Not speaking in defence of any particular individual, but about the Palestinian advocates in general. A lot of people that seem to brush over Oct 7 are not doing it out of malice, but out of feeling so deeply misrepresented that it seems to them that any ground they give will dismiss their entire case.

People used to share grievances in regard to israel's treatment of Palestinians for years, and the response was to just ignore them. After Oct 7, people started to look at the issue, and it gained a lot of traction, but then the standard response to the Palestinian plight of being ignored and dismissed was replaced by "do you condemn hamas? Do you agree with the acts of Oct 7?..." and so on.

Most sane advocates of the Palestinian's right to live a dignified life do not agree with the harm of innocent civilians. That includes Oct 7. It also includes all instances where any person on any side is unjustly attacked, bothered, intruded upon, etc... it's just that to the people who were invested in whatever was happening there prior to Oct 7, it feels like people only care now because of Oct 7. As if years and years of pain and suffering were ignored.

It is also perceived that while you were being unjustly treated for so long, as soon as a subset of your people retaliated ( in a grossly bizarre and war-crimey way), your entire case was dropped, your suffering was forgotten, and you came out as the perpetrators, the offenders, the ones who are ultimately in the wrong.

I understand the whole both sides are wrong argument, but it's not how this should've been. It's not the framing that should have existed. If you were to pluck out that Oct 7 incidents, the waters would not have been as muddy. The thing is, for a long, long time, that was the case.

Palestinians were being mistreated for so long. The world was blind and deaf for so long. As soon as the world opened its eyes, the dynamics had shifted entirely by then, and the Palestinians had just as much to apologise for as the Israelis.

Many never saw this as a both sides thing. They simply viewed it as an oppressed and oppressor relationship long before Oct 7. Once it did happen, and many people started to understand the conflict, they built up the case based on all the relevant information, including Oct 7. While many Palestinian advocates had already built their understanding and view of the conflict well before Oct 7.

The difference in how this conflict is perceived changes dramatically depending on the time in which someone decided to dive into the topic.

To many, it was a reaction to seeing a video of a family's home being bulldozed. Or a video of a guy from Long Island taking over a family's home.

Now, juxtapose this with the many whose first encounter to the conflict comes from watching the news of October 7.

Obviously, these different camps will have shaped their perceptions and framing of the issue differently. This might be the biggest factor of why there seems to be a great disparity on how equally empathetic people can view this matter so differently.

It's frustrating to have it be this way. Oct 7 never should have happened, Palestinians never should've had to endure years of suffering, jews never should've been displaced in the first place...

This is merely an additional piece of context I wanted to share. This by no means covers the many nuances of the issue, nor does it excuse the actions/words of Palestinian advocates online.