> I can’t really blame them for trying. You can be sure that the other side of the conflict is also not impartial.

Oh, I can for the both of us, and I do. Everyone is responsible for what they do, or tacitly consent to. War is not something that just "is" like rain or snow, it's specific actions of people specific people.

And when you say "other side of the conflict" does that include the 1+ million of children, or are they just not relevant at all here? Because as Bill Hicks said, a war is when two armies fight. This is genocide, reducing Gaza to rubble, taking smug selfies in homes and mosques all along the way.

Yes, Hamas is no better. That is, if they had the means, they wouldn't be. But Hamas is Hamas; not Gaza, not the West Bank. And Hamas isn't using police force in Western Democracies to prohibit demonstrations, it doesn't have vast media support to both silence discussion of what is going on and smear those who still have a conscience.

https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/alerts-archive/issue...

> Between 8 December 2023 and 7 February 2024, the entire population in the Gaza Strip (about 2.2 million people) is classified in IPC Phase 3 or above (Crisis or worse). This is the highest share of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity that the IPC initiative has ever classified for any given area or country.

We don't even hear about this. The little facts that are brought up are all all couched between bringing up Hamas 50 times. No, we're expected to be content, admiring and grateful even, when Israel stops bombing little kids in a barrel -- and that the genocide will, predictably, continue without bombs via the inflicted wounds will barely get a mention, just like nobody really cared the last few decades.

But there was a "flash" and no injuries on board of some ship, oh noes.

Someone put it very well on this site 4 years ago:

> And it is not a state of things, it is a process. It is going on now, it inches a bit further every day and every year.

> You say you don't have an opinion, but in fact you repeat exactly the things that those who don't want this process to stop would like to hear from you: that the question has two sides, that it's impossible to say who's right or wrong, that there are many opinions. It's a form of denialism (let's hear the other side, some say this but some say that, etc.).

-- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22649104

But even more importantly IMO, even assuming "both sides are exactly equal" -- and they're not -- then my primary concern would still be what I am responsible for, and what the corporations and governments I am directly or indirectly supporting are doing. Hamas is on the polar opposite of that, they don't brag about sharing my values or any of the sort. You might even say it's more or less expected for islamist terrorists to behave like islamist terrorists. Doesn't make it okay, it's something I stand against; but getting upset at it is a weird sort of performance IMO. However, a nation that pink-washes genocide says "hi fellow human rights enjoyer" to me and gives me all that horse crap about even knowing what a nation recognizing human rights would look like, much less being one, they need to either a.) stop what they're doing b.) or be told in no uncertain terms they are deluding themselves.

The world is full of murderers and genocidal racist assholes. It's the actually having one hand in my pocket and the other oscillating between rubbing my shoulder and covering my mouth that makes this something I am obliged to respond to, and have to respond to mercilessly. I felt the exact same way about the war of aggression in Iraq. To use me in that way for something I would never do, something so abominable, is not something I stand for or forgive.