You Don’t Have to Support Either Israel or Palestine

I had a few unlearning to do

Photo by Cole Keister on Unsplash

I despise this good guy bad guy syndrome that Hollywood has indoctrinated the world with. It has reduced the most complex issues into a black or white, binary division, and all we’re left with is stupidity and stupid people doubling down on their stupidity.

For a few days, I fell prey to such mindset because its the mentally lazy thing to do. I even wrote what could be classified as a rant, pretty much admitting my unwavering support for Israel

Thankfully I was able to snap out of it and acknowledge the fact that such divisions, such binaries almost never occur in reality. In most cases, there’s good in bad and bad in good.

The war in Ukraine took place more than a year ago and immediately the world started taking sides. In a flash, the global population split in almost equal halves. A complex and complicated situation ridiculously came down to “the good guys vs the bad guys.”

With help from the media, the pro-Ukrainian faction became the good guys and the pro-Russian faction became the bad guys. Anybody who didn’t want Putin dead was a pro-Russian hack who loved watching the poor citizens of Ukraine get shelled.

The whole ordeal was laughable to say the least, considering the fact that war is a very complex and complicated issue. I mean, I was shocked to discover that there are actually grown-ups, people with flashy academic degrees, and global diplomats who believe that Putin is invading Ukraine because he’s a big bad meanie and Zelensky is the messiah. I kid you not, we have George Bush comparing Zelensky to Winston Churchill

It’s messy and embarrassing that most people would rather gouge their eyes out than leave room for nuance on this issue.

I’m not going to go over the history of the war, why Putin might have done it, and whether or not he was justified. I’m also not going to state my stand on this issue because it’s not the case at hand and it’s not even important.

The real problem here is what’s happening with the Israel-Palestine conflict and how, in a matter of days, that disgusting, ridiculous “good guy vs bad guy, us vs them” syndrome has crept in. I’ve read a lot of opinions from either side of the spectrum and while some wreaked of emotions, others were embarrassingly ignorant.

If you’re reading this and you’re wondering which side to take, I’m here to tell you you don’t have to. You probably saw the corpses of Israeli people, you saw the raping and killings of innocent civilians by Hamas, and while you were about to angrily trend those hashtags, the algorithm showed another video of Israeli forces killing hostages and bombing hospitals.

If you were ever in that situation, I just want you to know that it’s perfectly okay to condemn the actions of both. It’s perfectly okay to not see one as the good guy and the other as the bad guy, because no matter your cause, you cease to have the moral high ground when you commit war crimes. War criminals aren’t “the good guys”, and neither are the aggressors.

In case you might have had any doubts about how strong the good guy bad guy syndrome is, watch how Pro Ukraine people openly cheered as Ukraine soldiers committed war crimes, by making use of Cluster Munitions. They cheered them on then, and they’re cheering Israel on now.

If you’re a grown adult reading this and you feel that Hamas attacked Israel simply because they’re the bad guys and so they deserve everything they’re getting, even down to the innocent children, then you should probably block this account because I’m not comfortable making content for people with such infantile mentality.

If you’re here and you feel that whatever religious and historical reason justifies the havoc that the Hamas movement wreaked on Israeli civilians — the raping, the mutilation, then you’re a very sick human being!

Unless you’re from either side of the conflict, you don’t have to see things from a binary perspective. It blinds you to thinking critically. It’s perfectly okay to watch both sides and condemn either of them when they commit atrocities, which is the case.

Ease up on the bandwagoning for once, grow the fuck up. You don’t have to stand for anyone. It’s a weak TikTok activism strategy that has come in place of proper discourse and dialogue.