Public opinion on Israeli military operations in Gaza is predominantly critical, with many perceiving these actions as a humanitarian crisis characterized by disproportionate aggression, ethnic cleansing, and violations of international law. While some comments defend Israel's right to self-defense, citing the complexity of the geopolitical situation, these are notably fewer. The discourse is heavily centered on moral outrage over civilian casualties and draws comparisons with historical conflicts, emphasizing the need for modern accountability and updated humanitarian standards. There is also frustration with perceived bias in international reactions and historical grievances between Israel and Palestine.

Israel

Palestine

International Community

good 

did you know Palestine during the middle of a genocide is putting forward a budget this year?

dherms14

Becoming too hard to deny the ethnic cleansing

Delicious-Blueberry5

Supporting radical Jews who believe land was promised to them by god seeking some sort of biblical ethnostate and giving them weapons and political support to eliminate or weaken the population living on it was never a good idea.

Super-Base-

https://preview.redd.it/nrmc304qcx1f1.jpeg?width=1284&amp;format=pjpg&amp;auto=webp&amp;s=a28f570e952707b997fc89e775904114f31e1de0

Neo-urban_Tribalist

“When genocide is permissible”

~ Times of Israel

By that very statement, they’ve undone any consequences the Nazis may have incurred…

Ok_Medicine7534

[deleted]

The world was going to hate a Jewish nation-state no matter what.

I pray that all, on both sides, will realize that wishing someone else's death is beyond inhumane.

It is not about being Jewish or Muslim. If group A kills some of B, there will always be some of B that will never forgive A.
Eradication of an ideology is never is not possible, but killing endlessly sadly is. And right now it is just killing, sadly, endlessly.

Bonifaz3

The world saw us as demons since 1948, it doens't matter what we do you will always hate us and see us as filthy humans. Then sorry, but we prefer to survive and try to not get massacared.

Professional_Term140

(Diaspora Jew here) Israelis think survival is more important than reputation. I think they don't care about reputation. They assume it will be bad, as Jews.


They also don't care about us diaspora Jews. If antisemitism rises, then more Jews will make aliyah.

Melthengylf

I would rather the enemies of Jews have to scream loudly about a powerful country than silently enact a pogrom against a defenseless Jewish community.


Yeah, I think they are quite aware of what is happening but they think quite differently about what the world is learning.

Ok-Pangolin1512

You’re asking this in good faith, so I want to answer in kind.

You're right that many of us — especially in the diaspora — are deeply frustrated by Netanyahu. I'm Jewish, I love my Israeli family, and I can’t stand what his government is doing to Israel’s global reputation. It feels like he’s *actively* burning bridges with the very people who used to defend Israel in the name of Jewish survival — all so he can cling to power by pleasing religious extremists and Christian evangelicals who only “support Jews” as a means to their own theological endgame.

But here’s the part that often gets missed outside the region: support for this war doesn’t always equal support for Netanyahu. In fact, a huge portion of Israelis want him gone but still feel the war against Hamas is justified. That might seem contradictory, but here’s why:

* October 7 was real. A massacre happened — civilians were slaughtered, raped, and kidnapped. People watched family members dragged into Gaza on livestream. That trauma didn’t just shock Israel — it *radicalized* even a lot of centrists and left-leaning Israelis.
* Hamas doesn’t want peace. People keep asking, “Why doesn’t Israel negotiate?” But Hamas’s charter literally calls for Israel’s destruction. That’s not just rhetoric — it’s what they acted on, brutally.
* Many Israelis feel alone. When Israelis see the global reaction focus *only* on Gaza’s suffering and not the October 7 atrocities, it feels like their trauma is being erased. It makes them dig in, not because they want revenge — but because they feel like no one else will defend them.

Now, you raised a fair point about global reputation. Israelis do see the backlash. But a lot of them feel like the world turned against them *before* they were allowed to process their own grief. And some interpret the backlash not just as opposition to Netanyahu — but as opposition to *Israel’s existence at all*.

That doesn’t make every response justifiable. Netanyahu has absolutely used this war to deflect from his corruption charges and to weaken the courts. It’s shameful. And many of us in the diaspora — and in Israel — are furious about it. But the reason people support military action isn’t about bloodlust or self-sabotage. It’s about feeling trapped: between a government they hate and a terrorist group that wants them gone.

You asked a fair, compassionate question. I hope this adds a layer to the answer.

ialsoforgot

Except this kind of hate has always been directed towards Jews. It was way worse before Israel existing than after.

Routine-Equipment572

Kinda easier now when the dumdums step right up and announce their hate.

Top_Plant5102

That point of view existed, to some extent in the Israeli left, and it died on Oct. 7th. Simply because:

1. The Westernized, liberal, English-speaking Israeli left saw that when their rights are horrifically violated, the supposed defenders of human rights, humanity, and morality, either ignore them or flat out cheer. And then rush to accuse them, the victims, of committing a genocide, just a week later. Simply put, it has proven what the Israeli center-right has been saying all along: that these "Israel critics" are not some objective defenders of human rights, or even particularily moral. They're not the American, British or Irish version of the average Tel Avivi Haaretz reader. They're supporters of the worst form of exterminationist Palestinian nationalism, and its ultimate goal of eliminating Israel and Israelis, who simply lie about being concerned about morality, humanity, or international law.
2. It has shown that the Palestinians manage to garner amazing PR, despite (and possibly because) committing truly unspeakable, ISIS-style genocidal atrocities, some of them they themselves livestreamed, while having abhorrent values, abhorrent political goals, and abhorrent political leadership.
3. Furthermore, it has shown that the ultimate outcome of the Gaza disengagement, that they believed would yield PR benefits for Israel, is the worst PR disaster in Israeli history. Compare the psychotic tones of the anti-Zionist propaganda regarding Gaza, even before the war, and the far more muted tones regarding the still-occupied West Bank. And how the disengagement, that was very painful for Israeli society, never actually yielded any PR benefits at any point - it was received with a shrug, even by the most obsessive supporters of ethnically cleansing settlers.

Overall, this has objectively disproven the idea that Israel should drastically change its policies, in order to get better PR. Let alone when the "drastic change" that's supposedly required, is to allow its genocidal enemies to win, to become an infinitely bigger threat, and to continue trying to exterminate Israel. Not only is having good PR simply less important than the safety of Israelis (as Golda Meir pointed out), Israel choosing to sacrifice the safety of its citizens doesn't actually yield better PR. And as the Palestinians have shown, you can get amazing PR, while having even the most barbaric actions, policies, values, goals and politicians. You just need to actually invest in PR for this, as the multi-billion dollar pro-Palestinian propaganda machine did. And Israel completely failed to do.

As for the Jews: I feel Western Jews are slowly realizing as well, that this argument is nonsense. They realize that they are not treated like any other ethnic or religious group in a similar situation. Russian churches in the US are not being protested in the name of Ukraine, Chinese shops are not being vandalized in the name of the Uighurs. Even after an attack on America itself on 9/11, racism against Muslims, Arabs, including specifically Saudis and Egyptians in the US, was always blamed on the racists - not seen as a natural reaction, that's ultimately the fault of the Muslims and Arabs. And ultimately, they also realized that being the "good Jews" won't save them. "Good Jews" are constantly being kicked out of pro-Palestinian spaces. "Good Jews", including American "Good Jews" were kidnapped and massacred by the Palestinians on Oct. 7th, just like the "bad ones" - and their "goodness" didn't garner a smidgeon of sympathy.

I feel they're starting to realize, that the Western anti-Zionism is starting to reveal itself as the same as Soviet Anti-Zionism, Arab Anti-Zionism, Iranian Anti-Zionism - a movement first and foremost concerned with ending organized Jewish life in the country, and sidelining, persecuting, and occasionally physically harming the local Jews, "good" or "bad". And it simply doesn't make make sense to align themselves with the vicious antisemites who want to destroy them, and their communities. They will not be appeased by these overtures, they're just made stronger, more vicious, and more dangerous to the Jewish community.

nidarus

I don’t see any wavering support for Israel.
I only see the ‘ugly heads’ rise again.
Those were always here but stayed quiet.
Now they have their moment, but a moment is all they have.

After this mess is cleansed, it will be just another Tuesday.

crooked_cat

What would your country have done differently if a a neighboring territory was ruled by Jihadists who sought your eradication, massacred a few towns, slaughtered kids at a rave, kidnapped babies and elderly, celebrated their massacre by parading and mutilating corpses in their streets, and all the while fired thousands of rockets at your cities?

triplevented

I disagree. From the perspective of Israel's haters, Israel itself is a crime. There is nothing we can do in the eyes of the anti-Israel people except disappear, to be good. No matter what Israel does.

After October 7 many of these anti-Israel people cheered. Israel was a victim and they enjoyed Israel's victimization. These people when their mask is off, no longer virtue singal, and become supporters of terrorism and violence and the mass murder-rape of Jews.

What happened after is the standard anti-Israel propaganda that comes with every war. It happened in 2014, in 2022 with about the same intensity too. If Israel killed 1000 or 100000, the propaganda would be same because it's a standard mechanism, it's the same playbook no matter Israel's behavior.

But it is human nature not to back losers. So a lot of unaffiliated people are very pro-Israel these days. You see the Trump admin, you see Europeans, they never been more pro-Israel in their entire history. 

America and Europe have never been more pro-Israel in their entire history. Germany, UK, America. Even Ireland, who has been a persistent hater of Israel for decades has largely been a wet noodle. They have this one bill which they never pass, even during the height of the war. All they do is virtue signal, and that is dying out because it's not PC anymore to hate on Israel, so Ireland has even simmered down. 

Meanwhile Gaza is unlikely to be a threat to Israel for decades or possible for ever. The sitution in Judea and Samaria has been progressing in Israel's favor in an accelerated pace. Israel is essentially winning the Israel-Palestine conflict in a highly irrevesible manner. If you look at the anti-Israel areas of social media, at this point they are just doomposting all the time.

c9joe

I don't support Bibi for years now, this current government is the worst we  have ever had and I can't wait for the elections. But at the same time Hamas needs to go.

If there is one thing I learned in this war we are in is, it's really not all that important what people think of you. The opinion of those who supports free Palestine blindly without the slightest of clue what is really going on from around the world have no real value. They will support Hamas no matter what because it makes them feel good about themselves as a freedom fighters or something.
What matters for me are results and keeping people safe.

So believe me I am fully aware to the PR damage this government is doing, but at the same time those who hate Israel will simply hate and those who support it will keep doing so.

sirpurplewolf

You won't stop using Waze, GitLab, Wix, monday.com, or any other of the dozens of Israeli tech companies' products though.

jewboy916

Naw. People had their views before this all started. You could see it after the first hospital incident. There was a video of a Hamas rocket falling into the parking lot, yet people were still buying Hamas' propaganda.


Better to be hated and not surrounded by rockets than the previous status quo of being both hated and surrounded by rockets.

Taxibl

who cares, the world are hypocrites who would do far worse if they were in a similar situation

LongjumpingEye8519

War is coming on a much larger scale. And the technology is changing as fast as it ever has. 

In a strange way, Israel is lucky to have a head start.

You wouldn't understand. Maybe everything is a popularity contest to you and the other bandwagon riders, but a lot of us try to do the right thing instead of just going along with what seems popular.

Can we focus on rescuing that kid from New Jersey and all the other kidnapped people? 

After that, we can help you get less baffled.

How old are you? Netanyahu was rescuing hostages from jihadists before you were born. 52 years ago he was taking a bullet on a hostage rescue mission. His older brother Jonathan was killed in entebbe.

At the end of your op, you mentioned Israelis hating palestinians. You think it's about revenge, because you don't understand the concept of deterrence.

squirtgun_bidet

&gt;Are Israelis cognizant of the irreversible harm their government is doing to their reputation globally?

I dont think the reputation harm is permanent and irreversible. Public opinion can change and do change over time. 

At one time, many were against Al-Qaeda particularly in America. Then recently some Americans were sympathetic to Osama bin Laden after watching a Letter to the American people on tiktok.

Some people think Putin is evil. Others like Trump thinks Putin is a great guy. I dont think what Putin did has irreversible harm the Russian reputation globally. Once Putin dies, get assasinated, get poisoned or pushed off a building, world leaders will be lining up to engage with Russia, make deals, do business as usual, handshake photo op with the new leader,...the living can write history and blame everything bad on the dead (Putin), the living will continue living.

BleuPrince

It’s telling how one can claim to be ‘100% pro-Palestinian’ while completely misunderstanding the mindset and circumstances of the other side. Your entire framing assumes Israel’s right to exist and defend itself is up for debate, which already makes your argument unserious.

You talk about global reputation like that’s what Israelis care about. They don’t. They care about surviving. It’s easy to sit comfortably from afar and criticize every move Israel makes while having no idea what you’d do if you lived with rockets, massacres, and existential threats as a backdrop.

You may not like Israel’s government, but pretending this is all about PR while ignoring the realities on the ground isn’t honest, it’s just posturing.

callaBOATaBOAT

stuck_in_the_desert

Because Gaza as a whole is substantially smaller then  Baghdad was, let alone all the cities combined. They are able to effectively isolate their objectives and deliberately clear at their pace. 

I’d probably also argue that you need to look at when and how we took casualties in Iraq, during the initial invasion and through some of the bigger offensive operations (similiar phase of the war we see in Gaza today) such as Fallujah, Najaf, etc our casualties were actually very low respectively. Our casualties really started to soar once it became a war of occupation/COIN/etc where our soldiers were very vulnerable to IEDs, ambushes, etc.

Beyond that I’d point to significant improvements in technology (drones, missiles, etc) and medicine since Iraq and  I’d also say that Israel’s unique situation plays a large role. Their entire military system is designed to fight in a very specific area of the world. Our Army is designed to be expeditionary so our Army that has to be able to do good enough in the forests of Europe, jungles of Asia, etc got sent to Iraq meanwhile the IDF is trained, manned, and equipped to fight basically within eyesight of its boarders (I’m exaggerating a bit). 

I’d also be remise not to point out Israel had a military presence in Gaza until 2005 so they have decades of experience in that area.

SpartanShock117

The fighting is much smaller scale for one the Israeli military is much larger than the US force in Iraq, HAMAS is much smaller than the total Iraqi insurgency, Israel has a higher tolerance for collateral damage and if you take the battles to scale they do much worse. Oct 7th attack was roughly the size of the insurgent force in the second battle of Fallujah and the Palestinian force inflicted roughly 4 times the deaths on Israeli security forces excluding civilians. Also HAMAS shows a lack of commitment to militarily defending their citizens and wants to preserve their fighting power for a later date by avoiding conflict as a whole.

#

StankGangsta2

Acceptable-Baker5282

because hamas is significantly less war ready comparative to ISIS. 

May i also add Gaza is much more understood geographically by the IDF comparative to Iraq for the US Military.

ashonmytrueys

We weren't allowed to level entire city blocks to keep ourselves safe.

SquireSquilliam

They're not as low as you think
I have a friend who is a Career soldier the IDF and he says Reservist units have taken heavy casualties.
(But as someone fighting in Ukraine, He and I have very different definitions of what consitutes "Heavy Casualties")

But yes they are lower than Baghdad and those places because Baghdad is much bigger, and many of the Insurgents were Iraqi Army Veterans, a very large army with substantial weapons stockpiles, and senior officers drawn from Iraq's very bloody and brutal decade long war in Iran, as well as Kuwait.

While as Hamas is very small and made up of civilian volunteers without formal military training, using homemade equipment. Hamas also has No Navy, Airforce or any sort of Armoured Units. So if you factor in the size of Gaza, Hamas, how long its been occupied and basically besieged/embargoed, and the Equipment used, vs what the IDF has, I would say the IDF is taking **HEAVIER** Casualties than the US Forces. 

The IDF is also not as great as people think, they compared their successes fighting against poorly trained and equipped militants. Its like if the Lakers played a middle school basketball team, or FC Barcelona played a bunch of 12 year olds = Ofcourse they would come out looking great

But I have participated in War Games, Training exercises, Simulation etc against Israeli Paratroopers, Soldiers of the Golani Brigade and Special Forces, (Active and former in many seperate occasions) and even our weekend warriors DESTROYED them in convential combat scenarios and exercises. The Israelis are AMAZING... at shooting at stationary targets on the Range and know all the cool tips and tricks and grips, but in every actual Sim we ran where it was force on force or Infantry/Small Teams tactics based, we put them to shame, and they were REALLY sore about it every time 🤣

Ukrainian_Adventurer

Hamas and the other terrorist organizations operating in Gaza and the West Bank are EXTREMELY untrained. It's mostly just a bunch of random normal dudes who have never used weapons before going up against the 2nd best trained military in the world. Thats just my outlook on the question.

ThumpySports

Former Mil officer here. Thesis on Jihadi Salafism and urban combat.

Short answer: they don’t care to mitigate civilians casualties and the AOR is smaller

Long answer: this would take me a minute lol

Damn, but the Arab Nationalists and Islamic fundamentalists have been saying online that they're beating Israel and inflicting heavy casualties

BATHR00MG0BLIN

Well, we were trying NOT to kill civilians in Iraq.

Stjjames

Can you compare the casualties  of the 1st year of the war and population size of gaza vs Baghdad?

BunchSpecial4586

Gaza is much smaller than Iraq or Iraqi cities.

In the first few months, IDF goes in guns blazing as they don't have to worry about resupply.

Now they seems to be gentler on the trigger

highdiver_2000

Because they're fighting civilians, not soldiers.  It's easy to stay alive when you're dropping bombs on hospitals and schools.

jkushhighlyoffensive

Isn't the Israeli game plan *bomb the area into oblivion then send in troops to clean up*? Be hard to pile up casualties if that's all the risk they're exposed to. Not like they're occupying territory, trying to deal with HAMAS while working amongst the civilians.

Mellero47

A1D4-

It's easy to have low casualties when you have firepower superiority and don't care about collateral damage.

Devinslevin

I'll add onto what has already been sstates.

-different environment: Iraq and Gaza significantly different in size. Also, the IDF doesn't have to leave troops in Gaza to carry out operations. Gaza is next door, so IDF troops can conduct an operation and return  rather than leave troops as potential victims to attacks. Also, long vulnerable supply convoys aren't necessary as a result. 

-different technology: Israel has used drones to locate Hamas fighters deep within cities and tunnels.

Hamas capabilities: Hamas relied on arms smuggled into Gaza vs the Iraqi insurgents who took their arms from the Iraqi army.

I think the capabilities of Hamas were overestimated besides 10/7 and Israel's capabilities were underestimated. According to the early estimates, it was expected that Israel would have 10x the causalities they have currently.

Single_Commercial_41

Well they take no chances, even if that entails severe civilian casualties and damage on Infrastructure.

Terrorist suspected in the area? Level the whole block.

Suspicious person? Shoot first ask questions later.

Terrorists hiding behind civilians? Those civilians are most likely dead now.

UGANDA-GUY

It doesn't take much to bomb an entire region and just go through and secure the body parts after.

GridironWarrior

They have no insurgence to deal will. Bomb and artillery then send in tanks and Apv with infantry to mop up. The Israelis have the time to move slow and deliberate one street at a time. Blow it in place the mop it up. It’s the tunnels that will give them an issue. Some way to deep to be effected by ordnance

crazyhound71

Because their ROE is bomb n watch, not go door to door

ewejoser

The IDF sent hundreds of text messages, made hundreds of robo phone calls and dropped thousands of printed leaflets on Gaza multiple times to tell people when and where to go before they began bombardment. Hamas embeds their tunnels and weapons in civilian homes. In order to destroy Hamas the IDF has to bomb the tunnels that open into private homes.

PugPuppyMama

Imagine if in Iraq, we had no ROE and virwed every person on the street as a valid kill. And on top of that we had absolutely no interest in what happens after were there i.e. razing rvery structure over 10’ tall and capable of hiding a military aged man (or female, cause fuck it, remember?). This gives the greenlight for total destruction. Knock every single building down, treat ANY non-allied contact as hostile and prosecute as such. In other words, genocide.

 This is ideally accomplished with air and long range fires (artillery, MLRS, HIMARS, etc) meaning no troops snaking through urban jungles where the ratio of attacker : defender casualties climbs as high as 10:1. Traditional casualty rates of attacker versus defender for defended positions is 3 to 1 but the urban aspect is just hell for an attacker as the defender has so many places to attack from/fortify.

With this in mind you simply drop a billion JDAMs and THEN roll into the city, plant your flag and declare victory a la Pos russ ground forces in Ukraine. “Civilian” loses be damned. Not sure capturing a city counts when theres no more city left……

If this is how you fight, it is much easier to end up with exponentially less fatalities and casualties as there is nobody to actually fight back nor is there any place for them to fight from and defend. They also don’t have any food or water and those who would consider fighting are probably digging through the corpses (theres gonna be A LOT)to try and find food and water .

endoffays

That is because they barley come out of their armoured vehicles while fighting

youo5777

It's the same as our initial hit into Iraq. They are just willing to kill or eradicate every single civilian target en route to objective.

We would have had even less casualties in our initial clearance of Iraq if we just said fuck it everyone is a combatant and murdalized every single hidey hole and person in the town like Zionists do.

goodshootbadshoot

The premise of this question reminds me of the “9/11 math” political leaders were doing after OCT 7th. Let me fix your question for you, “if Israel just endured 17x 9/11s on OCT 7th, then how are they experiencing only 1/46th the Baghdads in Gaza?” 

Hope that helps frame the apples and oranges for everyone so we can have a fruitful discussion.

Weary_Relish

yes becaus the casualties are civilian. Now compare how many casualties there are between Hamas and the Isra3li army

Hopeful-Platform7011

Becuase they do not care about civilian casualties (collateral damage) so will drop a 2000lb bomb instead of specifically targeting the bad guys.

Mountsorrel

SecretAntWorshiper

Half the comments here are people just parroting Hamas propaganda. If the media had given the same credibility to the Taliban after 9/11 (as did does Hamas), you would've heard nonsense about US carpet bombing cities in Afghanistan and mostly targeting civilians. The fact that people can't see this blatant disinformation says a lot about their own critical thinking skills, like the fact many news outlets initially reported without question that Israel bombed a hospital and killed some 500 people mere minutes after it supposedly happened.

 According to Hamas, all of Gaza's infrastructure has been wiped out yet the health services are able to report mass causalities within literally minutes of them occurring unlike any other country in the world. Counting exact death tolls in war zones is impossible. Somewhere between 100k to 1 million were killed in Iraq yet no one thinks it's strange that Hamas has the death toll down to a specific number?

Someone link that clip with the blind Iraqi(Afghan?) shooting at marines.

dontuseurname

hamas seem far less fanatical ( in the sense that they want to live) and more focused on self preservation than insurgent forces in Iraq or Astan who basically would throw themselves kaboom at coalition forces.

commentBRAH

Same reason how US won the Iraq and Afghanistan.

RegularSchool3548

Theyre good at their job. Hamas is not good at it, at least not if the enemy actually can shoot back.

LandscapeProper5394

Significant_You7780

it's simple they don't it's just bullshit to cover-up so Nathan can keep running it's government

ualvi1148

You consider the casualty rate in Gaza to be low?

onlyabdul

The better question is why isn’t Israel capable of confirming their kills? They have no clue how many Al-Qasam fighters they’ve killed and they also claim to not know how many civilians they’ve killed. But to answer the question, they’ve actually lost more IDF soldiers than they report, it’s part of the Israeli propaganda.

dicklassiter

Isreal has sent warnings to civilians before it attacks
Sadly 
One of two things happens either the Hamas prevents them from leave or as a few experts have stated many support the Hamas so they stay

IDF hits them from above, and then go in once everything is already destroyed. The US tried not to kill everyone.

Ssgtsniper

Think of the conflict in Gaza like a big prison uprising or city rebellion. They don't have the resources of a regular military or any real strategic plan. Isreal has access to the most advanced hardware in the world while Gaza is cut off, pinned in a corner, and can't keep themselves fed. It's surprising that they're able to do anything at all.

NyetRifleIsFine47

Just don't report them.
It keeps it real low.
Ask Russian and Ukraine government.

radandco88

- how does Israel keep the casualties so low fighting unarmed civilians who’s water and power they control?
- gee I wonder how they do it
- “how did the nazis keep the casualties so low in their concentration camps?”

C__Wayne__G

 Because they use foot soldiers and sophisticated ammunition. They are among the most moral armies that exist. Better question is why Israel is allowing so many of their own to be sacrificed when they have the capacity to strike from air and not go into Gaza on foot.

HMFlyerNY

/u/wellthatspeculiar (OP) has awarded 2 delta(s) in this post.

All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed [here](/r/DeltaLog/comments/1evtbr1/deltas_awarded_in_cmv_i_dont_really_understand/), in /r/DeltaLog.

Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.

^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)

DeltaBot

Compare Israel to other countries that are participating in major war crimes that you mentioned: Sudan, Yemen, Ethiopia, and Myanmar. 

Israel is a [Canadian ally](https://www.international.gc.ca/trade-commerce/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-acc/israel/country_profile-israel-profil_pays.aspx?lang=eng). We have a free trade agreement, science and innovation agreements, over $2 billion in trade annually, over $3 billion in bilateral investments, and exchange tens of thousands of tourists annually. 

None of these things can be said of any of the other countries mentioned. 

Canada has [sanctions against Sudan](https://www.international.gc.ca/country-pays/sudan-soudan/relations.aspx?lang=eng). Most Canadian funds in Yemen are [humanitarian aid](https://www.international.gc.ca/country-pays/yemen/relations.aspx?lang=eng). Ethiopia is one of the [top recipients of Canadian humanitarian aid](https://www.international.gc.ca/country-pays/ethiopia-ethiopie/relations.aspx?lang=eng) and Canada has a program for peacebuilding in response to the Tigray conflict. Canada has [sanctions in place against trade with Myanmar](https://www.international.gc.ca/country-pays/myanmar/relations.aspx?lang=eng) and provides substantial humanitarian aid to the Rohingya. In short, Canada's relationship with these countries consists primarily of sanctioning their governments and providing humanitarian aid to victims of crises.

For Canadians, there is no need to protest our involvement with these countries because the government is already undertaking the actions that such protestors would desire. Movements like BDS (boycott, divest, sanction) essentially attempt to pressure the Canadian government to take the same position with regards to Israel as it does with these other countries.

Similarly, you should certainly expect massive protests if the Canadian government had cooperation agreements and encouraged trade with Russia amidst their invasion of Ukraine. These protests do not occur because the Canadian government is firmly supportive of Ukraine against Russia. Supporters of Ukraine thus have little disagreement with the government's position. 

The thesis is that if countries like Canada threaten sanctions on Israel as they did with South Africa during apartheid, the economic pressure would be such that Israel would have no choice but to reform its treatment of the occupied territories (as South Africa did).

Ok_Frosting4780

Lookup Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. There are 5 levels of needs. In ascending order of fulfillment, the bottom is physiological; food, water, basic things to sustain life. On top of that is safety and security. Above those are belongingness (family, friends, connection), esteem (prestige/personal accomplishment), and self actualization (becoming the best you can be). Being invested in a movement, like supporting a political party/candidate, or in any sort of pro-[insert topic] helps fulfill the higher needs. 

It is the esteem and belongingess people look to fulfill by being pro-Palestine or pro-Israel. It makes people feel good about themselves. The average member of western society has few things to worry about. Yeah financially we're not doing great, but not many are worried about starving or surviving in a warzone. People need something to focus their attention on, and currently it is politics and global issues like climate change, poverty, war, etc. 

By joining protests and being an "activist" they are part of something larger than themselves and can feel a sense of purpose/accomplishment, in that they are fighting for a good cause. It really applies to a lot of modern issues and why so many people are so invested in things that by and large don't directly impact them. I'm not saying these people don't genuinely believe in the cause, or are solely doing it to feel good, but ultimately that feeling is the reward they get for engaging in that behavior. Very few of them have any real investment in Palestine such as family/friends, but it gives them meaning. To them, they see a wrong in this world that they can help make right. They form connections with other like-minded people, and can feel self-satisfaction that they are a good person deserving of praise because they are stopping what they see is a great evil. 

Surveys show the people most likely to participate in protests are middle class. Poor people are too busy focused on providing for themselves and their families to worry about a place half the world away that has no impact on their day to day lives. They are busy fulfilling the bottom two Rich people already have the belongingness and esteem so they are focused on being the best versions of themselves.

EzPzLemon_Greezy

There’s been more bombs dropped than WW2, and palestine isnt a super large place. Everything is being decimated, its a dam genocide. 

PotentialSpend8532

I’m an American that supports the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party supports Israel. Israel is currently using that support to commit genocide in Gaza. In all the other tragedies, I can blame someone else like God or Mother Nature. Or I can blame Republicans like George W. Bush who dragged America into Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq was a massive quagmire and the U.S. outright lost to the Taliban. And holy crap what the U.S. did to Iran was in direct opposition to fundamental American values of freedom, equality, democracy, etc. I blame British imperialism and American McCarthyism, but good lord that’s a national embarrassment. The U.S. has created its enemies. 

Still all that stuff was well before my time. Americans either don’t know enough about that stuff or oppose it. Even Trump supporters think George W. Bush screwed up. The only remnant left of that stuff is anti-Islamic sentiment because of 9/11. Even then, I can laugh at the hypocrisy of the US’s friendship with Saudi Arabia and animosity towards Iran as if there’s any difference between Sunni and Shia fundamentalism. Basically, I can deflect responsibility for most of the horrible and stupid things in the world.

But in this case I can’t. Joe Biden, the politician who I volunteered at a phone bank to help elect, is directly responsible for women and children being slaughtered on a near daily basis. I don’t think he’s purposefully evil, but he completely dropped the ball. His strategy to bear hug Israel and keep them from doing horrific things was a complete and utter failure. Yet even now he’s unwilling to publicly rebuke Netanyahu. All of this is ridiculous because Israel has no capacity to commit genocide without the US president’s support. Given my age and circumstances, the Gaza genocide is my fault in a more direct sense than any other horrific tragedy in history. 

There’s a ton of other crap at play here, and it’s not my fault entirely. But it’s still my duty to do something about it. The simplest thing to do now is put political pressure on Kamala Harris to stop Israel’s genocide. I don’t think it’s that hard. Biden knows that Netanyahu is a psychopath. I’d honestly bet that most of Israel’s politicians think Netanyahu is a genocidal monster too. This isn’t a problem with Jews, Israel, Muslims, Palestine, Gaza, Iran, etc. It’s very specifically a problem created by far right wing voters and politicians in Israel. It didn’t start on October 7. It goes back to when Trump and Netanyahu moved Israel’s capital to Jerusalem and the settler colonialism that came with it.

The dumbest thing about this conflict is that the reasons it started in the first place are long over. The age of colonialism ended after WWII. Real communism died in 1989. Liberalism including democracy and capitalism has taken over the world because it works better than everything else. And in this system, there’s no real reason for Israel and Palestine to fight. The mistake was that America and the world moved away from liberalism after the Great Recession. Everyone turned back towards nationalism. But now the pendulum is swinging back towards liberalism again. There’s simply too much economic growth and money to be made for anyone to waste their time defending national borders. People do that in times of scarcity when it’s kill or be killed. But it’s spring again and wars over a stale piece of bread or a little bit of shelter in a cave seems stupid when there’s limitless food and space outside.

Trump and Biden both have a poverty mindset. So does Xi, Putin, Netanyahu, Sinwar, etc. But it just doesn’t resonate anymore. The post-Covid economy is improving too fast. I don’t want a closed door to keep enemies out. I want an open door so I can go outside to make friends, find business partners, find customers, find cool things to buy, find romantic partners, etc. FOMO is humanity’s biggest problem now. 

The Israel and Palestine conflict just seems outdated and dumb. Both of them got screwed a long time ago by a third party (racist European imperialists), and they’ve pointlessly kept the feud going for no good reason. There’s just not enough economic value there to justify the violence. The same thing applies to India and Pakistan, North Korea and South Korea, Taiwan and China, etc. They all got caught up in wars that are long over. The biggest beneficiary of all this violence was the British Royal Family and their living heirs/descendants feel terrible about it.

Ultimately, Israel-Palestine is a pointless conflict that makes no sense in the modern geopolitical era. The Gaza genocide is an atrocity caused because elderly politicians are still fighting the last generation’s war. I voted for one of the politicians most responsible for this screw up so I feel responsible for fixing it.

McKoijion

I don't know where you're from, but for many people in the West who care about Palestine, it's us seeing colonialism as a direct cause of our ancestors. 


This isn't 200-500 years ago, this was within our grandparents lifetime that European nations stole a bunch of land and said 'this no longer belongs to you'. That, combined with many younger Western people being more and more educated on the violent colonial history of their countries, touches a nerve.  


It is easier for people in the West to dismiss two groups of Africans fighting each other, even if that is a direct cause of their ancestors colonial behaviour, because it happened long ago. It's more difficult when it is such a recent thing.  


And to top it off, Western countries formed by colonialism usually back Israel, mostly for Realpolitik reasons which again, touches a nerve. 

thrillho145

The Palestinian cause, at its core, represents values that echo in all progressive causes - climate change, socioeconomic justice, healthcare, you name it. You state very well that there are so many issues facing the world, it'd be impossible to work on all of them, but it'd also be unconscionable to ignore them. 

I'll be honest - before October (like mid October, when it was apparent that Israel was intent to "defend" itself by slaughtering Gaza), my "big thing" was the climate, and it VERY much still is, just not as an activist focal point. I'm in a chemistry PhD program specifically so I can research green energy and promote science policy / civilian science / environmental activism. Sustainability is honestly a big part of my personality. But I wholeheartedly believe that the Palestinian struggle is a good thing to throw our weight behind as activists. 

Sense of urgency is a white supremacist trait, which is ironic because we urgently need to fix a lot of the shit in the world. But I use that same dilemma to justify prioritizing Gaza over the climate, just for the time being. We have a long way to go before the industrial world is sustainably run, but there were likely multiple toddlers killed or even amputated in the time it took me to write this comment. Progressives have understood Israel to be evil for a long time, but THIS moment in time is when they show their hand - they got attacked, and their response is nothing short of cartoonishly evil. The ICJ declared their occupation illegal, for the first time in 57 years. Multiple rich western countries have recognized Palestine as a state for the first time ever, thanks in no small part to the movement around the world. Many universities have either agreed to divestment or other (smaller but still tangible) wins. 

The struggle for an innocent people against colonialism has been seen many times in many settings, and Palestine is far from the only modern case, but it is \*very\* visible and protestors are actually making a difference. The public lens of the conflict is shifting, and the benefit to humanity from activists pooling our bandwidth is not to be ignored. The climate crisis, mental health epidemic, housing crisis, etc. are deeply important as well, and no one will tell you that more than people protesting for Palestine. 

If it weren't for consolidation of effort, the Palestinian cause would not have achieved as much as it has already around the world - you can treat this last part as the tl;dr.

No_Construction_4635

what is the view you actually want changed? all you've done is ask a question.  

i can answer the question, it's because "America bad". that's what starts it, and then people use that motivation to make up lies like the 'genocide' myth you yourself have fallen for, which then causes more people to care because "oh wow, there's a genocide, that's especially awful" and the cycle continues. but that's not really a view change, it's an answer to a question.

No-Cauliflower8890

Interesting post. I’ll give you my take on why so many people care so much. 

Israel is very similar to the United States and other western democracies. It has a parliamentary system with multiple political parties and competitive elections. Civil liberties, rule of law, due process are in place for its citizens. Woman and LGBTQIA enjoy pretty much the same rights that they have in Europe, Australia and North America. If an Israeli were to go to one of those places they would fit right in. 

And yet…it’s in the Middle East, surrounded by much less developed countries that do not culturally or politically resemble the West. 

So westerners often have one of two reactions to this:

1. They see Israel as a bastion of their own culture surrounded by hostile and violent forces. When incidents like October 7 or the suicide bombings of the 1990s or the Munich massacre of 1972 happen, they are sickened and outraged and imagine that these atrocities are being committed against their own people. As a result, their support for Israel is intense and steadfast. It matters to them deeply.

2. They see in Israel a kind of repeat of the horrific atrocities inflicted in earlier centuries against the indigenous peoples of North America or Australia or even in the past decades in South Africa. A wealthy capitalist country is imposing resettlement and apartheid on a much weaker people. The displaced nation is resisting violently but its population is being destroyed at a far higher rate than the Israelis who have them massively outgunned. It’s not fair. As a result, their opposition to Israel is intense and steadfast. It matters to them deeply.

BluePillUprising

This conflict simply perfectly fits the current cultural war... 


Most of people in the West can agree that Russia is abhorrent and Ukraine the good guys. Most of people can agree that there are e.g. no good guys in Yemen. But on Israel and Palestine, we have no such consensus.


This creates a juicy conflict in the society. Moreover, this conflict very well copies the trench lines of the current conflict between the left and right. You can use this war to support your narrative that the collective West is an exploitative bully. But you can also use it to show that enemy dictatorships like Iran are after us and we need to defend against them...


That is what the people actually care about. They want to stick it to their conservative neighbour or progressive niece. Israel and Palestine are mere proxies over which you can have a good fight and call each other very spicy names like "supporter of terrorism" or "supporter of genocide". 


Ultimately, if we didn't have Israel and Palestine, we would have to make them up. 

Downtown-Act-590

In my opinion, Westerners are much more involved with the Palestinian cause rather than the other hundreds of other conflicts because they see Israel as a white/colonizer state against a non-white state. 

Civil unrest that causes thousands of death in Sudan, Rwanda, Congo, Somalia…

China literally has internment camps for Uyghurs still, Venezuela threatened to take oil rich areas of Guyana by force earlier this year, Armenia &amp; Azerbaijan are threatening to increase their regional conflict…

Yet the only conflict talked about anymore is Israel-Palestine, sure Ukraine comes up, but it’s just people complaining about how much it costs us. 

And yet if you ask a random progressive on a college campus to tell you about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, they will tell you the whole plight of the Palestinian people, and if you ask them about the Uyghurs, or that Sudan has been in a bloody civil war for over a year, or that the Congo has 7.2 million displaced people right now, they will have no clue what you’re talking about. 

Yet despite China acting like Nazi Germany on millions of Uyghurs, nobody cares. Disney filmed the live action Mulan in the same province that had the Uyghur concentration camps.

A lot of people will say something like “our country does millions in trade with Israel, so we care when our trade partner is doing bad things” and I call absolute BS on that, because chances are your country also does BILLIONS in trade with China. 

This is why I think that people only care about Palestinians because they choose to see them as oppressed by white/western/colonizers, and that’s why they don’t care anywhere near as much about African civil wars or unrest or Saudi Arabia bombing innocent Yemens (chances are unless your country is oil rich, it also does more in trade with Saudi Arabia than it does with Israel).

Unlikely-Distance-41

&gt; But even on that front, I struggle to see how this particular situation is different than others - the United States and by proxy the rest of the Western world has been a principal actor in destabilizing most of the current ongoing global crises for the purpose of geopolitical gain.

Because the US has, indeed, done a lot of these things... But it has made special exceptions for Israel that it does not make for other countries. In everything except BDS, a government employee cannot be fired, censured, or even refused a job for advocating for a position publicly. At MOST, you can be required to do so in a manner that does not disclose your government status - So a soldier can advocate for something, as long as he doesn't wear a uniform. 

Congress does not censure people for saying that there are some politicians who are being influenced by a lobbying group... Unless that lobbying group is AIPAC. No other reading of Title 9 is not only permitted, but REQUIRED, to include criticism of a country, even from members of the ethnic group that country is dominated by, as racial intimidation. Can you imagine if college Chinese-American groups could be punished for comparing China's treatment of the Uighur people to Nazis? But that is what a law adopted by the house and senate requires. 

In any other country, if a foreign government claimed that a US-backed aide organization had supported terrorism because less than one tenth of one percent of its over ten thousand employees engaged in a terrorist act, we would, at BEST, demand evidence and launch a detailed investigation. However, in January of 2024, Israel claimed that 12 UNRWA employees participated in the October 7th attacks. Consequently, the US pulled all funding from UNRWA and passed a law forbidding funding in the future. 8 months after that accusation, neither the US government nor the public at large has been shown convincing evidence of the accusation. 

If, in any other country, there were credible accusations of use of sexual assault in interrogations, backed up by that country's own media, we would consider that torture, and our laws forbid us from funding nations engaging in torture. We do, of course, but we usually at least bother condemning it, and try to explain how we're not actually doing that. When Israeli soldiers are accused of engaging in sexual assault against prisoners purely for their own amusement, we do nothing. 

If any other country put so much effort into blocking aide that we had to build our own access points, we would, at minimum, acknowledge that aide was being blocked. The US government's official position is that Israel does not block government aide. 

The US strongly objects to the use of 2,000 pound bombs in civilian areas. The US government had great reservations about the US GOVERNMENT doing that. Meanwhile, we not only give Israel the bombs, we endorse their use, and government employees have been forced out of their jobs simply for pointing out that that isn't actually helpful. 

The US government typically requires that, if it is provided aide to a counter-insurgency, that the people being assisted use it in accordance with our Counter-Insurgency doctrines. Israel openly refuses to follow that, and our government will not even acknowledge they're not doing that. 

If any other government 'mistakenly' killed journalists and aide workers at the rate Israel does, the US would strongly condemn it and demand investigations. Except, actually, I can't say that, because Israel accidentally kills aide workers at a rate that is orders of magnitude higher than any other government. More aide workers have died in Israeli drone strikes, bombings, firefights, and similar in the last 20 years, than in every other area of the world combined.

For any other government, the US says that it will cut off aide if a certain action is taken, and a certain action is then taken, the US then cuts off aide. It may not cut off all aide. It may continue to assist the country in question. But it will at least take clear material actions, and even clearer diplomatic actions.

The reason I am so invested in this is not merely because it is an evil being done in my name as an American. It is. It's because of the degree to which our government - And many other world governments - Do not merely turn a blind eye or enable, but actively assist to a degree no other nation in the modern day gets away with.

HyenaDandy

There's been some good comments here on why Yemen supposedly doesn't get as much attention, so I'll talk Myanmar. 

This is probably veering into tinfoil conspiracy theory territory but I'm of the opinion that all mainstream media (even outside the West) is very carefully avoiding the Myanmar conflict, because they don't want to bring attention to the fact that Gen Z rebels with 3D printed guns have just overthrown a government.

Domeric_Bolton

The Israel-Palestine conflict, with the particular divisive issues it brings to the table, gives the individual a chance to find out who your friends and foes are. So people talk about it to find out who is in their in-group and who is in the out-group. IMO its not about the actual conflict, but ones stance on Israel-Palestine is an accurate predictor for many other issues.

With the way consensus building works in this social media driven world, silence is noted too. I'd expect my silence/indifference on the issue has put me in others out-group. In a similar fashion, those who protested to support Palestine, but were silent on Ukraine aid being held up in the House, are now in my out group.

Afraid-Reputation-11

I think that people tend to care the most about A) things that affect them directly and B) things that will make them look good on the internet. 

Like, when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict, I tend to see two camps of people. Theres camp A, who have family or friends or some other personal tie to one of the countries involved, or, if they don't have a personal tie, they seem to be activists who care deeply about this sort of thing in general. People who make donations or sponsor families or start fundraisers or spread awareness and education. 

But then there's Camp B, which I can only describe as "the tiktokification of activism" where they act like they care, but all they really do to "help" is harass influencers and boycott Starbucks and put a watermelon emoji in their display name. They want to "be on the right side of history" or whatever, but they don't care enough to actually do anything beneficial for the cause they claim to care so deeply about. 

Then I think there's also a sort of Camp C, where the general consensus is "yeah, it sucks whats going on over there. Wish it would stop. Not sure what I'm supposed to do about it though." And this is where I would place myself, if I'm honest. I don't have the extra money to be throwing around, I don't have a big enough following on any platform for spreading awareness to even matter, I don't have any ties to either country, and from what I understand, this conflict has been going on since before I was even born. Theres just kind of nothing I can do to help, except vote for a government that gives a shit. Theres a hell of a lot of people who know a hell of a lot more than I do, and I feel like it's okay to leave it to the experts.

TheWeenieBandit

There's a bunch of historical and geopolitical reasons why it's many people's hill to fight on.

- The worst but truest answer is simply that Israel-Palestine is an old debate, predating even the war on terror. Most of us grew up with it in the background. We're invested in ways that other regional conflicts don't approach.

- Thanks to outside investment, Israel is very westernised in some ways. It sits at the cool kids table, serves as an ally and agent for the US etc. in the Levant and middle east, and is probably one of the best example of war proxies in the past 40 years, after Afghanistan. Where our nations our keen to protect their investment, it polarizes and increases the profile of debate and discord on the subject.

- As you said, an issue of ongoing guilt. WWII is a huge part of national mythology for those countries involved, and the holocaust/shoah happening on our watch still feels unacceptable. Particularly true for European countries. As a Brit, the carving up of the remains of the Ottoman Empire and causing this whole mess often feels like one of the last great crimes of the British Empire (or at least the publicised crimes)

- Many western countries have sizeable Jewish and Muslim populations, a reasonable number of which have sympathies on one side or the other. Not all Jews are Zionist, and not all Muslims stand vocally for Palestine, but there's still sizable local support, activism and lobbying for the respective causes.

- Both Antisemitism and Islamophobia are rife, as are accusations of those things with limited evidence. People feeling personally under threat, bad faith actors, people getting defensive under accusation, all of these provide more fuel for the fire. 

- I suppose that speaking cynically, people were getting bored of the war on Ukraine and needed new outrage fuel. It also must have seemed a good way to turn liberals against Biden in the run-up to the US election. Everything else I mentioned just makes the issue stickier and more fraught. 

It's all makes thus a very personal seeming humanitarian crisis, and one people feel like they can be justified about and actually act upon.

Ultgran

If you think the war is genocide, then you're not as well informed as you think you are. Remember these key facts (feel free and try to disprove them):


1) The death toll is reported by Gaza's ministry of health, **controlled by Hamas** which is a belligerent in this war who gains direct benefits from inflating the death toll so they can look miserable and receive aid. Hamas is a known liar, but for some reason its numbers are seen by people as you as the word of God. Crazy to think that people who naturally would never believe Russia's death tolls in Ukraine, or China's death toll of the Xhingyan Uyghur slave camps, cannot bring themselves to understand the same here.


2) It's so untrustworthy that recently even the UN, which is extremely biased against Israel (https://unwatch.org/database/), recently had to halve the death toll for women and children it receives from Hamas. 


3) Israel never started this war. This war was forced on Israel from minute 1, when Hamas killed and raped over 1,200 people and kidnapped about 200 more.


4) In this war, Israel became the first country in the history of the world who provided humanitarian aid **to its enemies' civilians**. Think for a second if you can recall any other war where one side allowed trucks (or era's equivalent) of food to enter a besieged territory, or even a regular territory that is controlled by the enemy and doesn't have their own civilians in mass to feed. **Is that how a country performing genocide acts?**


3) Israel is seating on the negotiation table in a weekly basis. Every week the pattern is the same — Israel offers to end the war in return for getting all hostages back, and maintaining control in key locations such as the Rafah border in order to prevent smuggling, until Hamas is finally destroyed. Hamas disagrees. Why should a people supposedly ensuring a genocide refuse such offers? To remind you, Japan and Germany unconditionally surrendered in WW2 without enduring such thing. And why does a country performing genocide even offer a deal to end it? You could say Israel is doing it for show and not expecting Hamas to agree, but then Hamas could benefit by agreeing and forcing the deal on Israel. It doesn't do that because it doesn't want to end the war, it wants to win by ending it in their condition, no matter what happens to the Gazans, leading me to the next point:


4) Hamas is a terrorist organization that uses the Gazans as human shields. It is notorious for building bases in hospitals and schools, like in Gaza's biggest hospital, al-Shifa. In doing so **Hamas admitted in its actions that it think the IDF is a moral army**, because any regular army would just bomb the place down. Can you imagine your country refusing to bomb a strategical base because the enemy built it in a hospital? Seriously think. But Israel has not bombed any hospital in Gaza (remember the whole outrage about Israel supposedly bombing the al-Ahli hospital? And how it turned out to be a failed rocket directed to Israel?), and opted for the harder yet more humanitarian option of manual evacuation to field hospitals, keeping the patients safe but risking IDF soldiers, before destroying it from the ground.


5) Israel performs a procedure called "knock on roof", where before carrying out an air strike, it calls the civilians living in the building and tells them to evacuate, then throws a small bomb to make sure they are notified, then after waiting carries out the strike. **Which other army does that??** Can you imagine your country giving warning shots before striking?


6) Even if the aforementioned Hamas ministry of health records were true, they don't go along with your genocide claim. Out of 2,100,000 people, living in the most densely populated urban location in the world, "only" 40,000 are dead? If Israel wanted, it could carpet bomb the entire strip and kill 2,100,000 in the first day. It doesn't lack the capacity to do so. Why not then?


All of this sums up to this simple fact: if this is a genocide, it's the worst (as in most badly performed) genocide ever, triggered by an enemy's attack who doesn't surrender despite the helpless genocide, where the genocider regularly gives aid to the civilian population of the enemy and warns them before striking in surgical locations, avoiding carpet bombing and ending it in a day. Wow.


Obviously not all is cherry and cream, there are obviously some messed up crap Israel did in this war, but for the very most part I'd say they are not a decision of Israel but rather the decision of individual soldiers. Like those soldiers who sexually abused captured terrorists and received widespread opposition in Israel, who are currently being set on trial. But for the most part, none of this amounts to genocide, by any measure.


But this all actually relates to your original topic: why do people take this conflict so seriously whilst completely ignoring all other issues in the planet, many of them ten times worse (trying to summarize here, let me know if you meant something else)?


Because the world blows it out of proportions so much that it's impossible not to. Imagine you're some guy living in a random location. You don't know almost anything about Sudan, Yemen, Ukraine or Xhingyang. But you've heard that Israel is doing a genocide. Naturally, you would oppose the one performing genocide and neglect the others, because you implicitly believe that the information you receive is based in facts and is equal and measure and balance, and that if some other location in the world is in a worse status, you'd hear about it. It might be that I'm generalizing, but I've seen this pattern sooooo many times before when debating that I think this is the common mindset.


CMV.

AntaBatata

A large part of the reason why Israel-Palestine draws a level of attention that other conflicts in the Middle East and Africa do not: it is, at its core, a conflict between Muslims and Jews. A significant percentage of Muslims hate Jews, and the fact that there is a Jewish state in their midst is intolerable to them. 

Both Muslims and Jews have diaspora in many western countries, so the conflict spills over into these countries, as well. You have Pro Palestine demonstrations that - at least in Germany - regularly have strong antisemitic content, and are organized, or attended, by Muslim right wing extremists like the Grey Wolves. I have several progressive friends expressing their frustration that they'd love to attend a demonstration against the suffering of civilians in Palestine, but do not want to associate with the kind of people, and agendas, present there.

Israel is the only Jewish state in the world. The only one. But its very existence is apparently so offensive, that it's difficult to even acknowledge its right to exist. A lot of their neighbors still haven't recognized Israel as a state, including Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and a bunch of smaller ones. They're a minority, surrounded by a large majority that at best grudgingly tolerates their existence, and at worst wants to wipe them off the map.

It is valid to criticize Israel's actions in Gaza, yes. Criticism of the state and government of Israel is not antisemitism. But the very root of these 70+ years of conflict absolutely is, and it is wrong to ignore the fact.

HoldFastO2

Consider the Israeli perspective for another second.

It remains the only Jewish nation state after its inhabitants have been murdered and persecuted in Every single other state they have lived in throughout history.

Now consider that they are surrounded on all sides by Islamic fascists in the form of Hamas and Hezbollah. Numerous good faith cease fires have been broken by the "governors" of Gaza and the west bank, including the one during the actual attempted genocide by jihadists last October.

Consider the treatment of the Palestinians first by their own leaders: the Gaza population is essentially a human shield for hamas militants; that is indisputable.

Anything other than first expressing outrage at the continued existence of and behavior by these forces is a little bit cognitively dissonant I think.

Israel's perspective: this is absolutely enough, hamas needs to go.



Having said that, any israeli war crimes are also indisputable, and inexcusable. However the situation is more complicated than many would have you believe. Any casualty numbers come directly from Hamas, and are actually impossible to truly know. As far as the rest of the world can tell, if we call what israel has conducted a "genocide", then the US is also genocidal.
Israel gvmnt has done a huge amount to try and minimize civilian casualties(perhaps not enough). If it was truly a genocide, they wouldn't have done thaylt.

I support OPs notion that there are SO many other injustices that we basically ignore, and apply double standards to. Israel then starts to look like the "Jew among nations", held to standards impossible for them to meet.

marmiteandeggs

IMO it generally comes down to 2 factors.

* Muslims who view muslims as the in-group and view Israel/Jews as the out-group. Seeing Israel conquer Gaza is reminding them that the out-groups are the powerful ones in control, and that despite endless wars by Arab nations to conquer the out-group Israel, they keep losing and it fills them with rage. Imagine if a white supremacist got into a fight with a black guy and lost. Now imagine he called up 4 white supremacist friends, and the black guy beat all 5 of them up. Now imagine they tried that 2 more times and the white supremacists lost each time pretty badly. How would the white supremacists feel? Full of rage. Also they'd try to convince themselves the black guy had outside support and without it they would've won. They need to believe that to protect their egos. Admitting how badly they keep getting beaten is too much for their egos to bear. So they fall into rage and conspiracy theories.
* Far leftists in the west are motivated by a rejection of western in-groups (whites, judeochristians, people whose ancestry is tied to europe). They see Palestine as out-groups (Brown instead of white; Muslim instead of judeochristian; Arabic instead of European) and they see the Israel-Palestine conflict as the west stealing land in 1918 after the Ottoman empire lost in ww1, then they invited white european jews to come take over the country, then Israel conquered the land militarily in the 30s and 40s. In their eyes its a rejection of westernism, european colonialism, european imperialism, white supremacy and supporting people they see as the victims of it.

Having said that, I don't agree with either. I don't identify as a muslim or reject Israel. Also I'm not a far leftist. The issue is much more nuanced than the far left makes it out to be. Hamas is a fascist terrorist organization that wants to oppress women and gays, genocide the jews and create a brutal theocracy. They steal billions in humanitarian funds, they steal food aid, they misuse infrastructure and construction equipment to build military infrastructure. They intentionally put civilians in harms way, wanting as many civilians dead or injured as possible so they can use that for propaganda. And they have high levels of support from the Palestinians even though they do all of this. The Palestinians know all this and are fine with it.

Basically the narrative the far left tells is that the white, judeochristian west is the evildoer and Palestinians are just peaceful people who want to live free of oppression. The reality is Palestinians are radicalized and the warlike, terrorist, plutocratic Hamas was democratically elected, and would win reelection if the elections were held again. Hamas is a reflection of the values, beliefs and goals of the Palestinian people. Thats why they won the election in 2006, thats why they have broad support among Palestinians, thats why Palestinians supported the Oct 7th terror attack by large numbers, and thats why Hamas would win elections if they were held now.

The issue is nuanced. But basically muslims who feel muslims are the in-group and Israel/Jews are the out-group combined with leftists who are anti-western and see the Israel/Palestine issue as white, western judeochristians stealing from and oppressing brown skinned, arab muslims. 

Plus there is the issue of stability in the region. The west cares about maintaining stability and doesn't want a large scale war to break out. They also want to maintain their alliances with nations like Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, among others.

Five_Decades

It really depends on the demographic, but the US has a number of groups that feel strongly on the matter.

1. Obviously any folks who are Jewish or Palestinian tend to have strong opinions one way or the other on whether Israel and Palestine should exist as states, what is happening to their people, etc. This is the easy one. I, too, would be pissed if a center of my ethno-religious demographic was being attacked and/or was committing war crimes. (And yes, I have been pissed when America did bad shit.)
2. American Evangelical denominations are looking for ways to advance the apocalypse as supposedly predicted by the Book of Revelation in the Bible. This sounds like some tiny death cult thing, but no, I'm dead serious, it's a massive motivation for conservative Americans as a whole to care a lot about Israel's specific fate. One of the requirements for the end of days and the second coming of Christ, according to their theology, is that the Temple in Jerusalem must be rebuilt and there absolutely must be a country/homeland for the Jewish people. If Israel dissolves as a country, suddenly their most important modern prophecy can't happen. They are really terrified of that prospect. They also put a lot of emphasis on Israel being "God's chosen nation/people," so they will be furious at any group that dares object to anything they are doing (i.e. Palestinians).
3. There are an awful lot of people conflating objections to the Israel-Palestine war with straight up anti-Semitism, not helped by the fact that anti-Semites are also going to be mad at Israel for totally other reasons but easily hide behind "oh but the war!" So you get very twitchy people yelling about bigotry any time someone has a legit objection, and you have bad faith actors confirming it, and it's just an unholy mess. Gentiles are twitchy about anti-Semitism not just because it's bigotry, but it gets an outsized share of the outrage compared to other bigotry because the Holocaust is basically "the worst thing that ever happened" to modern folks. To some, this means that Israel can never be oppressors and are perpetually *only* the victim. (Whereas it is absolutely possible to be a victim and oppressor in different ways, especially at different points in history. See a lot of Christianity, really, who swung hard from "oppressed religion" to "fanatical oppressor" the second they got authority. You can have absolutely horrible things happen to your country and still that country can do terrible things itself.)
4. The Middle East is, in part, a big proxy war and always has been. It's a proxy war of religions (Islam vs Christianity and Judaism) as well as a proxy war of political powers (US vs Russia for a lot of the past, but also US vs other Middle-Eastern nations, or Europe vs same...). So everyone is already entrenched because they're using it to one-up the other group. You'd be shocked how much randoms on the street care that their country is cooler than Russia or whatever.

thecatandthependulum

Israel is the only Democratic country in the Middle East and the only nation to ever exist that has a Jewish majority. The U.S. traditionally supports democracy because that is seen as the key to peace and individual liberty within any nation.

Think of the U.S. as Israel's little brother. You can criticize and even punish your little brother but, you will always protect him as well from outsiders as well.

The U.S. funds a large portion of Israeli defense, we share intelligence with them, we expect them to share with us much of the time. We have many allies but few friends in international relations. Israel is a FRIEND. We train many of their Air Force pilots and share our most sophisticated weapons systems with them so we the U.S. do not have be involved directly in their defense.

Many of the military and political leaders are educated at U.S. elite universities and military academies. The attitude that has yet to be sufficiently refuted is this spoken decades ago by Prime Minister Golda Meir 

"If the enemies of Israel put down their weapons tomorrow, there would be peace. If Israel were to put down their weapons tomorrow - Israel would be off the map in a week."

Greaser_Dude

That “However” gave me whiplash. 

Yes they are committing war crimes, but other countries are too, and we are not talking about it! Can’t you all see the hypocrisy is the real crime here?? /s

ProfessorJim

Amid growing international concern, countries including the UK, France, and Canada have strongly condemned Israel's latest military operations in Gaza, characterizing them as disproportionate and causing intolerable human suffering.

International Backlash Against Israeli Military Operations in Gaza

Why This Matters

Public Sentiment Summary

Highlighted Comments

Parties Involved

What the people want