Former President Barack Obama said a way forward for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is only possible if people acknowledge the “complexity” of the situation.
“If there’s any chance of us being able to act constructively to do something, it will require an admission of complexity and maintaining what on the surface may seem contradictory ideas that what Hamas did was horrific, and there’s no justification for it. And … that the occupation and what’s happening to Palestinians is unbearable,” Obama said in an interview on the podcast “Pod Save America.”
The former president’s comments come as the Israeli military focuses its offensive against Hamas in Gaza City and northern parts of the enclave.
The calls to nuance and complexity is insulting, like people can’t see what’s right infront of them and form an opinion of their own. What complexity is there in bombing hospitals, ambulances, schools and refugee camps, while denying food, water, and medical supplies to millions
I think the nuance is understanding the evils of the Israeli state without blaming Jews or endorsing violence against Israeli civilians. You aren’t doing that here, but lots of people are doing this right now (the people “forming an opinion on their own” aren’t always forming great opinions). Anyone suggesting that nuance is unnecessary is begging you to only see their side of things. There are zero issues in the world that don’t require some degree of nuance; why you would think such a complex and long-standing conflict like this one is better without critical thinking is the real insult here.
Ignoring nuance is claiming only one side is right. It’s easy and borderline brainless to simply claim Israel is the only side wrong for bombing hospitals.
But this ignores that Hamas is committing war crimes by using civilian facilities as staging grounds to launch attacks on Israel. This ignores that Hamas’ charter calls for the destruction of Israel, and the only thing stopping them is lack of weapons. This ignores that Hamas, the democratically elected ruling party of Gaza, has continued to use resources to attack Israel instead of building infrastructure to actually function independently.
Ignoring nuance is to ignore history. Ignoring that the West created this whole situation, by both promising one region to two peoples then creating division where there was none to make colonial rule easier, and by also so brutally attempting to wipe out an entire people it created a hardline cultural belief that swift and severe military action is necessary to insure “never again,” (and two wars in '48 and '67 didn’t help either).
None of this is to say Israel is innocent of wrongdoing - they sure as shit aren’t and certainly seem happy to bomb 100 Palestinian civilians if it means they get 1 Hamas fighter. But rejecting nuance pushes a belief one side is right and one side is wrong, and that the only sides here are national ones. Both suck, both are morally wrong. The only “right side” is Palestinian and Israeli civilians being killed because the only “wrong side” - extremist Israeli and Palestinian leaders - are happy to kill as many civilians as possible for some acres of land.
But please, do tell me how my opinion is wrong and there’s no complexity here.
Honestly if the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto didn’t want to get wiped out like that, they shouldn’t have rebelled. Their hands weren’t clean.