Israel & Palestine
I generally do not consider myself to be informed enough to have a definite opinion on the conflict happening in the Gaza Strip, and I generally decline to comment on foreign policy and war because those are usually extremely complex situations that civilians simply do not have the experience or insight to make responsible or sophisticated comments about. I also think the vast majority of people that I have seen discussing this matter form their opinions based on their emotional response/political allegiance and not necessarily the nuanced facts of what’s happening. I do have very definite views on a few things:
I invariably oppose the killing and slaughter of innocent civilians, regardless of who is doing it.
People should be allowed to live with freedom and dignity.
Religion is bad, and something like this could have only happened due to religion.
The sense that I get about this conflict is that both Hamas and the IDF are guilty of atrocities and war crimes, and I find it curious that supporters of either side usually fail to acknowledge this. It feels like the tribalistic inconsistencies we see so frequently where people say “It’s okay when the side I like does it.” However, it also appears to be the case that Hamas is fighting for Palestinian freedom (which DOES NOT justify terrorism and war crimes), while Israel seems to be using Hamas’ attacks as an excuse to carry out something resembling a genocide of Palestinians. They very clearly are not solely focused on rooting out Hamas, they are attacking the Palestinian civilian community, in many cases intentionally. As the larger and more powerful entity, I would by default place more responsibility upon Israel for proactively finding an end to this conflict, and they do not seem as interested in that as I would want them to be.
Luckily it does not fall to me to find a solution to this conflict, because I am unable to decide what that could be (outside of both sides realizing that their respective religions are made up and that all of this is meaningless and that they should attempt to live together in harmony, which will never happen, of course).