On Israel vs Hamas

You'd have to be living in a cave not to have heard of the Israel-Hamas conflict which has been taking place in Gaza for the past few weeks. It seems that everyone has an opinion on this.

The fact that such a conflict continues to take place disturbs and upsets me. However, what upsets me equally is how passionately people feel- perhaps ignorantly- towards one side or another.

Personally, I refuse to take a side. This is not, of course, because I don't care. It is partially becasue I'm simply not adequetely educated on the full complexity of the situation. But the biggest reason is that- no matter what any media tells us- there are two sides to the story. In some ways I am sympathetic to the Israelis, due in part to my Jewish background. The fact is the state of Israel has been under constant threat - physical and rhetorical - from certain other entities in the Middle East, among which is Hamas. Israel is, in many ways, acting as any state would - including China, Thailand, Spain, and the US. However, this doesn't necessarily justify their behaviour- and of course the difference in casualties is staggering: the latest numbers have over 1000 Palestinians compared with 12 Israelis; the Palestinians are, of course, for the large part innocent civilians.

My point is not to point fingers or to pick sides. No one can deny the grave humanitarian crisis affecting innocent people in Gaza, but then again, how many options does a state like Israel really have?

My point is that this is a very complex situation, with decades- arguably centuries- of underlying history. It is simply impossible to apprecaite the entirety of this situation, much less if we're sitting on the sidelines in North America. The fact that people have such strong, hateful opinions does not achieve anything and, in my view, only serves to perpetuate this futile and dire conflict. How, you might ask? By imdueing the respective belligerents with more ideological support. What do I mean by "strong, hateful opinions"? As an example, I saw this image with a distorted version of the Israeli flag, with an embedded swastica and the words "fascist state". I find this image deeply disturbing and entirely antithetical towards any endeavour of peace in the Middle East- which, at this point, seems almost an impossibility.

In short, what is my argument? I believe that we, as individuals living far far away from the conflict zone, with little possibility of fully appreciating the reality, ought not to express strong, hateful opinions. I know this will not be a popular idea, but I have several reasons for this:
1) Only very very few of us, if anyone at all, can fully understand this situation. I don't include myself among these people- as my understanding comes only from what I'm fed in Anglo-American media. Even people going through the conflict are fed propoganda from their respective parties.
2) The expression of strong opinions perpetuates the conflict by imbdueing with ideological strength. To this end, the best that we, as Western individuals, can do to help bring about peace in the Middle East is to refuse to pick sides.
3) The two sides in this story, in my opinion, both have a fair and legitimate argument. In other words, there is no clear oppressor. I don't only mean for this exact conflict, but for the underlying contextual conflict. You can point your fingers at either the Israeli Jews or the Arab Muslims- but both sides have their own views of the world that, unfrotunately, don't seem to be mutually compatable..... but to blindly choose one side is unfair and unfortunate.

This is just my opinion. I'm aware that it won't be popular.