Occam's What Now?

I don't trust simple solutions.

Or I guess I should rephrase that, I don't trust simple solutions to complex problems.

It sets off all sorts of warning bells for me when someone says, "it's easy..." or "it's just basic..." or my favorite "everyone can agree..."

Usually it's not, and we don't. 

And it seems like sometimes the more complex an issue is the more you find people insisting it's really easy. Most complex problems need complex answers. 

Our issues with the number of people who are living on the street? You have people trying to criminalize it. Easy. But then what? Our jails are already over crowded because we've decided that sending people to jail is the easy answer for a lot of things that are a lot more complicated than that. What do you do about detox for the people who have addiction issues and that's why they are on the street? What do you do about the mental health care needed for the people that that's why they are on the street? What do you do about the high rents for people who don't want to be on the street but can't afford not to be? Or the fact that once you make someone a criminal now they can't easily get housing or a job once they are released from jail and so they just end up on the street again? It's not an easy answer.

Free Palestine. Okay, but what do you mean by that? When you say it what are you saying? Are you advocating for a two state solution or are you a "river to the sea" person. And do you even know what river to the sea means?

What are your plans for Israel if you don't favor a two state solution? What are you going to do with the people that live there? And what exactly do you want the US to do? Because I get that you somehow have decided that Joe Biden is responsible for what Netanyahu is doing, but that's just intellectually dishonest. Or foolish. You can take your pick.

It doesn't matter who is in the White House the United States had always supported Israel. Now, there are varying levels of support, sure. Obama and Netanyahu famously did not get along. Trump and Netanyahu did. I mean Trump moved the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to try and cement Israel's claim to the region. So is that who you want back in the White House? Not the administration that's been working trying to get a cease fire and hostage exchange and a plan for ending the bombardment but the administration that would support Netanyahu completely. 

And if you are in favor of a two state solution what does that look like? How does that come about? How do you divide the land and make it workable? None of it is easy. When the West thinks things like this are easy you get them rolling into an area and carving out a country in the middle of someone else's land and saying deal with it. 

And if you want everything rolled back, Israel to be dissolved because Palestinians were there first I have to assume you don't live in North America? Or Australia? Because just give it back would be an answer for our issues here as well. But where do all of us who aren't Native go? Are all of the other countries going to take all of us back depending on DNA results? Like do Brent and I have to be seperated because our European ancestry is different from each other? So in that line where do the Jewish people who are living in Israel go? Remember there was a reason they are there. And when Israel was established a lot of the Arab countries in the region kicked their Jewish population out and sent them away. Do they take them back? Do the European countries make room? Do they all work to eradicate the antisemitism that drove the creation of Israel in the first place? 

Things aren't simple. 

Speaking on Israel and Palestine I read an interesting article that spoke against the two state solution. But it didn't speak against it like the West Bank and Gaza areas were the right call, or that Israel should be dissolved, but that the whole geographic area should be one country with Israelis and Palestinians living there sharing government and complete equality. That there is no way a two state solution works because there is too much overlap of area. I liked it. It was elegant. But also because he admitted that it would be incredibly difficult. Hamas wants all Israelis dead. That's a roadblock. And the conservative government that currently holds power with Netanyahu in Israel wants all the territory for themselves and all of Hamas dead and by the way who they deem Hamas is fluid depending on who they want dead. Another roadblock. And yes, roadblock is a pretty understated word for a portion of the population and the governments of each side wants the other dead. (Hamas is the government in Gaza, duly elected the last time elections were held, we think of them as nothing but terrorists but, yeah, it's not that simple)

I get really frustrated reading all of the it's simple posts that people make. I get really upset at how quickly and easily the support for Palestine can devolve into anti Jewish rhetoric. And how often people don't even realize what they are saying (see River to the Sea) and then how defensive anyone gets when you point out that it's not simple. No, I do not support what Israel is doing right now. Of course I think it's not a proportionate response. But that does not mean I support Hamas either. I think they are bad guys just as much as Netanyahu is.

I think that they don't want peace in the region because they want all of the Israelis dead. Why do I think that? Because they keep saying it. That part is simple. Listen to what people say and then what they do. Hamas wants Jewish people dead. Palestine is not Hamas. Just like Israel is not Netanyahu or the conservative government, but those are the entities we are dealing with. We need to protect the people and figure out how to let everyone live full lives and somehow that means figuring out how to get Hamas and Netanyahu to stop killing everyone.

I'd like to start with Israel stopping, because that has always been my stance. I think you get rid of things like Hamas and other terrorist groups by not radicalizing the youth. And I think you don't radicalize people by treating them like, you know, people. 

Food, water, shelter, job opportunities, a say in self governing, security for their families, these are the things that keep people from deciding the need to overthrow whoever is keeping them down. And right now Israel has been working really hard at keeping Palestinians down. So of course there has been a radicalizing factor. It's easy to point out differences and other people if you are starving. And it's even easier when clearly you are starving because of them. Locked borders. Limited supplies. That was happening before the bombing started. And now we have utter destruction in Gaza. Generations will be radicalized because of this. Generations. 

It makes me shake my head. I've been told I'm supporting a genocide because I don't think Israelis are all evil after years of being called anti semitic for supporting Palestine and their right to self rule and the end to settlements. 

There is no easy answer. 

Easy answers and the desire for them leads you to dictators. Leads to fascism. Leads to loss of freedom. If you believe that someone else has all the answers, and you let them take over then you have to stop asking questions. The number of people in the United States who want a dictator scares the shit out of me. They want someone who says things like "I alone can fix it" and they say that's why they support him. Voting in an authoritarian is no way to run a democracy. 

I don't trust anyone offering simple solutions to complex problems.