I honestly really don't know what to say at all about the situation in Israel and Gaza.

[Tommy Carcetti]

Other than the fact that it is horrible. All of it. Every little bit of it.

I'm not even going to attempt to assign blame, or take sides, or claim who is justified or what.

The entire situation, dating back years to decades, is complex and difficult to an exponential degree.

And every action seems to cause a reaction that only seems to compound upon itself, and by that point, any justification of anyone's actions seems to become more and more muted as the actions and reactions ping-pong.

In this respect, it is nothing like the current situation with the Russia-Ukraine War, which is pretty much as cut-and-dry as you can get when it comes to right and wrong.

The only thing I can say for certain is that any atrocities or hostilities directly targeting innocent civilians can never be justified. Ever. No matter who engages for it, or whatever reason they claim to do so.

And that's the only tiny slice of moral clarity that I can get out of this entire morass.

[MontanaMama]

1. Yes.

It's just horrible. I hope we can all agree on at least that much.

[Lunabell]

2. Yep.

That's my take. I'm not going to assign blame for any of it. It's all just too horrible and the innocents bear the brunt of it all. 😢

[GenXer47]

3. maybe what we need to ask ourselves is

why we feel compelled to care about this so much?
Atrocities in East Timor, Sudan, Yemen, Niger...these don't seem to concern the vast majority of Americans.
Neither Israel nor Palestine agrees with the basic principle of our Constitution: all people are created equal.
So why am I supposed to care sooooo much?
This feels a lot like when a British queen dies. The media goes nuts and I cannot for the life of me figure out why.

[Tetrachloride]

5. ++++

[jimfields33]

6. I'd imagine it's because Israel is our closest ally. England a close second.

The places in Africa don’t seem to want to be Ally’s or even try to be. Just a thought.

[obamanut2012]

12. "The places in Africa don't seem to want to be Ally's or even try to be. Just a thought."

What does this mean?

And, Israel is not the US's closest ally, that would absolutely be teh UK, with Canada and Australia close behind. Israel is our closest ally in teh Middle East.

[Mosby]

15. Wow.

[Tetrachloride]

4. The way forward needs civilians

[MadameButterfly]

8. but there is someone to blame

Netanyahu chose to support Hamas instead of a two state solution for years. It had to boil over eventually, especially when you aren't addressing the militant radicals who have enforced a dictatorship on the Palestinians so they have no say.

Democracy for Israel but not Palestine makes no sense. Oh, right, Netanyahu want's to end democracy in Israel too.
To that end a war comes in handy to unite the country behind him and distract from his crimes and his overhaul of the judiciary.

He was warned about the attack and didn't act. It wasn't in his interest to do so. Like Trump and Putin, he doesn't actually care about the sufferring of humanity. He is happy to use Palestinians (and Israeli hostages) as cannon fodder for his personal goals.

The fact that his reaction may give Hamas the political result they were looking for is lost on him. Because his power and freedom from prison is all that matters to him.

It didn't have to be this way.

[Dave says]

17. Brings back memory of an old term, "LIHOP"

[MadameButterfly]

23. except there's a basis for my comments

do your research

[LenaBaby61]

9. A friend told me that for my own mental health sake ...

That I should decompress by not going on Twitter, kind of stay off the internet whenever possible, and start watching my silent movie collection, my Oscar Micheaux collection, and watch comedy shows from the 1970's on cd, and watch college/pro football games starting tonight and into this weekend like I did during the other heinous things on the world stage and here @ home. He's Jewish--has lost of family/friends living abroad in Israel who thankfully weren't hurt/killed, and he said that he's watching his Essential collections of Laurel & Hardy/3 Stooges, and Monty Python for starters like he did off and on during the tRump administration. I'm going to follow his advice for my own mental health sake.

[Tommy Carcetti]

10. It's been a rough week.

Nothing major for me compared to what’s going on in the world, but still.

Both my parents are getting over a bout with Covid, my kid’s over-stressing about a grade at school, I’ve had to deal with some of the most exhausting people ever as it relates to my work, and my baseball team (Orioles) fell flat on their faces in the playoffs after a 100 win season (and that was supposed to be my escape mechanism.)

So seeing the news of the world has just compounded on things.


Today I’ve tried to distract myself by listening to some songs from a singer whose work I’ve just discovered (Onuka, from Ukraine actually). And swimming—that’s always a good way to collect my thoughts and center myself.

[LenaBaby61]

21. Hang in there okay?

I was not going to look at anything political tonight, but my buddy text me and told me that the dirt bag who has less baggage than the other dirt bag Klansman David Duke drooped out of the race for Dirt bag Speaker of the House. The GQP US Taliban putin-loving create chaos party is trying to destroy this country. They live on nothing but chaos and hatred of their own country, and they want our country to turn right winged and fascist like many of the countries are becoming over in Europe. I have friends who are on SNAP and they're petrified about losing those monies for food, because the GQP don't want to do any work for the people. They only want to create hate, be chaos agents and destroy our government/country over here. I shudder to think what would have happened if dirt bag #1 tRump had stolen the election from Pres. Biden. Didn't happen

Again, You and kid/family hang in there. Have a restful and safe weekend

[obamanut2012]

11. Good post, Tommy

[maxsolomon]

13. nothing is cut and dried/right v wrong in this world

not even ukraine.

russia/putin really does see the 2014 ukraine revolution as a coup that overthrew a legitimate, democratically-elected govt and oppresses the russian-speakers of east ukraine. they really do see the 1954 "gift" of crimea to the ukraine SSR as a historical error.

i disagree because i know the facts of yanukovitch, but not everyone does, even here at DU, and certainly not on RW forums.

no one can agree any longer - facts are fungible, consensus is impossible. maybe it's always been this way, and we just fooled ourselves that it could ever really change.

[Tommy Carcetti]

16. Putin's delusions aside, the solution to the war in Ukraine is so incredible simple.

Russia withdraws its troops from the borders that were internationally recognized as Ukraine's borders--including by Russia itself--and the war is over like that. Ukrainians aren't going to be marching on Rostov-on-Don or Belograd. Everything that was Russian stays Russian.

Israel-Palestine is a whole different animal. One space (fairly small), two groups, each with a seemingly prevailing mindset amongst leadership that they should be entitled to the whole of it. And trying to find a way to share or fairly divide that space seems like a damned near impossible task. But our only hope is to keep trying. Because the bloodshed is more than anybody should want to take.

[maxsolomon]

19. you're right; the solution is simple in ukraine. but it won't happen.

and you're right, I/P is a whole different animal. At some point, Israel is going to have to make itself vulnerable if it wants peace, and they're getting zero incentive to do that.

[yardwork]

14. This is close to how I feel.

It's always wrong to attack civilians. The terrorist attack by Hamas is wrong and unjustifiable. Many of Israel's policies are also wrong, leading to suffering and death.

It's a complicated human tragedy and everybody's suffering matters.

[Dave says]

18. "Everybody's suffering matters" - yes

[progressoid]

20. "dating back years to decades"

I say centuries.

Millennia even.

[dwayneb]

22. Go to the source

Until Iran's ability to sponsor terrorism is destroyed, this will never end.

Unless Iran is stopped is only a matter of time before this war reaches our shores, in the form of a nuclear device. It is obvious that this is the eventual outcome. And then, all bets will be off.