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this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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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.