Ask Lemmy

US media has spun such a one sided narrative for decades that I never looked close enough to to catch on that it was whitewashing genocide. October 7th and the Israeli reaction was comparable to the US genocide of Native Americans both through the dehumanization and pbvious propaganda that I started paying more attention. The more details came out, including the apartheid state structure, the less I felt that there will ever be a peaceful two state solution when Israel is an expansionist culture that cannot accept or acknowledge the right to exist of the Palestinians whose land they stole, much less the soverignty of their neighbors.

I was in the same boat (outside of being already critical regarding israels illegal settlements in the west bank). Main reason was that growing up in Austria, criticizing anything jewish was practically a taboo, and the only ones doing it publicly were the far right, which delegitimized all of it in public discussion.

It took their atrocities to make me realize how much effort Israels Zionists are putting into trying to tie Judaism/Ethnic Jews/Zionism together, so that blaming Israel can be countered by accusing anyone to be an antisemite. (I also have to say that for how good Israel is at Psyops, they really botched this one on the world stage.) I also realized that the conflict became a lot more one sided over the years; in the 80s and 90s there still was a push for a 2-state solution, and attacks in both directions were a common occurrence. Nowadays Israelis getting hurt is often the direct result of repressive action from Israels side.

Oct 7 might very well have been an false flag op in retrospective. It gave Bibi the chance to annex all of Gaza, Genocide be damned. It's similar to Putins staged apartment complex attack.

as someone who went through the same, it was mostly lack of attention. i had a vague idea that israel and palestine hated each other, and it was easy to understand from a perspective of israel taking palestinian land, but when you don't think about it too much it's easy to both sides it or feel like the supposedly western, supposedly democratic one has a point. i think a lot of people in the west had that vague, unrefined view when oct 7 happened, and it's easy to stand with someone who just suffered a terror attack.

but it just kept being a focus in media, and the more you look into it, the clearer israel's crimes against humanity become. and the crazy part is that the vague perspective of israel taking the land for themselves is absolutely correct, but when you see it for the real atrocity it is, rather than an abstract curiosity, it's impossible to side with the occupiers if you're not a bigot.