Against my better judgment, I want to offer a descriptive assessment about how our discourse about the war in Gaza has played out and has continued to play out.
Thank you for being willing to speak on such a divisive topic and be willing to say this is not a black and white issue and that in the end, war is tragic. There are no true winners.
This is great Richard! I love the way that you lay out the false binary of oppressor/oppressed, a perspective that has significant limitations when that's the consistent or primary way that we see the world, and invite us to consider the complexity of what's happening, and in doing so, allowing us to grieve for all people in that area.
I agree that both sides have done terrible things and we should acknowledge that, but as an American you are forgetting the third party that has done terrible things— the US with its arming and support of Israel. You can condemn Hamas’s actions and you should, but we are the ones who have been supplying Israel with many of the weapons they have used to destroy Gaza and we are complicit in their war crimes.
And yes, we should care about both sides, but maybe first we should stop being complicit in the slaughter.
I would say the same if we had been arming Hamas, which by the way is not absurd— we have armed other terrorist “ freedom fighters” just as bad in other circumstances.
Whenever starting a post with "Against my better judgment . . ." usually one shouldn't continue writing and should delete whatever one has already written. But you, no doubt, already knew that. Good luck.
Thank you for being willing to speak on such a divisive topic and be willing to say this is not a black and white issue and that in the end, war is tragic. There are no true winners.
This is great Richard! I love the way that you lay out the false binary of oppressor/oppressed, a perspective that has significant limitations when that's the consistent or primary way that we see the world, and invite us to consider the complexity of what's happening, and in doing so, allowing us to grieve for all people in that area.
I agree that both sides have done terrible things and we should acknowledge that, but as an American you are forgetting the third party that has done terrible things— the US with its arming and support of Israel. You can condemn Hamas’s actions and you should, but we are the ones who have been supplying Israel with many of the weapons they have used to destroy Gaza and we are complicit in their war crimes.
And yes, we should care about both sides, but maybe first we should stop being complicit in the slaughter.
I would say the same if we had been arming Hamas, which by the way is not absurd— we have armed other terrorist “ freedom fighters” just as bad in other circumstances.
Alas, some sanity among the insane masses.
Exactly.
Whenever starting a post with "Against my better judgment . . ." usually one shouldn't continue writing and should delete whatever one has already written. But you, no doubt, already knew that. Good luck.