If ever there was an issue where whataboutery was necessary, it’s this one.
Those who say it didn’t start on 7 Oct are absolutely right, but not for the reasons they think. Peoples’ reactions on this board are a microcosm for how people feel about this conflict. Two sides who think they’re right with a smattering of people in the middle.
Now, take your polarised viewpoints and move that to an area where the people on the other side are really close to you and are armed and willing to kill you. You going to be open to having a dialogue? Willing to sit down and trust the people who have been killing you for generations?
Every time something happens there’s an opposite event that can be blamed for causing the most recent happening. Keep a population under strident security measures with no free movement and terror attacks are going to happen (don’t agree with that, but bear with…). Why are there strident security restrictions? Because there are terror attacks. Why are there terror attacks? Get how it works? Go back to the 2nd Intifada…the 1st Intifada…1967…1948…1917…200 years…300 years. Each event is a reaction to something else and all of it is simultaneously relevant and irrelevant to what is happening today.
I was stunned to see someone on another board basically say that Hamas is SO awful they can’t be dealt with so Israel is solely capable of and responsible for being the “grown up”. Hamas is so badly behaved they get a free pass. They are very likely to stay in power for years to come. They’re embedded in the WB and given their prior history of brutal coups on their political opponents, it’s entirely possible they take over all of Palestine. How happy will some people be if that happens? And Israel will be admonished for trying to eradicate them and blamed for their existence because of historical military retaliation to insurgent attacks. If Israel is responsible for continuing generations of Gazans hating Jews and wanting them dead, then Hamas is responsible for increased Israeli military action. I just don’t understand why people want a nation to take no action against attacks on their country. Not even arresting the perpetrators or locking them up, just keeping a cool head and another call for peace.
It looks like Hamas has refused Trump’s latest ceasefire deal. They’ve just gone against a narc so they will now have to deal with his Narc Rage. If Hamas had agreed to the deal, then chances are they would have had a hobbled Israel to deal with as Trump would probably have exerted influence on them to contain their military campaign. Now, he’ll probably give them whatever they want. I disagree with the practicalities of getting back the hostages and destroying Hamas as doing both was never possible, but Hamas is holding out to be in the same position they were in on 6 Oct. They want the IDF out of Gaza. They had that. The only things they’ve gained is a grotesque group of starved, abused and injured hostages to use as a pathetic bargaining chip and a post-apocalyptic urban wasteland completely uninhabitable and destroyed that will take years and billions to be rebuilt. How much of that money will make it to services and infrastructure that will directly benefit the people? Hamas is a danger to Israel but it’s more of a danger to the Gazan people. Who else is going to remove them apart from Israel? Why are no other governments or agencies stepping up and stepping in to get rid of them but at the same time criticising Israel for doing just that.
If Hamas does reject this deal then Israel will stay in the area for the foreseeable future and thousands more are going to die. Hamas knows that, but it’s only war, right?