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this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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I have a very strong don't blow up kids policy, that doesn't care what religion or political party you subscribe to or even race. If you do blow up kids, we feel strongly that you should just fuck right off and we should do whatever we can to stop those killing kids.
"The terrorists are using schools as shields though!"
Guess you shouldn't use artillery strikes and bombing runs then.
"The terrorists are using schools as shields though!"
"Oh damn that's a genius strategy. Better just give up every military advantage I have and send in my soldiers to be ambushed."
Is it still called an ambush if you know they are there?
Nope, by definition isn't.
Still more dangerous for the IDF and less vengeance-effective than just raining death on thousands of civilians on the off-chance that you might also kill a handful of terrorists that Hamas can easily replace.
Yes, and that touches on the core problem, unequal regard for human lives.
Yeah, to quote Rashida Tlaib from right before they censured her for speaking truth to power:
I don't know it's unequal. Hamas clearly has little regard for Palestinian or Israeli civilians. Their MO for two decades has been rocket attacks on Israeli civilians. And if they cared about their own civilians they wouldn't use hospitals and schools as artillery bases. They know Israel doesn't care either though and will bomb them anyway, which is basically what Hamas is banking on.
Both forces care little for civilians. The difference is when Israel doesn't care it's a 500 lb bomb through a school. When Hamas doesn't care it's a 40lb rocket that probably gets shot down by the Iron Dome anyway.
Equal disregard for civilian life on both sides. Unequal force willing to be exerted by one side.
I disagree. Equal disregard for Palestinian civilians maybe. The Israelis care deeply about their own and would never employ the tactics Hamas do.
I mean that, within the corridors of power - the U.S., Israeli, the U.K., etc. - there's systematic policy of unequal regard for Palestinian lives, below that of Israeli lives. That creates an environment where extremely disproportionate attacks on Palestinians, like we're witnessing now, are characterized as acceptable. This, of course, creates the conditions of systemic apartheid, the conditions for the hostilities in the first place.
And in regard to the point you bring up (to be sure, not what I was talking about) - whether or not either side of the conflict has equal or unequal regard for human life - I don't think it's simple to make that kind of calculation. The facts we have to contend with are the current situation are the result of a movement since the late 19th century seeking to move a population into Palestine, militarily seize control of the entire territory, and militarily occupy, oppress, blockade, and expel the local population for land acquisition. In the context of that, we have to contend with the reality of the civilian casualties:
which have never been equal. It does not prove equal disregard for human lives, but it's a very strong indicator towards it, that Israel disproportionately and recklessly slaughters Palestinians, on the order of 10 to 20 times as many, in retaliation to any Palestinian attack, or vice versa.
In regard to Hamas itself - we have the evidence of the rocket attacks themselves (unguided rockets, just going wherever in a general direction), which took a total of about 40 non-Palestinian lives between 2004 and 2014. And we also have the exact evidential record of October 7th - through which we have to filter out atrocity propaganda, deaths that were attributed to Hamas but should properly be attributed to the IDF, etc. (look into this yourself, it's a doozy), and that military vs. civilian casualties seem to have been underreported by Israel. Those attacks are in the context of trying to achieve a prisoner swap, bring attention to the situation of the Gaza strip, or most cynically, to empower Hamas itself for the profit of its leaders - while on the Israeli side, the explanations ranging from trying to disempower from Hamas, to trying to continue the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, either to nullify them, to gain control of territory, etc. - armed with all the military tools, all the knowledge, all the human rights theory, of Western nations, but choosing to use them to purposefully target civilian facilities, destroying the entire city, destroying the civilian infrastructure, starving the entire civilian population of food, water, electricity, fuel, medicine, the essential needs for the entire civilian population - coupled with open statements of genocidal intent - not coming from anger of perpetual oppression, like that of Palestinians, but coming from anger resulting from resistance to that oppression. I think that strongly suggests Israel's disregard for human life of the Palestinian population reaches extremes that are not reciprocated by the Palestinian population as a whole, or probably even by Hamas itself.
That's just me thinking through it in response to your comment. We see greater numbers of casualties. We see what seems to be a far greater percent of civilian casualties from Israel. We see explicit attempts to justify the targeting of hospitals - which they cannot even substantiate. We see open statements of dehumanization and incitement to genocide. I don't think the disregard for human lives is equal, I think Israel as a state has proven that it's only concerned with its own interests, completely disregarding all human lives that stand in the way of those interests, while as a result of that, the Palestinian population has perpetually been in a posture of defense. And my understanding of international law, that it places the defensive right with the Palestinian population on the basis of their 56 year long experience of occupation, not with the occupying power - I think mirrors precisely that.
Do you feel your description matches the reality of this Palestinian dentist? Are the described actions consistent with callously raining death on thousands of civilians?
This may be tough to understand but there's a ton of still completely-intact, dense urban environment in between the border and the school in your scenario. So on your way to the school, you can be ambushed.
Or hey, maybe thinking strategically even a little bit, maybe the school, or the road, or any of the surroundings are booby-trapped! Maybe they've planted IEDs or mines on the path there!
It's very far fetched, I know. Humans haven't been waging war for forever, there isn't a giant history to pull from.
This may be tough to understand but, war crimes are still war crimes, even when they had strategic value.
Fucking mind-blowing, it's ok though, it won't ever be your kids.
Reeee I love bombing children reeeeeee
Child killers are on both sides though so who are you to speak?
The issue isn't holding a moral high ground or playing into ultimatums of mutually assured destruction since they're already there.
I am not funding Hamas, my tax dollars are going to Israel and they are killing kids, nuff said. At this point, I think the world is looking at Hamas in a whole new light thanks to Israel and the media.
So what did you do to stop the US killing kids in Iraq and Afghanistan?
An estimated civilian death toll in the hundreds of thousands, and millions displaced.
What are your plans to prevent or oppose the mass deportation of millions of those Afghan refugees as just announced by Pakistan?
There's just a bit of morbid irony in anyone from the US acting like they are on a high moral horse here when their own country has exported an order of magnitude more harm around the world largely to crickets within the country, particularly in comparison to the opposition to something like the Vietnam war.
The US is still currently active in its bombing and involvement in Syria. Thousands of civilians killed by coalition forces, hundreds of thousands fled the country as a result of the conflict. Have you even done anything about that one?
It's just wild when civilians in the US get riled up by the foreign policy conflict of the week, take their sides typically along partisan lines, and pat themselves on the back for taking their stand. "We'll hold our politicians accountable." Meanwhile the actual joint military and intelligence branches have their hands in a half dozen conflicts around the world and are directly responsible for much greater harm that's just far less publicized in Western media because of press relations forged in the wake of Vietnam, and stories like this don't get picked up past the investigative groups researching them.
The US routinely blows up kids and has a long history of refusing to submit itself to international courts.
But no, Americans don't focus on changing the policy and scope of their own government's actions (the thing they in theory have greater influence over). They just get worked up over the actions of other governments allied with the US - and then either are upset about funding Ukraine if Republican or upset about funding Israel if Democrat. At least this week. I'm sure in a few months we'll have moved on to a new Kony 2012 people are "very upset about and not going to forget about until something is done."
(Seriously, the idea the current events will have any real impact on an election a year from now is laughable.)
I'd even be willing to bet at least 95% of all the Americans complaining about foreign governments bombing things couldn't even point on a map to all the places that their own government has bombed children in just the past decade.
Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in "what about…?") denotes in a pejorative sense a procedure in which a critical question or argument is not answered or discussed, but retorted with a critical counter-question which expresses a counter-accusation. From a logical and argumentative point of view it is considered a variant of the tu-quoque pattern (Latin 'you too', term for a counter-accusation), which is a subtype of the ad-hominem argument.[1][2][3][4]
The communication intent is often to distract from the content of a topic (red herring). The goal may also be to question the justification for criticism and the legitimacy, integrity, and fairness of the critic, which can take on the character of discrediting the criticism, which may or may not be justified. Common accusations include double standards, and hypocrisy, but it can also be used to relativize criticism of one's own viewpoints or behaviors. (A: "Long-term unemployment often means poverty in Germany." B: "And what about the starving in Africa and Asia?").[5] Related manipulation and propaganda techniques in the sense of rhetorical evasion of the topic are the change of topic and false balance (bothsidesism).[6]
Some commentators have defended the usage of whataboutism and tu quoque in certain contexts. Whataboutism can provide necessary context into whether or not a particular line of critique is relevant or fair, and behavior that may be imperfect by international standards may be appropriate in a given geopolitical neighborhood.[7] Accusing an interlocutor of whataboutism can also in itself be manipulative and serve the motive of discrediting, as critical talking points can be used selectively and purposefully even as the starting point of the conversation (cf. agenda setting, framing, framing effect, priming, cherry picking). The deviation from them can then be branded as whataboutism.[citation needed]
Both whataboutism and the accusation of it are forms of strategic framing and have a framing effect.[8]
So you are qualified to discount anyone related to a subject, that you don't have any access to their research or the education to know about it? I certainly don't, so I just listen to what they say and not attack them or who they are related to.
I opened with a question.
What have you done to stand up for or inform yourself regarding similar priorities with your own country's behaviors overseas?
Go ahead and give me your qualifications there that make me think your attitudes regarding foreign government behaviors aren't hypocritical and simply a partisan fad.
Sorry new app, this was related to another discussion of dismissing science and going into research with bias. Sorry about that.
How about take an adult version of that and support actions that stop the blowing up of kids in the long run? I.e. the destruction of a terrorist organization.
How about understanding that more killing doesn't bring the "destruction of a terrorist organization" - it brings more terrorism.
That doesn't always hold true. For instance, the number of nazis was brought down very significantly around the end of WW2. Even though there's been some resurgence, the number of them is still pretty low compared to peak.
Ah, the Libertarian position.
In the long run that would be probably a good idea, but in the short run that would create power vacuums all over the globe that would probably be filled with all kinds of fucked up people.
When the terrorists are armed with US weapons and blow up Tel Aviv we will talk then. When doctors and the nurses and Americans are blown up by Hamas in Israel we will talk then as they level Synagogues and hospitals and the fleeing refugees. Israel has lost all their moral support at this point, took a tragedy, and highlighted their history and evil racist beliefs and supremacy as the "chosen people" not unlike the "master race" before them.
I'm sorry I wasn't aware that Hamas is using infants?
No, but the did kill a lot of them intentionally and have stated their goal is to do so again and again until all the Jews are dead.
You know, Israel could single handedly dismantle Hamas non violently by accepting a two state solution where the two sides work together for mutual benefit.
Just saying, hamas has whatever support it has purely as a resistance movement against Israel for their apartheid regime. Their support would fizzle away if Israel were to do the right thing and try to actually improve the material well-being of the Palestinian population and give them the freedom and state they've wanted.
The problem is, right now what Israel is doing is only going to hurt them in the long run, not help them. The ideology of Hamas is that, an ideology. You can't kill an idea with bombs, that only makes it stronger. And Israel is only digging their own grave by constantly killing civilians at this level, because every Middle Eastern Nation around will never try to work with them again and probably start warring with Israel again, and I'm sorry but Israel isn't gonna survive that. They were so close to finally getting some sort of peace agreement with Saudi Arabia, and now that's nothing but a pipe dream again.
Weren't they on the cusp of a two state solution before Arafat pulled out?
Yea.
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/19/1207243717/23-years-ago-israelis-and-palestinians-were-talking-about-a-two-state-solution
Arafat's negotiators on the Palestinian side were serious about wanting a two state solution and wanted to come up with a deal with the Israelis, but something stopped Arafat from going through with it. He told clinton he didn't want to give up Jerusalem as it's a holy site to muslims (it is for Jews and Christians too, so ngl I don't think anyone wants to not have Jerusalem. But that's Arafat, not all Palestinians. Yes that was their leader, but yk not every leader has unanimous support from the people.
Holy shit, so Arafat alone basically blew the best chance we had.
Jerusalem should just be made a UN protectorate or independent third city-state at this point as part of a two-state solution (like the Vatican).
And yeah, I know everyone will hate that idea, but hey, at least then everyone will hate the idea.
That's news to Hamas.
No, until Israel goes away. Israel != Jews.
It's ironic there's a commentary right above you arguing that Israel could get Peace by simply offering a two-state solution we're both States exist.
At this point if Israel goes away it be genocide. There's whole generations of people that were born and raised in Israel. There's really nowhere for those people to flee to where they'd be safe other than maybe the US.
The country is not the people. Saying you want the country gone is entirely different.
Without the country who will protect the people who live there?
Whatever government is put in place after. Exactly the same as every other post colonial region.
Specifically who?