The dread Israelis are feeling, myself included, has been the daily experience of millions of Palestinians for far too long.
As I write these words, I am sitting at home in Tel Aviv, trying to figure out how to protect my family in a house with no shelter or safe room, following with growing panic the reports and rumors of horrible events taking place in the Israeli towns near Gaza which are under attack. I see people, some of them my friends, calling on social media to attack Gaza more fiercely than ever before. Some Israelis are saying that now is the time to eradicate Gaza entirely — essentially calling for genocide. Through all the explosions, the dread and the bloodshed, speaking about peaceful solutions seems like madness to them.
Yet I remember that everything that I am feeling now, which every Israeli must be sharing, has been the life experience of millions of Palestinians for far too long. The only solution, as it has always been, is to bring an end of apartheid, occupation, and siege, and promote a future based on justice and equality for all of us. It is not in spite of the horror that we have to change course — it is exactly because of it.
The comments in this thread are mind blowing. Simply put, people are cheering for pure terrorists who also want to kill all Jews, while condemning the side who has offered peace treaties multiple times, and always been either flat out rejected, or betrayed.
And somehow just because you hit back with a bigger stick after your children have been blown to bits, you're the bad guy.
There's a "both bad" crowd here, totally rejecting reality, and then a surprisingly large pro-terrorism crowd.
What the fuck.
Oh and don't forget OP speaking about writing this from Tel Aviv as he would be living in Israel. He's in UK.
I mean, both sides are bad, killing civilians in retaliation for a terror attack is still killing civilians. But to pretend that the terrorism is somehow justified is just wrong.
The sentiment, when I wrote my comment, was largely "Hamas good, Israeli bad", which was just baffling.
Both sides have done horrible things, but only one 100% extremist and wants to rid the world of certain group of people. Remind you of a particular regime from the 40s?
Of course the whole situation is more nuanced, but that's the brass tacs, and I just can't wrap my head around how anyone can be pro Hamas.
Germany supported and enabled Hitler because it seemed convenient. Yet, we don't blame the enabler or bystander for the actions of criminals and terrorists. Hamas is responsible for what Hamas does.
There’s a “both bad” crowd here, totally rejecting reality, and then a surprisingly large pro-terrorism crow
While I am extremely sympathetic to Palestinians who are totally fucked by Israel as well as Israeli citizens who are caught in a crossfire and victims of terrorist attacks, both sides are very much bad here, in terms of leadership.
That the Israeli government has effectively no plan for long-term de-escalation and encourages far-right hardliners is unacceptable. That Palestinians are increasingly clinging to Hamas and calling for Israel's destruction is unacceptable.
Regardless of the history (and I am very aware of the repeated and at times extremely generous peace plans put forth), what matters is competency and leadership today, and the leadership of both sides here has unflinchingly chosen escalation
As a result, there is no option for Israel after this attack except an overwhelming show of force, which is both tragic and as clear and example as you can get that recent leadership has utterly failed to provide genuine safety.
You do know what quotes are, right?
The things OP wrote are direct excerpts from the article, which you'd know, had you bothered to read it before commenting. Instead you chose to waste your time, going through OPs posts smh...
Yes, only the one side commits acts of terrorism. Because the Israelis are a government sanctioned by the UN what they do isn't terrorism. Oh wait, they're still a bunch of land stealing baby killers. So yeah, hope they all kill each other and the west stops pissing money away on supporting Israel.
Your entire comment history makes it clear you live in the UK.
You're taking advantage of this horrific attack on Israel to do some sick false flag attack, that's basically: "I'm an Israeli and we deserve this!"
What gave you away was that ignorant"apartheid" bullshit. Anyone living in Tel Aviv knows full well that Muslims and Arabs have full citizenship rights in Israel, including leadership roles in government.
What an asshole.
Real Israelis are dying because their genocidal neighbors who have been trying to kill them for decades have just made another attempt, and you're here lying so that your can both-sides this issue?
I didn't use the word apartheid but it absolutely is. And individual Israelis don't deserve this any more than the Palestinians deserve it. But your country is in the grip of absolute fanatics who absolutely will not settle for peace.
Israel has the 4th or 5th largest military in the world. The Palestinians have home-made rockets and stones. Don't you dare play the victim.
So, what's it's like to be a Jew Nazi? Like how do you justify being a member of an oppressive regime trying to control and subjugate an ethnic group into a large ghetto? All your countries problems are clearly their fault. You better kill them all. Makes total sense.
I hope the world remembers this the next time they want to start calling Israel apartheid for building security fences on their borders.
For their entire existence they've lived with genocidal neighbors who would, in a heartbeat, murder all Jewish children and wipe them from the map.
Palestinian terrorists have been raining rockets down at Israeli civilians constantly for years.
But if Israel does a targeted, surgical strike of terrorist infrastructure, CALLING the buildings ahead of time to people evacuate, and even dropping a warning shot first... There is no end to people calling Israel the villain.
Hell, people lose their shit if Israel bulldozes a house that Palestinians were using as a terrorist base.
Glad to see at long last that the world is remembering who the actual terrorists are, and finally backing Israel.
That just shows that Israel has the better military. Everyone already knows that.
It has nothing to do with who is justified in the conflict.
If 10,000 people wielding rocks tried to take over the Whitehouse, I'm pretty sure we'd see 10,000 dead people with rocks in their hands. Does that make them the good guys?
Palestinians have been TARGETING Israeli children for death. Israel had been targeting military targets, and with a better record of minimizing civilian casualties than even the United States.
... Let's it put it this way: if Palestinians put down their weapons, this conflict would be over in a matter of months.
If Israel out down their weapons, Palestinians would murder them all. It's in their elected leaders' charter, for fucks sake.
I’m sorry but that’s not true, there are going to be consequences for this. Israel cannot back down now because it sets an absolute precedent that you can do shit like this to get your way. I do not agree with Israel’s policies in the region or the atrocities that they certainly have committed but this… this has the power to turn public opinion. The repercussions are going to be horrifying and hamas knows it, and they don’t care.
I believe it is not possible,
not for me,
not for you,
to have a complete and balance view of the whole situation. Trying to do so would drive me mad with anger and desperation.