Watching the videos coming out of Israel today and reading

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36. and they will kill civilians in the process

...women, children, unarmed and unthreatening civilians.

Looking forward to all of the calls to end that violence.

We are not Israel. We don't have to face the consequences of our tough guy calls for retaliation.

There really isn't a direct association between the civilians killed by Israeli bombs and whatever Hamas does. Most people take that for granted when talking about Israeli lives and the abuses of the Israeli military.

We can rationalize all of that here in the U.S. because for most of us this is a video game, or some kind of reality show where we think we have a right to weigh in on the side of killing someone in this unending cycle of violence and recrinination.

In our reality here in the U.S., we have the ability to denounce violence on all sides with as little consequence as the cheerleaders. We have a responsibility to advocate for peace, because we are able.