The mother of tattoo artist Shani Louk who was paraded semi-naked on a Hamas truck makes a public plea for more information
The mother of a woman whose body was paraded through the streets by Hamas has pleaded for help finding her daughter.
A video showing German tattoo artist Shani Louk on the back of a pickup truck circulated on social media after the Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7.
Louk had been attending an outdoor "Festival for Peace" party near Kibbutz Urim when the area was targeted. First, rockets were launched, then gunmen and appeared and shot into the crowd, CNN reported. Party attendees told the outlet people immediately started to flee, passing dead bodies on the ground as they tried to escape the massacre.
The attack and resulting conflict has left hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians dead, with Israel's prime minister declaring war.
A video of a young woman with dreadlocks on the back of a pickup truck and surrounded by Hamas soldiers started circulating on social media shortly after the attack. In it, she appears stripped to her underwear, and her legs are bent at unnatural angles, while one soldier grabs her hair. People are also seen spitting on her body.
Can someone please explain to me why both Israel and Hamas (not the Palestinian people as a whole, just Hamas) can't be condemned for the atrocities they have committed?
Because Lemmy seems to be telling me I have to pick a side and, as far as I can tell, both sides have committed atrocities. Why should I pick either side? Why can't I just say both are evil and not support either side? Must I take a side in every conflict? Because I sure as hell didn't when Iran and Iraq were warring.
You can, Hamas is fucking terrible, you should just add the context that the only reason Hamas even exists is due to Israeli policy. Trapping millions of people in tiny, resource-poor ghettos as part of an ongoing ethnic cleansing, you've gotta expect some of them are going to get desperate enough to join a religious fundamentalist terror organization.
Also Netanyahu's government literally sent them money because a democratic, secular, progressive resistance to Israeli occupation would make it harder to justify their aggression towards the Palestinian population, and a strong Hamas makes that less likely.
Same way 9/11 is pretty objectively a consequence of US intervention in the middle east, but the people who did 9/11 are still terrorists who (imo) deserved to die, the reason it's good to mention that it was a consequence of US policy is so that we can avoid creating the circumstances that lead to terror attacks like that in the future, and to avoid causing massive amounts of suffering as a result of military interventions in foreign countries.
Hamas is one shitty side effect among many of genocidal Israeli government policy and imo serves to aid and abet that policy by giving the Israeli state an excuse to crack down harder on Palestinians.
Most people can't handle nuance so for many issues are either black or white
My side is the good side and therefore is justified in its actions! It can't do something wrong against those monsters!
"Both are evil" rhetoric is often used to justify or obfuscate one sides crimes, and because on the broader scale, Israel unfolds destruction and death at a higher scale, so there's a lot of intense emotions from thise keyed into Palestinian struggle. That's why so many want you to pick.
It is important to remember Hamas ≠ Palestinians, and Israeli government ≠ Israeli citizens. Yes, they live in a colonial state, but Hamas doesn't care if they try to fight to change it or not, furthermore, most left leaning people are in colonial states or in former colonizing states so they are basically saying they think violence against them is justified too. Everyone should be aware of their privileges and work to dismantle the systems that create them, but that doesn't mean they need be killed in order to realize that!
It's ridiculous because you're absolutely right too, Israeli calling them all "human animals" and doing a total blockade of Gaza is a war crime, but so is what happened to Shani Louk. In the world I am fighting for, the people responsible for both would be held accountable.
I can't think of a single successful revolution that didn't end up with significant civilian casualties. Revolutions only arise because of extreme discontent among a population about their socioeconomic position.
Remember the Reign of Terror in France? Washington's campaign against the Iroquois in America? Revolution is bloody and revolution leads to civilian casualties, but at its core it's caused by systematic oppression by the government and inaction on behalf of the population.
By the way, Gazans have tried peaceful protest. It got thousands of people shot.
A gross oversimplification. Will civilians inevitably get got in the crossfire or be targeted by reactionaries during protests as part of the revolution? Sure. But there's a difference between that and seeking out and targeting a site without a military presence and civilians from more than just Israel.
Not a good example to cite since that destabilized revolutionary france and helped create the conditions for Napoleon to rise to power.
Again, a revolution is bloody because of the people reacting against it, it doesn't have to be because your side decided to target civilians and perpetuate cycles of violence. The revolutions that created long lasting new paradigms didn't serve as vehicles to enact vengeance.
I find it's usually best to just avoid any social media around major and divisive news events like this. Specifically where people are allowed to comment and express their opinions. Everyone just gets more extreme in their views, are convinced they are absolutely right, and there is never any room for nuance.
I get it, but it saddens me to think how many people might be around me both irl and online that would be alright with or even happy about the death of unarmed people of all ages and genders. Or that the people on the left in particular (since that's my camp) suddenly don't care about sexual violence if it's being perpetrated against someone they've decided deserved it or was a legitimate target because of social grievances
I get that too, but I dont think social media is really a great place to get a representative idea of how people are truly feeling about things.
A lot of social media tends to evolve into echo chambers, so not great for wider views. As mentioned too, it's not great for nuance. While I think most people are probably capable of getting the nuance of a situation, when "discussing" things online, having to type your thoughts out into a few small paragraphs, that all just seems to get completely lost, and only the bullet points, which are often the most extreme parts, remain.
Lemmy is also seemingly filled with tankies and people that seem like they want to be edgy just to be edgy or specifically to push certain viewpoints/ideologies. And considering that it's not a widely adopted platform, I think it's especially not representative of people as a whole.
And of course with the anonymity of the internet, people know they can say stuff just to get other people frustrated or angry with no consequences to their own personal lives.
There are a lot of people on the left who think that they oppose things by adopting the reverse of whatever Mainstream Media says or by unironically endorsing what the right wing fear mongers about.
For example, if the Mainstream media dehumanises Palestinians, then they should dehumanise Israelis back. Opposing Israeli apartheid is not only the same as supporting Hamas but not supporting Hamas means your don't REALLY care about Palestinian liberation.
Another example being that liberals and conservatives fear monger about how Palestianians all want to kill Israelis and anyone who supports the settler state, and so some people on the left adopt that as their actual viewpoint in order to "oppose" the right.
I think the issue is, one is UN recognized state supported officially by the biggest military power in the world, spending billions in tax payer money in aid. While the other are people who are living in the biggest open prison in the world, get water, gas, electricity, and mobility shutdown constantly. And barley have any voice as media suppressed their truth.
Now when the state kills people, with no guns or weapons, in front of the cameras, on the streat nothing happened. When the other do the same, presidents all over the world not only condem the act put also make it clear they support the state that publicly committing war crimes.