Why Haven't We Learned Anything?

A Critical Analysis Of The Current Conflict In Palestine, And The Parallels That So Many Refuse To Draw.

For many, it seems like the past week has been a massive case of deja vu.

For those of us who were old enough to remember the Iraq War, a lot of recent discourse regarding the conflict between Israel and Palestine may come off as hauntingly similar. Corporate media outlets are shouting at anyone who will listen that they need to choose a side - the right side - or they’re anti-Semitic. This rhetoric is hardly new, in fact, it’s a commonly-used tactic by politicians and standard manipulators: You’re either with us, or against us.

The most common utterance that one may remember would likely be the statement of former US President George W. Bush, who famously said at the launch of his campaign against terrorism, "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." This tactic is used to create a black and white scenario wherein a group of people are implored to choose a “good” side, with heavy implications that the other side is the “bad” option, and it’s most commonly used to manufacture consent for achieving one goal or another.

So now, we’re seeing all of the same tactics being employed, and many of us are watching in shock as droves of people have seemingly fallen in perfect lockstep with the establishment regarding another foreign conflict with eerily clear parallels. So, as many are asking themselves undoubtedly, why haven’t we learned anything?

In my humble - and occasionally correct - opinion, the answer is tribalism. Back in 2003, support for the War In Iraq was, for the most part, fairly bipartisan. You had liberals and conservatives both cheering on sending troops into the Middle East, with both sides agreeing that the US and its allies are the “good guys” and we’re going overseas to defeat the “bad guys” - however here in 2023, we are dealing with a population that is much, much more divided, at a time where we never had more to gain from being unified.

Take the recent Russia-Ukraine conflict, for example. You have the liberal branch of the establishment in the west fully supporting sending billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, with the explicit goal of defeating the “bad guys” and saving democracy, or something. However, you now have conservatives taking the anti-war position, shouting with their whole chest that the west shouldn’t be involved in this conflict. However, those same conservatives seem completely fine with sending billions in aid to Israel in order to defeat a different faction of “bad guys” - which may at first seem confusing to some, since it’s far from consistent given their talking points in the past year.

To me, it’s pretty clear - to these factions, their convictions hinge entirely on the position of the opposing one. To conservatives, the conflict in Ukraine is only a bad thing because liberals are the ones supporting it, and vice versa. A more cynically-minded individual (hi!) may arrive at the provisional conclusion that these factions exist only to ensure that the west is not only always sufficiently divided enough to prevent any kind of large-scale organization efforts, but also that there’s always a foreign conflict somewhere that one side of the establishment is fully supporting.

So to many, these recent examples of the same tried-and-true tactics being employed to drum up support for more war aren’t raising red flags for them, because their team’s the one employing them. While it may seem like we haven’t learned anything, it’s naïve to think that the rich and powerful haven’t as well, as we’re seeing a more conflicting situation play out before us than in past decades.

As I do try to be the type to offer some kind of solution when I take up the pen (err, the key?) I find that the best foot forward in this situation is to start asking questions. Ask people who opposed one conflict what makes that one different from the current conflict. Challenge the cheerleaders on their convictions, and try to draw as many parallels as you can. If someone is self-aware enough to actually admit that they’re only on board because their team is, ask them why they’re on a team that does the exact same shit that a team they oppose does.

We’re never going to arrive at a fairer, more peaceful world until we all get on the same page with what that might look like, and in order to do that, we need a population of people with unwavering convictions. All war should be bad, not just the other team’s wars.