Propaganda

In the deep dark depths of the interwebs I met a guy. He told me he is from Israel. After first bumbs on the road we seemed to get along fine. It was scary to talk to him in Skype and hear him say "Shit, I gotta go" and then hear the headset slam on the table and the sirens on the background. It's so hard to imagine being surrounded by war. Being scared all the time. Not just being scared for yourself but being scared for your family, your friends, your home, everything.

I have no idea what's going on there. I can't say I've ever really even cared about Middle East before this. I've never tried to understand what's going on and why. But when it comes closer to your personal space, someone you know is involved, it makes it more real.

My first thought about the conflict was "Didn't you kinda steal the land from someone?". I thought someone has to be the bad guy in this scenario. So I started to read up on stuff. First stop was of course wikipedia and that gave me some idea what Israel even is. I then watched some videos. Like this one:

And then I saw this one:

And then this letter from a Norwegian doctor and especially the comments. And then I saw crap load of pictures for example these.

Apparently Hamas kidnapped and murdered three Israeli boys and that's how all of this got started this time. It gave Israel a reason to attack back. The casualties are hundreds on Palestinian side and few dozens on Israeli side. I wonder why is it so different? Apparently Israeli houses are build to last through bombing, Isreal have good medical care and the Hamas rockets aren't really up to modern USA standards. Unlike Israeli. The financial aid given to Palestinians have apparently gone to somewhere else than building stern houses and hospitals for the people since they "live in shit and fear" like one of my friends commented the subject.

I like to stay out of political conflicts and to not even think about them much because they are so complicated. Looking at the pictures it's easy to see that this should stop. That Israel shouldn't keep attacking Gaza. But then I hear how Hamas keeps children on the rooftops of their houses to prevent Israeli army bombing them. And I hear some of the pictures are not even close to be taken from this conflict and that pictures from other horrors are just used as propaganda. But then I think about how the nation was found in the first place in the middle of Arabic countries and the decision was made by someone else than the people who lived on the land. But then I remember it was the after math of holocaust. I don't know if there's a genocide happening now and for some reason I'd like something to be done to the circumstances of North Korea more than this but it's easy to see that killing people shouldn't be the answer to anything.

(credit @kmarikat)

The nasty part of a war is that both parties will want to bash the other side. And they will teach this to their children because they can remember the fear that war brings. But we as the outsiders should try to look at the whole thing and try to get past the

So I don't know who is right or wrong. If there even is answer to that. The most important thing is to look at this from both sides, see both sides of the story. And most of all, try to understand. Because there has to be some sense in all of this. There has to be. Right?