In Northern Ireland and the Balkans international intervention almost certainly saved lives and helped bring about peace and relative stability. How long had they been fighting? There's probably some more examples. So I'd argue that it's not useless either.
And Jewish and Israeli (and by extension, Palestinian) history is strongly connected to the history of 19th and 20th century Europe in all sorts of ways, and I don't think you can just cleanly separate that.
Of course on a personal level I can imagine people reading the news, feeling powerless to change anything, and just not being interested. That's fine. But on a governmental/policy level, I do think we (the world) needs to stay engaged. Not just here, but also elsewhere with long-running issues. It's not our problem to solve, no, but we can facilitate and help.
That's only true if you view the "Israeli government" and "Hamas" as the only sides that exist. That is not the case; you don't need to choose either of them.
Now, of course it's true that everyone has legitimate grievances here for all sorts of reasons, an it's also true that forever banging on about every little thing anyone has ever done wrong will lead to another 100 years of suffering. But that doesn't mean we (broad international community) can't and shouldn't try. Even if it fails, I think it was worth the effort to try.
Extreme voices tend to drown out everyone else. I mean, what type of reasonable person has the energy and will to involve themselves in this toxic quagmire, right? The type of people willing to do so are strongly biased to people with Very Strong Views.
Trying to organise a protest around unfocused nuanced views is hard. "Free Palestine" is easy and straight-forward. "Hamas is wrong, but Israel should offer a solution for the people of Gaza that does not involve a de-facto concentration camp under military control" doesn't really fit on a billboard.
And lets also be realistic: yes, "both sides" have blame, but "both sides have blame" does not mean "both sides are equivalent". The people of Gaza are by and large powerless, and have been for a long time. The initiative for any solution really rests primarily on the Israeli side, who have been controlling much of life in Gaza for a long time now. The situation in Gaza and that Israel has never seriously offered any solution is frankly just disgraceful, and could only have ended in violence one way or the other sooner or later.
What makes this situation uniquely toxic is how America and most of its allies vehemently insist on total impunity for the crimes of one side.
Note: You don't need to reply and specify which. Apparently you've picked a side, as have I. No point debating that here I think. But each side would claim that the other is committing war crimes and inhuman acts and not being held to account.
No, they do not. There are still less full aid trucks even after the murder of the World kitchen volunteers massively increased international pressure on Israel to let aid in.
Northern Gaza is now in full blown famine as defined by top US officials that define famine, with southern Gaza on the brink of famine, as all farming infastructure inside gaza gas has now been destroyed. They need drastically more full trucks than the the 500/day that was the norm before the war started, not drastically fewer.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/un-aid-coordinator-says-israel...
On the other hand, killing children is always wrong. Fucking stop it.
Since you brought up the "cycle of violence" argument, I remember Shaun making an excellent video[1] on the topic and also addressing that specific talking point.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun
[1] The History of "Socialist" Zionism | Leftist Zionists did the Nakba & founded Israel https://youtu.be/ehp9PZo4UR0
Thanks!
Do you shoot back?
Did you just hesitate? A bullet just scraped your wife on the side of the leg. Hesitated again? Son just got a bullet in his arm.
You fire three bullets. The baby is dead and so is the intruder.
Are you in the wrong here?
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I'm not saying this is the same as what's happening in Israel and Gaza. But "always wrong", like many views on this conflict, is sorely lacking in nuance.
With thousands of Israelis and tens of thousands of Palestinians killed, ignoring nuance is disrespectful to their memories and will not lead to realistic progress.
Yes, what was done is wrong. It might be justified, even forgivable. But it's still wrong.
In your example, yes. Reality is more complicated; that usually gives reasonable people room to disagree.
Killing children is always wrong.
If anything I'd want to see less current politics on HN