I just avoid those conversations completely. It’s a nightmarish situation, with a long, complicated history. Many opinions are uninformed, and I don’t think I have anything of value to add.

This instance is explicitly about being good to people, so it makes sense that a conflict will be very divisive when everyone but the civilians are being bad.

This isn’t some psyop against Beehaw to try to disrupt our ethos; this a major world event where we’re watching the mass slaughter of innocent men, women, and children.

People here are also likely more sensitive than most to settler-colonialist and imperialist violence.

I have seen a few people who are clearly trying to turn it into “x side good”, usually because they have dehumanized the other side, but that’s maybe been 3 posters I’ve seen, and they’re the same ones in each thread. And as much as that sucks, I don’t think we need to ban them, we can handle their anger with sympathy.

FYI to users: there is now a megathread on this topic so it doesn’t dominate the front page for the next week and to just make things generally more convenient for everyone. please make liberal use of the thread, thanks

I do get what you mean, but I would prefer that people do talk about it here where they believe it’s a safer environment to discuss views than being exposed to a bunch of toxicity about it elsewhere as they try to make sense of how they feel about what is happening.

I have been reading a lot the last few days. I have seen a lot of pretty ignorant and awful comments, but also a great many that are spot on and some just brilliant. I think all things considered, the admins are doing a great job of allowing people to discuss this without just ban-hammering at first sight anything that is a bit tricky. (Creating the megathread is good move though, so thanks for that by the way…).

For my part, as someone who is now 58 yrs old, the situation in Israel feels like more of history repeating itself over and over. I have spent my entire life watching this kind of news play out. I have also lost many close friends from university who were Israeli and who were Palestinian; many of those had lost their entire families in either the war in Syria or in Lebanon. I had a lot of friends at AUB for example who never came back; During the Gulf War, I was still overseas and had armed soldiers on my campus escorting Israeli faculty for fear they might be attacked since we had received bomb threats at our campus for being “Jew lovers”… I share all that to say that I have some very, very strong opinions on what is happening.

But so do a lot of people here. How can you not?

I still think we are capable of having civil discussions and helping each other through living this moment in time. We have a far easier task doing that bit than anyone else directly experiencing the war and all which that implies.

Indeed, but maybe it’s a chance to be exemplary, by spreading moderate and compassionate words (for all victims, on both sides).

My only concern is the mental health of the fellow beeples who chose this instance because they needed a bubble of kindness, far for the cruel real world.

Think it is just that the situation is so incredibly upsetting, very prominent in the media and with no sense that even a vaguely ok remedy is coming anytime soon.

So it is natural that emotions run high, that people then speak about it in harsh terms and that this gives rise to considerable tensions. It is after all, a particularly bitter and lengthy conflict, and I think it maybe takes a special kind of individual to discuss it with gentleness, balance & empathy.

Generally avoiding conversing myself, and may need to stop reading conversations too. Just have to keep telling myself that though being informed about the world is good, reading opinions doesn’t actually help those experiencing the horror on the ground, nor their loved ones elsewhere, so it is ok to avoid.

No, I think the response has been very level headed conversation actually. There’s been a lot of focus on Israel simply because of the absolute support they initially got. But I think the discussions have been productive.

It’s disappointing to see so many people, not from beehaw, advocate for violence. I think it’s a subject that’s going to attract a lot of toxic people. And we’re seeing some of that here.

I knew something like this would eventually happen on Beehaw. Very happy I blocked the news instances to protect my mental health.

I’m super confused by this post. It’s on everyone’s mind and all over any media, of course people are talking about it. No doubt it will simmer down, or be replaced by the next huge geopolitical event. I don’t see an issue, and am unclear on what this post is even about. What are you wanting to happen?

I use Voyager, but am assuming this isn’t an app feature, but a Lemmy feature.

Under Blocks & Filters, there is a Keyword filter.

I would suggest anyone trying to avoid the topic add related keywords to your filter. If something comes up after that, examine it, determine why it made it past your filter, and add necessary additional words if needed.

Of course it is major world news, so if you want to see updated news about it in your feed, that’s not doable, but people don’t have to read the comment thread.

I am an Apollo Reddit migrate, and to allow my wife to function, I had an extensive keyword filter in place for her, anything relating to violence (shootings, sexual assault), politics (mentions of certain politicians, or political topics), horror stuff, sexual content, and words she finds generally offensive. It really made such a difference for her, whereas she could never function in such a social platform (without affecting her mental well being) without those filters.

The key feature I am waiting for is the ability of users to block/filter whole instances/servers on their own, as that would allow participating in more difficult nuanced topics like this, while mass filtering communities whose user base one finds to behave badly, or be generally offensive/trollish.

No…why do you dislike it ?

On the one hand, yeah, that kinda discussion is gross and there are definitely bad actors playing both sides against each other just to make everyone angry.

On the other hand, it also really pisses me off when moderators come in with the heavy handed kid gloves and delete everything.

I don’t really worry about these things… It’s easy to move to another instance on Lemmy. We never had that opinion before Lemmy, to be able to switch to some instance where there is no drama. Now we do.