For reference I am Slightly Pro-Israel and Staunchly Pro-Ukraine; though I am not exactly the most educated in the world in either.
In short, Why is Israel/Palestine so much more debated and decisive than Russia/Ukraine?
I feel like on Israel/Palestine Reddit’s and other social media sites we get much more conversations between both sides and I think both sides acknowledge that their side isn’t really good it’s just not as bad as the other. And also just in real life I feel if I gave any Russian sympathy in the west I would be shooed out of the room but people who are staunchly both sides will actually listen and/or debate. Is that because of the rules on these subreddits, or our propaganda in the west, or some other variable?
Comments
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written.
For reference I am Slightly Pro-Israel and Staunchly Pro-Ukraine; though I am not exactly the most educated in the world in either.
In short, Why is Israel/Palestine so much more debated and decisive than Russia/Ukraine?
I feel like on Israel/Palestine Reddit’s and other social media sites we get much more conversations between both sides and I think both sides acknowledge that their side isn’t really good it’s just not as bad as the other. And also just in real life I feel if I gave any Russian sympathy in the west I would be shooed out of the room but people who are staunchly both sides will actually listen and/or debate. Is that because of the rules on these subreddits, or our propaganda in the west, or some other variable?
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
>…Why is Israel/Palestine so much more debated and decisive than Russia/Ukraine?
Israel/Palestine is a convoluted, intractable situation where no one is completely in the right.
Russia/Ukraine is simple; Putin should not have invaded and he should pull out yesterday.
Russia is unequivocally in the wrong, the only people who disagree are tankies and especially feckless conservatives. Israel/Palestine has a more even spread of war crimes and evil (even though it’s not very even by death count).
Because it’s Israel. A lot of people have opinions about the state of Israel and/or the Jews in general.
Despite the need of some regardless of which “side” they are on to pretend that the situation in Israel and Palestine is very simple, it is very complex and their are bad actors and terrible actions that have created a situation that is currently intractable.
Russia and Ukraine is as straightforward as it gets. The world led by the United States made a deal that if Ukraine gave up its nukes we wouldn’t allow Russia to invade. We have failed them repeatedly. Russia can’t be allowed to just take over territory like this.
They are very different things.
Russia is aggressive, committing war crimes, and is unilaterally continuing the war. No one supports Russia outside of their allies. Russia does not deserve sympathy, outside of the poor families who have lost people.
Both Israel and Palestine deserve sympathy and have also done terrible things to each other. The situation is complicated and there is not a clear resolution.
Because a lot of people rightly feel we are on the wrong side of israel/palestine.
Most people feel we’re on the right side if ukraine/russia.
Russia vs Ukraine is Evil Dictator invading democratic country. Ukraine is simply defending themselves against a foreign invader.
Israel vs Palestine is way more complicated. Hamas is awful, but so is Netanyahu and the Likud party. Jews deserve a homeland, but when they were granted one it ended up displacing roughly three quarter of a million people. There’s fierce, religious debate about who the land belongs to. But there’s no easy answers. Hamas should go, but so should Netanyahu.
Because people have been living in Israel for generations so even if you are on board with the idea that they shouldn’t have been allowed to move their and form their own country the people you believe actually had any hand in violating territorial seventy are long dead. Even if you want to hold the people alive today responsible for those actions where are they supposed to go exactly? I mean some of them might have citizenship elsewhere but not all of them.
> Why is Israel/Palestine so much more debated and decisive than Russia/Ukraine?
The US broadly supports the side most people agree is in the right in Ukraine, which is Ukraine, who are the ones being attacked.
The US supports Israel in that conflict, which many people see as being the aggressor and commiting a genocide.
One of those is significantly more controversial.
Russia want’s to “de-nazi” Ukraine (ie genocide Ukrainians).
Isreal want’s to eliminate Hamas (i.e. genocide Palestinians)
I think Republicans, in addition to being pro genocide elswhere, want to do genocide here.
Israel committed historic wrongs that have since gone back and forth both directions. As much as we can accuse them of being a settler colonial state, Land Back isn’t a strong position for domestic or foreign policy
Russia is the one who committed both the historic and present wrongs. It’s much more black and white, even if you want to pretend the czar, the Soviet and the Kremlin are distinct entities
Not to be “that guy” but check out some of the millions of videos and articles that detail why and how the Israel/Palestine conflict has shaped up in the way it has. Actually pretty interesting and lends and incredible amount of nuance to the conflict.
Israel has gotten a wildly disproportionate share of American news coverage for as long as I can remember–since the Six Day War at least. The religious aspect, and its status as a homeland for Jews, has always made a lot of people very passionate about it, and made it a central point in debate. Personally, I find this more than a little irritating; there are dozens of countries that will have a much greater impact on America’s future than that place. Mexico is 100 times more important to us than Israel is, and probably gets 1/100 of the news coverage. China is the world’s second superpower now, and we still hear and talk about it less than Israel/Palestine. Just ridiculous.
Ukraine is defending itsel from invasion. Israel is invading Gaza with little regard for civilian casualties. Given some of the tiktoks IDF soldiers have released at least some part of the IDF is actually trying to cause civilian casualties.
Also as soon as the war ends Bibi might get ousted and actually have to face trial for a laundry list of corruption charges. So there’s also the “war that keeps going on so one asshole can stay out of jail” angle.
Russia/Ukraine is clear cut. Russia is obviously in the wrong. If you get shooed out of the room for Russian Sympathy, that’s because anyone trying to give the Russians, the obvious bad guys, sympathy… is a giant piece of shit.
Israel/Palestine is not clear cut at all.
>I am not exactly the most educated in the world in either
You should fix that.
How are you slightly pro-Israel? Not asking how you could be (I guess I am) but I want to know what the slightly is. What do you support?
> In short, Why is Israel/Palestine so much more debated and decisive than Russia/Ukraine?
There is more nuance, very few people defend Russia