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There’s a cognitive shortcut we humans all seem to fall into using — culture? human nature? — that runs something like this:
- There are good guys and bad guys; this is characteristic of a person, not an action.
- Nations are people, and as such are possessed of a single mind, personality, and moral status.
Both of these shortcuts are false, but we lean on them.
1/
These shortcuts serve us especially poorly right now wrt Israel and Palestine. In particular, they obscure the straightforward truth:
Antisemitism is on the rise. It has horrific historical precedent. Everyone deserves protection from such horrors. Hamas committed such horrors in October. The Likud government is currently committing such horrors, at massive scale.
No contradiction there. But if you think nations are people and people are either good guys or bad guys, it’s incomprehensible.
2/
These shortcuts also obscure a subtler point I keep making:
We should view Likud and Hamas as •allies• inasmuch as these are both groups united by a genocidal goal, and both need every path to peace off the table in pursuit of that goal. Both parties need atrocities to justify atrocities. Atrocities by either group thus work in favor of the interests of both.
Keep that in mind. Nations aren’t people. Factions and coalitions can cross national boundaries.
/end
@inthehands i have coworker/friend who is from syria, and i think i managed to get that point accross to her, especially how useful hamas was to the likud and anyone who doesn't want peace (unless it's from total domination/destruction of the other), but it's certainly not easy for one to overcome the prejudice against the other side and accept that the ostensible enemy of your enemy is not your friend.
@tshirtman I mean, this isn’t just some abstract observation; Netanyahu propped up Hamas with Qatari cash as a deliberate strategy:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
@inthehands yeah, i know about that, she didn't, i did send her similar resources.
The idea that israel helped hamas become what it is, if not create it, definitely had an effect.
The idea that "hamas = freedom fighters, fatah = the worst corrupted entity possible" was deeply entrenched before that.
@tshirtman Thanks for doing that work. Every bit counts.