If you’re tempted to say “it’s ok for Palestine to defend itself but it shouldn’t attack innocent civilians, that’s terrorism”, you need to understand that your statement is US imperialist propaganda and you are not the progressive that your tumblr account seems to convince you you are.
There has never been a war or conflict in human history that did not involve harm to civilians. The US and it’s allies however created this idea that warfare can be conducted “the right way”, trying to create this intellectual divide between war as a concept and violence against civilians as a concept. It then proceeded to commit some of the most horrific acts of violence against civilians in human history (the Vietnam War, the Korean War, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, everything in the Middle East), with incredibly high death tolls against innocent civilians.
When it comes to international diplomacy, which states conduct war “nicely” and which states do so terroristically is often determined by what the US wants you to think. The US invading multiple foreign countries is portrayed as righteous and their war crimes are accidental. Palestine defending itself against a genocidal state like Israel is considered wrong, and any of its war crimes are terrorism. The US intentionally created this conceptual divide between “correct” and “incorrect” warfare not because a difference logically exists (innocent people being killed is inherent to all conflict) but as a propaganda tactic.
If you’re a young person who sees yourself as a progressive but says “oh Palestine is so bad for involving civilians”, you should probably pick up a history book and find out how apartheid was ended in South Africa. Spoiler alert: Nelson and Winnie Mandela were “terrorists” who committed numerous targeted acts of violence against civilians. The US and UK voted against financial sanctions against apartheid South Africa in the UN general assembly because South Africa at the time was somewhere both states had financial interests and they preferred it remain as it was, a genocidal state.
Killing innocent people is morally wrong. But it is conservative propaganda to imply that any form of warfare is morally right. There is no form of war that has ever avoided civilian involvement, the US simply wants you to believe so in order to excuse its own behaviour historically. War has always resulted in innocent casualties, because war is horrific regardless of who is involved.
Considering that genocidal apartheid states have always resulted in resistance groups being forced to commit “terrorism” (Palestine, Ireland, South Africa), if Israel has an issue with what’s currently occurring, the first step would be to stop committing genocide. It’s actually incredibly easy to not have small resistance groups attacking you if you do not constantly create the conditions in which those groups are forced to exist to defend their right to life.
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