I might have remembered wrongly (and apologies to ScholesyTW if thats the case), but I recalled him suggesting early into this recent conflict than the only feasible solution was the forced 'relocation' of Palestinians. If he still believes that then I'd struggle to categorise him as a reasonable voice for the Israeli side.
I believe that was Owlo who said that. apologies if I'm myself am mistaken.
I don't know what I think, I'm doing my best not to think about anything, which is obviously impossible.
My mental state is in the gutter if I'm honest.
Trying to keep focusing on my daily stuff, not watch the news.
Haven't been to a single demo, not to stop the operation, not the end the occupation, not for the return of the hostages, not the ones calling for Bibi's head.
Have also taken a break from this thread due to the info that is presented here, it's absolutely brutal.
At any rate, the reasonable Israeli voice as seen by this forum probably represents 0-1% of the Israeli population.
very very hard times.
It was very clear from the beginning that the support for Israel would vanish after the first couple of weeks. I was certain that "the world" would stop Israel from staying in Gaza for months on end, and i thought that only a much smaller part of it would turn into a ghost-town.
And it was also obvious that this thread will turn more and more towards a certain direction, the more it goes on.
I'm 99.99999999% sure that I would be vehemently against Israel if I were looking from the outside in.
But since I'm not, there's a real mess in my head.
Some of those soldiers are my friends.
If I wasn't prone to depression from a young age, i too would have been drafted to a field-unit as I'm physically healthy,
and would probably have spent the last couple of months either inside Gaza or on the Lebanese border.
you guys would have been writing horrors about me...
And I would be there, probably believing that what I do is right and just.
[As an aside- this best-friend of mine who serves in one of the most elite units of the IDF that I wrote about in the first days of it all, how I feared for his life... 5 months on and he is appalled by what's going on in Gaza, as someone who's been there. he would have echoed everything Amir wrote in his last post.]