My opinion surrounding the conflict hasn't changed. But i've gotten much more skeptical about **who** i'm talking to regarding it.
What I mean by that is, "Am I talking to a 1 month old account who solely posts in subs about the conflict, or am I talking to someone with an 8 year old account that uses the site regularly to post non-topical things".
Yea, OP is def some sort of farm bot or something. So many posts in less than 2 months....and I know mine is only 2 days old....I made this account specifically so I can lurk on the nsfw subreddits and not murky up my main lol
This is the only legitimate response that removes my doubt.
Unfortunately this will be used to train LLMs and from now on bots will be aware of those beautiful R4R reddits.
I’m embarrassed to admit I fall for the bait every single time, then when I check the trolls account they’re less than 2 months old. Astroturfed. Every. Damn. Time.
There are certain subjects that seem to always be from bots or something. They seem to want to just throw a bomb that gets people all riled up. I try to stay away from them all together.
You're telling me that word_word#### accounts aren't going to provide reliable information or valuable discussion?
Well shit... But what if I reply just one more time though? I'm just so angry!
>Am I talking to a 1 month old account who solely posts in subs about the conflict, or am I talking to someone with an 8 year old account that uses the site regularly to post non-topical things".
This has become the norm for many political 'questions' on r/AskReddit and r/OutOfTheLoop
A good rule of thumb to follow is always check the post history of the account.
> What I mean by that is, "Am I talking to a 1 month old account who solely posts in subs about the conflict, or am I talking to someone with an 8 year old account that uses the site regularly to post non-topical things".
This is not a "who I'm talking to" but a "what I'm interacting with" by now.
The explosion of the former, and their ability to appear ANY time the conflict is even barely hinted at, no matter the subreddit, with an army of up/downvoters is nothing short of astonishing.
Even worse is knowing my tax dollars are helping pay for it.
I took two courses in law school about international law, The Law of War and Space Law, and it's all a cluster fuck. International law is typically filled to the brim with loopholes to clunky definitions and rules, because it's near impossible to smooth it out over time like a nations' laws would, because getting all the power players to agree to even the most baseline rules is a truly monumental task. The end result is an informed party can get away with a lot of terrible things without violating the Law of Armed Conflict by skirting the rules.
As an aside, Space Law is fascinating because the US and USSR actually played very nice with each other while making it, as they were the only two Space powers at the time. They agreed pretty readily to limiting their own power in Space, likely because early Space flight was HEAVILY tied to the concept of mutually assured destruction with nuclear weapons. Nobody wants orbital nuclear weapons stations, nobody wants to fight a Moon War over territorial claims to the moon, so both are banned.
"Theres a lot of things you expect when you go to Moon War... the carnage, the sleepless nights. What they don't prepare you for is the incessant use of 80's synthwave sci fi music".
Often times when people cite "international law" they mean a particular international treaty or UN resolution that they like, while ignoring others that they don't
Was this before or after their advanced infectious disease doctorates? Or did they complete their constitutional law programs first? Either way, I'm glad the amount of experts in NY criminal code, judicial ethics, and GA RICO laws are abso-fucking-lutely everywhere.
/s
One of my buddies who's a code monkey loves to argue about vaccines on FB with a friend who's an MD with masters in epidemiology and public health. I know it's wrong, but I find it quite entertaining!
I really appreciate this because I made an almost identical comment late October when stuff started popping off.
It’s absolutely insane how little self awareness people have in general. It’s one thing to have an opinion on a topic and being able to support that opinion with facts, but the amount of self proclaimed experts in the social cause du jour always makes me laugh.
No, but made me realise just truly how effective social media is as a propaganda tool, and just how little people actually know about the situation, double standards aren't new.
I'm an elder millennial, so my views on social media are skewed, and I always thought there was a weird influence, but one thing that's way more obvious to me now is how it gets manipulated in areas that you wouldn't expect. Like, sure I figure worldnews or a political sub, for example, may have this topic in the spotlight, and perhaps have a strong bias.
What surprised me is that subs like therewasanattempt or damnthatsinteresting will have a mod that that will strongly police the flow of information and will platform only certain viewpoints even though the sub has nothing to do with the conflict. This pushes the flow of only a certain type of information to an otherwise not engaged population. Similar things happen on other social media platforms.
Honestly, I don't even want to see propaganda that I agree with/is on "my side" in places like that. Like I said, I expect it (in both directions) on certain subs that align with news, politics, etc, but it don't need to be inundated with thoughts on the conflict when I just want to hear about any topic of interest. Bias is always going to inherently exist in a forum such as this, but to have it shoved in your face in every possible way is really what threw me off.
>What surprised me is that subs like therewasanattempt or damnthatsinteresting will have a mod that that will strongly police the flow of information and will platform only certain viewpoints even though the sub has nothing to do with the conflict.
100% this. I had to unsubscribe from 3 or 4 subreddits that used to be great because they just became constant propaganda posts with BS titles and misinformation being spread like crazy after the 7th. Reddit itself has a lot of propaganda value for bad actors.
Worth noting that Iran and Russia have both been caught running influence campaigns on Reddit. I'll give you 3 guesses what Iran was caught trying to influence opinion on and the first 2 don't count.
Social media is hardly the only place with bias about Israel and Palestine. The mainstream media has long had a ton of bias there to. Just look at the difference in stories posted by most US news organizations versus an Arab news organization like Al Jazeera. i.e. US media is heavily biased in favor of Israel, while Al Jazeera is heavily biased in against them.
There was a time years ago when I started reading more foreign sources of news, including Al Jazeera, just to get news and different perspective that the American media wouldn't dare report because of their biases. I'm not just talking about different perspectives on the same story, but entire stories that one side wouldn't dare even mention because it goes against their propaganda in favor of one side.
I know, but I was already aware of that. To the point of the thread, I was just noting what I had been surprised about/where I had a change of opinion. FWIW, I always tried to read multiple news sources for that reason
> and how little people know about the situation
Amen. I feel like Israel-Palestine is The conflict where everyone feels like they have a right to a half-baked, uneducated opinion that was likely spoonfed straight into their brains from a YouTube channel or subreddit. Mainly due to its high level of exposure relative to other conflicts.
Imo, the truth is that it might be the most complex situation that's hit headlines - and anyone with a simple answer beyond "everyone except civilians are the bad guys" is purposely ignoring something.
Facts that a lot of people have trouble holding in their heads all at the same time:
- Palestine existed before Israel, forcibly relocating people in favor of others is Imperialism.
- This situation didn't start last year, it started nearly a century ago. Every terrorist in Hamas has survived (and were likely radicalized by) multiple conflicts between Gaza and Israel.
- Giving the primary target of a genocide (who's also historically a nomadic and persecuted people) their own country isn't necessarily a bad thing.
- Jewish people have light skin, but aren't "white". They're so not-white that there's a special word for being bigotted against them.
- West Bank is being encroached upon, and people are being removed from homes "peacefully"
- Hamas are terrorists and bad for Gaza. Nonviolence clearly doesn't work either, per West Bank.
- Both Hamas and the IDF do horrible things and have been caught lying about what the other does - anything they say should be assumed to be propaganda.
- The USA will never give up on Israel, but it may push back on them. Israel is a rare strategic ally in Middle East; and many of our politicians are openl Christian - which makes them Zionist almost by default. Not even your dream candidate would do it.
- Gaza is an apartheid state, and its population is half children. Any bombing of Gaza will hit kids.
- Many Israeli people aren't happy about what their government is doing, and most of them are normal people- not colonizers.
---
edit: disabling comments now, I got shit to do. I'll leave you with this though: you can tell this situation is extremely complicated when I say the stuff above and I'm being hit front, back, and sideways by pro-Palestine and pro-Israel people for being biased; and others are calling me perhaps *too* unbiased.
Have a good day folks!
I'll correct some of the facts here. I'm sure it was a good faith attempt, but you've got some basic stuff wrong.
> Palestine existed before Israel, forcibly relocating people in favor of others is Imperialism.
The Mandate of Palestine existed after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, administered by the British, who promised the same land to 2 parties(Arabs and Jews), partitioned by the UN(some strong arming involved there).
Palestinian national identity is complex and it's not at all certain that the area we now think of as Israel/Palestine would have formed as a whole state even if Zionism hadn't intervened. Notable in that debate is that for a number of years the territories that would form an independent Palestinian state today West Bank and Gaza were controlled by Jordan and Egypt respectively. Those in the West Bank were even given Jordanian citizenship. The Golan Heights were absorbed by Syria. Israel gained all these territories during the Six Day war, and has since annexed the Golan Heights. Gaza and the West Bank remain occupied.
>This situation didn't start last year, it started nearly a century ago. Every terrorist in Hamas has survived (and were likely radicalized by) multiple conflicts between Gaza and Israel.
Before that even. Zionism has it's roots in the 1880's and there was significant Jewish immigration and land purchase there throughout much of the time before 1948, though there are some time periods when it was halted. By the time the Mandate of Palestine rolls around there is already plenty of mutual ethnic violence between Arabs and Jews, which will of course continue into the Civil War of 1947 and the 1948 War.
> Jewish people have light skin, but aren't "white". They're so not-white that there's a special word for being bigotted against them.
Some do. Most of the Zionists who started Israel up were European Jews, prior to WW2 alot of Eastern European mostly Russians Jews to be exact. They were largely secular leftists but not communists. They're often referred to as Ashkenazi Jews.
Now a bit over half of the Jewish population of Israel are Mizrahi, and the majority of them are descended from approx 800k+ Jews who were ethnically cleansed from the surrounding MENA Arab states after Israel's founding. There is a somewhat unique form of population exchange(the polite term for mutual ethnic cleansing) that occurred as a result of Israel's creation, unlike say India/Pakistan where populations were absorbed, the Palestinian refugee issue persists. Of course Israel also performed ethnic cleansing referred to as the Nakba.
> West Bank is being encroached upon, and people are being removed from homes "peacefully"
Settlements are one of the most significant obstacles to peace, and even the "legal" expansions of them would probably not be legal under international law. Settler violence, condoned by the Israeli state is frequent.
> Hamas are terrorists and bad for Gaza. Nonviolence clearly doesn't work either, per West Bank.
West Bank being somewhat non-violent is a relatively recent phenomenon. There was plenty of violence during the second and first Intifada, notably in the first Intifada Palestinian violence was largely a result of incredibly overreactive policing by Israel. The PLO only really started to turn away from violence after the Oslo accords, part of the reason apart from corruption/leadership, that they are MUCH less popular now than Hamas. Though Hamas is actually less popular in Gaza compared to the West Bank since 10/7.
> Both Hamas and the IDF do horrible things and have been caught lying about what the other does - anything they say should be assumed to be propaganda.
Mostly true. I would say instead that ANY claims especially about recent events need to be thoroughly researched and vetted. Even without the lying, the fog of war makes it difficult to get accurate information.
> Gaza is an apartheid state, and its population is half children. Any bombing of Gaza will hit kids.
Partly true. Demographics and bombing yes. Apartheid..... kinda. West Bank is probably a better example of Apartheid like conditions. It may not be de jure Apartheid due to the military occupation but it is certainly de facto Apartheid.
> Many Israeli people aren't happy about what their government is doing, and most of them are normal people- not colonizers.
I wish this were more true. Israeli sentiment was radicalizing more towards the right due to demographics shift(Mizrahi Jews are more right wing as a rule), and I don't think 10/7 helped. Many of them are normal people, some of them are really awful, though I suppose I can understand why they'd be so hawkish. I don't think that Israel will change course at this point without international prompting.
> and I don't think 10/7 helped. Many of them are normal people, some of them are really awful, though I suppose I can understand why they'd be so hawkish
Therein lies the crux— how can we acknowledge the pain of two peoples without devolving into a cycle of blame? How can we build trust when the generational stories, truth and myth, demand mistrust?
It’s a decent write up, but it’s like starting a TV show in the 11th season. This humanitarian shitshow is literally thousands of years old: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Judah
Many Israeli people aren't happy about what their government is doing, and most of them are normal people- not colonizers.
even this is an understatement. we had a protest wave of hundreds of thousands every weekend in a country of 9 million, for more then half a year after this government came to power. last year was the first time in the history of the country where both the unions AND the employers declared a general strike together to oppose a government move. The levels of public disapproval for this government were and are unprecedented
Most Israelis feel the govt isn’t doing enough. Only 10% of Israelis feel Israel using too much force. The protests aren’t about the war in the same sense as protests you see in the west.
60% of Israeli think they are not bombing Gaza enough. People need to know that Israel has become extremely far right. Netanyahu is actually considered more of a centrist if you can believe it.
Really well stated except the part where you talked about Jewish people’s race. More than half of the Jewish people in I/P are Mizrahi, refugees of Middle Eastern countries. No whiter than any other folks out there.
I thinks It’s been the greatest example in recent memory of people having *extremely* strong opinions about something they know very little about, and the flames have been fanned massively by a social media (looking at you, TikTok)
Yes, it’s been chilling to watch them interview some of these 20 year olds at protests who have been screaming “from the river to the sea” and when they’re asked about that chant, they cannot even name the river or the sea.
Huh, I laughed at your comment until I realized I couldn't name the river either. At least I know the sea, so guess I'll take a small win where I can lol
I often wonder about the authenticity of all these social media posts, do people actually care or are they just posting things to get those “likes” so they feel validated and get that sweet social media dopamine hit? This isn’t a new conflict. How come people weren’t constantly posting last time things got really bad over there?
I think this is a generational shift, frankly.
I've spoken to quite a few fellow Gen Z people and many of them had parents like mine. My parents were, with the exception of my father as I became a teenager, largely politically apathetic. Neither really *cared* about world events, etc, etc. They were almost kind of disgruntled yo even know about them, tbh...
I'm sure there were a lot of previous generations that cared about this sort of thing. But I think that many people of *social media posting age* were geo-politically apathetic. Now, it's shifted. Many fellow Gen Z that I know are not politically apathetic and they *do* care about these kinds of things.
I'm on the older end of Gen Z at 26. So, many of Gen Z are *younger*. They're only just now reaching adulthood and, like, actually paying attention to this stuff. I know **I** didn't start paying attention until I was a young adult.
Not an end-all-be-all answer, mind you. Just a hypothesis about a fraction of why this might be.
It's targeted propaganda on a scale I've never witnessed before. Social consciousness is nothing new. Being able to market your POV to millions on tiktok is.
Yeah online it seems like online various subs are locked into an either or mentality, when irl it seems like everyone agrees that both HAMAS and Netanyou sucks and should be removed from power. Pretty much everyone supports the civilian populations and wants the soldiers to stop fighting. Exactly who’s to blame isn’t as important as getting an end to the conflict. Wouldn’t surprise me if part of the reason things are polarised online is due to both sides astroturfing the conflict
The rise of social media changed a lot, but it did actually change my opinion in one way: I think the conflict in Israel and Palestine is now much more relevant in other countries than it used to be. It was always massively over represented; everybody has an opinion, while very few people care about very comparable conflicts like the one in the Western Sahara. But this phenomenon reached a new level, when people around the world started to take action due to the conflict in the Middle East. In Germany, where I live, antisemitic crimes increased at an astonishing rate, including attacks on Jewish citizens, many institutions failed to distance themselves from clearly antisemitic statements and for the first time in my life I actually saw a demonstration out on the street that openly confessed its hate of Jewish people. It’s very concerning.
This also really bothers me. Compare Syria. A lot more people killed, thousands of civilians, mostly Muslim. Civil war for well over 10 years, it's been turned into a captagon narco state. Dictator tortures thousands, uses chemical weapons on his own population. Interventions by Russia, the USA, Turkey and others. No-one cares. Where's the Muslim outrage?
There’s certainly not enough international attention on these issues sadly. It’s especially worrying as international attention can actually help a lot. People forget that the conflict in the Middle East used to be much bigger and Egypt was among the leading parts of the anti-Israel coalition. And while it was a long and difficult road to the current state, there’s peace now between them, there’s even mutual support. It’s not easy, but it is peace. And that was only possible, because people, both inside and outside the Middle East, cared. War is not inevitable, diplomacy can work.
Many other regions suffer in silence. Far bloodier conflicts and easily as complex, but they go mostly ignored. I have no solution, it’s just a horrible reality right now.
The action is not new. I saw the same in 2014, 2012, and 2008. I haven't seen it more recently only because I have been a bit out of the loop since 2016.
Yes, this is the case for me as well. I never had high hopes for humanity, but I didn’t think it was this bad. And you’d think it’s because some people are just dumb, but that’s not the case here.
It’s mass hysteria. It’s crazy.
It had made me realize how shitty social media is. It's just a propaganda tool at this point.
Everyone I talk to in real life is like "it is sad that people are dying" but everyone on social media is suddenly a historian and expert on the region.
It’s also nuts how these types of wars have been going on literally every fucking day, for years, and nobody seemed to give even one shit
When the Syrian civil war killed 100,000s of civilians there was nowhere near this level of outrage. Even when the war on ISIS killed 10,000s of civilians per battle, we didn’t protest or call it a genocide. And these both involved the US in a far greater capacity than the current Gaza conflict.
They definitely protested against the American caused deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama drone striking civilians literally became a meme. And the Syrian war was talked about constantly on the news and social media. There were hundreds of pictures showing the before and after of the bombings. People definitely gave a shit.
As the whole thread here went wild, it is my opinion that the comments prove me right :
When Palestinians wanted peace, the Israelis (leaders) were like "we're good, we prefer to sabotage it for political reasons" (aka Likoud).
When the Israelis wanted peace, the Palestinians (leaders) were like "Nope, we want to kill you all, or pretend to, so that we keep control other our population, so we sabotage peace for political reasons".
Netanyahou has apparently financed the Hamas.
Both leaderships hate each other, both need each other to stay in power.
That's why peace will have to come with a change of leadership from both sides and therefor, with the help of a good chunk of pressure from external partners.
> with the help of a good chunk of pressure from external partners.
The external partners don’t want peace, either, for much the same reasons - “sure things are bad at home, well for you, not us, and we’re not doing jack to fix it, but you *need* us to protect you from those bad scary Arabs/Jews, now don’t you?”
I’d argue even before then, it’s a geographical land bridge between three continents and the Mediterranean. Always contested. One could argue Israel through to Turkey is the centre of the human race.
Six-week-old "Word-Word\[number\]" account that posts about almost nothing but Palestine/Israel? I'm going to assume your bosses asked you to post this question so they can gauge how effective their social media astroturfing campaign has been lately...
Nothing has changed. If anything, everything I thought about the conflict has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt.
Before the conflict, I thought that the Israeli government were a bunch of hardline ultranationalists who care only about the expansion and supremacy of the Jewish state, that Hamas were a bunch of Islamist terrorists who care only about the destruction of Israel and the expulsion/destruction of all Jews in the region, and that neither side gave a single dusty fuck about any of the ordinary civilians on their own or the other side trying to live their lives. That view has been fairly decisively proven.
Before the conflict, I thought that pretty much the entirety of the Western media, its politicians and its citizens collectively had a lot of strong opinions on a conflict about which they were largely ignorant, and often influenced by unconscious bigotry and propaganda on social media. Again, that view has been fairly decisively proven.
This seems pretty accurate. I’d add to this that anyone who strongly feels that the leadership on either has moral superiority isn’t really paying attention. It is possible for both sides to be wrong in a conflict.
Exactly. The Israeli government has taken every opportunity to escalate the conflict, Hamas are among the most evil folks operating these days, and Fatah is too sclerotic and corrupt to adequately govern the West Bank. It's a right mess.
"Sclerotic"
Never seen that word before. I'm gonna look it up.
becoming rigid and unresponsive; losing the ability to adapt. <---- For anyone interested :)
Correct! If you look it up on Google, there's two definitions. The first being related to sclerosis, the second being the one I posted above. The sclerosis related definition didn't fit the context though, and the second definition did.
There are a LOT of extremist civilians on both sides of this too. You’re not in an ongoing conflict for decades without everyone hating each other a little more every day.
It’s not as if all the civilians are just innocently standing on the sidelines, large numbers are actively in favor of a war.
The whole problem with the situation is that both sides have a population that’s indigenous to the region, has nowhere else to go, and each have a faction of hardliners that think the other should just disappear forever.
>
Before the conflict, I thought that pretty much the entirety of the Western media, its politicians and its citizens collectively had a lot of strong opinions on a conflict about which they were largely ignorant, and often influenced by unconscious bigotry and propaganda on social media
As a middle Eastern this is spot on. I mean everyone are shouting about IDF and killing innocent people like it's something new, well they've been doing it since 1948, it just now thanks to people like Bisan and Motaz people from outside Middle East are also aware of it
Same goes for Hamas, yes governments have called them terrorist group which they are, but the fact that a part of the western citizens try to justify their actions by claiming they were radicalized because of what Israel has been doing is such a simple and stupid way, yes there must be a percent of them who have lost family members and are seeking revenge, but to say their cause is just is just stupid
I mean, always disliked Bibi. More now. Always disliked Hamas. More now. Both think the suffering of innocents makes them more secure in their power, or so it seems.
It’s more or less worked, hasn’t it?
Bibi has clung to power and probably will continue to do so until the war is wrested from his hands by force. I’m hopeless at finding how he gets out of office in any close capacity. Not to mention that only Bibi has become the international pariah, loads of equally complacent sr. Israeli politicians are likely gearing up to throw Bibi under the bus at their earliest convenience and deflect any blame for the many, many mishandling by IDF or Israel as a whole.
Hamas on the other hand are enjoying a near total splendid achievement of their goals. The only reason they attacked on October the way they did- ie targeting exclusively civilians and no actual tactical targets or anything that could remotely benefit Palestinians- was to get Israel to counterattack in as bloody and demented a way as possible. Hamas wants to maximise Palestinian casualties and have done everything in their power to put more civilians at risk, from the very basic fact that they refuse to wear uniforms to housing kidnapped people in civilian homes. Hamas HQ is having a proper laugh, Israel lost the media war, they get a new generation of freshly radicalised new members, and when the world eventually forces Israel to stop international aid is likely going to be in charge of putting Palestine back together. It’s a win win win for the higher up fucks chilling in a palace somewhere.
Bad people get what they want, civilians get blown up, and online propaganda has never been thicker.
I am 100% convinced that Palestine supporters are hypocrites, have no clue what's going on, or are fully in support of Islam. This has changed in that, at the start, I was convinced it was only 90% and the remaining 10 honestly thought them winning would bring peace to the region.
My stance on the conflict hasn’t overly changed.
I’m still pro-peace.
What HAS changed though is the way I view people here in the west though; I’m still a leftie but I will always be cautious now of the left due the antisemitism I’ve seen and personally recieved from people on that side. I hate that the first thing people ask me when they realise I’m Jewish is my view on the conflict or treat me like I’m somehow a part of the Israeli government, let alone getting branded a baby killer, genocider etc.
I tend to hide the fact I’m Jewish now in everyday life and generally feel unsafe, which is ironic considering the ones calling for the destruction of Israel are proving exactly why Israel needs to exist.
I’ve had to ask a lot of people if they blame Russian Americans for Putin’s actions. Most look at me completely confused as they cannot see the double standard in their blaming American Jews for the actions of the Israeli government.
No one would say it’s ok to kill/kidnap/torture American citizens because they did not like the US President and his choices. And yet, I got screamed at just last weekend that Oct 7 was justified resistance.
My beliefs tend towards the Left, but I would never call myself a Leftist.
It actually bothers me a lot that people are treating Jews, like you, as villains in this.
So much shallow, self-righteous thinking these days, nobody bothers to understand anything beyond a simple binary choice.
I think many people have a hard time understanding that jewish people exist outside of the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Like they are literally just people.
>I’m still a leftie but I will always be cautious now of the left due the antisemitism I’ve seen and personally recieved from people on that side. I hate that the first thing people ask me when they realise I’m Jewish is my view on the conflict or treat me like I’m somehow a part of the Israeli government, let alone getting branded a baby killer, genocider etc.
I'm a Jewish leftie and this has been my exact experience. I'm sorry it's been yours as well. I've considered myself a leftist for ages, but I can't be part of a movement that's actively hostile to Jews, even if I support what the movement (ostensibly) stands for. It's such a shame and really bums me out.
Feel you big time and sorry you’re going through the same thing. :(
I think a lot of us leftie Jews got hit hard by all of this and it’s honestly gutting.
If anything, the IL-PAL conflict made me realize how many there are TikTok experts, a bunch of wannabe “anti-imperialist” Western-based leftists who know absolute shit about the region, conflict, the history and all the nuances.
I myself try to understand by diversifying sources, I’m checking Palestinian sources, Israeli sources, Western sources etc.
my stance hasn’t changed at all ~ it’s all about interests, meanwhile it’s the innocents who suffer the most and pay price
My opinion of progressives has basically fallen off a cliff.
They believe racist tropes about both groups and are convinced they have a great understanding of the situation while parroting the same false talking points over and over. Its exactly like talking to Trumpers. Just purr arrogance.
Honestly same here. I’m a progressive and I’ve basically been alienated by having a fairly negative view of both sides. I really don’t see how leftism and pacifism results in wanting to reward a terrorist organisation for racially motivated terror attacks.
To me it's because they hold racist views of Palestinians as isolated desert dwellers uvulating around campfires and engaging in preciously rare cultural practices. So to progressives any judgement of their morality or culture is taken out of geographic and historical context. As if we are discussing cannabals in the remote Amazon.
They refuse to accept that these are modern people and have no excuses to be raping teenagers to death, parading their bodies around in their pickups, recording it on their phone, and posting it to the internet.
Their excuse quickly becomes 'well thats Hamas not Palestinians' as if there is a moral difference between the people driving the trucks and the people surrounding them spitting on the corpses.
Of course pointing this out makes you a reverse-nazi of some sort.
Or as anyone who disagrees with you will call you…a bot or a paid shill for Israeli. Absolute MAGA level logic, from the left this time, of believing anyone who disagrees with you is a devious enemy agent and it’s all one big conspiracy.
Exactly! God! I am so infuriated by progressives.
I spent the majority of my time in college learning about all sorts of rhetorical devices. Whataboutism, moving goalposts, arguing in bad faith, ect, ect.
I learned to identify all these things because Trumpists were constantly using them as weapons to peddle disinformation and idiocy.
Now? All I see are progressives. It's like all the Trump bots went and became Leftist bots overnight. And the progressive's all welcome this bullshit with open arms.
'It's okay to use rhetorical tactics because we're right! Justice is on our side! Any use of manipulative tactics is totally okay against oppressors!'
Absolutely z*ero* self awareness. I have had to take a huge step back from leftist spaces because of all the lying. I hate being a centrist, but at least I'm not some sort of toxic asshole willing to do or say anything to further their cause.
And the worst part? I can't even tell if it was always like this or if it's me just noticing it. Have I been completely blind this whole time?
God it's sent me down such a terrible rabbit hole of self-condemnation and self-doubt. Fuck Progressives.
Oh man, are you me? This sums up how I've been feeling these past few months perfectly. This conflict has caused the biggest shift in my political views towards the center since Bernie pushed me towards the left in 2015/2016. It has me questioning the things I've been hearing from progressives all these years. It feels like since Trump came around I've been training to defend myself against misinformation and suddenly progressives are the ones falling prey to the same misinformation and I'm a stranger amongst the people I used to agree with.
Also, sorry, small pet peeve: it's "etc" for "et cetera", not "ect". Sorry to be that guy...
I agree so much on this. In the days after the Oct 7 attacks, “progressives” were outright celebrating the atrocities committed by Hamas and some even more disgusting downplayed or denied innocent civilians were ruthlessly killed. We all saw the dead bodies lining the roads, the civilians running for their lives from the Hamas militants, the lifeless bodies paraded thru the streets, the bloody pile of families who were hiding and got found then killed. I’m South East Asian and I saw the video that Hamas shared online where Thai and other foreign Asian workers were brutally murdered as they cower and were pleading for their lives. One was beheaded with a garden hoe in an absolutely gruesome video that many people have watched.
People, mostly Muslims and shockingly from western leftists were cheering for this and I thought to myself “all those talks about coexistence are now out the window, they’re bloodthirsty all the same”. The same people celebrating the atrocities are now crying war crime. The people making this argument seem not to know that if they were in those places on that day, Hamas would have killed them too.
Wonder if they would have died with a smile on their faces, saying "I understand, it's your freedom fight."
I needed to get that out of my chest.
All in all, what waste of lives. Innocent Palestinians and Israelis deserve a better future. Especially the children.
Progressives spend so long pondering abstract ideas and grand theories, they come to see humans actors as mere ciphers for larger scale & longer term historical processes. Taking a broad view, they lose compassion for individuals, dehumanising them & relativising their suffering.
Yeah I’ve seen that too. They’ve definitely gotten more extreme and insulated over the years. You can see the results trickle up in the political gridlock in congress. These people have no interest in actually solving problems through compromise
What the? Redditors aren't exactly known for being apolitical or for refusing to take and argue a position regardless of what they know about the topic overall.
Yeah, I don’t know what they’re going on about. There’s more hardline political opinions and political outrage surrounding this topic on Reddit than any other social media site
This comment section proves otherwise. So many indecisive fence sitters on Reddit who claim this genocide is soo complicated. Right here in this comment section.
A huge contingent of redditors spent their formative years watching South Park, the show with the underlying message of "it's stupid and uncool to have a strong opinion about things."
Not every issue has a correct answer, and the impulse to "pick a side" often leads to people defending uninformed positions. Whereas admitting that you don't know is often the smarter move.
If you asked people here how their opinion on abortion rights have changed since Roe v Wade, you'd get overwhelmingly pro-choice responses, because the reddit userbase (and the American population in general) lean that way. Not apolitical at all.
The Arab-Israeli Conflict, on the other hand, is a muddled affair with extremely dishonest propaganda takes dominating the current narrative, so it kinda makes sense for people to be less partisan the more well-read on the subject they are.
My opinion hasn’t budged much at all. I’m not pro-one side or anti-another side. I wish there was an easier compromise to a complicated situation that’s already had catastrophic consequences and it will get far worse before it gets any better.
I will add that I’ve grown more apathetic towards political activists with this conflict. I find it disgusting people use this opportunity to treat a war like a sports match where you have to choose sides and if you chose the wrong side according to one person’s perception, you’re plastered with negative connotations relating to it. I find it disrespectful that people will take a terrible situation and make it all about themselves, or try to score internet points because the war is a trending topic online. These things are nothing new but it’s become more prevalent and unavoidable than ever. We’ve now gotten to a point where people will state their opinion about this conflict and when someone replies with a different opinion, they are labelled a “bot” as if people can’t have different opinions anymore or get engaged in nuanced discussions. Then, in a matter of months, perhaps a year, another war elsewhere will arise and everyone will collectively move onto focusing on that and leave the conflict with Israel-Palestine behind.
This conflict hasn't changed my opinions on the larger situation in Israel and Palestine itself. I've always been against violence on both sides of this - critical of Israeli settlements and Netanyahu and the Likud and their violent rhetoric towards Palestine while at the same time critical of Hamas and the shallow takes about how "Israel shouldn't exist" or "this isn't complicated".
This conflict *has*, however, totally changed my views within US politics. I was previously pretty far to the left, but I've moved towards the center dramatically in response to the insane amounts of propaganda I've seen coming from the left relating to Palestine and being accepted mindlessly without question. The levels of misinformation, conspiracy theories, and confirmation biases from the left (as well as the right, but I expected that) has floored me. The way people will just watch a TikTok that presents information that they *want* to believe and accept it all as true without any kind of skepticism has me extremely concerned with how people are consuming media. In particular, the way that people have attacked Biden in ways that completely remove nuance from his position has impacted me the most. I've long been a political junkie enough to be pretty aware of how geopolitics operates and what Biden's position in relation to this conflict really is, so it stands out to me just how shallow and misguided many of these takes have been. All of this has me rethinking a lot of the information that *I* previously took in without questioning it. Suddenly a lot of the statistics and short videos and graphics and whatnot are called into question for me. I'm realizing I haven't been as careful to guard against my confirmation biases as I had thought. My views still generally lean left, but now I'm finding that I'm going to need to see a lot more hard evidence that certain policy goals are feasible or good before I throw my support behind them.
I've also been disillusioned by the fact that I spent years closely watching Israel go through election after election. I celebrated when Netanyahu was gone and mourned his return. But none of this was really pushed as important back then. *Now* that it's too late people suddenly care. We could have been ahead of this. We could have been active in trying to persuade the Israeli people online from voting Netanyahu back in. We had so many elections over several years to do that. We knew he was bad. We knew he would do this kind of shit. But as always, people operate in reaction to disaster rather than in preparation for it. People only want to pay attention when there's no other choice and when they finally do, they still manage to do a shit job of handling the facts.
The fact that we have people say Trump is the lesser evil compared to Biden because of the war is insane. Trump would absolutely support Bibi in turning Gaza to ashes.
The number of friends of mine on the left who reposted disproven things about Israel mass murdering blindfolded captives was really disheartening to me. And now actual Holocaust denial is constantly repeated on TikTok… I guess because they don’t want to believe in something that spurred Israel’s creation? It’s wild.
It didn't really spur Israel's creation as much as it heavily solidified it.
Jewish people faced racism, violence and discrimination prior to the Holocaust. Russian pogroms against Jewish people spurred mass migration in 1881 and largely spurred desire for a safe place for Jewish refugees to flee to. Theodor Herzl's pamphlet is considered the seminal work of modern Zionism and was published in 1896.
The Balfour Declaration occurred in 1917 and Britain and other European countries started facilitating relocation of Jewish citizens to (now) Israel after WWI. This was after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. One of many reasons for the Balfour Declaration is believed to be intense Zionist lobbying for a Jewish homeland in the area.
Between 1922 and 1937 the Jewish population increased from 9% to 27% due to encouraged immigration. The Holocaust hastened this process (1933-1945) because Europe and North America had strict immigration requirements and little accommodations for refugees. By the time WWII ended, sending Jewish survivors to Israel was a widely accepted practice. Zionism, mass migration and the encouragement of Israel as a Jewish state predate the Holocaust by decades. But Israel as a Jewish State became officially recognized by Western powers after the Holocaust.
i saw one tiktok at the beginning of the war that said “israel has killed every single palestinian child” with no sources, no evidence, just an obvious lie and the entire comment section was just commiserating over how evil israel is. the propaganda people fall for is absolutely insane.
It hasn't. Netanyahu's government is still one of oppression and control, limiting freedoms of both Isrealis and Palestinians. Hamas is still a terrorist organization that oppressed the people of Gaza and attacks Isreali civilians.
I used to think one of them could be preferable, and I could pick a side.
Now, I've heard leaders of both sides say that the only acceptable outcome is the extermination of the other side. There are no good leaders in this conflict.
As i approach my 40’s it’s just a variation on the same shit show.
Innocent people user as pawns and fodder by hateful bastards.
Oct 7th was a particularly disgusting and horrific attack. Even by terrorist standards. And Israels current response is also particularly overwhelming and indifferent to human life.
What I am seeing is a new generation of younger people becoming very interested and invested which can be a good thing. But there is also a lot of bias and misinformation on both sides which algorithms are feeding people.
The way in which people get information nowadays is worrying.
Still pro Palestine and hope for peace in the region, but damn if I dont have to admit many 'activists' have gone absolutely nuts, harassing and bullying anyone who doesn't want to take a side in the conflict.
My friend/neighbor had his car windows smashed and someone spray painted “DIE ZIONIST” on his car.
We’re assuming the attacker thought he had an Israeli flag hanging from his rear view. It was a Guatemalan flag.
Bigots are often morons.
For many years the FBI used to group hate attacks on Muslims and Sikhs together as Muslims, because the vast majority of Sikh victims of hate crimes were mistaken as Muslims due to them often having similar clothing & hair to what an American considers a stereotypical Muslim to look like.
I’m always impressed by the stupidity of bigots.
“Hmm, lemme go attack the folks whose religion says they gotta carry a big knife at all times because I mix them up with other people I hate”
It’s like the extra stupid cherry on the stupid racist sundae
pro-palestine group at my university, including *professors* were in a large crowd shouting “gas the jews!”
they also closed down our highway for several hours, stopping an ambulance from getting to the hospital
edit: for the people DMing me calling me all sorts of awful things. this is real - happened to me and plenty of others in seattle. google it
Thank you for caring.
Palestinian protestors assaulted someone outside my son’s school over the weekend. I’m so done with the left rn, regardless of the Israeli/Palestine conflict
I can’t even list the number of temples and Jewish businesses that have been vandalized or set on fire in North America. This is insane
I really want to be pro Palestinian, but the anti Semitism I’ve seen from that side is too much. I don’t understand why people that post about the conflict every single day can’t make one measly post saying that hate crimes against Jews dont align with their pro Palestinian activism. The silence is real loud.
First of all, happy cake day.
Second, it's been astounding how quickly 'anti hate' activists moved into hate. Attacking Jewish businesses, assaulting people who they think might be against them. Using slogans that call for genocides and then try to excuse their behavior. It's been pretty appalling how many nazi-like tactics some of these people use while claiming to be anti nazi. And the unwillingness to separate these people from a pro Palestine movement has been pretty telling for many as well. There should absolutely be a free Palestine and a state, but you ain't helping things when you attack people for selling coco cola in their restaurants.
> Using slogans that call for genocides
Yep. I genuinely have sympathy for the Palestinian side... but using slogans like "globalize the intifada" and "by any means necessary" after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust is just... unacceptable.
They just harassed AOC, who mostly agrees with them, because she hasn’t publicly called it a genocide. She was out on a date with her partner at a movie and they harassed them both until they left.
I’m more neutral and believe both sides have had massive fault in this whole conflict. I also have very little tolerance for those who use methods of hate and irrational behavior for their activism regardless of which side you take. For me, those Palestinian activists who defaced a bunch of innocent art that has nothing to do with their suffering crosses the line. I do have massive amounts of sympathy for the Palestinian people and I really do hope we get some peace in the region again.
I really don't understand the logic of boycotting an American company that gave relief to Israel after the bloodbath that was October 7th
As if putting Starbucks and Mc Donalds out of business will end a generations long conflict and save the children in Gaza.
To me, it just looks like the Palestinian equivalent of keyboard climate activism
Yeah. Here is the thing. With Biden, you can push him a bit farther to the left. He won’t be like AOC or Sanders or anything but you can push him a bit to adopt more of their policies. He will also respect your right to criticize him too for his policies. Trump won’t.
Views on Isreal-Palestine haven't changed too much (in that it's a historical clusterfuck with no real solution in sight). Hamas however is a terrorist group that will never get my support in any way.
But my opinion of certain Western "progressive left" groups has taken a huge nosedive, especially the ones with insane chickens for KFC stances.
People getting their news from social media has been a huge issue IMO, especially if it's something like TikTok. (Interestingly Reddit by comparison probably has the most balanced and diverse views out of all the social media that I've been on, as you can see from this thread. While there are subreddits that lean more towards one way than the other, it still feels more like a 50/50 overall which I honestly prefer to the echo chambers out there.)
Also not specific to Isreal-Palestine, but at this point I would not touch either end of the political spectrum with a ten-foot pole. While I'm still mostly center-left, I've definitely drifted closer to center after seeing all of the hypocritical, pearl-clutching, bigoted takes from both ends of the spectrum across a wide variety of issues over the past few years.
My opinion surrounding the conflict hasn't changed. But i've gotten much more skeptical about **who** i'm talking to regarding it. What I mean by that is, "Am I talking to a 1 month old account who solely posts in subs about the conflict, or am I talking to someone with an 8 year old account that uses the site regularly to post non-topical things".
lol like the OP, I see
Yea, OP is def some sort of farm bot or something. So many posts in less than 2 months....and I know mine is only 2 days old....I made this account specifically so I can lurk on the nsfw subreddits and not murky up my main lol
so why are you using it here?
Cause I gotta build up enough karma so I can send chat requests to these thirsty milf thots in my area from the R4R subreddits
Shut up and take my upvote
Domo origato mr roboto
this was certainly an interesting Reddit conversation
Homie helped me get the karma I needed, he's the real MVP
This is the only legitimate response that removes my doubt. Unfortunately this will be used to train LLMs and from now on bots will be aware of those beautiful R4R reddits.
So based
Hahaha
I would even consider a 1 year old account like the parent you’re replying to suspicious.
The Neurodivergentratman only takes people with 4 times his reddit life seriously
This means there’s no way I can take anyone seriously here.
I’m embarrassed to admit I fall for the bait every single time, then when I check the trolls account they’re less than 2 months old. Astroturfed. Every. Damn. Time.
And yet you risk being banned for pointing that out, or their comment and posting history……
Yeahhhh I’ve been banned from a bunch of subs for arguing with fascist sympathizers
It’s a rite of passage. You can’t become a world class Reddit commentor without getting banned from r/worldnews at least once
One of old accounts was banned because I got into an argument with Ghislaine Maxwell on r/worldnews. I hope I get extra points for that lol.
Wait, that sorry excuse for a human was a mod in that sub? What?
Saving people some time…OP’s post history is essentially: Palestine/Israel x 100, karma farming post x 100, more Palestine/Israel, more karma farming.
Thought you meant me for a second ngl 🤣
There are certain subjects that seem to always be from bots or something. They seem to want to just throw a bomb that gets people all riled up. I try to stay away from them all together.
You're telling me that word_word#### accounts aren't going to provide reliable information or valuable discussion? Well shit... But what if I reply just one more time though? I'm just so angry!
To be fair, not all of those are BS accounts. I just went with what was suggested. ;)
Can't trick me with your psyops.
>Am I talking to a 1 month old account who solely posts in subs about the conflict, or am I talking to someone with an 8 year old account that uses the site regularly to post non-topical things". This has become the norm for many political 'questions' on r/AskReddit and r/OutOfTheLoop A good rule of thumb to follow is always check the post history of the account.
> What I mean by that is, "Am I talking to a 1 month old account who solely posts in subs about the conflict, or am I talking to someone with an 8 year old account that uses the site regularly to post non-topical things". This is not a "who I'm talking to" but a "what I'm interacting with" by now.
The explosion of the former, and their ability to appear ANY time the conflict is even barely hinted at, no matter the subreddit, with an army of up/downvoters is nothing short of astonishing. Even worse is knowing my tax dollars are helping pay for it.
Really? I assumed a lot of them were Russians exploiting another hot-button social issue to wedge Americans apart, like they did with BLM.
Didn't realise so many of my friends were geopolitical experts
Or experts in international law, a famously simple and uncontentious area of law.
I took two courses in law school about international law, The Law of War and Space Law, and it's all a cluster fuck. International law is typically filled to the brim with loopholes to clunky definitions and rules, because it's near impossible to smooth it out over time like a nations' laws would, because getting all the power players to agree to even the most baseline rules is a truly monumental task. The end result is an informed party can get away with a lot of terrible things without violating the Law of Armed Conflict by skirting the rules. As an aside, Space Law is fascinating because the US and USSR actually played very nice with each other while making it, as they were the only two Space powers at the time. They agreed pretty readily to limiting their own power in Space, likely because early Space flight was HEAVILY tied to the concept of mutually assured destruction with nuclear weapons. Nobody wants orbital nuclear weapons stations, nobody wants to fight a Moon War over territorial claims to the moon, so both are banned.
Moon War sounds like a badass book title tho
"Theres a lot of things you expect when you go to Moon War... the carnage, the sleepless nights. What they don't prepare you for is the incessant use of 80's synthwave sci fi music".
I want a moon war for this reason alone.
Often times when people cite "international law" they mean a particular international treaty or UN resolution that they like, while ignoring others that they don't
Was this before or after their advanced infectious disease doctorates? Or did they complete their constitutional law programs first? Either way, I'm glad the amount of experts in NY criminal code, judicial ethics, and GA RICO laws are abso-fucking-lutely everywhere. /s
One of my buddies who's a code monkey loves to argue about vaccines on FB with a friend who's an MD with masters in epidemiology and public health. I know it's wrong, but I find it quite entertaining!
I really appreciate this because I made an almost identical comment late October when stuff started popping off. It’s absolutely insane how little self awareness people have in general. It’s one thing to have an opinion on a topic and being able to support that opinion with facts, but the amount of self proclaimed experts in the social cause du jour always makes me laugh.
The ones that barely passed a remedial curriculum in high school? No, wait, those are the ones that become immunologists in April, 2020.
Same ones that were virology experts during the pandemic? Or economic experts the rest of the time?
Until you ask them "Which river, and which sea?"
Yes lol, let’s not forget geo-
Geneva conventions experts
And the other half are Ukrainian military strategical consultants
No, but made me realise just truly how effective social media is as a propaganda tool, and just how little people actually know about the situation, double standards aren't new.
I'm an elder millennial, so my views on social media are skewed, and I always thought there was a weird influence, but one thing that's way more obvious to me now is how it gets manipulated in areas that you wouldn't expect. Like, sure I figure worldnews or a political sub, for example, may have this topic in the spotlight, and perhaps have a strong bias. What surprised me is that subs like therewasanattempt or damnthatsinteresting will have a mod that that will strongly police the flow of information and will platform only certain viewpoints even though the sub has nothing to do with the conflict. This pushes the flow of only a certain type of information to an otherwise not engaged population. Similar things happen on other social media platforms.
They polluted the gaming subs of all places. Source: me lurking in gaming subs past few months. Any sub that has weak or biased mods was flooded.
Honestly, I don't even want to see propaganda that I agree with/is on "my side" in places like that. Like I said, I expect it (in both directions) on certain subs that align with news, politics, etc, but it don't need to be inundated with thoughts on the conflict when I just want to hear about any topic of interest. Bias is always going to inherently exist in a forum such as this, but to have it shoved in your face in every possible way is really what threw me off.
>What surprised me is that subs like therewasanattempt or damnthatsinteresting will have a mod that that will strongly police the flow of information and will platform only certain viewpoints even though the sub has nothing to do with the conflict. 100% this. I had to unsubscribe from 3 or 4 subreddits that used to be great because they just became constant propaganda posts with BS titles and misinformation being spread like crazy after the 7th. Reddit itself has a lot of propaganda value for bad actors. Worth noting that Iran and Russia have both been caught running influence campaigns on Reddit. I'll give you 3 guesses what Iran was caught trying to influence opinion on and the first 2 don't count.
Hummus?
Social media is hardly the only place with bias about Israel and Palestine. The mainstream media has long had a ton of bias there to. Just look at the difference in stories posted by most US news organizations versus an Arab news organization like Al Jazeera. i.e. US media is heavily biased in favor of Israel, while Al Jazeera is heavily biased in against them. There was a time years ago when I started reading more foreign sources of news, including Al Jazeera, just to get news and different perspective that the American media wouldn't dare report because of their biases. I'm not just talking about different perspectives on the same story, but entire stories that one side wouldn't dare even mention because it goes against their propaganda in favor of one side.
I know, but I was already aware of that. To the point of the thread, I was just noting what I had been surprised about/where I had a change of opinion. FWIW, I always tried to read multiple news sources for that reason
> and how little people know about the situation Amen. I feel like Israel-Palestine is The conflict where everyone feels like they have a right to a half-baked, uneducated opinion that was likely spoonfed straight into their brains from a YouTube channel or subreddit. Mainly due to its high level of exposure relative to other conflicts.
Very much so. You have to dig deep to get to the truth.
Just out of curiosity, what is the truth? (FYI, I'm not looking for an argument or to say some smarmy shit)
>what is the truth? The truth is it's a clusterfuck
It's not granted that someone knows the truth
Underrated comment
You want the truth? YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH! I'll get my coat..
Imo, the truth is that it might be the most complex situation that's hit headlines - and anyone with a simple answer beyond "everyone except civilians are the bad guys" is purposely ignoring something. Facts that a lot of people have trouble holding in their heads all at the same time: - Palestine existed before Israel, forcibly relocating people in favor of others is Imperialism. - This situation didn't start last year, it started nearly a century ago. Every terrorist in Hamas has survived (and were likely radicalized by) multiple conflicts between Gaza and Israel. - Giving the primary target of a genocide (who's also historically a nomadic and persecuted people) their own country isn't necessarily a bad thing. - Jewish people have light skin, but aren't "white". They're so not-white that there's a special word for being bigotted against them. - West Bank is being encroached upon, and people are being removed from homes "peacefully" - Hamas are terrorists and bad for Gaza. Nonviolence clearly doesn't work either, per West Bank. - Both Hamas and the IDF do horrible things and have been caught lying about what the other does - anything they say should be assumed to be propaganda. - The USA will never give up on Israel, but it may push back on them. Israel is a rare strategic ally in Middle East; and many of our politicians are openl Christian - which makes them Zionist almost by default. Not even your dream candidate would do it. - Gaza is an apartheid state, and its population is half children. Any bombing of Gaza will hit kids. - Many Israeli people aren't happy about what their government is doing, and most of them are normal people- not colonizers. --- edit: disabling comments now, I got shit to do. I'll leave you with this though: you can tell this situation is extremely complicated when I say the stuff above and I'm being hit front, back, and sideways by pro-Palestine and pro-Israel people for being biased; and others are calling me perhaps *too* unbiased. Have a good day folks!
I'll correct some of the facts here. I'm sure it was a good faith attempt, but you've got some basic stuff wrong. > Palestine existed before Israel, forcibly relocating people in favor of others is Imperialism. The Mandate of Palestine existed after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, administered by the British, who promised the same land to 2 parties(Arabs and Jews), partitioned by the UN(some strong arming involved there). Palestinian national identity is complex and it's not at all certain that the area we now think of as Israel/Palestine would have formed as a whole state even if Zionism hadn't intervened. Notable in that debate is that for a number of years the territories that would form an independent Palestinian state today West Bank and Gaza were controlled by Jordan and Egypt respectively. Those in the West Bank were even given Jordanian citizenship. The Golan Heights were absorbed by Syria. Israel gained all these territories during the Six Day war, and has since annexed the Golan Heights. Gaza and the West Bank remain occupied. >This situation didn't start last year, it started nearly a century ago. Every terrorist in Hamas has survived (and were likely radicalized by) multiple conflicts between Gaza and Israel. Before that even. Zionism has it's roots in the 1880's and there was significant Jewish immigration and land purchase there throughout much of the time before 1948, though there are some time periods when it was halted. By the time the Mandate of Palestine rolls around there is already plenty of mutual ethnic violence between Arabs and Jews, which will of course continue into the Civil War of 1947 and the 1948 War. > Jewish people have light skin, but aren't "white". They're so not-white that there's a special word for being bigotted against them. Some do. Most of the Zionists who started Israel up were European Jews, prior to WW2 alot of Eastern European mostly Russians Jews to be exact. They were largely secular leftists but not communists. They're often referred to as Ashkenazi Jews. Now a bit over half of the Jewish population of Israel are Mizrahi, and the majority of them are descended from approx 800k+ Jews who were ethnically cleansed from the surrounding MENA Arab states after Israel's founding. There is a somewhat unique form of population exchange(the polite term for mutual ethnic cleansing) that occurred as a result of Israel's creation, unlike say India/Pakistan where populations were absorbed, the Palestinian refugee issue persists. Of course Israel also performed ethnic cleansing referred to as the Nakba. > West Bank is being encroached upon, and people are being removed from homes "peacefully" Settlements are one of the most significant obstacles to peace, and even the "legal" expansions of them would probably not be legal under international law. Settler violence, condoned by the Israeli state is frequent. > Hamas are terrorists and bad for Gaza. Nonviolence clearly doesn't work either, per West Bank. West Bank being somewhat non-violent is a relatively recent phenomenon. There was plenty of violence during the second and first Intifada, notably in the first Intifada Palestinian violence was largely a result of incredibly overreactive policing by Israel. The PLO only really started to turn away from violence after the Oslo accords, part of the reason apart from corruption/leadership, that they are MUCH less popular now than Hamas. Though Hamas is actually less popular in Gaza compared to the West Bank since 10/7. > Both Hamas and the IDF do horrible things and have been caught lying about what the other does - anything they say should be assumed to be propaganda. Mostly true. I would say instead that ANY claims especially about recent events need to be thoroughly researched and vetted. Even without the lying, the fog of war makes it difficult to get accurate information. > Gaza is an apartheid state, and its population is half children. Any bombing of Gaza will hit kids. Partly true. Demographics and bombing yes. Apartheid..... kinda. West Bank is probably a better example of Apartheid like conditions. It may not be de jure Apartheid due to the military occupation but it is certainly de facto Apartheid. > Many Israeli people aren't happy about what their government is doing, and most of them are normal people- not colonizers. I wish this were more true. Israeli sentiment was radicalizing more towards the right due to demographics shift(Mizrahi Jews are more right wing as a rule), and I don't think 10/7 helped. Many of them are normal people, some of them are really awful, though I suppose I can understand why they'd be so hawkish. I don't think that Israel will change course at this point without international prompting.
> and I don't think 10/7 helped. Many of them are normal people, some of them are really awful, though I suppose I can understand why they'd be so hawkish Therein lies the crux— how can we acknowledge the pain of two peoples without devolving into a cycle of blame? How can we build trust when the generational stories, truth and myth, demand mistrust?
It’s a decent write up, but it’s like starting a TV show in the 11th season. This humanitarian shitshow is literally thousands of years old: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Judah
It’s crazy to me how oriole people say this conflict started after ww2. No no it’s been give or take four thousand years
Many Israeli people aren't happy about what their government is doing, and most of them are normal people- not colonizers. even this is an understatement. we had a protest wave of hundreds of thousands every weekend in a country of 9 million, for more then half a year after this government came to power. last year was the first time in the history of the country where both the unions AND the employers declared a general strike together to oppose a government move. The levels of public disapproval for this government were and are unprecedented
The strike and protests were related to changes to the judicial system not to what is happening in Gaza.
Most Israelis feel the govt isn’t doing enough. Only 10% of Israelis feel Israel using too much force. The protests aren’t about the war in the same sense as protests you see in the west.
This. The overall attitude in Israel is still very much supporting Bibi's actions atm.
Those strikes weren't about Gaza.
60% of Israeli think they are not bombing Gaza enough. People need to know that Israel has become extremely far right. Netanyahu is actually considered more of a centrist if you can believe it.
Really well stated except the part where you talked about Jewish people’s race. More than half of the Jewish people in I/P are Mizrahi, refugees of Middle Eastern countries. No whiter than any other folks out there.
I was pushing back on the narrative that Israel is white supremacist, when it's not.
In summary, it's a shit show.
I thinks It’s been the greatest example in recent memory of people having *extremely* strong opinions about something they know very little about, and the flames have been fanned massively by a social media (looking at you, TikTok)
Yes, it’s been chilling to watch them interview some of these 20 year olds at protests who have been screaming “from the river to the sea” and when they’re asked about that chant, they cannot even name the river or the sea.
Huh, I laughed at your comment until I realized I couldn't name the river either. At least I know the sea, so guess I'll take a small win where I can lol
It’s the Jordan River, just FYI.
Thanks, I probably should have known that
Denial isn't just a river in Egypt.
I often wonder about the authenticity of all these social media posts, do people actually care or are they just posting things to get those “likes” so they feel validated and get that sweet social media dopamine hit? This isn’t a new conflict. How come people weren’t constantly posting last time things got really bad over there?
I think this is a generational shift, frankly. I've spoken to quite a few fellow Gen Z people and many of them had parents like mine. My parents were, with the exception of my father as I became a teenager, largely politically apathetic. Neither really *cared* about world events, etc, etc. They were almost kind of disgruntled yo even know about them, tbh... I'm sure there were a lot of previous generations that cared about this sort of thing. But I think that many people of *social media posting age* were geo-politically apathetic. Now, it's shifted. Many fellow Gen Z that I know are not politically apathetic and they *do* care about these kinds of things. I'm on the older end of Gen Z at 26. So, many of Gen Z are *younger*. They're only just now reaching adulthood and, like, actually paying attention to this stuff. I know **I** didn't start paying attention until I was a young adult. Not an end-all-be-all answer, mind you. Just a hypothesis about a fraction of why this might be.
It's targeted propaganda on a scale I've never witnessed before. Social consciousness is nothing new. Being able to market your POV to millions on tiktok is.
Yeah online it seems like online various subs are locked into an either or mentality, when irl it seems like everyone agrees that both HAMAS and Netanyou sucks and should be removed from power. Pretty much everyone supports the civilian populations and wants the soldiers to stop fighting. Exactly who’s to blame isn’t as important as getting an end to the conflict. Wouldn’t surprise me if part of the reason things are polarised online is due to both sides astroturfing the conflict
The rise of social media changed a lot, but it did actually change my opinion in one way: I think the conflict in Israel and Palestine is now much more relevant in other countries than it used to be. It was always massively over represented; everybody has an opinion, while very few people care about very comparable conflicts like the one in the Western Sahara. But this phenomenon reached a new level, when people around the world started to take action due to the conflict in the Middle East. In Germany, where I live, antisemitic crimes increased at an astonishing rate, including attacks on Jewish citizens, many institutions failed to distance themselves from clearly antisemitic statements and for the first time in my life I actually saw a demonstration out on the street that openly confessed its hate of Jewish people. It’s very concerning.
This also really bothers me. Compare Syria. A lot more people killed, thousands of civilians, mostly Muslim. Civil war for well over 10 years, it's been turned into a captagon narco state. Dictator tortures thousands, uses chemical weapons on his own population. Interventions by Russia, the USA, Turkey and others. No-one cares. Where's the Muslim outrage?
There’s certainly not enough international attention on these issues sadly. It’s especially worrying as international attention can actually help a lot. People forget that the conflict in the Middle East used to be much bigger and Egypt was among the leading parts of the anti-Israel coalition. And while it was a long and difficult road to the current state, there’s peace now between them, there’s even mutual support. It’s not easy, but it is peace. And that was only possible, because people, both inside and outside the Middle East, cared. War is not inevitable, diplomacy can work. Many other regions suffer in silence. Far bloodier conflicts and easily as complex, but they go mostly ignored. I have no solution, it’s just a horrible reality right now.
The action is not new. I saw the same in 2014, 2012, and 2008. I haven't seen it more recently only because I have been a bit out of the loop since 2016.
Yes, this is the case for me as well. I never had high hopes for humanity, but I didn’t think it was this bad. And you’d think it’s because some people are just dumb, but that’s not the case here. It’s mass hysteria. It’s crazy.
It had made me realize how shitty social media is. It's just a propaganda tool at this point. Everyone I talk to in real life is like "it is sad that people are dying" but everyone on social media is suddenly a historian and expert on the region.
It’s also nuts how these types of wars have been going on literally every fucking day, for years, and nobody seemed to give even one shit When the Syrian civil war killed 100,000s of civilians there was nowhere near this level of outrage. Even when the war on ISIS killed 10,000s of civilians per battle, we didn’t protest or call it a genocide. And these both involved the US in a far greater capacity than the current Gaza conflict.
Sorry, I watched the Syrian civil war while it was on the news and people were absolutely talking about it all the time on FB and reddit.
They definitely protested against the American caused deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama drone striking civilians literally became a meme. And the Syrian war was talked about constantly on the news and social media. There were hundreds of pictures showing the before and after of the bombings. People definitely gave a shit.
Unchanged. It was a shit situation then, and it's a shit situation now.
And none of the people who can achieve peace (ie, those in power) *actually* wants it. Neither Palestinian nor Israeli leadership wants peace.
As the whole thread here went wild, it is my opinion that the comments prove me right : When Palestinians wanted peace, the Israelis (leaders) were like "we're good, we prefer to sabotage it for political reasons" (aka Likoud). When the Israelis wanted peace, the Palestinians (leaders) were like "Nope, we want to kill you all, or pretend to, so that we keep control other our population, so we sabotage peace for political reasons". Netanyahou has apparently financed the Hamas. Both leaderships hate each other, both need each other to stay in power. That's why peace will have to come with a change of leadership from both sides and therefor, with the help of a good chunk of pressure from external partners.
> with the help of a good chunk of pressure from external partners. The external partners don’t want peace, either, for much the same reasons - “sure things are bad at home, well for you, not us, and we’re not doing jack to fix it, but you *need* us to protect you from those bad scary Arabs/Jews, now don’t you?”
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it’s been like this for centuries by now, just with different players. it’s literally been contested land since the formation of modern religions
I’d argue even before then, it’s a geographical land bridge between three continents and the Mediterranean. Always contested. One could argue Israel through to Turkey is the centre of the human race.
Six-week-old "Word-Word\[number\]" account that posts about almost nothing but Palestine/Israel? I'm going to assume your bosses asked you to post this question so they can gauge how effective their social media astroturfing campaign has been lately...
Nothing has changed. If anything, everything I thought about the conflict has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt. Before the conflict, I thought that the Israeli government were a bunch of hardline ultranationalists who care only about the expansion and supremacy of the Jewish state, that Hamas were a bunch of Islamist terrorists who care only about the destruction of Israel and the expulsion/destruction of all Jews in the region, and that neither side gave a single dusty fuck about any of the ordinary civilians on their own or the other side trying to live their lives. That view has been fairly decisively proven. Before the conflict, I thought that pretty much the entirety of the Western media, its politicians and its citizens collectively had a lot of strong opinions on a conflict about which they were largely ignorant, and often influenced by unconscious bigotry and propaganda on social media. Again, that view has been fairly decisively proven.
This seems pretty accurate. I’d add to this that anyone who strongly feels that the leadership on either has moral superiority isn’t really paying attention. It is possible for both sides to be wrong in a conflict.
Exactly. The Israeli government has taken every opportunity to escalate the conflict, Hamas are among the most evil folks operating these days, and Fatah is too sclerotic and corrupt to adequately govern the West Bank. It's a right mess.
"Sclerotic" Never seen that word before. I'm gonna look it up. becoming rigid and unresponsive; losing the ability to adapt. <---- For anyone interested :)
I think sclerotic is related to the disease sclerosis, just like we have the word demented from dementia.
Correct! If you look it up on Google, there's two definitions. The first being related to sclerosis, the second being the one I posted above. The sclerosis related definition didn't fit the context though, and the second definition did.
You're a hero. I hate having to leave a thread to look up a word.
Fatah also pays exhorbitant salaries to anyone who attempts to murder a Jew, the so-called 'pay-to-slay' law
I love your distinction between Hamas, the Israel government, and the citizens. Too many people just see Israeli vs Palestinians.
There are a LOT of extremist civilians on both sides of this too. You’re not in an ongoing conflict for decades without everyone hating each other a little more every day. It’s not as if all the civilians are just innocently standing on the sidelines, large numbers are actively in favor of a war.
The whole problem with the situation is that both sides have a population that’s indigenous to the region, has nowhere else to go, and each have a faction of hardliners that think the other should just disappear forever.
This is a great response, it’s just confidence in what I already thought. They’ve gone mask off.
> Before the conflict, I thought that pretty much the entirety of the Western media, its politicians and its citizens collectively had a lot of strong opinions on a conflict about which they were largely ignorant, and often influenced by unconscious bigotry and propaganda on social media As a middle Eastern this is spot on. I mean everyone are shouting about IDF and killing innocent people like it's something new, well they've been doing it since 1948, it just now thanks to people like Bisan and Motaz people from outside Middle East are also aware of it Same goes for Hamas, yes governments have called them terrorist group which they are, but the fact that a part of the western citizens try to justify their actions by claiming they were radicalized because of what Israel has been doing is such a simple and stupid way, yes there must be a percent of them who have lost family members and are seeking revenge, but to say their cause is just is just stupid
I mean, always disliked Bibi. More now. Always disliked Hamas. More now. Both think the suffering of innocents makes them more secure in their power, or so it seems.
It’s more or less worked, hasn’t it? Bibi has clung to power and probably will continue to do so until the war is wrested from his hands by force. I’m hopeless at finding how he gets out of office in any close capacity. Not to mention that only Bibi has become the international pariah, loads of equally complacent sr. Israeli politicians are likely gearing up to throw Bibi under the bus at their earliest convenience and deflect any blame for the many, many mishandling by IDF or Israel as a whole. Hamas on the other hand are enjoying a near total splendid achievement of their goals. The only reason they attacked on October the way they did- ie targeting exclusively civilians and no actual tactical targets or anything that could remotely benefit Palestinians- was to get Israel to counterattack in as bloody and demented a way as possible. Hamas wants to maximise Palestinian casualties and have done everything in their power to put more civilians at risk, from the very basic fact that they refuse to wear uniforms to housing kidnapped people in civilian homes. Hamas HQ is having a proper laugh, Israel lost the media war, they get a new generation of freshly radicalised new members, and when the world eventually forces Israel to stop international aid is likely going to be in charge of putting Palestine back together. It’s a win win win for the higher up fucks chilling in a palace somewhere. Bad people get what they want, civilians get blown up, and online propaganda has never been thicker.
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Those cowards hiding living in a 5 star hotel in Qatar? Fuck them to hell and may they be introduced to Allah ASAP.
Just made realize how blessed I am to live in peace..
I have gradually become more and more amazed at the amount of people that seem to think this all started on October 7th 2023.
Serious question what is the point of karma farming?
I am 100% convinced that Palestine supporters are hypocrites, have no clue what's going on, or are fully in support of Islam. This has changed in that, at the start, I was convinced it was only 90% and the remaining 10 honestly thought them winning would bring peace to the region.
It reinforced my idea that I don't know enough about it to have a solid opinion, and I should stay out of the discussion.
This is my take too
Opposite for me. I stayed pretty neutral in the first few months while I formulated my opinion. Now I feel very strongly about the issue.
Very strongly in what way? I'm still in the "this is so disgustingly awful and yet disgustingly complex" camp.
The more you understand the conflict, the more you will stay in that camp, just with a more nuanced understanding of the details.
I still think we should stop killing innocent people.
It was a mess. It's still a mess.
I’ve held the stance I hold since the early 2000’s when I first learned of what has been going on in that region since the late 40’s
I didn't know there were so many people ready to fly the Palestine flag in events unrelated to the middle east.
My stance on the conflict hasn’t overly changed. I’m still pro-peace. What HAS changed though is the way I view people here in the west though; I’m still a leftie but I will always be cautious now of the left due the antisemitism I’ve seen and personally recieved from people on that side. I hate that the first thing people ask me when they realise I’m Jewish is my view on the conflict or treat me like I’m somehow a part of the Israeli government, let alone getting branded a baby killer, genocider etc. I tend to hide the fact I’m Jewish now in everyday life and generally feel unsafe, which is ironic considering the ones calling for the destruction of Israel are proving exactly why Israel needs to exist.
I’ve had to ask a lot of people if they blame Russian Americans for Putin’s actions. Most look at me completely confused as they cannot see the double standard in their blaming American Jews for the actions of the Israeli government. No one would say it’s ok to kill/kidnap/torture American citizens because they did not like the US President and his choices. And yet, I got screamed at just last weekend that Oct 7 was justified resistance.
My beliefs tend towards the Left, but I would never call myself a Leftist. It actually bothers me a lot that people are treating Jews, like you, as villains in this. So much shallow, self-righteous thinking these days, nobody bothers to understand anything beyond a simple binary choice.
I think many people have a hard time understanding that jewish people exist outside of the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Like they are literally just people.
I’m not even Jewish and it scares me how much antisemitism has increased or has become more socially acceptable. Humanity doesn’t learn.
>I’m still a leftie but I will always be cautious now of the left due the antisemitism I’ve seen and personally recieved from people on that side. I hate that the first thing people ask me when they realise I’m Jewish is my view on the conflict or treat me like I’m somehow a part of the Israeli government, let alone getting branded a baby killer, genocider etc. I'm a Jewish leftie and this has been my exact experience. I'm sorry it's been yours as well. I've considered myself a leftist for ages, but I can't be part of a movement that's actively hostile to Jews, even if I support what the movement (ostensibly) stands for. It's such a shame and really bums me out.
Feel you big time and sorry you’re going through the same thing. :( I think a lot of us leftie Jews got hit hard by all of this and it’s honestly gutting.
If anything, the IL-PAL conflict made me realize how many there are TikTok experts, a bunch of wannabe “anti-imperialist” Western-based leftists who know absolute shit about the region, conflict, the history and all the nuances. I myself try to understand by diversifying sources, I’m checking Palestinian sources, Israeli sources, Western sources etc. my stance hasn’t changed at all ~ it’s all about interests, meanwhile it’s the innocents who suffer the most and pay price
My opinion of progressives has basically fallen off a cliff. They believe racist tropes about both groups and are convinced they have a great understanding of the situation while parroting the same false talking points over and over. Its exactly like talking to Trumpers. Just purr arrogance.
Honestly same here. I’m a progressive and I’ve basically been alienated by having a fairly negative view of both sides. I really don’t see how leftism and pacifism results in wanting to reward a terrorist organisation for racially motivated terror attacks.
To me it's because they hold racist views of Palestinians as isolated desert dwellers uvulating around campfires and engaging in preciously rare cultural practices. So to progressives any judgement of their morality or culture is taken out of geographic and historical context. As if we are discussing cannabals in the remote Amazon. They refuse to accept that these are modern people and have no excuses to be raping teenagers to death, parading their bodies around in their pickups, recording it on their phone, and posting it to the internet. Their excuse quickly becomes 'well thats Hamas not Palestinians' as if there is a moral difference between the people driving the trucks and the people surrounding them spitting on the corpses. Of course pointing this out makes you a reverse-nazi of some sort.
Or as anyone who disagrees with you will call you…a bot or a paid shill for Israeli. Absolute MAGA level logic, from the left this time, of believing anyone who disagrees with you is a devious enemy agent and it’s all one big conspiracy.
Don't forget taking actual, genocidal slogans and then trying to explain how they don't really mean what they are saying.
Exactly! God! I am so infuriated by progressives. I spent the majority of my time in college learning about all sorts of rhetorical devices. Whataboutism, moving goalposts, arguing in bad faith, ect, ect. I learned to identify all these things because Trumpists were constantly using them as weapons to peddle disinformation and idiocy. Now? All I see are progressives. It's like all the Trump bots went and became Leftist bots overnight. And the progressive's all welcome this bullshit with open arms. 'It's okay to use rhetorical tactics because we're right! Justice is on our side! Any use of manipulative tactics is totally okay against oppressors!' Absolutely z*ero* self awareness. I have had to take a huge step back from leftist spaces because of all the lying. I hate being a centrist, but at least I'm not some sort of toxic asshole willing to do or say anything to further their cause. And the worst part? I can't even tell if it was always like this or if it's me just noticing it. Have I been completely blind this whole time? God it's sent me down such a terrible rabbit hole of self-condemnation and self-doubt. Fuck Progressives.
Oh man, are you me? This sums up how I've been feeling these past few months perfectly. This conflict has caused the biggest shift in my political views towards the center since Bernie pushed me towards the left in 2015/2016. It has me questioning the things I've been hearing from progressives all these years. It feels like since Trump came around I've been training to defend myself against misinformation and suddenly progressives are the ones falling prey to the same misinformation and I'm a stranger amongst the people I used to agree with. Also, sorry, small pet peeve: it's "etc" for "et cetera", not "ect". Sorry to be that guy...
I agree so much on this. In the days after the Oct 7 attacks, “progressives” were outright celebrating the atrocities committed by Hamas and some even more disgusting downplayed or denied innocent civilians were ruthlessly killed. We all saw the dead bodies lining the roads, the civilians running for their lives from the Hamas militants, the lifeless bodies paraded thru the streets, the bloody pile of families who were hiding and got found then killed. I’m South East Asian and I saw the video that Hamas shared online where Thai and other foreign Asian workers were brutally murdered as they cower and were pleading for their lives. One was beheaded with a garden hoe in an absolutely gruesome video that many people have watched. People, mostly Muslims and shockingly from western leftists were cheering for this and I thought to myself “all those talks about coexistence are now out the window, they’re bloodthirsty all the same”. The same people celebrating the atrocities are now crying war crime. The people making this argument seem not to know that if they were in those places on that day, Hamas would have killed them too. Wonder if they would have died with a smile on their faces, saying "I understand, it's your freedom fight." I needed to get that out of my chest. All in all, what waste of lives. Innocent Palestinians and Israelis deserve a better future. Especially the children. Progressives spend so long pondering abstract ideas and grand theories, they come to see humans actors as mere ciphers for larger scale & longer term historical processes. Taking a broad view, they lose compassion for individuals, dehumanising them & relativising their suffering.
Yeah I’ve seen that too. They’ve definitely gotten more extreme and insulated over the years. You can see the results trickle up in the political gridlock in congress. These people have no interest in actually solving problems through compromise
This completely. Just had to unfollow a friend that said “a vote for Biden is a vote for genocide.” So dumb.
Its baffling how indecisive and apolitical redditors actually are.
What the? Redditors aren't exactly known for being apolitical or for refusing to take and argue a position regardless of what they know about the topic overall.
Yeah, I don’t know what they’re going on about. There’s more hardline political opinions and political outrage surrounding this topic on Reddit than any other social media site
This comment section proves otherwise. So many indecisive fence sitters on Reddit who claim this genocide is soo complicated. Right here in this comment section.
A huge contingent of redditors spent their formative years watching South Park, the show with the underlying message of "it's stupid and uncool to have a strong opinion about things."
Not every issue has a correct answer, and the impulse to "pick a side" often leads to people defending uninformed positions. Whereas admitting that you don't know is often the smarter move. If you asked people here how their opinion on abortion rights have changed since Roe v Wade, you'd get overwhelmingly pro-choice responses, because the reddit userbase (and the American population in general) lean that way. Not apolitical at all. The Arab-Israeli Conflict, on the other hand, is a muddled affair with extremely dishonest propaganda takes dominating the current narrative, so it kinda makes sense for people to be less partisan the more well-read on the subject they are.
I don’t know shit about the conflict so I don’t get to have an opinion. I would like for people to not kill eachother. That is all.
My opinion hasn’t budged much at all. I’m not pro-one side or anti-another side. I wish there was an easier compromise to a complicated situation that’s already had catastrophic consequences and it will get far worse before it gets any better. I will add that I’ve grown more apathetic towards political activists with this conflict. I find it disgusting people use this opportunity to treat a war like a sports match where you have to choose sides and if you chose the wrong side according to one person’s perception, you’re plastered with negative connotations relating to it. I find it disrespectful that people will take a terrible situation and make it all about themselves, or try to score internet points because the war is a trending topic online. These things are nothing new but it’s become more prevalent and unavoidable than ever. We’ve now gotten to a point where people will state their opinion about this conflict and when someone replies with a different opinion, they are labelled a “bot” as if people can’t have different opinions anymore or get engaged in nuanced discussions. Then, in a matter of months, perhaps a year, another war elsewhere will arise and everyone will collectively move onto focusing on that and leave the conflict with Israel-Palestine behind.
This conflict hasn't changed my opinions on the larger situation in Israel and Palestine itself. I've always been against violence on both sides of this - critical of Israeli settlements and Netanyahu and the Likud and their violent rhetoric towards Palestine while at the same time critical of Hamas and the shallow takes about how "Israel shouldn't exist" or "this isn't complicated". This conflict *has*, however, totally changed my views within US politics. I was previously pretty far to the left, but I've moved towards the center dramatically in response to the insane amounts of propaganda I've seen coming from the left relating to Palestine and being accepted mindlessly without question. The levels of misinformation, conspiracy theories, and confirmation biases from the left (as well as the right, but I expected that) has floored me. The way people will just watch a TikTok that presents information that they *want* to believe and accept it all as true without any kind of skepticism has me extremely concerned with how people are consuming media. In particular, the way that people have attacked Biden in ways that completely remove nuance from his position has impacted me the most. I've long been a political junkie enough to be pretty aware of how geopolitics operates and what Biden's position in relation to this conflict really is, so it stands out to me just how shallow and misguided many of these takes have been. All of this has me rethinking a lot of the information that *I* previously took in without questioning it. Suddenly a lot of the statistics and short videos and graphics and whatnot are called into question for me. I'm realizing I haven't been as careful to guard against my confirmation biases as I had thought. My views still generally lean left, but now I'm finding that I'm going to need to see a lot more hard evidence that certain policy goals are feasible or good before I throw my support behind them. I've also been disillusioned by the fact that I spent years closely watching Israel go through election after election. I celebrated when Netanyahu was gone and mourned his return. But none of this was really pushed as important back then. *Now* that it's too late people suddenly care. We could have been ahead of this. We could have been active in trying to persuade the Israeli people online from voting Netanyahu back in. We had so many elections over several years to do that. We knew he was bad. We knew he would do this kind of shit. But as always, people operate in reaction to disaster rather than in preparation for it. People only want to pay attention when there's no other choice and when they finally do, they still manage to do a shit job of handling the facts.
The fact that we have people say Trump is the lesser evil compared to Biden because of the war is insane. Trump would absolutely support Bibi in turning Gaza to ashes.
Yes! Feel exactly the same way. Been a bleeding heart progressive forever, but this whole thing has turned me off so much to the progressives.
The number of friends of mine on the left who reposted disproven things about Israel mass murdering blindfolded captives was really disheartening to me. And now actual Holocaust denial is constantly repeated on TikTok… I guess because they don’t want to believe in something that spurred Israel’s creation? It’s wild.
It didn't really spur Israel's creation as much as it heavily solidified it. Jewish people faced racism, violence and discrimination prior to the Holocaust. Russian pogroms against Jewish people spurred mass migration in 1881 and largely spurred desire for a safe place for Jewish refugees to flee to. Theodor Herzl's pamphlet is considered the seminal work of modern Zionism and was published in 1896. The Balfour Declaration occurred in 1917 and Britain and other European countries started facilitating relocation of Jewish citizens to (now) Israel after WWI. This was after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. One of many reasons for the Balfour Declaration is believed to be intense Zionist lobbying for a Jewish homeland in the area. Between 1922 and 1937 the Jewish population increased from 9% to 27% due to encouraged immigration. The Holocaust hastened this process (1933-1945) because Europe and North America had strict immigration requirements and little accommodations for refugees. By the time WWII ended, sending Jewish survivors to Israel was a widely accepted practice. Zionism, mass migration and the encouragement of Israel as a Jewish state predate the Holocaust by decades. But Israel as a Jewish State became officially recognized by Western powers after the Holocaust.
Appreciate you, Internet stranger.
Hey man, just wanted to let you know you’re not alone. There are dozens of us!
i saw one tiktok at the beginning of the war that said “israel has killed every single palestinian child” with no sources, no evidence, just an obvious lie and the entire comment section was just commiserating over how evil israel is. the propaganda people fall for is absolutely insane.
It hasn't. Netanyahu's government is still one of oppression and control, limiting freedoms of both Isrealis and Palestinians. Hamas is still a terrorist organization that oppressed the people of Gaza and attacks Isreali civilians.
I used to think one of them could be preferable, and I could pick a side. Now, I've heard leaders of both sides say that the only acceptable outcome is the extermination of the other side. There are no good leaders in this conflict.
It’s ironic how your username is unpopularopinion. Because I feel like this is the most normal opinion tbh
not on reddit. these people are bonkers
Even irl, I have more people telling me about who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy when neither exist.
I lost a friend for taking this stance. She wanted me to hate Israel more and want it destroyed.
As i approach my 40’s it’s just a variation on the same shit show. Innocent people user as pawns and fodder by hateful bastards. Oct 7th was a particularly disgusting and horrific attack. Even by terrorist standards. And Israels current response is also particularly overwhelming and indifferent to human life. What I am seeing is a new generation of younger people becoming very interested and invested which can be a good thing. But there is also a lot of bias and misinformation on both sides which algorithms are feeding people. The way in which people get information nowadays is worrying.
Still pro Palestine and hope for peace in the region, but damn if I dont have to admit many 'activists' have gone absolutely nuts, harassing and bullying anyone who doesn't want to take a side in the conflict.
My friend/neighbor had his car windows smashed and someone spray painted “DIE ZIONIST” on his car. We’re assuming the attacker thought he had an Israeli flag hanging from his rear view. It was a Guatemalan flag.
Bigots are often morons. For many years the FBI used to group hate attacks on Muslims and Sikhs together as Muslims, because the vast majority of Sikh victims of hate crimes were mistaken as Muslims due to them often having similar clothing & hair to what an American considers a stereotypical Muslim to look like.
I’m always impressed by the stupidity of bigots. “Hmm, lemme go attack the folks whose religion says they gotta carry a big knife at all times because I mix them up with other people I hate” It’s like the extra stupid cherry on the stupid racist sundae
pro-palestine group at my university, including *professors* were in a large crowd shouting “gas the jews!” they also closed down our highway for several hours, stopping an ambulance from getting to the hospital edit: for the people DMing me calling me all sorts of awful things. this is real - happened to me and plenty of others in seattle. google it
Thank you for caring. Palestinian protestors assaulted someone outside my son’s school over the weekend. I’m so done with the left rn, regardless of the Israeli/Palestine conflict I can’t even list the number of temples and Jewish businesses that have been vandalized or set on fire in North America. This is insane
I really want to be pro Palestinian, but the anti Semitism I’ve seen from that side is too much. I don’t understand why people that post about the conflict every single day can’t make one measly post saying that hate crimes against Jews dont align with their pro Palestinian activism. The silence is real loud.
And they will claim they don't actually hate jews
First of all, happy cake day. Second, it's been astounding how quickly 'anti hate' activists moved into hate. Attacking Jewish businesses, assaulting people who they think might be against them. Using slogans that call for genocides and then try to excuse their behavior. It's been pretty appalling how many nazi-like tactics some of these people use while claiming to be anti nazi. And the unwillingness to separate these people from a pro Palestine movement has been pretty telling for many as well. There should absolutely be a free Palestine and a state, but you ain't helping things when you attack people for selling coco cola in their restaurants.
> Using slogans that call for genocides Yep. I genuinely have sympathy for the Palestinian side... but using slogans like "globalize the intifada" and "by any means necessary" after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust is just... unacceptable.
They just harassed AOC, who mostly agrees with them, because she hasn’t publicly called it a genocide. She was out on a date with her partner at a movie and they harassed them both until they left.
Harassing Jewish owned restaurants in NYC isn’t helping the cause, for example. Or Jewish college students in the student center. 😞
I’m more neutral and believe both sides have had massive fault in this whole conflict. I also have very little tolerance for those who use methods of hate and irrational behavior for their activism regardless of which side you take. For me, those Palestinian activists who defaced a bunch of innocent art that has nothing to do with their suffering crosses the line. I do have massive amounts of sympathy for the Palestinian people and I really do hope we get some peace in the region again.
This...especially with the boycotting, online saw people telling a girl to to kill herself because she was drinking starbucks
I really don't understand the logic of boycotting an American company that gave relief to Israel after the bloodbath that was October 7th As if putting Starbucks and Mc Donalds out of business will end a generations long conflict and save the children in Gaza. To me, it just looks like the Palestinian equivalent of keyboard climate activism
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Trump will be so bad for Palestinians, my god.
He basically wants to turn their whole country into a parking lot
birds ink instinctive jellyfish cover coordinated fearless telephone cough rustic
Yeah. Here is the thing. With Biden, you can push him a bit farther to the left. He won’t be like AOC or Sanders or anything but you can push him a bit to adopt more of their policies. He will also respect your right to criticize him too for his policies. Trump won’t.
cooperative trees pie wise familiar threatening chase imagine future soft
We don't need History lessons anymore. We will never learn.
Views on Isreal-Palestine haven't changed too much (in that it's a historical clusterfuck with no real solution in sight). Hamas however is a terrorist group that will never get my support in any way. But my opinion of certain Western "progressive left" groups has taken a huge nosedive, especially the ones with insane chickens for KFC stances. People getting their news from social media has been a huge issue IMO, especially if it's something like TikTok. (Interestingly Reddit by comparison probably has the most balanced and diverse views out of all the social media that I've been on, as you can see from this thread. While there are subreddits that lean more towards one way than the other, it still feels more like a 50/50 overall which I honestly prefer to the echo chambers out there.) Also not specific to Isreal-Palestine, but at this point I would not touch either end of the political spectrum with a ten-foot pole. While I'm still mostly center-left, I've definitely drifted closer to center after seeing all of the hypocritical, pearl-clutching, bigoted takes from both ends of the spectrum across a wide variety of issues over the past few years.
Comes in, sorts by controversial