In no particular order:
- Opinions and narratives are not only over-rated, they’re often part of the problem
- Of course it’s fine to “pick a side”, but is there a way beyond being “pro-Israel” or “pro-Palestine” which helps both move towards peace?
- “Hamas does not represent Palestine” sounds like too easy a way out
- I didn’t realise condemning cold-blooded slaughter, rape, beheading, and abduction of women and children were a complicated matter
- “Collateral damage” in the form of thousands dead sounds a lot more acceptable when it isn’t our own people dying
- No, the war isn’t over simply because you’ve successfully refuted your opponent
- What the war is about, who’s “right” or “wrong”, what solutions must be implemented — my opinion is 99.999% irrelevant
- When the news breaks that 500 people died in a hospital, if the first thing I focus on is who to blame (as opposed to the victims and their families) maybe I’m part of the problem
- If the other side commits the war crime, CONDEMN; if it’s our team acts like savages, “CONTEXTUALISE”
- We don’t need to “stand with Israel”, we only need to stand against the targeting of innocent civilians; we don’t need to “stand with Palestine”, we only need to stand against the deaths of thousands
- If we can still worry about traffic, our salary, inflation and the quality of the next movie we’re watching, perhaps we’re not really that concerned about the war after all?
- There are Arabs who want the Palestinians to stop playing victims and there are Jews who want to “free Palestine”; they should chat
- Maybe Popperian falsification should be applied i.e. what can possibly persuade us our narrative is wrong? If the answer is nothing, then how is this not blind prejudice?
- Today it’s easier to change our gender than our politics
- “Hate isn’t a conversation” — Dan Ariely
- Media is always suspect, propaganda is always problematic, it’s all lies — unless our side is being victimised
- The war has already taken many lives; don’t let it destroy our friendships
- 99% of cartoons and satire on the conflict get one side wrong
- How would my mind change if my family and/or friends are on the ground in Gaza or Southern Israel? (This is what skin-in-the-game is all about)
- My heart and mind tells me it’s stupid to argue with people over a conflict that has practically nothing to do with either of us; my ego disagrees
- Ephesians 6:12 has got to be relevant somehow
