I'm going to try and be careful what I say, but after this weekends events I decided that I want to know more about the conflict and its history. I've tended to steer well clear of having any sort of an opinion whatsoever, and maybe SBT isn't the best place to learn about the conflict, but I think sometimes it's actually easier to get an unbiased view from individuals.
There are a few things that have simply dumbfounded me over this weekends events.
1. So far, 700 Israelis have lost their lives and 400 Palestinians (from what I've read). A large amount of these are innocent citizens both side of the border. I know Hamas have been the aggressors on this occasion, but how can you be deemed a terrorist organisation when you kill hundreds of innocent people on one side, but just "the government" on the other side? I appreciate the irony with U.S. and British governments history on foreign soil.
2. Why are multiple government, and public, buildings being illuminated with the flags and colours of Israel? Hundreds of innocent lives were lost in both Israel and Gaza, so why are the lives of a certain group of people being prioritised as, what appears to be, more of a tragedy?
3. What's up with the clearly pro-Israel bias in the UK papers? There doesn't even appear to be any attempt at impartiality. The Independent has an article giving the Israeli ambassador to the UK a platform, where she asks Britain to stand with Israel against the "evil brutality" of Hamas. But the Israeli government has literally just murdered hundreds of innocent Palestinians when it wasn't actually necessary to do so, and the article only speaks of the death toll in Israel.
Again, I have no interest in starting some kind of political argument, and I understand the concept of antisemitism. I have no interest in bashing Israelis, who have suffered the worst tragedy in their communities in Israel over the weekend. But it does appear to me that there are 2 sets of innocent victims in this story.