I’m suggesting that you don’t make up fictional dialogue.
I am not denying that kids are dying in this war. This has more to do with how Hamas are deliberately embedding themselves within civilians, preventing them from fleeing and using them as human shields than the IDF deciding to deliberately murder children. I am not aware of any other armed forces going even remotely to the same lengths to warn civilians as the IDF. They even invented the practice of roof-knocking, which Palestinians trust so much that they are standing within meters of a marked building in order to film its destruction.
Your second link does not support your claim that Israel said they are only killing Hamas.
This has more to do with how Hamas are deliberately embedding themselves within civilians
"Deliberately"?
Can you lay out for me what you think members of Hamas should do in order to avoid being "embedded" in this way? Should they, for example, abandon their residences as individuals and go to live somewhere else where there are no people, so they can be clearly identified as enemy combatants, so that Israel won't be tempted into destroying the entire apartment building where is their private residence?
Would this also have applied to, for example, Jewish resistance fighters during the holocaust? Would it be reasonable to say that someone in the Warsaw ghetto who has weapons is "embedded" in the civilian population there, and shares some responsibility if innocent people in the ghetto are killed during the uprising?
preventing them from fleeing
Citation?
I actually think Hamas is a deeply corrupt and violent organization; most bad things that someone would say about them, I probably would agree with. Trying to use that as some kind of excuse for "and that's why it's their fault that Israel is indiscriminately bombing, shooting, and starving an entire civilian population even the most well-armed of which pose a very minor threat to them" isn't something I'll agree with.
Should I keep going? I can, if you want to try to paint the idea that the IDF is deliberately killing children as in any way untrue or exaggerated.
I am not aware of any other armed forces going even remotely to the same lengths to warn civilians as the IDF
Did you read the Foreign Affairs article I linked to? It goes into quite a bit of detail about this claim from a dispassionate and evidence based perspective.
which Palestinians trust so much that they are standing within meters of a marked building
Can you give some instances? E.g. link to a video where Palestinians are standing calmly next to a building which is being attacked by the IDF, trusting that they won't be harmed?
Your second link does not support your claim that Israel said they are only killing Hamas.
They said civilian casualties are very very low. I interpret that as meaning that most of the thousands of dead people are Hamas fighters. No?
What would be your assessment of the number of people killed in the fighting and what amount of them are Hamas vs innocent men vs innocent women or children? Just trying to get a frame of reference of what you think / assert is happening.
Should they, for example, abandon their residences as individuals
That’s not the issue. Hamas terrorists are doing far more than just going home in the evening to their families. Read this academic paper on Hamas’ use of human shields. It’s highly accessible, yet in-depth:
I seriously implore you to actually read it and not just dismiss it, because you dislike the title or because I’m the one recommending it to you.
Would this also have applied to, for example, Jewish resistance fighters during the holocaust?
Originally, I was prepared to write a lengthy reply to each of your points, but I’ll not waste my time any further with someone who has the sheer audacity of equating Hamas terrorists with Warsaw Ghetto resistance fighters. How dare you smear the legacy of these people in such a shameful way!
I seriously implore you to actually read it and not just dismiss it
Okay, sure. I read a good bit of it. From p. 159:
"Since Hamas’ rule over the Gaza Strip is not legitimised by the UN, and since Hamas is not recognised by the international community as the political representative of the Palestinian people, its diplomatic activities are usually carried out by third party states and pro-Palestinian organisations. These entities will often present 'proof' of alleged war crimes to attack Israel in the international arena.
"The most prominent example of this is the Goldstone Report. This report sheds light on the diplomatic context of the practice of human shields: about 1,400 Gazans and 13 Israelis were killed in the Gaza War. A UN fact-finding mission headed by Judge Richard Goldstone was established in April 2009 following the war, and published its 574-page report in September 2009. The report called for both parties, Hamas and Israel, to investigate their own actions and accused both of deliberately targeting civilians. However, before expanding its mandate to investigate both parties’ actions, the preliminary purpose of the commission was to investigate only Israel’s alleged war crimes against Palestinians.
"The final report criticised Israel harshly for attacking civilians and civilian facilities. It disputed Israel’s claim that the Gaza War was initiated as a response to rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, claiming that, at least in part, the war was targeted against the 'people of Gaza as a whole.'
"The report also stated that there was evidence that Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity by deliberately launching rockets and firing mortars into Israel, calculated to intentionally kill civilians and damage civilian structures. The report accused Palestinian armed groups of causing psychological trauma to the civilians within the range of the rockets. It also concluded that killings and abuses of members of the Fatah political movement amounted to a 'serious violation of human rights.' However, the mission found no evidence of Palestinian armed groups placing civilians in areas where attacks were being launched, or engaging in combat in civilian dress, or using a mosque for military purposes or to shield military activities. This statement contrasted with both Israeli and international media reports that Hamas fighters wore civilian clothes and concealed their weapons.
"Despite placing the blame on both sides, the mission de facto rejected Israel’s claims that the IDF had only attacked Hamas’ targets, and that civilian casualties were caused mainly due to Hamas’ use of civilians as human shields. This was a severe diplomatic blow to Israel. In fact, the international community barely distinguished between the activities of a terror organisation and those a sovereign state. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights endorsed the report and supported the call for Israel and Hamas to investigate and prosecute those who committed war crimes. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon urged “credible” investigations by both sides into the conduct of the Gaza conflict 'without delay.' The European Parliament passed a resolution endorsing the Goldstone Report in March 2010. The resolution called on the bloc’s member states to 'publicly demand the implementation of [the report’s] recommendations and accountability for all violations of international law, including alleged war crimes.' These declarations, as well as others, demonstrate Hamas’ triumph in controlling the narrative. Hamas’ ability to control the narrative limits Israel’s strategic choices."
I had some commentary on this, but changed my mind and deleted it. I think it pretty much speaks for itself.
the sheer audacity of equating Hamas terrorists with Warsaw Ghetto resistance fighters
I had a feeling you wouldn't at all like that comparison.
I also had a feeling you wouldn't want to respond in detail to the other stuff I was saying, or answer questions... because what can you say?
Allied bombings killed more German civilians in WW2 than German bombings killed Allied civilians. Does this mean that the Allies were morally inferior to the Nazis on the Western front?
Have you considered that there is more to this than just numbers, namely intent?
Still looking for moral high ground? Try it without killing and justifying it. The old proverb an eye for an eye shouldn’t be that hard to grasp.
And on that note: Why must comparisons always fall back on WW2. The first and second world wars mark the point where humanity evolved to its most savage. If one had honor before that they wouldn’t hide behind drones, rockets, and bombs to do the dirty work. We are all in this brutal society and I for one choose to respect life, no matter what the cause. So sad that you think there is a drop of morality to be squeezed out todays plight. Minimize damage and human casualty, that is all.
Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country.
If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?
Heh. Your strategy of simply announcing that you're offended and you refuse to continue to talk along a couple of the lines of discussion, has worked. Now with no transition away from "Hamas is definitely using human shields" "Here's a UN report saying they're not" and similar lines that weren't going how you wanted them to, we're into a whole new line of argument.
But sure.
The Jews were engaged in a life or death struggle
Absolutely true.
with the Arabs of Palestine
Er... not entirely true, at the outset, but it became true over time, yes.
mostly because of the choice of the latter
?
Can you explain a little more what was their choice here that caused the struggle to take place?
Selected quotes of one leader are not representative of an entire spectrum of parties and factions that equally saw themselves as “Zionist.”
Absolutely true. Do you mind if I go back through things you sent me and find some times when something a Hamas leader (and not even necessarily the founder of Hamas), was picked out as representative of the motives of Hamas as a whole?
It's starting to feel like this is just nitpicking over individual details and getting lost in the details... somewhere far far away from thousands upon thousands of dead children, and safely in semantics, where we can go back and forth, safe in our climate controlled homes.
But sure, I'm happy to continue for a little while at least.
When is the bigotry, intolerance, ignorance and violence of the Arab world going to become PC for the left to examine honestly and completely?
I had a pretty extensive argument not long ago with someone who was trying to downplay Hamas's atrocities on October 7th, and sent them some documents demonstrating otherwise.
The IDF's atrocities and Hamas's atrocities do not exist in some weird zero-sum universe where only one can be true, and to affirm one means to deny the other. Anyone who's paying attention to the reality will see some bigotry, intolerance, and violence in the Arab world.
How many countries in the world were not born of historical “sin” of some sort or other?
Every family has some murderers in its history. Does that mean we shouldn't prosecute murder when it happens in the present?
When are we going to stop talking ancient history?
I started out talking about dead civilians in the last 6 months, and going forward this month and next. I only brought up Ben-Gurion's thoughts on the intent behind Israel's foundation and the assignation of "blame" if you want to call it that, because you wanted to stop talking about the present day atrocities and start talking about intent, instead, and I thought his viewpoint was relevant (for example how an innocent Arab family who lost their home last month or this month might reasonably react.)
Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians have to see each other as fellow human beings entitled to equal respect, rights and protections.
Absolutely. This I 100% agree with. This is, pretty much, the core of what I think would need to happen to stop the continued bloodshed and suffering by innocent people in both countries.
Related question.
"The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights endorsed the report and supported the call for Israel and Hamas to investigate and prosecute those who committed war crimes. ... The resolution called on the bloc’s member states to 'publicly demand the implementation of [the report’s] recommendations and accountability for all violations of international law, including alleged war crimes.' These declarations, as well as others, demonstrate Hamas’ triumph in controlling the narrative. Hamas’ ability to control the narrative limits Israel’s strategic choices."
Would it be fair to say you agree with that? You sent it to me.
I actually think Hamas is a deeply corrupt and violent organization; most bad things that someone would say about them, I probably would agree with. Trying to use that as some kind of excuse...
And so on.
I do understand that UN reports and videos of dying children and straight questions which you have no real good way to answer are sorta difficult to argue against, which creates a certain pressure to pretend that I'm saying something which is the exact opposite of what I'm actually saying.
For your future attempts to falsely reframe the discussion and cancel out reasonable questions without admitting defeat, may I suggest:
You took that thing you quoted WAY out of context
This 90-minute Youtube video contains all the answers and I refuse to talk further until you watch it
How dare you say those bad things happened when (massive list of bad things Hamas has done dating back to the 1980s)
"Blocked"
All tried and true alternatives to "How dare you say that thing you said, I refuse to talk any further, I'm offended now" (which is of course itself an old staple, and with good reason).
Dude, the fact stands that Isreal is killing children at an alarming rate. I’m glad everytime I hear someone put words out there to express this. Don’t play the Semantics game. This stuff needs to be said, over and over. Free speech and all.
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