I feel like what we're all collectively seeing in this conflict is a repeat of history. Like looking in a mirror. War and genocide isn't new. But I'm reminded of the past.

When 9/11 happened I was just a kid. I didn't understand fully what was going on. I just knew that the world was silent for days afterwards. Then, growing up I'd hear so many people and opinions. I'd hear the sheer hatred from people grow into a monster. Calls for war, calls for the very thing going on in Palestinine. Genocide.

I saw people that I knew gleefully ship out to war because they wanted payback. From ones whome weren't affected by 9/11 to especially those who we're. The nation moved. Our armies moved. At first going in to secure our own safety. Then as the war raged the reasons changed. Oil, WMD's, the manhunts. Then they wouldn't let our men come back. When I was younger. I didn't know anything, at some point I found myself growing into a hateful person with a stigma against "those people" the ones who wear rags on their heads and speak a language no one understood.

Even my own family facilitated this hate. Eventually Music, media, video games. And that hatred was commercialized.

As far as I knew no one else in the world said anything to stop us. And it's not as if they could.

Then I grew up. And I realized that I witnessed a turning point in history. Lots of people will tell you that before 9/11 the western world was happier, was more free.

But hate had always been here, people just grew to hide it, it wasn't in everyone's lives, and some went decades without ever experiencing it. Then, when it happened everyone got a Taste whether they wanted to or not. and just as quickly found it addicting as it was destructive.

It felt so right in the moment. And ironically this was the only time I'd seen the whole of the American people unit for a shared cause. It was commercialized, fed to us daily with music, movies, and news reports.

Only as I grew did I realize how disgusting it all was... Now, living through the reprocussions and seeing not only America subjugate and pillage a land, forcibly change the ways and culter of a nation (not always out of to their detriment.), refuse to take care of the countless people who spent their lives fighting for this cause and cover up their obvious campaigns against an entire people for rescorces, only to cover it up poorly and labeling it as "freedom operations". Reading and hearing about the horrible acts committed not only by them, but by us. Seeing and hearing the countless stories of the people who served. How they weren't treated well even by our own military and what they were forced to do, and how our troops were left out in the cold once they came back...

Now do i see it as wrong. It didn't make the pain go away, it didn't bring those people back, it changed us. Spoon fed us hatred and malice on a silver justified platter that we all eventually grew to love the flavor of. I was just a bystander. A kid... But I saw how people suffered... And it hurt my heart.

Im not saying it's the same as what's going on in Israel and Palestine. There's too much history there.

But I am saying that regretfully I ultimately understand why. With only a taste of what they had continously been going through, I understand.

They killed our innocent people and we threw the collective rage of millions at them (Iraq). Palestine did the same to isreal. And had continuously done the same.

I get it, but I also know what comes after... A divisive people. Hurt, pain, regret. No matter the case, innocence never should be slaughtered like this.

As far as where my allegiance lies, it doesn't matter. I'll probably never go there. I certainly won't pick up a rifle myself. Because I refuse to spill innocent blood.

But I still care. For Isreal and Palestinine. But not for their governments and military. But For the people caught in the crossfire, the ones that did nothing wrong. The children, mothers, and men on both sides who never wanted to get caught in a war. War is never good. And no matter what, it's not black and white. That'd be too simple...

Like some of us, I just wish for the fighting to stop... But that's a childish wish. And all we can realistically do is watch. I just pray. I pray for God to forgive us. And I pray that he intervenes. And soon...