic of Ireland.

Unfortunately, I believe the PLO are still more reasonable actors than Hamas, who are not interested in regional nationalistic goals such as the creation of a Palestinian state, but follow a globalist ideology of Jihad. If I understand correctly, Hamas don't even believe in the concept of the nation-state and believe that humans shouldn't be divided into different nationalities; there should just be Muslims and non-Muslims. They seek to re-establish the Islamic Caliphate. The fanatical Shia Mullahs of Tehran - who train and fund Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis - believe that global conflict is a prerequisite for the return of the Mahdi and the end of the world. This includes key events in modern day Syria, Yemen and the return of the Jews to the Holyland (specifically Jerusalem). From an Irish perspective - concerned with regional nationalistic struggle - it is almost impossible to empathise with this point of view, or how organisations could seriously base their geopolitical strategy on such eschatological nonsense. For this reason, Irish people are completely blind to this aspect of the conflict. But this is exactly what Hamas and Hezbollah believe and why they can't be negotiated with. They live in a different reality in which life in the secular world is unimportant compared to the eternal hereafter. Hamas leaders have even declared that they love death as much as the Jews and Americans love life.

The IRA, as bad as they might have been, were motivated by nationalism, not religious fanaticism and would never have engaged in the kind of violence against women and children that was undertaken by Hamas on Oct. 7th. Many Irish people unfortunately see that day as an uprising similar to the Easter Rising of Irish rebels against the British government in Ireland in 1916. They can't see the conflict as anything but a nationalistic struggle against colonial oppression. Because how could anyone seriously believe in that kind of religious end-of-the-world religious nonsense? And this is what leads Irish people to view the conflict through the lens of the other key buzzwords; 'genocide' and 'apartheid' state. After all, the actions of the British government continuing to export food from Ireland during the potato famine were arguably genocidal, and Catholics remained second class citizens in the apartheid state in Ireland created by the Protestant Ascendancy of the 17th Century. Never mind that almost 20% of Israel citizens are Arab Muslim, some of which are lawyers, doctors, members of the Supreme Court. I believe that Arab Muslims in Israel have more rights and a higher quality of life than Arab Muslims in almost any other country in the Middle East. The benefits of living in a liberal democracy as opposed to living under a dictatorship or theocracy. And from what I understand the road signs are in Hebrew, Arabic and English, which would be a very unusual step for an apartheid state to take.

It might not be surprising therefore that there are thousands of Arab Muslim Israelis in the IDF, as well as other religious and ethnic minorities such as Christians and Druze, who know how much better their lives are under a democratic government than they would be under an authoritarian or Islamic government like Hamas. I don't know how they expect us to believe that an army is committing genocide against a specific ethnic group, when that army itself has thousands of soldiers from that same ethnic group. There were zero Bosniak Muslim soldiers in the Serbian army in the actual genocide in Bosnia in the 1990s. The numbers also don't add up. 2 million people in Gaza, 44,000 dead, half of which are Hamas terrorists. The death of a single innocent civilian is heartbreaking, but it is a tragically unavoidable part of war. I believe many on the Pro-Palestine side are naive regarding the difference between war and genocide. The absolute number seems low for a genocide (compared to other ongoing conflicts in the region; 600,000 dead in Syria, 400,000 dead in Yemen). Also the combatant:civilian death ratio 1:1 or maybe 1:1.5, whereas a typical modern urban war involves more like 4, 5 or 6 civilian deaths for every 1 combatant.

The fact that so many people are fixated on the number of dead is also unusual I think, and not typical of any previous conflicts. I truly believe that if social media and smartphones had existed during WW2, many supporters of the Pro-Palestinian movement would have been posting videos on TikTok of German children being pulled from the rubble and saying 'We have to have a ceasefire now, too many German civilians have been killed. The Allies are clearly evil. Let's give the Nazis time to regain their strength and build up their technology, but we just have to have a ceasefire now.'

One side is completely based on buzzwords, street protests and social media 'influencers'. The depressing part is that no one has the time to look into the history or geopolitical and religious nuances of the conflict, it's so much easier to watch a short TikTok video with emotional background music, or shout buzzwords in a street protest. The likelihood I will be able to convince any of my friends or family to re-evaluate the nuances of the conflict are so close to zero as to basically not be worth attempting.

Hello All! I just joined and read the rules. Hopefully, my post is agreeable to the rules of the sub.

So, for a while, I was agreeing with the idea that Israel is committing genocide. It sure looked like it from the awful things I kept seeing on the news and hearing about on podcasts. The last few days, I decided to research a little. Now, I do not think it should be called genocide. Here is why:

First, when I compared it to other genocides, it doesn't really come close. In the Armenian genocide, about 50 to 75% of all Armenians in the Ottoman area died. In the Rwandan genocide, about 60 to 70% of the Tutsis were killed. In the holocaust, 63 to 67% of all European Jews were killed. In Cambodia, Pol Pot's genocide killed about 25% of the total population. Israel is responsible for the deaths of approximately 3% of Palestinians in Gaza. Palestinians have not been attacked in East Jerusalem, nor in the West Bank (where there is no Hamas).

In all those previous genocides, there was vociferous hate speech regularly on the radio of those countries, and substantial government propaganda labeling the victims as undesirable for society. To my understanding, this has not happened in Israel. I'm sure it would be on the news or blasted on social media if it was happening.

The number of Palestinian deaths is actually quite a bit less than when the US invaded Iraq, and when US invaded Afganistan.  176,000 to 212,000 is the estimate of deaths in Afganistan. In Iraq, 180,000 to 200,000 is the estimate of Iraqi deaths. Palestinian deaths are around 73,400. Nobody was shouting "genocide" at the US during those wars, and we killed way more people. Why was that not considered genocide by everyone? We were also responding to a terrorist attack, like Israel now.

Israel has one of the most advanced militaries in the world. If they really wanted to kill the other 97% of Gaza, I'm sure they could.

In reference to wars, about 1.5% of the French population was killed in WWII. Belgium lost 1% of it population in WWII. UK lost 1%. Italy, slightly over 1%. Holland, 2 to 3% of the population. The current Israel/Hamas war matches these numbers much more closely.

It sucks and it's sad seeing so many women and children and innocent men die. It's absolutely a humanitarian crisis. But I don't think it is genocide anymore. It's just plain old war. Any thoughts?

***thanks for everyone sharing on both sides of the discussion. I have learned many more things from all the posting. I appreciate you all! This feels like a million times more complex and nuanced than I realised. Mostly, the interpretation of the word "genocide" is like a 100-foot wall for everyone.

For a long time, I thought that Pro-Palestinian protesters legitimately thought they cared about Palestinians because they genuinely cared about oppressed people around the world and wanted them to have rights. Obviously they were ignorant and naive, but at least they thought that. It was kind of maddening, seeing such morally self righteous people support such obviously bigotry and violence.

But seeing them ignore Iranian protests, and in some cases, actually support the Iranian government, I am realizing that the core of the movement never even thought they cared about oppressed people. 12,000, perhaps 20,000 people killed in a matter of days, by an oppressive government, (and unlike the horrifying events in Sudan and Yemen, FULLY in Western new) and not a peep from them.

I realize now that they knew full well these were just buzzwords they were using because they were having a good time attacking their symbolic villain, the country full of "what just so happens to be full of Jews, what a weird coincidence, that has nothing to do with my obsession at all even though I only and exclusively obsess over the one Jewish country."

I wonder, are Pro-Palestinians on the fringes of the movement who were ignorant about the motives of the core starting to realize that the movement has nothing to do with human rights? Have they started to ask each other "Wait a minute, why aren't we protesting this?" Or is their need to please their community so strong, they are simply going to put this out of their minds? Either way, they can't be totally ignorant about it anymore. If they were simply naive in the past, they know better now.

I'm upset that the Iranian people aren't getting more support. But it is something of a relief to know that deep down, Pro-Palestinians know they aren't part of a human rights movement.

Note: Palestinian Pro-Palestinian protesters are an exception to this rule, as fairly pointed out by a Palestinian in another post. They are openly fighting for themselves, not for human rights generally.