The following is my own plain spoken POV as myself, an American.
As a response to and prompted by events on Oct. 7, Israel has relentlessly bombed Palestinians in Gaza. Destroying infrastructure, cutting off fuel and water and anything else. Killing 20K plus (large percentage kids), bombing hospitals, killing babies and journalists. This has included use of 2000 pound bombs and white phosphorous (whatever that is). Feel free to DYOR.
Was Israel’s response unprovoked? Maybe. (Non violence means there’s never a justification for violence.) In their living conditions Palestinians, who are / were under a severe 16 year blockade and occupied (colonized), endured a form of violence. Oct. 7 atrocities could be seen as reciprocation. Justification for an initial response is reasonable. More than two months later now, not so much.
TV news pundits and influencers say things. Accusations of antisemitism towards anyone questioning Israel are part of a media influence political campaign. Amy Schumer invoking MLK in her activism is an example.
A smattering of lone voices are concerned for the humanity of Palestinians. Abby Martin, The Grayzone, Cornell West to name a few.
Generally, the perspective from people in the US is: why should we care? Sure, maybe the US shouldn’t provide so much funding, arms and aid. (A move from US Congress to try to prioritize immigration policies instead was well received.)
Why care about Palestinians though? If we were suddenly transported to Gaza, we'd likely smile politely for a few minutes and then get away ASAP back to safety, junk food, Netflix, the English language and such.
I myself would fit it more at a synagogue than a mosque. I wouldn’t want to wear a hijab and don’t really understand Muhammed and Allah nor want to (although I don’t get Judaism either).
To Israel as a nation, Palestinians are an unwanted population. They’re being forced to either go away or die, are being killed directly and indirectly. Israel wants that land for itself, for Israelis (like West Bank settlers) and Israeli projects.
Simple summary, Israel to Gaza: GTFO. Killing on mass scale, blowing up and destroying everything. (Advised to evacuate to certain areas or face death, they are then attacked in those areas. Hospitals blown up. It’s a genocide.)
As an American, yes our govt is supporting and is complicit. Yet the US govt. does a lot of foreign intervention that we don’t really understand or necessary support. Just how it is.
Aside from some virtue signalers on social media (with a sense of morality about the loss of life), Americans are mostly indifferent. The concerted Israeli influence campaign plays a part.
In the US collective consciousness, it may seem like we have nothing in common with an isolated population in the middle east. Whatever they’re into is probably anti-American. They’re not like us.
Nothing in common with anyone over there. No shared interests. (So we’re told, and we definitely have kinship with Israel, so we’re told.) What do we care about what Palestinians are going through(?) is the underlying mentality.
Except, we do have a lot in common and very much shared interests. We’re just not able to see that so clearly.
Personal context. In my decades long adult life I’ve experienced these things. Both my income and purchasing power have gone down. The work I do is less pleasant. Rents keep going up. I keep moving into suckier and suckier places. Everything is getting more expensive. Living standards, lower. Luxury apartments have a lot of vacancies. Those who can afford, fewer. Gentrification.
People are being pushed down. We’re unwanted. Yes, they’ll keep us around as long as we do demeaning service industry jobs at survival wages. No healthcare. Meager social services. If you’re homeless, that’s your problem. Failing, being miserable and being in poor health are in the business model for our lives.
What Palestinians experience is a more extreme form of being unwanted and pushed down / out / to death. But the same forces are at work. In some ways literally, and in some ways structurally or conceptually.
Where Marx and Lenin come in.
Marx studied the mechanisms of capitalism. He saw the outcomes of these mechanisms producing a recurring scenario in history. A small number of people who own all the capital (bourgeoise) oppressing the vast majority of everyone else (proletariat). Extraction of surplus value from an exploited workforce (the proletariat). When this scenario becomes so extreme and conditions so unbearable, the masses will seize the means of production, overthrow capitalism and usher in communism.
Lenin, in a lecture at least, believed war would be obsolete with communism. The only wars he saw as making sense would be ones where the masses seize the means of production (“eliminating all exploitation of man by man and nation by nation").
The simple conclusion is this.
We should see ourselves as in the same boat (same class) as those being forced to leave or die. The entities and institutions of power supplying the bombs and dropping them are not doing so for our collective interests. It just appears that way because they don’t want us to realize.