NonCredibleDefense

Two sides going 'I'm gonna wipe you off the map!' 'No I'm gonna wipe you off the map!' is not comparable to one side going 'get back on your side the line' while the other goes 'half your country is our side, actually all your country, also we're not here, also it's a special police double-secret operation, also nice kids you got there.'

I'm sure we would be saying the exact same about the Ukraine war if Ukrainians were treating the Russians the same way Hamas was treating Israelians.

But they aren't, so it is a moot point.

You are comparing apples to oranges.

When the response to that aggression is also genocide fantasies, sometimes a conflict has no good guys.

This is why I mostly stay out of that conversation. I don't know enough about the history or politics or general demographics of the region to have an informed and nuanced perspective. I just know it's not good

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has taken on symbolic importance to many people. In one sense whatever is going on there is not really important for most of the world. It's some kind of internal conflict/civil war with essentially neighbors beating each other up. But it doesn't really affect anyone else significantly. And yet everyone has a take on who is right and who is wrong and the thinking is very black and white and absolutist, even if you really don't know what's going on or the history behind it or the stakes.

Contrast this with other similar conflicts that most people have no opinion on. Like Ethiopia-Tigray or the ongoing civil war in Myanmar. Most people probably haven't even heard of this stuff and have no clue as to who is fighting who. Hell, how many people had the barest inkling of who Hamas was a week ago. And now they feel they can take some absolute morally superior position on the issue.

It's because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become symbolic of who you are. The other conflicts I mentioned have no symbolic meaning or importance to people outside those regions. The Ukraine war is another highly symbolic conflict and that's why it's often mentioned in the same breath, but the myriad of other ethnic conflicts going on throughout the world are ignored.

The power of symbolic positions is that they strongly ensure group cohesion. You wear these symbols on your chest like a medal or a placard. They superficially resemble personal opinions, but actually they're badges of membership. Most people don't actually think hard about these issues or try to understand deeply what's going on. Instead they are told what to believe and what to say by people that they trust and identify with. Once it's clear what the "correct" position is, people will wear it with pride.

Deeply thinking about a complex issue is extremely resource intensive and most people just don't care that much. We also want to clearly delineate things into categories of good/bad. It's a natural heuristic that feels good. Once you know a thing is "good" you cheer it on. If a thing is "bad" you loudly denounce it with your peers. If a big thing happens, but you don't know if it's good or bad then you feel uncomfortable mental dissonance. Big things can't just be left in a state of psychological limbo. You need to decide if it's good or bad. And so we do, collectively.

nah this is expected. non-specialist won’t find IR/geopolitics/defense shitsposts funny, or even understand them in more obscure cases