I've long thought that social media, while always terrible, is at its worst when there is a hot war between Israelis and Palestinians. But these last few days have been really terrible. I mean, the violence perpetrated by Hamas sickens me. But I don't believe that everyone needs to publicly say that. Demands for public displays of jingoism are pretty gross, IMHO. People deal with terrible things in different ways. Just because you feel the need to foist your thoughts on everyone doesn't mean that anyone else has to.
I also don't think there is anything wrong with pointing out how horribly Israel has treated Gazans, or Palestinians in general at this particular moment. It is relevant, after all. Anyone who sees statements about bad things that Israel has done without any mention of Hamas as some sort of defense of Hamas has a reading comprehension problem, or maybe is just is so deeply in the cocoon of pro-Israeli boosterism they have lost their ability to reason when it comes to this issue.
I just hate it whenever a critical mass of people demand that everyone toe a particular party line. And when people take expressions of sympathy for a group of human beings as an expression of support for The Bad GuysTM it just strikes me as ghoulish. So everyone, stop being ghoulish!
I don't know how this new war (or new iteration of an old war) is going to play out, but I do know there is no plausible scenario where it isn't awful.
