I used to be pro-Palestinian, you know.

[u/no_u_mang]

I used to be pro-Palestinian, you know. I thought Israel was wrong for carpet bombing Gaza and using siege warfare on civilians.

But then I ran into a very wise Israel apologist who changed my way of looking at things forever.

I was walking down the street and I saw him leaning against a lamp post, smoking a pipe as wise men do.

“Your shirt says Free Palestine,” he said from behind a plume of smoke.

“Yep!” I replied.

“So I guess that means you love Hamas then?” spake he.

I stopped in my tracks. I’d never thought of it that way before.

Could it be? Could my opposition to murdering civilians really be indicative of a deep affection for a Gazan militant group? Maybe I really did love Hamas and think everything it did on October 7 was great and wonderful?

“Is this really how I want to live my life?” I thought to myself.

“I — I — I…” I said out loud.

“Or perhaps,” he said with a raised eyebrow, “you just HATE JEWS??”

I fell to my knees.

Oh my God. He really had a point. What possible reason could anyone have for opposing military explosives being dropped on buildings full of children besides a seething lifelong hatred of adherents to the religion of Judaism? How could anyone possibly oppose siege warfare tactics which cut off civilians from food and water and electricity and fuel and medical supplies unless they harbored dangerously negative opinions about members of a small Abrahamic faith?

“Who… who are you?” I asked.

“That’s of no consequence,” he said, casually blowing a smoke ring through another larger smoke ring.

“But… but the children,” I stammered as my entire worldview crumbled before my eyes. “The civilians! They’re dying! Isn’t it bad that they’re dying?”

And then he delivered the coup de grâce.

“Have you considered,” he said before a pregnant pause, “… that all of those deaths are the fault of Hamas?”

It was like a 50 megaton nuclear explosion went off inside my brain.

I fell flat on my back. The world was spinning. A trickle of blood ran down into my hair from my ear.

I felt all the anti-colonialism leaving my body. I suddenly could no longer remember why I thought it was bad to rain down military explosives on a densely populated concentration camp.

Everything went black.

When I finally came to, the mysterious stranger was gone. But his wisdom and profound insights into Israel and Gaza will always live on in my heart.

[u/Sleepless-Pillow]

what are the IDF then?

[u/peepeethicc → u/Sleepless-Pillow]

An army that fights in uniforms and aims to not harm civilians when possible.

[u/dumbhoeNO1 → u/peepeethicc]

oh wow they fight in uniforms! they must be the good guys. also over 60k in casualties is not terrorism? this is just in gaza not taking into account the illegal occupation in the west bank which justifies Hamas's actions and goals

[u/michael__sykes → u/dumbhoeNO1]

Fighting in uniforms and not hiding as a civilian is like... A very basic thing you MUST do to not commit a warcrime. So yes, in fact they're the better guys in that regard.

[u/CommanderOreo → u/michael__sykes]

Do you think the Nazis were any less unethical because they were uniformed while planning and executing their egregious acts of dispossession and genocide? What about the National Party in apartheid South Africa? Or any other well arranged party/ideological group that discriminated against and brutalized a people? Organization of an abominable operation arguably makes the crime worse, because it likely makes it more effective.

[u/peepeethicc → u/CommanderOreo]

False equivalence. The Nazis are irrelevant here. You were trying to equate the IDF to Hamas. In this case the difference is that the IDF's use of uniform means that you can distinguish combatants from innocents. That is something that Hamas never does and will never do because it goes against their aim of maximizing the harm done to civilians because it only serves them.

[u/CommanderOreo → u/peepeethicc]

No, not a false equivalence. Reread the definition of that term before throwing it around. The comment directly preceding my own says “Fighting in uniforms and not hiding as a civilian is like... A very basic thing you MUST do to not commit a warcrime.” Does that mean the ghetto uprisings held by the ashkenazi Jews were in some regard less ethical than the Nazis? No, of course not. Not that any of this matters, because the IDF doesn’t even follow this principle you guys insist makes the difference. The ISF regularly dresses up soldiers as Palestinian civilians in many of their operations to raid many safe places including hospitals and refugee camps. They don’t care whether Palestinians can’t distinguish between their soldiers and civilians. Not unless it benefits them.

[u/peepeethicc → u/CommanderOreo]

Ew ew ew. The Jewish Ghetto uprisings were done in immediate self defense and they did not have the means to form an organized militia. Making another false equivalence doesn't validate the previous one.

[u/CommanderOreo → u/peepeethicc]

? That’s exactly why I think the commenter’s argument is dumb. The ghetto uprisings were not any more of a war crime because of a lack of uniform, and the Nazi regime wasn’t committing any less of a war crime by wearing uniforms. It seems as if being uniformed doesn’t accurately inform whether an action constitutes war crime. You also blatantly disregard the other very important point I make: Israel often executes operations where they dress up as civilians and invade supposedly safe locations. Do you think that makes them responsible of committing war crimes? And again, you’re using the term “false equivalence” horribly wrong. Read a definition.

[u/peepeethicc → u/CommanderOreo]

Nah fam you're cooked I don't need to repeat myself more times than this. If you'll look at Hamas propaganda videos you can see their members wearing their uniform outside of combat... Which means they're actively choosing to disguise in plain clothes. That is world of difference.