“both sides just need to stop fucking hurting each other”
Just apply that one to the other invasion we’ve been talking about of late, that of Russia in Ukraine, and see how well that “both sides” “argument” sounds to you.
If one puts on hold any feelings that lead to one favoring one side over the other (say, because one side is culturally quite close and familiar whilst the other is filled with people who will shout “god is great” whenever shit happens), it’s pretty clear that you can’t apply a “both sides” demand to a situation were one side is the invading one and has overwhelming force, whilst the other side is a far weaker resistance movement living in a tiny slice under siege of a much vaster occupied land.
Your point would make absolute sense if the Palestinians had all of their land (or at least to the Oslo Agreement borders) and still kept sending rockets to and attacking Israel, but that’s not at all the situation that we have now.
In Ukraine, the Western powers actually helped the weaker side with weaponry, whilst in Palestine they helped the stronger side.
More than half a century has passed in Palestine since the invasion started. The situation in Palestine now is like if all Ukraine had been conquered with 80% of the Ukranian population living abroad and 2 small Ukranian enclaves were left surrounded by occupied Ukraine - one in Kyiv and one in Odessa - containing the remaining 20% of the Ukranian population in 1/100th of the territory previously occupied by the entire population.
Last but not least, as maybe the most shocking, is that the Russians are nowhere as racist towards the Ukranians as the Israelis are towards the Palestinians: Russia actually wants the Ukranians to stay in the occupied territories as long as they become Russians and obbey the Russian Government (to the point of activelly trying to force them to become Russians), whilst the Israelis want the Palestinians to either leave or die and are activelly against them becoming Israelian Citiziens. Israeli racism is so widespread, entrenched and endorsed at the highest level that the nation of Israel split their citizenship into Israeli Arab Citizenship and Israeli Jewish Citizienship and gave fewer rights to the former than to the latter: Israeli Law makes the fewer Palestinians who got Israeli Nationality (back when it was still possible) second class citizens, whilst Russian Law does no such thing for Ukranians in Russian occupied territories in Ukraine who become Russian Nationals.
Two sides going ‘I’m gonna wipe you off the map!’ ‘No I’m gonna wipe you off the map!’ is not comparable to one side going ‘get back on your side the line’ while the other goes ‘half your country is our side, actually all your country, also we’re not here, also it’s a special police double-secret operation, also nice kids you got there.’
“both sides just need to stop fucking hurting each other”
Just apply that one to the other invasion we’ve been talking about of late, that of Russia in Ukraine, and see how well that “both sides” “argument” sounds to you.
If one puts on hold any feelings that lead to one favoring one side over the other (say, because one side is culturally quite close and familiar whilst the other is filled with people who will shout “god is great” whenever shit happens), it’s pretty clear that you can’t apply a “both sides” demand to a situation were one side is the invading one and has overwhelming force, whilst the other side is a far weaker resistance movement living in a tiny slice under siege of a much vaster occupied land.
Your point would make absolute sense if the Palestinians had all of their land (or at least to the Oslo Agreement borders) and still kept sending rockets to and attacking Israel, but that’s not at all the situation that we have now.
I’m sure we would be saying the exact same about the Ukraine war if Ukrainians were treating the Russians the same way Hamas was treating Israelians.
But they aren’t, so it is a moot point.
You are comparing apples to oranges.
There are 3 big differences in their situation:
Two sides going ‘I’m gonna wipe you off the map!’ ‘No I’m gonna wipe you off the map!’ is not comparable to one side going ‘get back on your side the line’ while the other goes ‘half your country is our side, actually all your country, also we’re not here, also it’s a special police double-secret operation, also nice kids you got there.’