Let's be more specific. I condemn shooting civilians at a music festival AND I condemn Israel bombing children. One of these does not justify the other.
Most of the casualties that day were military. Of the civilians casualties, a sizeable portion if not majority were killed by the IDF. As the electronic intifada pointed out, the IDF spent the course of a day bombing people with Apache helicopters, and accounts from Israeli hostages and security personnel confirm the shelling and bombing of houses that had civilians in them. This has been confirmed by Mondoweiss.
There is growing evidence that indicates that Hamas along with the other fighters in the coalition were indeed acting defensively.
I actually disagree, they are IMO; many of them I'm sure were lured under the free land stuff and so on.
But ultimately you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs; and the way the Palestinian fighters managed to capture civilian hostages and infiltrate various kibbutz in occupied territory to do it will definitely make settling here a much less attractive prospect for future civilians.
And ultimately of course the zionist government kills far far more civilians and captures far more hostages as well. And they're the ones with the insane equipment and budget (offering them a much wider range of options), not the Palestinians.
Is it the first time you've encountered an analogy ?
What do you want the Palestinians to do exactly ? let themselves be killed slowly over decades because if they actually resist they might produce some civilian victims / collateral damage ?
What do you think is happening here? You're in the communist instance; your accepted worldview isn't universal.
I don't accept that it's been proven that Hamas fighters wholly slaughtered civilians at the music festival.
I'm sure there were some civilian casualties, but the IDF has pretty conclusively proved that they don't mind shooting through their own citizens to hit militants.
Your acceptance of the zionist-propagated view of the 10/7 operation shows that your initial condemnation of both sides is only surface level.
You've chosen a side, and it's the side of occupation.
In my opinion it's not a good idea to play the liberals' game of supporting only the good rebels (the ones that Western media tells Westerners to like) because it is disingenuous and idealistic from the get go. Liberals picking sides like sports team while sitting in their colonial ivory tower hinges on a complete disregard for history and colonial realities. It would be super cool if the largest armed organization in Palestine was leftist and secular but Hamas is the preponderant organisation for a reason. Israel has specifically worked to make Islamic fundamentalists the face of Palestinian resistance because they are easier to deligitimise. This is in line with the wider history of colonial powers robbing sovreignty from the Arab world.
Also, if you look at history, those who liberals considers "good rebels" were usually either reactionaries that rebelled against the liberation, got killed off or at best turned their country from colonial to neocolonial. Ever relevant example is Vendee, which was rebellion explicitly aimed against liberals, but they praise it anyway since it was reactionary even when the bar was much higher.
I absolutely agree! I was trying to coyly bring it around to supporting Hamas (like, if I support the "good rebels" and they directly support Hamas, then I do too, at least for now).
I was thinking that could cut off the usual talking points, but I could probably work on it.
I think you just need to elaborate that if they have critical support for Hamas that you do too, or something like that to explain where youโre going with it
Critical supporters. Hamas has its dark sides although I would reckon that the impression you get off them from western media is biased and nothing they have done compares to the atrocities committed by zionists. In a better world secular communists like the PFLP would be leading the resistance but we don't live in a better world and right now they are the ones doing most of the actual resistance.
Palestinians have a right to defend themselves and resist and ultimately they are the best judges of how to do it. I am certainly not going to sit and lecture Palestinians on how to resist here from the comfort of the imperial core.