It's Okay To Admit You Were Wrong About Gaza

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

It’s okay to admit you were wrong about this. It’s okay to change your mind.

It’s okay to admit you reacted inappropriately to the news of what happened on October 7 and advocated some Israeli responses that you should not have advocated.

It’s okay to admit that you were wrong to cheer when the bombs started landing on Gaza.

It’s okay to admit you were wrong about the longstanding debate over Palestinian rights.

It’s okay to admit that you shared some things online that you now regret sharing.

I say this because there are probably a lot of pro-Israel people looking at what’s happening in Gaza and starting to feel a bit dissonant about it. Like maybe they’re on the wrong side of this thing after all.

And I just want to reassure you that you can change your position on this. It’s perfectly fine and normal to do so.

We all make mistakes. We all go through periods where aspects of our worldview are formed by inaccurate information that we were given by others. I know I have. So has everyone else.

It’s okay to make mistakes, you just have a responsibility to learn from them and course-correct after you learn that you were mistaken. That’s what being a grown-up is all about.

You don’t have to make a big public show of admitting you were wrong if you don’t want to. You don’t even necessarily have to admit it to anyone if this has all been private and internal for you. But you do have a responsibility to undo any damage you did when you were mistaken about all this.

If you’ve been cheerleading for the Gaza massacre, you must now begin advocating peace.

If you’ve been sharing materials supportive of this onslaught, you must start sharing materials which oppose it.

If you taught your children or any young impressionable people who look up to you to support what Israel is doing, you must now teach them the opposite.

If you said things to your family and friends which may have fed into their support for this genocidal slaughter, you must now put forward the opposite stance.

We’re all learning as we go. Nobody has it all figured out; those who think they do are typically some of the most insufferable and immature people you’ll ever meet. It’s fine to make mistakes, and it’s fine to turn around once we recognize our error.

It’s not a crime to be duped. It’s not evil to have been deceived. It would only be morally wrong if you kept persisting in your wrongness after you figured out that you are wrong.

All you can do is your best. But you can’t honestly tell yourself that you are doing your best if you’ve got a nagging feeling inside that you’re getting this one wrong and yet do nothing to address it with honesty and integrity.

We can all do something to help bring an end to this horror. None of us can do it single-handedly, but we can all do a little something. Speak out in every medium you have access to, attend demonstrations, talk to your friends and loved ones, and help open as many eyes as possible to the reality of what’s happening.

We’re all waking up, one pair of eyelids at a time.

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Featured image via Wikimedia Commons.