|
NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. |
On February 21 2024 02:37 Ryzel wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 00:34 Magic Powers wrote:
The first step before justifying morality is justifying utility. I'd say if - purely hypothetically - Hamas had killed 60 000 Israelis (i.e. 50x) rather than 1200, then from a utility perspective Israel's war in Gaza can be considered justifiable. That would mostly depend on how likely it is that the mission of eliminating the threat will be accomplished. Assuming that - also purely hypothetically - victory was certain, then the utility of this war would be fairly clear. I would have a hard time opposing Israel's war effort in that scenario.
While none of that would automatically or directly lead to a moral justification (the second step for a complete justification), at least it could become a reasonable matter of debate. From my point of view it would fall into a morally gray area.
That being said, in reality Hamas poses a much lesser threat than that. Realistically they'll never kill more people than they have, especially not now that they've been clearly identified as the greatest threat to Israel. They'll also never realistically be able to threaten the State of Israel. So moving away from the hypothetical back to reality, Israel's war in Gaza is not justified on any level. Your first paragraph more or less echoes my earlier thoughts, but the second one seems confusing. 1. Hamas commits Oct 7th causes 2. Hamas labeled as Israel's greatest threat causes 3. Hamas both won't be able to kill more people than they have (not even 1 person?) nor threaten the state of Israel causes 4. Israel attacking Hamas is completely and utterly unjustifiable How will 2 cause 3 without some sort of force behind the acknowledgement that they are a threat? And how will that force be provided without some sort of military action? It's almost like you're saying Israel could flip a switch and turn off Hamas at any time, and just chose not to because they weren't a big enough threat in the past, but now that Oct 7th happened they are seen as a threat and should just be switched off instead of invading Gaza? Israel does not have absolute power over Hamas to do that, the whole reason they're invading Gaza is to switch them off and that's the only way they can.
Maybe I didn't phrase it well. Let me try in other words.
First things first: I didn't mean to say there's a causal relationship between all the four points you highlighted. October 7 led to Hamas being labeled Israel's greatest threat, indeed. However, my claim - that of Hamas not being able to repeat this in the future - is not causally related to point 2; it's an observation due to the overwhelming power demonstrated by the IDF and due to Israel's expected preparedness in the future. That's where I draw my reasoning from for point 3.
Regarding my choice of words: Hamas has killed a lot of people. In terms of the numbers, I was thinking of separate incidences, October 7 being one of them. Previously there were many other incidences that led to comparably few deaths. So on this instance they killed 1200 people. This is a massive escalation on their part, but it's also a number that I'm arguing they can't repeat (see point 3), because Israel will be too well prepared against future attacks. Israel won't let anything of that sort happen again in the foreseeable future.
I did not mean to say that Hamas can't kill anyone at all in the future. In fact I'd argue quite the opposite: they'll likely continue to be a serious threat to the Israeli people.
Additionally, Hamas has not been able to threaten the State of Israel despite the high Israeli death count. This leads to the conclusion that Hamas cannot be considered an existential threat to the country.
For these reasons Israel's continued war effort is condemnable. It stands in no relation to the crime that was committed, and there is no numerical reason to continue the war. The only justification for the continuation is supremacy. Israeli lives are worth at least ten and up to a hundred times more than Palestinian lives.
|
|
|
That's a pretty big jump in numbers... I would expect some type of paper trail to follow at the very least.
|
On February 20 2024 11:52 ChristianS wrote:
If you’re not trying to draw any particular conclusions about, say, legitimacy of land claims on the basis of insisting there weren’t actually “Palestinians” in 1948 I don’t really care that much if you’re just picking a naming convention and following it. I originally objected on grounds that this sort of rationale is often used by, e.g., Russia to denigrate the legitimacy of, e.g., Ukrainian sovereignty (“There’s not even really such a thing as a Ukrainian, they all just thought of themselves as Russians until like 2014.”).
But I’m not trying to put words in your mouth, and if you’re explicitly denying a position like that we’re fine. I mean, I bet we have some disagreements about the ethics of what happened in 1948 (and what’s happening now) but I don’t think they really hinge on the question we’re arguing about now.
Yes, I am simply using the "naming convention" of not retroactively adjusting what people are called. No, I don’t believe calling them Palestinians or not should remove or grant any actual land claims. It's not like I'm claiming those individuals didn't live there or something.
If you'd like, you can pivot to a discussion about land claims, but I believe my actual points on that topic are already pretty well documented in this thread.
As for this subject, it seems like we are just going in circles at this point, so I'm also happy to move on.
|
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
|
On February 21 2024 02:26 Ryzel wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2024 14:10 Cerebrate1 wrote:On February 20 2024 00:01 Ryzel wrote:On February 19 2024 21:48 Nebuchad wrote:On February 19 2024 21:26 Uldridge wrote:
@Nebuchad
It's one thing to claim "freeing hostages" and "fighting terrorism" in a vacuum are easy moral standpoints, but when Hamas actively tries to cause IDF to make as much collateral damage as possible, you need to make some extra considerations, no? First, this picture is kind of wrong, it makes it look like the IDF is actively trying to avoid collateral damage but unfortunately Hamas forces them to do this, that's not remotely how the IDF has been operating, either in the past or today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrinehttps://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/Second, even in your framing it's pretty clear in my opinion that the answer should still be that there are no extra considerations, as there are no ways in which Hamas could have behaved that make the current situation a morally acceptable outcome. While I disagree with this statement (they could have killed x50 more people than they did, for example), I get the point you’re making. The issue is the severity of Israel’s response. As much as I hate to bring out analogies, let’s say you’ve got a partner and a family of 3 children, and someone murders that child. In addition, you have good reason to believe not only are they willing and able to do it again, they’re being sheltered by neighbors, some willing and some unwilling, shielding their exact location and ability to harm them. What would we do as individuals in this particular situation? - We wouldn’t go on an arson spree burning down all our neighbor’s houses at 3 in the morning, shouting a warning at 2:30 and all other consequences be damned. While that can be certainly cathartic for the pain felt from losing a child, and may help you feel your family’s safer, I hope we can all agree base vengeance or non-immediate concern of danger is not justification for killing innocents and wanton destruction. In addition, we would rightfully be arrested for arson with a jury of our peers likely saying “I’m sorry for your loss, but that’s way out of line”. - We wouldn’t go to our neighbors and say “hey I’m sorry for wrongs I’ve committed to you all in the past, let’s try and get along and maybe you won’t keep the murderer in your midst anymore” and integrate your family with them and invite them into your house. One, it’s opening yourself to get more of your family murdered, two your family would be horrified and never feel safe in their own home, and three some of your neighbors couldn’t get rid of the murderer from their house even if they wanted to. It invites huge risk with a minuscule likelihood of success. - What most of us would do, is immediately call the police and report the situation and give them at least some time to do what needs to be done (or at least let them take the lead while you provide support). They (for the most part) have the will of the populace to use violence, more resources, tools and experience at their disposal to accomplish the specific task needed, and they’re way less likely to let emotions cloud their judgement and de-prioritize civilian lives. Finally, no one would hold us accountable for any incidental harm done to the innocent neighbors. Only if the police are shown to be ineffective or unwilling to do their job, would we more strongly consider vigilantism. Obviously the police in this case would be “The West”, predominantly the US. Or whoever it is who’s supposed to enforce stuff like the ICJ. IMO, based off everything I’ve learned so far about this conflict since Oct 7th, I don’t think Israel gave enough time/opportunity to the international community to step in and act as a third-party dispute resolver, before embracing essentially vigilantism. In addition, the evidence from polling of the general populace of Israel along with statements from the higher-ups indicate base thoughts of either vengeance or fight-flight response are much more prevalent than thoughts of restraint or concern for civilians. These all coincide more with the 1st option I listed above. Israel certainly isn’t the first country to respond this way (9/11 as an obvious example) and it’s understandable why they would, but that doesn’t make it any less wrong. Unfortunately your analogy really falls apart when you assume option 3 (that there is some sort of international police force who takes care of all the bad guys) is a realistic option. Don't get me wrong, I agree it would be the best option if it existed. Israelis would agree with you too. They certainly wouldn't shutter their economy and send their sons to die in battle if there were some third party military who would save the hostages and remove Hamas from power for them. But we have 70+ years of history showing that no one will ride in to prevent Israeli deaths but the Israel Defense Force. -In 1948, the world mostly just sat on and watched as it looked like 5+ Arab armies were about to kill every Jew in Mandatory Palestine. -In 1967 though, when the Arabs made their second genocidal attempt, there was a UN Peacekeeping force right on the border between Egypt and Israel with the explicit purpose of keeping the peace between the two countries! On May 17, 1967 “[t]he Egyptian chief of staff, Gen. Mohamed Fawzy, called today for the immediate withdrawal of United Nations peace-keeping force” from Gaza ( NYTimes). On May 18, 1967, U.N. Secretary General U Thant announced he “decided to withdraw the United Nations Emergency Force from the armistice line between Israel and the United Arab Republic [Egypt]” ( NYTimes). One day after being asked to abandon their mission by a belligerent, they just up and complied... -In 2006, the UNSC unanimously voted to have a taskforce (UNIFIL) use force to ensure that Hezbollah was disarmed and never moved south to start up with Israel. You can see how well they have used that 17 years as Hezbollah is better armed than ever, firing from just over the southern border at Israel, and even feeling comfortable enough to fire rockets from just outside of UNIFIL's own bases. -I could probably add a lot of terrorist attacks and wars to this list, but it's late. Even in the current conflict, no one is offering to save the hostages. The US had trouble even getting many nations to join their task force against the Houthis, even as Houthi attacks on ships directly effect the economies of most countries in Eurasia. It's looking increasingly likely that no one but Israel will even be willing to keep the peace in Gaza after the war, ostensibly an easier task than fighting the war. So your analogy would have to mention that the one cop in town was lazy and a coward. He would occasionally make a show of protecting you, but then would leave whenever criminals asked nice enough and sometimes murders even happened right in front of his police station. That guy ain't arresting any dangerous murderers. Although, he might issue you a parking ticket while you're talking to him. The similarities between this paragraph and a description of police in general in the US didn't so much jump out at me as much as it did strap on brass knuckles and punch me in the face. Really gave me a GreenHorizons moment of realizing how full of shit the idea of a global order actually benefiting all nations is. Much like the idea that the police are in it to enforce entrenched status quo while putting up just enough of a veneer of helping people to justify themselves to the public, the idea of UN and its global peacekeeping forces are doing the same thing for The West™. Anyway, yeah then in my opinion the real fuckup is from other countries with the power and supposed prerogative to roll up their sleeves and get involved not doing so. Because it seems like there's a lot of evidence for Israel to be justified in defending themselves, and if no one else is going to assist them in doing so then Israel doesn't have a lot of reason to listen to them. That also applies for the Palestinians and their terrible acts against Israel. It's basically like bystanders watching two people stabbing each other, one guy getting stabbed way more than the other, and saying "man why can't they just stop stabbing each other?" instead of all the bystanders getting together and actually pulling them off each other.
First, I don't think you can clump all parts of the UN into almost any statement. Certain parts of the UN provide invaluable services to the world (like the existence of the UN headquarters in New York allowing any poor country to send one ambassador to speak to any and all other countries easily, instead of having to pay for embassies in 190 some countries around the world, is fantastic.) While other parts of the UN are comically stupid (like the Human Rights Council, which always has human rights abusers on the council [currently it has Qatar, China, Somalia, Eritrea, and Cameroon, for instance]).
Re: UN Peacekeeping Force: Conceptually, I actually think this is a good idea. The problem there is that they are too institutionally risk averse. In 1967, if they had just held their ground, Egypt would have had to kill soldiers from Brazil, Canada, Denmark, India, Norway, Sweden and Yugoslavia, effectively declaring war on all those countries, before it could invade Israel. That would obviously be a really bad move on Egypts part, so they might have just stopped instead and prevented the whole 1967 war from even happening. They have to be willing to shoot their guns and occasionally take some casualties if they want to be effective at actually keeping the peace in any of the war torn areas they are deployed to.
Re: the UN maintains the status quo: I actually disagree. The UNGA is effectively an anti-establishment organization. Tiny powerless backwaters like Uruguay have equal power to large economic powerhouses like Japan at the UNGA. The majority of voting members at the UN are developing nations, unlike, say, the G7, which is an establishment organization where all the big dogs sit together and make decisions that affect everyone else without their input. The UN was just also designed to give the big dogs veto power to prevent the UN from being effective at pushing around the establishment. Considering that the majority of members of the UN are also not liberal democracies, that's generally a good thing.
|
On February 21 2024 08:30 Acrofales wrote:Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
It's less extraordinary when you consider that some 99% of UNRWA employees are Palestinian, being part of Hamas gives you a lot of schlep in Gaza to take the position of your choice, and being the guy who distributes the resources is a pretty desirable position.
|
On February 21 2024 11:18 Cerebrate1 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 08:30 Acrofales wrote:Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It's less extraordinary when you consider that some 99% of UNRWA employees are Palestinian, being part of Hamas gives you a lot of schlep in Gaza to take the position of your choice, and being the guy who distributes the resources is a pretty desirable position.
Extraordinary nonetheless. For comparison, as an impartial observer I never believe a rape accusation, but I do believe a conviction in court. And even convictions are frequently false, as has been proven plenty of times. I don't see why Israel, having a serious stake in the conflict, should be believed without evidence and without an impartial trial. For now it's nothing more than an allegation.
|
On February 21 2024 19:50 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 11:18 Cerebrate1 wrote:On February 21 2024 08:30 Acrofales wrote:Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It's less extraordinary when you consider that some 99% of UNRWA employees are Palestinian, being part of Hamas gives you a lot of schlep in Gaza to take the position of your choice, and being the guy who distributes the resources is a pretty desirable position. Extraordinary nonetheless. For comparison, as an impartial observer I never believe a rape accusation, but I do believe a conviction in court. And even convictions are frequently false, as has been proven plenty of times. I don't see why Israel, having a serious stake in the conflict, should be believed without evidence and without an impartial trial. For now it's nothing more than an allegation.
Given that:
A) UNRWA said they don't do background checks, there's 0 filtering in place to exclude Hamas members from being hired
B) Most value going into Gaza is humanitarian aid
C) A lot of that aid passes through UNRWA
D) Those in power gravitate towards acquiring stuff
It would be far, far, far more extraordinary if UNRWA magically didn't have a lot of Hamas members on their staff. That would defy everything we know about how humans tick. I have no idea if the numbers in that tweet are remotely close, but Israel's words are a non-factor in this logic. There was never any doubt that this is the only possible outcome without screening people.
The rape accusation thing is a non-sequitur, this isn't about judging individuals, it's about incentives.
|
On February 21 2024 20:29 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 19:50 Magic Powers wrote:On February 21 2024 11:18 Cerebrate1 wrote:On February 21 2024 08:30 Acrofales wrote:Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It's less extraordinary when you consider that some 99% of UNRWA employees are Palestinian, being part of Hamas gives you a lot of schlep in Gaza to take the position of your choice, and being the guy who distributes the resources is a pretty desirable position. Extraordinary nonetheless. For comparison, as an impartial observer I never believe a rape accusation, but I do believe a conviction in court. And even convictions are frequently false, as has been proven plenty of times. I don't see why Israel, having a serious stake in the conflict, should be believed without evidence and without an impartial trial. For now it's nothing more than an allegation. Given that: A) UNRWA said they don't do background checks, there's 0 filtering in place to exclude Hamas members from being hired B) Most value going into Gaza is humanitarian aid C) A lot of that aid passes through UNRWA D) Those in power gravitate towards acquiring stuff It would be far, far, far more extraordinary if UNRWA magically didn't have a lot of Hamas members on their staff. That would defy everything we know about how humans tick. I have no idea if the numbers in that tweet are remotely close, but Israel's words are a non-factor in this logic. There was never any doubt that this is the only possible outcome without screening people. The rape accusation thing is a non-sequitur, this isn't about judging individuals, it's about incentives.
I'm not doubting that Hamas members have infiltrated the UNRWA. I'm doubting the numbers.
|
On February 21 2024 19:50 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 11:18 Cerebrate1 wrote:On February 21 2024 08:30 Acrofales wrote:Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It's less extraordinary when you consider that some 99% of UNRWA employees are Palestinian, being part of Hamas gives you a lot of schlep in Gaza to take the position of your choice, and being the guy who distributes the resources is a pretty desirable position. Extraordinary nonetheless. For comparison, as an impartial observer I never believe a rape accusation, but I do believe a conviction in court. And even convictions are frequently false, as has been proven plenty of times. I don't see why Israel, having a serious stake in the conflict, should be believed without evidence and without an impartial trial. For now it's nothing more than an allegation.
I don't want to discuss this because it's off topic but as an impartial observer you would believe rape accusations, because an incredibly large majority of them are true. If later there's a reason to no longer believe a particular one then you can update your belief about that particular one, it's okay.
|
On February 21 2024 21:07 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 19:50 Magic Powers wrote:On February 21 2024 11:18 Cerebrate1 wrote:On February 21 2024 08:30 Acrofales wrote:Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It's less extraordinary when you consider that some 99% of UNRWA employees are Palestinian, being part of Hamas gives you a lot of schlep in Gaza to take the position of your choice, and being the guy who distributes the resources is a pretty desirable position. Extraordinary nonetheless. For comparison, as an impartial observer I never believe a rape accusation, but I do believe a conviction in court. And even convictions are frequently false, as has been proven plenty of times. I don't see why Israel, having a serious stake in the conflict, should be believed without evidence and without an impartial trial. For now it's nothing more than an allegation. I don't want to discuss this because it's off topic but as an impartial observer you would believe rape accusations, because an incredibly large majority of them are true. If later there's a reason to no longer believe a particular one then you can update your belief about that particular one, it's okay.
That's not how I operate. I don't believe an accusation even if it's probably true (e.g. 90% likelihood). I remain impartial either way until the evidence is conclusive. This concept is the foundation of justice, and anything to the contrary would lead to injustice.
|
|
|
On February 21 2024 22:20 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 21:07 Nebuchad wrote:On February 21 2024 19:50 Magic Powers wrote:On February 21 2024 11:18 Cerebrate1 wrote:On February 21 2024 08:30 Acrofales wrote:Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It's less extraordinary when you consider that some 99% of UNRWA employees are Palestinian, being part of Hamas gives you a lot of schlep in Gaza to take the position of your choice, and being the guy who distributes the resources is a pretty desirable position. Extraordinary nonetheless. For comparison, as an impartial observer I never believe a rape accusation, but I do believe a conviction in court. And even convictions are frequently false, as has been proven plenty of times. I don't see why Israel, having a serious stake in the conflict, should be believed without evidence and without an impartial trial. For now it's nothing more than an allegation. I don't want to discuss this because it's off topic but as an impartial observer you would believe rape accusations, because an incredibly large majority of them are true. If later there's a reason to no longer believe a particular one then you can update your belief about that particular one, it's okay. That's not how I operate. I don't believe an accusation even if it's probably true (e.g. 90% likelihood). I remain impartial either way until the evidence is conclusive. This concept is the foundation of justice, and anything to the contrary would lead to injustice.
I would heavily challenge that what you describe is impartial. As I see it, treating a 90-10 situation exactly the same as you treat a 50-50 situation creates a strong bias.
|
On February 21 2024 22:43 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 22:20 Magic Powers wrote:On February 21 2024 21:07 Nebuchad wrote:On February 21 2024 19:50 Magic Powers wrote:On February 21 2024 11:18 Cerebrate1 wrote:On February 21 2024 08:30 Acrofales wrote:Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It's less extraordinary when you consider that some 99% of UNRWA employees are Palestinian, being part of Hamas gives you a lot of schlep in Gaza to take the position of your choice, and being the guy who distributes the resources is a pretty desirable position. Extraordinary nonetheless. For comparison, as an impartial observer I never believe a rape accusation, but I do believe a conviction in court. And even convictions are frequently false, as has been proven plenty of times. I don't see why Israel, having a serious stake in the conflict, should be believed without evidence and without an impartial trial. For now it's nothing more than an allegation. I don't want to discuss this because it's off topic but as an impartial observer you would believe rape accusations, because an incredibly large majority of them are true. If later there's a reason to no longer believe a particular one then you can update your belief about that particular one, it's okay. That's not how I operate. I don't believe an accusation even if it's probably true (e.g. 90% likelihood). I remain impartial either way until the evidence is conclusive. This concept is the foundation of justice, and anything to the contrary would lead to injustice. I would heavily challenge that what you describe is impartial. As I see it, treating a 90-10 situation exactly the same as you treat a 50-50 situation creates a strong bias.
In terms of determining guilt in court, 90-10 is exactly the same as 50-50. If you think otherwise, I recommend speaking to law professors to understand why courts should never make a difference.
|
On February 21 2024 22:55 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 22:43 Nebuchad wrote:On February 21 2024 22:20 Magic Powers wrote:On February 21 2024 21:07 Nebuchad wrote:On February 21 2024 19:50 Magic Powers wrote:On February 21 2024 11:18 Cerebrate1 wrote:On February 21 2024 08:30 Acrofales wrote:Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It's less extraordinary when you consider that some 99% of UNRWA employees are Palestinian, being part of Hamas gives you a lot of schlep in Gaza to take the position of your choice, and being the guy who distributes the resources is a pretty desirable position. Extraordinary nonetheless. For comparison, as an impartial observer I never believe a rape accusation, but I do believe a conviction in court. And even convictions are frequently false, as has been proven plenty of times. I don't see why Israel, having a serious stake in the conflict, should be believed without evidence and without an impartial trial. For now it's nothing more than an allegation. I don't want to discuss this because it's off topic but as an impartial observer you would believe rape accusations, because an incredibly large majority of them are true. If later there's a reason to no longer believe a particular one then you can update your belief about that particular one, it's okay. That's not how I operate. I don't believe an accusation even if it's probably true (e.g. 90% likelihood). I remain impartial either way until the evidence is conclusive. This concept is the foundation of justice, and anything to the contrary would lead to injustice. I would heavily challenge that what you describe is impartial. As I see it, treating a 90-10 situation exactly the same as you treat a 50-50 situation creates a strong bias. In terms of determining guilt in court, 90-10 is exactly the same as 50-50. If you think otherwise, I recommend speaking to law professors to understand why courts should never make a difference.
You're not in court, friend.
(Sorry about that tangent, last post about this)
|
On February 21 2024 19:50 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 11:18 Cerebrate1 wrote:On February 21 2024 08:30 Acrofales wrote:Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It's less extraordinary when you consider that some 99% of UNRWA employees are Palestinian, being part of Hamas gives you a lot of schlep in Gaza to take the position of your choice, and being the guy who distributes the resources is a pretty desirable position. Extraordinary nonetheless. For comparison, as an impartial observer I never believe a rape accusation, but I do believe a conviction in court. And even convictions are frequently false, as has been proven plenty of times. I don't see why Israel, having a serious stake in the conflict, should be believed without evidence and without an impartial trial. For now it's nothing more than an allegation.
I totally agree with you that proper evidence is necessary before any proper judgment or punishment. I think it's actually a major issue in the world today that people jump to be judge, jury, and executioner over people's lives based on an out of context tiktok video or the like.
I was just pointing out (like Dan HH), that in terms of likelihood, I would rate such claim as "reasonably likely" rather than "extraordinarily unlikely."
Edit: although if Acrofales' point is just that the ramifications would be extraordinary, then I also agree with that.
|
On February 22 2024 03:08 Cerebrate1 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 21 2024 19:50 Magic Powers wrote:On February 21 2024 11:18 Cerebrate1 wrote:On February 21 2024 08:30 Acrofales wrote:Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It's less extraordinary when you consider that some 99% of UNRWA employees are Palestinian, being part of Hamas gives you a lot of schlep in Gaza to take the position of your choice, and being the guy who distributes the resources is a pretty desirable position. Extraordinary nonetheless. For comparison, as an impartial observer I never believe a rape accusation, but I do believe a conviction in court. And even convictions are frequently false, as has been proven plenty of times. I don't see why Israel, having a serious stake in the conflict, should be believed without evidence and without an impartial trial. For now it's nothing more than an allegation. I totally agree with you that proper evidence is necessary before any proper judgment or punishment. I think it's actually a major issue in the world today that people jump to be judge, jury, and executioner over people's lives based on an out of context tiktok video or the like. I was just pointing out (like Dan HH), that in terms of likelihood, I would rate such claim as "reasonably likely" rather than "extraordinarily unlikely." Edit: although if Acrofales' point is just that the ramifications would be extraordinary, then I also agree with that.
No, I think it's all but certain that there are Hamas members in UNRWA. It's 12k Gazans and the ruling party of Gaza has been Hamas for the last 20ish years. It'd be extraordinary if there were no Hamas members in UNRWA. But 2k/12k is a huge amount. Everybody in UNRWA would be aware of that, and the foreign employees swear high and low they knew nothing. If those numbers are true there is just no way people aren't aware of it from top to bottom, and although Hamas is not an illegal organisation according to the UN (which i think is absurd), they'd obviously know that "we swear we didn't have sex with that woman" is not going to cut it. So let's give the foreign employees the benefit of the doubt and assume they really didn't know, then 1/6 or more of the organisation being members of Hamas would be extraordinary.
And yes, i know Hamas members don't go around announcing it to the world, and what exactly makes one a member of such an organisation is rather fuzzy in and of itself, so maybe if I were counting Hamas members, I'd get to 20, because I'd only count those who were actively contributing to militant acts, whereas Netanyahu gets to 2000 by counting anyone who at any point liked a Hamas tweet.
|
On February 22 2024 03:28 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On February 22 2024 03:08 Cerebrate1 wrote:On February 21 2024 19:50 Magic Powers wrote:On February 21 2024 11:18 Cerebrate1 wrote:On February 21 2024 08:30 Acrofales wrote:Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It's less extraordinary when you consider that some 99% of UNRWA employees are Palestinian, being part of Hamas gives you a lot of schlep in Gaza to take the position of your choice, and being the guy who distributes the resources is a pretty desirable position. Extraordinary nonetheless. For comparison, as an impartial observer I never believe a rape accusation, but I do believe a conviction in court. And even convictions are frequently false, as has been proven plenty of times. I don't see why Israel, having a serious stake in the conflict, should be believed without evidence and without an impartial trial. For now it's nothing more than an allegation. I totally agree with you that proper evidence is necessary before any proper judgment or punishment. I think it's actually a major issue in the world today that people jump to be judge, jury, and executioner over people's lives based on an out of context tiktok video or the like. I was just pointing out (like Dan HH), that in terms of likelihood, I would rate such claim as "reasonably likely" rather than "extraordinarily unlikely." Edit: although if Acrofales' point is just that the ramifications would be extraordinary, then I also agree with that. No, I think it's all but certain that there are Hamas members in UNRWA. It's 12k Gazans and the ruling party of Gaza has been Hamas for the last 20ish years. It'd be extraordinary if there were no Hamas members in UNRWA. But 2k/12k is a huge amount. Everybody in UNRWA would be aware of that, and the foreign employees swear high and low they knew nothing. If those numbers are true there is just no way people aren't aware of it from top to bottom, and although Hamas is not an illegal organisation according to the UN (which i think is absurd), they'd obviously know that "we swear we didn't have sex with that woman" is not going to cut it. So let's give the foreign employees the benefit of the doubt and assume they really didn't know, then 1/6 or more of the organisation being members of Hamas would be extraordinary. And yes, i know Hamas members don't go around announcing it to the world, and what exactly makes one a member of such an organisation is rather fuzzy in and of itself, so maybe if I were counting Hamas members, I'd get to 20, because I'd only count those who were actively contributing to militant acts, whereas Netanyahu gets to 2000 by counting anyone who at any point liked a Hamas tweet.
Do they? I've not seen any response from UNRWA yet. But even if they deny it I don't see why they deserve the benefit of the doubt. UNRWA employees have a large incentive to keep silent on Hamas infiltration because it's their job on the line and fear of reprisals from Hamas. The same employees were apparently unaware of a Hamas data center under their HQ that used UNRWA infrastructure.
|
The claim that there are 2000 Hamas members in UNRWA isn't extraordinary, if you consider that nearly half of all charities in Gaza are ran by Hamas, and a huge amount of public services including things like libraries, childcare facilities, sports clubs etc are ran by 'Hamas members', most of them with little or no connection to terrorist activities / recruitment / whatever. It's one of the reasons why Hamas maintains popularity and prominence, since they aren't just hiring folks to blow themselves up in attacks on Israel but also contributing massively to the local communities; and the connection between social & militant wings of Hamas is tenuous at best.
Of course, most people assume every 'member' of Hamas is a violent terrorist and thus the 2000 Hamas in UNRWA is a scary thought, realistically though, we're almost certainly looking at someone helping out at a soup kitchen on weekends being labeled a 'Hamas member' here.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
