Originally Posted by Itse
People have ridiculously short memories here.
The last massive IDF attack on Gaza happened just two years ago. Around 250 people were killed, and 2000 were wounded, including 600 children. 10.000 people were left homeless after hundreds of civilian buildings were destroyed in clearly targeted attacks.
IDF has been purposefully targeting civilian infrastructure in Gaza for years, including extreme basics like roads, electricity, hospitals and farmland. Doctors without borders has reported hundreds of attacks on various healthcare, and along with Amnesty demandes for a war crime investigation.
In 2018 alone the World Health Organization reported 431 attacks against just the healthcare facilities in the occupied territories.
People of Gaza also can't leave. It's effectively an open air prison, one with borders that are slowly but surely moving inwards. 1.8 million people, 2/3 of them 25 or younger, live on 365 square kilometers. The borders of Gaza have been closed since 2007, which means most people living there were either born into captivity or are too young to remember anything else. UN has been warning for years that the area is becoming uninhabitable due to overcrowding and lack of resources.
So from the perspective of many Palestinians, they're not starting a war. From their perspective, they've been prisoners of war since birth, with no way out. They feel they live in a prison surrounded by a relentless, remorseless and simply evil enemy, and to many the question of why fight is moot. They have never been at peace and have never been offered peace. The options are to die fighting or die doing nothing. Either you create consequences for the enemy or you let them walk over you with impunity.
The way many Palestinians feel is that the Israeli civilians love to talk about peace, but they don't actually do anything about it. Instead they consistently either support aggression against Palestinians or simply look away. At best they maybe post sympathy messages on social media. As a democracy they could vote for change but they never do that. Their idea of helping is going to a dance party, as if that somehow helps.
Just objectively, Israeli civilians are obviously more responsible for what's been going on in Gaza than Russian civilians are responsible for what's been happening in Ukraine, because they live in an actual democracy. I don't think that means it's okay to kill Israeli civilians, but many on this board are completely okay with the idea that Russian civilians are punished for their support of the war / inaction.
Now, I know that view of Israeli civilians isn't completely fair to the citizens of Israel... but it's not really completely unfair either.
To put this in 2023 terms, the Palestianians from their perspective are Ukraine and Israel is Russia. To fight against Israel isn't really a choice, it's simply a question of how you do it most effectively, because to not fight means submitting yourself and your people to eradication, and to the more radical, there isn't really a significant different between a civilian and a soldier. Those Palestinians who have been radicalized very genuinely believe that generally speaking the citizens of Israels want Palestinians to suffer and die forever. This isn't true, but unfortunately it's a point of view that can be defended with what looks a lot like undeniable evidence if you live in Gaza.
As for what this fighting achieves... as already mentioned to some extent that's probably besides the point. When you are at war against an enemy that will never let you live in peace, fighting back is it's own goal. Retribution is it's own goal for those who have grown up to simply hate the Israelis.
There is however also the view that the only hope for Palestinians is international intervention. That the only way out us to create so much noise that other countries can't look away.
There is also the idea that if you make the ongoing slow war too hot and costly for Israel, maybe they will re-think what they are doing.
As a personal opinion, I don't think that's what's going to happen. People of Israel as a majority are just genuinely extremely supportive of always punishing Palestinians for anything and everything until the end of time, and just don't really care whether or not Palestinians overall live or die. They most definitely don't care about allowing Palestinians a reasonable standard of living. This is the main reason this conflict can't go another way. And with the US firmly blocking any chance of international intervention or sanctions, what's there to say.
Israel has very decisively chosen a dark path with Palestine, and that's the path they are on now. The innocent are paying the price with the guilty because those are the rules Israel has set for this conflict, long before this outbreak.
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