I can’t stand the people who thousands of miles away from the conflict were quick to pick a side in a tragedy with their stupid #StandforIsrael and #StandforPalestine signs, and hashtags, protests and moronic posts.

I’m looking at you America (and Europe). You fuckers are a big part of the problem.

We can’t break the cycle of violence by picking a side and trying to claim the “moral high ground” in what has always been a morass of killing and retribution.

I’m not stating “both sides bad” — although both sides have committed war crimes and atrocities. We should be thinking how we could ever get to a solution. More killing isn’t going to do it. And cheerleading for the killers (on either side) and pointing fingers for who is more guilty only makes it worse.

Each dead person (especially children) only hardens the hearts and minds of the survivors. It creates more terrorists, more extremists on both sides. It makes peace nearly impossible.

I hang on to good thoughts that eventually all cycles of violence end. We no longer worry about Persians/Greeks killing each other. Or Roman/Carthage or the Germans versus the French. Or the British Empire versus Everybody…

In more modern times, the genocide in Rwanda faded in less than 5 years. It took more than 800 years to solve the “Irish Problem,” but now we drink Irish car bombs; people don’t die from the explosions.

I worry that often those cycles only end through genocide — think Native Americans.

Or only end through “total war” the massive killing of the “loser” — think the Atomic Bomb on Japan or the destruction of German in 1945.

Many Israel defenders are pointing to WWII as their model. They are fighting evil. It must be totally destroyed — “unconditional surrender” — and then the victors will put a new “civil government” in place. That’s going to take a lot of killing, and it’s going to take a long time. 78 years later, the US still has military bases in German and Japan, and we have limited their rights to bear arms as nations.

There’s a reason after WWII, the United Nations got together and declared what is and what is not a war crime. Much of what the winning side did in the second world war are now considered crimes against humanity:

  • bombing civilian populations
  • cluster munitions
  • bombing hospitals, power plants and water infrastructure
  • putting “enemy populations” in concentration camps (think Japanese internment in America)
  • collective punishment — cutting off water, electricity

Worse. Israel already tried this solution. Its troops were “driven out” of Gaza and Lebanon because that population could not “be governed.” They will rise up with terror and suicide attacks. No matter how just or fair or better an Israel-backed government could be, it’s doubtful it would ever be accepted in Gaza, Lebanon or the West Bank.

The root cause is often ignored. Religion. Without the dueling convictions that God is supporting a Greater Israel to bring the Messiah, or that Allah wants this Jihad, this land and to kill those people — it would be much harder to make people fight. Peace would be easier if these gods stayed the hell out of it.

Goals of terror

Look at what Hamas was trying to accomplish with a terror attack that killed more than 1400 Israelis. Was it simply a suicide mission of revenge? While that may be part of the motivation, that’s not the goal.

Any political group that resorts to terrorism is weak. They are losing their grip on the population. They cannot deliver “results” – a better life or even the destruction of the “enemy.”

They can only kill on occasion. They don’t have drones, and tanks and planes and bombs to kill from afar and at will. They can’t possibly “win” the war through a “fair fight.” So they make horrific and tragic attacks on the innocent.

They can only try to make the greater power over-react. To kill indiscriminately. To lose support and be seen as the oppressor, the conquerer, the evil empire.

Look at the mistakes America made in Afghanistan and Iraq. 20 years later, hundreds of thousands killed, trillions spent, and all we did was fuel more terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Eventually forcing us to pull back from the region and leaving a gap for Russia to fill in Syria and Iran to exploit with even more terror.

The terrorists bring destruction to their own people to force them to the extreme. To bring them into the terrorist fold and make more terrorists among the living. It’s not a war strategy; it’s a political strategy.

In the case of Hamas, it is trying to split Israel from American support. Right after the Oct. 7 attack, Hamas ramped up the propaganda machine. Getting stupid Americans to repeat their slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” I’m sure many of those college kids here don’t clearly understand that’s a call to kill Israels and destroy that nation. I’m sure some of their anti-Jewish leaders do (I won’t say anti-semite in this context since both Palestinians and Israels are ethnically “semites”.)

Israel ramped up its propaganda machine as well. Allowing all the interviews of hostage families, videos of Hamas killing civilians, stories of beheading babies. Meanwhile cutting off communications inside Gaza so similar stories of bombed families, children buried under the rubble and surgeries without pain meds would be slow and difficult to distribute.

Both sides mean to inflame opinion here, in Europe and elsewhere.

Sadly it has worked. Attacks on jewish students at Ivy League Schools. Killing a muslim child in Chicago. Threats and fear everywhere.

Goal of counter-terrorism

Unless you are prepared to kill everyone in a population and commit genocide, war and killing cannot end terrorism or the political ideologies that fuel it.

One of the first goals of counter-terrorism is to split the terrorist from the people. Build support for peace. Reward and empower the people looking for peaceful solutions and talks. And talking to the terrorists and extremists. Nelson Mandela was a terrorist until he was not. The Irish Republican Army was a terrorist group until it was not. The Taliban were terrorists until we made a deal with them.

Sooner or later, the greater power has to talk to the terrorist and stop fueling the hate.

And those stupid “stand” signs reward the terrorist and punish the peacemakers.

What we need to do is “sit.” Sit down to talks, sit on the sidelines and hope that people in the region will find their own way to peace. Sit in solidarity with the victims. Sending supplies and support to help people survive. Food, medicine, water. See if we can get each side to sit down with us and stop this senseless bloodshed.

Because eventually this violence will end and talks will start. Now it’s just a question of how many thousands of Palestinians (will it be 10,000 or 100,000) the Israelis will kill and if Hamas will murder its 240 hostages and kill a few hundred soldiers and Israel civilians with them.

SitforIsrael SitforPalestine -- images generated by Bing AI
If I had my way, this is what the Israel and Palestine protests would look like in America and Europe. Image generated by Bing AI — those are not real people — that’s not the real White House.

I’m not going to pretend that I know the solution for Israel and Palestine or the greater Middle East. But I know that screaming about it thousands of miles away is only making things worse. Put away those god damn #stand signs and hashtags, and sit down and think about peace before you open your stupid-fucking-cheerleading-for-death mouths.