(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The Israel-Gaza Discourse [1] ['Dan K', 'Chitown Kev', 'Thom Hartmann', 'Belinda Ridgewood', 'Bill In Portland Maine', 'A Random Idiot'] Date: 2026-09-17 I tend to stay away from the Israel-Gaza discourse, not because I don’t have a stance, I do; what happened on October 7th does not justify the slaughter happening today in Gaza, I stay away because it’s become a discourse structured around trigger words, because it’s been weaponized and politicized beyond belief. Today it seems there’s almost no way to take part in that discussion without being told you’re either antisemitic or pro genocide. It is one of the reasons I wrote, I think last month, about words being weaponized, it is one of the reasons I stay away from heavily packed words, it takes away from the real issues and focuses on a single word or phrasing, that often the person saying them don’t know their full context or what they truly mean. I’m not historian and before the latest conflict, I knew very little about the going ons in Gaza-Palestine-the West Bank etc… I was aware that Israel was displacing people in the West Bank often violently and that a lot of the youtubers I watch were sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. I knew that Israel had the Iron Dome to protect itself from attacks, and I think that was the extent of my limited knowledge. When October 7th happened, I was horrified, the images and clips still haunt me to this day. I kept asking myself why did they do this when public opinion seemed to be shifting their way? (I still don’t know that answer). What happened next and is still happening today almost 3 years later is beyond atrocious, 20 thousand children dead is unimaginable. And there’s no end to the images that are now haunting me, I’ve seen many catastrophes in my life and perhaps it’s a good thing my brain doesn’t retain details, but the pattern isn’t much better. It is beyond disturbing to see folks I like saying that Palestinians are doing propaganda, 20 thousand dead children is not propaganda it’s a massacre, it’s slaughter, it is ethnic cleansing. Even if it’s 10 thousand children and not 20 thousand. There is no justification for what is going on in Gaza, not October 7th, not Hamas, nothing. There is also no justification for antisemitism, and SOME people have been using that label to silence voices rising for Palestinians, and others have been using Free Palestine and Zionist (other charged words) to provoke Jewish people, this is not whataboutism, these are observations, like I said there are meanings beyond the surface of the words. Palestinian civilians are being killed daily, while folks sit online are fighting against each other over words, it is sickening. As a result of this both antisemitism and islamophobia are rising faster than a forest fire smoke and further deviating from the death toll in Gaza. Around 3,000 people died on 9/11 in the US in return we killed over 100,000 people mostly civilians it is barbaric. Around 2,000 people died on Oct 7th, and in return the Israeli government has killed around 70,000 people that is also barbaric. https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/174843 https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/idf-accepts-gaza-health-ministry-015338372.html The death toll keeps rising and it is impossible to have a reasonable discussion on the atrocities being committed because trigger words keep being inserted into the discussions to derail them consciously or unconsciously. The dead don’t care about words, they are still dead, words won’t bring them back, words won’t console their families. I am not antisemitic, I am not pro Hamas or pro genocide, I’m not a Zionist, I am a human being who just watched a video of a little girl’s broken bloody body being wrapped in some sort of tarp. It is time for the killings to stop. It was time after the first retaliatory strikes. Nothing and I do mean nothing justifies what is happening in Gaza and that does not mean what happened on oct 7th was justifiable either. TheAmericanHaitianPoet Muriel Vieux – September 17th, 2026 – ©All rights reserved Paypal.me/murielvieux [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/9/17/800099469/community/the-israel-gaza-discourse/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/