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Comment by davidguetta | Hacker News Reader

Oh god, every one using their miligram of power for virtue signaling or taking side in something that is nothing else than a basic territorial war led by religious extremists.

'oh but my side is more moral than the other because of atrocity X, Y years ago. And also we have more deaths'

'but it was written in this book ZZZZ years ago'

People who pretend that this conflict is more complex that this are just trying to find an angle to promote their side. It's not the first conflict in the history.

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I think that’s pretty obvious though. At least in my circles, the main talking point is the fact that this war goes back literally to the dawn of human civilization in this area. People who think this sparked in the last 100 years aren’t paying attention.

100 years ago is when western powers became involved and created the conditions for the current situation. So any comparison between the pre-british and period and everything that has happened since is quite harebrained.

False. The conflict in the Middle East between Israel and every other Arab nation has literally been present since biblical times. The names have changed, but the game remains the same. We’re just witnessing the current iteration of this same conflict.

Nothing about this or any other conflict is simple.

Regardless, what’s your point?

My point is that a lot of people are try to frame it as 'my side is holier than yours' (no pun on the holier), leading to such action on wikipedia supposedly taking its roots on a moral superiority of the losing side.

Whereas it's just two group fighting for some absurd reason (religion / race / language pick one) and territory and the losing side would do the same to the winning side if it was capable of.

It's no different that any war in the past in europe or africa. 'Complexity' is an illusion.

I agree with you in a very broad sense, but I also feel that stripping an issue of its complexity results in apathetic or impossible stances. Where do you even start to craft solutions when this is your understanding of the matter?

Yes, “they” might be fighting for absurd reasons but everyone does, to one extent or another. At some point there has to be a concerted effort to minimize casualties and suffering, and that effort usually comes hand in hand with picking a side - as long as your goal is a reduction in harm and violence, that side is often the weakest (in many senses). But pick any side for all I care, if your intentions are holistically sane.

This is inherently a political effort, one that necessitates impartiality in order to sway public opinion, political weight, budgets, etc. And so these weird “holier than thou” moments arise - yes, sometimes for the sole sake of claiming superiority, but more often than not because “impartial” action is necessary to move the issue forward.

Mind you I don’t agree with Wikipedia on this one, given its nature, but still - embrace the hypercomplexity and patterns and nuance will both emerge and you’ll have something to work with, at the risk of maybe realizing that often to play a part in reality is to pick a side, even if it’s somewhere on the spectrum between two insane positions.

"Where do you even start to craft solutions when this is your understanding of the matter?"

I'm not exactly a specialist but to me you just start by looking how similar conflicts resolved. It's either:

-People massively destroy each other that they tired of it and agree on some country boundaries (Europe).

-People learn to coexist each other in the same land / country and possibly forget their differences with time (Lebanon / France & Regional Identities).

-One side genocides / expels the other / apartheid in between (Tatars, South Africa).

And here basically:

- 1 is not really possible since Israel is basically too powerful and can endlessly bully the other side. Also there's no political power currently for this in israel: Rabin who promoted a two-state solutions was shot and replaced by Netanyahu & co who are actively undermining against a palestinian state (it's their public stance).

so there are two left:

- 2 is the 'ideal' outcome happen and i'd wish for but you would need to remove *all* the extremists and the thousand years of religions magically so yeah.

- 3 is what netanyahu and other religious guys are advocating, and likely will happen if you ask me considering the raw military and political support they have from the US.

Personally i'd avocate for 2 in the name of peace. It would start by having western govs labeling israeli gov as 'extremist' and 'supremacist' (which is starting). But then without a counter power in military terms I think they will still do whatever they want.

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