Who do you support? Israel, Palestine, none, both, it’s complicated?

Looking to see how my position stacks up against others. Seems to me everyone is team Israel or team Palestine. I am team neither as both slaughter civilians. Not interested in the lesser evil as to support it is to support evil. The only equivalency I see is tribal human nature and all the bias, prejudice, hypocrisy and brutality that comes with it.

 

Neither. I say arm all the civilians so their horrible governments can't leverage them against eachother anymore. I'm not saying that would certainly solve the problem (it could make it worse...), but at least then we'd know the motivations of the peoples there and not just that of their 'leaders.' I suspect it would lead to the poor people of Palestine eventually kicking out or killing off their Hamas overlords, and make the Israelis a far less tempting target for any Palestinians still bent on murder (and any Zionists still bent on leaving the gates open for casus belli), and eventually cause both sides to lose much of the legitimacy to their claims against the other.

As it is now, its just scared people on both sides being manipulated and dominated and used by evil people on both sides as political capital in a conflict that most of them were just born into and would rather do without. Picking a side may cause the problem to end more quickly, but if thats the goal, then just flip a coin and stick with it, cuz there isn't a moral high ground there.

 

America supported the creation of Israel and has supported her ever since, and with good reason.
Israel is the only democracy in the region and fully deserves our support.
Israel is our ally.

Anyone wanting to promote the propaganda of HAMAS and its supporters need to make very sure they can back up their claims that Israel is of the same moral fiber as HAMAS.

BE CAREFUL.

 

Calling out both sides for massacring civilians is not supporting Hamas. It is a firm stance against both the Israeli government and Hamas. Empathy for the civilian suffering on one side while rationalizing the civilian suffering on the other side is an object example of evil from my perspective. Good people go out of their way to minimize civilian casualties in time of war. Evil groups rationalize justifications for their evil acts against the civilian population. Siding with the lesser evil is still siding with evil.

 

I condemn Hamas and Condemn those from either side that intentionally target innocent civilians

I support the innocent civilians on both sides

 

All my life I've thought that our conspicuously enormous level of support and foreign aid for Israel is very disproportionate... Israel is not a "51st-state" of the United States, but ever since its creation after WWII, we've acted as though it is, and that has added to other issues that haven't done anything beneficial for us.

That said, the State of Israel is an internationally-recognized nation, and has been so for well over 70 years. And, repeatedly over its short life as a nation, it has been attacked by neighboring Arab countries and by 'proxy-armies' like those promoted and supported by Iran. Israel, by contrast, has never launched a premeditated, deliberate war on its neighbors, or anyone else. Therefore, in principle, why would anyone who has any degree of fairness or a desire for peaceful co-existence NOT support Israel...?

 

As I said, make sure that when you condemn either Israel or HAMAS or whoever for "massacring" civilians that you are working with solid facts. You don't want to have to take back a rant about Israel blowing up a hospital when you find out HAMAS was the culprit, cause then not only do you have to walk back your original rant, you have to rant on HAMAS.

You see your problem?
Don't let your emotions overload your sense of fair play.

 

I support the citizens of Israel AND Palestine. I am opposed to anyone supporting Hamas.

 

I answered that I support Israel, but it is complicated.

The Palestinians would get more support from me if these would drop their "kill all the Jews" and "from the river to sea" crap. I recognize that they have some issues, but as long as their charter includes "kill the Jews" and "do away with Israel," they don't deserve a seat at the table.

 

Well, Israel (or Mosad at least) created Hamas decades ago as a sort of real life straw man to discredit the PLO. Then it sortof got away from them. That wasnt out of a desire for 'peaceful coexistance.' Theres bad players on both sides that want the other side dead, and want to manipulate others into making it happen.

 

Because they have killed lots of civilians. I can’t defend the killing of civilians by either side. Each civilian killed potentially creates more animosity which further fuels the cycle of violence. The good avoid civilian casualties to the highest extent possible. The evil do not. I see too much evil on both sides.

 

I agree yet have seen videos of Israelis wanting to wipe Gaza from the map. Both sides have those that espouse evil and those that espouse empathy and compassion. Before this current round of violence I firmly sided with Israel. This time though the merciless bombing of Gaza killing massive amounts of civilians has made me rethink my support for Israel. When I try to see the Palestinian perspective I come to see that Israel is not as virtuous as I once thought they were. Seen too many heartbreaking stories from both sides that make it impossible for me to support the leadership on either side, although I have compassion for the civilians on both sides.

Israel’s tactic seems to be “if they hit us we hit back ten times harder”. Been watching Israel use this tactic my whole life and yet the cycle of violence continues. Hamas’s tactic seems to be pure evil. I think it is time for both sides to consider some different approaches to the conflict.

 

I tend to concur. I am on the side of all the victims from this ongoing dispute that neither party seems to want to resolve. both seem trigger happy and resort to knee jerk reactions.
Yes.... that terrorist event was bad. But Israel is not guilt free and has done little to smooth relations .As long as they keep blaming each other as opposed to truly finding resolutions....nothing will change.

 

That sounds all well and good -- but -- Hamas embeds itself inside a quite friendly 'host' population, and sets up command centers and conducts operations right in the middle of civilian areas, so that they essentially are using many thousands of non-combatants as 'human shields'. Do you condone that?

Moreover, you may be surprised to find out that Hamas is greatly approved for its October attacks against Israel by these same "innocent" Palestinians!

Consider: "A recent poll of Arab Muslim residents of the West Bank and Gaza... conducted by the Arab World for Research and Development (AWRAD) asked them. Seventy-four percent supported the Hamas atrocities of Oct 7. Of these 59% “extremely” support them and another 15% only “somewhat.” Only 7% were “extremely against” and 5% somewhat against."

Link: https://www.jns.org/the-myth-of-gaza...ent-civilians/

 

The poll must be messed up.
All we hear all day long from the supporters of Israel is screaming about all those supporting Palestine.
Yet, Palestine support has ZERO (0), votes.

 

America didn't actually support the creation of Israel, they were like the rest of the world and wanted nothing to do with the Jews back in the 1940s.
That was the only place Britain could think of to put them.

 

Well, all that means is debate forums like this one arent particularly popular among people that support Palestine. And it wouldn't be the first time certain demographics are almost completely absent from this particular community.

 

This forum is about 66% RW or RW leaning. Nearly 1/2 of them are ardent MAGA.
There's very few LW types on this website.

But there's constant complaining about all those supporting Hamas/Palestine and hating Israel from all those RWers this site has.

This proves, those posters aren't in tune with what people believe or support.

 

Maybe not officially. But I find it hard to believe that (pre?)Israel was able to obtain so much US military surplus without some US help. Especially considering that they obtained halftracks and B-17 bombers from the US, in the US.

~1947-48 "In the United States, Yishuv agents purchased three B-17 bombers, and dozens of half-tracks, which were repainted and defined as "agricultural equipment"."
Tanks of the Israel Defense Forces - Wikipedia

Granted, they did recieve a lot of Nazi-surplus weapons from Czechoslovakia and surplus from [everywhere] left over in the SU. But this was all amidst a weapons embargo levied on the entire region by the UK ...which seems to have been completely ignored with no attempt at enforcement whatsoever. That's the kind of 'we're not helping you' that really just means 'we're not officially helping you '.

 

Everyone was happy not to have jews in their back yard.
There was a lot of military surplus all over Europe.

 

Hamas using human shields is atrocious. So is the merciless bombing of civilian areas leading to unacceptably high civilian casualties. Many civilians on both sides applaud the the violence leveled at the other. Not all Israelis support the merciless bombing of Palestinians nor do all Palestinians support Hamas’s brutal attacks against Israel.

I appreciate the link but will have to vet the statistics you shared before I accept them. With that said I would also want to see statistics on Israeli support for the actions against Palestine. Either way I think such statistics oversimplify what is a complex and likely unresolvable problem. Hardliners on each side only cares about statistics that support their grievances and use them as a justification to support the brutalization of the other side.

Evil tends to perceive itself as good and the victim of an external aggressor, which is then used as a justification to inflict like evil upon the perceived aggressor. Jews and Arabs have been killing each-other for hundreds if not thousands of years. At this point I am not even sure a reasonable argument can be made for who drew first blood.

 

Sadly the link returns a 404 error. I am skeptical of the Jewish News Syndicate as an unbiased source just as I am skeptical of Palestinian news sources as both have skin in the game. I prefer good centrist sources such as the AP or Reuters. You have piqued my curiosity though as I would like to know the public opinion of the average Israeli and Palestinian on the topic of the ongoing conflict and who is to blame for it. Will have to scour the internet and see what I find.

 

Hopefully this link works. First let me say that the Jewish News Syndicate and the Arab World for Research and Development are unknown to me thus I do not automatically trust them nor do I assume they are trying to mislead us. With that said and if the article is accurate it paints a damning picture of Palestinian support for the massacre of Israelis. Yet even if the article accurate, I do not see it as justification for the massacre of Palestinian civilians.

Killing civilians is evil. Those that are OK with killing civilians stand upon very different moral and ethical ground than I. Armed force on armed force I understand. Armed force vs civilians is pure evil as is an armed force that does little to avoid civilian casualties. I see a whole lot of evil on both sides.

https://www.jns.org/three-in-four-palestinians-support-hamass-massacre/

 

Thus far the only thing that surprises me about the poll is that there are others that support neither side like me. The forums have always seem to skew right to me so my expectation is that most support Israel.

 

Thank you very much for taking the time to find a subsequent post (and its article) at the same source where I found mine originally. In my experience, when a site returns a "404 Error" on articles that deal with controversial subjects, it's because somebody (?) 'pulled the plug'. The quote I provided in my Post #14 was copied verbatim from the story that was 'active' yesterday, before somebody, somewhere activated the "404" mechanism....

The subsequent story you found at the same site is possibly intended as a re-write or 'clean-up' of the material. Again, thank you for your persistence... not many others would have taken the time or the trouble to do that.

At any rate, I agree heartily that truly innocent civilian populations should never be targets of military operations. This has been true since mankind first resorted to armed conflict to resolve disputes, and it will remain true for as long as humans are the way we are (please forgive the platitude).

Tactically, though, it's smart for Hamas to embed itself deeply inside an accomodating, mostly 'friendly' Muslim population and its infrastructure. Unfortunately, it brings on the inevitability of large amounts of 'collateral-damage' to that population. Hamas and its 'host' population seem completely inured to this reality, justifiying it perhaps by assuming that the souls of Muslim non-combatants will be spirited away to 'Islamo-heaven' ("end-justifies-the-means").

But what can Israel do? Hamas, Hezbollah, and virtually the entire Islamic world, following the unambiguous teachings in their holy book, the Quran, are determined to convert or fight against everyone they call "infidels"....

Here's a link that no one has been able to "404" successfuly (so far, although they've tried): https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/quran/violence.aspx