#Israeli civilians are collateral casualties in violence which is happening bc Palestinians would like to stop being killed almost daily | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thedreadvampy · 1 year ago

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Yes people are fucking dying and no I don't ever feel like. Great about people being killed in missile strikes.

But I also don't feel great about decades of civilians, including over 2,100 children in the last 20 years, being killed both by missile strikes and by being shot or beaten to death in the street.

250 people were killed in the Hamas rocket attacks on Saturday, which is around the same as the number of Palestinian people the Israeli security forces had murdered this year before Saturday, and significantly less than they've killed since Saturday.

look the people are not the state and despite Israel being an apartheid colony, being an Israeli citizen doesn't necessarily imply 100% agreement. It's been 70 years and 3 generations since Israel was established as a state and the majority of Israeli civilians now didn't choose to come, they're living in the country they were born (although the same is not so much true for people living in Gaza who have recently occupied the stolen homes of Palestinians). Israelis are human people with lives and hopes and passions and deaths of any person are tragic.

BUT.

Palestinians are human people with lives and hopes and passions and their lives matter just as much and are snuffed out without the international community batting an eye - I remind you again. 212 Palestinians including 38 children were murdered this year before this weekend's missile strikes and if you didn't give a shit until Hamas killed the same number of Israelis at which point everyone went OH MY GOD THE HUMANITY HOW COULD PALESTINIANS DO THIS (while Israel killed 300+ more Palestinians in under 24 hours) that's bc uhhhh you're fucking racist and don't think Palestinian lives are as important as Israeli ones

so like. sure we can acknowledge that 250 Israeli civilians' deaths are a tragedy, if we can also agree that the 300+ Palestinian civilians killed in retaliatory strikes are a tragedy and most importantly if we can agree that the 200+ Palestinians killed in 2023 before the Hamas strikes this weekend are not just a tragedy but a deliberate atrocity.

in January the Israeli government made it vocally clear before the UN than not only do they consider the occupation of Palestine permanent, they are explicitly focused on taking over as much Palestinian land as possible in perpetuity. Since then this whole year there have been a total of only FOUR (nonconsecutive) FULL WEEKS in which NO Palestines were killed by Israel (compared to only 8 weeks in which Israelis WERE killed, of which 2 incidents were friendly fire from another IDF member)

It's legitimately tragic when people are killed. And Israel has been systematically killing Palestinians to the degree there are Palestinian casualties recorded about 3 days in every 5 this year, usually multiple, with displacements, demolitions, injuries, arrests and beatings recorded almost every single day. I do not know how LITERALLY anyone can look at the numbers from this year, let alone the last 75, and conclude that Israel is the victim of unprovoked violence.

#red said #i note again. ISRAEL THE STATE provoked the violence which ISRAELI PEOPLE face regardless of their political beliefs #Israel's government does not represent the beliefs of all Israelis. no state does.#Israelis live on stolen land in an apartheid state. some of them chose to do so and to enthusiastically participate and some don't.#the Israeli people en masse are as responsible for the Israeli state as the American people are for the American state #or the British people for the British state #which is to say they run the gamut from thinking the government doesn't go far enough to protesting constantly #Israeli doesn't mean evil. Israeli people are people like anyone else. and resisting apartheid from within an apartheid state #isn't easy and a lot of Israelis do. and even if they don't they're still human people.#Israel as a state like most colonial states puts work into propaganda fear and dehumanisation of the other.#people are responsible for breaking out of that but they're not personally culpable for the crimes of their country #it fucking sucks. that Israeli civilians are killed indiscriminately as part of this conflict.#IT JUST ALSO FUCKING SUCKS THAT PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS ARE KILLED DISPLACED AND IMPRISONED #WHETHER OR NOT THE NATIONS ARE INVOLVED IN DIRECT VIOLENT CONFLICT #Israeli civilians are collateral casualties in violence which is happening bc Palestinians would like to stop being killed almost daily #and that sucks. it isn't a good thing and i don't delight in their deaths. the people are not the state.#but it also sucks that Palestinian people are killed at a rate of 15-60 every month regardless of what if anything happens to Israeli people #prior to this week the highest monthly conflict-related death toll for Israel was 7. the lowest for Palestine was 12.#and btw at least 3 Israeli deaths recorded were cases of one IDF member accidentally shooting another while trying to kill a Palestinian #in September 0 Israelis were killed by Palestinians and yet 15 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces.#that's not to pretend it's good for Israelis to die. it's to point out that the violence of Palestinians against Israelis is in desperation #while the violence of Israelis against Palestinians is of opportunity.#where Israeli noncombatants are killed by Palestinian forces it's almost always collateral damage. and to be clear that is still a tragedy.#Palestinian noncombatants are regularly collateral damage but they're ALSO singled out and shot dead in the street #and that's a much more deliberate act.#if a 13yo is killed in a missile strike. if a 13yo is hit by a car. if a 13yo is shot by a gunman. all those are tragedies.#for the victim. they're dead however they die. for their families it's the same level of grief.#but there is a DIFFERENCE. between knowing your actions may kill children. and putting a child in your sights and shooting them dead.#that kind of targeted violence against specific individual civilians is something Israeli forces do to Palestinians.#it isn't something that is on record as happening the other way around

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