I sometimes refer to a tendency to choose sides and then put all one's loyalty on that side, refusing to even listen to criticism of your team.
The genocide in Palestine might be helpful for discussing that.
First off, notice that I called it a genocide. That would seem to indicate that I am on team Palestine, though that is not really accurate.
Since there is frequently a tendency to side with power, and since Israel has the definite advantage in power, I worry about Palestinians more.
I would say that I do not worry about Hamas, wanting to make an important distinction between the terrorist organization and innocent people around them, but there are two problems with that.
"Innocent" is such a loaded word anyway. Certainly there are people who do not support Hamas and should not be judged by them.
There may also be people who got into Hamas because they did not have many options. There may be people who would not support the slaughter of innocents, but after so much suffering at the hands of Israel, they feel some vindication when there is a strike. Prolonged suffering can be very demoralizing.
The other problem is that no one deserves that level of suffering. It wouldn't matter if they were all evil, and if over time they all became evil, there would be culpability on the part of their jailers.
If the targeting of civilians is evil when Hamas does it, then it is evil when Israel does it.
And they have both done it; we need to be able to face that.
The first part may be remembering that not every Palestinian is a terrorist. It would be understandable if you were confused; Instagram was automatically adding "terrorist" to bios that mentioned Palestine, but that's wrong, and we should know better:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-67169228
I think there might also be something to say for remembering that Netanyahu made accusations of election fraud when people were voting against him and that he was facing indictment for corruption charges.
It is reasonable to question his actions, and also to know that not every Israeli stands with him.
I mean, he sounds a lot like their Trump, when you put it that way, and Hamas kind of like our militant Christian nationalists.
Yes, there are Jewish people -- in Israel and in the United States -- calling for the utter destruction of the Palestinian people, for their genocide. But there are others pleading for Palestine -- in Israel and in Chicago and Washington D.C., and even being arrested for that.
Let's not be led so much by the worst people.
That could be a good starting place.
No comments:
Post a Comment