I know similar views have been posted earlier on this thread, but I feel so strongly about this that I would like to open a few points for discussion.
1. The amount of open anti-Semitism from ALL aspects of our society, and those of our close allies, in the last couple of days has disgusted me. For example the Sydney protests and similar in London and New York. I think that we, as a society, need to condemn any supporters of the terrorism taking place and work towards ensuring that such views cannot be expressed in our country.
2. There's a time for criticism of Israel, and their long history of persecution of the Palestinian people and ultimately partial creation of the current crisis, but this is absolutely not the time. Hundreds if not thousands of innocent people have been brutally slaughtered by genocidal terrorists and it seems to me that the reaction of many people is "sad, but the Israeli regime has done so much worse". I would like to ask anyone of that viewpoint to point out where, in the 80 year history of the country, Israeli gangs have systematically murdered, tortured and raped innocent civilians, including children, and taken hundreds of hostages to an almost certain death. Israel has made terrible decisions in their past, but nothing on this scale of brutality.
3. I have seen a lot of people, online and off, saying that this is an excuse for the Israelis to launch a genocide in Gaza similar to the Nazis at the Warsaw Ghetto. As far as I can tell, Israel has continued warning Gazan civilians about impending air strikes and has allocated certain areas of the Strip a safe zones which will currently not be bombed. Can anyone enlighten me as to when in history a 'genocidal' regime has given prior warning and taken multiple steps to minimise casualties to the people supposedly being wiped out? I feel that such terms as genocide, war crimes and Nazi tendencies are being thrown around so much at the moment they have lost their true meanings a everything is labelled as such. It is not a far stretch to imply that certain Russian troll farms may be behind this phenomenon for obvious reasons.
Sorry for the long post, but this has been bothering me a lot in the past few days and this forum is the only place I feel comfortable to have a discussion, I do realise that many people will disagree with my points and inn fact I would like to hear the opposing points and perhaps change my view to one more sympathetic to the Palestinians. It is a real shame as, before these events, I considered myself largely pro-Palestinian, but I am really struggling to maintain that stance.