One side that's literally bombing hospitals and media towers, storming into mosques and hospitals to throw tear gas at people, and invading people's home so they can either do a "search" where they leave the house in disarray, or wake up all the family members at 12am to photograph them using an app called BlueWolf (it basically puts the Palestinians into a database where IDF/Police can scrutinise them), and assassinate random people on the street, as well as the dozens of cameras and microphones on surveillance poles, watch towers, and illegally installed on some people's roofs for good measure. They also killed a journalist (Shireen Abu Akleh), and the Israeli propaganda machine instantly went into overdrive, trying to say that it was Hamas, but was quickly debunked. (he war criminals didn't get shit because it's Israel).

A whole army that's designed to intimidate and dehumanise another group, with the ideology that the Palestinians are sub-humans/terrorists, which is propagated by Israeli media, which Russia is now using that formula in their propaganda to report on the war in Ukraine, yeah that definitely sounds "complicated".

One of the factors in making your view on Ukraine different is that Russia doesn't have a lobbying system like Israel does. Israel has a huge lobbying system (mostly in the USA but there's also ones in Canada) where they basically spew out Israeli propaganda and control the media to influence public opinion to have a positive view on Israel. They even have war rooms where Mossad bots on fake accounts endlessly spew Israeli talking points, much like the Kremlin bots. Russia wishes they could have a lobbying system like that.

To see the propaganda for yourself, just compare when Israel gets striked by Hamas rockets and the media (especially Israeli media) is blaring the red alarm, to Russian media reporting on Ukrainian drone strikes in Russia. You'll find out that they basically use the same format. Over-exaggerate the bad guys, call everyone who's in that country a catch-all term, and have the country who's attacked seem like they have done absolutely nothing wrong to deserve this, they're always a victim.

I do support the Ukrainian people. Just putting that out there. I think both the invasion of Ukraine and occupation of Palestine is illegal. Are there shades of gray? There are, but only focusing on that stuff distracts you from the bigger picture.

Having double standards like this isn't okay. You say you're all for justice but then one conflict comes up where it couldn't be any clearer on who the aggressor is, but because of Israeli propaganda influencing the media, it's just too complicated to wrap your head around.

[–] InputZero@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago

That's a good explanation, but you don't need to be quite so pushy. I don't think I was expressing pro-Israeli sentiments. In fact I think I was quite clear that I view them as 'the bad guys' in this. I think where I get caught up is that if I were to have some ability to pass judgement on both of them I would judge Israel as being wrong, bad, criminal, whatever, whereas I can't judge the Palestinians at all. They're fighting for their existence. I don't have any power, so really my opinion is pointless.