“I don’t care about your calls for a premature ceasefire, about your demand that we provide them with electricity, that we stop fighting for ‘humanitarian reasons.’
…
I don’t care that you wave the flag of ‘human rights’…that you shout fancy slogans you don’t understand such as proportionality, occupation and apartheid.
…
I don’t care that you blame us for 1948 refugees, for the fact that they have no state, for…their fantasy of ‘right of return.’”
@aral The irony is that bombing civilians is self-defeating: it turns bystanders into sympathizers and activates sympathizers. There is no insurgency that has been quelled by going after the general population. Israel is acting against its own interests.
Israel is going after an animalistic barbaric organization, that is hiding under hospitals and fires at Israeli civilians from schools and civilian areas
They are designing the battleground to maximize civilian deaths because that plays into the narrative you're feeding now
He selfishly enjoys and defends the result of Israelis being occupiers of land that didn't belong to them, justified by YET ANOTHER theory of exclusive egotistical manifest destiny. His screed mirrors that egotism marvelously.
@aral It's actually very simple, all of it. Creation of Israel state was a political move, a ticking bomb planted by the Big boys - America and Britain. Behind that move there are dozens of motives. But let's just take one - destabilisation, exploration , and control of Arabic world.
This was planed and prepared for, it didn't happen without a reason.
It takes two to dance.
There is no justification for killing innocent people.
The shared article was written in the manner of thought that will justify all the means and actions because they are the only holy people in this world and have every right to defend themselves BUT missing the point where they too are responsible for what happened.
There are many truths and Israel state was counting on worldwide support of their truth because of the propaganda strategies that have been going on for years. They took an American model of action declaring terrorism attack and acting to protect themselves against it justifying genocide with defence against terrorism. Off course, America will stand by them because they did the same thing many times before.
History never forgets, the bomb was set off and innocent are dying for what? For what?!!!
The world stood while the bomb called Israel was set, the world is standing while innocent people die on both sides.
Once again the world has blood on, its already bloody hands.
@aral better that you are appalled than that we are massacred.
That's why we don't care. We can't afford to care. We'll lose our children if we give the impunity you wish us to give Hamas when it murders us, which is the only way to avoid civilian casualties.
@EyalL Right, it’s either killing thousands upon thousands of innocent Palestinian kids by bombing the hell out of Gaza or nothing. Anything else is giving Hamas impunity. Yes, that doesn’t sound genocidal at all.
@scottmatter “The Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And then we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side
…
But now we got weapons
Of chemical dust
If fire them we’re forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And ya' never ask questions
When God’s on your side”
@aral Another quote from this that I find important:
I don’t care about your media coverage, the lies, the equivocation, the acceptance of Hamas talking points and statistics.
Your echo chamber is just another weapon in their strategic arsenal.
I don’t care that you accused us of bombing the Al Ahli hospital.
It was only a matter of time before you found a symbol for Israel’s wickedness.
> “ at those who burned children alive, who raped, who beheaded and tortured and kidnapped.”
There is no harm, no matter how horrific, that justifies harming unrelated and therefore innocent people.
The harms of the occupation cannot justify Hamas’ attack on 7 October. The harms of Hamas’ attack cannot justify the IDF’s ongoing murder of Palestinian children. You cannot defend yourself against people who have not attacked you.
You cannot pretend to care about children burned alive whilst cheering on the burning of other children.
While they were cheering the massacres of our children, I'm saddened by the harm that comes to their children
While you incorrectly and naively blame us for the children who are harmed in conflict: the blame lies solely on Hamas who operates from within civilian areas
They target our children. They killed a baby by placing it in an oven.
We target their militants. Their militants hide behind children, to feed the narrative you're pushing now.
> “This has successfully bought them immunity from military response many times in the past”
This is untrue; the IDF has killed thousands of Palestinians in regular attacks.
> “For years we sustained rocket fire at our civilians, at our children, because attacking back meant harming their civilians.”
This is untrue.
> “Did you care?”
Yes.
> “Now that they crossed the reddest and bloodiest of lines - we can't afford giving them such immunity anymore”
7 October can no more justify the mass murder of Palestinians than decades of Israeli violence against Palestinians can justify 7 October. “We had to do it because of the harms we suffered” is Hamas’ logic as well as the Israeli state’s.
> “Hamas had immunity from massive operations Israel only operated with limited operations.”
In 2008, the IDF invaded Gaza and killed about a thousand civilians. In 2012, the IDF invaded Gaza and killed about a hundred civilians. In 2014, the IDF invaded Gaza and killed about 1,600 civilians. This does not include individual air strikes or air campaigns against Gaza. If Israelis earned the moral right to kill Palestinians civilians in self-defense on 7 October, then surely Palestinians earned the moral right to kill Israeli civilians in self-defense in these attacks? (Hint: no one earns that right.)
> “We could destroy Hamas but it would cost many in civilian lives.”
I am skeptical that Israel can “destroy” an adversary. All of Israel’s most successful and enduring security victories have been in the forms of peace treaties, many of which involved returning conquered land—but achieving that with the Palestinians would involve ending the occupation, which Israel prioritizes.
> “So we did limited responses to their rockets on our civilians only when they used massive amounts”
I’m not sure how thousands of dead civilians counts as “limited”
> “Now the brutality we've endured has been so shocking, we will do anything to prevent it from happening again”
This is, once again, identical to Hamas’ logic for murdering civilians. You are the mirror image of an adversary you consider to be monsters.
> “And at this point, we really don't care what you think about it”
Yeah, after 9/11 the US lost its mind too and went on a killing spree for 20+ years that cost over a million lives and achieved virtually nothing.
> “While they were cheering the massacres of our children, I'm saddened by the harm that comes to their children”
The actions of some people cannot justify harm against unrelated people. Some Palestinians “cheering” for the massacre cannot justify violence against Palestinian children any more than your apologia for IDF violence against Palestinian civilians could justify violence against Israel children.
Your “sadness” won’t bring anyone back to life.
> “While you incorrectly and naively blame us for the children who are harmed in conflict: the blame lies solely on Hamas who operates from within civilian areas”
The IDF is responsible for the IDF’s actions, not Hamas, just as Hamas is responsible for Hamas’ actions, not the IDF.
> “They target our children. They killed a baby by placing it in an oven.”
Yes, this is horrifying and wrong and Israelis are justified in defending themselves against violence.
> “We target their militants.”
Ends cannot justify means, and even if this were true—the IDF has targeted civilians deliberately as well—it would not justify the murder of civilians who do not become guilty by proximity.
> “Their militants hide behind children, to feed the narrative you're pushing now.”
Yes, both the Israeli state and Hamas have many excuses for why they must kill civilians—they’re very close to bad guys, they will grow up to be soldiers, etc etc—the truth remains that there is no excuse for murdering innocent people, and when you do so you become their aggressor.
> “That's a lie: Israel does not target civilians”
Indeed it does. In 2018, the IDF shot more than 13,000 Palestinians inside Gaza because they protested near the exclusion zone established by Israel. This is just one single example of mass IDF violence explicitly against civilians.
> “You believe Hamas's lies. I believe my friends who know soldiers who operate there”
I have been compared to Hitler for condemning Hamas as an illegitimate, theocratic terrorist organization, and a gaslighting Hamas sympathizer for condemning IDF violence. I assure you that this nonsense will not affect my ability to see with my own eyes what’s happening.
> “We target Hamas. It's impossible for civilians not to be killed.”
Murder is murder, even if you feel really bad for committing it.
> “We have to choose: more massacres of our civilians, or fighting Hamas to their destruction, even at great civilian cost to them”
People who charge at the border are not civilians.
If they come to infiltrate a hostile border, they are enemy combatants. After Oct 7, where many such "civilians" crossed to rape and murder, you should be wiser than using this example.
Firing at a Hamas's HQ in a school might kill civilians or even children. That is murder - by Hamas. Not by IDF
> “People who charge at the border are not civilians.”
Proximity to a border does not cost people their civilian status, least of all when they remain on the other side of a border that Israel simultaneously pretends is and isn’t an international border.
> “If they come to infiltrate a hostile border, they are enemy combatants.”
Unarmed non-combatants don’t become enemy combatants by virtue of their proximity to a border or even their intent to cross a border. You’d think Israel would have more sympathy for the concept of refuge.
> “After Oct 7, where many such "civilians" crossed to rape and murder, you should be wiser than using this example.”
Armed fighters belonging to a militant group with the intent to commit organized violence are not civilians.
> “Firing at a Hamas's HQ in a school might kill civilians or even children. That is murder - by Hamas. Not by IDF”
Does this mean that if Hamas were to fire rockets exclusively at military targets but accidentally kill your family, you would hold the IDF responsible?
> “And no, it's not a "mirror image" because Hamas targets children, women, the elderly. And because Oct 7 was unprovoked.”
The IDF routinely targets civilians, and Hamas would in fact argue that 7 October was provoked by the violence of the occupation in an act of self-defense, just as you’re justifying the murder of children as an act of self-defense right now.
> “IDF is not hiding behind civilians”
Even if they were, that would not justify the murder of Israeli civilians.
> “Hamas truly does murder civilians”
Yes, Hamas is an enemy of both the Palestinian and Israeli people who have legitimate rights to self-defense against it.
> “There's no indescriminate bombing of civilian infrastructure.
There's bombing of Hamas targets, some of which are near/at civilian infra.”
The IDF has bombed homes, schools, hospitals, and ambulances. You are lying or deliberately ignorant.
“There's no indiscriminate blockade -- there's a weapons-inspection blockade (due to their use of such weapons against civilians)”
Israel suspended food, water, fuel, and electricity to Gaza. You are lying or deliberately ignorant.
“Deliberate attacks on Hamas targets in hospitals, schools, ambulances, are legitimate.”
Even if it were the case that Hamas fighters were present in all of these locations, that still would not transform these into legitimate targets. Israel could not, for example, drop nuclear bombs on Gaza to kill Hamas fighters.
In reality, Israeli forces have many times deliberately killed civilians:
@HeavenlyPossum bbc, hrw, aljazeera all proved their non factual reporting in Gaza as they reported the hospital was bombed by Israel when it was a misfire by Islamic Jihad
I honestly don’t know who destroyed the hospital, and we’ll probably never know with confidence.
This is a great example of a phenomenon by which one act of barbarity among many is called into question so as to call into question all of the many obvious acts of barbarity around it.
We don’t need to know whether Hamas or the IDF struck the hospital to know that Hamas and the IDF have killed many innocent people. By fixating on single instances like this, we begin to introduce ambiguity into the entire situation, about which we can know a great deal without referring to this one specific case.
@EyalL So we're going to trust the entity that possibly committed a war crime...to be honest? I don't trust the IDF or Hamas to be honest (PMH is separate from Hamas leadership, as you know). As Seth demonstrates there, we have ample evidence that the IDF verifiably lied about facts in this incident. Why should I believe that this recording is authentic, or that it's about this bombing in particular?
I saw the videos showing the rocket launch by Islamic Jihad, how one of the rockets changed course and then a fire erupted seconds later in the hospital
I heard Hamas militants discuss it
I saw pictures of the shrapnel, which look like those in our Israeli streets since they fire at us constantly. No crater as typical from IAF bombing
@EyalL There was a crater though, as literally pointed out in that meta-analysis. This feels disingenuous now - I trusted that you would engage in good faith, but it appears I was wrong.
And no, the PMH operates independently and its numbers are trusted internationally (as would the Israeli Dept of Health's) - hell, the IDF and the Israeli govt even admit this (again, described in the meta-analysis).
@EyalL
> The PMH initially said there were “dozens” dead, then an “estimated” 200 to 300 fatalities, the latter an estimate confirmed by non-Hamas al-Shifa Hospital administrator Dr. Muhammad Abu Salima, who reported 250 confirmed deaths—a figure well within the range thereafter reeleased by the USIC (“100 to 300”).
You're either just misinformed or lying now. Please, do yourself a favor and at least skim the meta-analysis.
@EyalL
> The idea that the blast had been caused by a U.S.-provided IDF bomb [...] was more or less discarded by both sides as a discussion point early on. The size of the explosion at the hospital and the width and depth of the impact crater just wasn’t consistent with such an explanation, and (it must be said) it’s a mark of a desire to learn the truth that Palestinian sources turned away from this theory once it was deemed an impossibility.
@HeavenlyPossum@EyalL Not sure, what you are up to. But yes, civilians are killed in Gaza. The point being made is, that it's not a war of Israel against Palestinian civilians. It's a war of the citizens of Israel against the murderous terrorists of Hamas. Whose official declared goal is to kill Jews. Hamas is using civilians as human shields, transports weapons and their fighters in ambulances, it's not easy to verify information in regard to civilian casualties.
Can we please get our definitions right. The IDF is not murdering children. Murder is killing people with the intention to kill them. The IDF is not killing civilians to decimate the population of Palestine ("Genocide"), civilians as victims are the whole purpose of Hamas. Because it plays into their propaganda. For the Hamas killed civilians are good, they don't care about the people. They care about the power of pictures. The more horrific, the better for them. 1/2
@HeavenlyPossum@EyalL That's the whole purpose of them hiding under and in hospitals and schools or in ambulances. Make it as hard as possible for the IDF to identify targets clearly. I don't defend the IDF killing civilians, the point is just I don't have any other option right now, if you are fighting against a terrorist enemy that is taking civilians as hostages and using them as shields. What do you do? What is your proposed solution? 2/2
I did not use the word “murder” incorrectly. When an actor deliberately uses force it knows with confidence will kill an innocent person, that actor is committing murder.
@HeavenlyPossum@EyalL No, murder is "the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.
Where premeditated means: "the action of planning something (especially a crime) beforehand; with intent."
That's why I'm telling you, that you seem to use that wrongly. The IDF doesn't target civilians, although they kill civilians while targetting Hamas fighters. That's not murdering civilians though, and the connotation here is that they do it with intent, which they do not.
Setting aside the fact that Israeli forces do purposefully target civilians for murder, deliberately killing innocent people in order to achieve some unrelated goal is still murder.
If I were to deliberately kill you in order to steal your possessions, I’d still be committing murder, even if my primarily goal was simply to rob you.
@HeavenlyPossum@EyalL Well, not really. If you would rob someone and stab them while you fight them for their possessions, and they die due to the stabbing wound. It's certainly not murder. It's the intent that counts. Someone didn't get stabbed to be killed. It's definitely more complicated than that, just trying to let you know, that your definitions don't sit straight here. You say it's a fact that the IDF targets civilians, I question that and ask you for proofs and your sources here.
I’m not going to stop calling the deliberate killing of civilians murder, thanks.
In addition to killing thousands of civilians during the course of its campaign in Gaza under the obscene euphemism of “collateral” harm, which is also murder, the Israeli state frequently kills civilians directly. For example:
@HeavenlyPossum@EyalL Thousands of civilians? Where do you even have that number from?
As far as I know, there aren't official numbers of civilian casualties. What are your sources for that? I hope here you are not just taking over Hamas numbers?
@HeavenlyPossum@EyalL It's fine, if you don't feel like stating your sources. But maybe refrain from spreading propaganda, then. I personally think that would help the Palestinian cause a lot more, if people wouldn't discredit themselves as repeating Hamas talking points. Because it makes them and their arguments actual vulnerable. There are strong arguments for the Palestinian cause and a two-state solution. Repeating arguments and terrorist propaganda does a disservice to that though.
@HeavenlyPossum@EyalL Exactly! Hence, we both condemn the Hamas for slaughtering civilians, killing children and their families. Murdering civilians attending a festival. Right? Right???
@HeavenlyPossum Israel doesn't use nukes or very large bombs exactly because it uses the most precise bombing it can on its targets to minimize civilian casualties
I have explicitly condemned Hamas and argued for a right to self-defense against Hamas, so accusing me of being a Hamas apologist is pretty weak sauce.
If the excuse for dropping white phosphorous onto civilians who then die slowly in horrible agony or live with crippling and painful scars for the rest of their lives is “it is the most efficient means available to the IDF to achieve its intent,” then you are similarly arguing for Hamas’ right to fire rockets as Israeli military targets even if they misfire and kill Israeli civilians.
So far, I’ve only heard which sources are biased and untrustworthy—any that is critical of Israeli state actions—but none that are reliable and trustworthy other than “military folk.”
Denying supplies to an adversary does not allow one to starve civilians to death.
Israel suspended food, water, medicine, fuel, and electricity to the Gazan public—which has no option to escape because Israel controls its borders, air space, and sea access—and since 7 October has allowed in only a fraction of the resources that Palestinian civilians need to survive.
As I have frequently noted, Israel’s partnership with the military dictatorship in Egypt to oppress Palestinians in Gaza is not the exculpatory evidence that Israel apologists seem to think it is.
I also, to be clear, do not hate Israel, but I am used to people assuming that my critique of bad actions means I hate whichever bad actor they happen to support.
As I noted earlier, I’ve been compared to Hitler for saying Hamas should not murder children and now you’re accusing me of hating Israel because I said Israel should not murder children.
Many people, like you, are fans of child murder, as long as the children belong to The Other. I object to any child murder. This does not mean I hate “your side.”
I have not encountered any Egypt apologists on here, so I’m not in much of a position to do so, but Egypt is ruled by vile and cowardly tyrants and I wish very much for the end of the Egyptian regime.
Was your assertion before, now you've been forced by facts to retreat to a position you think is more defensible, but it's really an admission that the IDF does indeed target civilians:
@EyalL@HeavenlyPossum yes, they hecking do. There are countless reports of IDF using Palestinian children as human shields to avoid being thrown rocks at.
“Over the years, the military practiced an official policy of using Palestinians as human shields, ordering them to carry out military activities that put their lives in jeopardy: Palestinians were forced to remove suspicious objects from roads, tell other Palestinians to come out and surrender themselves, physically shield soldiers while they fired, and more. In 2005, the High Court of Justice ruled the practice unlawful, yet soldiers still occasionally used Palestinians as human shields, particularly during military operations. In most cases, no one was held accountable.”
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