"animals" or "not even animals"
I'm hearing Israelis refer to the Hamas militants who attacked Israel over the weekend as "animals" or "not even animals". It's difficult to accept that the people attacking you are still people like you. And that they may feel motivated to attack you because of what your country has done to them.
"Every day a person is born in Gaza into an open-air prison, in the West Bank without civil rights, in Israel with an inferior status by law, and in neighboring countries effectively condemned to lifelong refugee status, like their parents and grandparents before them, solely because they are Palestinian and not Jewish." -- said a report by Human Rights Watch in 2021.
Do I think Hamas militants should've killed hundreds of people attending a trance music festival? No. But they aren't "animals", and I can understand their motivations. They do not view Israeli citizens as innocent bystanders.
Two groups of people of roughly equal size want to control the same homeland. One group has the upper hand. The other occasionally fights back. Both sides commit atrocities. The situation has persisted for generations. It's fucked up. The people on both sides who want a peacefully negotiated long-term solution are shouted down by the people on both sides who want violence.
The next time I'm at a music festival will I think about those who were gunned down as they ran away? Or will I have forgotten about it by then.
"Every day a person is born in Gaza into an open-air prison, in the West Bank without civil rights, in Israel with an inferior status by law, and in neighboring countries effectively condemned to lifelong refugee status, like their parents and grandparents before them, solely because they are Palestinian and not Jewish." -- said a report by Human Rights Watch in 2021.
Do I think Hamas militants should've killed hundreds of people attending a trance music festival? No. But they aren't "animals", and I can understand their motivations. They do not view Israeli citizens as innocent bystanders.
Two groups of people of roughly equal size want to control the same homeland. One group has the upper hand. The other occasionally fights back. Both sides commit atrocities. The situation has persisted for generations. It's fucked up. The people on both sides who want a peacefully negotiated long-term solution are shouted down by the people on both sides who want violence.
The next time I'm at a music festival will I think about those who were gunned down as they ran away? Or will I have forgotten about it by then.