Israeli here, can't directly answer your question since I've lived in the US for 99% of my adult life, but I consider myself pro-Israel and resent the way Israel is currently/always being portrayed. I see the key problem as people removing context: Context for why the current situation could easily be different if Hamas acted/acts differently, and context for why there is no "just stop fighting" option that leaves Israel with a high confidence that another Oct 7 won't happen in the next few years.
The problem here though is what will ever give Israel confidence that Oct 7 will never happen again? We know that going after terrorists for years and killing them just creates more terrorists (Iraq, Afghanistan). The young children who do not end up dying of starvation will be men in 20 years, still in Gaza with no options to leave and resent Israel who they will consider to be effectively their jailer. The situation is just untenable. I don't like to think that the result of Oct 7 is a more open Gaza but I don't really know what other options Israel has.
Hamas obviously started this but Israel won the war a long time ago. The world deserves an end. The longer it goes on the more Hamas will actually have achieved some kind of lasting positive image of Gaza which is rooted in their actions on Oct 7th and that would be an incredibly bad outcome for all.
> what will ever give Israel confidence that Oct 7 will never happen again?
No Hamas in power? Seems like that would give pretty good confidence.
This reminds me of alternate history stories where Japan refused to surrender. The US demanded unconditional surrender in WW2. What would have happened if the axis refused. What would have made the allies confident that the war was over without German and Japanese unconditional surrender.
It seems like Hamas is not surrendering and Israel is demanding that. If Hamas surrendered and left power, would that appease Israel?
At least 189 Palestinians were killed between 30 March and 31 December 2018.[28]: 6 [29][30] An independent United Nations commission said that at least 29 out of the 189 killed were militants.[5] Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and live ammunition.[31] According to Robert Mardini, head of Middle East for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), more than 13,000 Palestinians were wounded as of 19 June 2018. The majority were wounded severely, with some 1,400 struck by three to five bullets.[32] No Israelis were physically harmed from 30 March to 12 May, until one Israeli soldier was reported as slightly wounded on 14 May,[9] the day the protests peaked. The same day, 59 or 60 Palestinians were shot dead at twelve clash points along the border fence.[33]
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yea, seems like it was the israelis who weren't peaceful. sorry if we're all starting to see a pattern.
edit: yes, 29 militants out of 189 killed and 130000 wounded. even at the most sympathetic take, Israelis come out looking like a bunch of sociopaths.
29 killed militants in peaceful march of return ? you seems to be contradicting yourself.
you also seems to skipped the beginning of article. for example, day 1 of peaceful march of return:
Hundreds of young Palestinians, however, ignored warnings by the organizers and the Israeli military to avoid the border zone.[74] Some began throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, to which Israel responded by declaring the Gaza border zone a closed military zone and opening fire at them.[55] The events of the day were some of the most violent in recent years.[75] In one incident, two Palestinian gunmen approached the fence, armed with AK-47 assault rifles and hand grenades, and exchanged fire with IDF soldiers. They were killed and their bodies were recovered by the IDF.
you need to improve your vibe quoting. article talks about 13,000 wounded, not 130,000. iirc, been impacted by tear gas is also "wounded".
but back to the point.
- do you still claim that it was "peaceful march of return" ?
- where do you think the "return" part of the march were leading and what would have happened there ? (just in case, in UN report on Oct 7 documented that in most of places civilians followed armed members of hamas/pij/pflp/etc and engaged in looting, killing (famously thai workers that their heads were chopped off by unarmed civilians with help of hoe) and kidnapping (later sold to hamas/etc)
As you can see it does not include "impacted by tear gas", but a thousand palestinians were harmed by having tear gas canisters shot at them. More than six thousand were maimed by gun fire, and as the numbers show, it was deliberate policy to harm rather than kill.
In comparison, as a measure of the supposed militancy from the palestinians, five israelis were injured and none were killed.
Palestinian refugees have a right to return to their land and homes. That's what the march was about.
so they tried to breach border en masse, while having armed people among them and got shot only in knees ? sounds like a good outcome for them.
israeli citizens didn't have such a good outcome at oct 7 when great march of return succeeded to breach border.
and you seems to be angry that they were harmed and not killed. i am confused here.
now, you surely know that between 1945 and 1950 about 12m to 14.6m ethnic germans were ethnically cleansed (500k to 2.5m dead in process) from eastern europe and some land annexed.
do you support their right to march back and reclaim their land and homes ?
> and got shot only in knees ? sounds like a good outcome for them.
please go on
> do you support their right to march back and reclaim their land and homes ?
considering that they were kicked out by violence in 1948,
likud terrorists mass killed entire villages of Palestinians in order to force the rest to flee.
Israelis then forced them to live in an apartheid state
I certainly do support their right of return. Israel has committed multiple oct 7 level atrocities against Palestinians over the last few decades while sweeping them under the rug.
edit: are the descendants of those germans being systematically oppressed with no rights and living under military occupation? if not, whats stopping them from returning currently?
I.e. the allies forcing germans in the east to go west and leave the nazi colonial project behind. It was arguably atrocious. It is also irrelevant since the territories involved reside within the EU and there is nothing in the way for these people or their descendants relocating back to Poland or whatever.
Which I suspect will be quite popular in the future, given that Poland's economy is doing rather well and Germany's is likely to not do rather well.
not colonial project, but 12m ethnic germans that lived in german territories that were annexed or in other areas in europe (because they lived there for centuries).
>>>
During the later stages of World War II and the post-war period, Reichsdeutsche (German citizens) and Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans living outside the Nazi state) fled and were expelled from various Eastern and Central European countries, including Czechoslovakia, and from the former German provinces of Lower and Upper Silesia, East Prussia, and the eastern parts of Brandenburg (Neumark) and Pomerania (Farther Pomerania), which were annexed by Provisional Government of National Unity of Poland and by the Soviet Union.
<<<<
will you support them marching back to reclaim their lands and homes, while been peacefully armed (like palestinians) with molotov cocktails, ak47 and grenades ? do you support their right of return ?
"right of return" is not about freedom of movement. it's about regaining possession over land, houses and other properties. something that current poland government is very against.
so, do you support right of return for 12m of germans and there descendants, restoration of their property rights and dismantling of colonial polish state on occupied lands ?
They held peaceful demonstrations by the border and got systematically mutilated for it. This is evidence that peaceful struggle is not an option when it comes to ending israeli crimes.
What's your skin in this game? Why are you defending a deeply criminal state?
Hundreds of young Palestinians, however, ignored warnings by the organizers and the Israeli military to avoid the border zone.[74] Some began throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, to which Israel responded by declaring the Gaza border zone a closed military zone and opening fire at them.[55] The events of the day were some of the most violent in recent years.[75] In one incident, two Palestinian gunmen approached the fence, armed with AK-47 assault rifles and hand grenades, and exchanged fire with IDF soldiers. They were killed and their bodies were recovered by the IDF.
Yes, that is quite peaceful given the circumstances and that thirty thousand people participated. The IDF should have retreated and the israeli government have ended the occupations and started dismantling its colonies in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, then entered negotiations about return and reparations.
well, in this case, idf reaction was quite peaceful given the circumstances and that thirty thousand people participated and tried to overrun the border while been armed
That you can write this, with a complete lack of awareness of how people who aren't brainwashed by zionist propaganda perceive what you're saying, is mind blowing honestly.
I don't see why the result of a Hamas surrender wouldn't be a new organization with the same goals and methods. A surrender by itself is just a formality. But what is the real plan here? What would realistically come after that and how scary/brutal would it be?
Realistically, I think the plan is just reoccupation of Gaza. The military presence would make it harder for Hamas-like organizations to organize and assemble rockets etc. It might be something like pre-2005 Gaza.
So who will be in power? You've got to remember that Hamas was democratically elected back in 2006, and its main rival Fatah isn't exactly pro-Israel either. Given the circumstances, I don't think there could possibly be a democratically elected government in Gaza which is pro-Israel or even neutral-Israel. Your only option is a puppet dictatorship government installed by Israel - but that's not really going to improve the situation, is it?
Besides, you've got to remember that a country is more than its government. What's going to stop its citizens from independently creating their own underground Hamas 2.0 terror group? What's going to stop the kids currently growing up and seeing their parents die due to Israeli actions from wanting revenge?
The situation is too far gone. Either Israel is going to learn how to live with the possibility of an attack (which is going to decrease over time as generations grow up who don't inherently hate Israel with every bone in their body for what it has done to them), or Israel is going to have to kill every single person in Gaza to make sure there's nobody left who could hate them. They should probably continue with Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt - because they all could attack Israel, after all...
France still has to live with the risk of Germany invading. It's fairly unlikely by now, but that risk exists. Germany has invaded multiple times in the not-too-distant past and done some pretty atrocious things while there. Germany still has a pretty large military, and I would be quite surprised if they didn't have some kind of invasion plan lying around in a drawer somewhere. Yet somehow, I don't think the average French citizen in 2025 loses any sleep over it. If they can live with the risk, why does Israel require absolutes?
> , I don't think the average French citizen in 2025 loses any sleep over it. If they can live with the risk, why does Israel require absolutes?
No, we do not lose sleep about that. We have also been at war with England, Italy and Spain a lot. Especially England. We keep a close eye on them still that the Hastings battle is not forgotten.
But on the serious side, these concerns are so remote compared with the situation in Israel and Palestine. We do not have any territory claims with Germany. They have their land, we have ours. If you ask a random person in France about territoires we should get back, they would be really confused. The ones historically inclined would consider the 7th and 8th century and Charlemagne's lands.
I guess that this topic in the mind of Israelis and Palestinians is much, much more prevalent.
In fairness here, germany and france have been at peace for something like 80 years, most of that a fairly friendly peace. The people who remember a time when Germany was the enemy are basically dead by now. 80 years buys a lot of by-gones
Hell, maybe Germany and Israel make a good comparison here. The jews who lived in mandatory palestine during WW2 were certainly afraid of Germany (and rightfully so), but i don't think Israel loses much sleep over the modern state of Germany.
Yes, I totally agree. I wanted to make it clear that the analogy for France-Germany simply does not fly.
Our countries have been at war for two millennia (whatever "country" meant across the ages), like the rest of Europe. Then, after WWII, a tremendous effort was made to mend the relationship, and the really good idea was to involve the youth.
When I was a teenager in the 80s, those who had German as a foreign language (sometimes as the first foreign language, before English) had exchanges with peers in Germany (they were coming to us and living with us for a week, and then we were going to them). It was great.
30 years later, my son had the same exchange and I could look at the kids' behaviour more closely. They (the French and the Germans kids) decided to have a football match. I was sure that it would be a Germany vs France one. Not at all: they mixed up, with teams composed of pairs (local and foreign). It was a-ma-zing.
France no longer has to live with the risk of of a conventional invasion by Germany because France has nuclear weapons now and Germany does not. If a terrorist group was using German territory as a base to launch attacks against France and the German government refused to stop them then I'm pretty sure that France would retaliate kinetically, even if that meant some collateral damage. The USA did this in 2001 when Al Qaeda used Afghanistan as a base; France even assisted with that war.
Geography also matters. Israel is tiny compared to France. Israel has zero strategic depth and population centers could be overrun in a matter of hours if defenses failed. This tends to push their strategic planning towards absolutism. And to be clear I'm not trying to justify Israeli actions, just pointing out the strategic calculus at work and the difficulty of negotiating an agreement acceptable to both sides.
Yes, but those nuclear weapons are only a deterrent against other nation states. They aren't effective against Palestinian terrorist organizations, so they don't factor into the question of whether Israel should be willing to accept some significant ongoing risk of terrorist attacks.
Hamas and Fatah are not comparable in their militancy (or, for that matter, their democratic legitimacy; that a plurality of Gazans are not old enough ever to have voted is not an accident on Hamas' part).
France no longer has to live with the risk of an invasion by Germany *because* the Allies stopped the cycle of violence by deciding to reconstruct Germany rather than erase her off the map.
That’s the reason why.
As abundantly mentioned already, the Palestinian survivors will remember and have their revenge someday.
…unless the plan is: “there will be no survivors”.
Have you noticed how shocking the above “plan” is? Events seem to closely align with it. A literal final solution. Equally shocking is how little people care about actual genocide, and - consequently - how normalized this is in practice.
The international community lets Israel get away with far too much.
We don’t know this. There are several wealthy nations that have produced many terrorists and several poor nations that have produced none. The most famous terrorist in history was a wealthy man from a wealthy nation.
>what will ever give Israel confidence that Oct 7 will never happen again
Why are you asking "what will give the genocidal state confidence", and not bothering for a single second about what will give the hundred of thousands of permanently traumatised, hurt and dead Palestinians confidence that their genocidal neighbours will not do it again ?
>still in Gaza with no options to leave and resent Israel who they will consider to be effectively their jailer.
Which, yes, is the reason for October 7. Seems like oppressing a people (that already doesn't particularly like you for various reasons) has consequences. Unfortunately, these consequences land on civilians. Breeding the conditions for Hamas (and soon enough Hamas 2 provided the Gazan population isn't dead from famine within the next few months)
> I don't like to think that the result of Oct 7 is a more open Gaza but I don't really know what other options Israel has.
Why do you not enjoy the idea of giving a group independence and ownership over the land that has been theirs for centuries ?
>Hamas obviously started this but Israel won the war a long time ago.
Opening history books would tend to show that it started over 70 years ago with the forced resettlement of Palestinians already living within the protectorate (land already stolen from them), the colonization of Gaza, Golan heights, the nakba and the repeated offensives on Gaza and Cisjordania as well as the assassinations of multiple political leaders (both Palestinian and Israeli), but I guess the Israeli propaganda that Oct 7 started it all has taken root.
>The world deserves an end.
Your feelings about seeing this ongoing conflict doesn't really matter. Palestinians deserve an end to this suffering. The Israelis not supporting the ongoing genocide deserve an end to the conflict. The world has nothing to do with this.
>The longer it goes on the more Hamas will actually have achieved some kind of lasting positive image of Gaza which is rooted in their actions on Oct 7th and that would be an incredibly bad outcome for all.
You do realize that Hamas is getting a positive image despite being literal terrorists embezzling money and food from the Gaza population and establishing a dictatorship because the "only democracy in the middle east" is committing a genocide, right ? Genocide supported by the vast majority of the Israeli government, as well as the Knesset ?
This situation ends in two ways: either the Palestinians disappear, or Israel disappears. With their recent actions, they've ensured that a two state solution is impossible. Of course, the likelihood of Israel being destroyed is almost nil, so the only way this happens is a single state where both arabs and jews live equally and freely (and most likely under HEAVY international peacekeeping missions), but the ethnostate proponents are slightly iffy about this proposition.
> This situation ends in two ways: either the Palestinians disappear, or Israel disappears.
See this is the problem, that kind of thought is why Israel is comfortable allowing the people of Gaza to suffer indefinitely. Hamas and the people of Gaza have zero power in this situation. They can either bend over backwards and appease Israel to try to regain some trust and maybe at some point Israel will slowly loosen restrictions over them. Or Hamas and the people of Gaza can be defiant, say there is no room for both countries and then the obvious choice is for Israel to persecute them indefinitely because what else are they going to do? They are winning and they have that option right now.
Look I am not saying Israel has not done things here that appear from my perspective to be too much but Hamas brought this on Gaza. They murdered innocent people in their homes in a disgusting sneak attack and for that they have brought suffering on their people.
Bend over backwards to a country that tortured them and is committing a genocide against them? Would you have asked the Jews to bend over backwards to Nazi Germany to appease them?
You're not interested in discussing in good faith, pretending that this is only because of October 7. Hope you sleep soundly while tens of thousands of children die at the hand of a genocidal state.
Not the original commentor, but outrage aside, what choices are there? Sometimes a problem isn't solved despite a solution existing. But in this case it's not clear to me that any real "solution" exists?
For Palestine: Either defiant resistance until extermination (or victory whatever it means) or bowing to a group one hates with every fiber of your being? No? Other alternatives? Alternatives they would be willing to accept? How do you even get concensus on such charged matters?
A lot of Palestinians are non-negotiable about wanting all Israelis gone from the region. And a lot of Israeli's may be willing to accept terrible solutions - terrible for the Palestinians. Some say genocide. But how do you choose between genocide or tolerating ongoing attacks?
Other solutions: Outside intervention.
Outside world intervenes, but how and at what cost?
And for how long, and will it really be effective? And effective for which side? Is there a way to intervene without tipping the balance in favour of one side over the other? How to intervene in the most fair way to all sides? And is the cost and risk even worth it - unlikely?
I don't see how.
I don't see any solutions.
I have not heard of any viable solutions acceptable to majorities of populations on both sides, or even acceptable to most impartial outsiders.
Problem is not solved, because it is unsolvable. So it will end badly? Or continue as is for decades more.
I pasted this into Gemini trying to find solutions, the best I can come up with is a two state solution, involving land swaps to clear up the border, and then an international peace keeping force seperating them.
Exploring this solution reveals problems on both sides with proposed land swaps, suggesting basically that outsiders will have to ram a compromise solution down the throats of both sides - which to me sounds rather terrible.
> Exploring this solution reveals problems on both sides with proposed land swaps, suggesting basically that outsiders will have to ram a compromise solution down the throats of both sides
The point of land swaps is to seek an optimal solution, so all it requires for negotiation is israel and palestine starting from a mutually-acceptable (or mutually-unacceptable) set of lands, and swapping until either wants to stop. Not that it's necessarily the best way to do things.
Of course, it might require 3rd parties to arbitrate, which is totally reasonable, because there is not a consistent track record of each "side" treating the other "side" as absolute, inalienable equals, which is a prerequisite to equitable negotiation without intermediaries.
> how do you choose between genocide or tolerating ongoing attacks?
I don't understand how this is even a question. War crimes [and crimes against humanity] are always bad, wrong, and illegal, no matter how much one feels they're being attacked. There is simply no justification for them whatsoever, not even war crimes from "the other side". That's the point of them being war crimes: some crimes are so heinous that even "war" doesn't justify them.
> Would you have asked the Jews to bend over backwards to Nazi Germany to appease them?
The holocaust did not happen because Jews were sneaking into Berlin and murdering innocent people in their homes. When the current conflict begins in that way then the group who started it needs to beg for forgiveness, especially when that is their only card. Hamas is no match for Israel militarily and have no cards to play here. Their only options is to continue to make their people suffer and hope that somehow that leads to outside powers interjecting and changing their situation for the better. The best way to resolve this is to beg for forgiveness and internally remove Hamas from power. Hamas is the problem here, I'd like to think the average citizen of Gaza could find a way to live in peace with Israel if given the choice.
>The holocaust did not happen because Jews were sneaking into Berlin and murdering innocent people in their homes. When the current conflict begins in that way
At the risk of repeating myself: you're not interested in discussing in good faith and are pretending this all started because of Oct 7. But sure, let's play that game: Some jews did kill nazis in Berlin. Maybe even mistakenly killed their innocent wives. Collective punishment was the only option to respond to this behavior, and all the jews needed to suffer from the actions of some.
I don't believe that's a game you want to play, because that's straight up nazi propaganda. It coming from the mouth of an Israeli and targeting Palestinians does not make it any less nazi behavior.
you speak as if the bad part of the holocaust was the excuse, rather than the ethnic cleansing and genocide
by this logic, if only the nazis had provided an excuse acceptable to germans, like israel has provided one acceptable to israelis, the ethnic cleansing and genocide would have been ok
oh wait, they did, and it was the same excuses: 'the preservation of our ethnicity is more important than them'; 'they’re subhuman'; 'we must wipe them out for the good of our society'; etc; etc
That runs counter to the goals of the Palestinians. What happens if they reject this "new group" in favour of Hamas? If you are going to spend that kind of immense political capital to invade and occupy a foreign state you'd better off doing to actual threats like Iran or Russia.
Not Israelis, A new group of their own people. It would need to be a group willing to walk the slow road to peace that will be necessary to regain the trust of Israel. If Israel occupies Gaza long term it will never work for anyone.
It's the direct result of the political ambitions of Netanyahu, using Hamas as a wedge for Palestinians to have less power[0][1].
> According to various reports, Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2019, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Oct 7th is the direct result of a policy to keep Palestinians out of a two-state solution, it's the direct result of Netanyahu's politics play.
>the way Israel is currently/always being portrayed
Israeli soldiers, politicians, and many civilians are portraying themselves this way. Soldiers post videos sniping a child in the head calling it a "legendary video", politicians say Palestinians should starve, civilians block aid trucks.
Do you resent the way they are portrayed or do you mean you resent what a lot of Israelis are doing?
I often don't endorse the behavior of Israeli settlers. I'm responding to the question of what Israelis think about the news in general, a question to which I wanted to contribute the context of Israel's precarious existential security as a sovereign Jewish state.
It's the "Jewish" in Jewish state that lies at the root of the conflict, isn't it? There aren't many options to maintain a dominant ethnic identity in a democracy when the land the nation was founded on was already inhabited by people who don't share in that identity. The only option is to either cede that ethnic identity or to engage in mass displacement and disenfranchisement.
It's exceedingly subtle the way ethno-nationalism gets smuggled into the phrase "as a sovereign Jewish state," but it is no less terrible and ugly than the ethno-nationalism in other parts of the world and eras in history.
There are currently about 40 countries that have a higher Muslim percentage than Israel's Jewish percentage. Many of them much higher. Many of them kicked out all their Jews in recent history.
Just as a confirmation, how many of those muslim countries are actively in the process of murdering, starving, dehumanising and destroying every single building the jews living in an open air prison ?
Cool, but none of them were parked in an open air prison and starved. And even if they were, whataboutism doesn't give Israelis the right to commit genocide.
Conflating the Jews with Israel as a whole also makes every single Jew in the world worse off and in danger. I would not advise vomiting out Bibi's propaganda unless you want to see how terrible the consequences can really get
When Hitler asked the King of Moroco to hand over all the jews living there , the King replied that there wrre only Morocans living in Moroco, and he wasn't handing any of them over.
Also many muslims voluntered and fought the Nazi's from all over the world, as indivuals and as soldiers in colonial army's.
As to jews bieng kicked out, no thats not true, and to this day there is an ongoing effort to get jews to emigrate out of the US or wherever in an attempt to bolster the demographics of there ethnostate......which is currently facing the largest out migration,ever.....
My argument is that people seem to get very worked up when the Jews do something, but basically nobody cares about other similar or even worse things done by other people. I suspect this is most likely because of antisemitism (not that every anti-Israel person is an antisemite, but that the movement would not have become so prominent without a large core of dedicated antisemites).
people in the west are getting "worked up" about it because our governments and our tax dollars are financing and facilitating these crimes! my government is not financing whatever iran is doing. i dont have any theoretical power over that. but my government, which is supposed to represent me, is a major actor in israel's crimes and i want my government to stop doing it
Edit: To elaborate, because there was another comment comparing this to Assad in Syria:
I think the difference is that Assad already belonged to the "enemy" is of the West (rightly so) and was immediately hit with sanctions.
What is special about Israel is that the government and, as it seems, large parts of the population, are displaying the same mentality - but unlike with Assad, no one is putting on the brakes here or threatening sanctions. On the contrary, our governments are protecting and enabling Israel in its behavior.
I think the aggression specifically towards Israel stems from the feeling of being on the wrong side this time.
It doesn't have to be antisemitism, but just a regular double standard.
Israel is modern invention by educated people who themselves have a long history of displacement and oppression. The bottom line is people expect them to "do better" compared to Syria, Myanmar, or China for that matter.
In that sense you could say it's actually racism towards all those other countries because the world just expects them to be violent, genocidal, and uncivilized anyway.
Check your facts, most of those Jews left due to a) Israeli terrorism (bombing synagogues), b) Israeli policies (Magic Carpet), c) Israel-endorsed or Israel-caused racism that obviously wasn't there before because those populations were living there (including Palestine) peacefully for centuries.
Jews were kicked out of all the Arab nations they lived in, were persecuted in Europe, and you think that they shouldn’t get a sovereign country for themselves? Should the Kurds get one? Tibetans? Catalonias? Scottish?
No one is entitled to displace people from their homes or deny people equal rights on the basis of their race, religion, or ethnicity for any reason. There is no exception for people seeking refuge from oppression.
Jews have and had the right to seek refuge from oppression. No one has the right to perpetuate oppression.
And no, I don't believe ethnonationalism is a panacea for anyone. The world would not be a better place if we could only subdivide into a multitude of homogenous little nations. I am grateful for the cultural diversity of my country. Countries like Japan that strive to protect their racial homogeneity will pay a steep cost.
There are two lines of logic that disrupt this reasoning. One is israel as an independent state hasn’t existed for thousands of years. The other is Jews do have refuge and safe harbors in the form of western countries. Plenty of Jews living quite comfortably with no threat of war protected by the largest military on the planet in west LA.
So really these people have no reason to be elevated among similarly displaced people who did have a sovereign nation within much more recent timelines, and they aren’t without safe harbor or communities in safer nations that guarantee their rights.
So if the state of Israel does not exist for the safety of Jewish people as logic has plainly laid out, why does it exist? Easy. Military foothold. This is a modern day crusader state. A beachhead. An airbase. A missile platform. A hidden nuclear arsenal. A prolific defense industry with very little red tape binding it. These are the true foundations of Israel today. Everything else is a fig leaf poorly hiding this when you apply rational logic to the emotional justifications that people use. And everything Israel does makes perfect rational sense in light of its true purpose.
There are also cities in Europe where Muslim women are harassed for wearing a hijab, where mosques are either illegal to construct or vandalized outright, and hotels in which refugees from Arab countries are torched in race riots.
>A couple of months ago a religious jew tried to walk through London, and a police officer stopped him because there’s a pro Palestinian protest, and his presence there would be inflammatory.
Gideon Falter is rather specifically a pro-Israel campaigner who, per a 13-minute filmed exchange with the officer involved, had behaved provocatively towards protesters, and was accompanied by members of Isaac Herzog's security detail. The clip that was widely circulated omits this context. But even if it was as clear-cut as Falter makes it out to be, it would be weird to cite this incident of one cop being a racist dope as evidence of endemic antisemitism in Europe - Orthodox Jews frequently participate in such protests, after all.
As unfortunate as it is, genocides and persecution based on ethnicity or religious orientation are not unique to the Jewish experience. In either case the solution is to target these actions and these policies. The existence of the state of Israel does nothing to further action against these efforts, if what you allege about entire cities in Europe is indeed true. Israel seems to not protect the European Jew at all, nor the African Jew, the Asian Jew, or the Jew anywhere really aside from the Jew within the state of Israel who is actively working to further the goals of the armed forces of Israel, because the state of Israel itself turns its back on Jews in Israel who are critical of this direction.
I just can't get over the cognitive dissonance that this sort of primitive tribalistic propaganda world view creates. Where on the one hand it is claimed that these groups are like water is to oil: entirely immiscible and irreconcilable and should be kept apart as the sole solution. Then you go to a random city in the United States and Germans, Jews, Iranians, Chinese, Russians, and Americans are all neighbors, seeing themselves as equal, working together and raising their kids together, thinking nothing of it because they all share more or less the same exact lived experience.
I presume you misunderstand the purpose of the Jewish state. It’s not to protect Jews living in europe from persecution, it’s to provide a safe haven from persecution. Without site they have no where to go when things get bad. And things to bad many times for Jews in the past 2500 years since their exile.
Thinking that the world isn’t tribal is naive, most of it is. Not living as a jew probably doesn’t give you the same perspective, we get daily articles about antisemitism around the world. Be it synagogue firebombs in Australia or Canada, Jewish schools getting shot at in USA, a Jew was refused service in a restaurant in Italy, another Jew had his ear torn off by a Syrian refugee in Athens, and there’s plenty more accounts. If you’re not exposed to that you have no idea how it feels. But I guess that Jews are “white” and can’t be discriminated against, or if they do, they deserve it.
You get headlines like that about literally every religious group facing some disgusting persecution elsewhere. Should every religious group have its own ethnostate in its legendary borders? Perhaps yes perhaps not. I am in the not camp where I feel religious distinctions are unnecessary labels we put on our species that hold us back. I don’t see why we shouldn’t all be able to live as neighbors and why we need to be kept apart. I know this is not a common sentiment of course, and most of the world considers itself still religious and in favor of segregation at least along subconscious cultural lines.
>and you think that they shouldn’t get a sovereign country for themselves?
That's a really easy question: no.
Plenty of people don't have sovereign countries for themselves. Some of them persecuted, some of them integrated by force into other countries. Countries are not owed. They simply are. Tibet is being wholly integrated and controlled by China. Catalonia is somewhat asking for it, native americans are being relegated as second class citizens, and aboriginals in Australia are being left to die. Romanis do not have a country based around their culture.
Jews should absolutely be protected, in whichever country they are. That does not make the world owe them a country. Countries are not owed, they just are. As it stands, Israel is, but as a result of what they have done, not because it was owed to them.
The Scottish have a nation called Scotland. It's not entirely sovereign - yet - but it's clearly heading in that direction, and it has already diverged significantly from England on many fundamental policies.
But even when it does become sovereign, I'm finding it hard to imagine that Scotland would annex Northumberland - which used to be Scotland in the distant past - and rape, murder, and starve the English people living there.
There is no excuse for the kind of barbarisms that Israel is perpetrating in Gaza. Not ethnonationalism, not history, not the holocaust, not October 7.
And from an obvious common sense point of view, living in an embattled fortress territory is an eccentric definition of "safe."
It's an outbreak of collective psychopathy and deserves to be labelled as such. The people in charge are basically insane. Extremist ethnonationalism always is, whatever the nationality or background.
The Kurds, Tibetans, Catalonia, or Scottish don't need to ethnically cleanse the land to get their own nation. That's the difference. This is not hard to understand. Most people do not object to the concept of a Jewish state, they object to the ethnic cleansing.
So where can a Jewish state be established without removing the local population?
And regarding some history on the establishment of Israel, after the UN partition resolution the Arabs started a civil war, where Arabs fled from Jewish territories, and Jews fled from Arab territories (Bethlehem and Hebron for example). So you could say that 2 ethno states were established.
lawlessone says: "...since most of them were killed.
Not sure how the colonization of America justifies other colonization's.
Unless you think everyone is owed a 1 free genocide pass?"
Most of them died from disease. Far more of them died from disease than died from say, hand to hand combat or warfare on the plains.
The American Indians were toast as soon as the first coughing European stepped ashore. The native Americans had no immunity to the stew of diseases that had been brewing in Europe and Asia for centuries, so the Indians simply died. Once an Indian had a disease (s)he could spread it to other indians (s)he met. The flame front of infection raged ahead of the white man across the continent. The "mountain men" encountered regions where entire societies were struck down: bodies everywhere, tools, lodging, structures left intact but virtually no one was around (and many the infected likely fled to more remote lands, worsening the spread).
One estimate is that 61 million people lived in the Americas prior to European contact. Between 1492 and 1600 about 50 million native Americans died of disease.
"Killed?" Yes but rarely intentionally. "Genocide?" No.
You're skipping over the whole "manifest destiny" bit, where the remaining natives were systematically hunted down and destroyed. Trail of Tears ring any bells?
And note this was perpetrated by The United States, not the "American colonists". This was happening in the 1800s, a good 300 years after the initial disease front came through.
If the United States had respected the native populations the American West would look very different today. Compare with current Central and South America for example (which were certainly still victims of both disease and genocide, but it was less thorough due to differences in colonizers and geography).
What are you talking about? the original commenter rejected the idea of a Jewish state because ethno states are bad. I made a counter claim.
I’d be happy to live next to a Palestinian country, if it will recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and be a peaceful neighbor. Unfortunately, they reject the idea of 2 states, or they want 2 states where 1 is Palestinian, and the other is paletwith a Jewish minority.
Are you talking about native Americans? Germans that used to live in Poland? Jews that used to live in Syria? Israelis that lived in Sinai before it was returned to Egypt? Mexicans that lived Texas? Australian aboriginals? Inuits in Canada? How about the one million afghans Iran just expelled?
If you’re not happy, that’s on you. Time moves on, you need to accept the existence of the Israeli state.
> If you’re not happy, that’s on you. Time moves on, you need to accept the existence of the Israeli state.
Fair enough, but what happens when the US (inevitably) decide that they're not going to support Israel anymore. Bibi has basically turned support of Israel into a culture war argument, and without consistent US support, I'm not sure Israel will survive in it's current form.
Mind you, climate change could make the whole Middle East uninhabitable before then, so it's possible that the Israeli state will last until then.
And lets be clear, I don't think most people have an issue with the existence of an Israeli state, but what's been happening in Judea and Samaria for the past twenty or so years and Gaza currently is deeply, deeply wrong and reminds me of my favourite phrase, "the only thing that we learn from history is that nobody learns from history". One would think that the Jewish people would have learned better lessons from their persecution, but apparently they learnt different lessons than I expected.
Well, Israel successfully won several wars without the US support in its early years. And right now the Israeli weapons manufacturers are booming, look at deals with the romania and Germany.
Its great that most people don’t have problem with our existence, but our neighbors do. That’s why we have wars.
And comparing it to the holocaust is quite different, in the entire Jewish history we never seeked to destroy anyone, we were always targeted because of antisemitism. The Palestinians? They are taught in schools that we are the devil.
Mmmm, maybe you should read the Bible? Lots of violence committed by the Israelis there.
> comparing it to the holocaust is quite different
Sorry, it's mostly the same (and incredibly similar to Irish history between Catholics and Protestants). Both sides dehumanise each other, and that leads to violence and suffering. How often does Israeli media cover the bombing of Gaza? Like, a lot of the footage didn't appear on most Western media until 12months + into the conflict.
One could also make the argument that what's happening in the West bank/Gaza is basically ghettoization, which was something that happened to the Jews a lot in Western Europe. It's profoundly depressing that all the Jewish people have learned is to inflict this kind of suffering on other people.
And the current plans to basically force all of the Gazans out is again, incredibly similar to historical pogroms and treatment meted out to the Jewish people.
No, because of their own behaviour. Israel might well lose the support of the USA and Europe, and if that happened the continued existence of their state would be far from certain.
I think the USA is unlikely to shift for as long as it's one single democratic nation, owing to internal political demographics. Same reasons it hasn't shifted on Cuba. But the USA keeps surprising me by failing to implode despite what all the politicians have been saying about each other, and by the anti-government language often used to justify gun ownership, so if I was in a position to influence Israel, I would be suggesting a diversification of international support.
I suspect most Israelis think differently. Even if "the arabs in the region are bad at fighting" they still outnumber the Israeli population by something like 20 to 40 times, depending on how you count. About one Israeli was killed for every three Hamas fighters on Oct 7, and it's not an exact comparison for many reasons, but hopefully it provides some perspective.
EDIT: There are a couple of axes that helped me get a broader perspective:
1. Whether one supports Israel's continued existence
2. Whether one believes Israel's continued existence is guaranteed
Having started about midway between yes and no on 1, and at yes on 2, it was extremely enlightening to reinterpret my observations from the point of view of yes on 1 and no on 2. All Israeli behaviour that I had previously found incomprehensible finally made sense.
> About one Israeli was killed for every three Hamas fighters on Oct 7, and it's not an exact comparison for many reasons, but hopefully it provides some perspective.
During a surprise attack.
The conflict that was started by Oct 7, according to Wikipedia, has seen 81,526+ dead on the Palestinian and associated side*, vs. 2,053 on the Israeli side.
That said, from the point of view of your edit: the ratio is irrelevant when someone's convinced they're facing an existential threat. Given Oct 7 was proportionally worse for Israel than 9/11 was for the USA, and the USA didn't seem to stop justifying everything through that lens for about a decade afterwards… it's going to suck for everyone that Israel thinks is so much as looking at them funny. (That isn't a joke even if it sounds like one: the people who see Israel as their home and their safe-space are collectively likely to be hyper-vigilant, to their own cost, in this kind of way, for a long time).
* With the footnote that '"Indirect" deaths may be multiple times higher' and 'In addition to direct deaths, armed conflicts result in indirect deaths "attributable to the conflict". Mortality due to indirect deaths could be due to a variety of causes, such as infectious diseases.[27] Indirect deaths range from three to fifteen times the number of direct deaths in recent conflicts.[28] In Gaza, estimated 51,000 natural deaths, natural death rate has gone up from 3.5/1000 to 22/1000 (late June 2024)[29]'
Yes indeed, I'm talking about the surprise attack phase. (Israel has experienced a surprise attack before that has put its continued existence in question: the Yom Kippur war.) And in fact, looking at
In any case, Israel is surrounded by a hostile population of hundreds of millions (yes, still hostile despite the cold peace treaty it has with Egypt and the lukewarm one it has with Jordan), and it itself numbers about 10 million. So it is outnumbered by double figures to one.
I certainly don't see Israel's continued existence as guaranteed despite "nukes" and despite "American support" and despite having the "nth most powerful army in the world". And that point of view has helped me to understand the conflict like no other explanation.
Who de-escalated the 12 day war? Iran did, the "Ayatollahs". Who has a religious decree against nuclear weapons since they cannot be used without massacring civilians? Iran, the Ayatollah, not Israel and it's 3 digits of nukes that it threatens to use all the time.
I don't trust the Iranian government, not for any deeply researched reason but because basically everyone I meet who talks about them says that government is not trustworthy. Some of those people are themselves Iranians, and one told me that the Iranian government is speaking literally when describing the USA as "the Great Satan" (and Israel as the little satan).
But: there is a big difference between "we killed some people while targeting actual military assets" and "this city we levelled, it was full of civilians as well as a handful of valid military assets, and now it doesn't exist".
Hamas was a direct reaction to sharon removing settlers and occupations from the ghaza strip. Hamas os the ultimate answer of trading land for peace. Hamas also has in its charta that they do not want a 2 state solution and they must murder all the jews.
> there is no "just stop fighting" option that leaves Israel with a high confidence that another Oct 7 won't happen in the next few years
How can the same country that prides itself in their intel/spying prowess, and has demonstrated sophisticated capabilities and attacks, claim it will be helpless if they don't absolutely disappear another group of people and take their territory?
I seriously doubt the Oct 7 attack caught Israel by surprise, given the scale of it and the level of compromise Israel had on Hamas. Given the disproportionate response Israel was prepared to employ, it was a perfect casus belli to appropriate even more land, as it is happening right now.
Agreed - the apathy and simultaneous granting of an individual's power to e.g. the state or the movement + abandonment of agency is the literal killer here.
Oct 7 happened as a result of the Israeli occupation. If there’s occupation, there will be resistance.
Instead Israel could become a democratic state with equal rights for all citizens.
Which context has been stripped from the narrative in your opinion? Maybe you’ll say Israel is the original Jewish homeland and therefore the occupation is justified?
> Maybe you’ll say Israel is the original Jewish homeland and therefore the occupation is justified?
Being raised evangelical, I was taught the land belonged to the Jews since God judged the original inhabitants, and was given to them forever. Those who taught me see modern Israel as righting ancient wrongs and Palestine as occupying Jewish land. They've even visited the West Bank through a food effort with a Christian missionary.
Having left the church, it's much clearer to me that Arabs and Jews have both lived there for thousands of years. Both have a right to exist and the capacity to live peacefully together. Sadly those with guns, reductive beliefs, or (sometimes understandable) grudges just won't stop. I'm ashamed the US is supporting these cycles of violence, especially evangelical Christianity.
> Having left the church, it's much clearer to me that Arabs and Jews have both lived there for thousands of years
Yes, and there was a lot of mixing and slow but gradual conversion to the dominant socio-cultural muslim group that happened over more than a millenium. After the muslim conquest of Levant in about 630 AD, caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab lifted the Christian ban on Jews entering Jerusalem some time later during his reign. We do not have data on how many jews decided to return there, rather than keep living in civilizational centres across the region and in Europe.
What we do know is that the jewish population of Palestine at the time that the British government initiated the process of handing over Palestine to jews in return for Lord Rothschild's money that they needed to keep fighting WW1 [2], was only about 7%. Subsequent immigration of mostly European jews into Palestine, resulted in about 30% jewish population by the time Western powers decided to declare an independent Jewish-dominated state of Israel on top of Palestine in 1947.
> Both have a right to exist and the capacity to live peacefully together
Brutal occupation has no right to exist. The supremacist state has to go. Apartheid South Africa had to go, and now South Africa is a better country. Nazi Germany had to go, and now Germany is a better country. Imperial colonial Japan had to go, and now both itself and its former colonized territories are better countries. Supremacist ethno-nationalist Israel that occupies natives of the land it was established upon with despicable brutality has to go. In the resulting state that comes after it, yes, people of any religion and ethnicity need to be able to live together in peace. After reparations have been made, the right of return has been honored, most of the stolen land has been given back, and apartheid has been dismantled.
Do you mean the land reform so that the minority white descendants of colonists don't still control 90% of the land even 30 years after the apartheid was officially ended?
If not, can you share links to proof that there is something more serious going on, that would deserve to be called genocide against the white population?
Maybe not locking people up in the world's largest open-air prison for an entire generation and constantly kicking their teeth in would help. Just a thought.
"Give me liberty or give me death" as you say in America, I believe. Or does that only apply to the white man?
I don't recall many people ever seriously asking for that, though I admit I'm not up-to-date on Israeli affairs. Don't the overwhelming majority of outsiders want a two-state solution, or failing that a more secular Israeli administration?
Through a lens of historical context and not just Oct 7th, it's hard for me to believe that Israelis don't know how to attain regional peace. We know exactly why Lebanon, Jordan and Syria are angry at the Israeli government, and there are simple ways to fix it if the willpower exists.
> I don't recall many people ever seriously asking for that
i live in Canada, literally half a world away. Every street light pole seems to have some sort of "Ceasefire now" sticker on it. I also see similar sentiment in online threads on the topic. I think there is a significant group of people who want Israel to commit to an unconditional ceasefire in Gaza.
> We know exactly why Lebanon, Jordan and Syria are angry at the Israeli government
When people talk about this topic, they are usually referring to the conflict with Palestine.
People are arguing for an unconditional ceasefire because innocent people and children are literally starving to death.
Many of the people arguing for ceasefire probably wouldn’t be so animated about it if that wasn’t the case, i.e. if Israel was conducting a legal war with targeted strikes. That isn’t the case.
I don’t think it’s okay for a bunch of humans to be rallied in the middle of a desert like that. Forget the fact that they are shooting into the crowd, we’ll talk about that later. Let’s just start with not creating a ghetto in the desert and calling it a humanitarian effort.
I have not even seen movie scenes like that, maybe the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan where the Americans were trying to hide on the beach.
You're responing to me as if my comment disagreed, but i didn't say anything about the "why", just that their exists people who advocate for an unconditional ceasefire. Which i'm sure you'd agree with.
because an end to the ethnic cleansing is more important than waiting for surrender, if that's even possible given hamas' disrupted command structure and israel's constant creation of new terrorists
a ceasefire provides room for diplomacy that might lead to concessions from both sides for their atrocities, and thus might lead to peace and equality
we have seen in the west bank what surrender without a ceasefire or sustainable peace looks like, and it is very bad (see this article for an example)
> a ceasefire provides room for diplomacy that might lead to concessions from both sides for their atrocities, and thus might lead to peace and equality
We've had something like 100 years of failed diplomacy at this point. I don't know the solution to this conflict, but i can understand why both sides suspect further diplomacy won't lead anywhere unless something fundamental changes.
> Through a lens of historical context and not just Oct 7th, it's hard for me to believe that Israelis don't know how to attain regional peace.
The subtext to this conflict is that every avenue leading towards a lasting peace also opens the Netanyahu regime to prosecution.
Israel isn't an ex-Soviet satellite with a dictator propped up by a cold war giant, but their actions become predictable if you think of the state as Netanyahustan.
Yeah, basically the only reason they didn't keep the ceasefire is because Netanyahu would have been pushed out of power (and could therefore be tried for corruption more effectively).
But ultimately, the current government is what a (small) majority of Israelis want, which is the most depressing part of this entire conflict.
IDF service is mandatory and there appears to be no resistance to this, which supports the point above.
But reading between the lines there are not many plausible end states. Its a choice between a return to a status quo where Israel has defended borders. Or a removal of Palestinians from the territory. I think most people in the international community would prefer the former even when they don't come out and say it. And that may reasonably be safer and better for Israeli civilians.
> I see the key problem as people removing context
this is also the main problem with your post; your context goes back to Oct 7, whereas it should go back to 1948 (or earlier).
You cannot drive people from their land into a barren reservation, oppress them for decades, and expect them to not resist or fight back. It's the same colonization tactics that were used on the Native Americans, who launched their Intifadas and occasionally also committed the type of horrible atrocities as Hamas did on Oct 7. You can't justify Oct 7, but the reality is human nature is such that unless you remove the conditions which caused Oct 7 in the first place -- then it will repeat, maybe not Hamas, maybe not in this generation, but the next generation, as we've already seen.
The Israeli government is trying to "solve" the Palestinian problem the same way that the US government "solved" the Native American problem -- kill enough of them, make deals and then break them (this is the Israeli settler problem), and move them far enough away from their original lands, for long enough, that you finally and completely break their spirit and ability to resist. And if that means bombing and starving tens of thousands of women and children, so be it. And the Israeli God-given "right" to the Palestinian land, because it's the "holy land" from 2000 years ago, is very much like the God-given "manifest destiny" that US colonizers invoked to "settle" the West. It was genocide then and it's genocide now.
Yup - granting power to the state -- from a democratic citizen to the state -- is risky and here it permits a corrupt anti-life (e.g. genocide) state to operate unchallenged.
As it was with the USA, this is a foundational tragedy of Israel.
The innate xenophobic "kill the THEM!" human quality appears to be alive and well, across the world today.
settler attacks against West Bank Palestinians were not caused by Hamas, but by the settlers religious belief that the land is promised to them. That is a key part of the context as well. And in that vein, what options to Palestinians have to defend against violent settlers and displacement?
I am very much of the opinion that Hamas should not be allowed to continued to exist for Israel's benefit and for Palestine's, but there is a lot of space in between "just stop fighting" and "genocide", and Israel is way closer to one side of that than I would prefer.
Isn’t the greater context that most of these people (Palestinians) had their ancestral homes stolen by “settlers”? I would vote for a pretty extreme government if someone came and stole my house.
Also, the situation on the ground seems pretty clear cut. You can literally watch videos of brutal war crimes committed by Israel on Reddit. Everyone has direct proof.
Aside from a vocal minority, the impression I get around from conversations with and reading other Australians is that the Australian people largely agree with your position.
It's possible to be critical of both Hamas and Israel, while recognizing that what Israel is doing to Palestinians is evil and a war crime.
Just war principles are important to observe.
The Nazis were a thuggish and murderous regime with plenty of complicity from the German populace, but the firebombing of Dresden was evil, as were the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Targeting civilians is evil.
If we accept that these are evil, and we ought to, then we must accept that what Israel is doing is unacceptable. Bibi should be punished.
You can target Hamas, and you should, but just war does not allow for the means Israel has used.
> I do not pretend to have or be able to gain any knowledge that could help this thousand year conflict
Why do you think this is a "thousand years conflict"? It started in 1917 when the British government initiated the process of handing over Palestine to jews in return for Lord Rothschild's money that they needed to keep fighting WW1 [1]. Jewish population of Palestine at that time was only around 7%.
Subsequent immigration of mostly European jews into Palestine, resulted in about 30% jewish population by the time Western powers decided to declare an independent Jewish-dominated state of Israel on top of Palestine in 1947. How could it be jewish-dominated when they were a minority? Well, you just forcefully displace everyone who isn't a part of your group, of course. Oh, they refuse? Massacre a few villages [2] [3] and then most remaining people will flee on their own. Sure, sure, you allow a small number to stay within the borders of the new country that you now claim, so that they can consistute about 20% of your population and you get to claim that you aren't a nationalist supremacist nation.
There is nothing "thousand years old" about this 20th century European white supremacist colonial settlement project.
> Would you agree that "Palestinians should suffer for what Hamas did" is a decent summary of the view you describe
I'm not the person you are responding to, but sheesh that is an unsympathetic reading of their comment. I do not know if the person you replied to does or does not believe that, but nothing in their comment would imply that.
> I do not pretend to have or be able to gain any knowledge that could help this thousand year conflict.
Well first step would be listening to what people say instead of adding your own interpretations.
Yeah, I realize that was dangerously close to ragebait territory, sorry about that.
It's just that I saw it as an opportunity to glimpse into the reasoning made and I couldn't find myself with a charitable interpretation that didn't include something very similar to that statement, so why not pop it out there to find out more what the person disagrees with?
Feel free to ignore the question, it probably won't change anyone's view anyway.
I don't know why people find the reasoning so shocking. It plays out the same in pretty much every country. Look at US during 9/11 or world war 2.
Some sort of attack happens, people get scared (often legitamently), they support measures they think will get their security back. Sometimes those measures are reasonable, sometimes they are more wtf, more often they are somewhere in between.
As the saying goes: hurt people hurt people.
That's not to say they are neccesarily illogical. There are real threats out there and sometimes the options to defend one self are limitted to unsaoury things. Most people if given the choice between shooting someone or being shot themselves, chose to shoot the other person.
No matter where you live, you have probably seen people react this way, even if just on a very small scale.
Under 7% of Palestinians in Gaza (before losing 1-3% of their population in this genocide) voted for Hamas. The rest either didn't vote for them, or are too young to have voted.
Should the US be nuked because ~51% voted for Trump (or Bush, Obama, Clinton, pick the one you hate)?
"Should"? I don't think that was a "should" statement. I think it was a cause and effect statement. Bad people in power leads to suffering in the population. This observation goes way back, at least as far as the book of Ecclesiastes: "Woe to you, O land, when your king is a child, and your princes feast in the morning!"
Will the US suffer for putting bad people in power? Almost certainly, even if it doesn't come to the level of being nuked.
> Should the US be nuked because ~51% voted for Trump (or Bush, Obama, Clinton, pick the one you hate)?
During a declared wartime? It happens. I mean, what can you do? It's war!
The allies didn't care that there were non-nazis when they carpet-bombed Dresden, nor did the US care that Hiroshima and Nagasaki possibly had large numbers of people against the Japanese rulers.
So, yeah, should the US enter a hot war against a sovereign government that can strike back, that government will not care that only 51% of the population voted for the current US government.
That's how war works, and that's why no one (short of actually insane blood-thirsty killers who are in it only to see corpses) wants to escalate a cold war to a hot war. If a population collectively elects leaders who provoke an escalation into a hot war, they can't very well be surprised at the response.
OTOH, the US voting population has not had first-hand experience with a hot boots-on-the-ground-invasion war, hence they can be so cavalier about their choice of rulers. They haven't seen first-hand the result of engaging in war.
The Palestinians and Israelis, however, have plenty of first-hand experience of the horrors of war, so those bastards have no excuse for supporting pro-war leaders.
If they had decades of conflict and there was a credible peace deal freezing the lines as they are and instead the Ukrainian leaders sold the future of the state for a decades long insurgency I would place blame on them for that.
Can you be more specific why you think so? I don't think what the commenter you are responding to said would meet the definition of collective punishment under international law.
Israel is directly causing a mass starvation event in Gaza. Innocent children and women are dying every single day, and if nothing is done soon, scores more will in the near future.
The commenter’s position is that the situation in Gaza is justifiable because Israel had to take action against Hamas.
This is textbook collective punishment: causing suffering to a massive number of people due to the actions of a minority.
> Israel is directly causing a mass starvation event in Gaza. Innocent children and women are dying every single day, and if nothing is done soon, scores more will in the near future.
Asuming all that is true, the person you are responding to never said they supported the policies that lead to that or that state of affairs.
It is possible to imagine that someone could both believe that Israel's continued military operation is neccessary and that changes could be made to relieve the humanitarian situation. I dont know if the person you are responding to actually believes that, but based on their comments there is no reason to think they dont.
Edit:
I would also add that the war crime of collective punishment has a specific intent requirement. The perpetrator has to specificly intend to punish the group for an act. Even if the person you were responding to supported all the things you mentioned, unless they supported it as a punishment for oct 7, instead of out of a belief (for example) that it would allow Israel to defeat hamas, then it would not be collective punishment. It would be other war crimes but not collective punishment. See https://opiniojuris.org/2023/10/24/a-short-history-of-the-wa... for a summary of what collective punishment is.
P.s. not so fun fact, the ICC lacks juridsiction over collective punishment, and given they are the main legal body investigating this conflict, we probably arent going to see any investigations into collective punishment
When you speak to someone from MAGA, can’t you tell when they are being amicable but still obviously support all the crazy MAGA stuff? They call this a dark trait that sociopaths have, an unusual propensity to use amicability and charm to appear perceptively reasonable. Good examples of this are Ben Shapiro and Joe Rogan, where often they just seem like well meaning balanced people. It’s manipulative behavior. If you want to see a masterclass on it, check out Steve Bannon’s podcast.
So, while there are people that can present an allegedly reasonable take, the reality is that it’s just a polite smile in front of underlying beliefs and emotions. People in tech should be well acquainted with this type of abuse because we see it all the time in leadership and general corporate nonsense.
Having a back and forth conversation over time is truly violating to one’s self with such people. It’s almost like they think you are stupid. I think given the state of affairs, it’s fine to be more obtuse and blunt with such people so as to draw a red line where they are not allowed to run their manipulation. Genocide is a pretty clear red line.
In short, don’t worry about being so polite. Genocide apologists are running game with the mental gymnastics.
When you start to dehumanize the other - believe everything they say is just a front for their true evil beliefs, regardless of if you have any evidence of that or especially if your evidence is race, religion or national origin of the speaker - That is the road to facism, and something I disagree with in the strongest possible sense.
I'm having a hard time being nice. What are people supposed to think? We're supposed to walk away from stuff like that and go "yeah there's two sides to this, we should reserve judgement"? There's no two sides to this. Israel over-corrected after Oct 7, the same way America did after 9/11. They destroyed a city, and then funneled it's citizens into a ghetto in the south. Those. Are. The. Facts. I just provided you the definition of ethnic cleansing.
Also, labeling a human as manipulative is not de-humanizing. Manipulation is a property of a human. It's just a matter of how egregious it is, but you won't escape it. Five year olds will manipulate. You've done it, I've done it. Me and you are doing it right now, but we try to do it in good faith and limit it to just persuasion in discussion. It's a spectrum. Some people are using the ability to justify a genocide.
There's a form of normalization that occurs with egregious manipulation (serious manipulation is abuse, so we normalize abuse). For example, it is becoming normalized to discuss two sides to a genocide.
There is the genocide on one side, and then the normalization of "well, what is a self-respecting nation that wants to defend itself supposed to do otherwise?". The whole construct is part of the manipulation. I'll give another example, Rogan normalizes a lot of heavy right-wing opinions around, well, normal discussion. It'll be embedded inside of a discussion about pop culture. This is a very very troubling form of it. It almost makes you think it's "normal" to entertain the absurd extremes. If you were to confront either of them about this normalization, they'd stay consistent and give you a normal response:
> yeah there's two sides to this, we should reserve judgement"?
Of course not, for starters there is significantly more than 2 sides of this multifaceted conflict.
You should not reserve judgemdnt. You should still listen and try and understand everyone's perspective before coming to your judgement, otherwise what is the point?
> There's no two sides to this. Israel over-corrected after Oct 7, the same way America did after 9/11
While 9/11 might be a good comparison for how a society can become radicalized after an attack, i dont think its a good comparison in general. The geopolitical situation is totally different. The scale of the attack is different. There was no hostages taken, no sexual violence, etc. They are very different situations. First and foremost because there was basically no possible way for al-qaeda to do a second attack, you can only really fly a plane into a tower once; after that pilots got reenforced cockpit doors. In comparison Hamas is right next door, and does potentially have the capability to do a second attack. That doesn't necessarily mean i think everything Israel does is justified, but self-defense claims should be evaluated in that context.
I think Israel has a reasonable argument for self defense here. That is not a blank cheque, there are limits to what self-defense allows, but it does seem pretty clear that some military action would be justified self defense here given the circumstances.
Vs say usa in iraq which was pretty preposterous as they didnt have anything to do with 9/11.
> I just provided you the definition of ethnic cleansing.
To nitpick here, ethnic cleansing isn't a war crime/crime against humanity. The crime is called "forced displacement". Ethnic cleansing started as a euphamism by war criminals who thought it sounded less bad, but it kind of stuck because it actually sounds worse. That said, i think its better to talk about forced displacement because that has an actual definition, is mentioned in the Geneva convention, etc
> Also, labeling a human as manipulative is not de-humanizing
It depends why you label then that. If you label based on people's words or actions, then of course it is not. If you label them as manipulative based on their membership in a group instead of the person's own actions, i would say it is dehumanizing.
> There is the genocide on one side, and then the normalization of "well, what is a self-respecting nation that wants to defend itself supposed to do otherwise?"
The people who say Israel is defending itself generally dispute the characterization of Israel's actions as a genocide. The vast majority believe (or at least claim to) that genocide is not acceptable in self-defense (im sure you can find some crazies who say otherwise of course).
Quite frankly, this isn't a totally crazy position, things are still a bit up in the air on this. The ICC when it charged israeli leaders with various crimes did not charge them with genocide. The ICJ hasn't ruled yet. Its not like there is a consensus among experts on this topic.
Playing this corny HN-brained faux-debate game when Israel is blocking hundreds of aid trucks from entering Gaza and letting children starve to death is in really bad taste.
It's not "faux". I mean it genuinely. It's one thing to claim that Israel should ensure food security (that's my point of view). It's quite another to claim "collective punishment", and that doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
By the way, there are hundreds of trucks on the Gaza side of the border, the opposite of blocked, let through by Israel, but the UN refuses to collect them and distribute them: https://x.com/Ostrov_A/article/1950577195153580306
It's impressive how thoroughly Hamas has won the information war when they have made it so heart-wrenchingly emotive that presenting any alternative view point is "bad taste" (at best, it can also be much worse).
The appropriate question is does this meet the intent requirements for collective punishment?
All these international crimes do have various requirements. Collective punishment in particular has more intent requirements than many other war crimes. Death and destruction in and of itself is not sufficient.
> The appropriate question is does this meet the intent requirements for collective punishment?
Let's put Netanyahu in front of the ICC and let the lawyers figure it out.
Edit: That isn't tongue in cheek, I think it is one of the few ways to difuse the cauldron of violence that keeps brewing hotter and hotter. A broad international coalition to hold the leadership on both sides responsible for their war crimes.
The ICC lacks juridsiction over the war crime of collective punishment, so that would be an easy win for Netanyahu. To charge him with collective punishment either the united nations security council would have to create an ad-hoc tribunal, a domestic israeli court could charge him, or some other national court under the principle of universal juridsiction could bring charges. The ICC cannot.
More generally though I agree. I'm a big supporter of the ICC and generally believe it to be a fair court. I'd like to see those accused stand trial, present their defense, and let justice be done no matter which way it leads.
I'm still not sure what you mean. Are you saying that when children are unintentionally killed in war that is "punishment"? Were the children killed by NATO troops in Afghanistan "punished"? For that matter, do you think Oct 7 was Palestine "punishing" Israel?
> A blatant lie.
Interesting. How are you so sure that the article I linked is a blatant lie and the one you linked isn't?
Oops, I killed 17,000 kids, totally an accident, my bad, so I'm just gonna keep doing the same thing, but I said it was an accident so that's totally cool right?
You realize that's more than a order of magnitude more than the total number of people killed on October 7th? If October 7th was justification for this war, what Isreal has done in response justifies so much more. (To be clear, I don't believe in collective punishment so neither is justified.)
> How are you so sure that the article I linked is a blatant lie and the one you linked isn't?
I start by looking at the sources reputations, then look at the amount of context that they include that contradicts their implicit or explicit view point. From there the process gets more complicated if necessary.
In this case you have blog source that clearly elides relevant context against a news article that presents the position of both sides coming from one of the more trustworthy news organizations. I don't necessarily trust the AP to be unbiased or not spread propaganda but in comparison to that blog, it is pretty easy to guess which is more reliable.
There seem to be a few strands getting entangled here. If you look earlier in the thread you'll see I'm asking for justification of the claim of "collective punishment". So far I haven't seen any, and indeed I haven't seen any direct responses to that request at all.
An observer following the thread (and maybe this applies to you too) might think "But what I am seeing as so egregious, why does it matter if it's technically 'collective punishment' or not? That's just nitpicking, splitting hairs, and a really awful thing to engage in when such suffering is occurring". Well then, if someone has such a strong argument that it easy for them to make it without leaving hairs that can be split, without leaving anything that could technically be nitpicked then let them make that argument. But so far I haven't found that argument. The arguments that I have found so far have loose ends, and when I pull on the loose ends I find invariably that the whole argument unravels.
So, the number of fatalities is not really relevant to this particular thread of discussion, but if you want to have a discussion on that topic, maybe we can check up front whether we have a reasonable basis for such a discussion: Do you believe that absolute numbers of civilian casualties determine morality in war? I don't.
I don't see any other reason to kill 17,000 kids like that except as collective punishment or genocide. You seem pretty clear that it was neither so I'll leave it up to you to provide another reasonable explanation for why Isreal would want to intentionally kill that many kids.
1. "Not seeing any other reason" doesn't seem to be a particularly strong argument. But let's take it at face value. Estimates of German civilian deaths during WW2 range from 1.5m to 3m people:
Was that because the allies were "collectively punishing" or "committing genocide" on Germans? I don't think so, and I don't see any reason that civilian deaths in Gaza imply that either.
2. Do you have a source for your death statistics that doesn't ultimately trace back to the "health ministry" of an internationally proscribed terrorist organisation?
3. Not all children who have died in Gaza since 2023 will have been "killed by Israel". Many will have been killed by Hamas for a variety of reasons, including misfired rockets, booby trapped houses, mosques and schools, and getting caught in the crossfire. Since Hamas knows that every child death will be attributed to Israel it's quite happy for that statistic to rise.
4. As far as I can tell, Israel does not kill children (or any civilians) intentionally. Any civilian killed by Israel in Gaza was unintentional, and civilian deaths occur in any war. This happens all the more in Gaza since Hamas deliberately puts civilians in harms way, and booby traps civil infrastructure or uses it to hide in.
5. Hamas is the government of Gaza, and as such it seems like it is their responsibility, not Israel's, to take action to ensure that harm is prevented to their civilians, up to and including freeing the hostages they hold and unconditionally surrendering. That's what the governments of Germany and Japan ultimately did.
> "Not seeing any other reason" doesn't seem to be a particularly strong argument. But let's take it at face value. Estimates of German civilian deaths during WW2 range from 1.5m to 3m people:
To be fair, I think the allies commited a bunch of war crimes they were never charged with during WWII, and firebombing is high up that list as is dropping nuclear bombs on cities.
That said, WWII was an actual war and Germany (and the axis in general) lost fewer people than their enemies.
This is not a war, this an occupation and slaughter. Isreal has killed 50 times as many people as Hamas.
> Do you have a source for your death statistics that doesn't ultimately trace back to the "health ministry" of an internationally proscribed terrorist organisation?
These numbers are pretty much universally acknowledged as more likely to be too low than too high (including by Isreal.)
Here's a study not done by a Palestinian organization that says that the official Palestinian estimate is 40% too low.
> 3. Not all children who have died in Gaza since 2023 will have been "killed by Israel". Many will have been killed by Hamas for a variety of reasons, including misfired rockets, booby trapped houses, mosques and schools, and getting caught in the crossfire. Since Hamas knows that every child death will be attributed to Israel it's quite happy for that statistic to rise.
I don't even know what to say to the twisted amount of self deception involved in that sentence. "It's not us, they're just killing themselves guys, not our fault."
> As far as I can tell, Israel does not kill children (or any civilians) intentionally. Any civilian killed by Israel in Gaza was unintentional, and civilian deaths occur in any war. This happens all the more in Gaza since Hamas deliberately puts civilians in harms way, and booby traps civil infrastructure or uses it to hide in.
Isreal happily kills civilians to avoid risks to their soldiers, that's why this "war" has such a disproportionate death toll.
> Hamas is the government of Gaza, and as such it seems like it is their responsibility, not Israel's, to take action to ensure that harm is prevented to their civilians, up to and including freeing the hostages they hold and unconditionally surrendering. That's what the governments of Germany and Japan ultimately did.
Hamas won one election 20 years ago and neither Isreal nor the USA recognize Hamas as the government a sovereign country. It seems pretty bad faith to claim Hamas is the government only when it is convienent to blame them. (To be clear Hamas deserves plenty of blame.)
However, I place the responsibility and the majority of the blame on the group with the vast majority of the power: Isreal.
At a certain point, the comparative death toll and comparative wealth/power imbalance make it clear: Isreal is engaging in genocide, not war.
> This is not a war, this an occupation and slaughter. Isreal has killed 50 times as many people as Hamas.
Right, so we come back to my original question, which I asked in order to determine whether we have a basis for a discussion: "Do you believe that absolute numbers of civilian casualties determine morality in war? I don't."
In any case, whilst we're looking at multipliers, what do you think of the Battle of Mosul?
By a variety of accounts the US, UK, France and Turkey participated in a battle that killed maybe 10 or 20 times as many of the opposing side than were killed on their side. According to some estimates they killed 40,000 civilians, more than 20x as many as the number of military that were killed on their side. Was that an "occupation and a slaughter"?
So I'm not sure we really have a basis for discussion. We simply differ on fundamental moral principles. However, I will respond to your points.
> I don't even know what to say to the twisted amount of self deception involved in that sentence. "It's not us, they're just killing themselves guys, not our fault."
Themselves? I'm saying Hamas is killing civilians, be it directly, by deliberately putting them in harms way or by stealing aid, not that civilians are killing themselves. Unless you're saying that the civilians are Hamas, which I don't think you are. And I certainly believe that Israel has responsibility to minimize civilian casualties and the responsibility to ensure aid flows freely, but until the unconditional surrender of Hamas and the release of all hostages I believe that Hamas holds all the moral responsibility for what happens to its people.
> Isreal happily kills civilians to avoid risks to their soldiers, that's why this "war" has such a disproportionate death toll.
This seems very unclear to me. If they had wanted to avoid risk to their soldiers they wouldn't have sent any in, they would have conducted only bombing operations. In fact, one reason to send soldiers in would be for the exact opposite reason: so they could minimize civilian harm.
Why do you think soldiers are on the ground at all, if they want to avoid risks to their soldiers?
> Hamas won one election 20 years ago and neither Isreal nor the USA recognize Hamas as the government a sovereign country. It seems pretty bad faith to claim Hamas is the government only when it is convienent to blame them. (To be clear Hamas deserves plenty of blame.)
It doesn't matter who recognises them. Before Oct 7th they had the monopoly on violence within Gaza. They are the de facto state. Civilian wellbeing is ultimately their responsibility, like German civilian wellbeing was the German government's responsibility in WW2.
Furthermore, normally in times of war, third countries allow civilians to flee to safety. Why won't Egypt? Why won't other countries take in refugees via Egypt? Why do they insist that civilians must stay in harm's way?
Above, in response to my claim that Hamas is responsible for Palestinian civilian deaths, you wrote sarcastically "It's not us, they're just killing themselves guys, not our fault." so it seems you do believe, to some degree, that they are Hamas's people.
> However, I place the responsibility and the majority of the blame on the group with the vast majority of the power: Isreal.
You're in good company. It is very common to believe that "might makes wrong".
> At a certain point, the comparative death toll and comparative wealth/power imbalance make it clear: Isreal is engaging in genocide, not war.
Ah OK, so you're not basing claims of genocide on the legal standard, just a difference in death toll and wealth/power imbalance. You're welcome to do that, of course. You can use words however you want, but that doesn't match the legal standard within international law.
The death toll is appalling. Hamas should be receive the utmost pressure to unconditionally surrender and release the hostages. Egypt should receive the utmost pressure to allow civilians to flee so that Israel can finish off Hamas and destroy the terror infrastructure they have built in Gaza. And by the way, I don't know what's happening there because I'm not there. All I know is what I see in front of me: arguments that don't seem to hold water, and an alternative perspective which is barely seeing the light of day.
> "Do you believe that absolute numbers of civilian casualties determine morality in war? I don't."
I believe it matters how many people you kill. Killing more people is bad.
I think the overall morality is complicated and based on more than that, but yes both the absolute numer if deaths and the ratio of deaths between sides and between combantants / civilians also matters.
> In any case, whilst we're looking at multipliers, what do you think of the Battle of Mosul?
I think any battle where you kill that many more civilians than combatants is deeply problematic. There were war crimes on both sides of that conflict as well.
Technically speaking, the ISIS were the occupying force and this was a "liberation" but I don't think that matters so much practically or morally. The people assuming control had the moral responsibility to keep people safe.
> Furthermore, normally in times of war, third countries allow civilians to flee to safety. Why won't Egypt? Why won't other countries take in refugees via Egypt? Why do they insist that civilians must stay in harm's way?
Isreal has a well established history of refusing to allow refugees to return to their homes.
I agree that Egypth should be allowing them in and does share some moral responsibility.
> It doesn't matter who recognises them. Before Oct 7th they had the monopoly on violence within Gaza. They are the de facto state. Civilian wellbeing is ultimately their responsibility, like German civilian wellbeing was the German government's responsibility in WW2.
When an occupying power destroys all the local infrastructure, deliberately destroys the police force and assume defacto control of the country, they assume the responsibility as well.
> but until the unconditional surrender of Hamas and the release of all hostages I believe that Hamas holds all the moral responsibility for what happens to its people.
The hostages were almost released. It is people like you that insist on unconditional surrender that are the reason they aren't home. That and Netanyahu's malicious desire to hang on to power.
I seriously dont unsterstand the stance that Hamas has ALL moral responsibility for civilian deaths. That doesn't match any moral framework I have ever read or heard about and seems be be just a jingoistic talking point.
> You're in good company. It is very common to believe that "might makes wrong".
I believe power comes with responsibility, yes.
> The death toll is appalling. Hamas should be receive the utmost pressure to unconditionally surrender and release the hostages. Egypt should receive the utmost pressure to allow civilians to flee so that Israel can finish off Hamas and destroy the terror infrastructure they have built in Gaza.
I don't have any support for Hamas or their choices or their war crimes, but then again my government isn't supplying Hamas with weapons to commot those war crimes with.
What I can't understand any moral individual believing what Isreal is doing is ok.
I've answered most of your questions, so I have a question for you: What percentage of the Gaza population needs to be killed before you will call it genocide or even just stop supprting Israel? 2% isn't enough so is it 5%, 20%, 50% or even higher? Will you continue to support Israel until they've killed 100% of the Gazans and achieved peace?
> > Furthermore, normally in times of war, third countries allow civilians to flee to safety. Why won't Egypt? Why won't other countries take in refugees via Egypt? Why do they insist that civilians must stay in harm's way?
> Isreal has a well established history of refusing to allow refugees to return to their homes.
Hmm, I don't want to put words into your mouth here, but ... surely you can't be saying "I believe those civilians are being slaughtered/collectively punished/genocided and it's better to keep them where they are rather than let them flee to save their lives because they might not be able to come back"?
> I agree that Egypth should be allowing them in and does share some moral responsibility.
Just out of interest, would you say that the proportion of moral responsibility that Egypt has is equal to the proportion of news coverage and Hacker News discussion Egypt gets on this issue? And if not, do you have an idea why not?
> When an occupying power destroys all the local infrastructure, deliberately destroys the police force and assume defacto control of the country, they assume the responsibility as well.
Yes, "when". Israel is not yet in control of the Gaza Strip. Hamas still retains fighting capability and the war is ongoing.
> The hostages were almost released. It is people like you that insist on unconditional surrender that are the reason they aren't home. That and Netanyahu's malicious desire to hang on to power.
Almost? What stopped it? I doubt I had anything to do with it. I don't think Hamas or Israel are listening to me. Furthermore I doubt Netanyahu has any incentive to keep the hostages in Hamas hands. If there's one thing that could make him even more hated, even more punished in the next election, it's hostages remaining in the Gaza Strip.
> I seriously dont unsterstand the stance that Hamas has ALL moral responsibility for civilian deaths. That doesn't match any moral framework I have ever read or heard about and seems be be just a jingoistic talking point.
Well, fair enough. You're welcome to your moral framework. It's one reason I don't think there's much basis for discussion here. We simply disagree on fundamental things. My view is that if Israel is conducting itself according to international norms on war, then any harm that comes to civilians is the moral responsibility of Hamas.
> > You're in good company. It is very common to believe that "might makes wrong".
> I believe power comes with responsibility, yes.
Ah, but that's something different. I agree that power comes with responsibility. There is a common belief that in any conflict the party in the wrong is the more powerful one. I don't agree with that.
> What I can't understand any moral individual believing what Isreal is doing is ok.
I can't understand how any moral individual can believe what Israel is doing is not OK! But I guess there are a few reasons for that, including having different beliefs about what Israel is actually doing. If I believed what I saw on the BBC, Sky News, CNN, NYT, WaPo etc. then I'd probably feel the same as you do.
(Individual actions of Israel or Israeli combat units may not be justifiable. In fact, I don't see how that's realistically avoidable in war. Israel should punish its soldiers that commit war crimes. I think the strategy of limiting aid is flawed: they should flood the Strip with aid so there is no risk of food insecurity.)
> my government isn't supplying Hamas with weapons to commot those war crimes with
Do you live in the west or the middle east? If so then your government probably has funded Hamas, actually. In fact if your country is a member of the UN then it probably has given at least some small amount of funding to Hamas. Billions and billions in (so called) aid have been poured into the Gaza Strip. Who is in charge of how it is spent? Hamas. Is that how they funded their military tunnels and weapons? Yes.
> I've answered most of your questions, so I have a question for you: What percentage of the Gaza population needs to be killed before you will call it genocide or even just stop supprting Israel? 2% isn't enough so is it 5%, 20%, 50% or even higher? Will you continue to support Israel until they've killed 100% of the Gazans and achieved peace?
As I said, I do not believe absolute numbers of casualties determine justifiability in war. I believe war goals and means determine justifiability. I support Israel's just war goal of eliminating Hamas's military capability and securing the release of the hostages. I think that this war goal is the most just I am aware of in my lifetime, and Oct 7th was one of the most abhorrent events of my lifetime. Hamas's military capability must be utterly destroyed. Israel must not deliberately target civilians or civilian infrastructure. According to internationally accepted norms of law if the enemy military hides amongst civilians or uses civilian infrastructure for military purposes (including hiding military tunnel entrances in or booby trapping schools, mosques and hospitals) then they no longer have special protection.
I hope that everyone would agree with me in this point of view, but maybe not, particularly not people who believe that absolute numbers of casualties are a relevant consideration.
Someone might say: "but they're already deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure!". OK, maybe they are, in which case I no longer support Israel. But maybe they're not, in which case I do support them. I don't think any of us here on this thread truly know, because we're not there. We haven't seen it. The best we can do is make a determination of what to believe based on different sources of information that we trust, and the arguments that we hear. Israel has many more detractors than supporters globally (I would guess the ratio is something like 100:1) so I simply don't expect most of the reporting to be fair to Israel. Furthermore, I find that many anti-Israel claims simply don't hold water, such as the one that started my participation in this thread. After such scandals as the so called "Jenin massacre" (which turned out to be just a normal military confrontation) I'm not quick to jump to conclusions.
> Hmm, I don't want to put words into your mouth here
Kinda seems like you do since I didn't say anything like that.
> surely you can't be saying "I believe those civilians are being slaughtered/collectively punished/genocided and it's better to keep them where they are rather than let them flee to save their lives because they might not be able to come back"?
I said that Egypt bears some responsibility for the deaths because of they made that choice. I provided historical context because I think Isreal also bears some responsibility for that Egypt's choice because of Isreal's historically poor behavior towards returning refugees with the wrong ethnicity.
> Just out of interest, would you say that the proportion of moral responsibility that Egypt has is equal to the proportion of news coverage and Hacker News discussion Egypt gets on this issue? And if not, do you have an idea why not?
That's a weird question. Moral responsibility isn't something you assign as a fraction and certainly isn't based on how much coverage something gets. That's a bizare way to think about morality, so I'm not even sure why you'd want to ask that in a good faith discussion.
> Furthermore I doubt Netanyahu has any incentive to keep the hostages in Hamas hands
Netanyahu has both a clear lust for power and a slate of corruption charges hanging over his head. This conflict has been quite effective at helping with both, why would he want it to end?
> My view is that if Israel is conducting itself according to international norms on war
They aren't, that's why the ICC has issued arrest warrants. Given your stated stance, you should support Netanyahu turning himself in.
> Ah, but that's something different. I agree that power comes with responsibility. There is a common belief that in any conflict the party in the wrong is the more powerful one.
If a significantly more powerful party is in a conflict with a less power part and is killing way more of them, then yes, the does put the more powerful party in the wrong, reglardless of whatever talking point they have. The more powerful party has the greater responsibility for achieving peace and protecting lives and the failure rests primarily on them.
> As I said, I do not believe absolute numbers of casualties determine justifiability in war. I believe war goals and means determine justifiability.
I didn't ask about absolute number, but a percentage of the population. You seem to be saying that there is no percentage at which you will adjust your point of view. If Isreal kills 90% of the population, that really wouldn't count as ethnic cleansing to you? What about 100%? There's really no point at which you would stop just taking Israel at its word?
> Israel has many more detractors than supporters globally (I would guess the ratio is something like 100:1) so I simply don't expect most of the reporting to be fair to Israel.
If the entire world is telling you to stop murdering children, maybe you should consider listening?
> I simply don't expect most of the reporting to be fair to Israel. Furthermore, I find that many anti-Israel claims simply don't hold water.
Like the Pro-Isreal claim that you made and I debunked? How about casting doubt on the widely accepted death toll numbers?
I've seen the kind of information sources you cite. It's pretty clear you only look for sources that confirm your world view.
> > Hmm, I don't want to put words into your mouth here
> Kinda seems like you do since I didn't say anything like that.
> I said that Egypt bears some responsibility for the deaths because of they made that choice. I provided historical context because I think Isreal also bears some responsibility for that Egypt's choice because of Isreal's historically poor behavior towards returning refugees with the wrong ethnicity.
They're indeed not your words, but I can't understand how what you said can be in contradiction with them. I can't help but conclude that you're describing a world where countries believe a population is suffering genocide, could take them in to save them, yet don't do so because they might not be let back. Please do tell me where I've gone wrong here.
> > Just out of interest, would you say that the proportion of moral responsibility that Egypt has is equal to the proportion of news coverage and Hacker News discussion Egypt gets on this issue? And if not, do you have an idea why not?
> That's a weird question. Moral responsibility isn't something you assign as a fraction and certainly isn't based on how much coverage something gets. That's a bizare way to think about morality, so I'm not even sure why you'd want to ask that in a good faith discussion.
I don't think it's bizarre (and I certainly didn't say moral responsibility is based on news coverage!). News coverage is certainly something you can assign as a fraction. If, when presenting news on a particular topic, only one country gets wall to wall news coverage and forum discussion of its behaviour and there is barely mention of others despite them sharing some degree of responsibility, that seems pretty odd to me, and I'd want to try to understand why!
> > Furthermore I doubt Netanyahu has any incentive to keep the hostages in Hamas hands
> Netanyahu has both a clear lust for power and a slate of corruption charges hanging over his head. This conflict has been quite effective at helping with both, why would he want it to end?
I didn't say he wanted it to end. Elections will come around regardless of whether it has ended. If there are still hostages in Gaza when the election comes he will be judged very harshly by the electorate. Losing the next election puts him at increased risk from corruption charges so if he wants to avoid those charges he'll be trying his best to get the hostages out.
> > My view is that if Israel is conducting itself according to international norms on war
> They aren't, that's why the ICC has issued arrest warrants. Given your stated stance, you should support Netanyahu turning himself in.
Perhaps you are confusing warrants with judgement?
> > Ah, but that's something different. I agree that power comes with responsibility. There is a common belief that in any conflict the party in the wrong is the more powerful one.
> If a significantly more powerful party is in a conflict with a less power part and is killing way more of them, then yes, the does put the more powerful party in the wrong, reglardless of whatever talking point they have. The more powerful party has the greater responsibility for achieving peace and protecting lives and the failure rests primarily on them.
OK! Well, I completely disagree, and as such I don't expect we can make any more progress in this discussion, but I'm glad we managed to at least tease out this critical difference, so I thank you for persevering in the conversation. (We also disagree on how to determine the facts of the matter, but I think that's a less fundamental disagreement.)
> > As I said, I do not believe absolute numbers of casualties determine justifiability in war. I believe war goals and means determine justifiability.
> I didn't ask about absolute number, but a percentage of the population.
A percentage of the (let's say pre-war) population corresponds directly to an absolute number because the pre-war population is a known constant.
> You seem to be saying that there is no percentage at which you will adjust your point of view. If Isreal kills 90% of the population, that really wouldn't count as ethnic cleansing to you? What about 100%? There's really no point at which you would stop just taking Israel at its word?
Correct, I do not judge morality of war by the percentage, or equivalently, absolute number of fatalities. I judge it based on the war goals and war conduct. Theoretically, and it won't happen, but theoretically, if the Gazans fight to the last man, woman and child before giving up the hostages and before disbanding the military capability of Hamas then in my view it is just to pursue the war to that length.
The same would have been true of my view of the conduct of the allies against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. They were entitled to seek unconditional surrender. If Nazi Germany had not capitulated after Hitler's suicide, the allies would have been within their rights to continue to prosecute the war until capitulation, and no doubt more civilians would have been killed and more civilian infrastructure destroyed until they did so. Now, that's not to say that Israel, the US, the UK couldn't choose or have chosen to stop earlier for other reasons, I'm just saying I don't see it as a moral limit. I see Israel's war as just, and I see the allies' war on Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan as just, so in my mind that allows them to seek total victory.
> > Israel has many more detractors than supporters globally (I would guess the ratio is something like 100:1) so I simply don't expect most of the reporting to be fair to Israel.
> If the entire world is telling you to stop murdering children, maybe you should consider listening?
Yes, I definitely think it's worth listening! In fact I have been listening very hard. But I also don't judge truth based on absolute number of voices either.
> > I simply don't expect most of the reporting to be fair to Israel. Furthermore, I find that many anti-Israel claims simply don't hold water.
> Like the Pro-Isreal claim that you made and I debunked? How about casting doubt on the widely accepted death toll numbers?
> I've seen the kind of information sources you cite. It's pretty clear you only look for sources that confirm your world view.
You're welcome to think whatever you like about what I look for. I'm quite content that my practice of searching for discomfirmatory evidence is a healthy one, and I will continue to engage in it.
