Well, notice how I never say “Israelis”, but rather “Israel”, “authorities of Israel”, “the leaders of Israel” or the “government of Israel” (and not just in this post but more broadly).
That’s because it would indeed be massivelly unfair to label all Israelis on the actions of the state of Israel: even if the country is supposedly a Democracy and even if it was a perfect Democracy (and this latter it definitelly isn’t) we can at most claim that most Isrealis support the actions of their government and hence those that do can be judged on that support, never that Israelis in general can be judged on that. One can only pass judgment on individual people (Israelis or otherwise) based on what those individues support and how they act.
So whilst criticising the actions of the nation of Israel, executed on the orders of the elected government of Israel, which was supposedly elected and represents a majority of Israelis, I’m trying hard to not label all Israelis as a group because it would be unfair to the many Israelis that don’t support this shit and, as you rightly point out, it would be quite the hypocrisy for me to complain about others treating people as part of groups and then go and myself do just that.
PS: I have no problem with direct language and in fact vastly prefer it like that, mostly because my core adult growth years were mostly lived in The Netherlands and the Dutch tend to culturally be quite direct. That said, thank you for considering that the person on the other side might feel that direct language is unpleasant.
Ah yes very fair. I did not do a close reading and missed that, I did not notice or see how careful you were with your language, your explanation is much appreciated!
Well, notice how I never say “Israelis”, but rather “Israel”, “authorities of Israel”, “the leaders of Israel” or the “government of Israel” (and not just in this post but more broadly).
That’s because it would indeed be massivelly unfair to label all Israelis on the actions of the state of Israel: even if the country is supposedly a Democracy and even if it was a perfect Democracy (and this latter it definitelly isn’t) we can at most claim that most Isrealis support the actions of their government and hence those that do can be judged on that support, never that Israelis in general can be judged on that. One can only pass judgment on individual people (Israelis or otherwise) based on what those individues support and how they act.
So whilst criticising the actions of the nation of Israel, executed on the orders of the elected government of Israel, which was supposedly elected and represents a majority of Israelis, I’m trying hard to not label all Israelis as a group because it would be unfair to the many Israelis that don’t support this shit and, as you rightly point out, it would be quite the hypocrisy for me to complain about others treating people as part of groups and then go and myself do just that.
PS: I have no problem with direct language and in fact vastly prefer it like that, mostly because my core adult growth years were mostly lived in The Netherlands and the Dutch tend to culturally be quite direct. That said, thank you for considering that the person on the other side might feel that direct language is unpleasant.
Ah yes very fair. I did not do a close reading and missed that, I did not notice or see how careful you were with your language, your explanation is much appreciated!