The Jerusalem Post has deleted this article but thankfully it had been archived.
I’m not a “Israel deserved Oct 7th” person because I think that lends itself to the idea that the victims of the atrocities committed on Oct 7 deserved it. I don’t think they did. I do think Israel as a nation brought it upon themselves in the sense that they have been oppressing the Palestinians for however many years, and if they hadn’t been, the event wouldn’t have happened.
Norman Finkelstein put it in a pretty interesting way – atrocities were committed on Oct 7, but he would not condemn a violent outburst by people who were born in a concentration camp. He urged leniency and grace that would normally be afforded to people who were born into such conditions and who proceeded to commit unspeakable acts.
I’m not the original person asked, just expressing my opinion.
I can’t definitively say what I would do, because I was born into privilege. I can try to imagine, though, if I was broken in such a way, I would likely seek revenge. That doesn’t invalidate anything I said in my previous comment. I believe Hamas committed atrocities on Oct 7. I would be hesitant to condemn them due to the conditions those atrocities were borne out of. If my family was murdered, my home destroyed, my people oppressed, etc. I’m sure I would feel justified in an act of revenge.
But killing or abducting an Israeli child, who for all I know could grow up being an advocate for my people, would not be justice. Do you think it would be? And how many Israeli children would need to die in order to to account for the endless sins of their forebears?
The way I see it Israel deserved the hell out of Oct 7th for like 50 years of slow motion genocide. Israelis did not though. Institution vs the innocent civillians caught in the crossfire.
See, I find myself agreeing, but am having trouble meshing those two, especially in what’s been touted as “the middle east’s only functional democracy”
How does a institution of, by, and for the people not count as a distillation of popular will?
I supposed in a liberal democracy that would be the case, but in reality the US and British governments rarely represent more than 1/3 of the population at best; with those being ‘good’ examples of democracy and Netanyahu being investigated for corruption the share of population actually represented by his administration is likely even lower.