Okay, let's deconstruct this a little, starting with the sandwich. I didn't necessarily berate my friend for her inability to pick a sandwich, I was pointing out the difference between the complexities in the two situations. I'm not sure why someone would struggle to pick a sandwich yet instantly decide what side of a complex international dispute to side with. The answer is likely that the sandwich has an immediate impact on her life, the Middle East, not so much. She chose 'Free Palestine' because it was expedient to do so.
"It's complicated" isn't code for "I'm basically okay with what the Government is doing all these years" - you've conflated my views into something more simple than they are. It's complicated means simply that, it's complicated. I don't support the Israeli government's treatment of the Palestinian people, but likewise I don't support the Hamas regimes tendency to fire rockets at Israel.
Even this latter point is a complicated one to unpick. Does a nation state have a right to defend itself? I'd argue yes. Does it have a right to insist on separate living conditions for different parts of it's nation. I'd argue no. Should a Government continually enage in activity against a superior military force knowing full well the likely repercussions of doing so will largely fall upon the civiliain population? Isn't this how the Vietnam war was... lost? Won? Whichever.
The point here isn't that I don't agree with 'Free Palestine' - rather than, how do you intend to do so? Given than the Hamas charters seemingly commit themselves to the destruction of Israel and Hamas are democratically elected, what's your endgame? What do you intend to do about Jama'at Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad and other hardline groups? And how do you overcome the cognitive dissonance that comes with being in a liberal democracy and supporting what is essentially a religious theocracy? That doesn't mean I'm siding with Israel either, their behaviours also require scrutiny and quesitoning. Their commitment to the peace process is questionable, particularly under their current PM and the involvement of the US has not helped very much either in recent years. I don't support the Israeli Government's treatment of the Palestinians any more than I support the Hamas regime firing rockets into Tel Aviv. That's not the point... 'Free Palestine' as a set of useless words doesn't answer the question.
This isn't a 'hard pass', it's a declaration that the complexities of resolving this problem have outweighed my capacity to understand the multi-faceted nature of the issues being presented. If you've done the work. If the conclusion you've come to over many years of careful study is 'Free Palestine' - how do you envisage that playing out?
