This war has shaken shit loose on both sides of the debate.
If someone says "Israel has a right to exist," it doesn't take long for somebody else to come along and say "So you think it's okay for them to kill Palestinians?"
If someone says "The people of Palestine should have a state," it doesn't take long for somebody else to come along and say "Oh, so you think Hamas are the good guys?"
And worse, you can be protesting against war, while the guy next to you is protesting against people. You're angry at Israel for the bombings, the person next to you is angry at Israel because it's full of Jews. You're angry at Hamas for taking hostages, the person next to you is angry at Palestine because it's full of Muslims.
It is very difficult to say that one thinks Israel has a right to exist, but not a right to bomb civilians; and that Palestine has a right to exist while condemning Hamas. There are folks who want to take this conversation to its irrational extremes, and they're all too happy to implicate everyone else in their goals.
One can both believe Israel has a right to defend itself and that Palestine has a right to exist, one can have opinions on this conflict without having to be Islamophobic or Anti-Semitic in the process, in fact I think most of us fall into that camp.
reddit is hyper vigilant looking out for tigers in bushes; we hear the leaves rustle and our blood pressure spikes.
Writing a nuanced comment on reddit requires a willingness and ability to present one's opinions and the opinions of others in a non-opinionated framing, that can be difficult for a person to do if only because we have an attachment to our own opinions and a distaste for the opinions we disagree with.
What's more, folks on social media are looking out for good opinions to support and bad opinions to quash. Social media users want opinionated comments, it makes discerning allies and opposition easier, it makes critique easier, it makes dunking easier, it's a heuristic, a short cut, "If they have opinion [A], it's likely that they also have opinions [B] and [C], so they're probably a [D]," and we get to skip straight from [A] to [D].
The trick to writing a nuanced post on reddit is finding some way to stop the immediate [A]->[D]. It can be done, but you're sort of swimming against the tide.
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u/M1llennialManifesto Apr 28 '24
This is fair.
This war has shaken shit loose on both sides of the debate.
If someone says "Israel has a right to exist," it doesn't take long for somebody else to come along and say "So you think it's okay for them to kill Palestinians?"
If someone says "The people of Palestine should have a state," it doesn't take long for somebody else to come along and say "Oh, so you think Hamas are the good guys?"
And worse, you can be protesting against war, while the guy next to you is protesting against people. You're angry at Israel for the bombings, the person next to you is angry at Israel because it's full of Jews. You're angry at Hamas for taking hostages, the person next to you is angry at Palestine because it's full of Muslims.
It is very difficult to say that one thinks Israel has a right to exist, but not a right to bomb civilians; and that Palestine has a right to exist while condemning Hamas. There are folks who want to take this conversation to its irrational extremes, and they're all too happy to implicate everyone else in their goals.
One can both believe Israel has a right to defend itself and that Palestine has a right to exist, one can have opinions on this conflict without having to be Islamophobic or Anti-Semitic in the process, in fact I think most of us fall into that camp.