I’m old enough to remember the first Iraq. I’m also aware enough of history to understand that when you hold a group up as the innocent victims, when they were anything but, you create an environment where other groups emulate them down the road.
The Israeli government holds the lions share of the blame for the Gaza genocide, after all, they are the one’s doing it. But if we want to learn from this, and learn from what led up to it to hopefully short circuit things before they get this far in the future, we must acknowledge Hamas role.
Hamas may be fighting for the Palestinian people, but how you fight can have a major effect on how your enemies react, and also can have a major effect on soft support from third parties. Things like fighting out of civilian areas, and fighting without uniforms, etc, were made war crimes in the past specifically because of situations like this; it ends up getting civilians caught in the crossfire at best, and targeted at worst.
This isn’t a left/right position, this is just observations on what has happened globally every time an assymetrical war has been fought over the last 30 years.
Realistically, everyone holds some blame here. If the UN had some balls (and if the US and USSR could have pulled their heads out of their collective asses back in the seventies) there would have been peacekeepers and a two state solution after the first war. Probably should have made Jerusalem a city state like the Vatican, just to stop everyone fighting for control of that too.
Hamas role? They tried to be peaceful during the march of return, they got gassed and shot with snipers.
The only role any Palestinian group can play that won’t have Israel making those same criticisms is to stand in a field and commit seppuku.
You criticize Hamas for not using uniforms, while Israel arms civilians and helps them build homes on stolen land between Gaza and their own military bases, you criticize Hamas for fighting near civilians, while the IDF’s HQ is literally next to a shopping mall.
The two aren’t even comparable, because Palestine doesn’t have the benefit of billions of dollars of military equipment and the ability to have a standing army without getting bombed necessary to fight a non-guerilla war, meanwhile Israel chooses to do these things.
There is one single party responsible for starting this conflict, who can end it at any time, that’s Israel.
Sometimes there are no good choices, but that doesn’t absolve you of the consequences of that choice you had to make.
The world isn’t made up of good guys and bad guys. Hamas doesn’t get a pass on their actions just because Israel committed worse. And my purpose in pointing this out is not to absolve Israel of their actions, it’s to ensure people remain aware of what actions are likely to result in what consequences.
My hope is that in the future, when some other fight for freedom starts up somewhere else, the people there can learn from what happened in Gaza. Learn which actions worked, which ones were futile, and which ones actively made things worse. That learning gets real muddy if we keep glossing the whole thing over with “Everything is only Israel’s fault”.
I’m old enough to remember the first Iraq. I’m also aware enough of history to understand that when you hold a group up as the innocent victims, when they were anything but, you create an environment where other groups emulate them down the road.
The Israeli government holds the lions share of the blame for the Gaza genocide, after all, they are the one’s doing it. But if we want to learn from this, and learn from what led up to it to hopefully short circuit things before they get this far in the future, we must acknowledge Hamas role.
Hamas may be fighting for the Palestinian people, but how you fight can have a major effect on how your enemies react, and also can have a major effect on soft support from third parties. Things like fighting out of civilian areas, and fighting without uniforms, etc, were made war crimes in the past specifically because of situations like this; it ends up getting civilians caught in the crossfire at best, and targeted at worst.
This isn’t a left/right position, this is just observations on what has happened globally every time an assymetrical war has been fought over the last 30 years.
Realistically, everyone holds some blame here. If the UN had some balls (and if the US and USSR could have pulled their heads out of their collective asses back in the seventies) there would have been peacekeepers and a two state solution after the first war. Probably should have made Jerusalem a city state like the Vatican, just to stop everyone fighting for control of that too.
Hamas role? They tried to be peaceful during the march of return, they got gassed and shot with snipers.
The only role any Palestinian group can play that won’t have Israel making those same criticisms is to stand in a field and commit seppuku.
You criticize Hamas for not using uniforms, while Israel arms civilians and helps them build homes on stolen land between Gaza and their own military bases, you criticize Hamas for fighting near civilians, while the IDF’s HQ is literally next to a shopping mall.
The two aren’t even comparable, because Palestine doesn’t have the benefit of billions of dollars of military equipment and the ability to have a standing army without getting bombed necessary to fight a non-guerilla war, meanwhile Israel chooses to do these things.
There is one single party responsible for starting this conflict, who can end it at any time, that’s Israel.
Sometimes there are no good choices, but that doesn’t absolve you of the consequences of that choice you had to make.
The world isn’t made up of good guys and bad guys. Hamas doesn’t get a pass on their actions just because Israel committed worse. And my purpose in pointing this out is not to absolve Israel of their actions, it’s to ensure people remain aware of what actions are likely to result in what consequences.
My hope is that in the future, when some other fight for freedom starts up somewhere else, the people there can learn from what happened in Gaza. Learn which actions worked, which ones were futile, and which ones actively made things worse. That learning gets real muddy if we keep glossing the whole thing over with “Everything is only Israel’s fault”.
Someone beaks into your house, starts eating all your food, stealing your things, hurting your children, and kills your dog.
You fight back.
Do we now say that we need to acknowledge the role you had in the home invasion?
Do I kidnap the home invader’s kid in response? The world is not as simplistic as you’d apparently like it to be.
If taking hostages is the only way to save your family and you’ve already tried everything else, what do you do?
Like you said, the world is not simple.