(October 14, 2023 at 8:40 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote: In this edition of "Was that so Fucking Hard?" here are a few statements:
I acknowledge that all of these statements are true, and I condemn both Israel and Hamas for making them so, because, frankly, two wrongs don't make a right, especially when both wrongs are crimes against humanity.
- Israel has been illegally occupying Gaza and the West Bank and turning it into an apartheid state for DECADES.
- In the lead-up to the recent war, Israel was forcing Palestinians out of homes they had been living in for generations, which is, at minimum, a small-scale sort of ethnic cleansing.
- In recent days, Israel's bombing of Gaza has gone well beyond any justifiable retaliation, and about the only reason I'd hesitate in calling it genocide at this point is that Gazans are more of a demos than a genos, and that calling it genocide would be like calling a similar full-scale assault on, say, Denver, Colorado a genocide. But that's just splitting hairs, because, either way, it's still a horrible event that's leading to the needless deaths of thousands of civilians.
- Hamas isn't even close to blameless in what it's been doing in the war, and you don't need to make up stories about beheaded babies to demonstrate that. Indeed, their decision (well-documented) to kill 270+ Israelis who just wanted to dance to some electronic music at Re'im is a good example of an act well worth condemning. And that's just one.
- Frankly, when it comes to their bombing campaigns, the biggest difference between the IDF and Hamas is that the former's better-funded.
- Hamas has long had genocidal aims dating all the way back to its original 1988 charter.
There was an interview yesterday on the progress over the year of Jewish settlements in Palestine. Many things (like digging a well / importing some products) are forbidden to Palestinians.
The way I see it, Israel wants all these territories and Western states / especially the US are backing these efforts probably because of powerful Jewish lobbies.
So not only right wing İslamists, but left wing people are also very critical of the state of Israel.
The main issue is that Palestinian authorities are also very corrupt and I don’t know if they could even negotiate with the Israelis if there was a new Camp David.