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>>ahmetc+(OP)
I visited Israel for a sports seminar some ~10 years ago and met many nice people. I felt sympathetic to their reality of living in an ever-hostile environment from all sides, and struggle to keep their place in the world safe. I admired their resilience and strength.

When this Gaza conflict started, I saw how the Israeli protested against their government and demanded peace, so I thought there is a semblance of an excuse for glimpses of abhorrence being reported - "it's a small number of people in power, not the Israeli nation doing it, and also there are always 2 sides to the story".

Since then, there have been unfathomable horrors and crimes against humanity done from the Israel side, with extreme intensity and one-sidedness, and it's now been going for so long. I can find no excuse of any kind anymore, for what has been and is being done in Gaza. I don't think any normal person could. The weight of these things, in my mind at least, is such that if the Israeli people really wanted anything different, it was their human duty and utmost responsibility to stop this by now, in whatever way needed. They didn't... It's sad that people who have suffered so much as well, let themselves become the villains to this depth and extent.

>>alluro+Gk
I’m becoming very skeptical of the “bad government, good people” idea. Governments need popular support. This goes even for horrible dictatorships. There are degrees, of course. An oppressive state can survive with less popular support than a democracy. But it still needs a decent amount. The machinery of dictatorship is as much about keeping popular support as it is about forcing people to suppress their opposition.

>>wat100+Pv
These people are manipulated by the media and by their government and by their spiritual leaders.

>>barbaz+sz
Could be, but that doesn’t really matter in the end. Support is support.

>>wat100+Vz
You were judging the morality of the people in your above comment. Being manipulated into giving support doesn't make the people bad.

>>anton-+bH
At some point people have to be responsible for themselves if the concept of responsibility is to have any meaning at all. Our views and actions are all the product of our environment.

>>wat100+DL
> Our views and actions are all the product of our environment.

And if that view is manipulated by people way more powerful than you...

I'm all for personal responsibility but we have laws against certain practices because companies can hack brains so well. You don't think states can do it just as well if not better?

>>anton-+IN
Where do you draw the line? Was the thoroughly indoctrinated SS officer shooting untermenschen responsible, or was he just a victim of manipulation? What about the average Nazi who just went to work every day and thought the Fuhrer was doing a decent job?

>>wat100+ET
I just can't implicate a whole country is bad because their regime is bad. I initially had to pause when you questioned "bad regime, good people" but find I can't say all of Iran or China is bad because of their govt - the countries I most often think of when that phrase comes to mind.

Edit: where do you draw the line? Is an immigrant from a 'bad' country a bad person? Why didn't we try more Germans if what you say about support is true?

>>anton-+4W
I don’t mean to suggest that everyone living under a bad government is bad. Just that you don’t have a situation where the entire populace is good but can’t get their government under control. There may be minority rule. Maybe as low as 1/4th of the population supports the government and its actions. But that is still a lot. Far too many for me to say that “the nation” is against it.

>>wat100+kB1
There's something deeply sick in a society where the strongest objections to the genocide being carried out are not in opposition to the genocide itself, but rather that the indiscriminate killing could reduce the chances of recovering hostages.