Former President Barack Obama said a way forward for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is only possible if people acknowledge the “complexity” of the situation.

“If there’s any chance of us being able to act constructively to do something, it will require an admission of complexity and maintaining what on the surface may seem contradictory ideas that what Hamas did was horrific, and there’s no justification for it. And … that the occupation and what’s happening to Palestinians is unbearable,” Obama said in an interview on the podcast “Pod Save America.”

The former president’s comments come as the Israeli military focuses its offensive against Hamas in Gaza City and northern parts of the enclave.

  • SpaceCowboy
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    1 year ago

    To be able to indoctrinate a thousand people into being capable of the atrocities committed on October 7, you have to teach people from a very young age that the enemy is not human, but demons and that no form a violence is unacceptable to use against them. Hamas has been the government of Gaza (and therefore in control of the schools) for enough time to indoctrinate children from a very young age all the way up to adulthood.

    If you’re looking for comparisons to Nazis, maybe consider applying some of those comparisons to the group whose goal is to kill Jews. Internet contrarianism is fun and all, but this has gotten out of hand.

    • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      If you’re looking to compare to genocide, maybe consider the group in power that started off saying they just want an ethnostate and they will relocate some people, and when that becomes unfeasible they begin to murder them en masse…

      You seem just as biased as anyone else here. If you want to champion Obama’s complexity you should be willing to check that bias.

      • SpaceCowboy
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        1 year ago

        Wouldn’t surprise me. Though at the moment I’m a little more concerned about the antisemitism in my own country.

        It seems that the “it’s ok to criticize Israel” doctrine just handed out free dog whistles to anti-semites. They just did a find and replace on their conspiracy theories to sub out “the Jews” for “Israel” and apparently a lot of people think it’s “ok” now. While not all criticism of Israel is anti-semitism, some of it is.

        Obama is correct. People need to take a little time to stop and think. It’s not a bad thing to think before pushing insane narratives on the internet.