Here's a pro-Palestinian argument I find compelling. Israelis like to talk up and down how much they love peace. They say fine, there's settlements eating up the west bank, and a siege on the Gaza strip, and all of that, but how is that justification for violence? Peace is better than war! We love peace! Let us have peace. Palestinians find this laughable: first you kill and conquer, then with the boot comfortably on the neck you talk about peace? There can be no peace without justice.

I don't know if I agree with the conclusion all the way, but it certainly is a compelling argument. And I find that it is compelling as it applies across the board geopolitically. Too many times "peace, peace" is used as a rallying cry in support of whatever bully already used their power to tread, create facts on the ground and declare fait accompli. You hear the same about Ukraine: how immoral it is of Zelensky and Biden to insist on war where it would be so much more peaceful of them to accept what Russia has taken by force and seek a diplomatic solution. Anyone who supports the push to undo the partial conquest of Ukraine is therefore, by definition, argued to be a bloodthirsty warmonger.

That's not how the world works, or should work. Conquest and bloodshed is not a game of tag, for agents to escalate at their leisure and then shout "time out" when they are done extracting value from it. In accepting such a "humanitarian" point of view we maybe choose peace now for the people embroiled in the current conflict, but choose bloody war for countless innocent souls in the future who will come under the baleful eye of some geopolitical bully or robber baron who will inevitably reason, "we live in a world where I can go in, slaughter, conquer and philander, then when I've had enough and it seems things are turning against me, I shall weep that peace is preferable to war, and the world will listen". This is not an endorsement of an endless cycle of revenge, but it is an endorsement of the idea that nations should be allowed to retaliate against acts of war in ways that make the original act, in retrospect, not worthwhile. In civil society we have courts for exactly this purpose.