So, some of you have probably seen it by now, but apparently the IDF bombed a refugee camp. Wolf Blitzer interviewed them and they said they had to to get at some terrorist guy. I watched Cenk Uygur rant about it for 20 minutes so, I'll link that here as I plan to address that a bit later.
First, my opinion. To be blunt, I'm getting increasingly uncomfortable with how the Israelis are acting in this war. Were they justified in attacking? Sure. They were attacked. And honestly, I'm somewhat sympathetic to the plight of the Israelis in all of this. Israel definitely has a right to exist here, and I do view them as the lesser evil in this conflict.
HOWEVER....this behavior is extremely morally sus. They're reminding me of Russian massacring Ukrainian civilians. I've seen the footage of that stuff too. Trust me. It's one thing to kill some civilians in collateral damage, but when you blow away hundreds of civilians to get at one guy, it's like...seriously?
As Cenk said in his video, I don't doubt if the roles were reversed if the Palestinians would act the other way. After all, Hamas essentially has ethnic cleansing as part of their mission statement. But let's face it, Israel...isn't acting much better. I would still say they ARE better, but they're losing that moral high ground quickly and it's almost getting to the point that the two are indistinguishable from one another. Both sides would rather just kill each other than make peace.
At the same time...I also really question if I would behave much differently if I were an IDF general. The fact is, war is war, war sucks, a lot of this stuff is morally grey, and as General patton once said, the point of war isnt to die for your country, it's to make the other SOB die for theirs.
I do think it's morally acceptable to value your own countrymen over foreigners. Some people might think that's messed up, but given my worldview about how morality and governments come to be, and the social contract and blah blah blah, I do think a government is ultimately the servant of their people. And as such they should value the lives of their own people over the lives of those outside of their country.
But COME ON, we're literally talking civilians here. And I would still argue that countries, even in war time, should try to minimize civilian casualties, they're not minimizing much of anything here. And that's the real problem. Like...they're not even TRYING. And yeah.
Again, I can't see a scenario here where I'd ever side with Palestine over Israel, but that doesn't mean that Israel is above criticism. And that doesn't mean that whatever moral high ground they may have had isn't evaporating quickly.
Now, on to Cenk Uygur. he kinda took it further, and went into full on self righteous leftist camp. And given I've previously quasi endorsed Cenk for president, given he tends to often strike the tone I support, I'm kind of rethinking that right now.
The fact is, one of the reasons I keep coming back to Biden in 2024, despite more progressive alternatives, is a lot of progressives have crap foreign policies. They're too weak, they're too morally self righteous, and they would make horrible commander in chiefs. I hate to quote Obama on Bernie, but once he compared Bernie to an Old Testament Prophet. But...prophets don't get to be king. Because they can't make the morally grey decisions that kings do.
This is also why I dislike the idea of running for office myself. I consider myself more like that OT prophet, than a king. I'd rather criticize the system from the outside, maintaining my own moral purity, than get my hands dirty myself. But...I do recognize that especially on foreign policy issue, commanders in chief HAVE to do things that most people quite frankly don't have the stomach to do. They have to make tough calls, impossible calls, crazy moral dilemmas in the realm of foreign policy, where things just arent so black and white, and honestly, a lot of people don't have the stomach for it.
Electing a lot of these progressive leftists is like electing a vegan to run a butcher shop. The sausage has to be made, but they're so morally opposed to it that they just...won't do the job. And honestly, I'm not sure Cenk can do the job if that's his attitude on foreign policy.
Honestly, and this is why despite my serious criticisms of Israel here, I still am hesitant to fully condemn them. Normally I like to go on and say what I would do differently. But if I were in the IDF, and I had to call the shots, and make these grotesque decisions in these environments, I'm LITERALLY not sure I can do any better.
So...as such, I remain split on this. I find what Israel is doing is morally distasteful, but I also don't feel comfortable doing more than just writing a strongly worded blog statement on the matter discussing the nuance of the situation.
The fact is, I really don't know what is right here. Like most others on the left, I'm getting horrified by what I see, but like a more level headed person with a good understanding of realpolitik, I'm also not sure, logistically, how to improve the situation.
This situation is just screwed up. It's like a real life attack on titan situation. I sometimes wonder if one group is bound to eventually just kill the other. Because I just dont see either side being willing to deescalate the situation and actually make it work.
You could ask "what would Jesus do", but I also ain't a christian, and Jesus is yet again a morally pure prophet, and not an actual king (no matter how much Christians proclaim differently). His ideas would've never worked in the real world either.
So yeah. I guess what I'm saying is that it's easier to sit here from the sidelines and pick at people for making crappy decisions, but then again a lot of us don't wanna sit in that chair having to make the moral decisions that those in that chair wanna make. And those who do, like Cenk, who is ironically running to occupy that chair in the US, probably wouldn't be very good at their jobs.
So let's face it, we're just gonna sit here on the side lines condemning those in power, but we either wouldnt wanna have to make those decisions ourselves, or if we did, we would probably be complete and utter crap at the job. So idk what else to say. That's my dilemma on the Israel-Palestine situation.
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