I know the rawness of such a vicious terrorist attack will cloud judgment and leave the Israelis furious and wanting blood. For any American who fails to understand this, imagine if 9/11 had been caused by a group of people living in a cordoned off part of New Mexico. We would have carpet bombed the ever loving fuck out of it and killed the majority of the people there. The only reason we didn’t have a swift full force military response after 9/11 is because we had to get assets to the region which took time.
I’ve watched these videos of Israel dropping buildings left and right. I certainly hope these are confirmed terrorist targets but there’s just a whole lot of them and I suspect many of them have civilians inside. I know we are currently in the ‘Israel can do no wrong and we stand by them’ phase but where is the line drawn? Does this terrorist attack justify genocide? Im not inclined to believe so. But I also know after 9/11 I wouldn’t have given a shit if we did genocide an entire group if they were responsible. I would have been wrong, but my point is we lived through that seething rage ourselves and it took us years to collectively calm ourselves.
I don’t know what the answer is. Obviously they have to respond. But what’s the line you draw? It would not surprise me if in a few months the opinions of the global public once again shift back to horror and condemnation of Israel as the reality of this response is made public.
You know the US does have groups of people cordoned off in New Mexico? We have similar situations all over the US. They're called Indian Reservations and we did regularly massacre the people that lived there (Wounded Knee being the most famous example).
But at least by 1924 we gave Native Americans citizenship and therefore the right of free movement. It only took about 150 years but they at least got basic rights eventually, even if the discrimination and violence continues.
Israel can't even meet the standards of decency that America, a continuously not-decent country figured out for itself before Israel even existed.
I'm curious, what exactly gives a sense of OP being an Israel supporter? I read the post as good pondering about the reasoning for Israel's reactions and some good analogy for US readers through the 9/11 attacks and reactions for it.
It's pretty much required that a nation will either defend themselves or even counterattack heavily if someone attacks them or otherwise they won't stay independent very long (see Ukraine currently or Europe in 1930-1940s) and understanding that doesn't make someone automatically a supporter of either side. Now, it's a good thing to discuss about the size of Israel's reaction because completely destroying another country over a terrorist attack is not going to end up well either. This is something where the 9/11 comparison works well in my mind.
"I supported genocidal rage, tried to psychologize and implicitly justify other ways to genocide, gladly accept and repeat the racist language of double standards that allows Westerners to pretend they don't already support apartheid and genocide, but don't you dare call me a Nazi."