Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, in his strongest comments yet on the Gaza conflict, said on Wednesday the Palestinian militant group Hamas was not a terrorist organisation but a liberation group fighting to protect Palestinian lands and people.

ANKARA, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, in his strongest comments yet on the Gaza conflict, said on Wednesday the Palestinian militant group Hamas was not a terrorist organisation but a liberation group fighting to protect Palestinian lands and people.

  • @Candelestine@lemmy.worldEnglish
    29•1 year ago

    Being a good person is not defined by what you fight for, that’s just your justification, your rationalization, your excuse.

    It’s defined by your actions, how you fight. To go straight to the most extreme example for clarity’s sake, Nazis are not hated for why they fought, almost everyone was racist back then, we just didn’t know any better. It was a scientifically unanswered question back then.

    They’re hated for what they did to unarmed and peaceful people. Mass butchery. If anyone can think that some civilian who has never picked up a weapon somehow deserves death, there is something wrong with their head.

    While I strongly disagree with comparisons between the Nazis and HAMAS, they do have one thing in common–butchering the unarmed and unresisting. They didn’t have to do that, they could have just fought the soldiers and police. The armed people. The warriors.

    • @Cleverdawny@lemm.eeEnglish
      8•1 year ago

      And, here’s the thing - before the war they started, Gaza wasn’t under occupation. No settlements, no occupation. And the only reason there was a blockade is to try to prevent Hamas from getting what they need to launch rockets.

      The West Bank is a different situation. But the dynamic in Gaza is clear - Hamas is the primary reason behind the plight of the citizens of Gaza. They will never build towards the future in peace, and them attacking Israeli soldiers isn’t fighting an occupier to free people but rather trying to kill the defenders to enable a genocide.

      • @Candelestine@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5•1 year ago

        I would argue that the war did not “begin” with HAMAS. Instead, the war between Jews and Palestinians in the Middle East has been going for around a century now, never stopping, only pausing sometimes, and frequently changing shape and scope. Much like the Korean War though, it’s just one long war, still technically ongoing, but all parts of the same single war.

        The actual responsibility for it probably belongs to the British more than anyone else, who had governance of the territory when it all began. But, while the British have a long and challenging history, there’s just no solutions to be found in putting the blame where it actually belongs–with men long dead of old age.

        • @Cleverdawny@lemm.eeEnglish
          1•1 year ago

          It definitely began in 2023. Sure, there have been other wars in the history of conflicts between Jews and Arabs, but they’re all individual wars.

          I, personally, blame both the Jews and Arabs, but mostly the Arabs. It took until 1973 for them to give up on the idea of ethnically cleansing the area. Jewish Zionist nationalism is at least mostly respectful of the civil rights of their Arab minority.

    • @TokenBoomer@lemmy.worldEnglish
      -6•1 year ago

      Same could be said of the IDF.

      They’re hated for what they did to unarmed and peaceful people. Mass butchery. If anyone can think that some civilian who has never picked up a weapon somehow deserves death, there is something wrong with their head.

      So maybe reflect.

      • @Candelestine@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7•1 year ago

        Proper reflection of all the facts should reveal that a great deal of wrongdoing has been done by both Israelis and Palestinians over the past century. Not sure how someone could miss that without very biased news consumption.

        Regardless, if you begin to use the same tactics as your enemy, you become as bad as your enemy. Not better, not worse, just … as bad. You have to take different kinds of actions from your enemy if you wish to be a different kind of person than them.

              • @Candelestine@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2•1 year ago

                It would have been very difficult to propose if I wasn’t aware of it. Considering I’m consistently critical of both of the sides, including my own, I think I’m proving it pretty well too.

                It’s a good sign when you can criticize your own side. My side being currently pro-Israeli, as I imagine you’ve gathered. I can be pro-Israeli for this one incident, and then switch to being anti-Israeli again after HAMAS is dealt with. And unless Israel gets real peaceful real quick and frees Palestine, I will become anti-Israeli again.

                But, I’m just slightly more anti-HAMAS first.

                I actually support Macron’s proposal for a coalition against HAMAS, as I think a large international coalition force going in instead of the IDF would be far, far more likely to result in a lot more survival, and maybe even eventual freedom and peace for the Palestinians. The IDF is just too aggressive, too indiscriminate, and too willing to take the land. A coalition force going in instead would deprive the Israelis of a lot of their leverage though.

                It’s complicated. You know? No easy answers that let you also stay a decent person. Which means a difficult answer is necessary, unless we want to compromise on our values. So maybe since we in the rest of the world helped cause this problem through our complicated histories and general unwillingness to really get deeply involved to help, we should also be willing to bleed to fix it. Together.

                My current thinking, anyway.