My heart is broken for Israelis and Palestinians

The violent attacks from Hamas killing innocent Israelis guarantee innocent Palestinians to be killed in response. The violent attacks from the state of Israel in response, killing innocent Palestinians guarantee future innocent Israelis to be killed in response. The violent attacks from..............

The bloodstained floor of a home following the brutal Hamas attacks. // photo by Kobi Gideon

It is still tough for me to comprehend the atrocities Hamas committed in Israel over a week ago now. It is impossible for me to understand how any group of people can be so deranged to think that, no matter how wronged one has been, outright slaughtering over a thousand innocent people who did nothing to you, children among them, is an appropriate course of action.

I'm no expert on the Israel-Palestine conflict by any measure, though I do know it's a very complex issue with plenty of fault to go around, but just about every person killed had nothing to do with the issues that the state of Israel did to Palestinians. The only way you can arrive at this is you think "The people are the government", which this incident just further illustrates how moronic and harmful that line of thought is.

The very second thought I had after I read about this, following mourning the loss of fellow human beings in Israel, was that I would soon be mourning the death of thousands of innocent Palestinians over a retaliatory attack which the US would undoubtedly provide aid for, as it has for decades. Israeli forces have been concentrating on the border to Gaza, prepared for an invasion, but as far as I know, it's uncertain how this would unfold. They have already bombed Gaza in response. Power plants had run out of fuel and a hospital was reported to have fuel for just a few days, and unless I missed a report that fuel trucks were allowed through the blockade (I find this doubtful), the hospital by now has surely gone dark. By now, more Palestinian civilians have been killed in the bombing response than Israeli citizens in the original Hamas attack.

A Palestinian man sitting among full body bags following the brutal Israeli counteroffensive. If you look upon either of the photos here and find yourself feeling joy, you are a psychopath. // photo by Wafa

The hot takes have been horrendously bad, probably with the Democratic Socialists of America at the top of the pile as well as random university charters like the NYU Law School Student Bar Association Newsletter that insinuates that the brutal attack was somehow "Palestinian resistance" and organizations like BLM Chicago, cheering on the attacks (or maybe just a braindead graphic artist thinking "I stand with Palestine" showing a Hamas paraglider, who was murdering innocent people, was a good idea). On the other side, there is this weird notion (yes, that article does, ironically, criticize the DSA for being idiotic) that just one side wants to wipe the other off the map and the other side just wants peace. This conflict is as old as Israel itself, with acts of violence from both sides and an economic blockade of Gaza creating torrid living conditions in an apartheid state. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, who was outspoken against the US foreign policy with respect to Ukraine-Russia, disappointingly did an about-face with Israel-Hamas, to which the Libertarian Party wrote a great reply urging the antiwar folks following RFK Jr. to join the party. While objectivists are often confused for libertarians, there are some similarities in some areas, but objectivist Yaron Brook completely embarrassed himself by advocating killing innocent Palestinians (scroll back to previous Brook clip for context where he says he doesn't care to figure out who is attacking, they need to attack back to "defend" themselves, which logically, makes the admission of killing Palestinians in "self-defense" an initiation of violence) and their children, dismissing that evil by essentially saying well, evil was done, so I'm good with taking that same evil and shooting it in the opposite direction. He seems to have zero self-reflection that his mindset is the exact same mindset of those he claims to hate so much.

The mentality of one side pure, other side evil, is reflective of the mindset of children who have watched too many superhero movies to the point where they think the world is black and white. People's brains seem to just shut down and stick their fingers in their ears when any kind of nuance is brought into the issue. Any factual point brought up to explain a complex history makes the binary mind explode and resort to ad hominem and strawman attacks, claiming the person must hate Israel, or be antisemitic, love misery and destruction, and somehow are able to twist their minds into thinking that the other person is the one who is inconsistently applying their ethical values. If by now you aren't able to tell that I weep for all innocent people, whether they are Israeli or Palestinian, and abhor all violence, you are one of those binary thinkers.

Reports of Iran aiding Hamas in planning the attack, while it wouldn't be the first time the two joined forces, just give me hesitation, since this is the kind of thing war propagandists will push to justify their bloodthirst. While it may ultimately end up being true, there is currently insufficient evidence to support it, but it doesn't stop people like Ron DeSantis from diving headfirst into the piranha pool. A national sanction against Iran would devastate many innocent families in Iran and a war with Iran would be utterly catastrophic. 

Things over there are going to get much worse before they get better. If we take the mindset of, say, Yaron Brook, the violence will never end until the human race ends. 

The best thing to do right now, that I can think of, is to donate to humanitarian response organizations like Doctors Without Borders. There don't currently appear to be any palatable political options on the table.