As I write these words, I am sitting at home in Tel Aviv, trying to figure out how to protect my family in a house with no shelter or safe room, following with growing panic the reports and rumors of horrible events taking place in the Israeli towns near Gaza which are under attack. I see people, some of them my friends, calling on social media to attack Gaza more fiercely than ever before. Some Israelis are saying that now is the time to eradicate Gaza entirely — essentially calling for genocide. Through all the explosions, the dread and the bloodshed, speaking about peaceful solutions seems like madness to them.

Yet I remember that everything that I am feeling now, which every Israeli must be sharing, has been the life experience of millions of Palestinians for far too long. The only solution, as it has always been, is to bring an end of apartheid, occupation, and siege, and promote a future based on justice and equality for all of us. It is not in spite of the horror that we have to change course — it is exactly because of it.

  • redfellow
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    1 year ago

    The comments in this thread are mind blowing. Simply put, people are cheering for pure terrorists who also want to kill all Jews, while condemning the side who has offered peace treaties multiple times, and always been either flat out rejected, or betrayed.

    And somehow just because you hit back with a bigger stick after your children have been blown to bits, you’re the bad guy.

    There’s a “both bad” crowd here, totally rejecting reality, and then a surprisingly large pro-terrorism crowd.

    What the fuck.

    Oh and don’t forget OP speaking about writing this from Tel Aviv as he would be living in Israel. He’s in UK.

    • @WhiteHawk
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      221 year ago

      I mean, both sides are bad, killing civilians in retaliation for a terror attack is still killing civilians. But to pretend that the terrorism is somehow justified is just wrong.

      • redfellow
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        41 year ago

        The sentiment, when I wrote my comment, was largely “Hamas good, Israeli bad”, which was just baffling.

        Both sides have done horrible things, but only one 100% extremist and wants to rid the world of certain group of people. Remind you of a particular regime from the 40s?

        Of course the whole situation is more nuanced, but that’s the brass tacs, and I just can’t wrap my head around how anyone can be pro Hamas.

        • @[email protected]
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          -31 year ago

          You should have uncritical support of Palestinian resistance.

          Its okay to have critical support of organisations like hamas.

          We’re also left in a situation where Hamas is the most powerful group in the fight for Palestine because Israel funded them in the 80s to take power away from the more sane leftist PLO.

    • @[email protected]
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      71 year ago

      Israel’s government supported and enabled Hamas because it was expedient. And to weaken credible self determination movements like PLO.

      Israel created this situation.

      • redfellow
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        21 year ago

        Germany supported and enabled Hitler because it seemed convenient. Yet, we don’t blame the enabler or bystander for the actions of criminals and terrorists. Hamas is responsible for what Hamas does.

      • @SCB
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        01 year ago

        Irrelevant to today’s leadership challenges. You cannot undo what happened 30 years ago

          • @SCB
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            01 year ago

            It’s neither that simple nor relevant to the current situation.

    • @SCB
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      1 year ago

      There’s a “both bad” crowd here, totally rejecting reality, and then a surprisingly large pro-terrorism crow

      While I am extremely sympathetic to Palestinians who are totally fucked by Israel as well as Israeli citizens who are caught in a crossfire and victims of terrorist attacks, both sides are very much bad here, in terms of leadership.

      That the Israeli government has effectively no plan for long-term de-escalation and encourages far-right hardliners is unacceptable. That Palestinians are increasingly clinging to Hamas and calling for Israel’s destruction is unacceptable.

      Regardless of the history (and I am very aware of the repeated and at times extremely generous peace plans put forth), what matters is competency and leadership today, and the leadership of both sides here has unflinchingly chosen escalation

      As a result, there is no option for Israel after this attack except an overwhelming show of force, which is both tragic and as clear and example as you can get that recent leadership has utterly failed to provide genuine safety.

    • @[email protected]
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      31 year ago

      You do know what quotes are, right? The things OP wrote are direct excerpts from the article, which you’d know, had you bothered to read it before commenting. Instead you chose to waste your time, going through OPs posts smh…

    • @Astroturfed
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      -21 year ago

      Yes, only the one side commits acts of terrorism. Because the Israelis are a government sanctioned by the UN what they do isn’t terrorism. Oh wait, they’re still a bunch of land stealing baby killers. So yeah, hope they all kill each other and the west stops pissing money away on supporting Israel.