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On October 13 2023 05:10 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +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.
Sure they care about their children, but their religion demands that they care about God above all else. It's a sin to love family more than God, and sinners go to hell. They may feel pain in life, but nothing is worse than eternity in hell. The afterlife is forever. So they choose God over family. They can always reunite in heaven.
You can only defeat the will of Hamas if you break their belief.
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Not every Hamas fighter is a zealot though, some might do it for different reasons. If all of them would just wait for a chance to explode, that movement would have been dead pretty fast.
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On October 13 2023 06:50 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2023 05:10 Dan HH wrote: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. Sure they care about their children, but their religion demands that they care about God above all else. It's a sin to love family more than God, and sinners go to hell. They may feel pain in life, but nothing is worse than eternity in hell. The afterlife is forever. So they choose God over family. They can always reunite in heaven. You can only defeat the will of Hamas if you break their belief.
Your idea of religion is rather black and white, and doesn't actually hold up in the face of how people actually practice religion. Lots of things are sins, but people pick and choose as they see fit which ones they actually care about. Rape, for instance, is a sin, but clearly "devout" Hamas jihadi selectively ignore that inconvenient part of the Koran. And loving their family is no doubt a strong motivator. In fact, Al Quaida generally promised lavish payouts to jihadist "martyrs" on suicide missions. Probably because knowing your wife and children will have a much better life is a stronger motivator to many people than "all will be well in the afterlife!"
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Are the majority of Hamas rapists? I doubt it.
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On October 13 2023 02:24 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2023 01:58 Nebuchad wrote:
The framing of "we have to let Israel defend itself" contains the idea that Palestinians aren't people. Meaning any time the number of enemies killed exceeds the number of allies saved, the choice is unethical? You're saying it is fundamentally dehumanizing for anyone to decide to kill more for the sake of saving less? 10 terrorists holding someone hostage, killing those 10 terrorists to save the hostage is unethical? The correct decision is to let the hostage die to save the lives of the terrorists?
Notice how none of your questions have any connexion with defending yourself. When deciding if something is self-defense you don't look at how many innocents were killed and whether a quota was met or not, that's not what defending yourself means. In non-fucked up countries you can also kill someone who was actually in the process of attacking you and that death might still not be self-defense, but my understanding is that the US needs a little more time to think about this one.
In the future there will be more attacks by Hamas, and Israeli children are going to die. We're feeling bad about this, because it is wrong for innocent civilians to suffer and die. They're humanized. Then, in an attempt to stop this from happening, we are supposed to be absolutely okay with Palestinian children dying (as long as it doesn't go above some number, apparently). Those deaths are not in a hypothetical future we're trying to avoid, those deaths are right now. But those deaths are acceptable. The only way for this to make sense is if some lives have more value than others, and this is why you require Palestinians to not be people in this framing.
This is sadly a common view, and it's the view of everyone with political power in Europe and in the US at the moment. This is why every other statement from a politician in the last few days reads "The killing of civilians is never acceptable and that's why we must stand with Israel as it drops appartment blocks on children." The ones from the UK are particularly interesting because unlike US journalists, UK journalists sometimes ask questions to UK politicians, such as "What's up with the civilians in Gaza", and we get answers like the one from that ghoul Cleverly who basically gave the green light for genocide and then said he felt bad for the victims.
Also had a french example that I find worth mentioning, France had a row of debate around the 40 decapitated babies that ended up probably not being 40 decapitated babies. So you can find a bunch of tweets like, "Are we really having a debate around which method is used to assassinate babies?", and that's viewed as disgusting behavior, it doesn't matter how the babies are killed. One of the people who spent a lot of time talking about the inhumanity of killing babies is Raphael Enthoven, a clown thinker for clowns. Enthoven also believes that there is a massive difference between collateral damage and Hamas' terrorism. So he and his ilk hold both that it doesn't matter how you kill babies (you monster how dare you), and that collateral damage, which given the demographics of Gaza is guaranteed to kill babies, is okay. It is important to understand that those two views are not contradicting each other, because you have to be a human to be a baby, and Palestinians are not.
So in this framing Palestinians aren't people, but I wouldn't be doing my job correctly if I didn't also mention that the framing is wrong. Israel is not just trying to defend itself. Israel is trying to eliminate Palestine and take that land for itself.
If you analyze the violence of the Israel Palestine conflict systemically, there is the constant violence of the status quo, with Israel doing settlements, killing the occasional Palestinian, closing their water sources, annexing their land, and the blockade of Gaza on top of that. That violence doesn't even make the news most of the time, cause to the rest of the world it's just the natural state of Israel/Palestine. Then sometimes Palestine decides to do something in response to that unjust order of things. In 2019 it was something peaceful, today it was something violent. Either way it was met with repression. So we have violence 1 by Israel, in response of which violence 2 by Palestinians happen, and then retaliatory violence 3, more violent than violence 1, by Israel again.
Violence 2 will always serve as a justification for the war crimes of violence 3, and violence 1 will always serve as a justification for the war crimes of violence 2. But the playing field is slanted because the goal of Israel is violence 1 (as opposed to no violence) and violence 3 helps achieving that goal (by accelerating the rate of the elimination of Palestinians). This is why you can find Netanyahu talking to Likud about how Hamas is good for them because it ensures Palestine can never credibly form a state (or something to that effect, I can't be bothered to look up the exact quote), for example. You can say that to Likud but of course you're not allowed to say that internationally, so instead you talk only of violence 2 and 3, and Israel is just defending itself, and then the international debate is about whether Israel's self-defense is proportionate or not. The argument happens on a flawed basis.
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Northern Ireland25517 Posts
On October 13 2023 08:32 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2023 02:24 Mohdoo wrote:On October 13 2023 01:58 Nebuchad wrote:
The framing of "we have to let Israel defend itself" contains the idea that Palestinians aren't people. Meaning any time the number of enemies killed exceeds the number of allies saved, the choice is unethical? You're saying it is fundamentally dehumanizing for anyone to decide to kill more for the sake of saving less? 10 terrorists holding someone hostage, killing those 10 terrorists to save the hostage is unethical? The correct decision is to let the hostage die to save the lives of the terrorists? Notice how none of your questions have any connexion with defending yourself. When deciding if something is self-defense you don't look at how many innocents were killed and whether a quota was met or not, that's not what defending yourself means. In non-fucked up countries you can also kill someone who was actually in the process of attacking you and that death might still not be self-defense, but my understanding is that the US needs a little more time to think about this one. In the future there will be more attacks by Hamas, and Israeli children are going to die. We're feeling bad about this, because it is wrong for innocent civilians to suffer and die. They're humanized. Then, in an attempt to stop this from happening, we are supposed to be absolutely okay with Palestinian children dying (as long as it doesn't go above some number, apparently). Those deaths are not in a hypothetical future we're trying to avoid, those deaths are right now. But those deaths are acceptable. The only way for this to make sense is if some lives have more value than others, and this is why you require Palestinians to not be people in this framing. This is sadly a common view, and it's the view of everyone with political power in Europe and in the US at the moment. This is why every other statement from a politician in the last few days reads "The killing of civilians is never acceptable and that's why we must stand with Israel as it drops appartment blocks on children." The ones from the UK are particularly interesting because unlike US journalists, UK journalists sometimes ask questions to UK politicians, such as "What's up with the civilians in Gaza", and we get answers like the one from that ghoul Cleverly who basically gave the green light for genocide and then said he felt bad for the victims. Also had a french example that I find worth mentioning, France had a row of debate around the 40 decapitated babies that ended up probably not being 40 decapitated babies. So you can find a bunch of tweets like, "Are we really having a debate around which method is used to assassinate babies?", and that's viewed as disgusting behavior, it doesn't matter how the babies are killed. One of the people who spent a lot of time talking about the inhumanity of killing babies is Raphael Enthoven, a clown thinker for clowns. Enthoven also believes that there is a massive difference between collateral damage and Hamas' terrorism. So he and his ilk hold both that it doesn't matter how you kill babies (you monster how dare you), and that collateral damage, which given the demographics of Gaza is guaranteed to kill babies, is okay. It is important to understand that those two views are not contradicting each other, because you have to be a human to be a baby, and Palestinians are not. So in this framing Palestinians aren't people, but I wouldn't be doing my job correctly if I didn't also mention that the framing is wrong. Israel is not just trying to defend itself. Israel is trying to eliminate Palestine and take that land for itself. If you analyze the violence of the Israel Palestine conflict systemically, there is the constant violence of the status quo, with Israel doing settlements, killing the occasional Palestinian, closing their water sources, annexing their land, and the blockade of Gaza on top of that. That violence doesn't even make the news most of the time, cause to the rest of the world it's just the natural state of Israel/Palestine. Then sometimes Palestine decides to do something in response to that unjust order of things. In 2019 it was something peaceful, today it was something violent. Either way it was met with repression. So we have violence 1 by Israel, in response of which violence 2 by Palestinians happen, and then retaliatory violence 3, more violent than violence 1, by Israel again. Violence 2 will always serve as a justification for the war crimes of violence 3, and violence 1 will always serve as a justification for the war crimes of violence 2. But the playing field is slanted because the goal of Israel is violence 1 (as opposed to no violence) and violence 3 helps achieving that goal (by accelerating the rate of the elimination of Palestinians). This is why you can find Netanyahu talking to Likud about how Hamas is good for them because it ensures Palestine can never credibly form a state (or something to that effect, I can't be bothered to look up the exact quote), for example. You can say that to Likud but of course you're not allowed to say that internationally, so instead you talk only of violence 2 and 3, and Israel is just defending itself, and then the international debate is about whether Israel's self-defense is proportionate or not. The argument happens on a flawed basis.
Excellent fucking post sir.
I was ‘pleased’ to see Keir Starmer roundly condemn Hamas atrocity the other day, but refuse to condemn Israeli counter action, with a lovely swerve into ‘as long as they don’t commit war crimes’
Which apparently cutting off supplies to the Gaza Strip doesn’t count as, real inspiring stuff from the current Labour leadership. Thank god they’ve excised those ‘anti Semites’ eh?
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So Israel is essentially leveling Gaza... via the air.
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On October 12 2023 04:03 ChristianS wrote:
Seen a couple reports Israel is using white phosphorus. If confirmed, that’s fucked.
I watched it live on Reuters stream. It looked like white phosphorus to me, but I'm no munitions expert, so I withheld judgement. Looks like it was confirmed though. Which makes sense since it started a random fire more than a block or two away from its targets. Which best I could tell, were some dinghy sized civilian fishing boats (presumably, to reduce Palestinian's access to food Israel can't block).
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On October 13 2023 12:22 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2023 04:03 ChristianS wrote:
Seen a couple reports Israel is using white phosphorus. If confirmed, that’s fucked.
I watched it live on Reuters stream. It looked like white phosphorus to me, but I'm no munitions expert, so I withheld judgement. Looks like it was confirmed though. Which makes sense since it started a random fire more than a block or two away from its targets. Which best I could tell, were some dinghy sized civilian fishing boats (presumably, to reduce Palestinian's access to food Israel can't block). https://twitter.com/hrw/status/1712573871596187916
Jesus. I mean, it's weird because juxtaposed with everything else they're doing it gets a lot harder to enumerate exactly what's so fucked up about white phosphorus. Like, if you're already intentionally starving the entire population, if you're going on TV saying "There won't be any buildings any more, only tents," then those potential "serious and long-term injuries" HRW is warning about seem kind of tame, right?
And all that other stuff is war crimes, too. But maybe with the thinnest veneer of deniability? Like, leveling every building with bombs is clearly collective punishment, but since nobody has access to whatever intelligence Israel might have about who is or isn't connected to Hamas, it's pretty hard to point to any particular strike and say "that had no military purpose, you were just trying to hurt civilians." Blocking food, electricity, and fuel to the country is pretty straight-forwardly a war crime, but acceptable and unacceptable use of sieges is a bit complicated and last I saw Israel is claiming they're planning to put out some legalese about what they think the rule is and why what they're doing is legal.
But white phosphorus is white phosphorus, you either used it or you didn't. IIRC the US used it in Fallujah but maybe still officially denies that? But even that seems hard to swing today, considering it's much more likely there's gonna be footage from multiple angles being dissected by other governments, NGOs, and a whole OSINT community. I'm not under any illusions this is going to erode their international support or anything, but it certainly seems like a pretty open declaration of "we're not even going to pretend to follow the rules, just try to fucking stop us."
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On October 13 2023 13:37 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2023 12:22 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 12 2023 04:03 ChristianS wrote:
Seen a couple reports Israel is using white phosphorus. If confirmed, that’s fucked.
I watched it live on Reuters stream. It looked like white phosphorus to me, but I'm no munitions expert, so I withheld judgement. Looks like it was confirmed though. Which makes sense since it started a random fire more than a block or two away from its targets. Which best I could tell, were some dinghy sized civilian fishing boats (presumably, to reduce Palestinian's access to food Israel can't block). https://twitter.com/hrw/status/1712573871596187916 I'm not under any illusions this is going to erode their international support or anything, but it certainly seems like a pretty open declaration of "we're not even going to pretend to follow the rules, just try to fucking stop us."
This has been Israel's modus operandi for decades. They have made it abundantly clear that 'international law' or 'Geneva convention' or 'human rights' do not matter to them, and they have never faced any consequences for it so why should they start caring about those things now. The scale might be different this time, but really, none of their actions are particularly surprising, all things considered.
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On October 13 2023 13:37 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2023 12:22 GreenHorizons wrote:On October 12 2023 04:03 ChristianS wrote:
Seen a couple reports Israel is using white phosphorus. If confirmed, that’s fucked.
I watched it live on Reuters stream. It looked like white phosphorus to me, but I'm no munitions expert, so I withheld judgement. Looks like it was confirmed though. Which makes sense since it started a random fire more than a block or two away from its targets. Which best I could tell, were some dinghy sized civilian fishing boats (presumably, to reduce Palestinian's access to food Israel can't block). https://twitter.com/hrw/status/1712573871596187916 Jesus. I mean, it's weird because juxtaposed with everything else they're doing it gets a lot harder to enumerate exactly what's so fucked up about white phosphorus. Like, if you're already intentionally starving the entire population, if you're going on TV saying "There won't be any buildings any more, only tents," then those potential "serious and long-term injuries" HRW is warning about seem kind of tame, right? And all that other stuff is war crimes, too. But maybe with the thinnest veneer of deniability? Like, leveling every building with bombs is clearly collective punishment, but since nobody has access to whatever intelligence Israel might have about who is or isn't connected to Hamas, it's pretty hard to point to any particular strike and say "that had no military purpose, you were just trying to hurt civilians." Blocking food, electricity, and fuel to the country is pretty straight-forwardly a war crime, but acceptable and unacceptable use of sieges is a bit complicated and last I saw Israel is claiming they're planning to put out some legalese about what they think the rule is and why what they're doing is legal. But white phosphorus is white phosphorus, you either used it or you didn't. IIRC the US used it in Fallujah but maybe still officially denies that? But even that seems hard to swing today, considering it's much more likely there's gonna be footage from multiple angles being dissected by other governments, NGOs, and a whole OSINT community. I'm not under any illusions this is going to erode their international support or anything, but it certainly seems like a pretty open declaration of "we're not even going to pretend to follow the rules, just try to fucking stop us."
Use of white phosphorus isn't always a war crime. Use is tightly regulated but I'm not an expert.
Israeli army told civilians to evacuate everything above Wadi Gaza. About 1.1 million people.
In the last hour we've heard from the Israeli military, which has directly told civilians of Gaza City to evacuate to the south.
"You will be able to return to Gaza City only when another announcement permitting it is made," officials said in the statement addressed to the city, which is the main urban area of the Gaza Strip.
The IDF said Hamas militants are hiding inside tunnels underneath the ciy and inside buildings populated with civilians. It urged civilians to evacuate the city "for your own safety and the safety of your families and distance yourself from Hamas terrorists who are using you as human shields".
"In the following days, the IDF will continue to operate significantly in Gaza City and make extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians," it added.
As we've reported, the order comes as Israel is expected to launch a ground offensive into Gaza with thousands of troops amassing at the border.
The UN has strongly appealed for the order to be rescinded, saying an evacuation could lead to a "calamitous situation" and would have "devastating humanitarian consequences".
www.bbc.com
Edit: And Hamas calls the evacuation order propaganda
A Hamas official has described Israel's order for people in the north of Gaza to relocate to the south as "fake propaganda", and has urged citizens there to ignore it.
The militant group has long been criticised by the international community for using civilians as human shields - putting innocent people in danger to protect their fighters.
Hamas took power of the Gaza strip after it won the legislative elections in 2006, before reinforcing its power in Gaza the following year by ousting the rival Fatah movement of President Mahmoud Abbas.
www.bbc.com
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On October 13 2023 08:38 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2023 08:32 Nebuchad wrote:On October 13 2023 02:24 Mohdoo wrote:On October 13 2023 01:58 Nebuchad wrote:
The framing of "we have to let Israel defend itself" contains the idea that Palestinians aren't people. Meaning any time the number of enemies killed exceeds the number of allies saved, the choice is unethical? You're saying it is fundamentally dehumanizing for anyone to decide to kill more for the sake of saving less? 10 terrorists holding someone hostage, killing those 10 terrorists to save the hostage is unethical? The correct decision is to let the hostage die to save the lives of the terrorists? Notice how none of your questions have any connexion with defending yourself. When deciding if something is self-defense you don't look at how many innocents were killed and whether a quota was met or not, that's not what defending yourself means. In non-fucked up countries you can also kill someone who was actually in the process of attacking you and that death might still not be self-defense, but my understanding is that the US needs a little more time to think about this one. In the future there will be more attacks by Hamas, and Israeli children are going to die. We're feeling bad about this, because it is wrong for innocent civilians to suffer and die. They're humanized. Then, in an attempt to stop this from happening, we are supposed to be absolutely okay with Palestinian children dying (as long as it doesn't go above some number, apparently). Those deaths are not in a hypothetical future we're trying to avoid, those deaths are right now. But those deaths are acceptable. The only way for this to make sense is if some lives have more value than others, and this is why you require Palestinians to not be people in this framing. This is sadly a common view, and it's the view of everyone with political power in Europe and in the US at the moment. This is why every other statement from a politician in the last few days reads "The killing of civilians is never acceptable and that's why we must stand with Israel as it drops appartment blocks on children." The ones from the UK are particularly interesting because unlike US journalists, UK journalists sometimes ask questions to UK politicians, such as "What's up with the civilians in Gaza", and we get answers like the one from that ghoul Cleverly who basically gave the green light for genocide and then said he felt bad for the victims. Also had a french example that I find worth mentioning, France had a row of debate around the 40 decapitated babies that ended up probably not being 40 decapitated babies. So you can find a bunch of tweets like, "Are we really having a debate around which method is used to assassinate babies?", and that's viewed as disgusting behavior, it doesn't matter how the babies are killed. One of the people who spent a lot of time talking about the inhumanity of killing babies is Raphael Enthoven, a clown thinker for clowns. Enthoven also believes that there is a massive difference between collateral damage and Hamas' terrorism. So he and his ilk hold both that it doesn't matter how you kill babies (you monster how dare you), and that collateral damage, which given the demographics of Gaza is guaranteed to kill babies, is okay. It is important to understand that those two views are not contradicting each other, because you have to be a human to be a baby, and Palestinians are not. So in this framing Palestinians aren't people, but I wouldn't be doing my job correctly if I didn't also mention that the framing is wrong. Israel is not just trying to defend itself. Israel is trying to eliminate Palestine and take that land for itself. If you analyze the violence of the Israel Palestine conflict systemically, there is the constant violence of the status quo, with Israel doing settlements, killing the occasional Palestinian, closing their water sources, annexing their land, and the blockade of Gaza on top of that. That violence doesn't even make the news most of the time, cause to the rest of the world it's just the natural state of Israel/Palestine. Then sometimes Palestine decides to do something in response to that unjust order of things. In 2019 it was something peaceful, today it was something violent. Either way it was met with repression. So we have violence 1 by Israel, in response of which violence 2 by Palestinians happen, and then retaliatory violence 3, more violent than violence 1, by Israel again. Violence 2 will always serve as a justification for the war crimes of violence 3, and violence 1 will always serve as a justification for the war crimes of violence 2. But the playing field is slanted because the goal of Israel is violence 1 (as opposed to no violence) and violence 3 helps achieving that goal (by accelerating the rate of the elimination of Palestinians). This is why you can find Netanyahu talking to Likud about how Hamas is good for them because it ensures Palestine can never credibly form a state (or something to that effect, I can't be bothered to look up the exact quote), for example. You can say that to Likud but of course you're not allowed to say that internationally, so instead you talk only of violence 2 and 3, and Israel is just defending itself, and then the international debate is about whether Israel's self-defense is proportionate or not. The argument happens on a flawed basis. Excellent fucking post sir. I was ‘pleased’ to see Keir Starmer roundly condemn Hamas atrocity the other day, but refuse to condemn Israeli counter action, with a lovely swerve into ‘as long as they don’t commit war crimes’ Which apparently cutting off supplies to the Gaza Strip doesn’t count as, real inspiring stuff from the current Labour leadership. Thank god they’ve excised those ‘anti Semites’ eh?
No, it's not an excellent post. It's a bad faith argument. There is a clear difference between targeting civilians deliberately and targeting terrorists while accepting there will be civilian casualties in the process. You may think it is inhumane but nowhere does this reasoning deny the fact that Palestinians are people.
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On October 13 2023 15:00 RvB wrote:Israeli army told civilians to evacuate everything above Wadi Gaza. About 1.1 million people. Show nested quote +In the last hour we've heard from the Israeli military, which has directly told civilians of Gaza City to evacuate to the south.
"You will be able to return to Gaza City only when another announcement permitting it is made," officials said in the statement addressed to the city, which is the main urban area of the Gaza Strip.
The IDF said Hamas militants are hiding inside tunnels underneath the ciy and inside buildings populated with civilians. It urged civilians to evacuate the city "for your own safety and the safety of your families and distance yourself from Hamas terrorists who are using you as human shields".
"In the following days, the IDF will continue to operate significantly in Gaza City and make extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians," it added.
As we've reported, the order comes as Israel is expected to launch a ground offensive into Gaza with thousands of troops amassing at the border.
The UN has strongly appealed for the order to be rescinded, saying an evacuation could lead to a "calamitous situation" and would have "devastating humanitarian consequences". www.bbc.com
They're going to indiscriminately shoot to kill at anybody still in the area during the ground offensive, aren't they?
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Shoot to kill at anybody who looks suspicious/dangerous - sure.
And the bar for "looks suspicious/dangerous" will be set low.
Also there most probably will be cases of pretending to be a harmless civilian and then shooting - which will keep lowering this bar even further.
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On October 13 2023 15:42 maybenexttime wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2023 08:38 WombaT wrote:On October 13 2023 08:32 Nebuchad wrote:On October 13 2023 02:24 Mohdoo wrote:On October 13 2023 01:58 Nebuchad wrote:
The framing of "we have to let Israel defend itself" contains the idea that Palestinians aren't people. Meaning any time the number of enemies killed exceeds the number of allies saved, the choice is unethical? You're saying it is fundamentally dehumanizing for anyone to decide to kill more for the sake of saving less? 10 terrorists holding someone hostage, killing those 10 terrorists to save the hostage is unethical? The correct decision is to let the hostage die to save the lives of the terrorists? Notice how none of your questions have any connexion with defending yourself. When deciding if something is self-defense you don't look at how many innocents were killed and whether a quota was met or not, that's not what defending yourself means. In non-fucked up countries you can also kill someone who was actually in the process of attacking you and that death might still not be self-defense, but my understanding is that the US needs a little more time to think about this one. In the future there will be more attacks by Hamas, and Israeli children are going to die. We're feeling bad about this, because it is wrong for innocent civilians to suffer and die. They're humanized. Then, in an attempt to stop this from happening, we are supposed to be absolutely okay with Palestinian children dying (as long as it doesn't go above some number, apparently). Those deaths are not in a hypothetical future we're trying to avoid, those deaths are right now. But those deaths are acceptable. The only way for this to make sense is if some lives have more value than others, and this is why you require Palestinians to not be people in this framing. This is sadly a common view, and it's the view of everyone with political power in Europe and in the US at the moment. This is why every other statement from a politician in the last few days reads "The killing of civilians is never acceptable and that's why we must stand with Israel as it drops appartment blocks on children." The ones from the UK are particularly interesting because unlike US journalists, UK journalists sometimes ask questions to UK politicians, such as "What's up with the civilians in Gaza", and we get answers like the one from that ghoul Cleverly who basically gave the green light for genocide and then said he felt bad for the victims. Also had a french example that I find worth mentioning, France had a row of debate around the 40 decapitated babies that ended up probably not being 40 decapitated babies. So you can find a bunch of tweets like, "Are we really having a debate around which method is used to assassinate babies?", and that's viewed as disgusting behavior, it doesn't matter how the babies are killed. One of the people who spent a lot of time talking about the inhumanity of killing babies is Raphael Enthoven, a clown thinker for clowns. Enthoven also believes that there is a massive difference between collateral damage and Hamas' terrorism. So he and his ilk hold both that it doesn't matter how you kill babies (you monster how dare you), and that collateral damage, which given the demographics of Gaza is guaranteed to kill babies, is okay. It is important to understand that those two views are not contradicting each other, because you have to be a human to be a baby, and Palestinians are not. So in this framing Palestinians aren't people, but I wouldn't be doing my job correctly if I didn't also mention that the framing is wrong. Israel is not just trying to defend itself. Israel is trying to eliminate Palestine and take that land for itself. If you analyze the violence of the Israel Palestine conflict systemically, there is the constant violence of the status quo, with Israel doing settlements, killing the occasional Palestinian, closing their water sources, annexing their land, and the blockade of Gaza on top of that. That violence doesn't even make the news most of the time, cause to the rest of the world it's just the natural state of Israel/Palestine. Then sometimes Palestine decides to do something in response to that unjust order of things. In 2019 it was something peaceful, today it was something violent. Either way it was met with repression. So we have violence 1 by Israel, in response of which violence 2 by Palestinians happen, and then retaliatory violence 3, more violent than violence 1, by Israel again. Violence 2 will always serve as a justification for the war crimes of violence 3, and violence 1 will always serve as a justification for the war crimes of violence 2. But the playing field is slanted because the goal of Israel is violence 1 (as opposed to no violence) and violence 3 helps achieving that goal (by accelerating the rate of the elimination of Palestinians). This is why you can find Netanyahu talking to Likud about how Hamas is good for them because it ensures Palestine can never credibly form a state (or something to that effect, I can't be bothered to look up the exact quote), for example. You can say that to Likud but of course you're not allowed to say that internationally, so instead you talk only of violence 2 and 3, and Israel is just defending itself, and then the international debate is about whether Israel's self-defense is proportionate or not. The argument happens on a flawed basis. Excellent fucking post sir. I was ‘pleased’ to see Keir Starmer roundly condemn Hamas atrocity the other day, but refuse to condemn Israeli counter action, with a lovely swerve into ‘as long as they don’t commit war crimes’ Which apparently cutting off supplies to the Gaza Strip doesn’t count as, real inspiring stuff from the current Labour leadership. Thank god they’ve excised those ‘anti Semites’ eh? No, it's not an excellent post. It's a bad faith argument. There is a clear difference between targeting civilians deliberately and targeting terrorists while accepting there will be civilian casualties in the process. You may think it is inhumane but nowhere does this reasoning deny the fact that Palestinians are people.
Sure, some collateral is tragic and a mistake that sometimes cannot be avoided. If your whole campaign is build on "and then innocent civilians are gonna die", it doesn't matter if you wanted them to die in the process or if you just did not care if they died. The differentiation is made all the time to conjure a difference between terrorism and stateactors antiterrorism, and everytime the response is way worse in civilians killed then the terrorism, not just in Israel. Also in the US or Saudi Arabia or you name it. And Hamas would looooove to hit military targets successfully, every IDF soldier they capture or kill is worth more to them. If you don't believe the bombing of Gaza is inhumane, what exactly is your bar for humane? Every time Russia does it (bombing civilian areas) it's a war crime, but Israel has a right to defend themselves.
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The difference is that Hamas uses civilian buildings and areas for military purposes and Ukraine does not. E.g. Hamas HQ was Gaza's biggest hospital.
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On October 13 2023 16:02 Mikau wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2023 15:00 RvB wrote:Israeli army told civilians to evacuate everything above Wadi Gaza. About 1.1 million people. In the last hour we've heard from the Israeli military, which has directly told civilians of Gaza City to evacuate to the south.
"You will be able to return to Gaza City only when another announcement permitting it is made," officials said in the statement addressed to the city, which is the main urban area of the Gaza Strip.
The IDF said Hamas militants are hiding inside tunnels underneath the ciy and inside buildings populated with civilians. It urged civilians to evacuate the city "for your own safety and the safety of your families and distance yourself from Hamas terrorists who are using you as human shields".
"In the following days, the IDF will continue to operate significantly in Gaza City and make extensive efforts to avoid harming civilians," it added.
As we've reported, the order comes as Israel is expected to launch a ground offensive into Gaza with thousands of troops amassing at the border.
The UN has strongly appealed for the order to be rescinded, saying an evacuation could lead to a "calamitous situation" and would have "devastating humanitarian consequences". www.bbc.com They're going to indiscriminately shoot to kill at anybody still in the area during the ground offensive, aren't they?
I'm very worried about the coming campaign into Gaza, this will be such a tragedy. The most populated urban sprawl on earth, no clear differentiation between combatans and civilians. I heard stuff from IDF interviews like "there are no civilians in Gaza" or "well, they should just stop being used as human shields". I'm not optimistic that the lives of Palestinian civilians will count for much.
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There's quite a lot of video cameras, even in Gaza, to make the assumption that Israel wants to risk being seen rolling up and massacring civilians
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Northern Ireland25517 Posts
On October 13 2023 15:42 maybenexttime wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2023 08:38 WombaT wrote:On October 13 2023 08:32 Nebuchad wrote:On October 13 2023 02:24 Mohdoo wrote:On October 13 2023 01:58 Nebuchad wrote:
The framing of "we have to let Israel defend itself" contains the idea that Palestinians aren't people. Meaning any time the number of enemies killed exceeds the number of allies saved, the choice is unethical? You're saying it is fundamentally dehumanizing for anyone to decide to kill more for the sake of saving less? 10 terrorists holding someone hostage, killing those 10 terrorists to save the hostage is unethical? The correct decision is to let the hostage die to save the lives of the terrorists? Notice how none of your questions have any connexion with defending yourself. When deciding if something is self-defense you don't look at how many innocents were killed and whether a quota was met or not, that's not what defending yourself means. In non-fucked up countries you can also kill someone who was actually in the process of attacking you and that death might still not be self-defense, but my understanding is that the US needs a little more time to think about this one. In the future there will be more attacks by Hamas, and Israeli children are going to die. We're feeling bad about this, because it is wrong for innocent civilians to suffer and die. They're humanized. Then, in an attempt to stop this from happening, we are supposed to be absolutely okay with Palestinian children dying (as long as it doesn't go above some number, apparently). Those deaths are not in a hypothetical future we're trying to avoid, those deaths are right now. But those deaths are acceptable. The only way for this to make sense is if some lives have more value than others, and this is why you require Palestinians to not be people in this framing. This is sadly a common view, and it's the view of everyone with political power in Europe and in the US at the moment. This is why every other statement from a politician in the last few days reads "The killing of civilians is never acceptable and that's why we must stand with Israel as it drops appartment blocks on children." The ones from the UK are particularly interesting because unlike US journalists, UK journalists sometimes ask questions to UK politicians, such as "What's up with the civilians in Gaza", and we get answers like the one from that ghoul Cleverly who basically gave the green light for genocide and then said he felt bad for the victims. Also had a french example that I find worth mentioning, France had a row of debate around the 40 decapitated babies that ended up probably not being 40 decapitated babies. So you can find a bunch of tweets like, "Are we really having a debate around which method is used to assassinate babies?", and that's viewed as disgusting behavior, it doesn't matter how the babies are killed. One of the people who spent a lot of time talking about the inhumanity of killing babies is Raphael Enthoven, a clown thinker for clowns. Enthoven also believes that there is a massive difference between collateral damage and Hamas' terrorism. So he and his ilk hold both that it doesn't matter how you kill babies (you monster how dare you), and that collateral damage, which given the demographics of Gaza is guaranteed to kill babies, is okay. It is important to understand that those two views are not contradicting each other, because you have to be a human to be a baby, and Palestinians are not. So in this framing Palestinians aren't people, but I wouldn't be doing my job correctly if I didn't also mention that the framing is wrong. Israel is not just trying to defend itself. Israel is trying to eliminate Palestine and take that land for itself. If you analyze the violence of the Israel Palestine conflict systemically, there is the constant violence of the status quo, with Israel doing settlements, killing the occasional Palestinian, closing their water sources, annexing their land, and the blockade of Gaza on top of that. That violence doesn't even make the news most of the time, cause to the rest of the world it's just the natural state of Israel/Palestine. Then sometimes Palestine decides to do something in response to that unjust order of things. In 2019 it was something peaceful, today it was something violent. Either way it was met with repression. So we have violence 1 by Israel, in response of which violence 2 by Palestinians happen, and then retaliatory violence 3, more violent than violence 1, by Israel again. Violence 2 will always serve as a justification for the war crimes of violence 3, and violence 1 will always serve as a justification for the war crimes of violence 2. But the playing field is slanted because the goal of Israel is violence 1 (as opposed to no violence) and violence 3 helps achieving that goal (by accelerating the rate of the elimination of Palestinians). This is why you can find Netanyahu talking to Likud about how Hamas is good for them because it ensures Palestine can never credibly form a state (or something to that effect, I can't be bothered to look up the exact quote), for example. You can say that to Likud but of course you're not allowed to say that internationally, so instead you talk only of violence 2 and 3, and Israel is just defending itself, and then the international debate is about whether Israel's self-defense is proportionate or not. The argument happens on a flawed basis. Excellent fucking post sir. I was ‘pleased’ to see Keir Starmer roundly condemn Hamas atrocity the other day, but refuse to condemn Israeli counter action, with a lovely swerve into ‘as long as they don’t commit war crimes’ Which apparently cutting off supplies to the Gaza Strip doesn’t count as, real inspiring stuff from the current Labour leadership. Thank god they’ve excised those ‘anti Semites’ eh? No, it's not an excellent post. It's a bad faith argument. There is a clear difference between targeting civilians deliberately and targeting terrorists while accepting there will be civilian casualties in the process. You may think it is inhumane but nowhere does this reasoning deny the fact that Palestinians are people.
If you’re being surgical about it, is that currently the case? If reports of white phosphorous are correct, is it still the case?
It’s hardly as if people in Gaza are having a great time even in peacetime either.
Israel has a certain right to defend itself, what has been frustrating me lately has been an often one-sided leaning from politicians and media here into ‘I stand with Israel’ flag waving which I really don’t find appropriate.
The massacre of captive Gaza dwellers is no less a tragedy than the horrendous massacres Hamas instituted a week ago, it shouldn’t be difficult to say this, but perhaps would be politically damaging.
Guess it’s what happens when the main opposition party here purged all those who would be anything beyond even mildly critical of Israeli state actions
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On October 13 2023 15:42 maybenexttime wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2023 08:38 WombaT wrote:On October 13 2023 08:32 Nebuchad wrote:On October 13 2023 02:24 Mohdoo wrote:On October 13 2023 01:58 Nebuchad wrote:
The framing of "we have to let Israel defend itself" contains the idea that Palestinians aren't people. Meaning any time the number of enemies killed exceeds the number of allies saved, the choice is unethical? You're saying it is fundamentally dehumanizing for anyone to decide to kill more for the sake of saving less? 10 terrorists holding someone hostage, killing those 10 terrorists to save the hostage is unethical? The correct decision is to let the hostage die to save the lives of the terrorists? Notice how none of your questions have any connexion with defending yourself. When deciding if something is self-defense you don't look at how many innocents were killed and whether a quota was met or not, that's not what defending yourself means. In non-fucked up countries you can also kill someone who was actually in the process of attacking you and that death might still not be self-defense, but my understanding is that the US needs a little more time to think about this one. In the future there will be more attacks by Hamas, and Israeli children are going to die. We're feeling bad about this, because it is wrong for innocent civilians to suffer and die. They're humanized. Then, in an attempt to stop this from happening, we are supposed to be absolutely okay with Palestinian children dying (as long as it doesn't go above some number, apparently). Those deaths are not in a hypothetical future we're trying to avoid, those deaths are right now. But those deaths are acceptable. The only way for this to make sense is if some lives have more value than others, and this is why you require Palestinians to not be people in this framing. This is sadly a common view, and it's the view of everyone with political power in Europe and in the US at the moment. This is why every other statement from a politician in the last few days reads "The killing of civilians is never acceptable and that's why we must stand with Israel as it drops appartment blocks on children." The ones from the UK are particularly interesting because unlike US journalists, UK journalists sometimes ask questions to UK politicians, such as "What's up with the civilians in Gaza", and we get answers like the one from that ghoul Cleverly who basically gave the green light for genocide and then said he felt bad for the victims. Also had a french example that I find worth mentioning, France had a row of debate around the 40 decapitated babies that ended up probably not being 40 decapitated babies. So you can find a bunch of tweets like, "Are we really having a debate around which method is used to assassinate babies?", and that's viewed as disgusting behavior, it doesn't matter how the babies are killed. One of the people who spent a lot of time talking about the inhumanity of killing babies is Raphael Enthoven, a clown thinker for clowns. Enthoven also believes that there is a massive difference between collateral damage and Hamas' terrorism. So he and his ilk hold both that it doesn't matter how you kill babies (you monster how dare you), and that collateral damage, which given the demographics of Gaza is guaranteed to kill babies, is okay. It is important to understand that those two views are not contradicting each other, because you have to be a human to be a baby, and Palestinians are not. So in this framing Palestinians aren't people, but I wouldn't be doing my job correctly if I didn't also mention that the framing is wrong. Israel is not just trying to defend itself. Israel is trying to eliminate Palestine and take that land for itself. If you analyze the violence of the Israel Palestine conflict systemically, there is the constant violence of the status quo, with Israel doing settlements, killing the occasional Palestinian, closing their water sources, annexing their land, and the blockade of Gaza on top of that. That violence doesn't even make the news most of the time, cause to the rest of the world it's just the natural state of Israel/Palestine. Then sometimes Palestine decides to do something in response to that unjust order of things. In 2019 it was something peaceful, today it was something violent. Either way it was met with repression. So we have violence 1 by Israel, in response of which violence 2 by Palestinians happen, and then retaliatory violence 3, more violent than violence 1, by Israel again. Violence 2 will always serve as a justification for the war crimes of violence 3, and violence 1 will always serve as a justification for the war crimes of violence 2. But the playing field is slanted because the goal of Israel is violence 1 (as opposed to no violence) and violence 3 helps achieving that goal (by accelerating the rate of the elimination of Palestinians). This is why you can find Netanyahu talking to Likud about how Hamas is good for them because it ensures Palestine can never credibly form a state (or something to that effect, I can't be bothered to look up the exact quote), for example. You can say that to Likud but of course you're not allowed to say that internationally, so instead you talk only of violence 2 and 3, and Israel is just defending itself, and then the international debate is about whether Israel's self-defense is proportionate or not. The argument happens on a flawed basis. Excellent fucking post sir. I was ‘pleased’ to see Keir Starmer roundly condemn Hamas atrocity the other day, but refuse to condemn Israeli counter action, with a lovely swerve into ‘as long as they don’t commit war crimes’ Which apparently cutting off supplies to the Gaza Strip doesn’t count as, real inspiring stuff from the current Labour leadership. Thank god they’ve excised those ‘anti Semites’ eh? No, it's not an excellent post. It's a bad faith argument. There is a clear difference between targeting civilians deliberately and targeting terrorists while accepting there will be civilian casualties in the process. You may think it is inhumane but nowhere does this reasoning deny the fact that Palestinians are people.
Then the method that you use to kill babies absolutely does matter.
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EPT
