Hamas are animals. Abducting children and internationals. These last few days have shown they do not deserve sympathy. Watching Palestinians cheer when rockets get launched just proves my point.
They have been horrifically oppressed for decades.
They have lived in constant fight for your life squalor while America keeps siphoning money and weapons to Israel, who, in turn, simply tortures Palestine.
I dont condone it, but I can't bring myself to fake outrage or surprise.
America caused this.
America needs to stop funding terrorists (Israel). It only breeds more terrorists (Hamas).
And at the end of the day, that was the point.
There is another armed conflict for American military contractors to cash in on.
If the same kind of pressure being put on Hamas was put on the Israeli authorities, the problem with Palestine would’ve been over long ago, just like Appartheid in South Africa has made to end by international pressure, not because the assholes in power in SA woke up one day and decided to the do the morally right thing.
As long as Israel gets to keep its boot on the necks of Palestinians (worse, activelly helped to do so), there will always be people who are born and grow with nothing to lose for whom even an organisation internationally treated as a terrorist organisation is still a step up.
I totally agree it’s the US who have maintained this situation, and I also want to add Europe, whose leaders have sided with Israel or assumed the kind of “neutrality” that “peace loving” “tankies” assume with regards to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (i.e. not wanting to help Ukraine).
I’m gonna take half your house and if you don’t like it I’ll just try to kill you (royal you this is not a threat). On top of that I’m not just taking half your house down the middle. I’m taking the master bathroom, the en-suite, the kitchen, the study… actually I’m taking both bathrooms you can shit in the garage where you sleep from now on, also you can have the shed I guess. But you’re not allowed in the yard so you can’t actually go to the shed, just look at it and know that it’s yours. I promise I won’t store my tools in there when you’re not looking.
What’s that? You want a hose to drink from the garden spigot? No, I’ve decided that it’s in appropriate for you to have your own access to water. You can ask me for a cup when you’re thirsty.
Btw my cousin is moving in next week so you’re gonna have to move your shit to the left side of the garage
I’m well aware of Arab Israelis, mainly because uniquelly in the World, Israel has separated nationality from citizenship, and has put most rights under citizenship, not nationality.
Israeli Arabs are Israeli nationals with under that country’s system Arab Citizenship, whilst Israeli Jews are Israeli nationals with Jewish Citizenship.
Israel grants different rights to different citizenships, so Israeli Arabs, for example, require authorization to go live in certain places and can legally be kicked out of their houses (as happens quite regularly in the Old City of Jerusalem), unlike Israeli Jews.
Still, it’s better to get the second-class citizen treatment that the State of Israel gives to Israeli Arabs than the treatment it gives to prisioners in Israel’s main prison, Gaza.
Your worldview is so fucked up. The reason Israel gets support is because if it didn’t, the surrounding Arab nations would have wiped it out, as they have said multiple times.
It’s like a bully attacks a little kid, and the little kid’s older brother shows up to defend him, and then you saying, “the older brother caused this because he wouldn’t let the bully beat up that little kid!”
When the little brother starts slaughtering all of the innocent people who "are totally all bullies" and bombing their homes with impunity for 40 years with virtually no consequence, somewhere over those 40 years, the brothers became the bullies in the neighborhood.
So instead you are cheering when civilians on the other side are being killed. Great logic. I hope you feel morally superior and can sleep better at night.
In 2014, Israel invaded Gaza and more than 2000 people were killed. Did Israel achieve anything other than radicalising more the local population, I would say no? Violence is never the answer or a recipe for long lasting peace.
Do you think that if Israel was treating Palestinians better and not causing a humanitarian crisis, the support for Hamas would be so strong?
Just for perspective, the Hamas army is around 30.000, while the Gaza strip population is around 2,3 million. So that’s 1.3% while people who depend on humanitarian aid in the Gaza strip are 80% and probably this percentage would increase even further. So that’s 1.7Mln people. Not to mention that 123.000 people have been displaced. Not to mention that they don’t have access to clean drinking water, soon would run out of electricity and gas. So I don’t know for you but my mind has trouble trying to process the scale of this humanitarian catastrophe.
One simple rule to achieve peace and stability is diplomatic talk.
Yeah if it was that simple the region would have peace already. Israel has never seriously considered peace as anything than something to avoid. See: How they funded Hamas in the 90s to take steam out of the Palestinian peace movement.
I don't really want to comment on that. I feel like I am not qualified to judge about the complex problems in this region.
I see a reflex by some people pointing out that Palestinians are victims. But that does justify to take revenge in this way. This action will prolonge the hatred on both side and the entire situation even further. No one should support Hamas in this case.
You think that’s going to make a difference? People don’t even take a moment to parse that fully 20% of Israeli citizens are Arab, that those Arabs didn’t have their land stolen, and that the reason they are in Israel is because they didn’t listen to the propaganda of the Arab League that they needed to flee because Israel was going to kill them all/make it more convenient for the Arab League to kill all the Jews. No one gives a fuck about actual rich history, the role Arabs played in fucking over their own ethnic group time and again, or that the vast majority of Arab Israelis want fuck-all to do with Palestine except occasionally visit extended family members and then GTFO of the corrupt hellhole that is Gaza (while having legit gripes with how the Israeli state operates).
Attacking civilians is also plain and simple terrorism
So we’re in agreement that this is essentially two terrorist states fighting each other? And the biggest losers in all of this will be the innocent Israeli and Palestinian citizens who just want to live their lives in peace. Meanwhile Hamas and the Israeli state get to go back and forth playing the their sick game of race-to-the-bottom-of-the-morality-barrel trying to blow each other to smithereens.
If you’re 93 today, then you were about 18 years old when Israel became an autonomous nation (in 1948). Before that time, the Jews in the area were simply terrorists without a state.
I was talking about before that, but in general, I’ll just say that whatever the truth is, you should simply accept as the truth. There were certainly refugees from the holocaust who became literal terrorists, and the idea that your faux outrage is more important than truth is repugnant.
I wouldn’t call it a “real” history, just a richer history that leads to a more nuanced understanding of the situation, starting with the Ottoman Empire’s tax reform efforts prior to WWI leading to the fellahin legally conveying their land to town leaders to avoid taxation, the descendants of said leaders considering themselves as landed gentry and who had little connection to the land, in fact most of them were living the high life in Beirut and who were more than happy to sell land to Jews. Or the state of Arab intellectual thought as it transitioned from pan-arabism to regional nationalism. Or the role the Arab League played in manipulating many Palestinians to act against their interests in the leadup to and during the 1948-1949 war (Arabs that ignored the Arab League are now, by and large, Israeli citizens, though they have legit gripes and deserve a fair constitutional government that protects them from the vageries of the volatile Israeli political process). Or how Arab nations allowed/encouraged pogroms to occur against their Jewish residents both before and after the creation of the State of Israel, persecution that (surprise surprise) led Arabic-speaking Jews to flee to the mandate/Israel. I’m NOT saying that Israel did no wrong. I’m just irritated as fuck by Israeli AND Palestinian apologists that ignore the role their side played in making the situation what it is today.
Am I wrong to be a little irritated by the fact that your previous wording was that my “grasp on the rest of the history is poor”, but when asked to explain things, you seem to think that I simply lacked nuance? Because it seems to me in that case that your initial response saying that my grasp was poor was also lacking nuance.
I’m not a middle east expert, or even an enthusiast. I would even flatly state that my grasp of the history in the region is poor, and that my knowledge on the subject lacks nuance… However, before I made the comment, I did a bit of research, for example, reading the Wikipedia article on Israel and its history, and I did leave quite a bit of nuance out intentionally, for example, completely ignoring the fact that Palestine was governed by British Mandate at the time. But I don’t think I misrepresented the facts in some fundamental way. It’s just good to keep things short, punchy, and factual online.
To be clear, I have read your entire comment, and it is very interesting. It adds a lot of nuance. I didn’t expect you to put so much effort into your comment, and I appreciate the effort.
Sorry, this whole mess has me upset, and I haven’t been able to reach an Israeli friend of mine. And I’m sick of one-sided hate, usually coming from ill-informed “liberals” that act like the Palestinians are justified in their violence like it’s a US race riot instead of absolute bloody mayhem, who have never met a member of Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood in real life and seen the murderous hate in their eyes, who never got the soles of their shoes sticky from blood in the streets from a suicide bombing in the Dolphinairum that wiped out over 150 lives in less than a second, who never contemplated the only reason that they are alive right now is because they stopped for a cup of coffee and missed their bus which then exploded killing everyone aboard. Israel is absolutely wrong in a lot of its policies, needs a fair constitution that treats its citizens equally, and like every other country has made bloody terrible decisions from time to time. But the ahistorical propaganda successes that Palestinians have had with bleeding hearts that are supposedly educated absolutely pisses me off. “Israel oppresses us”, yes, because you let your house be used by snipers, yes, because you officially sanctioned bombers to come murder people, etc. It doesn’t justify flattening the Gaza Strip, but to think that Israel is just going to want to talk about it is patently absurd.
Here is a list of peace offers which would grant the Palestinians a country of their own, they refused all of them
1937 - Peel commission, rejected
1947 - Partition resolution, rejected
2000 - Camp David, rejected
2001 - Taba, rejected. Arafat starts the second intifada and a year later changes his mind.
2008 - Olmert offer, rejected
Here’s a video (in the article) where the chief palestinian negotiator explains what was offered in 2008. Hamas have tried to agree to boundaries Despite media attempts to portray it as a new Hamas charter, it is not. The new ‘policy document’ accepts the creation of a Palestinian state in 1967 borders, but still rejects Israel and claims its territory. www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39775103
Here are some other noteworthy peace meeting or proposals from Israel to the rest if the Arab world, which were rejected
1919: Arabs of Palestine refused nominate representatives to the Paris Peace Conference.
It is their land. They are about to prove that fact again over the coming months. Land belongs to the Earth. What society controls said land is up to the people’s will. Hamas ended its own life on Saturday.
Here is a list of peace offers which would grant the Palestinians a country of their own, they refused all of them
1937 - Peel commission, rejected
1947 - Partition resolution, rejected
2000 - Camp David, rejected
2001 - Taba, rejected. Arafat starts the second intifada and a year later changes his mind.
2008 - Olmert offer, rejected
Hamas have tried to agree to boundaries Despite media attempts to portray it as a new Hamas charter, it is not. The new ‘policy document’ accepts the creation of a Palestinian state in 1967 borders, but still rejects Israel and claims its territory. www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39775103
Here are some other noteworthy peace meeting or proposals from Israel to the rest if the Arab world, which were rejected
1919: Arabs of Palestine refused nominate representatives to the Paris Peace Conference.
Still alive???
Also how is it comonization? According to both religions both own the land. One party accepts the other while the other wants to kill all jews because of my god is bigger.
I will never accept antisemitism.
According to one religious book it is and according to another religious book it isnt.
This argument is boring. depending on how far back in time we go it is or isn’t.
Not the argument here. Good for you for being atheist but Jews and Muslims aren’t. For them it isn’t just a lie. And their beliefs are under protection of almost every developing country so we also have to take in account that their beliefs in this are valid.
I don’t see any use in them either, but religion is the cause for this 120 year war.
Being contrarian doesn’t solve this.
A substantial portion of the 20% of Israel’s population that are Arab Israeli citizens would beg to differ. They have legit gripes with how the State operates, but they want jack shit to do with Palestine.
Yeah, but because amongst all those people killed by the Israeli army in the very place they told them to shelter, there isn’t a nice looking western girl with glamour pictures on social networks, the murder of those people will never cause the same disgust in the West as the plight of the girl kidnapped by Hamas which has been turned into a constantly repeated Israeli propaganda piece (you can tell it’s now being pushed as propaganda because it’s been repeated well beyond its newsworthiness and always with the same glamour picture).
The gapping chasm in numbers between those murdered by Israel and those by Hamas is inverted in terms of the disgust they cause in the West exactly because Israeli has a vastly superior propaganda machine.
Thinking people would start wondering why, reliably, 100s of murdered palestinians are portrayed with less emphasys than 1 kidnapped israeli-german teenager.
It’s actually because the “refugee camp” is a city of 120,000 people that have been there for 76 years in permanent buildings.
It was struck because militants were firing from it. Yes, there will be civilian casualties while Hamas is hiding in civilian structures. That’s what Hamas does.
You’re falling for their playbook, their propaganda machine, so to speak. Everyone knew this was going to happen the moment Hamas struck.
Beyond just ‘not ok’, Israel’s response is playing out exactly how the terrorist’s playbook says the terrorized country should respond: terrorist launches a terrorist attack, terrorized country responds with forced, civilians hit in the crossfire blame the terrorized country and move towards the terrorists.
In the past few days, we have been hering Israeli officials refer to this as their 9/11. What they do not seem to appreciate with their comparison is that the emotion ladden responce the US engaged in after 9/11 proved to be one of the greatest military blunders in the countries history.
If they want to learn a lesson from 9/11, they should address the immediate military threat, fix the security and intelligence failures that allowed the attack to be so successful (such as diverting soldiers away from the Gaza border; and (allegedly) ignoring warnings that Hamas was planning an attack). Once the immediate concerns are addressed, they should back off and allow time for cooler heads to think through what a strategically effective response would look like and implement that.
Unfortunately, such a response is politically difficult in the best of circumstances. Given that the current ruling coalition is almost the definition of hotter heads, built itself up on the promise of “security”, and was already on shaky ground domestically, I don’t think they have many options other than a rash response.
Hopefully they constrain themselves to just responding in Gaza. If they decide to respond by going after Hamas’s supporters in, say Iran, we are looking at a major regional war.
because amongst all those people killed by the Israeli army in the very place they told them to shelter, there isn’t a nice looking western girl with glamour pictures on social networks, the murder of those people will never cause the same disgust in the West as the plight of the girl kidnapped by Hamas which has been turned into a constantly repeated Israeli propaganda piece
I can’t help but point out that it wouldn’t and couldn’t have been turned into a propaganda piece if they didn’t post a video of her lifeless body being driven around for people to spit on.
People don’t seem to believe she’s still alive. She certainly won’t be in a Gaza hospital, already under blockade, about to be deliberately starved and bombed out by the Israeli army.
Unconscious isn’t exactly that much better regardless.
I’d say the almost glee with which that girl’s horror has been exploited by the “propaganda machine” betrays an inhumanity almost to the level of those parading her around.
Her mother still seems to believe she’s alive and is calling for news about her (hence why I went with “kidnapped”, since frankly I don’t know if she’s dead or alive and in the circus that the poor girl’s fate has been turned into, it’s hard to know where truth ends and “conveninent assumptions” start).
I’m disgusted all around by the inhumanity of doing what was done to her and to those in that party and the inhumanity of using that as justification to, with the calous premeditation that was described here, murder innocent people deemed as “other” and hence lesser.
As I wrote elsewhere, I blame the US and to some extent Europe for not really properly fucking up both sides to such an extent that genuine peace was the only viable option: beyond the moral considerations on only going after the weaker side, not forcing the stronger to take the boot out of the necks of those on the weaker side has just created a situation were thousands of young people literally have nothing to lose from joining a terrorist organisation, so it was a massive act of stupidty.
I know you don’t think you are, but you’re really misguided and have been taken in by some messed up propaganda. You’re missing SO much but I get it’s popular to rag on Israel and the US right now, so it’s kind of easy to just go with the flow.
Two days ago, hundreds of innocent people were ambushed and murdered at a music festival by some Palestinians.
Bro we can skip back two days before that too and all it would show is an exchange basically daily but with a massive disparity of force up to this point.
A terrorist attack, just like telling people to shelter in a specific place and then bombing them is a terrorist attack.
I’m pointing out the vastly different treatment given to terror attacks depending on who did them.
On Principle I’m against treating some murders of civilians as less important or more excusable than other murders of civilians because of the “side” who did the deed, and weaponize for propaganda murders in the same manipulative way as used in marketing to sell shaving cream or fast food.
I’m quite curious about what actual Principle anchors your idea that “judging the killing of people for the purpose of terrifying the rest exactly the same no mater who does it” is “misguided”.
Yeah. They suck. Having your home and life destroyed sucks, it all sucks that’s why people aren’t rushing to do it.
People don’t actually really want to have a revolution as much as they would like things to get better. And if someone is hurt enough they might not care as much. It’s why we say people are still too comfortable to do it.
War is horrible and the granparents of today’s Palestinians were unjustly hunted and hurt. But if Hamas had not gone on slaughter spree on civilians and their fighters would not be hiding behind their their own kids and women to protect themselves from retaliation, maybe the fight would take place strictly between combatants or even better, on the social media and internet to show what’s wrong.
And no, it doesn’t matter whether kid is EU, Arabian or any other looking. When there was earthquake not long ago, everyone was sympathetic with middle east looking kids being pulled out of debris.
And Germans caused WW2 that had mutliple times higher dead count than all Palestinians together. Yet I don’t see countries like Polland going terrorist against German civilians. The way you think is best, (kill as many children as brutal as possible) will only lead to more casaulties but it won’t make life any better for Palestina’s civilians.
The “human shields” reasoning has been circulating for at least a decade. “Look, we had to kill the civilians, the militants were hiding behind them!” I don’t know on what planet that reasoning is supposed to be acceptable.
War or killing is never acceptable. Unfortunately in this case it seems less of the two evils due to Hammas making sure everyone can see what atrocities they are capable off instead of showing world what Palestinians hardship is like.
Why are so many people willing to believe “Hamas uses human shields” without even a shred of evidence? How is acceptable to keep funding and arming Israel when there is no accountability for how they use those weapons?
Can you prove they are not? Like where in the Gaza is their military base e.g. ? If they aren’t mixed in Civilian where the hell are they? Also acts like murdering kids don’t really add them any credibility. To me it looks rather that their fighting tactics is trying to exploit the fact that enemy is not so willing to shoot at civilians as they are to shoot combatants.
That’s not how this works dawg. You can’t commit war crimes and expect everyone to be cool with it if you’re not providing evidence to back your claims of “they took human shields, there’s nothing we could do”
If they’re not mixed in Civilian where the hell are they?
If they don’t know where Hamas is, if they don’t have evidence, then what is the plan? To level all of Palestine?
Remember when the US thought Iraq had WMDs? Woulda been nice if we like… had evidence first right? Coulda saved a lot of money and lives, no?
the enemy is not so willing to shoot civilians
Wtf are you talking about? You’re literally spreading the propaganda that has allowed Israel to kill 36x as many children as Palestinians have killed
They took the hostages and killed tons of people , it’s all over security cameras, there are witnesses, people from German and other countries recognized those hostages as their family member. Hammas posted video of dealing with those hostages. Hostages are women, kids and men. Are you saying that is not hiding behind the kids and women? I have tons of proofs to believe they do this.
You got only “Nana they are actually good people”
So that it actually how this not works… That’s why I gave you opportunity to present evidence that Hammas is not lowest scam in the region. You presented nothing.
To be clear, I also think Hamas took hostages. I just don’t think most people consider that “being a human shield” unless there is imminent danger to the hostage taker.
You got only “Nana they are actually good people”
You realize that you can’t prove a negative empirically?
I’ll prove Hamas isn’t using human shields when you prove the tooth fairy don’t exist.
in other words, you got nothing to prove your OP, so you play it into corner, so to speak. You started with claim that is against existing evidence and when challenged you can’t prove the evidence wrong.
BTW taking civilian hostages is very well definition of human shield. That’s the whole point of hostages. Your terrorists friends use them as meat shield, so their oponent is forced into dilema, either risk loosing their people or to give in. Bank robbers, airplane highjackers, etc… use this all the time.
You might be confusing it with taking enemy combatants into jail to prevent them fighting in war. But even those are not paraded trough streets, naked, half-dead/ dead, with dislocated limbs, on truck, while being spitted on.
There’s been an earthquake just a few days ago in Afghanistan, Pakistan etc, killing more than 2000 people, and by your comment I can see you don’t even know about it.
And I was arguing against Hamas immediately after it happened, but now I’m arguing against Israel because the original comment is right, they have now adjusted all their propaganda tools to use the events to justify ethnic cleansing with lots of civilian dead right now.
Gazan women and children are not responsible for “their fighters” or Hamas, just as Israeli women and children are not responsible for bombs falling on Gaza.
I’m disgusted with both, but proportionally to their strength.
You missed my point or are trying to twist it.
I have not said that world is informed about everything that happens everywhere all the time. I have said that people feel sad for any hurt kid regardless of colour of their skin and I gave an example which you totally ignored. I could very well blame you for bad things happening to the kids in Mexico or Latin America in general if you aren’t informed about that but that would be stupid wouldn’t it?
The feel sad on different levels. For some kinds of sad billions of military aid are warranted, and for other kinds of sad thoughts and prayers, and there are even situations of “sad, but they had it coming”.
You forgot to mention that in some places if you come with aid your lifeless body gets paraded half naked through the streets on pickup truck and spitted on or mutilated on spot.
You also forgot to mention that while EU people feel sorry for suffering of all kids. Some places you talk about celebrate death of every caucasian looking kid as new year event.
It might be one of the reason why some place don’t get e.g. international humanitarian help.
See, on the one hand you’re validly calling out sensationalism and propaganda, but on the other you’re kind of going further the other way. She wasn’t kidnapped, she was murdered and her corpse mutilated, paraded and spat on. And it isn’t her vs 100s of murdered Palestinians, she is but a figurehead representing hundreds dead in Israel.
In any case, tallying up which side did what and who was worse really isn’t productive here, it won’t lead to any useful kind of resolution. The issue isn’t what they do, because at this point they’ve pretty much done it all before. The issue is that people on both sides keep doing it.
Agreed. There’s only one solution. The UN needs to disarm both sides, depose their governments and make the whole area a UN protectorate. Remove any illegal settlements. Try anyone on both sides involved in war crimes or human rights violations.
Israel and Palestine can not behave like grown ups? Take away their toys and put them in time out.
Yeah, nobody has quite the strength even for these two sides. First, war is not a linear application of resources, it’s unpredictable. Second, that’d be a precedent every nation with conflicts would try to prevent, and such nations are usually the strongest. Third, we’ve all seen over the years how well UN missions, peacekeepers etc work.
Israel is a way more prosper place than Palestine and hence its people have way more to lose if the country is placed under sanctions, its companies cut off from trading with the West and its members of governament personally held accountable internationally.
(Basically they’re susceptible to the same kind of pressure that forced the authorities in South Africa to end Apartheid and have genuinelly democratic elections)
Those who have the most to lose are the easiest to convince, which is also why, on the other side, not even treating Hamas as a terrorist organisation (which is an even harder thing than “mere” sanctions) has stopped them from finding “soldiers” - as long as Israel makes sure those born in Palestine have nothing to lose, for many even joining an organisation internationally viewed as terrorist is still a step-up in life.
If you pardon my language (but I think the situation deserves it), it’s quite paradoxical that the International community has to fuck up Israel enough so that they stop fucking up the life of Palestinians so much, to the point that the lives of said Palestinians improves enough that they end up having enough to lose from siding with or joining Hamas (which is alread being fucked up).
Then again, maybe it’s not a paradox: look at how the only way to stop a similar bully, Russia, requires “fucking them up” in that way (being more integrated with the West, not having natural resources like that, and being a whole lot more democratic (even if imperfectly so) Israel would be a lot easier to sway away from acting as a bully.
As far as I can see, it’s either that or the genocide of Palestinians and I would hope that not even in this day and age and not even if it’s one of the “slow boiling” kind, most people in the West would be ok with a genocide.
This is the most historically ignorant comment I’ve seen this past week. There have been multiple wars in the past century where Arab nations were the aggressor and had the stated goal of genociding the Jews in Israel. Also, the last time the UN actually did something approaching that scale was the Korean War. Absolutely nothing since. They’re incapable of defending an entire nation.
Any plan that involves the disarmament of Israel is just a plan for genocide. Educate yourself, you’re unbelievably ignorant yet you have access to the internet.
The arrogance of thinking indefinite bombing and killing will get you what you want.
I’m not saying it will be easy, but if the world doesn’t enforce something endless cycle of killing will never stop. Neither side is interested in anything other than extermination now. Not acting will result in some form of genocide. You could say one is already underway.
Yes? Terrorists from neighboring countries already attack Israel, a vastly stronger military force than they are. We literally just saw Hamas terrorists gladly launch themselves into suicide attacks to hurt Israel. There are multiple nations near Israel (i.e. Iran) that don’t give a fuck about the UN.
It doesn’t have to be an organized military from a sovereign nation to attack and kill hundreds or thousands. If you want to actually stop the regional violence you would need to disarm the entire Middle East.
You’re acting like we’re just talking about “actions” that people are “doing.”
What you’re ignoring is the apartheid society created by Israel. They’re directly responsible for the conditions that foster this type of response.
This isn’t a “both sides are just as bad” thing. One of these groups has been horrifically oppressed and kept in the largest open-air prison on the planet for nearly 100 years. Any time Hamas has attacked Israeli soldiers (you know, because they’re literally kicking them out of their family homes they’ve lived in for generations. Which is genocide btw), Israel has responded by slaughtering hundreds to thousands of Palestinian (not Hamas) civilians. It’s completely disproportionate.
I’m not defending or justifying, just trying to explain.
It seems to fit to you because your initial operating assumption is that you should support the terrorists here and everything else you believe is distorted to meet those expectations.
For instance, Israel told the civilians to move to the city of 120k people that is called a refugee camp, but is in fact a full on 80 year old city, and fourteen people died in an airstrike on a Hamas position.
But you didn’t Google the city “camp” or look past the claims at all, because your initial assumption is “Israel bad, Hamas good.”
You are indeed defending terrorists who kill families of civilians with no overarching military goal in mind at all.
Terrorism is indeed when you kill civilians with no military aim in mind. Invading a country specifically to murder their families in their homes is absolutely terrorism.
Every member of Hamas is likely going to die like the terrorist scum they are, and the world will be a markedly better place for it
the phrasing makes me think you think this hurdtmy feelings. in truth it just shows your too small minded to understand why terrorist use a meaningless label
No I don’t even know who you are. I’ve never read your screen name. You could be the initial person I responded to or just some other idiot terrorist sympathizer.
No it’s pretty easy. When you force your way into a place specifically to murder civilians with no other goal other than to spread terror, you’re a terrorist.
You agreeing with terrorists makes you a bad person, it doesn’t make them “not terrorists.”
terrorist isn’t an objective label, no matter how much emotionally charged language you use. what you described is murder. calling it terrorism is a political position.
it’s a fallacious argument that doesn’t undermine my actual position at all, it just betrays a lack of ability or interest to engage with intellectual honesty.
Invading a country specifically to murder their families in their homes is absolutely terrorism.
by this definition every colonizer is a terrorist, which means that the israelis are terrorists. maybe we just shouldn’t use the term, and instead condemn bad actions and bad actors on the merits of the actions without the political label.
It seems to fit to you because your initial operating assumption is that you should support the terrorists here and everything else you believe is distorted to meet those expectations.
You know nothing about me, and fuck you for making an accusation like that. Shameful.
A child being collaterally hit in an air strike or as part of an ongoing military campaign is not at all equivalent to beheading babies because you want to exterminate Jews.
Both are bad, in the way that stepping on a rusty nail and being hit by a train are both bad, and they are similarly not equivalent.
I wasn’t really ignoring it, merely addressing the point that was raised.
I’ve said this elsewhere, but going through and trying to tally up who’s done what and which side is worse is pretty much a futile exercise. It won’t lead to any useful resolution. They’ve been going at it for so long, both sides have done horrific things that were disproportionate responses to the other side. They’ve pretty much done it all. The bigger issue is less what they do, more that they both keep doing it.
They’ve been going at it for so long, both sides have done horrific things that were disproportionate responses to the other side.
This just is not true. There is a massively imbalanced power dynamic there. They’ve been keeping the Palestinian population in an open-air prison for at least half a century. They’re literally incapable of responding disproportionately to what Israel is constantly doing to them. They don’t have the resources or freedom of movement.
Just look up the casualty statistics on both sides since at least since the end of WW2. It’s been some time since I’ve looked at them, but we’re talking at least one (possibly more) order of magnitude difference between the two.
They’re literally incapable of responding disproportionately to what Israel is constantly doing to them.
I would say raiding towns and villages and beheading babies is a disproportionate response to anything.
There is definitely a power imbalance, and Israel has probably killed more Palestinians overall than the other way around. However, Israel have also shown some measure of restraint up until now - they’ve never completely eradicated Palestine, as Palestinians frequently claim to want for Israelis and have previously attempted to do, even though Israel actually could. Israel has definitely not shown enough restraint, but they’ve shown more than they would likely face if the balance of power was the other way around.
There’s also the twisted mess of politics. Members of the government of Israel have at many times over the years promoted the support of terrorist groups in Palestine as a way of destabilising Palestine as a nation. So, even while the actions of Hamas on Saturday were horrific and unforgiveable, some Israelis have actively been encouraging this kind of thing.
Like I say, tallying up who’s done what doesn’t really get you anywhere. Both have done horrific and unforgiveable things. It’s like comparing shit covered apples to shit covered oranges, you can talk about the differences as much as you like - and you might even be correct in everything you say - but at the end of the day the biggest problem is that they’re both covered in shit.
The IDF are no saints. They’ve done some awful awful things. Including targeting clearly marked medics and press, and murdering children for throwing rocks at them.
Yep, it is relatively easy to find video of IDF humiliating and torturing young people at checkpoints or around their home in the most cowardly manner on earth, seriously it was hard to see.
As her mother is calling for news about her I’ll go with her belief of “not dead” until proven otherwise given how the poor girl has been turned into a - as you so well put - “figurehead” for propaganda. I confess I’m one of those weird people who prefers to believe that others are merelly “kidnapped” rather than dead.
I’m glad you’re beginning to start to get my point about the use of figureheads to make the smaller number of people murderer on one side seem more disgusting to a western audience than the much larger number of deaths on the other side. That’s exactly how propaganda works: turn individual humans into symbols and parade their horrible fate as justification to kill lots of those “other” humans most of whom are blamed by association.
I’m disgusted that a few days ago some terrorists attacked a music festival and killed hundreds and you’re defending the terrorists. It sounds like you’ve been taken in by some propaganda yourself.
If condemning terrorists attacking innocent people at a music festival means I’m a product of propaganda, then so be it.
Let’s not forget that the act of using civilians as shields is a warcrime in the first place to prevent this kind of situation from occurring.
If Israel tells Palestinian civilians to evacuate because there’s Hamas military targets in that building, and Hamas troops tell them no. Then they die, and Hamas can cry wolf.
It would be Israel who is following international decorem and Hamas making it difficult for any country to support them.
Just now, Austria cut off aid to the Gaza region. Is that Israel’s fault? Nope.
Hamas had good PR going and they fucked it up by escalating with brutality.
I’m not justifying anything that Israel has done in the past. The main point of my comment is that Hamas made a really poor decision here on behalf of the Palestinians. There is absolutely no doubt.
There is no moralizing or whataboutism.
The fact of the matter is that this caused a divided Israel to unite in anger. And support for Palestine has been cut by all European nations and Australia. Palestinian sympathizers and charity leaders have been among the victims.
The question you should be asking is if you support the Palestinian people is…
What the actual hell is this bonehead decision-making by Hamas? There is no scenario of success in this endeavor unless the Western world decided to withdraw all support from Israel and give it to Hamas.
Was that going to happen? No. Hamas never tried to establish good diplomatic relations with anyone.
The world stage is a democratic club, and Hamas rejected it all. Hamas burned every single bridge with other countries no matter how many citizens of those governments complain.
Okay I’ll answer you. It’s wrong for Israel to cut power to civilians. It’s right for Israel to cut power to military targets.
If military targets embed their infrastructure with civilian infrastructure. Oopsies. Civilians are now military targets.
Palestinians MAYBE shouldn’t have Hamas in power if they’re going to power their military operations with civilian power. ¯\(ツ)/¯
Every world power knows that, that’s why most have pretty much gotten behind Israel, regardless of any apartheid Israel has done.
The US did the same thing when 9/11 happened. The US did the same thing in Operation Desert Storm along with other NATO countries who joined the US in operations in the middle east.
Nobody in the west complained then, and nobody’s complaining now, because Hamas did the dumb dumb.
If military targets embed their infrastructure with civilian infrastructure. Oopsies. Civilians are now military targets.
NO! What the fuck NO! Even if that was true it’s disgusting but Israel routinely lies about the presence of Hamas and then never even bothers to doctor proof.
Every world power knows that, that’s why most have pretty much gotten behind Israel, regardless of any apartheid Israel has done.
Lol nah, its because the US and UK use Israel as a FOB. That’s it. It’s strategically advantageous so they will get behind any lie Israel makes up that helps them keep it as a base.
Nobody in the west complained then, and nobody’s complaining now, because Hamas did the dumb dumb.
Yes they did. Bro lie through your teeth more. And you act like what the US did after 9/11 was a good thing? It fucking wasn’t. WE ALL KNOW THAT NOW. We accept that Bush did war crimes. No one argues about that. We don’t do anything about it but we all look back and are like “wow that was really fucked up”
Literally the first thing the US does in any engagement is cut the power.
It’s not a war crime lol
With certain limitations, parts of a country’s electrical grid can be considered legitimate targets if they are used to power military facilities. This is true even if the targets have a civilian as well as a military purpose, so long as destroying the object would “offer a definite military advantage”
As if the US gives a single fuck about war crimes. If we did, at least 5 people from George W. Bush’s administration would be rotting in prison right now.
Israeli authorities’ cutting off electricity to Gaza and other punitive measures against Gaza’s civilian population would amount to unlawful collective punishment, which is a war crime, said the Human Rights Watch on 9 October.
The original conversation was “the collective punishment Israel is engaging in isn’t a war crime”, you’ve moved the goalposts and I’m not interested in continuing this game.
That terrorist attack has already happened, and there’s another terrorist attack underway, this time with cassette munitions and white phosphorus and in general very different capabilities, done by another side.
Attacking kids at a music festival? Or attacking a terrorist organization? Your false equivalency is despicable.
Just admit it. You hate Jewish people. Stop pretending there is some moral equivalent for Hamas attacking and indiscriminately killing innocent people, and Israel trying to stamp out an entrenched terror cell that is using their people as meat shields to somehow manipulate people like you into thinking they’re the good guys. 🙄
Why do you keep posting nonsense? Anything about me anybody can judge for themselves from my comments. You look like a moron. Things don’t become your way just cause you say so.
You’re absolutelly right in condemning terrorist attacks like that one.
All terrorist attacks should be condemned, including ordering people to shelter in a specific place and bombing them as describe here.
If your condemnation is indeed Principled, then all such acts of murder for the purposed of terrifying the rest are equally repugnant and you’ll condemn them equally no matter the “side” of those who did such disgusting acts.
As Principle seems to be notably absent in how so many commenters have tackled the subject matter (with only some murders being important, not others, depending on which “side” did it), I pointed it out.
See, on the one hand you’re validly calling out sensationalism and propaganda, but on the other you’re kind of going further the other way. She wasn’t kidnapped, she was murdered and her corpse mutilated, paraded and spat on. And it isn’t her vs 100s of murdered Palestinians, she is but a figurehead representing hundreds dead in Israel.
You know, google for “Anush Apetyan” and consider that Israel is Azerbaijan’s main military supplier after Russia, and almost an ally, and nothing from what Azerbaijani troops are doing (just the same Hamas stuff) seems to have any effect.
Also Israel is a genocide-denier state. Israelis on the Web like to behave all cynical and realpolitik-enjoying and “what are you going to do” on subjects similar to what Hamas has done in Sderot etc.
I’d say there is an element of crocodile tears in this.
Action should be taken to prevent anybody doing anything like this again, to Israelis or anybody else, but that doesn’t mean Israel somehow got moral. Promoting that would be exploiting events for propaganda.
Action should be taken to prevent anybody doing anything like this again, to Israelis or anybody else, but that doesn’t mean Israel somehow got moral. Promoting that would be exploiting events for propaganda.
Absolutely agreed. Israel is justified in some measure of response, to prevent future attacks and rescue hostages. They are not justified in the bombing of Gaza that they’ve been doing instead.
The point I was making though is that using Shani Louk as some kind of figurehead is in no way disingenuous. It’s somewhat unfair that Palestine doesn’t have similar figureheads of their own to garner support (and indeed this is a direct result of Israel blocking media access), but that doesn’t mean that what happened to Shani isn’t a valid symbol of everything that was wrong with the attack on Saturday.
No, the reason it’s not productive to dig through all the atrocities is that, provided you keep at least something of an open mind, you’ll quickly get sick of both sides and not even want to bother finding any solution.
Both sides have indiscriminately murdered civillians and children. They might have done it in different ways, one side might have managed to kill more than the other, but they’ve both done barbaric things.
I don’t support either “side” in this.
“Why can’t we all come together and forget the 6+ decades of horrific oppression and wildly disproportionate warfare, and all just get along?”
This kind of strawman statement confirms that you aren’t arguing in good faith, you’ve only come here to spew bullshit.
The Israeli-German girl is apparently still alive and in criticial condition in the Indonesian hospital in Gaza. She wasn’t murdered (though of course she could still succumb to whatever was done to her).
Since many of you seem to think of themselves as having viable solutions for the Israel/Palestine conflict- go ahead: Tell us how Israel should act after this Terrorist Attack.
Please refrain from bad faith arguments and stuff like „Israel should dissolve itself“ (because you and I know, that’s not going to happen)
Except every time the UN attempts to even condemn Israel’s illegal settlements and war crimes, the US vetoes it. Because we have that power for some reason.
Worse than deliberately cutting off an entire population’s water supply? As to which army, as always a multinational taskforce. Yes the UN is not perfect but just letting them commit atrocities over and over isn’t exactly working out.
They’ve been offered land before and refused it. When other Muslim countries have brought Palestinians in they have tried coup attempts and general terrorist behavior. If it gets too hot for them in Palestine they can learn to swim.
“Hey, we took a bunch of your land and we have repeatedly violated our previous agreements not to take more, but hey, take this shitty land in return for a bunch of concessions from your side. We promise that this time we won’t violate our agreement. Promise!”
Another paraphrase: You’re one of two brothers. Shortly after your father’s death, your brother gains access to your elderly father’s bank account and plunders it. You take them to court to seek justice, but the judge is a friend of your sister-in-law. Despite the evidence being overwhelmingly in your favor, the judge rules against you. You appeal to a higher court and the case is pending. Your brother approaches you and offers you 10% of the money but you must sign away your rights to inherit any more of the money and the rest of the estate.
It’s just wild: if you change the context of the narrative, almost any reasonable person would say one party is absolutely the aggressor, but a bunch of propagandists like you have pushed an alternative narrative that the no-critical-thinking crowd eats right up.
It’s almost as if there are good reasons why they haven’t made peace yet. Dare I suggest that those reasons are beyond the fixing skills of internet forum users.
Since Netanyahu and Hamas are the principal belligerents, I say send in a few SEALs to arrest them, and make them do “Hell in a Cell” in the middle of the desert, till they all die of exposure.
I’m aware this won’t happen, but that seems to be the immediate solution here, since as you so rightly pointed out, the leadership on both sides just wants the conflict to continue ad infinitum
Not our history books. Arabs will hate anyone non Arab and when they are out of those people they will just kill each other for slight differences in opinion. You can accept the situation and make a good life for yourself but you can’t do that so you will be pushed beside and forgotten. No one is bringing back the great Arab empire of the 13th century. Blaming the evil West and Jews won’t get it back. The reason there are humans living in Gaza at all is evidence that Israel has a higher moral standard and they know that they wouldn’t be given mercy like they do to the Arabs that are killing them.
I see a whole lot of the Palestinian supporters cheering on the slaughter of Israeli citizens and I really haven’t seen the same thing on the other side. We can talk about whataboutism all day but this current situation is one created by Hamas and the people that fund them. If the Palistinians don’t like the heat it causes in their area they can get rid of Hamas.
I’ll take the side of the people bombing apartment buildings that probably have Hamas offices and have a proven record of containing tunnels underneath over the people going home to home exciting anyone they find. I don’t think the difference is a subtle one.
You’re not talking about whataboutisim you’re doing a whataboutisim. Israel is an apartheid state. If Israel want’s to stop the violence they can get their settlers out of the west bank. They can give back Gaza. Until they get the fuck out of Palestinian land I can’t blame the Palestinians for fighting to get them out.
With that logic there is no solution and Israel is justified in depopulating Gaza entirely. These recent attacks on Israel only benefit Hamas leaders and those that fund them.
With that logic there is no solution and Israel is justified in depopulating Gaza entirely.
OK so just to be clear I said “Israel needs to stop taking what isn’t theirs” and you said “nah they should just kill everyone”. And people still don’t know which side is wrong here?
If Israel want’s to stop the violence they can get their settlers out of the west bank.
Somewhat naive to think that will stop the violence. Israel was withdrawing through the 90s as part of the Oslo Process, which ended with the Second Initifada. There are substantial populations on both sides that want the other side gone from that land completely, and they will take any opportunity to further entrench themselves and stoke conflict.
The US & Israelis were still hoping Arafat would come back to the table until the Intifada broke out. Peace takes time and some weren’t willing to give it the time it needed.
The US & Israelis were still hoping Arafat would come back to the table until the Intifada broke out.
Israel was pretty clear about what they wanted, and that was not a real, self-sufficient Palestinian state. If you need proof of that, take a look at the modern West Bank. Israel actively funded Hamas in the early 90s to weaken the Palestinian peace movement, and would later take many such actions to divide Palestinians and prevent peace from happening.
The last time the Israeli government seriously considered a two-state solution was in 1947.
Israel was pretty clear about what they wanted, and that was not a real, self-sufficient Palestinian state.
And the PLO was established with the aim of eliminating the state of Israel. Times change. I think Arafat and Rabin were serious at the time, but there was simply too much of a gap to bridge. Since then it’s only gotten worse. Yes, Israel funded Hamas, but at the time they were more concerned about the violence of the PLO. I don’t believe the intent was to create a more dangerous enemy as a pretext for war as some are suggesting now, however it was stupid and short-sighted, and blowback is a much more widely recognized phenomenon today than it was then.
Better? No. People much more experienced in negotiation and more knowledgeable of the history than you or I have tried for decades. The Arab League rejected the first offer, which remains to this day the best offer, in a UN vote. They never wanted Israel to exist and they still don’t, and yet it does. Compromise is not a solution here; the British knew that in 1948 when they refused to enforce the partition plan. I hope to be proven wrong some day, but from my perspective, the only solution is for one side to win.
You could as easily say israel would stop bombing palestine if hamas stopped doing terrorist attacks but then were just going back 100 years of back and forth tbh.
Point is that if israel did what you said today, the violence towards them would not stop. And just picking one side and unilaterally ignoring everything bad the other side has done is literally just feeding into this shit
Yes, the current government tacitly tolerates illegal settlements. It’s terrible. Prior governments saw them for what they were, an obstacle to peace, and understood they had to be stopped. There’s a difference between Likud and the far-right batshits that have been able to barely cling to power, and the entire country of Israel.
One non-solution would be totalitarian secular governments like Egypt in both Palestine and Israel, and to immediately jail jihaadists and ultra-orthodox who make the slightest suggestion of violence. But instead there’s a flawed democracy in Israel where Likud relies on the violence against Israel to gain support and a jihaadist totalitarian government in Gaza.
You think you said something smart but that music festival took place on stolen land.
Doesn’t make it ok to kill civilians. But yes. That’s what they were doing. They were violently removing the guests of the colonist state invading them.
And speaking of killing civilians didn’t the government of Israel just tell a bunch of civilians where to seek shelter and then immediately bomb that shelter? How very honorable of them
I dk what you think you’re saying but you’re just admitting that Israel kills civilians on purpose. You’re dropping the veil of “human shields” and admitting that Israel is putting the civilians where they know Hamas is so they can use it as an excuse to kill both.
It’s actually because the “refugee camp” is a city of 120,000 people that have been there for 76 years in permanent buildings.
It was struck because militants were firing from it. Yes, there will be civilian casualties while Hamas is hiding in civilian structures. That’s what Hamas does.
I just checked my history and I haven’t used the word camp on Lemmy before right this very second. I’m pretty sure you have me confused with someone else.
Well congratu-fucking-lations, you got the attention of big brother USA now by killing and kidnapping Americans. Hope y’all are prepared for the Gerald R Ford and her CSG, 'cause ready or not, here we come.
It’s funny how everyone forgets that 20% of Israel’s population is Arab, the vast majority of which are Israeli citizens, and did not have their land stolen. Most of those that fled were listening to the propaganda of the Arab states that the Jews would commit genocide and were hopeful that the forces of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Egypt would commit massive genocide against the Jews, some were fleeing from retribution of their own violent pogroms. Does Israel have shitty politics? Yes. Does Israel need a constitution? Yes. Is it revealing that folks don’t know a damn thing about the actual history of the place when they say Israel is an apartheid state, as Palestinian leadership has, time and again, ruined hope for lasting peace. Fuck Israelis setting up illegal settlements. The fact that Netanyahu actively ignores this/encourages it is atrocious. But to pretend there is anything approaching political unity in Israel is a lie and a farce.
I’m talking specifically here on this site. There are attempts to paint anybody critical of Israeli leadership as Hamas-supporting terrorist lovers. If you want to broaden the scope to take in the entire world, sure. What do you think of this?
“RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Israeli police said on Thursday that they were investigating a video that appeared to show young Jewish extremists celebrating the death of a Palestinian toddler in an arson attack last summer.”
Huh so some kids did something is your counter? And then the authorities looked in to it because their culture isn’t ok with that. What point are you trying to make here?
Maybe I wasn’t clear enough so I’ll spell it out for you - if you want to look for examples on both sides in the wider world, look and you’ll find them. Once more, I’m talking specifically about comments on this site.
All I see are people referring to the fact that there are so many comments where people are “praising the attacks,” and “cheering on the slaughter,” yet I haven’t actually seen any. Only comments complaining about them.
I’ve seen people making nuanced points about the realities of the situation there prior to this attack. For maybe 60 years or so. But not a single comment celebrating the attack.
It’s almost as if there’s a coordinated attempt online to frame this situation a certain way, and they are straight up lying about “all of these people cheering the attack on.” Hmmm, wonder why anyone would do that?
Yeah Hamas and Israel are both insane, don’t see a solution that doesn’t involve giving Palestine land back and people electing moderate governments, but none of the foreign interests want that and neither do influential domestic factions. The most predictable blowback ever.
Here’s a fun whataboutist comparison: Two countries are currently in the efforts of stealing the territory of their neighbors, one though apartheid regime and slow claims to land, the other through a “military exercise.” Many in the west cheer on the deaths of Russian civilians because they are allegedly complicit in the war, they’re called “orks.” In Israel’s case their civilians are viewed as innocent victims, what is the difference? I think there are some valid differences but it does highlight some hypocrisy. I don’t think any civilian deaths are justified in these conflicts, whether committed by either side.
Many in the west cheer on the deaths of Russian civilians because they are allegedly complicit in the war, they’re called “orks.”
There’s a detail here that is wrong. “Orcs” is the name that has been given to the occupying Russian soldiers in Ukraine, for obvious reasons. Not civilians.
I don’t really know anything about the situation beyond the 10 minute explainer I watched on youtube.
It’s practically a holy war that’s raged for millennia though - I don’t think there are “solutions”, I think the goal is just to dial back the ferocity of the feud a few notches.
That 10 minute explainer did you a disservice I think. That holy war concept is a really vague way of describing why there has been conflict in the region for that breadth of time. But it doesnt really address the Israel-Palestinian conflict so much as it provides a smokescreen for the last 100 years of political maneuvers by the various Allied powers of WW1 and WW2 with the British and French first, then America since.
Since many of you seem to think of themselves as having viable solutions for the Israel/Palestine conflict- go ahead: Tell us how Israel should act after this Terrorist Attack.
You just hinted at the start of a possible solution. Israelis need to stop voting for warmongering criminals like Netanyahu who have zero desire to see peace. The people in Gaza? They don’t get to vote.
I’m actually quite positive right now in that regard, like I haven’t been since the fucker killed Rabin: The right-wing vision of security for Israel just blew up in the nation’s face, big time. The IDF was busy backing up settlers harassing Palestinians in the West Bank and thus not on the Gazan border, the whole “antagonise until they give up” approach binds resources needed to actually provide security. Also, Palestinians don’t show any signs of giving up.
If the left goes in with a “security, checkpoints, de-settlement and de-escalation” policy (of course in addition to lowering pudding prices) they might just take the Knesset wholesale.
Because one thing is rather curious about Israel: While the people pretty much bought the ring-wing security vision, that didn’t mean an overall shift to the right. And the seeds for the “we bred that monster” type insights are definitely already there in the Israeli press, even if formulated cautiously. Ultimately the whole current military situation has to be over with before actual politics happen.
From the article’s sub headline: ”Palestinians in Beit Hanoun were instructed by Israeli army to leave their homes and head for city centre. Hours later, the city centre was targeted”
Boiling it down to the system that has been in place for the last 30-40 years? Yes they do.
They take the money. They take the weapons. They are told to use the weapons. They use the weapons on Palestine.
Here, maybe I won't get completely eviscerated for this one. Israel is Vader. The US is Palpatine.
Israel was never forced to turn evil, but the US has the carrot and Israel keeps reaching for it.
As a result, they have spent decades torturing and murdering innocent people. Small wonder a resistance formed.
Now flash back to Iraq. America made Osama Bin Laden a national hero. America's existence is the result of guerrilla warfare. I was taught by American education that America did it first. I know we didn't.
Anyway, America went into Iraq, helped install Saddam, rewarded Osama for being effective in installing Saddam, then Al Queda started doing things we didn't like and we got stuck in war with Iraq for decades.
The parallels between America's involvement with Iraq and America's involvement with Israel are astounding to me.
Huh? Osama bin Laden was 11 when Saddam Hussein became vice president of Iraq. He was in university when the president resigned and Hussein became president and then was fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan during the early years of his rule. Al-Qaeda had no presence in Iraq before the US invasion - and didn’t even exist until a decade after Hussein became president.
No no I know Israel is horrible that's not news. I'm specifically talking about giving airstrike warnings with an order to evacuate somewhere and striking the evacuation location. That's new to my knowledge.
Maybe the Israelis should since they forced the two state plan by civilian bombing campaigns and outright murder of political and religious leaders who had lived there for generations.
I think generally it’s more akin to your average legal proceedings. The plebs who commit war crimes will face the full extent of the law, but when wealthy entities or nations do it they will often get away with it.
When it comes to charging the losers, even with the Nazis and the Nuremburg trials there was a significant amount of opposition from people within the Allied nations against prosecuting them. Actually, in an article about Ben Ferencz (the guy who worked hardest to make the Nuremburg trials happen) I read about a Nazi tried in the UK, Winston Churchill personally donated towards this Nazi’s defense and then had his execution commuted down to life, then later only ~20 years. By the end of the war Churchill was vehemently against the Soviets and chomping at the bit to invade them, I think this gave him sympathy towards Nazis who had been fighting Soviets. I’ve since been unable to find the guy’s name, though.
I didn’t know that about Churchill. Thanks for the TIL. But yes, you are correct there’s a class divide when meting out justice. Though I do not fully understand that thing about not prosecuting leaders of the losing party in a war. is this maybe because the victors somehow feels some form of connection to the other side’s leaders simply because they consider themselves as “sparring partners” during the course of the war? And of course, they were not in the field themselves fighting for their lives and somehow they just view all of these as a sort of boardgame or like a D&D campaign with maps and miniature figures of tanks and army battalions. Obviously, these are just guesses of mine and I confess that I do not have a great knowledge of politics during wartime.
I’ll just repeat the disclaimer again, I haven’t been able to confirm that Winston supported a Nazi’s defense since I first read it. I started on a long Ben Ferencz article, then found a wiki page for the Nazi with sources that seemed legit on a cursory glance. However, I can’t remember the Nazi’s name, nor find his article (which Wiki may have removed as articles about individual people are often removed per their rules) nor even the Ferencz article now.
However Churchill’s post-war anti-Soviet rhetoric is widely known, and he has been quoted as saying the Soviets were worse than the Nazis.
As for the exact motives, we can only really guess. There’s possibly the respect for an opponent, but prosecuting the losers could also turn them into martyrs and stoke further conflict. In particular, WW2 started in part because of the position Germany was in after WW1.
Add comment