First of all I really wouldn’t put much weight on the voting results in an area where Hamas uses violence for decades to keep in power. Especially if there isn’t any semblance of a modern democratic state such as regular(!!) elections, freedom of speech and a free press. A 1-2 generation long youth indoctrination like the Nazis did also really doesn’t create an educated and politically mature population.
And of course 53% still leaves a huge amount of people who aren’t in favour. Not to mention that there is a 70+ year long ongoing conflict which has left pretty much no one in Gaza (or Israel for that matter) who doesn’t know someone getting hurt or killed by the opposing side’s actions. It’s hardly surprising that there’s hard feeling (major understatement) in a lot of people.
And lastly we certainly wouldn’t want to use public opinion as justification for killing civilians. That’s the reasoning the likes of Osama bin Laden do to justify shit like 9/11.
TL;DR: This conflict is complicated as hell and basically a self fueling cycle of hatred where even the good side is acting very shitty a lot of times.
maybe it’s not complicated. All groups who fight oppressors have been labelled as violent extremists. so perhaps it’s actually quite simple.
This conflict is anything but simple. Nearly a century of bloody violence by both sides seldom makes for a clear good vs evil conflict. The fact that Hamas still is the worse autocratic despotic ruler when compared to the hardliner wanna be authoritarians of Netanyahu’s party proves that. Fighting back against oppression doesn’t absolve you from the human duty of compassion and when you indiscriminately kill civilians your fight isn’t justice anymore but just another crime against humanity!
Maybe back when the Zionist militants/terrorist first started to wage their war to get their own country one could have pointed at one side as the good one. But since then both sides have committed countless atrocities. The only thing for sure is that neither kids deserve to grow up in such an environment and to be raised to continue the fight for another generation.
