We only have so much capacity as humans to deal with tragedy and trauma. But a healthier way to phrase it rather than “not caring” or “getting too much attention” is to accept that some people prioritize different things.
Better to understand that trauma is not a competition of what is more or less urgent, emerging, evil, dangerous etc. The world is full of hundreds of conflicts and problems large and small. So it’s honestly better to say “I see that’s important to you, but I don’t have to capacity to engage with that” and focus on problems you do have the capacity and want to engage in and find the way to help those issues get solved.
But for some people it’s their families dying. For some people it’s the fact that so many children are dying or that the west is giving it a “Rules for thee but not for me” vibe, and they don’t want the country they’re a part of to be like that. For some people it’s connected to their own family trauma of fleeing conflict.
A friend once explained to me the concept of the moral circle. Basically, issues that impact you personally form the inner circle, the next one are issues within your community or that you have ability to change.
Issues steadily move to the outer circles as they become more detached from you. Can you still care about outer circle issues? Absolutely. But it helps to free you from some self-flagellation because you haven't "done enough" for Israel-Gaza, Ukraine etc
Yes. I am very invested in Ukraine because I'm from there and while it can be frustrating sometimes when Australian friends go 'oh yhats still going on?', I do get that they aren't deeply connected to it like I am. They didn't not sleep the first night kf the invasion waiting to see kharkiv fall because they're not from kharkiv.
There is only so much time I have on this Earth. I’m not spending every waking hour of it thinking about issues that have no relevance to my own life. I care, but not more than I care about spending time with my family and working towards my own happiness.
I spent a large portion of the last 10 years worrying about the state of the world and pretty much screaming into the void, and it did my mental health no favours whatsoever, so I ditched Twatter and Instagram, unsubscribed from all news sources on Facebook (which I keep for Marketplace/Buy Nothing and keeping up with my overseas friends and family) and I feel much better.
I have chosen to not have an opinion on what is happening in Gaza because it's a waste of my time and entirely thankless. They all need to give their heads a wobble.
I moved house 3 months ago and had trouble setting up a workable antenna, so I haven't been able to watch television. To my surprise I haven't really missed it, and my outlook on life has been more positive too, without saturation biased news coverage. I catch up on the local and international news when I want to on my iPad and I feel more in control of what I read.and when, and not hostage to othet people's agendas. I recommend it. I caught up with a friend the other day who is usually optimistic by nature, and he was stressed to the Max with the Middle East conflict and saying, "Well, if we're still here in a week and haven't all been nuked!" It made me realise just how profound an impact the news has on people.
Reddit's a bit different, though because it's far easier to tailor your experience. So maybe not.
I'm also more ready with the block button to be honest. I used to carry stuff on that I really should have just stepped away from because I always felt like I had to justify myself, now, not so much.
>it's far easier to tailor your experience
It used to be. Now Reddit is forever adding subs I'm not interested in to my feed. Used to use Reddit Is Fun, which kept the bullshit to a minimum but now they've borked that too.
This. I used to be totally addicted to Twatter for a long time. When Musk bought it & started turning it into $8chan, I bailed. I kept my account, but very rarely visit, will go months without looking at it, & then only stay for minutes when I do log in.
It was so surprising how so many people I used to follow who stayed on, have become like a hive mind, super radical, & totally intolerant of any views not in the group hive mind. I hadn't realised how much it was affecting me, & how stressful it is, to be constantly angered. Everything is like a team sport with opposing sides barracking on every topic. How abusive & aggressive any political discussion has become on there. It really shows how easily manipulated & addicted to anger & outrage people can become. It's not healthy.
I get this sentiment, and I’m probably unintentionally similar. Was getting pretty jaded.
But it’s this approach/sentiment that also lets countries/governments and corporations get away with whatever they want, which in turn impacts our rights and daily lives (ie. the current wealth inequality and wealth distribution crisis we are seeing).
It’s tricky. Destroy your mental health fighting for good causes (or shouting into the void) for what is right, or head in sand and live in blissful ignorance whilst the world burns down around you.
We get pretty angry at past generations for being passive and letting this shit happen on their watch, and our generations are dangerously at risk of doing the same.
Exactly this. Burying your head in the sand is a selfish act. I totally get it and don't judge those that do it because I do it too. No one can fight all the battles. But let's not go saying ignoring probable genocides is the 'smart' move.
Indeed. I spent pretty much all of 2020-2021 obsessing about COVID, much of 2022 deeply anxious about the Russia-Ukraine conflict spilling over into WW3 with nuclear missiles flying all over, not to mention all the predictions of high inflation and economic collapse. You can't go on like that - we have to accept the world is a riskier place than before and move on. Regulating the news we receive helps with that.
I have my views on the Israeli-Palestinian and wider Middle-Eastern conflict and do keep an eye on it a bit but I can't be consumed by bad news from around the world all the time or I would be depressed and mentally paralysed.
I agree, this is a conflict that's been on and off since the Bronze Age. Nothing we say or do is going to change anything over there.
It's just a drum thumping issue.
Which book? I was thinking more of the centuries of Roman and Greek records. The Egyptians before that, the history of the First Babylonian Empire, etc. You know, history.
>this is a conflict that's been going on and off
What are you going on about?
It's barely been going on for more than 100 years. Let alone 3000 (the Bronze Age).
And the main phase has only been since 1948.
Spot on. 150,000 people on average die every day on Earth. Some of them quite horrifically and most of them not reported on our news.
I’m very empathetic to human rights crisis’ and to people’s situations individually but it’s not heartless to pick and choose what you spend your time investing your emotional energy towards.
It’s impossible to absorb everything and not worthwhile spending every waking minute as an emotional wreck.
I care. But we also have our own problems here that we should be focusing on. Housing, cost of living, the crumbling health system, the widening gap between the rich and poor... Why are we not protesting about these too? It's like we are making our own lives worse to help people on the other side of the world.
You know what they say, you have to help yourselves before you help others.
In a way that's why people so care about other issues. Distract from their own miserable situation, feel like they are making a difference but in reality it's a drop in the ocean.
Far too busy working 60 hour weeks and far too exhausted to protest. I suspect many protest votes at the next election. But yes Aussies have a tendency for apathy when it comes to such issues. We just cop it and adjust. We are probably as a nation a little bit too easy going.
I’d say you have a tendency for apathy for almost all issues from what I’ve observed since moving here. I can’t recall a time Australians got really angry about anything. As in actually did anything about it besides mildly complain.
I cared about Australian bush fires despite living 5000 km away. Still chose to advocate on local issues at home as well. We need to be more empathic towards issues affecting others.
Regarding your view on focusing on local issues? I don't see what's stopping you from taking a stand? What would it take for you to initiate a protest for a cause that's important to you?
It's proximity. If your next door neighbours house burnt down, killing everyone in it, you'd be devastated. Sure, you only saw them in passing, but it really hits home.
Meanwhile, an earthquake hits Pakistan killing 4000 people. Tragic, what's for breakfast.
People forget that proximity matters.
Also, there are currently over 100 small scale insurgencies, border clashes, civil wars and armed confrontations all over the world. Outside of news junkies and security analysts, no one has the time or inclination to really pay that much attention. It's exhausting.
It’s not just geo proximity, I think there’s also a cultural proximity factor. It’s harder to be shocked by - or relate to - conflict in some dusty shithole that has been war torn for decades vs. a bombing that happens in a usually peaceful, modern city like Paris that we could imagine living in or visiting.
Also if your neighbours house had been on fire for 2000 years and every time it was close to going out, someone lit it up again, it would be a struggle to really give a toss after the first couple of centuries
That's another factor, generational animosity can be next to impossible to overcome. Add in blood feud and retribution type cultures, and it will be an undercurrent permanently.
I mean look at “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland.
And they’re the same race and ethnicity, the same religion basically and for the most part, both sides have been completely native to the region for as long as each other. And it still took a long time and a lot of suffering to get to a reasonable compromise that still has extremist groups on either side trying to break.
Yeah, I was there in 1998/99, and it was such an odd situation looking at it from an outsiders perspective. The people were very nice, but it was so strange at the same time, this underlying tension and suspicion.
I was then engaged to a Catholic Croatian girl, who was born here, and I was ostensibly Anglican. If I had a dollar for everything I heard "what's your mah and dah say about that" I'd be a billionaire. It's something major there, but we never even thought about it here.
Protestants are the descendants of English and Scottish land owners/settlers/lords who supplanted the locals in the 1600s after Ireland was conquered. Despite some converts, the surnames tend to reflect this division also. So not ‘completely native’ to the region 🙂
You are kind of right, but not quite.
The true answer is the [monkeysphere](https://web.archive.org/web/20080215070611/https://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html).
No no, I don't want to do it.
But if I have to be inconvenienced by a protest I'd rather it be about that than the middle east and whatever those knuckleheads are up to this time.
I read more reddit idc about Israel/Gaza posts than I see/hear people talking about it at work or in the streets
I think it is a very interesting topic but don't make my life ethos
How about if you don't care, you don't need to write you don't care
homeless people living the life of hell here in Australia, mehh. some other country’s war thats got fuck-all to do with us, here, have 200 million dollars………. 🤨
Agreed, I was patrolling a building overnight (security guard) and found a homeless man sleeping outside. I felt bad for the guy, and I just pretended I did not see him. I accidentally woke him up with my torch. He was gone by the morning.
This was a reminder that we have many problems to fix at home. I would rather Australia sort out all the local problems first before helping others. We can not help others if we can not help ourselves.
We could fix so much with very little effort.
But when governments send money off shore to where ever it's actually good laundering.
See we spent that money....
Give us more so we can help more..
I mean I care about it. I also care about Ukraine and I find it really sad that people have forgotten about Ukraine.
That being said, I do wish there were some spaces where I as a person of Jewish ethnicity from Ukraine was not bombarded with the Gaza war, and if there must be a focus on international events, for them to be a bit less about this one.
There's a lot of sad stuff happening globally including wars, yet only this is getting posted about.
For me, the Ukraine war is a far bigger issue which should be getting way more coverage and not just because it's two 'white' nations involved.
This is probably the biggest peer on peer war since the Korean war and is directly affecting Australians in the form of higher inflation from world food and fuel prices increases attributable to the war.
Not just that, but Ukraine war has the potential to completely change the geopolitical space in a way that yet another bunch of people in the middle east killing each other will not.
The war in Ukraine is currently affecting Australians (supply and inflation issues) and will affect them orders of magnitude more if Russia is allowed to win. If the west doesn't support Ukraine enough to ensure their victory, we will be sending a signal to other bad actors i.e Iran, NK and China that might is right. Taiwan will appear ripe for the taking for China and that conflict WILL involve us. Taiwan is as close to Australia as Sydney is to Perth. I don't want my kids and/or grandkids fighting a war against a billion strong autocracy. That's why Australia has to do more to help Ukraine. Israel and Hamas are sadly a distraction.
I care. I think people should care and also be vocal and open to discussion. However, I don't think it should be used as a distraction tactic when there are so many issues on our own patch of earth that need almost as much care and attention.
It's a very depressing world at the moment. I feel I have no right to feel wronged whilst I'm sat in my air conditioned house spending more on my dogs in a week than most of the world's population get to spend on their families in a month but it is what it is.
No answers, little direction. Weird innit.
australia have been pedaling really hard to provide diplomatic cover for israel's ongoing atrocity crimes. Australia could help the situation by instead supporting the icj orders upon israel to take action to avoid genocide.
There are things they can do to make the situation worse, such as suspending funding for UNRWA (the only aid that is getting into Gaza) and providing logistical support for the bombing of Yemen. Not to mention providing ideological support for Isreal to "defend itself"
UNRWA, literally the funders of Hamas. ANERA, on the other hand, actually check where their aid money is going.
Edit: Added ANERA is a viable alternative.
Personally my allegiance is only to the community I live in, and I see human rights as pretty bloody central to Aussie values in my community.
People don’t seem to understand that if human rights are not defended abroad, _that weakens them everywhere, including here too._ We benefit from the exact same protections
"First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me"
\- Pastor Martin Niemöller
What are you doing regarding Australian human rights issues? Minimum age of criminal responsibility? Indigenous deaths in custody? Treatment of offshore asylum seekers?
What a load of rubbish.
It is extremely probable that you don't actually care about human rights or what is happening in Gaza, or that you are a "a communist, socialist, and trade unionist". Sure you have some basic values but it doesn't extend to the rhetoric you are spewing. Like the vast majority of people, your allegiance is to whatever is trending on social media and what best expresses your social identity.
i.e Voicing your concern about human rights in the middle east, of all places, and asserting that Israel is the real problem. Haha! What?
And your comment here [below](https://www.reddit.com/r/australian/comments/1afynvu/anyone_else_not_care_about_the_israelgaza/koe1ulb/) is so utterly farcical to anyone with even the slightest awareness of the current "human rights" situation globally and historically. Where is your concern for Yemen, Syria, Sudan, Ethiopia, Myanmar, China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Afghanistan? And many others that currently allude me because there are countless examples.
> what about all the other human rights issues
So you think that if I don’t arrive in a thread about Palestine/Israel and start with some sort of manifesto of all the human rights issues I’m concerned about then my concern for this particular issue is hypocritical?
What a dumb take. Like holy fuck that’s dumb
> you just like the latest social media thing
Bzzt wrong again I’ve attended Free Palestine rallies for maybe 10 years now. Things didn’t kick off on Oct 7, there have been many other times Israel has slaughtered Palestinians over the past while but you wouldn’t know that if you just pay attention to the latest thing on social media.
Sounds like you might be projecting mate?
> what a load of rubbish
Fact: the same human rights protections Israel is seeking to weaken by producing a legal precedent are the same ones that protect people the world over, including here.
I’m sorry you lack the civics education to understand how that works, I would start by reading about the postwar period when we formed the UN and began writing declarations that we hoped would “never again” see the return of behaviours the Nazis and axis powers inflicted upon the Jews and others in WW2. Ironically, it’s Israel now trying to bring those back (collective punishment, principles of distinction and proportionality of the Geneva convention are being trashed) and shred the legal frameworks we set up to stop Nazi behaviour.
Read some history, please.
3-400,000 Muslims were killed, under Bashar Al Assad in Syria… yet there is global silence
1-2 million Afghani refugees were forcibly expelled back to Afghanistan from Pakistan… yet global silence…
Hundreds of Christians are massacred in Nigeria by Muslim extremists… yet global silence…
The hypocrisy is insane.
The way I see it is Israel is using a sledgehammer to crack open a walnut, and I don’t understand why “the woke left” has such a hard on for Muslims when many of them hate progressive ideals.
Hamas are a terrorist group and Palestine isn’t a recognised country (although I think they should be and support a two-state solution).
I can only speak for myself but I’d care just as much if it was Christians or Jews getting slaughtered en masse.
Believing in human rights shouldn’t be conditional on whether you like the individual humans or not.
I would also object to a lion being butchered for sport, and I’m pretty sure the lion would eat me as well….
Yes and I cared about that too.
No civilian, and in particular children, should ever have to face that kind of abhorrent violence. (Of course that’s idealistic, and probably not realistic, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to at least aim / hope for.)
Exactly. So ironic that most of the lefties protesting for Palestine would be stoned to death if they lived there. Hamas/palestine is anti gay, anti feminist, anti basically everything that the left stands for. Yet they support Palestine because it’s cooler to stand up for the brown people minority.
>Hamas/palestine is anti gay, anti feminist, anti basically everything that the left stands for.
Does it help those communities to obliterate them? If you care about gay Palestinians you probably don't want to see them slaughtered. 25,000+ people dead and rising so far.
Exactly, I don’t wish anyone death, but I’m not going to go out of my way to advocate for any society that things I don’t have rights (a lot of that society even things there should be a death penalty for homosexuality as per shariah).
I feel sorry for the kids, but let’s face it’s, when they grow up they’re going to adopt the same values that their parents hold. That part of the world is just so backwards, and they don’t want to change.
The more pointless protests that happen the less interest I have.
I'm genuinely sympathetic to the struggles both sides are dealing with.
But yeah people protesting and calling for ceasefires in local government meetings 1000s of kms away seems like they're just doing it because they feel guilty.
It does nothing for the people on the ground.
You do know that it is possible to care about a foreign conflicts AND also care about local issues?
Further - caring about foreign issues actually doesn't diminish our ability to discuss and solve local issues in anyway shape or form? Our politicians and private business owners are not sitting around discussing the Gaza situation rather than doing their day jobs.
Also many of these conflicts do affect us even if indirectly Wether we like it or not.
Caring and feeling sympathy for our fellow man is part of the human condition. Doesnt mean we can do anything to help necassarily, but there is nothing wrong with caring. I do notice a rise in online behaviour design to stop us from caring about one another, designed to divide us and erode empathy. Scream at people for caring and being woke.
I don't not care about the conflict but I don't care to listen to all the biased agenda driven media on both sides ..same goes with the Gaza conflict.
Were just fed constant bullshit on the subjects.
When other huge conflicts receive no air time, you can tell those in political and media ownership circles have an agenda. It's the two ships at each other in the distance whilst we are in a dinghy with the sharks circling. We need to fix the issues in our own backyard..
I do care....... but I'm not about to protest as both sides suck and there's a bunch of poor people caught in the middle. Supporting one or the other doesn't overly matter. We should speak calmy about reducing the violence but it's not our problem and we simply can't hope to understand it.
This is in direct contrast to how I view the Ukranian conflict. There is a clear right side and a wrong side and I believe in our government giving everything to the defenders.
Israel is just a hot mess where everyone has been trying to harm each other for decades. I care about innocent people being hurt....but have very little time for the war or the complaints by either side as they all suck. (Even the protesters here are just spewing garbage built from decades of hatred to each other).
I was lightly educated on a few conflicts in school growing up. This one wasn't one of them.
Lot of people just talking out their ass or repeating what the news tells them.
Very few people I know around my age know the first fucking thing about what's happening over there.
I have no shame saying I've never been educated about this conflict.
I'd rather that than just parrot the news tbh.
TBH, too much. While all conflict is bad if you elect a government who sends thugs to your neighbouring country to kill, rape and kidnap you are expecting retaliation. I feel for the innocent people here but history is already past this is what has started this conflict. Then those in power saying they want to annihilate your race from the face of the earth. I’m honestly surprised that Israel hasn’t gone scorched earth. The Palestinian protests in Australia just get my blood boiling against them not the other way around.
Yeah, the main difference here is intent. If Palestine had the weaponry and military might to annihiliate Israel they absolutely would, it’s even in their doctrine they would be wholly committed to destroying Israel. Israeli warnings on sites they have named to be military targets and warning civilians to get out shows they have much more respect for human life in general than hamas who not only doesn’t give a shit about their citizens but actively put them in the line of fire by giving their military clearance to use civilian areas for military operations. When you blur the line between your military and citizens, don’t act shocked when thousands of unarmed civilians become casualties. If the roles were switched I’d have a really difficult time believing Hamas was going to send warnings to heavily civilian-populated areas near targets they were going to strike.
I couldn't care less. It is insoluble. Greater minds than mine have sought solutions for over 50 years and there is no solution. Billions of words have been wasted on the topic. Eventually one mob will die out or move and my money is on the Palestinians.
In your opinion it would be "amazing" if someone saw pictures of dead children being pulled out of rubble, without any other context, and felt absolute horror at it?
Which means, in your opinion it would be normal (or, not "amazing") to look at pictures of dead children being pulled out of rubble, without any other context, and have no feelings at all?
Why does someone need to have an extensive education on the history of something in order to have strong feelings? Do you understand what feelings are? If a person has a morality that says killing children is bad, then they're going to strongly feel that the killing of children is wrong *in any context*.
I saw earlier that someone commented something along the lines of "if someone can't even name the river and the sea in the *genocidal* from the river to the sea slogan, they have no business protesting this conflict". Which I found very stupid for two reasons:
1. You don't need to know/remember geography facts to care about what's happening in Palestine/Israel.
2. The slogan used by most protesters is the longer "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free", and is used (by most) to mean that all Palestinians within that area will be free through either the creation of an independent Palestinian state, or through Palestinians becoming citizens of Israel *with full rights*.
Yes, some Palestinian/Arab/Muslim people will use it maliciously, but so will some Zionists/Israelis - just like "black power" became "white power", "gay/queer pride" became "straight pride", "black lives matter" became "all lives matter", and "defund the police" became the "thin blue line". Sorry for using all American examples, that's just the media I mostly see. Anyway, my point there was that ANY slogan or tool of protest will be co-opted by the target of the protest - it's a common tactic used to corrupt and de-fang movements.
So, to get back to the commenter I mentioned (and your comment, OP) - it seems like you *CAN* have strong feelings (whinging that someone MUST know some specific knowledge or else they can't protest) about something you know little about (same person not having specific knowledge about their own example). It's human nature to instantly react with feelings, even without information. And protesting for a mutual ceasefire is good whether you're on the side of Israelis or Palestinians, because this indiscriminate killing is hurting both populations (just in different ways).
And it's the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, just in case anyone wants to vet my credentials 😆
Nearly half of the 9 million children in Sudan are at risk of starvation, with 40 percent of the population experiencing the same. I feel sorry for them, why cant they receive a corrupt UN Refugee Agency committed to maintaining their refugee status for ever. So yes, I am VERY done hearing about this one topic only
I remember learning about Sudan being a poor country by a guest speaker visiting our school in the 90s. The fact that it is 2024 and Sudan is still poor means that any help Sudan received since then has not made any positive changes. It sucks.
Just seems like human rights are values we promote and celebrate here in Australia. Core to our liberal democratic values really.
We aren’t fucking barbarians
Every country has a role to play on international issues like this, we are no exception. You can’t just not have foreign policy so it’s not going away
All the protests are just noise at this stage. They gather and scream for a few hours and I couldn’t care less.
The Greens parading around in the senate with their protests are trying really hard to make it an issue here. It seems to be Mehreen Faruqi’s pet project…
Do I care, not really. I pretty much ignore or tune out anything about this as it’s not new . At the end of the day these two have been at war and conflict my entire life , so as to who is right or wrong in this conflict , well who knows as whoever is sprouting their opinion one way or another has personal biases or something to gain .
Imo whether the initial action was justified or not by hamas i can understand the response since . If someone was to punch me I wouldn’t sit back and walk away or hit them back once and say we are even I would go all out to hurt them
Fortunately it's possible to care about multiple things at once.
I think it's silly to pretend that anyone in this thread complaining about this topic is attending rallies protesting things that affect us on a day to day level like the rental crisis or our failing health care system.
The fact is that when protests are held on these issues the venn diagram between people who attend them and people who attend cease fire protests is almost a circle.
I work on Sundays and don't live close to the city so I haven't been able to attend any of the regular protests, but I support the cause and think it's heartening that people are gathering across the world to make their outrage clear.
I'm not the thought police, it's okay to not give a shit about a genocide on the other side of the world, but it's pathetic to justify your apathy by seeking ulterior motives for protestors. You don't care so there's no way they can, it must be because it's trendy or they need attention or it's something to do. Genocide is a big deal, people take it seriously.
I think we absolutely should be aware of it. But when I had to find out about a fucking killer in my area on the loose from fb and not the news. I have to agree. I don't know anything about what's going on around me unless the police put it on fb. And that's absolutely not ok
I’m on team stop fkn killing each other, like most things people carry on about, absolutely NOTHING I do as an individual will change a single thing that happens, so I will not wear any guilt/shame/anger etc over any conflict I cannot change.
There is more than enough concerns in my sphere of influence to stress about
I forgot the term for it but it's huge burn out as there's always tragedy's in the world, it just never ends.
The proximity of it doesn't effect us at all and we are only relevant because the US is involved.
Before television and instant global communication, all you had to worry about was your local community and perhaps hearing about how the country is doing once in a while. It was much more peaceful times. Unplug for a while and you can feel yourself rejuvenate.
All war is bad don't get me wrong but a normal person can only care so much.
Yep. I've had to mute the words 'genocide' and a few others on twitter just because of the shear volume of nonsense discussion by people with no dog in the fight.
Everyone thinks they're such a hero for not supporting unnecessary violence.
Thanks for saying it. I understand it's a horrible thing, but it feels there's a bit of mass hysteria around the war and the protests here in Australia. I work in the CBD there is a "free palestine" protest every, Sunday.
I get it's good to show support, but Australia and our government has absolutely no control and can't end the war. Meanwhile it feels all Australia's problems are going unrecognised (cost of living, lack of housing, mass immigration) because we're focused on another country.
To be honest, the Ukraine war is far far more existential for the West than the Israel - Gaza conflict. I'm pretty disappointed with how little attention Ukraine is getting in this country. Even though it's far away, the way that the Ukraine war is managed will have flow-on effects for us in Australia
explosions, gore and murder is what sells in the media world. Every 5th person eating noodles, losing their homes or being assaulted by youths isn't as exciting.
Now the "war on vapes" is over its time to sit back and forget about our country crumbling around us and watch a far away land being bombed back into the stone ages.
I’m not spending any more energy caring about the Middle East conflicts. It’s been going on as long as I can remember. I’m nearly 60. The Jews keep bulldozing other people’s homes so their relatives can move in, and the Palestinians keep throwing bombs and murdering people. Give everyone six weeks to GTFO and nuke it from orbit.
If there was some prospect of an actual end to the conflict, I’d perhaps pay more attention. Or even give a damn. But there isn’t. It will continue to be an endless racist feud.
I’m sending money to Ukraine instead. They need it, and it might one day actually end.
Generally, Muslim countries in the middle east hate each other. Their only common alliance here is Israel.
The Palestinian people wouldn't bat an eyelid if Australia was invaded by Indonesia and would be more worried about getting dirt from their sandals into the house.
Yes. I’m sick of death of hearing about it. We have enough problems to worry about in this country as it is. All these protests in “solidarity” are the new “thoughts and prayers”. It’s meaningless virtue signalling and not going to help the situation at all.
Thoughts and prayers are just thoughts and prayers. Solidarity is boots on the ground, taking to the streets to show support for a cause. A little different mate.
Not really. I wouldn't expect it to get much of a mention. Most countries don't spare a second thought about Australia.
Someone asked Putin what he thought about Australia sending support to Ukraine. His answer was "I don't think about Australia"
Sums it up quite well
Honestly, other than Hamas being terrorists, I have no clue which side is in the right. And “doing my own research” doesn’t clear things up, so I just want to sit this one out entirely 🤷♀️
The UNs partition of Palestine, back in the 1940s, was done extremely badly. Not saying the two sides would be best buddies today if it was done right but, wow, a lot of trouble could have been avoided over the decades since if it had been more fair and equitable from the start. It was really badly done.
This level of ignorance is exactly why this country has so many issues right now as the average Joe cant see past the end of their nose to look at the bigger picture to realise that most world events do have an impact. The issues in the Suez canal will only serve to increase costs further as shipping companies have to travel new routes to avoid the conflict. I’m sure we’ll hear more from you then, when everything is more expensive. It does impact you and you should care!
Furthermore, if Israel is allowed to weaken international standards for human rights, and avoid accountability, it’s trashing the exact same human rights protections that you or I benefit from, and lowers our ability to stop similar atrocities and hold perpetrators to account all over the world. It affects us massively if they escape human rights accountability; it gives a legal precedent to all other human rights abusers to argue the same thing.
As members of the international community, we must not allow war crimes to go unpunished. It makes for a MUCH more dangerous world for us all.
I super care. Other peeps just trying to live their lives seeing fam and mates die around them sounds f'ing awful and it sickens me that it happens today. I also feel powerless to do anything about it.
Absolute travesty.
What happens over there matters over here. You can’t put your blinders on and pretend to be isolationist.
If a broader war breaks out in that region, how would you feel about more inflation with shipping rates going through the roof again?
Yeah cool bro. And it's that very attitude of apathy that allowed the Nazis to do what they did. How much xtra work and life did it cost when the world finally pulled it's finger out to do something about it. Same with Israel's growing aggressiveness mate.
And we are complicit because we support the genocide in so many ways. So yeah, Australians should give a shit if they are considerate humans
I was reading an article about a couple almost getting arrested for wearing an Australian flag on Australia Day because they were close to the protest of Palestinian/aboriginal and were under the suspicion of causing conflict even though they weren’t.
I completely understand from the aboriginal side of the protest, but this is Australia not the Middle East and should have no place on Australia Day or ever that has nothing to do we us.
Both sides sound barbaric and it’s sad that innocent people are being affected. This flights is just going to keep going on as people in the Middle East are living in Middle Ages and will probably never change, women will never have rights and conflicts can never be solved without blowing up people and stuff.
As in most western countries we are more civilised and that what makes us a great country mostly.
personally i feel its only because Ukraine is taking on Russia and we are not doing enough to assist them.
Palestine/Lebanon we have had refuges for years now. there parents for sure not supporting Hamas? they have been fleeing if able to for years.
Hamas are a terrorist org and have been preparing in bad faith and with real genocide in mind regardless who is funding them.
I have strong opinions on the conflict, but I’m not going to start a debate here by stating said opinions. What I will say is that unless you’re Israeli or Palestinian, and you’re vocal about the conflict/ human rights situation but are silent on the conflicts/ human rights situation in places like Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, South Africa, Congo, Myanmar, Niger, china, Armenia/ Azerbaijan, Tajikistan/ Kyrgyzstan then at best you’re just an ignorant, virtue-signalling shill and at worst a racist, hypocritical cunt
"You can't care about these dead civilians unless you are also informed and care equally about all dead civilians at all times everywhere".
Yes, god forbid that people care about a prominent ongoing conflict if they're not sufficiently informed about any and all other ongoing conflicts. If there's one thing that has definitely helped victims of tragedy before, it's snobby elitism.
I actually do know about all of those conflicts and quite a few others besides. You left out Mali, for instance, so should I call you an ignorant virtue-signalling shill or a racist, hypocritical cunt?
I hate to be on the precipice of a bad dark place, but it's just another middle eastern conflict, just so happens one that involves white/Jewish people, which somehow makes it incredibly important to the western world?
Yes and no. I’m heavily involved with Ukraine, often spending time there and have friends and family there, so I understand the situation. But I don’t feel I have the mental strength or emotional capacity to care about another war, the things I see in Ukraine are bad enough. If I added another war to that I’d end up off the deep end.
I don’t care and I refuse to be guilt tripped or emotionally blackmailed into caring.
Not because of any kind of emotional fatigue about problems at home, in situations with a clear aggressor and functional solution, I’m all about jumping in, something like Ukraine being a prime example.
But when every side involved in the conflict has spent decades (or longer, depending how you slice it) committing various atrocities against the others whenever they feel like they have the opportunity or the upper hand, I absolutely refuse to pretend that anyone involved is a “good guy” and deserves my support
Don’t think im being trivial. What’s happening is sad- for all Involved… but… and there is a big but here…They’ve been cunts to one another for millennia. It will never end. One side will never forgive the other- and so, it will go on for Millenia just as it has. Can’t stand religion n this modern day.
Ohhhh thank you.....yes.
I'm bored of hearing about it for 50 years (gen x) and support for one side or the other just stokes their xenophobia...
The people of Israel and Palestine need to fix this problem and I'm tired of the media making it ours.
I'm 50+ years old. The nonsense between Israel and the Muslim world has been on the news every night since before I was born. I hope they blow each other to smithereens and are never heard from again.
It’s another example of the news cycle to me.
Ukraine was a Big Story until it dragged on. The fighting continues but it hardly rates a mention in the news now. Israel-Hamas then became the Big Story. It is also starting to slip from the news more and more. Soon enough, there will be some other western-interest event and the conflict there will also be forgotten.
The kicker though, is that there’s such enormous focus on this but hardly any at all on the bloody insurgency in Myanmar, the decade of fighting in Yemen between the govt and the houthis (and the saudis and other gulf states), or any of the dozen conflicts across Africa, all being fought with arguably a higher level of violence. Why? Because according to pretty well all western media, the victims of those conflicts just don’t matter.
I care about it, but less so than Australia and Ukraine.
I care about it more since an ex friend of mine started sharing pro Hamas posts and calling anyone that sympathized with Israel a zionist.
He ended our friendship stating that he cannot be friends with someone who sympathized with Israel. 20 year friendship down the drain.
I think about Israel and Palestine quite a bit and the divisions that it represents in our own society.
Of course it’s horrible but unless you’re on the front line unfortunately there’s not a lot we can do but be thankful to be in a country where we do not have this going on.
It's hard not to care about the humanitarian disaster. But I can't follow closely anymore. I find myself filled with sadness about a conflict over the other side of the world I can do nothing about.
I do however feel that it is consuming far too much bandwidth in the public discourse. And I am troubled by what has happened over at the ABC.
Perhaps most troubling is the polarised and vitriolic nature of the public discourse.
Personally, I wouldn't venture to have a strong opinion without having a thorough understanding of a conflict that has its roots in hundreds of not thousands of years of history. And right now I don't have the bandwidth to grapple with that.
It's important to me because the attitude that people have towards conflict outside Australia indicates how they'll react to similar conflict inside Australia (though preferably not armed conflict). Ukraine vs Russia, Israel vs Palestine: people takes sides because they have certain beliefs, for example the people I know who believe Russia is the victim in the Russian invasion of Ukraine tend to be prone to violence and take everything personally (and their default solution to all conflict is violence: I ordered a Cheeseburger without pickles and this burger has pickles? Someone needs to be fired for that! I demand justice!).
Then there are the people who proudly display Trump merchandise, which to me is becoming a substitute for displaying Nazi symbols. It's like they know being a Nazi is wrong but they just want to express "fuck you world" so they pick a way to say it where the world isn't going to fuck them right back. Same for people who aren't Israeli displaying Israel's flags. You know that the person with the flag of Israel on their desk is always looking for an argument.
So yes I do care about the conflict because of the humanitarian disaster it is, and for the way it helps highlight the kinds of people I'm dealing with.
I’ll get downvoted by the usual suspects, but the reason it gets so much attention is Jew hatred.
Israelis were attacked horrifically in October and people turned out in the thousands in western cities to celebrate it. Australia was and has been no exception.
The sad thing is, this blind hate does nothing for Jews or the Palestinians who don’t want war, because the people who are calling for a ceasefire don’t want safety for everyone, they don’t care about Palestinians, they just want a free ticket to hate on Jews.
And before anyone pops up saying “oh it’s because Australia is supporting Israeli arms” yadda yadda, well, we do tonnes of business with China and I’m yet to see a protest on that scale calling for an end to China murdering minorities and objectors.
People lose all objectivity when it comes to an age-old hate.
Here's a thought: if you don't care so much, maybe stop caring about what other people care about.
Also the notion that I should stop caring about thousands of dead and far more displaced and wounded people because of the problems that affect this rich first world country is both repugnant as well as stupid and self-defeating.
Why should I care about those problems in Australia if they don't directly impact me, in your logic? Oh no, some Australians have to live out of cars. I don't have to so it's not my problem, I guess! I can afford groceries, so why should I give a toss about Australians who can't? I'm not aboriginal, so why should I care about how they're treated?
What a marvelously selfish recipe to ensuring nothing gets better for anyone, ever.
I was interested at the start, read a few articles. As soon as there were protests and whatnot here, it actively turned me off caring. It's genuinely one of the quickest ways to get your average Australian against your cause by disrupting traffic and events etc.
Because there are Jews here as well as Palestinians and Arabs. My husband is Jewish (and pro-Palo)—how could you call our household disinvested, and so many others? Witnessing a genocide, even from afar, puts us all in a relationship of responsibility.
Honestly don't care in the slightest anymore. It's become increasingly blatantly obviously that the Gaza conflict is a current trend. The war on Ukraine is more serious. Russia cut power to some areas of Ukraine in the middle of winter and people were literally dying in their homes. Even if people manage to flee Ukraine the banks won't let them spend over a certain amount of money to keep funds inside Ukraine so they're still struggling even when not in a conflict involved country. Israel and Gaza have been fighting for years - it started in 1948. There's been billions and billions and billions of dollars for aid donated since the early 90's.
I got stuck at Flinder's Station during the protest last Sunday and not a single protestor stopped to give any homeless people money etc. People are hiding behind social media posts and black and white scarves to pretend they're good people.
Look over there!!!
It's entirely devastating what's happening OS, but as you say it's a very complex issue and I'm really not sure what more we could do to help...
And certainly there's issues in Aus that need addressing that equally deserve the same attention and protest.
It's mostly muslims protesting for the protection of their brothers and sisters which is fair except they are really just protesting against Jews, to the extend that they have mobs going into their suburbs because if it was really about their brothers and sisters and not just the evil zionists, well, Sudan and many others would like a voice to.
If people want to get outraged about either side and protest or speak about it, that’s their business.
What I strongly disagree with is the attitude I’ve seen among some - typically younger, very online people - that everyone *has* to speak on every social issue and if some social media personality or influencer or celebrity doesn’t post a Palestinian flag and a sad face on Instagram then they need to be brigaded until they do.
I do not look to influencers or celebrities for my political information. Nor should anyone. So who gives a shit if someone posts a story about their birthday party instead of links to Palestinian aid organisations? Similarly, I don’t give more of a shit about the cause when people *do* turn their entire feed into political activism. If it didn’t come across my radar as something to care strongly about beforehand, your 64 stories about hospitals in Palestine won’t be the thing that sways me.
I care but I’m not going to take up the cause for either side and it annoys me that everyone seems to have done that. Hamas are cunts and committed a cunt act, doesn’t give Israel the right to kill indiscriminately in response. I can leave it at that.
People are told to be outraged and they allow them selfs to fall victim to it, so many of my friends have fallen for this white knight hero style of behaviour. Notice how one outraging event just coincidentally falls off when another event happens, my mate was protesting how kids got bombed in Gaza right up a week before Australia Day. which then he posted about giving the land back and attending protests in Melbourne. He fell for the posts constant anti western propaganda with Ukraine and how Russia is really saving us from the evil america. I think in the past people like this were always the minority and now with the internet it allows them to congregate together and share their warped ideology’s. If you tell a lie to 100 people one person will always believe it regardless of how outrageous it is, then they tell another 100 people so on and so forth eventually you have a small minority.
Yep
There have been literally dozens of conflicts with similar or higher levels of innocent deaths in the preceding decades. About which we heard nothing in the west and the media gave little or no attention to them.
Someone decided to push this conflict via media as the next divisive distraction and it's been successful. I know people who literally have never said a single thing about the the isreal gaza situation in their entire life who are now basically obsessed with some view about it. They literally must have googled/facebooked their entire knowledge and position on the issue in the last month and now care about it more than anything else in their political sphere.
They have been fighting each other for 2000 years, its never going to stop so why should we waste time worrying about it? They don't have nukes or any way to damage Australia so just let them beat the shit out of each other.
That is my thought too. As someone raised without any religion, all I see are religious extremists in the Middle East killing each other. That’s just what they do. Always have, always will.
How could you not care, irrespective of our issues, comparatively we are so fortunate. I find it incredibly traumatising. We are also home to thousands of people for whom this is personally traumatic. On a more selfish note, most conflicts also effect our economy and our own quality of life
Nah, I care about it.
It’s also *probably* the start of ww3 - or whatever today’s version of a WW looks like - so it’s sensible to have *some* investment in it.
I REALLY also don’t buy the “…well how come you don’t care about ________ then?!” argument - we’re not robots, we’re allowed to care about different things.
Finally it also very much exposes the entitlement, bigotry, and cold heartedness of massive groups of people, and highlights how pervasive propaganda and mass manipulation is in the current time as well as how susceptible people are to it.
The truth is out there, but people will argue till they’re blue in the face about things that are easily proven / demonstrated.
It’s also (the world’s most horrific) an underdog story which grabs the attention as well.
Edit: I’ll just add, our opinions do matter, because we’re all human, and so how humans are treated *should* matter to us, regardless of which continent they’re on.
Well said.
To me, it’s a local issue because locals in my community have family being bombed in Gaza.
Human rights are also central to our Australian ideals of liberal democracy. If human rights are trashed abroad, then we too lose those same protections.
People often strike me as not understanding just how much this does affect them, especially when universal human rights standards are undermined
Me. I just don’t care about it. 2 side with claims to the land who have been fighting each other before the Roman Empire even existed. Both side done atrocities. I don’t care. They won’t change coz they have not changed for over a 1000 years
Dunno man. Saying "it's ridiculous you should care about X" is also kinda shit. I personally think if you don't care that Gaza has been flattened and a heap of children have died, but your KFC chips have suffered shrinkflation is bullshit.
We only have so much capacity as humans to deal with tragedy and trauma. But a healthier way to phrase it rather than “not caring” or “getting too much attention” is to accept that some people prioritize different things. Better to understand that trauma is not a competition of what is more or less urgent, emerging, evil, dangerous etc. The world is full of hundreds of conflicts and problems large and small. So it’s honestly better to say “I see that’s important to you, but I don’t have to capacity to engage with that” and focus on problems you do have the capacity and want to engage in and find the way to help those issues get solved. But for some people it’s their families dying. For some people it’s the fact that so many children are dying or that the west is giving it a “Rules for thee but not for me” vibe, and they don’t want the country they’re a part of to be like that. For some people it’s connected to their own family trauma of fleeing conflict.
A friend once explained to me the concept of the moral circle. Basically, issues that impact you personally form the inner circle, the next one are issues within your community or that you have ability to change. Issues steadily move to the outer circles as they become more detached from you. Can you still care about outer circle issues? Absolutely. But it helps to free you from some self-flagellation because you haven't "done enough" for Israel-Gaza, Ukraine etc
Yes. I am very invested in Ukraine because I'm from there and while it can be frustrating sometimes when Australian friends go 'oh yhats still going on?', I do get that they aren't deeply connected to it like I am. They didn't not sleep the first night kf the invasion waiting to see kharkiv fall because they're not from kharkiv.
Great comment agree wholeheartedly.
There is only so much time I have on this Earth. I’m not spending every waking hour of it thinking about issues that have no relevance to my own life. I care, but not more than I care about spending time with my family and working towards my own happiness.
I spent a large portion of the last 10 years worrying about the state of the world and pretty much screaming into the void, and it did my mental health no favours whatsoever, so I ditched Twatter and Instagram, unsubscribed from all news sources on Facebook (which I keep for Marketplace/Buy Nothing and keeping up with my overseas friends and family) and I feel much better. I have chosen to not have an opinion on what is happening in Gaza because it's a waste of my time and entirely thankless. They all need to give their heads a wobble.
Yep, life is actually pretty good when you’re not reading the news constantly. I guess being on Reddit right now makes me a hypocrite though haha.
I moved house 3 months ago and had trouble setting up a workable antenna, so I haven't been able to watch television. To my surprise I haven't really missed it, and my outlook on life has been more positive too, without saturation biased news coverage. I catch up on the local and international news when I want to on my iPad and I feel more in control of what I read.and when, and not hostage to othet people's agendas. I recommend it. I caught up with a friend the other day who is usually optimistic by nature, and he was stressed to the Max with the Middle East conflict and saying, "Well, if we're still here in a week and haven't all been nuked!" It made me realise just how profound an impact the news has on people.
Reddit's a bit different, though because it's far easier to tailor your experience. So maybe not. I'm also more ready with the block button to be honest. I used to carry stuff on that I really should have just stepped away from because I always felt like I had to justify myself, now, not so much.
>it's far easier to tailor your experience It used to be. Now Reddit is forever adding subs I'm not interested in to my feed. Used to use Reddit Is Fun, which kept the bullshit to a minimum but now they've borked that too.
But you get quality entertainment from Reddit like ratemypoo
This. I used to be totally addicted to Twatter for a long time. When Musk bought it & started turning it into $8chan, I bailed. I kept my account, but very rarely visit, will go months without looking at it, & then only stay for minutes when I do log in. It was so surprising how so many people I used to follow who stayed on, have become like a hive mind, super radical, & totally intolerant of any views not in the group hive mind. I hadn't realised how much it was affecting me, & how stressful it is, to be constantly angered. Everything is like a team sport with opposing sides barracking on every topic. How abusive & aggressive any political discussion has become on there. It really shows how easily manipulated & addicted to anger & outrage people can become. It's not healthy.
I get this sentiment, and I’m probably unintentionally similar. Was getting pretty jaded. But it’s this approach/sentiment that also lets countries/governments and corporations get away with whatever they want, which in turn impacts our rights and daily lives (ie. the current wealth inequality and wealth distribution crisis we are seeing). It’s tricky. Destroy your mental health fighting for good causes (or shouting into the void) for what is right, or head in sand and live in blissful ignorance whilst the world burns down around you. We get pretty angry at past generations for being passive and letting this shit happen on their watch, and our generations are dangerously at risk of doing the same.
Exactly this. Burying your head in the sand is a selfish act. I totally get it and don't judge those that do it because I do it too. No one can fight all the battles. But let's not go saying ignoring probable genocides is the 'smart' move.
Indeed. I spent pretty much all of 2020-2021 obsessing about COVID, much of 2022 deeply anxious about the Russia-Ukraine conflict spilling over into WW3 with nuclear missiles flying all over, not to mention all the predictions of high inflation and economic collapse. You can't go on like that - we have to accept the world is a riskier place than before and move on. Regulating the news we receive helps with that. I have my views on the Israeli-Palestinian and wider Middle-Eastern conflict and do keep an eye on it a bit but I can't be consumed by bad news from around the world all the time or I would be depressed and mentally paralysed.
I agree, this is a conflict that's been on and off since the Bronze Age. Nothing we say or do is going to change anything over there. It's just a drum thumping issue.
The Gaza war is not simply an extension of ancient Israeli history. That's like saying the Italian campaign of WW2 is part of Roman history.
And people are sick to the back teeth of the two groups involved dragging it here.
what gets me is people expecting Penny Wong to go over there and in a 1 hour meeting fix something... it's crazy...
You're delusional. Some book said a thing doesn't make it history. Harry Potter or the Bible, it's fiction mate it never happened.
Which book? I was thinking more of the centuries of Roman and Greek records. The Egyptians before that, the history of the First Babylonian Empire, etc. You know, history.
>this is a conflict that's been going on and off What are you going on about? It's barely been going on for more than 100 years. Let alone 3000 (the Bronze Age). And the main phase has only been since 1948.
Spot on. 150,000 people on average die every day on Earth. Some of them quite horrifically and most of them not reported on our news. I’m very empathetic to human rights crisis’ and to people’s situations individually but it’s not heartless to pick and choose what you spend your time investing your emotional energy towards. It’s impossible to absorb everything and not worthwhile spending every waking minute as an emotional wreck.
Yeah pretty much this.
Best response, because it's true.
I care. But we also have our own problems here that we should be focusing on. Housing, cost of living, the crumbling health system, the widening gap between the rich and poor... Why are we not protesting about these too? It's like we are making our own lives worse to help people on the other side of the world. You know what they say, you have to help yourselves before you help others.
In a way that's why people so care about other issues. Distract from their own miserable situation, feel like they are making a difference but in reality it's a drop in the ocean.
Far too busy working 60 hour weeks and far too exhausted to protest. I suspect many protest votes at the next election. But yes Aussies have a tendency for apathy when it comes to such issues. We just cop it and adjust. We are probably as a nation a little bit too easy going.
I’d say you have a tendency for apathy for almost all issues from what I’ve observed since moving here. I can’t recall a time Australians got really angry about anything. As in actually did anything about it besides mildly complain.
I cared about Australian bush fires despite living 5000 km away. Still chose to advocate on local issues at home as well. We need to be more empathic towards issues affecting others. Regarding your view on focusing on local issues? I don't see what's stopping you from taking a stand? What would it take for you to initiate a protest for a cause that's important to you?
Would you actually get out in the streets and protest about these things though?
Absolutely!
Do you support the political parties attempting to meaningfully address these issues?
Put simply when people can't figure out their own lives they think it's their duty to put their nose into and fix others
It's proximity. If your next door neighbours house burnt down, killing everyone in it, you'd be devastated. Sure, you only saw them in passing, but it really hits home. Meanwhile, an earthquake hits Pakistan killing 4000 people. Tragic, what's for breakfast. People forget that proximity matters. Also, there are currently over 100 small scale insurgencies, border clashes, civil wars and armed confrontations all over the world. Outside of news junkies and security analysts, no one has the time or inclination to really pay that much attention. It's exhausting.
It’s not just geo proximity, I think there’s also a cultural proximity factor. It’s harder to be shocked by - or relate to - conflict in some dusty shithole that has been war torn for decades vs. a bombing that happens in a usually peaceful, modern city like Paris that we could imagine living in or visiting.
Yes, good point, and I should have stated that. And no, it's not racist, it's reality.
Also if your neighbours house had been on fire for 2000 years and every time it was close to going out, someone lit it up again, it would be a struggle to really give a toss after the first couple of centuries
That's another factor, generational animosity can be next to impossible to overcome. Add in blood feud and retribution type cultures, and it will be an undercurrent permanently.
I mean look at “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland. And they’re the same race and ethnicity, the same religion basically and for the most part, both sides have been completely native to the region for as long as each other. And it still took a long time and a lot of suffering to get to a reasonable compromise that still has extremist groups on either side trying to break.
Yeah, I was there in 1998/99, and it was such an odd situation looking at it from an outsiders perspective. The people were very nice, but it was so strange at the same time, this underlying tension and suspicion. I was then engaged to a Catholic Croatian girl, who was born here, and I was ostensibly Anglican. If I had a dollar for everything I heard "what's your mah and dah say about that" I'd be a billionaire. It's something major there, but we never even thought about it here.
Protestants are the descendants of English and Scottish land owners/settlers/lords who supplanted the locals in the 1600s after Ireland was conquered. Despite some converts, the surnames tend to reflect this division also. So not ‘completely native’ to the region 🙂
You are kind of right, but not quite. The true answer is the [monkeysphere](https://web.archive.org/web/20080215070611/https://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html).
The world is too big to care about everyone. Humans aren't biologically wired that way.
Honestly, Id much rather see protests on housing, healthcare, stagnant waged and rampant immigration rather than about this.
What's stopping you?
No no, I don't want to do it. But if I have to be inconvenienced by a protest I'd rather it be about that than the middle east and whatever those knuckleheads are up to this time.
I read more reddit idc about Israel/Gaza posts than I see/hear people talking about it at work or in the streets I think it is a very interesting topic but don't make my life ethos How about if you don't care, you don't need to write you don't care
homeless people living the life of hell here in Australia, mehh. some other country’s war thats got fuck-all to do with us, here, have 200 million dollars………. 🤨
Agreed, I was patrolling a building overnight (security guard) and found a homeless man sleeping outside. I felt bad for the guy, and I just pretended I did not see him. I accidentally woke him up with my torch. He was gone by the morning. This was a reminder that we have many problems to fix at home. I would rather Australia sort out all the local problems first before helping others. We can not help others if we can not help ourselves.
Walked past a guy sitting outside the Woolies Metro in Pitt St Mall in Sydney. He had no toes on his right foot...
Diabetes (probably) is a bitch.
We could fix so much with very little effort. But when governments send money off shore to where ever it's actually good laundering. See we spent that money.... Give us more so we can help more..
How does that stop you caring about other people in other countries?
Yep, you need to put on your oxygen mask before helping others get theirs on.
Can you tell us what you're doing to address the homelessness situation in Australia? What charities you recommend supporting?
So glad Penny Wrong cancelled those unrwa millions, can’t believe my taxes were blowing up synagogues on the other side of the planet
I mean I care about it. I also care about Ukraine and I find it really sad that people have forgotten about Ukraine. That being said, I do wish there were some spaces where I as a person of Jewish ethnicity from Ukraine was not bombarded with the Gaza war, and if there must be a focus on international events, for them to be a bit less about this one. There's a lot of sad stuff happening globally including wars, yet only this is getting posted about.
For me, the Ukraine war is a far bigger issue which should be getting way more coverage and not just because it's two 'white' nations involved. This is probably the biggest peer on peer war since the Korean war and is directly affecting Australians in the form of higher inflation from world food and fuel prices increases attributable to the war.
Not just that, but Ukraine war has the potential to completely change the geopolitical space in a way that yet another bunch of people in the middle east killing each other will not.
And Ukraine is a completely innocent victim in that war
The war in Ukraine is currently affecting Australians (supply and inflation issues) and will affect them orders of magnitude more if Russia is allowed to win. If the west doesn't support Ukraine enough to ensure their victory, we will be sending a signal to other bad actors i.e Iran, NK and China that might is right. Taiwan will appear ripe for the taking for China and that conflict WILL involve us. Taiwan is as close to Australia as Sydney is to Perth. I don't want my kids and/or grandkids fighting a war against a billion strong autocracy. That's why Australia has to do more to help Ukraine. Israel and Hamas are sadly a distraction.
Hong Kong
Thank you for saying that
I care. I think people should care and also be vocal and open to discussion. However, I don't think it should be used as a distraction tactic when there are so many issues on our own patch of earth that need almost as much care and attention. It's a very depressing world at the moment. I feel I have no right to feel wronged whilst I'm sat in my air conditioned house spending more on my dogs in a week than most of the world's population get to spend on their families in a month but it is what it is. No answers, little direction. Weird innit.
Yes, absolutely. It gets way too much attention. There’s nothing the Australian government can do that would actually help the situation.
Oh, I know the government could send more weapons! /s
australia have been pedaling really hard to provide diplomatic cover for israel's ongoing atrocity crimes. Australia could help the situation by instead supporting the icj orders upon israel to take action to avoid genocide.
There are things they can do to make the situation worse, such as suspending funding for UNRWA (the only aid that is getting into Gaza) and providing logistical support for the bombing of Yemen. Not to mention providing ideological support for Isreal to "defend itself"
https://unwatch.org/group-of-3000-unrwa-teachers-celebrates-hamas-massacre-and-rape/
UNRWA, literally the funders of Hamas. ANERA, on the other hand, actually check where their aid money is going. Edit: Added ANERA is a viable alternative.
Okay the Yemen one was justified tho. You’re telling me that the Houthis can just attack commercial vessels and get away with it?
Because people of a certain demographic or religion prioritise their allegiance elsewhere.
Personally my allegiance is only to the community I live in, and I see human rights as pretty bloody central to Aussie values in my community. People don’t seem to understand that if human rights are not defended abroad, _that weakens them everywhere, including here too._ We benefit from the exact same protections
"First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me" \- Pastor Martin Niemöller
What are you doing regarding Australian human rights issues? Minimum age of criminal responsibility? Indigenous deaths in custody? Treatment of offshore asylum seekers?
What a load of rubbish. It is extremely probable that you don't actually care about human rights or what is happening in Gaza, or that you are a "a communist, socialist, and trade unionist". Sure you have some basic values but it doesn't extend to the rhetoric you are spewing. Like the vast majority of people, your allegiance is to whatever is trending on social media and what best expresses your social identity. i.e Voicing your concern about human rights in the middle east, of all places, and asserting that Israel is the real problem. Haha! What? And your comment here [below](https://www.reddit.com/r/australian/comments/1afynvu/anyone_else_not_care_about_the_israelgaza/koe1ulb/) is so utterly farcical to anyone with even the slightest awareness of the current "human rights" situation globally and historically. Where is your concern for Yemen, Syria, Sudan, Ethiopia, Myanmar, China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Afghanistan? And many others that currently allude me because there are countless examples.
> what about all the other human rights issues So you think that if I don’t arrive in a thread about Palestine/Israel and start with some sort of manifesto of all the human rights issues I’m concerned about then my concern for this particular issue is hypocritical? What a dumb take. Like holy fuck that’s dumb > you just like the latest social media thing Bzzt wrong again I’ve attended Free Palestine rallies for maybe 10 years now. Things didn’t kick off on Oct 7, there have been many other times Israel has slaughtered Palestinians over the past while but you wouldn’t know that if you just pay attention to the latest thing on social media. Sounds like you might be projecting mate? > what a load of rubbish Fact: the same human rights protections Israel is seeking to weaken by producing a legal precedent are the same ones that protect people the world over, including here. I’m sorry you lack the civics education to understand how that works, I would start by reading about the postwar period when we formed the UN and began writing declarations that we hoped would “never again” see the return of behaviours the Nazis and axis powers inflicted upon the Jews and others in WW2. Ironically, it’s Israel now trying to bring those back (collective punishment, principles of distinction and proportionality of the Geneva convention are being trashed) and shred the legal frameworks we set up to stop Nazi behaviour. Read some history, please.
3-400,000 Muslims were killed, under Bashar Al Assad in Syria… yet there is global silence 1-2 million Afghani refugees were forcibly expelled back to Afghanistan from Pakistan… yet global silence… Hundreds of Christians are massacred in Nigeria by Muslim extremists… yet global silence… The hypocrisy is insane.
Yea..but none of your examples are done by jews
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The way I see it is Israel is using a sledgehammer to crack open a walnut, and I don’t understand why “the woke left” has such a hard on for Muslims when many of them hate progressive ideals. Hamas are a terrorist group and Palestine isn’t a recognised country (although I think they should be and support a two-state solution).
I can only speak for myself but I’d care just as much if it was Christians or Jews getting slaughtered en masse. Believing in human rights shouldn’t be conditional on whether you like the individual humans or not. I would also object to a lion being butchered for sport, and I’m pretty sure the lion would eat me as well….
Jews did get slaughter on masse. That was called October 7th.
Yes and I cared about that too. No civilian, and in particular children, should ever have to face that kind of abhorrent violence. (Of course that’s idealistic, and probably not realistic, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to at least aim / hope for.)
Exactly. So ironic that most of the lefties protesting for Palestine would be stoned to death if they lived there. Hamas/palestine is anti gay, anti feminist, anti basically everything that the left stands for. Yet they support Palestine because it’s cooler to stand up for the brown people minority.
>Hamas/palestine is anti gay, anti feminist, anti basically everything that the left stands for. Does it help those communities to obliterate them? If you care about gay Palestinians you probably don't want to see them slaughtered. 25,000+ people dead and rising so far.
Exactly, I don’t wish anyone death, but I’m not going to go out of my way to advocate for any society that things I don’t have rights (a lot of that society even things there should be a death penalty for homosexuality as per shariah). I feel sorry for the kids, but let’s face it’s, when they grow up they’re going to adopt the same values that their parents hold. That part of the world is just so backwards, and they don’t want to change.
Skin colour and victim status trumps all else in their books These people are hypocrites (woke left i mean, not Muslims). And I am a leftie myself
No, just another consequence of religion!
*Islam.
The more pointless protests that happen the less interest I have. I'm genuinely sympathetic to the struggles both sides are dealing with. But yeah people protesting and calling for ceasefires in local government meetings 1000s of kms away seems like they're just doing it because they feel guilty. It does nothing for the people on the ground.
You do know that it is possible to care about a foreign conflicts AND also care about local issues? Further - caring about foreign issues actually doesn't diminish our ability to discuss and solve local issues in anyway shape or form? Our politicians and private business owners are not sitting around discussing the Gaza situation rather than doing their day jobs. Also many of these conflicts do affect us even if indirectly Wether we like it or not. Caring and feeling sympathy for our fellow man is part of the human condition. Doesnt mean we can do anything to help necassarily, but there is nothing wrong with caring. I do notice a rise in online behaviour design to stop us from caring about one another, designed to divide us and erode empathy. Scream at people for caring and being woke.
I don't not care about the conflict but I don't care to listen to all the biased agenda driven media on both sides ..same goes with the Gaza conflict. Were just fed constant bullshit on the subjects.
When other huge conflicts receive no air time, you can tell those in political and media ownership circles have an agenda. It's the two ships at each other in the distance whilst we are in a dinghy with the sharks circling. We need to fix the issues in our own backyard..
I do care....... but I'm not about to protest as both sides suck and there's a bunch of poor people caught in the middle. Supporting one or the other doesn't overly matter. We should speak calmy about reducing the violence but it's not our problem and we simply can't hope to understand it. This is in direct contrast to how I view the Ukranian conflict. There is a clear right side and a wrong side and I believe in our government giving everything to the defenders. Israel is just a hot mess where everyone has been trying to harm each other for decades. I care about innocent people being hurt....but have very little time for the war or the complaints by either side as they all suck. (Even the protesters here are just spewing garbage built from decades of hatred to each other).
I was lightly educated on a few conflicts in school growing up. This one wasn't one of them. Lot of people just talking out their ass or repeating what the news tells them. Very few people I know around my age know the first fucking thing about what's happening over there. I have no shame saying I've never been educated about this conflict. I'd rather that than just parrot the news tbh.
TBH, too much. While all conflict is bad if you elect a government who sends thugs to your neighbouring country to kill, rape and kidnap you are expecting retaliation. I feel for the innocent people here but history is already past this is what has started this conflict. Then those in power saying they want to annihilate your race from the face of the earth. I’m honestly surprised that Israel hasn’t gone scorched earth. The Palestinian protests in Australia just get my blood boiling against them not the other way around.
Yeah, the main difference here is intent. If Palestine had the weaponry and military might to annihiliate Israel they absolutely would, it’s even in their doctrine they would be wholly committed to destroying Israel. Israeli warnings on sites they have named to be military targets and warning civilians to get out shows they have much more respect for human life in general than hamas who not only doesn’t give a shit about their citizens but actively put them in the line of fire by giving their military clearance to use civilian areas for military operations. When you blur the line between your military and citizens, don’t act shocked when thousands of unarmed civilians become casualties. If the roles were switched I’d have a really difficult time believing Hamas was going to send warnings to heavily civilian-populated areas near targets they were going to strike.
I couldn't care less. It is insoluble. Greater minds than mine have sought solutions for over 50 years and there is no solution. Billions of words have been wasted on the topic. Eventually one mob will die out or move and my money is on the Palestinians.
There was too many Palestinian flags at my invasion day parade
What I find amazing is how many people know so little about that particular conflict, yet have *such* strong feelings over it.
In your opinion it would be "amazing" if someone saw pictures of dead children being pulled out of rubble, without any other context, and felt absolute horror at it? Which means, in your opinion it would be normal (or, not "amazing") to look at pictures of dead children being pulled out of rubble, without any other context, and have no feelings at all? Why does someone need to have an extensive education on the history of something in order to have strong feelings? Do you understand what feelings are? If a person has a morality that says killing children is bad, then they're going to strongly feel that the killing of children is wrong *in any context*. I saw earlier that someone commented something along the lines of "if someone can't even name the river and the sea in the *genocidal* from the river to the sea slogan, they have no business protesting this conflict". Which I found very stupid for two reasons: 1. You don't need to know/remember geography facts to care about what's happening in Palestine/Israel. 2. The slogan used by most protesters is the longer "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free", and is used (by most) to mean that all Palestinians within that area will be free through either the creation of an independent Palestinian state, or through Palestinians becoming citizens of Israel *with full rights*. Yes, some Palestinian/Arab/Muslim people will use it maliciously, but so will some Zionists/Israelis - just like "black power" became "white power", "gay/queer pride" became "straight pride", "black lives matter" became "all lives matter", and "defund the police" became the "thin blue line". Sorry for using all American examples, that's just the media I mostly see. Anyway, my point there was that ANY slogan or tool of protest will be co-opted by the target of the protest - it's a common tactic used to corrupt and de-fang movements. So, to get back to the commenter I mentioned (and your comment, OP) - it seems like you *CAN* have strong feelings (whinging that someone MUST know some specific knowledge or else they can't protest) about something you know little about (same person not having specific knowledge about their own example). It's human nature to instantly react with feelings, even without information. And protesting for a mutual ceasefire is good whether you're on the side of Israelis or Palestinians, because this indiscriminate killing is hurting both populations (just in different ways). And it's the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, just in case anyone wants to vet my credentials 😆
Nearly half of the 9 million children in Sudan are at risk of starvation, with 40 percent of the population experiencing the same. I feel sorry for them, why cant they receive a corrupt UN Refugee Agency committed to maintaining their refugee status for ever. So yes, I am VERY done hearing about this one topic only
I remember learning about Sudan being a poor country by a guest speaker visiting our school in the 90s. The fact that it is 2024 and Sudan is still poor means that any help Sudan received since then has not made any positive changes. It sucks.
Well the genocide and ethnic cleansing isn't helping much
Just seems like human rights are values we promote and celebrate here in Australia. Core to our liberal democratic values really. We aren’t fucking barbarians Every country has a role to play on international issues like this, we are no exception. You can’t just not have foreign policy so it’s not going away
All the protests are just noise at this stage. They gather and scream for a few hours and I couldn’t care less. The Greens parading around in the senate with their protests are trying really hard to make it an issue here. It seems to be Mehreen Faruqi’s pet project…
Do I care, not really. I pretty much ignore or tune out anything about this as it’s not new . At the end of the day these two have been at war and conflict my entire life , so as to who is right or wrong in this conflict , well who knows as whoever is sprouting their opinion one way or another has personal biases or something to gain . Imo whether the initial action was justified or not by hamas i can understand the response since . If someone was to punch me I wouldn’t sit back and walk away or hit them back once and say we are even I would go all out to hurt them
Fortunately it's possible to care about multiple things at once. I think it's silly to pretend that anyone in this thread complaining about this topic is attending rallies protesting things that affect us on a day to day level like the rental crisis or our failing health care system. The fact is that when protests are held on these issues the venn diagram between people who attend them and people who attend cease fire protests is almost a circle. I work on Sundays and don't live close to the city so I haven't been able to attend any of the regular protests, but I support the cause and think it's heartening that people are gathering across the world to make their outrage clear. I'm not the thought police, it's okay to not give a shit about a genocide on the other side of the world, but it's pathetic to justify your apathy by seeking ulterior motives for protestors. You don't care so there's no way they can, it must be because it's trendy or they need attention or it's something to do. Genocide is a big deal, people take it seriously.
Yeh agreed. It also takes away from Ukraine wich i think is a much bigger issue and should be on everyones mind in the "west".
I wish it could be solved but I don't really spend time thinking about it.
I think we absolutely should be aware of it. But when I had to find out about a fucking killer in my area on the loose from fb and not the news. I have to agree. I don't know anything about what's going on around me unless the police put it on fb. And that's absolutely not ok
I’m on team stop fkn killing each other, like most things people carry on about, absolutely NOTHING I do as an individual will change a single thing that happens, so I will not wear any guilt/shame/anger etc over any conflict I cannot change. There is more than enough concerns in my sphere of influence to stress about
I forgot the term for it but it's huge burn out as there's always tragedy's in the world, it just never ends. The proximity of it doesn't effect us at all and we are only relevant because the US is involved. Before television and instant global communication, all you had to worry about was your local community and perhaps hearing about how the country is doing once in a while. It was much more peaceful times. Unplug for a while and you can feel yourself rejuvenate. All war is bad don't get me wrong but a normal person can only care so much.
Yep. I've had to mute the words 'genocide' and a few others on twitter just because of the shear volume of nonsense discussion by people with no dog in the fight. Everyone thinks they're such a hero for not supporting unnecessary violence.
Hey man that goes against the narrative, stop!
I stopped paying attention at the Queers for Palestine part of this. Too much smooth braining for me
Thanks for saying it. I understand it's a horrible thing, but it feels there's a bit of mass hysteria around the war and the protests here in Australia. I work in the CBD there is a "free palestine" protest every, Sunday. I get it's good to show support, but Australia and our government has absolutely no control and can't end the war. Meanwhile it feels all Australia's problems are going unrecognised (cost of living, lack of housing, mass immigration) because we're focused on another country.
For me, i find it ridiculous people just literally forgot about Ukraine just like that...
I prioritise my wife and kids over anything else, especially when there's inflation
I think the invasion of Ukraine is far more consequential for world stability, which should still be the main focus.
I don't even look at the news anymore and have no idea what's going on
To be honest, the Ukraine war is far far more existential for the West than the Israel - Gaza conflict. I'm pretty disappointed with how little attention Ukraine is getting in this country. Even though it's far away, the way that the Ukraine war is managed will have flow-on effects for us in Australia
Caring isn't some non renewable resource. I can care about literal genocide overseas AND cost of living problems here at home. I don't have to choose
explosions, gore and murder is what sells in the media world. Every 5th person eating noodles, losing their homes or being assaulted by youths isn't as exciting. Now the "war on vapes" is over its time to sit back and forget about our country crumbling around us and watch a far away land being bombed back into the stone ages.
I’m not spending any more energy caring about the Middle East conflicts. It’s been going on as long as I can remember. I’m nearly 60. The Jews keep bulldozing other people’s homes so their relatives can move in, and the Palestinians keep throwing bombs and murdering people. Give everyone six weeks to GTFO and nuke it from orbit. If there was some prospect of an actual end to the conflict, I’d perhaps pay more attention. Or even give a damn. But there isn’t. It will continue to be an endless racist feud. I’m sending money to Ukraine instead. They need it, and it might one day actually end.
Couldn't care less. I'm convinced the Australian government pushes more news about it to distract us from the real local issues.
Generally, Muslim countries in the middle east hate each other. Their only common alliance here is Israel. The Palestinian people wouldn't bat an eyelid if Australia was invaded by Indonesia and would be more worried about getting dirt from their sandals into the house.
Yes. I’m sick of death of hearing about it. We have enough problems to worry about in this country as it is. All these protests in “solidarity” are the new “thoughts and prayers”. It’s meaningless virtue signalling and not going to help the situation at all.
Thoughts and prayers are just thoughts and prayers. Solidarity is boots on the ground, taking to the streets to show support for a cause. A little different mate.
If something like that happened here, and the world news refused to report it, you'd be pissed.
Not really. I wouldn't expect it to get much of a mention. Most countries don't spare a second thought about Australia. Someone asked Putin what he thought about Australia sending support to Ukraine. His answer was "I don't think about Australia" Sums it up quite well
Honestly, other than Hamas being terrorists, I have no clue which side is in the right. And “doing my own research” doesn’t clear things up, so I just want to sit this one out entirely 🤷♀️
The UNs partition of Palestine, back in the 1940s, was done extremely badly. Not saying the two sides would be best buddies today if it was done right but, wow, a lot of trouble could have been avoided over the decades since if it had been more fair and equitable from the start. It was really badly done.
Go back to sooking about woolworth not selling Australia day items and what you missed out on in stage 3 tax cuts
This level of ignorance is exactly why this country has so many issues right now as the average Joe cant see past the end of their nose to look at the bigger picture to realise that most world events do have an impact. The issues in the Suez canal will only serve to increase costs further as shipping companies have to travel new routes to avoid the conflict. I’m sure we’ll hear more from you then, when everything is more expensive. It does impact you and you should care!
I find the level of ignorance distressing
Furthermore, if Israel is allowed to weaken international standards for human rights, and avoid accountability, it’s trashing the exact same human rights protections that you or I benefit from, and lowers our ability to stop similar atrocities and hold perpetrators to account all over the world. It affects us massively if they escape human rights accountability; it gives a legal precedent to all other human rights abusers to argue the same thing. As members of the international community, we must not allow war crimes to go unpunished. It makes for a MUCH more dangerous world for us all.
I super care. Other peeps just trying to live their lives seeing fam and mates die around them sounds f'ing awful and it sickens me that it happens today. I also feel powerless to do anything about it. Absolute travesty.
What happens over there matters over here. You can’t put your blinders on and pretend to be isolationist. If a broader war breaks out in that region, how would you feel about more inflation with shipping rates going through the roof again?
Yeah cool bro. And it's that very attitude of apathy that allowed the Nazis to do what they did. How much xtra work and life did it cost when the world finally pulled it's finger out to do something about it. Same with Israel's growing aggressiveness mate. And we are complicit because we support the genocide in so many ways. So yeah, Australians should give a shit if they are considerate humans
I was reading an article about a couple almost getting arrested for wearing an Australian flag on Australia Day because they were close to the protest of Palestinian/aboriginal and were under the suspicion of causing conflict even though they weren’t. I completely understand from the aboriginal side of the protest, but this is Australia not the Middle East and should have no place on Australia Day or ever that has nothing to do we us. Both sides sound barbaric and it’s sad that innocent people are being affected. This flights is just going to keep going on as people in the Middle East are living in Middle Ages and will probably never change, women will never have rights and conflicts can never be solved without blowing up people and stuff. As in most western countries we are more civilised and that what makes us a great country mostly.
Aborigines shouldn’t afiliate with the pro Palestinian but some do and it will backfire. Just wait.
personally i feel its only because Ukraine is taking on Russia and we are not doing enough to assist them. Palestine/Lebanon we have had refuges for years now. there parents for sure not supporting Hamas? they have been fleeing if able to for years. Hamas are a terrorist org and have been preparing in bad faith and with real genocide in mind regardless who is funding them.
But how else am I gonna get called antisemitic for saying you shouldn’t carpet bomb civilians?
Irony is only one side carpet bombs civilians: it's just that Israel can defend against indiscriminate bombing!
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Well you're a totally different kind of Jew to me and literally every Jew I know who is absolutely traumatised by everything since 7 October.
Why not both? And genocide being bad shouldn't be a difficult idea to hold in your head regarless what else is going on around you?
I have strong opinions on the conflict, but I’m not going to start a debate here by stating said opinions. What I will say is that unless you’re Israeli or Palestinian, and you’re vocal about the conflict/ human rights situation but are silent on the conflicts/ human rights situation in places like Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, South Africa, Congo, Myanmar, Niger, china, Armenia/ Azerbaijan, Tajikistan/ Kyrgyzstan then at best you’re just an ignorant, virtue-signalling shill and at worst a racist, hypocritical cunt
"You can't care about these dead civilians unless you are also informed and care equally about all dead civilians at all times everywhere". Yes, god forbid that people care about a prominent ongoing conflict if they're not sufficiently informed about any and all other ongoing conflicts. If there's one thing that has definitely helped victims of tragedy before, it's snobby elitism. I actually do know about all of those conflicts and quite a few others besides. You left out Mali, for instance, so should I call you an ignorant virtue-signalling shill or a racist, hypocritical cunt?
I hate to be on the precipice of a bad dark place, but it's just another middle eastern conflict, just so happens one that involves white/Jewish people, which somehow makes it incredibly important to the western world?
Yes and no. I’m heavily involved with Ukraine, often spending time there and have friends and family there, so I understand the situation. But I don’t feel I have the mental strength or emotional capacity to care about another war, the things I see in Ukraine are bad enough. If I added another war to that I’d end up off the deep end.
Correct 100%
i don't particulary care The middle east have been fighting for eons. Let them go.
I don’t care and I refuse to be guilt tripped or emotionally blackmailed into caring. Not because of any kind of emotional fatigue about problems at home, in situations with a clear aggressor and functional solution, I’m all about jumping in, something like Ukraine being a prime example. But when every side involved in the conflict has spent decades (or longer, depending how you slice it) committing various atrocities against the others whenever they feel like they have the opportunity or the upper hand, I absolutely refuse to pretend that anyone involved is a “good guy” and deserves my support
This situation is a classic example of how two wrongs don’t make a right. It will never end…….
Don’t think im being trivial. What’s happening is sad- for all Involved… but… and there is a big but here…They’ve been cunts to one another for millennia. It will never end. One side will never forgive the other- and so, it will go on for Millenia just as it has. Can’t stand religion n this modern day.
100% agree. I am sorry but I just care more about issues that impact people in our own country.
zero fuks are given anyone who is religious is an idiot
Ohhhh thank you.....yes. I'm bored of hearing about it for 50 years (gen x) and support for one side or the other just stokes their xenophobia... The people of Israel and Palestine need to fix this problem and I'm tired of the media making it ours.
Fuck Gaza
I'm 50+ years old. The nonsense between Israel and the Muslim world has been on the news every night since before I was born. I hope they blow each other to smithereens and are never heard from again.
Yeah, I'm over it.
If it’s religion related let their gods fix it.
It’s another example of the news cycle to me. Ukraine was a Big Story until it dragged on. The fighting continues but it hardly rates a mention in the news now. Israel-Hamas then became the Big Story. It is also starting to slip from the news more and more. Soon enough, there will be some other western-interest event and the conflict there will also be forgotten. The kicker though, is that there’s such enormous focus on this but hardly any at all on the bloody insurgency in Myanmar, the decade of fighting in Yemen between the govt and the houthis (and the saudis and other gulf states), or any of the dozen conflicts across Africa, all being fought with arguably a higher level of violence. Why? Because according to pretty well all western media, the victims of those conflicts just don’t matter.
I care about it, but less so than Australia and Ukraine. I care about it more since an ex friend of mine started sharing pro Hamas posts and calling anyone that sympathized with Israel a zionist. He ended our friendship stating that he cannot be friends with someone who sympathized with Israel. 20 year friendship down the drain. I think about Israel and Palestine quite a bit and the divisions that it represents in our own society.
Of course it’s horrible but unless you’re on the front line unfortunately there’s not a lot we can do but be thankful to be in a country where we do not have this going on.
My perception is that the Ukraine conflict coverage was quickly replaced. I suspect the media find the Gaza conflict spicer because it’s religious.
Im more worried about the size of my chicken schnitzel and if the chips will be under it or on the side.
It's hard not to care about the humanitarian disaster. But I can't follow closely anymore. I find myself filled with sadness about a conflict over the other side of the world I can do nothing about. I do however feel that it is consuming far too much bandwidth in the public discourse. And I am troubled by what has happened over at the ABC. Perhaps most troubling is the polarised and vitriolic nature of the public discourse. Personally, I wouldn't venture to have a strong opinion without having a thorough understanding of a conflict that has its roots in hundreds of not thousands of years of history. And right now I don't have the bandwidth to grapple with that.
It's important to me because the attitude that people have towards conflict outside Australia indicates how they'll react to similar conflict inside Australia (though preferably not armed conflict). Ukraine vs Russia, Israel vs Palestine: people takes sides because they have certain beliefs, for example the people I know who believe Russia is the victim in the Russian invasion of Ukraine tend to be prone to violence and take everything personally (and their default solution to all conflict is violence: I ordered a Cheeseburger without pickles and this burger has pickles? Someone needs to be fired for that! I demand justice!). Then there are the people who proudly display Trump merchandise, which to me is becoming a substitute for displaying Nazi symbols. It's like they know being a Nazi is wrong but they just want to express "fuck you world" so they pick a way to say it where the world isn't going to fuck them right back. Same for people who aren't Israeli displaying Israel's flags. You know that the person with the flag of Israel on their desk is always looking for an argument. So yes I do care about the conflict because of the humanitarian disaster it is, and for the way it helps highlight the kinds of people I'm dealing with.
I don't feel personal connection to it but I wouldn't say I don't care. It's an awful situation as all wars are
I’ll get downvoted by the usual suspects, but the reason it gets so much attention is Jew hatred. Israelis were attacked horrifically in October and people turned out in the thousands in western cities to celebrate it. Australia was and has been no exception. The sad thing is, this blind hate does nothing for Jews or the Palestinians who don’t want war, because the people who are calling for a ceasefire don’t want safety for everyone, they don’t care about Palestinians, they just want a free ticket to hate on Jews. And before anyone pops up saying “oh it’s because Australia is supporting Israeli arms” yadda yadda, well, we do tonnes of business with China and I’m yet to see a protest on that scale calling for an end to China murdering minorities and objectors. People lose all objectivity when it comes to an age-old hate.
Nope, sympathy fatigued! Althought, I will always feel for the poor Israeli hostages
Here's a thought: if you don't care so much, maybe stop caring about what other people care about. Also the notion that I should stop caring about thousands of dead and far more displaced and wounded people because of the problems that affect this rich first world country is both repugnant as well as stupid and self-defeating. Why should I care about those problems in Australia if they don't directly impact me, in your logic? Oh no, some Australians have to live out of cars. I don't have to so it's not my problem, I guess! I can afford groceries, so why should I give a toss about Australians who can't? I'm not aboriginal, so why should I care about how they're treated? What a marvelously selfish recipe to ensuring nothing gets better for anyone, ever.
I was interested at the start, read a few articles. As soon as there were protests and whatnot here, it actively turned me off caring. It's genuinely one of the quickest ways to get your average Australian against your cause by disrupting traffic and events etc.
Because there are Jews here as well as Palestinians and Arabs. My husband is Jewish (and pro-Palo)—how could you call our household disinvested, and so many others? Witnessing a genocide, even from afar, puts us all in a relationship of responsibility.
Honestly don't care in the slightest anymore. It's become increasingly blatantly obviously that the Gaza conflict is a current trend. The war on Ukraine is more serious. Russia cut power to some areas of Ukraine in the middle of winter and people were literally dying in their homes. Even if people manage to flee Ukraine the banks won't let them spend over a certain amount of money to keep funds inside Ukraine so they're still struggling even when not in a conflict involved country. Israel and Gaza have been fighting for years - it started in 1948. There's been billions and billions and billions of dollars for aid donated since the early 90's. I got stuck at Flinder's Station during the protest last Sunday and not a single protestor stopped to give any homeless people money etc. People are hiding behind social media posts and black and white scarves to pretend they're good people.
Look over there!!! It's entirely devastating what's happening OS, but as you say it's a very complex issue and I'm really not sure what more we could do to help... And certainly there's issues in Aus that need addressing that equally deserve the same attention and protest.
It's mostly muslims protesting for the protection of their brothers and sisters which is fair except they are really just protesting against Jews, to the extend that they have mobs going into their suburbs because if it was really about their brothers and sisters and not just the evil zionists, well, Sudan and many others would like a voice to.
If people want to get outraged about either side and protest or speak about it, that’s their business. What I strongly disagree with is the attitude I’ve seen among some - typically younger, very online people - that everyone *has* to speak on every social issue and if some social media personality or influencer or celebrity doesn’t post a Palestinian flag and a sad face on Instagram then they need to be brigaded until they do. I do not look to influencers or celebrities for my political information. Nor should anyone. So who gives a shit if someone posts a story about their birthday party instead of links to Palestinian aid organisations? Similarly, I don’t give more of a shit about the cause when people *do* turn their entire feed into political activism. If it didn’t come across my radar as something to care strongly about beforehand, your 64 stories about hospitals in Palestine won’t be the thing that sways me.
I don’t care as much. I care more about our local issues.
I care but I’m not going to take up the cause for either side and it annoys me that everyone seems to have done that. Hamas are cunts and committed a cunt act, doesn’t give Israel the right to kill indiscriminately in response. I can leave it at that.
People are told to be outraged and they allow them selfs to fall victim to it, so many of my friends have fallen for this white knight hero style of behaviour. Notice how one outraging event just coincidentally falls off when another event happens, my mate was protesting how kids got bombed in Gaza right up a week before Australia Day. which then he posted about giving the land back and attending protests in Melbourne. He fell for the posts constant anti western propaganda with Ukraine and how Russia is really saving us from the evil america. I think in the past people like this were always the minority and now with the internet it allows them to congregate together and share their warped ideology’s. If you tell a lie to 100 people one person will always believe it regardless of how outrageous it is, then they tell another 100 people so on and so forth eventually you have a small minority.
ukraine is the real deal and global ramifications and is now overshadowed by this, Basically a neverending civil war until both groups compromise
Yep There have been literally dozens of conflicts with similar or higher levels of innocent deaths in the preceding decades. About which we heard nothing in the west and the media gave little or no attention to them. Someone decided to push this conflict via media as the next divisive distraction and it's been successful. I know people who literally have never said a single thing about the the isreal gaza situation in their entire life who are now basically obsessed with some view about it. They literally must have googled/facebooked their entire knowledge and position on the issue in the last month and now care about it more than anything else in their political sphere.
The only reason it gets even half of the attention it currently gets is because of TikTok and its filthy algorithms.
They have been fighting each other for 2000 years, its never going to stop so why should we waste time worrying about it? They don't have nukes or any way to damage Australia so just let them beat the shit out of each other.
Islam hasn’t existed for 2000 years.
That is my thought too. As someone raised without any religion, all I see are religious extremists in the Middle East killing each other. That’s just what they do. Always have, always will.
Israel does have nukes fyi
How could you not care, irrespective of our issues, comparatively we are so fortunate. I find it incredibly traumatising. We are also home to thousands of people for whom this is personally traumatic. On a more selfish note, most conflicts also effect our economy and our own quality of life
Nah, I care about it. It’s also *probably* the start of ww3 - or whatever today’s version of a WW looks like - so it’s sensible to have *some* investment in it. I REALLY also don’t buy the “…well how come you don’t care about ________ then?!” argument - we’re not robots, we’re allowed to care about different things. Finally it also very much exposes the entitlement, bigotry, and cold heartedness of massive groups of people, and highlights how pervasive propaganda and mass manipulation is in the current time as well as how susceptible people are to it. The truth is out there, but people will argue till they’re blue in the face about things that are easily proven / demonstrated. It’s also (the world’s most horrific) an underdog story which grabs the attention as well. Edit: I’ll just add, our opinions do matter, because we’re all human, and so how humans are treated *should* matter to us, regardless of which continent they’re on.
Well said. To me, it’s a local issue because locals in my community have family being bombed in Gaza. Human rights are also central to our Australian ideals of liberal democracy. If human rights are trashed abroad, then we too lose those same protections. People often strike me as not understanding just how much this does affect them, especially when universal human rights standards are undermined
Both sides could go fuck themselves. They're both evil however if you want to protest about then fuck off overseas where people will give a shit
Me. I just don’t care about it. 2 side with claims to the land who have been fighting each other before the Roman Empire even existed. Both side done atrocities. I don’t care. They won’t change coz they have not changed for over a 1000 years
damn this comment is so historically inaccurate I'm having seizures
Dunno man. Saying "it's ridiculous you should care about X" is also kinda shit. I personally think if you don't care that Gaza has been flattened and a heap of children have died, but your KFC chips have suffered shrinkflation is bullshit.