The beautiful modern internet! Where one can in one breath complain about the post-truth era, then proceed to get 30 upvotes for making the absurd, maximalist claim that no one excused the Oct 7 terrorist acts – when Iran called those attacks Palestinian self-defence and Students for Justice in Palestine called it “a historic win for the Palestinian resistance” (those are Reuters links, hopefully we can agree they don’t invent news wholecloth). So what now, are we going to move the goal posts and say that calling something “a win” and “self-defense” is not excusing it?

There are enough valid pro-Palestinian arguments: denying water to a civilian population of nearly two million is a war crime, that’s certainly a valid argument. These attacks didn’t happen in a vacuum, and need to be seen in the context of the impossible conditions in the Gaza strip: also certainly a valid argumnent. But this stuff, this blatant misrepresentation of reality, is what makes it to the top of the comment section instead.