Out of the loop

Okay there are more than 2 sides.

Personally I am on the side of civilians whether they are Israeli or Palestinian or Druze or Bedouin. I am also on the side of the doctors, nurses, and humanitarian aid workers. These are who I consider the Good Guys. "Look for the helpers." - Mr Rodgers.

But to cover your question, there's two separate issues here:

• the claims of the belligerents

• feelings about what is happening now in the Israel Gaza war

The past claims of the belligerents

I'm not going to go into this, but but it goes back to history and it's where the side-taking on the sides of the belligerents mostly comes from, because different people have different interpretations. Legally speaking Palestine is occupied by Israel (West Bank) and blockaded by Israel (Gaza). No one can get in or out, it's effectively controlled by Israel.

What is happening now

What is happening now is a "war" between the IDF and Hamas. People like me, who are rooting for civilians are upset about:

• proportionality (so far about 33,000 Palestinian deaths vs 1,400 Israeli deaths)

• mortality (currently over 1.5% of the population of Gaza have been killed)

• civilian mortality - high numbers of children being killed (according to aid agencies, one is killed or injured every 10 minutes)

• high numbers of humanitarian workers and medical staff being killed

• inappropriate weapon choices (hundreds of 2,000lb bombs are being dropped, for reference the US used just one in its war against Isis.

• widespread infrastructure destruction, particularly of hospitals and other important buildings

• mounting evidence of starvation in the civilian population due to blockade of aid

Personally I am against anyone treating a civilian population like this for any reason, and I believe it amounts to war crimes. I was against the killing of civilians in Myanmar, Rwanda, East Timor, and I am against it now.

Side note: The median age in Gaza is 18, meaning literally half the people in it are still children.

Edit: I haven't given any sources cos lazy. I am happy to give them to OP or anyone in good faith (there are probably a bunch on the post history of my main which is [email protected]). However, I do not speak sealionese.

There's sort of 3 sides to the issue.

• A pro Israel side, which includes people that believe all of Palestinian land should also be only theirs as well as people that maybe don't care about the land but care that Hamas is defeated and/or the Israeli hostages are saved
• Pro Hamas side: people that believe that Israel should be destroyed and Israelis killed, partly because of the damage that they have done to Palestinians
• Pro Palestinian side: Don't want innocent Palestinians being bombed, starved or shot by Israel. Some also want a 2 state solutions implemented.

I don't hear any real Pro Hamas people (since Hamas is very must a terrorist group), other than circumstantial ("Hamas is literally the only option Palestinians have aside the other side that is literally killing them"). Hamas basically wants to destroy Israel, which is what led to the October 7th attacks in which about 1,000 Israelis were killed. They felt that peace with Israel was not helping their goals, as Israel bombing Palestinians would help recruit more Hamas soldier with which to use to help destroy Israel.

The UN and many countries feel that despite Israel having the right to defend its citizens and attempt to infiltrate and destroy terrorists(Hamas), Israel is executing this plan in such a way that is unnecessarily killing thousands of innocent Palestinians(both through weapons but also starvation), about half of which are children.

A lot of the misinformation in regards to this topic are: "If you don't support Israel you're antisemitic", "You're either supporting Israel or you're supporting Hamas", "Palestinians overwhelming support Hamas", "Israelis completely support what their government is doing"

I'm too lazy to source the above so obviously assume I'm lying/wrong (same with anybody else not posting any sources). You should read actual articles from reliable new sources, but hopefully the above gives you some information to understand what those articles are talking about.

Most people aren't talking about the political parties but the civilians caught up in the middle.

Israel's government and Hamas are both fucking awful.

Very few people actually support the genocide of Palestinians or the people of Israel.

But genocide is happening to one.

Just want to throw in. You said both states. Israel is a state. Palastinians do not have a state, they are under occupation and governance of the Israel state. It's similar to South African apartheid. This isn't two countries fighting. This is a colony that has subjugated the local population and are dealing with rebellions. Palastinians have no freedom of travel within Palestine (the geographic name of the area).

This whole thing is a major political problem that has been brewing pretty much since World War II. I'm by far not an expert so I might get some details wrong but I'll try.

During the war, millions of Jews fled from the Nazis and the Allies were wondering what to do with all those refugees. One option was British-occupied Palestine. The reasoning was that it geographically coincided with ancient Isreael, the Jewish homeland. The problem is that it had been inhabited by Muslims for over 1300 years so obviously the Arab population wasn't too happy about giving up the region their families had lived in for generations just because some western colonial power had decided to give it to some refugees.

The plan was to split Palestine into two states - Palestine and Israel - with Jerusalem as a neutral zone under control of the United Nations. Because of the unstable situation - including terrorist attacks against the British administration - this was never fully implemented. The state of Isreael was officially founded in 1948 but there ~~was never any formal agreement on who controls which parts of the region. The Arabs got driven from their homes and only kept the West Bank and the Gaza Strip but were obviously never happy about that.~~ (Edit: please see correction by @[email protected] below. The situation is even more complicated) While the general population would probably be okay with just being left in peace, there are radical groups like Hamas who want to take back what was taken from them by the British and Israel.

On the other hand, nobody who lives in Israel today was involved 80 years ago when the British decided on their plan. These people were born in Israel and have lived there all their lives. So in a way, both sides just want to keep their homes. There have been several proposals for how we could solve this, including an official two states solution that would regulate the borders (obviously not favored by Palestine), a single state solution (forcing two groups who have been fighting each other for 80 years could be tricky) and reverting everything the British decided and kicking out the Jewish population (obviously not favored by Israel). There just is no good solution and so the situation in the area is heating up more and more. From their own perspectives, both sides have good reasons for what they're doing though the way they're doing it is obviously not acceptable.

(Edit: corrected 1400 to 1300. Math is hard)

I am by no means highly informed, but so far, I didn't see a few things I think should be mentioned.

Both Israel's government and Hamas are definitely bad guys who found stirring hate towards each other a convenient way of staying in power. After all, If you have the stongest rhetoric towards someone who wants to kill people of your country, of course those people will vote for you and you can get away with things you otherwise couldn't.

There's also another side which I haven't seen explicitly mentioned and should be considered: surrounding islamic countries (who are surely not a homogeneous group). They are in a good position to help palestinian civilians, but don't do very much for various reasons I know relatively little about.

Israel responded with batshit overwhelming force to a terrorist attack by a contingent of Palestinian nationals and has comitted numerous war crimes against innocent civilians in the process.

Check out this video of Michael Brooks succinctly explaining Israel/Palestine even before Oct 7.

I can spot a bad faith question when I see one, and your comments confirm it.

Because everything is sports teams also virtue signalling

Just in brief, ignoring some history and so on, Gaza has been under Israeli occupation for a while now, controlling essentially everything that goes in and out, including people. Hamas gained power there, and legit, the Israeli government has given resources to Hamas to keep them going, supposedly as an excuse to keep their thumb on the Palestinian population.

A lot of people supported the creation of a Jewish state coming out of WWII and the holocaust, but currently, and especially because of just how hard the Israeli military is going now, it's becoming impossible to not see how much the Israeli government just wants to take control of all the land and wipe out the Palestinian people.

Of course, there's more going on, and some people might disagree with my simplification, but I think this is as good of a simple explanation of at least my understanding trying to follow what's been going on in the region since the early aughts.

Shaun's video on Palestine is the most rational take that I've heard so far.