EPTThings Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine - Page 37
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Elroi
Sweden5588 Posts
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28600 Posts
On October 13 2023 02:57 Elroi wrote: Well, it is horrible, but I think the answer would be the same if any other country was attacked in this way for the reasons Mohdoo laid out. If some country attacked the US, killed one thousand people and paraded dying victims through their capital. I think the response would basically be the same: give back the hostages or we nuke you, don't you? I actually think so far it seems like the American invasion of Afghanistan was significantly more humane (and idealistic in its approach) than Israel's retaliation here. | ||
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28600 Posts
On October 13 2023 02:52 ZeroByte13 wrote: Btw who was providing food before recent events? I don't think Gazans produced a lot of it themselves? If it was Israel - why would they continue providing food in this situtation, knowing they're feeding - among others - the murderers and rapists of 1200+ their citizens, and those who cover them? Or do they block other countries, who are ready to provide food to Gaza? From my quick googling, since 2009 it's basically been organizations like the UN Relief and Works Agency, world food programme, world health organization, red cross, as well as countries like Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Italy, and also some examples of Israeli peace initiatives making donations. But the vast bulk is not coming from Israel, only through Israel. | ||
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ChristianS
United States3187 Posts
Conclusion Deterrence can always break down. Hizballah’s leadership may feel compelled to show solidarity with Hamas or to take advantage of Israel’s current situation in order to try and inflict losses on Israel. This could result in another full-blown war or a few days of heavy fire exchanges on the border and beyond. Iran, which created and supports Hizballah, may also use the group to pressure Israel should tensions between the two countries escalate. What to do now to affect Hizballah’s decision-making and make sure that it won’t cross the line? The first thing is to keep projecting the strength of the U.S.-Israeli relationship and emphasizing the support that Israel has from other European powers. Hizballah is powerful, and it relies on its missile force to cause significant damage in Israel. If it believes that this achievement will be minimized as a result of American military involvement, it might choose not to use it. The same message of American and international support should also be repeatedly conveyed to the leadership in Tehran, to induce it to stop pressure on Hizballah to open a second front in the north. Second, Israel needs to restore its deterrence quickly, which is not an easy task. The image of Israeli military strength was damaged this past week. To restore it, Israel needs to show excellent results from its war in Gaza and fast, especially when it comes to taking out Hamas leadership. Unfortunately, it also needs to show that it is willing to cause unprecedented damage to Gaza’s infrastructure. Hizballah’s leadership needs to look at Gaza and be made to think twice before being responsible for that level of destruction in Lebanon. The war in Gaza will be destructive and hard for both sides. And yet, it will result in a fraction of the damage that a war between Israel and Hizballah would cause. It is in all parties’ interests to make sure that a second front does not open between Israel and Hizballah. This should be on the top of everyone’s agenda. This is maybe more useful to debate against than Mohdoo’s war-crime apologism, because absent a justification like that, the current policy of “We’re just gonna kill a bunch of people (maybe ~50,000?) and go home” seems unlikely to even make Israelis safer. Collective punishment isn’t just a war crime, it’s also ineffective at even achieving it’s stated goal of deterring future violence. Mohdoo sounds at least a little tempted to push that further (“genocide every single Palestinian, if it at least means we’ll have a final solution to the conflict”) but I’m not sure anybody (with the possible exception of Mohdoo) actually needs someone to explain why that would be bad. | ||
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Elroi
Sweden5588 Posts
On October 13 2023 03:01 Liquid`Drone wrote: I actually think so far it seems like the American invasion of Afghanistan was significantly more humane (and idealistic in its approach) than Israel's retaliation here. I think there are some significant differences though? Al-Qaida is not the same thing as the Afghan government and they didn't have around 150 American hostages. By the way, Israel apparently exchanged 1000 Hamas militants for one Israeli soldier in an exchange of prisoners at one point. It's the same logic but displayed in a much less horrifying way. | ||
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ZeroByte13
753 Posts
On October 13 2023 03:06 ChristianS wrote: You mean specifically collective punishment by killing people, not any collective punishment in general, right?Collective punishment isn’t just a war crime, it’s also ineffective at even achieving it’s stated goal of deterring future violence. | ||
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28600 Posts
On October 13 2023 03:12 Elroi wrote: I think there are some significant differences though? Al-Qaida is not the same thing as the Afghan government and they didn't have around 150 American hostages. Nothing is ever a perfect parallel, but the number of dead was also 3 times higher, and my impression is that Al Queda had very close ties to the Taliban. The hostage situation is definitely different, fair enough, but there are different ways of responding to that than taking 2 million people hostage yourself. I also have a very hard time picturing this resulting in their release, the degree of desperation required to pull off this type of suicidal attack is imo very inconsistent with budging under pressure. Tbh, I understand the need for a ground invasion. I'm sure there's plenty of international precedence for bombing rather indiscriminately before that ground invasion, too. But the blocking of essential supplies and electricity absolutely can't be justified. Imo, it also most likely hurts the civilians before it hurts Hamas, as they are likely to be the best supplied group in Gaza. | ||
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Jockmcplop
United Kingdom9487 Posts
On October 13 2023 02:57 Elroi wrote: Well, it is horrible, but I think the answer would be the same if any other country was attacked in this way for the reasons Mohdoo laid out. If some country attacked the US, killed one thousand people and paraded dying victims through their capital. I think the response would basically be the same: give back the hostages or we nuke you, don't you? I also think the potential for nuking people is horrifying, so yeah it is very much like that. | ||
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ChristianS
United States3187 Posts
On October 13 2023 03:17 ZeroByte13 wrote: You mean specifically collective punishment by killing people, not any collective punishment in general, right? I mean the thing Nazis did in most of their occupied territories where they publicly announced “You better not oppose us, because for every Nazi soldier you kill we’ll just execute 10 (or w/e number) townsfolk.” They thought it would discourage violent resistance and motivate the rest of the population to police their neighbors. Generally speaking, it didn’t. Same goes for the WW2-era theory that “If we just bomb civilian centers, the civilians will pressure their governments into surrendering.” The British pat themselves on the back a lot for their resolve during The Blitz, and fair enough, steadfastly opposing Nazis is a good thing to be proud of. But they weren’t exceptional in that regard – everywhere else people tried bombing civilian centers it was pretty ineffective at ending the war. Not sure if there’s some other collective punishment you’re referring to. | ||
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ZeroByte13
753 Posts
On October 13 2023 03:27 ChristianS wrote: Well, for example there is “if we sanction Russia in a way that average folks suffer from it, hopefully the civilians will pressure their government into stopping the war” sentiment that many share right now.Not sure if there’s some other collective punishment you’re referring to. I heard this many, many times over last 1.5 years, and most people here also seem to agree with this position. Probably the difference is in "bombing civilians" vs "make their lifes miserable", that's why I asked if you're against any type of collective punishment or killing only. | ||
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28600 Posts
On October 13 2023 03:34 ZeroByte13 wrote: Well, there is “if we sanction Russia in a way that average folks suffer from it, hopefully the civilians will pressure their government into stopping the war” sentiment that many share right now. I heard this many, many times over last 1.5 years, and most people here also seem to agree with this position. Probably the difference is in "bombing civilians" vs "make their lifes miserable", that's why I asked if you're against any type of collective punishment or killing only. The very big difference here is how impacted the average Russian is from the sanctions compared to how impacted the average Gazan is from the combination of bombs+blocking all supplies. These really can't be compared. I'm guessing there are probably Russians who have died because they didn't have access to western medicine, but I'm also guessing it's a fairly low number overall. The russian posters we have here mostly argue that they're hardly impacted at all. Meanwhile I have the impression that wealthy russians, who used to greatly enjoy traveling abroad, Europe included, do find it annoying. In principle, you're not wrong, and there are people who generally oppose sanctions because they tend to hurt the civilians rather than the top leadership and they rarely if ever cause regime change that is supposedly the justification behind them, although I guess 'reduced life quality for the top' might also be a factor, and one that is achieved. | ||
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ChristianS
United States3187 Posts
On October 13 2023 03:34 ZeroByte13 wrote: Well, for example there is “if we sanction Russia in a way that average folks suffer from it, hopefully the civilians will pressure their government into stopping the war” sentiment that many share right now. I heard this many, many times over last 1.5 years, and most people here also seem to agree with this position. Probably the difference is in "bombing civilians" vs "make their lifes miserable", that's why I asked if you're against any type of collective punishment or killing only. I’m no expert, but I’d guess the evidence on economic sanctions causing regime change is that it’s pretty ineffective. That said, if you’re just, like, imposing a tariff I don’t care that much. If you’re, say, besieging an entire territory and cutting off food supplies to starve its people out, yeah, that’s a war crime for similar reasons. | ||
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Magic Powers
Austria3734 Posts
You can't force people into submission if they have nothing to lose, everything to gain, and they look at you like you're a literal demon. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland24430 Posts
On October 13 2023 03:47 ChristianS wrote: I’m no expert, but I’d guess the evidence on economic sanctions causing regime change is that it’s pretty ineffective. That said, if you’re just, like, imposing a tariff I don’t care that much. If you’re, say, besieging an entire territory and cutting off food supplies to starve its people out, yeah, that’s a war crime for similar reasons. I’d wager a guess that that is partly due to economic sanctions often being wielded against quite popular regimes, or extremely entrenched ones. All it does is very visibly add a clear outside enemy to the picture and solidly resolve. They could conceivably work quite well in circumstances where the particular regime or behaviour isn’t especially well-liked within a territory, but they rarely seem to be wheeled out in such scenarios | ||
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ZeroByte13
753 Posts
On October 13 2023 03:45 Liquid`Drone wrote: But here's the nuance.The russian posters we have here mostly argue that they're hardly impacted at all. Meanwhile I have the impression that wealthy russians, who used to greatly enjoy traveling abroad, Europe included, do find it annoying. A typical factory worker who's not very educated and is pro-Putin / pro-war - they are not affected that much, they didn't travel abroad anyway and didn't consume that much of western technology/culture. But it's their opinions that you'd want to change. More educated people - who have much bigger share of those who don't support the war - are affected significantly more. There's much a higher chance their work/business had connections with the outside world, and of course they travelled more (not just to Turkey resorts). So sanctions affect anti-war people significantly more than they affect most pro-war people. But I digress, sorry. | ||
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CuddlyCuteKitten
Sweden2579 Posts
Gaza doesn't really have an economy so that obviously won't work. Cutting of supplies is horrible. But right now it feels everything will only get worse. There's no indication Israel has any real long term plan for this. And with their current government I'm afraid they will default to movie villian shit. | ||
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ZeroByte13
753 Posts
On October 13 2023 04:24 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: Maybe they think hungry and weak Hamas fighters will be easier to fight? Or not.Gaza doesn't really have an economy so that obviously won't work. | ||
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CuddlyCuteKitten
Sweden2579 Posts
On October 13 2023 04:30 ZeroByte13 wrote: Maybe they think hungry and weak Hamas fighters will be easier to fight? Sure. But the people using kids as human shields are going to be the last people who still have food. Your going to have starve 2 million people severly for it to have any effect on the actual terrorists. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22991 Posts
Like there might be dozens of hostages buried under rubble in Gaza that just can't be returned now. | ||
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Dan HH
Romania9089 Posts
On October 13 2023 03:51 Magic Powers wrote: Most importantly, religiously fanatic groups like Hamas are the least likely to submit to retaliatory action. Why should they care? They literally have God on their side, so why does it matter if they all die? It's for God. Their scriptures and their thought leaders tell them that they all go to heaven, and the more death and destruction they cause the greater the reward will be. The alternative of submission to stay alive a little longer is worthless in comparison. You can't force people into submission if they have nothing to lose, everything to gain, and they look at you like you're a literal demon. No one is ever doing fist pumps when dragging their child from under the rubble because they went to heaven. Hamas have plenty to lose. High fertility rates = large family units. Just because you'd rather break your legs jumping from a window rather than wait for a fire to take you doesn't mean you don't value your ability to walk. I'm not saying this to excuse them, I just don't believe they don't care. | ||
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