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 November 12 2023 10:26 RvB wrote: [quote] The implication of calling others genocide enablers is pretty clear. It also shows the double standards of some in the thread. Calling others genocide enablers is not called out but anti semitism is. As for the bombing I've already explained how removing them from power in Gaza is legal under international law. That Israel uses more powerful weapons does not make it disproportionate.
[quote] I'm not an expert on dog whistles but I've seen anti Semites do the following at least: 1. From the river to the sea chant 2. Pulling out the bingo book of war crimes whenever Israel does something and instantly labelling everything a war crime even if we don't even have nearly enough information to establish such a fact 3. Hiding behind 'criticism of Israel is not anti semitism'. True, but anti Semites also use this to hide their anti semitism just like racists say that being anti immigration does not make you racist.
As for people in the thread I don't know if anyone is anti semetic. I'm working off the assumption that everybody has some decency and is not anti semetic. But from the top of my head these are some prominent people/organisations that are anti semetic in my view:
Corbyn's labour had issues with anti semitism, Tlaib, Melenchon, two Dutch parties in parliament used from the river to the sea chant and one of them has one Palestine with the Palestinian flag in their party programme.
Luckily Labour got purged of their anti-Semitic elements so they can unequivocally support Israel now, that’s much better eh?
I don't care who the Labour party supports. I gave an example of an organisation that had problems with anti semitism.
On November 12 2023 18:25 Magic Powers wrote:
On November 12 2023 10:26 RvB wrote: [quote] The implication of calling others genocide enablers is pretty clear. It also shows the double standards of some in the thread. Calling others genocide enablers is not called out but anti semitism is. As for the bombing I've already explained how removing them from power in Gaza is legal under international law. That Israel uses more powerful weapons does not make it disproportionate.
[quote] I'm not an expert on dog whistles but I've seen anti Semites do the following at least: 1. From the river to the sea chant 2. Pulling out the bingo book of war crimes whenever Israel does something and instantly labelling everything a war crime even if we don't even have nearly enough information to establish such a fact 3. Hiding behind 'criticism of Israel is not anti semitism'. True, but anti Semites also use this to hide their anti semitism just like racists say that being anti immigration does not make you racist.
As for people in the thread I don't know if anyone is anti semetic. I'm working off the assumption that everybody has some decency and is not anti semetic. But from the top of my head these are some prominent people/organisations that are anti semetic in my view:
Corbyn's labour had issues with anti semitism, Tlaib, Melenchon, two Dutch parties in parliament used from the river to the sea chant and one of them has one Palestine with the Palestinian flag in their party programme.
This bombardment of Gaza is an atrocity. Call it what you want, war crime or not, it hardly makes a difference. I don't see how such a disproportionate level of aggression can be justified. And that's on top of Israel having a history of oppression.
I'd like people to imagine a hypothetical. Imagine Germany doing something of this nature. Oppression of an ethnic group through Apartheid, displacement, imprisonment and starvation. What would the world say? We all know what the headlines would say.
Regarding your examples of dog whistling, I can only agree with the first one. That can be an indicator. Point two and three don't qualify as dog whistling.
It makes a difference. You can't see how it can be justified because you don't engage with the arguments put forth by the opposing side.
Which argument that justifies the bombardment has not yet been refuted? We've been discussing this for many pages and I can't remember anyone being able to explain why so many civilian deaths are required or acceptable. No one has been able to explain why Israel can't leave it at having stabilized and secured its borders after October 7. Far from it, we've only seen mounting evidence that the counter measures are over the top, that they're only going to lead to further oppression of Palestinians, and that the total lives saved vs lives lost of innocent people speaks heavily against the bombardment.
Please, do engage with these points, I'll gladly continue the discussion.
My previous post wasn't very productive so my bad for that.
Let's go through the hypothetical where Israel does not respond militarily with an invasion into Gaza. In the short term there's no question it would lead to less casualties. Civilian or otherwise. In the long term it will lead to more casualties instead. If we look at it from the perspective of Hamas their expectations were probably as follows: 1. attack 2. kill Israeli's and take hostages 3. celebrate the great victory 4. wait for and endure the military response. Eventually the calls for a ceasefire will become overwhelming and Israel stops fighting, leaving Hamas in control of Gaza 5. exchange the hostages for a release of Hamas prisoners. These prisoners can help for the next attack as we've seen with the last exchange 6. prepare for the next attack on Israel
In that military response many Palestinian civilians and low level Hamas militants will die but the leadership and what they consider important things are relatively safe in their tunnel network below hospitals. For Hamas the Palestinian casualties are martyrs. It doesn't matter if thousands die as long as the leadership survives and continues to be in charge of the Gaza Strip they can fight for another day. Now what do you think happens if there is no military response? Do you think Hamas will see the error of its ways and stop their violence? Of course not. Instead the opposite will happen. The operation went much better than expected. Israel wants the hostages back so the exchange still happens. It shows Hamas and Palestinians that their violent attack works. It shows that Israel is becoming weak and does not want to defend itself anymore. It increases their legitimacy while at the same time destroying any legitimacy the PA had left with their policy of engagement with Israel. As Cerebrale pointed out capability is not static. Reinforcing the border helps temporarily but eventually they'll find a way around it. Because you've not even damaged their capabilities, this moment will come sooner rather than later.
Doing nothing will lead to more support for Hamas, it will lead to more attacks on Israel from Hamas and other organizations, and eventually a military response from Israel becomes inevitable leaving us at the same point we're now. At that point Hamas is even more entrenched making it much more difficult to remove them and causing even more deaths not to mention all the Israeli deaths in the meantime. Additionally they'll have oppressed civilians in Gaza for many more years.
Coming back to the argument of proportionality the reason why I said you're not engaging with the arguments of the opposing side is a post like the following:
On November 08 2023 23:34 Magic Powers wrote: I'd also like to address the claims by some people of Hamas exaggerating the death count: Hamas fighters only make up a small portion of Gazan people. There's no chance that the numbers can be exaggerated to such a degree that the conclusion changes. Lets assume 1/4 or even 1/2 of the reported civilian deaths are actually Hamas fighters - that would change nothing. Reported deaths are 1400 for Israel (no longer increasing) and 10 000 for Gaza (rapidly increasing).
The brutality of the IDF is disproportional no matter how we slice it. So even if we have a stone-cold argument of utility over an emotional one of the morality of killing, it's clear that the level of death and destruction is too much regardless of false reports.
You cannot determine the proportionality of the Israeli response from the numbers provided by the Hamas health ministry for the following reasons:
- A proportional response to the attack from Hamas means the following. I've quoted The Economist before on this so I'll do so again:
Article 51 of the United Nations charter gives states the right of self-defence against armed attack, provided that, according to customary international law, the force they use is necessary and proportionate. Proportionality does not mean symmetry in the type of weapons used or the number of casualties caused. It means that the defending state can use as much force as is needed to address the threat—and no more.
Drawing that line is a subjective and contentious process. But Israel’s campaign so far would meet those criteria, argues Aurel Sari, a law professor at the University of Exeter who lectures to NATO armed forces. The scale of Hamas’s attack, its demonstrated intent and proven capability means that invading Gaza or even occupying it temporarily to destroy the group “will be relatively easy to justify” legally, he says.
Notice how it does not require symmetry of civilian casualties between the two sides. The reason for this is because if you do compare civilian casualties like that there's an incentive to use civilians as human shields and a disincentive to protect civilians. For individual strikes it is different. There it has to be proportional to the military advantage gained. But this has to be judged on a case by case basis. - The numbers don't distinguish between militants and civilians - The numbers don't record the cause of death. It could be caused by someone falling from the stairs for all we know - The numbers don't distinguish between deaths caused by Israel or by militants in Gaza - The numbers do not take Hamas' use of human shields into account - The numbers do not take Hamas' use of child soldiers into account - The numbers do not take into account the military value of what was destroyed in the strikes
To summarize even if the amount of deaths is correct you cannot use them to conclude whether Israel's response is (dis)proportional. Your post only really takes the second point into account.
Far from it, we've only seen mounting evidence that the counter measures are over the top, that they're only going to lead to further oppression of Palestinians, and that the total lives saved vs lives lost of innocent people speaks heavily against the bombardment.
What evidence is there that it will lead to more oppression? That depends in large part on what comes next and what we've heard about that is very little and vague. One of the issues is that Netanyahu and his right wing coalition have lost their legitimacy due to 7/10 and are almost certainly going to lose power after the war.
Then one last point I want to make. For Israel 7/10 is an existential threat. Their neighbours stopped invading because they lost militarily multiple times. Their security is based on the fact that the IDF and security agencies are considered world class. A mistake of this size massively dents that reputation. The military response is in part aimed at rebuilding deterrence to prevent other parties from becoming too aggressive. You can argue that what they've already done is enough for that but I think the IDF and Israels politicians disagree. Considering the nature of conflicts in the middle east I understand why.
The IDF was caught with its pants down when Hamas invaded. The Israeli administration was warned but they ignored the warnings. Their intel also failed. They also naively assumed that Hamas was moving away from terrorism (for reasons unbeknownst to me) and pursuing economic goals. They also ignored Hamas’ military exercises, including parachute landings. Hamas didn't just suddenly "grow too powerful". It was a preventable failure by Israel. You can't blame the cars for collapsing a bridge if you don't maintain the bridge and keep it up to standard. Hamas will keep attacking Israel, and Israel didn't take appropriate measures. They lowered their guard for no good reason.
That was in large part due to misdirection from Hamas. They stopped firing rockets in 2021 and purposefully signalled to Israel that they were focused on economic development in the Gaza Strip. At the same time weapon deliveries to the West Bank increased. That is why Israels attention was on the West Bank, why they were allowing more aid into Gaza, and why they gave more work visa to civilians from Gaza. The point that apparently flies over your head when the argument is made that Hamas capability is not static is that they're not a passive actor. They're an active participant in the conflict and quite capable. Furthermore it is not realistic to expect Israels security establishment to work without mistakes. Yes large mistakes were made but this is something that will inevitably happen again.
And yet even this colossal failure has resulted in no more than 1400 deaths on Israel’s side. They can quite clearly be much better defended than this if they want to. The claim that Israel will suffer another 1400 deaths during another future attack is absurd. Yes, they'll lose lives, just as they have over previous decades, but it won't be anything close to 1400. Israel is once again very afraid of Hamas, so they will never let that happen again. It's in their own hands. Hamas has little say in that.
On the 6th of October the prediction that Hamas would overwhelm Israels border defense and massacre more than a thousand people was a fantasy. It still happened. What's absurd is thinking it will not happen again when they've shown time and again they'll continue their attempts. You're also still going back to the amount of deaths while ignoring that looking at death ratios in that way is an incentive to use human shields and a disincentive to protect civilians. It also fails to address the argument that stopping when the border is secured means the assault was a success. That it shows that violence works. That it increases their legitimacy while decreasing the legitimacy of the party that wants to engage with Israel through non-violent means. You're emboldening Hamas to keep attacking in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel.
Israel's willingness to kill and destroy can instead be turned into a willingness to protect. There’s a very specific reason why they’re not doing it: the Netanjahu administration. There’s no other reason. A benevolent administration strictly wouldn’t be doing this, as they would understand that it wouldn’t be right, and it's not even clear that it's productive either. The claim that Israel can only protect its citizens by causing this much death and destruction and more is completely unfounded. Israel has the means to strengthen its borders and improve its intel. There is no excuse.
You completely misunderstand the IDF and Israel. Gantz entry into the war cabinet neutralised the more extreme parties in the coalition as I've already explained earlier. The IDF is also an institution that has long supported a two state solution. Pretty much all the politicians that came out of it recently are to the left of Netanyahu. A coalition that has existed for the small amount of time that it has cannot suddenly change an institution like the IDF. The solution that they'll just have to do a better job at protecting their border to prevent terrorist attacks on their civilians is ridiculous. Hamas has to stop their attacks and recognise Israels right to exist. It has to amend their founding document to remove the anti semetic passages. It has to remove the passages calling for the killing of Jews. It is the bare minimum we should expect from any organisation that aims to represent its people. If they cannot do the bare minimum then Israel has every right to remove them from power. Edit: to be clear they have to follow the laws of war when doing this. Criticism of their conduct is valid.
As to part two of your argument regarding proportionality: Israel has already stabilized the border situation. "It means that the defending state can use as much force as is needed to address the threat—and no more." Israel has accomplished that goal weeks ago. Therefore I reject the argument from The Economist. It's nothing but a justification for more death.
Again you're not engaging with the argument made. Hamas has shown the intent and ability to make the attacks. They've signalled they will continue with them again and again. This is why the threat does not stop when securing the border.
The absolute worst attack Israel has ever suffered has cost 1400 Israeli lives. The absolute worst retaliation that Israel has ever committed has cost 10 000 Palestinian lives. You're not thinking rationally if you think Israel can't effectively defend against Hamas just by strictly defending their borders without destroying Hamas. Israel is currently turning Gaza into rubble. They have the capacity to literally glass the entire strip. They have the capacity to destroy entire countries. You're out of your mind if you think Hamas is powerful enough to seriously threaten Israel.
Just as a heads up, Israel changed their Oct 7 death toll to "around 1200" a couple days ago.
the 9/11 death toll changed on a weekly basis for months.
Cool story bro. I'm not going on a Mohdoo rant, just saying 1400 is an outdated number to use
On November 14 2023 00:55 Magic Powers wrote: You're not thinking rationally if you think Israel can't effectively defend against Hamas just by strictly defending their borders without destroying Hamas.
I don't know how it is so hard to understand this: Israel has all the power. They have so much free reign that they had the confidence to announce a massive increase of the DMZ just a few days after the attack. They can walk around in that whole area and just do as they please. Does that sound like a country enduring an existential crisis? Seriously? Even now, several weeks later? Where are the reports of continued offensives by Hamas?
Hamas has barely managed to kill 0.015% or 1 : 6400 of the Israeli population in their worst attack to date. Perhaps even less. And that's been (by far) the highest Jewish death count since the Holocaust. At the risk of sounding heartless - because on an individual level this is absolutely horrible - but on a state level it hardly qualifies as a scratch. And that's with all the reported security failures. Imagine if the IDF had been better prepared. Yet somehow people call Hamas an "existential threat" to Israel.
The only people that have to fear for their lives are Palestinians residing in Gaza, and a few hundred remaining hostages in Hamas' hands. The Israeli administration should make a great effort to get those hostages to safety, and stop acting like barbarians.
I said that people denying that there is a ethnical cleanse going on are genocide enablers, not that Israel is commiting genocide. I stand by it, i don't think it's that confusing since most of the time it's a two step ladder, and at the time, people were discussing about letting Israel bomb the hell out of Gaza as a reasonable response "to stop Hamas", yourself included.
The implication of calling others genocide enablers is pretty clear. It also shows the double standards of some in the thread. Calling others genocide enablers is not called out but anti semitism is. As for the bombing I've already explained how removing them from power in Gaza is legal under international law. That Israel uses more powerful weapons does not make it disproportionate.
On November 11 2023 02:32 Magic Powers wrote: [quote]
I'm open to being educated about left-wing dog whistling. Is HasanAbi one of the people doing it? Can you also give an example of a comment in this thread?
About recognition of a/the State of Palestine: I'm reading that Egypt has in fact recognized it, but the US has not. Neither have Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico or the United Kingdom (Source: Wikipedia). You are right that other Middle Eastern countries have not recognized the State of Palestine, but that can be explained by the tensions with Israel. Why single out the ME (ignoring Egypt?) if Europe and the US aren't taking a strong stance? 138 of the 193 states in the UN apparently fully recognize Palestine. What about the rest?
I'm not an expert on dog whistles but I've seen anti Semites do the following at least: 1. From the river to the sea chant 2. Pulling out the bingo book of war crimes whenever Israel does something and instantly labelling everything a war crime even if we don't even have nearly enough information to establish such a fact 3. Hiding behind 'criticism of Israel is not anti semitism'. True, but anti Semites also use this to hide their anti semitism just like racists say that being anti immigration does not make you racist.
As for people in the thread I don't know if anyone is anti semetic. I'm working off the assumption that everybody has some decency and is not anti semetic. But from the top of my head these are some prominent people/organisations that are anti semetic in my view:
Corbyn's labour had issues with anti semitism, Tlaib, Melenchon, two Dutch parties in parliament used from the river to the sea chant and one of them has one Palestine with the Palestinian flag in their party programme.
Luckily Labour got purged of their anti-Semitic elements so they can unequivocally support Israel now, that’s much better eh?
I don't care who the Labour party supports. I gave an example of an organisation that had problems with anti semitism.
On November 12 2023 18:25 Magic Powers wrote:
On November 12 2023 10:26 RvB wrote:
On November 10 2023 21:03 Godwrath wrote: [quote]
I said that people denying that there is a ethnical cleanse going on are genocide enablers, not that Israel is commiting genocide. I stand by it, i don't think it's that confusing since most of the time it's a two step ladder, and at the time, people were discussing about letting Israel bomb the hell out of Gaza as a reasonable response "to stop Hamas", yourself included.
The implication of calling others genocide enablers is pretty clear. It also shows the double standards of some in the thread. Calling others genocide enablers is not called out but anti semitism is. As for the bombing I've already explained how removing them from power in Gaza is legal under international law. That Israel uses more powerful weapons does not make it disproportionate.
On November 11 2023 02:32 Magic Powers wrote: [quote]
I'm open to being educated about left-wing dog whistling. Is HasanAbi one of the people doing it? Can you also give an example of a comment in this thread?
About recognition of a/the State of Palestine: I'm reading that Egypt has in fact recognized it, but the US has not. Neither have Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico or the United Kingdom (Source: Wikipedia). You are right that other Middle Eastern countries have not recognized the State of Palestine, but that can be explained by the tensions with Israel. Why single out the ME (ignoring Egypt?) if Europe and the US aren't taking a strong stance? 138 of the 193 states in the UN apparently fully recognize Palestine. What about the rest?
I'm not an expert on dog whistles but I've seen anti Semites do the following at least: 1. From the river to the sea chant 2. Pulling out the bingo book of war crimes whenever Israel does something and instantly labelling everything a war crime even if we don't even have nearly enough information to establish such a fact 3. Hiding behind 'criticism of Israel is not anti semitism'. True, but anti Semites also use this to hide their anti semitism just like racists say that being anti immigration does not make you racist.
As for people in the thread I don't know if anyone is anti semetic. I'm working off the assumption that everybody has some decency and is not anti semetic. But from the top of my head these are some prominent people/organisations that are anti semetic in my view:
Corbyn's labour had issues with anti semitism, Tlaib, Melenchon, two Dutch parties in parliament used from the river to the sea chant and one of them has one Palestine with the Palestinian flag in their party programme.
This bombardment of Gaza is an atrocity. Call it what you want, war crime or not, it hardly makes a difference. I don't see how such a disproportionate level of aggression can be justified. And that's on top of Israel having a history of oppression.
I'd like people to imagine a hypothetical. Imagine Germany doing something of this nature. Oppression of an ethnic group through Apartheid, displacement, imprisonment and starvation. What would the world say? We all know what the headlines would say.
Regarding your examples of dog whistling, I can only agree with the first one. That can be an indicator. Point two and three don't qualify as dog whistling.
It makes a difference. You can't see how it can be justified because you don't engage with the arguments put forth by the opposing side.
Which argument that justifies the bombardment has not yet been refuted? We've been discussing this for many pages and I can't remember anyone being able to explain why so many civilian deaths are required or acceptable. No one has been able to explain why Israel can't leave it at having stabilized and secured its borders after October 7. Far from it, we've only seen mounting evidence that the counter measures are over the top, that they're only going to lead to further oppression of Palestinians, and that the total lives saved vs lives lost of innocent people speaks heavily against the bombardment.
Please, do engage with these points, I'll gladly continue the discussion.
My previous post wasn't very productive so my bad for that.
Let's go through the hypothetical where Israel does not respond militarily with an invasion into Gaza. In the short term there's no question it would lead to less casualties. Civilian or otherwise. In the long term it will lead to more casualties instead. If we look at it from the perspective of Hamas their expectations were probably as follows: 1. attack 2. kill Israeli's and take hostages 3. celebrate the great victory 4. wait for and endure the military response. Eventually the calls for a ceasefire will become overwhelming and Israel stops fighting, leaving Hamas in control of Gaza 5. exchange the hostages for a release of Hamas prisoners. These prisoners can help for the next attack as we've seen with the last exchange 6. prepare for the next attack on Israel
In that military response many Palestinian civilians and low level Hamas militants will die but the leadership and what they consider important things are relatively safe in their tunnel network below hospitals. For Hamas the Palestinian casualties are martyrs. It doesn't matter if thousands die as long as the leadership survives and continues to be in charge of the Gaza Strip they can fight for another day. Now what do you think happens if there is no military response? Do you think Hamas will see the error of its ways and stop their violence? Of course not. Instead the opposite will happen. The operation went much better than expected. Israel wants the hostages back so the exchange still happens. It shows Hamas and Palestinians that their violent attack works. It shows that Israel is becoming weak and does not want to defend itself anymore. It increases their legitimacy while at the same time destroying any legitimacy the PA had left with their policy of engagement with Israel. As Cerebrale pointed out capability is not static. Reinforcing the border helps temporarily but eventually they'll find a way around it. Because you've not even damaged their capabilities, this moment will come sooner rather than later.
Doing nothing will lead to more support for Hamas, it will lead to more attacks on Israel from Hamas and other organizations, and eventually a military response from Israel becomes inevitable leaving us at the same point we're now. At that point Hamas is even more entrenched making it much more difficult to remove them and causing even more deaths not to mention all the Israeli deaths in the meantime. Additionally they'll have oppressed civilians in Gaza for many more years.
Coming back to the argument of proportionality the reason why I said you're not engaging with the arguments of the opposing side is a post like the following:
On November 08 2023 23:34 Magic Powers wrote: I'd also like to address the claims by some people of Hamas exaggerating the death count: Hamas fighters only make up a small portion of Gazan people. There's no chance that the numbers can be exaggerated to such a degree that the conclusion changes. Lets assume 1/4 or even 1/2 of the reported civilian deaths are actually Hamas fighters - that would change nothing. Reported deaths are 1400 for Israel (no longer increasing) and 10 000 for Gaza (rapidly increasing).
The brutality of the IDF is disproportional no matter how we slice it. So even if we have a stone-cold argument of utility over an emotional one of the morality of killing, it's clear that the level of death and destruction is too much regardless of false reports.
You cannot determine the proportionality of the Israeli response from the numbers provided by the Hamas health ministry for the following reasons:
- A proportional response to the attack from Hamas means the following. I've quoted The Economist before on this so I'll do so again:
Article 51 of the United Nations charter gives states the right of self-defence against armed attack, provided that, according to customary international law, the force they use is necessary and proportionate. Proportionality does not mean symmetry in the type of weapons used or the number of casualties caused. It means that the defending state can use as much force as is needed to address the threat—and no more.
Drawing that line is a subjective and contentious process. But Israel’s campaign so far would meet those criteria, argues Aurel Sari, a law professor at the University of Exeter who lectures to NATO armed forces. The scale of Hamas’s attack, its demonstrated intent and proven capability means that invading Gaza or even occupying it temporarily to destroy the group “will be relatively easy to justify” legally, he says.
Notice how it does not require symmetry of civilian casualties between the two sides. The reason for this is because if you do compare civilian casualties like that there's an incentive to use civilians as human shields and a disincentive to protect civilians. For individual strikes it is different. There it has to be proportional to the military advantage gained. But this has to be judged on a case by case basis. - The numbers don't distinguish between militants and civilians - The numbers don't record the cause of death. It could be caused by someone falling from the stairs for all we know - The numbers don't distinguish between deaths caused by Israel or by militants in Gaza - The numbers do not take Hamas' use of human shields into account - The numbers do not take Hamas' use of child soldiers into account - The numbers do not take into account the military value of what was destroyed in the strikes
To summarize even if the amount of deaths is correct you cannot use them to conclude whether Israel's response is (dis)proportional. Your post only really takes the second point into account.
Far from it, we've only seen mounting evidence that the counter measures are over the top, that they're only going to lead to further oppression of Palestinians, and that the total lives saved vs lives lost of innocent people speaks heavily against the bombardment.
What evidence is there that it will lead to more oppression? That depends in large part on what comes next and what we've heard about that is very little and vague. One of the issues is that Netanyahu and his right wing coalition have lost their legitimacy due to 7/10 and are almost certainly going to lose power after the war.
Then one last point I want to make. For Israel 7/10 is an existential threat. Their neighbours stopped invading because they lost militarily multiple times. Their security is based on the fact that the IDF and security agencies are considered world class. A mistake of this size massively dents that reputation. The military response is in part aimed at rebuilding deterrence to prevent other parties from becoming too aggressive. You can argue that what they've already done is enough for that but I think the IDF and Israels politicians disagree. Considering the nature of conflicts in the middle east I understand why.
The IDF was caught with its pants down when Hamas invaded. The Israeli administration was warned but they ignored the warnings. Their intel also failed. They also naively assumed that Hamas was moving away from terrorism (for reasons unbeknownst to me) and pursuing economic goals. They also ignored Hamas’ military exercises, including parachute landings. Hamas didn't just suddenly "grow too powerful". It was a preventable failure by Israel. You can't blame the cars for collapsing a bridge if you don't maintain the bridge and keep it up to standard. Hamas will keep attacking Israel, and Israel didn't take appropriate measures. They lowered their guard for no good reason.
That was in large part due to misdirection from Hamas. They stopped firing rockets in 2021 and purposefully signalled to Israel that they were focused on economic development in the Gaza Strip. At the same time weapon deliveries to the West Bank increased. That is why Israels attention was on the West Bank, why they were allowing more aid into Gaza, and why they gave more work visa to civilians from Gaza. The point that apparently flies over your head when the argument is made that Hamas capability is not static is that they're not a passive actor. They're an active participant in the conflict and quite capable. Furthermore it is not realistic to expect Israels security establishment to work without mistakes. Yes large mistakes were made but this is something that will inevitably happen again.
And yet even this colossal failure has resulted in no more than 1400 deaths on Israel’s side. They can quite clearly be much better defended than this if they want to. The claim that Israel will suffer another 1400 deaths during another future attack is absurd. Yes, they'll lose lives, just as they have over previous decades, but it won't be anything close to 1400. Israel is once again very afraid of Hamas, so they will never let that happen again. It's in their own hands. Hamas has little say in that.
On the 6th of October the prediction that Hamas would overwhelm Israels border defense and massacre more than a thousand people was a fantasy. It still happened. What's absurd is thinking it will not happen again when they've shown time and again they'll continue their attempts. You're also still going back to the amount of deaths while ignoring that looking at death ratios in that way is an incentive to use human shields and a disincentive to protect civilians. It also fails to address the argument that stopping when the border is secured means the assault was a success. That it shows that violence works. That it increases their legitimacy while decreasing the legitimacy of the party that wants to engage with Israel through non-violent means. You're emboldening Hamas to keep attacking in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel.
Israel's willingness to kill and destroy can instead be turned into a willingness to protect. There’s a very specific reason why they’re not doing it: the Netanjahu administration. There’s no other reason. A benevolent administration strictly wouldn’t be doing this, as they would understand that it wouldn’t be right, and it's not even clear that it's productive either. The claim that Israel can only protect its citizens by causing this much death and destruction and more is completely unfounded. Israel has the means to strengthen its borders and improve its intel. There is no excuse.
You completely misunderstand the IDF and Israel. Gantz entry into the war cabinet neutralised the more extreme parties in the coalition as I've already explained earlier. The IDF is also an institution that has long supported a two state solution. Pretty much all the politicians that came out of it recently are to the left of Netanyahu. A coalition that has existed for the small amount of time that it has cannot suddenly change an institution like the IDF. The solution that they'll just have to do a better job at protecting their border to prevent terrorist attacks on their civilians is ridiculous. Hamas has to stop their attacks and recognise Israels right to exist. It has to amend their founding document to remove the anti semetic passages. It has to remove the passages calling for the killing of Jews. It is the bare minimum we should expect from any organisation that aims to represent its people. If they cannot do the bare minimum then Israel has every right to remove them from power. Edit: to be clear they have to follow the laws of war when doing this. Criticism of their conduct is valid.
As to part two of your argument regarding proportionality: Israel has already stabilized the border situation. "It means that the defending state can use as much force as is needed to address the threat—and no more." Israel has accomplished that goal weeks ago. Therefore I reject the argument from The Economist. It's nothing but a justification for more death.
Again you're not engaging with the argument made. Hamas has shown the intent and ability to make the attacks. They've signalled they will continue with them again and again. This is why the threat does not stop when securing the border.
The absolute worst attack Israel has ever suffered has cost 1400 Israeli lives. The absolute worst retaliation that Israel has ever committed has cost 10 000 Palestinian lives. You're not thinking rationally if you think Israel can't effectively defend against Hamas just by strictly defending their borders without destroying Hamas. Israel is currently turning Gaza into rubble. They have the capacity to literally glass the entire strip. They have the capacity to destroy entire countries. You're out of your mind if you think Hamas is powerful enough to seriously threaten Israel.
Just as a heads up, Israel changed their Oct 7 death toll to "around 1200" a couple days ago.
I've finished watching the LWT video from John Oliver. There's an important slip of the tongue by Trudeau caught on camera. I timestamped it. It shows that personally he holds a very different view from what he presents in public. He asks for a humanitarian corridor (edit: he said "humanitarian pause", not corridor, but I think it still shows what he's really thinking), but in reality he wants Israel to stop the bombardment. He wants a ceasefire.
Now, if the average american with a bias against jews believes that "the jews" run Moody's Credit Rating service we could be in for some real anti semitism in the USA. Moody's downgrades US credit rating for the first time in 100 years. "the Fed" secretly still run by Greenspan uses this as an excuse to crank up Interest rates...... "give me control of a country's money supply and i care not who makes its laws".
i know a bunch of people with mortgages at 3% and 4% who are barely hanging on. We get a big interest rate hike and look out.
On November 12 2023 17:05 WombaT wrote: [quote] Luckily Labour got purged of their anti-Semitic elements so they can unequivocally support Israel now, that’s much better eh?
I don't care who the Labour party supports. I gave an example of an organisation that had problems with anti semitism.
On November 12 2023 18:25 Magic Powers wrote: [quote]
This bombardment of Gaza is an atrocity. Call it what you want, war crime or not, it hardly makes a difference. I don't see how such a disproportionate level of aggression can be justified. And that's on top of Israel having a history of oppression.
I'd like people to imagine a hypothetical. Imagine Germany doing something of this nature. Oppression of an ethnic group through Apartheid, displacement, imprisonment and starvation. What would the world say? We all know what the headlines would say.
Regarding your examples of dog whistling, I can only agree with the first one. That can be an indicator. Point two and three don't qualify as dog whistling.
It makes a difference. You can't see how it can be justified because you don't engage with the arguments put forth by the opposing side.
Which argument that justifies the bombardment has not yet been refuted? We've been discussing this for many pages and I can't remember anyone being able to explain why so many civilian deaths are required or acceptable. No one has been able to explain why Israel can't leave it at having stabilized and secured its borders after October 7. Far from it, we've only seen mounting evidence that the counter measures are over the top, that they're only going to lead to further oppression of Palestinians, and that the total lives saved vs lives lost of innocent people speaks heavily against the bombardment.
Please, do engage with these points, I'll gladly continue the discussion.
My previous post wasn't very productive so my bad for that.
Let's go through the hypothetical where Israel does not respond militarily with an invasion into Gaza. In the short term there's no question it would lead to less casualties. Civilian or otherwise. In the long term it will lead to more casualties instead. If we look at it from the perspective of Hamas their expectations were probably as follows: 1. attack 2. kill Israeli's and take hostages 3. celebrate the great victory 4. wait for and endure the military response. Eventually the calls for a ceasefire will become overwhelming and Israel stops fighting, leaving Hamas in control of Gaza 5. exchange the hostages for a release of Hamas prisoners. These prisoners can help for the next attack as we've seen with the last exchange 6. prepare for the next attack on Israel
In that military response many Palestinian civilians and low level Hamas militants will die but the leadership and what they consider important things are relatively safe in their tunnel network below hospitals. For Hamas the Palestinian casualties are martyrs. It doesn't matter if thousands die as long as the leadership survives and continues to be in charge of the Gaza Strip they can fight for another day. Now what do you think happens if there is no military response? Do you think Hamas will see the error of its ways and stop their violence? Of course not. Instead the opposite will happen. The operation went much better than expected. Israel wants the hostages back so the exchange still happens. It shows Hamas and Palestinians that their violent attack works. It shows that Israel is becoming weak and does not want to defend itself anymore. It increases their legitimacy while at the same time destroying any legitimacy the PA had left with their policy of engagement with Israel. As Cerebrale pointed out capability is not static. Reinforcing the border helps temporarily but eventually they'll find a way around it. Because you've not even damaged their capabilities, this moment will come sooner rather than later.
Doing nothing will lead to more support for Hamas, it will lead to more attacks on Israel from Hamas and other organizations, and eventually a military response from Israel becomes inevitable leaving us at the same point we're now. At that point Hamas is even more entrenched making it much more difficult to remove them and causing even more deaths not to mention all the Israeli deaths in the meantime. Additionally they'll have oppressed civilians in Gaza for many more years.
Coming back to the argument of proportionality the reason why I said you're not engaging with the arguments of the opposing side is a post like the following:
On November 08 2023 23:34 Magic Powers wrote: I'd also like to address the claims by some people of Hamas exaggerating the death count: Hamas fighters only make up a small portion of Gazan people. There's no chance that the numbers can be exaggerated to such a degree that the conclusion changes. Lets assume 1/4 or even 1/2 of the reported civilian deaths are actually Hamas fighters - that would change nothing. Reported deaths are 1400 for Israel (no longer increasing) and 10 000 for Gaza (rapidly increasing).
The brutality of the IDF is disproportional no matter how we slice it. So even if we have a stone-cold argument of utility over an emotional one of the morality of killing, it's clear that the level of death and destruction is too much regardless of false reports.
You cannot determine the proportionality of the Israeli response from the numbers provided by the Hamas health ministry for the following reasons:
- A proportional response to the attack from Hamas means the following. I've quoted The Economist before on this so I'll do so again:
Article 51 of the United Nations charter gives states the right of self-defence against armed attack, provided that, according to customary international law, the force they use is necessary and proportionate. Proportionality does not mean symmetry in the type of weapons used or the number of casualties caused. It means that the defending state can use as much force as is needed to address the threat—and no more.
Drawing that line is a subjective and contentious process. But Israel’s campaign so far would meet those criteria, argues Aurel Sari, a law professor at the University of Exeter who lectures to NATO armed forces. The scale of Hamas’s attack, its demonstrated intent and proven capability means that invading Gaza or even occupying it temporarily to destroy the group “will be relatively easy to justify” legally, he says.
Notice how it does not require symmetry of civilian casualties between the two sides. The reason for this is because if you do compare civilian casualties like that there's an incentive to use civilians as human shields and a disincentive to protect civilians. For individual strikes it is different. There it has to be proportional to the military advantage gained. But this has to be judged on a case by case basis. - The numbers don't distinguish between militants and civilians - The numbers don't record the cause of death. It could be caused by someone falling from the stairs for all we know - The numbers don't distinguish between deaths caused by Israel or by militants in Gaza - The numbers do not take Hamas' use of human shields into account - The numbers do not take Hamas' use of child soldiers into account - The numbers do not take into account the military value of what was destroyed in the strikes
To summarize even if the amount of deaths is correct you cannot use them to conclude whether Israel's response is (dis)proportional. Your post only really takes the second point into account.
Far from it, we've only seen mounting evidence that the counter measures are over the top, that they're only going to lead to further oppression of Palestinians, and that the total lives saved vs lives lost of innocent people speaks heavily against the bombardment.
What evidence is there that it will lead to more oppression? That depends in large part on what comes next and what we've heard about that is very little and vague. One of the issues is that Netanyahu and his right wing coalition have lost their legitimacy due to 7/10 and are almost certainly going to lose power after the war.
Then one last point I want to make. For Israel 7/10 is an existential threat. Their neighbours stopped invading because they lost militarily multiple times. Their security is based on the fact that the IDF and security agencies are considered world class. A mistake of this size massively dents that reputation. The military response is in part aimed at rebuilding deterrence to prevent other parties from becoming too aggressive. You can argue that what they've already done is enough for that but I think the IDF and Israels politicians disagree. Considering the nature of conflicts in the middle east I understand why.
The IDF was caught with its pants down when Hamas invaded. The Israeli administration was warned but they ignored the warnings. Their intel also failed. They also naively assumed that Hamas was moving away from terrorism (for reasons unbeknownst to me) and pursuing economic goals. They also ignored Hamas’ military exercises, including parachute landings. Hamas didn't just suddenly "grow too powerful". It was a preventable failure by Israel. You can't blame the cars for collapsing a bridge if you don't maintain the bridge and keep it up to standard. Hamas will keep attacking Israel, and Israel didn't take appropriate measures. They lowered their guard for no good reason.
That was in large part due to misdirection from Hamas. They stopped firing rockets in 2021 and purposefully signalled to Israel that they were focused on economic development in the Gaza Strip. At the same time weapon deliveries to the West Bank increased. That is why Israels attention was on the West Bank, why they were allowing more aid into Gaza, and why they gave more work visa to civilians from Gaza. The point that apparently flies over your head when the argument is made that Hamas capability is not static is that they're not a passive actor. They're an active participant in the conflict and quite capable. Furthermore it is not realistic to expect Israels security establishment to work without mistakes. Yes large mistakes were made but this is something that will inevitably happen again.
And yet even this colossal failure has resulted in no more than 1400 deaths on Israel’s side. They can quite clearly be much better defended than this if they want to. The claim that Israel will suffer another 1400 deaths during another future attack is absurd. Yes, they'll lose lives, just as they have over previous decades, but it won't be anything close to 1400. Israel is once again very afraid of Hamas, so they will never let that happen again. It's in their own hands. Hamas has little say in that.
On the 6th of October the prediction that Hamas would overwhelm Israels border defense and massacre more than a thousand people was a fantasy. It still happened. What's absurd is thinking it will not happen again when they've shown time and again they'll continue their attempts. You're also still going back to the amount of deaths while ignoring that looking at death ratios in that way is an incentive to use human shields and a disincentive to protect civilians. It also fails to address the argument that stopping when the border is secured means the assault was a success. That it shows that violence works. That it increases their legitimacy while decreasing the legitimacy of the party that wants to engage with Israel through non-violent means. You're emboldening Hamas to keep attacking in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel.
Israel's willingness to kill and destroy can instead be turned into a willingness to protect. There’s a very specific reason why they’re not doing it: the Netanjahu administration. There’s no other reason. A benevolent administration strictly wouldn’t be doing this, as they would understand that it wouldn’t be right, and it's not even clear that it's productive either. The claim that Israel can only protect its citizens by causing this much death and destruction and more is completely unfounded. Israel has the means to strengthen its borders and improve its intel. There is no excuse.
You completely misunderstand the IDF and Israel. Gantz entry into the war cabinet neutralised the more extreme parties in the coalition as I've already explained earlier. The IDF is also an institution that has long supported a two state solution. Pretty much all the politicians that came out of it recently are to the left of Netanyahu. A coalition that has existed for the small amount of time that it has cannot suddenly change an institution like the IDF. The solution that they'll just have to do a better job at protecting their border to prevent terrorist attacks on their civilians is ridiculous. Hamas has to stop their attacks and recognise Israels right to exist. It has to amend their founding document to remove the anti semetic passages. It has to remove the passages calling for the killing of Jews. It is the bare minimum we should expect from any organisation that aims to represent its people. If they cannot do the bare minimum then Israel has every right to remove them from power. Edit: to be clear they have to follow the laws of war when doing this. Criticism of their conduct is valid.
As to part two of your argument regarding proportionality: Israel has already stabilized the border situation. "It means that the defending state can use as much force as is needed to address the threat—and no more." Israel has accomplished that goal weeks ago. Therefore I reject the argument from The Economist. It's nothing but a justification for more death.
Again you're not engaging with the argument made. Hamas has shown the intent and ability to make the attacks. They've signalled they will continue with them again and again. This is why the threat does not stop when securing the border.
The absolute worst attack Israel has ever suffered has cost 1400 Israeli lives. The absolute worst retaliation that Israel has ever committed has cost 10 000 Palestinian lives. You're not thinking rationally if you think Israel can't effectively defend against Hamas just by strictly defending their borders without destroying Hamas. Israel is currently turning Gaza into rubble. They have the capacity to literally glass the entire strip. They have the capacity to destroy entire countries. You're out of your mind if you think Hamas is powerful enough to seriously threaten Israel.
Just as a heads up, Israel changed their Oct 7 death toll to "around 1200" a couple days ago.
the 9/11 death toll changed on a weekly basis for months.
Cool story bro. I'm not going on a Mohdoo rant, just saying 1400 is an outdated number to use
any number is just a guess. the number will keep changing. there is no "right number".
On November 14 2023 03:40 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Now, if the average american with a bias against jews believes that "the jews" run Moody's Credit Rating service we could be in for some real anti semitism in the USA. Moody's downgrades US credit rating for the first time in 100 years. "the Fed" secretly still run by Greenspan uses this as an excuse to crank up Interest rates...... "give me control of a country's money supply and i care not who makes its laws".
i know a bunch of people with mortgages at 3% and 4% who are barely hanging on. We get a big interest rate hike and look out.
On November 12 2023 19:17 RvB wrote: [quote] I don't care who the Labour party supports. I gave an example of an organisation that had problems with anti semitism.
[quote] It makes a difference. You can't see how it can be justified because you don't engage with the arguments put forth by the opposing side.
Which argument that justifies the bombardment has not yet been refuted? We've been discussing this for many pages and I can't remember anyone being able to explain why so many civilian deaths are required or acceptable. No one has been able to explain why Israel can't leave it at having stabilized and secured its borders after October 7. Far from it, we've only seen mounting evidence that the counter measures are over the top, that they're only going to lead to further oppression of Palestinians, and that the total lives saved vs lives lost of innocent people speaks heavily against the bombardment.
Please, do engage with these points, I'll gladly continue the discussion.
My previous post wasn't very productive so my bad for that.
Let's go through the hypothetical where Israel does not respond militarily with an invasion into Gaza. In the short term there's no question it would lead to less casualties. Civilian or otherwise. In the long term it will lead to more casualties instead. If we look at it from the perspective of Hamas their expectations were probably as follows: 1. attack 2. kill Israeli's and take hostages 3. celebrate the great victory 4. wait for and endure the military response. Eventually the calls for a ceasefire will become overwhelming and Israel stops fighting, leaving Hamas in control of Gaza 5. exchange the hostages for a release of Hamas prisoners. These prisoners can help for the next attack as we've seen with the last exchange 6. prepare for the next attack on Israel
In that military response many Palestinian civilians and low level Hamas militants will die but the leadership and what they consider important things are relatively safe in their tunnel network below hospitals. For Hamas the Palestinian casualties are martyrs. It doesn't matter if thousands die as long as the leadership survives and continues to be in charge of the Gaza Strip they can fight for another day. Now what do you think happens if there is no military response? Do you think Hamas will see the error of its ways and stop their violence? Of course not. Instead the opposite will happen. The operation went much better than expected. Israel wants the hostages back so the exchange still happens. It shows Hamas and Palestinians that their violent attack works. It shows that Israel is becoming weak and does not want to defend itself anymore. It increases their legitimacy while at the same time destroying any legitimacy the PA had left with their policy of engagement with Israel. As Cerebrale pointed out capability is not static. Reinforcing the border helps temporarily but eventually they'll find a way around it. Because you've not even damaged their capabilities, this moment will come sooner rather than later.
Doing nothing will lead to more support for Hamas, it will lead to more attacks on Israel from Hamas and other organizations, and eventually a military response from Israel becomes inevitable leaving us at the same point we're now. At that point Hamas is even more entrenched making it much more difficult to remove them and causing even more deaths not to mention all the Israeli deaths in the meantime. Additionally they'll have oppressed civilians in Gaza for many more years.
Coming back to the argument of proportionality the reason why I said you're not engaging with the arguments of the opposing side is a post like the following:
On November 08 2023 23:34 Magic Powers wrote: I'd also like to address the claims by some people of Hamas exaggerating the death count: Hamas fighters only make up a small portion of Gazan people. There's no chance that the numbers can be exaggerated to such a degree that the conclusion changes. Lets assume 1/4 or even 1/2 of the reported civilian deaths are actually Hamas fighters - that would change nothing. Reported deaths are 1400 for Israel (no longer increasing) and 10 000 for Gaza (rapidly increasing).
The brutality of the IDF is disproportional no matter how we slice it. So even if we have a stone-cold argument of utility over an emotional one of the morality of killing, it's clear that the level of death and destruction is too much regardless of false reports.
You cannot determine the proportionality of the Israeli response from the numbers provided by the Hamas health ministry for the following reasons:
- A proportional response to the attack from Hamas means the following. I've quoted The Economist before on this so I'll do so again:
Article 51 of the United Nations charter gives states the right of self-defence against armed attack, provided that, according to customary international law, the force they use is necessary and proportionate. Proportionality does not mean symmetry in the type of weapons used or the number of casualties caused. It means that the defending state can use as much force as is needed to address the threat—and no more.
Drawing that line is a subjective and contentious process. But Israel’s campaign so far would meet those criteria, argues Aurel Sari, a law professor at the University of Exeter who lectures to NATO armed forces. The scale of Hamas’s attack, its demonstrated intent and proven capability means that invading Gaza or even occupying it temporarily to destroy the group “will be relatively easy to justify” legally, he says.
Notice how it does not require symmetry of civilian casualties between the two sides. The reason for this is because if you do compare civilian casualties like that there's an incentive to use civilians as human shields and a disincentive to protect civilians. For individual strikes it is different. There it has to be proportional to the military advantage gained. But this has to be judged on a case by case basis. - The numbers don't distinguish between militants and civilians - The numbers don't record the cause of death. It could be caused by someone falling from the stairs for all we know - The numbers don't distinguish between deaths caused by Israel or by militants in Gaza - The numbers do not take Hamas' use of human shields into account - The numbers do not take Hamas' use of child soldiers into account - The numbers do not take into account the military value of what was destroyed in the strikes
To summarize even if the amount of deaths is correct you cannot use them to conclude whether Israel's response is (dis)proportional. Your post only really takes the second point into account.
Far from it, we've only seen mounting evidence that the counter measures are over the top, that they're only going to lead to further oppression of Palestinians, and that the total lives saved vs lives lost of innocent people speaks heavily against the bombardment.
What evidence is there that it will lead to more oppression? That depends in large part on what comes next and what we've heard about that is very little and vague. One of the issues is that Netanyahu and his right wing coalition have lost their legitimacy due to 7/10 and are almost certainly going to lose power after the war.
Then one last point I want to make. For Israel 7/10 is an existential threat. Their neighbours stopped invading because they lost militarily multiple times. Their security is based on the fact that the IDF and security agencies are considered world class. A mistake of this size massively dents that reputation. The military response is in part aimed at rebuilding deterrence to prevent other parties from becoming too aggressive. You can argue that what they've already done is enough for that but I think the IDF and Israels politicians disagree. Considering the nature of conflicts in the middle east I understand why.
The IDF was caught with its pants down when Hamas invaded. The Israeli administration was warned but they ignored the warnings. Their intel also failed. They also naively assumed that Hamas was moving away from terrorism (for reasons unbeknownst to me) and pursuing economic goals. They also ignored Hamas’ military exercises, including parachute landings. Hamas didn't just suddenly "grow too powerful". It was a preventable failure by Israel. You can't blame the cars for collapsing a bridge if you don't maintain the bridge and keep it up to standard. Hamas will keep attacking Israel, and Israel didn't take appropriate measures. They lowered their guard for no good reason.
That was in large part due to misdirection from Hamas. They stopped firing rockets in 2021 and purposefully signalled to Israel that they were focused on economic development in the Gaza Strip. At the same time weapon deliveries to the West Bank increased. That is why Israels attention was on the West Bank, why they were allowing more aid into Gaza, and why they gave more work visa to civilians from Gaza. The point that apparently flies over your head when the argument is made that Hamas capability is not static is that they're not a passive actor. They're an active participant in the conflict and quite capable. Furthermore it is not realistic to expect Israels security establishment to work without mistakes. Yes large mistakes were made but this is something that will inevitably happen again.
And yet even this colossal failure has resulted in no more than 1400 deaths on Israel’s side. They can quite clearly be much better defended than this if they want to. The claim that Israel will suffer another 1400 deaths during another future attack is absurd. Yes, they'll lose lives, just as they have over previous decades, but it won't be anything close to 1400. Israel is once again very afraid of Hamas, so they will never let that happen again. It's in their own hands. Hamas has little say in that.
On the 6th of October the prediction that Hamas would overwhelm Israels border defense and massacre more than a thousand people was a fantasy. It still happened. What's absurd is thinking it will not happen again when they've shown time and again they'll continue their attempts. You're also still going back to the amount of deaths while ignoring that looking at death ratios in that way is an incentive to use human shields and a disincentive to protect civilians. It also fails to address the argument that stopping when the border is secured means the assault was a success. That it shows that violence works. That it increases their legitimacy while decreasing the legitimacy of the party that wants to engage with Israel through non-violent means. You're emboldening Hamas to keep attacking in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel.
Israel's willingness to kill and destroy can instead be turned into a willingness to protect. There’s a very specific reason why they’re not doing it: the Netanjahu administration. There’s no other reason. A benevolent administration strictly wouldn’t be doing this, as they would understand that it wouldn’t be right, and it's not even clear that it's productive either. The claim that Israel can only protect its citizens by causing this much death and destruction and more is completely unfounded. Israel has the means to strengthen its borders and improve its intel. There is no excuse.
You completely misunderstand the IDF and Israel. Gantz entry into the war cabinet neutralised the more extreme parties in the coalition as I've already explained earlier. The IDF is also an institution that has long supported a two state solution. Pretty much all the politicians that came out of it recently are to the left of Netanyahu. A coalition that has existed for the small amount of time that it has cannot suddenly change an institution like the IDF. The solution that they'll just have to do a better job at protecting their border to prevent terrorist attacks on their civilians is ridiculous. Hamas has to stop their attacks and recognise Israels right to exist. It has to amend their founding document to remove the anti semetic passages. It has to remove the passages calling for the killing of Jews. It is the bare minimum we should expect from any organisation that aims to represent its people. If they cannot do the bare minimum then Israel has every right to remove them from power. Edit: to be clear they have to follow the laws of war when doing this. Criticism of their conduct is valid.
As to part two of your argument regarding proportionality: Israel has already stabilized the border situation. "It means that the defending state can use as much force as is needed to address the threat—and no more." Israel has accomplished that goal weeks ago. Therefore I reject the argument from The Economist. It's nothing but a justification for more death.
Again you're not engaging with the argument made. Hamas has shown the intent and ability to make the attacks. They've signalled they will continue with them again and again. This is why the threat does not stop when securing the border.
The absolute worst attack Israel has ever suffered has cost 1400 Israeli lives. The absolute worst retaliation that Israel has ever committed has cost 10 000 Palestinian lives. You're not thinking rationally if you think Israel can't effectively defend against Hamas just by strictly defending their borders without destroying Hamas. Israel is currently turning Gaza into rubble. They have the capacity to literally glass the entire strip. They have the capacity to destroy entire countries. You're out of your mind if you think Hamas is powerful enough to seriously threaten Israel.
Just as a heads up, Israel changed their Oct 7 death toll to "around 1200" a couple days ago.
the 9/11 death toll changed on a weekly basis for months.
Cool story bro. I'm not going on a Mohdoo rant, just saying 1400 is an outdated number to use
any number is just a guess. the number will keep changing. there is no "right number".
Do we really need hypothetical future anti-Semitism to go along with the contemporary actualised anti-Semitism we have?
I said that people denying that there is a ethnical cleanse going on are genocide enablers, not that Israel is commiting genocide. I stand by it, i don't think it's that confusing since most of the time it's a two step ladder, and at the time, people were discussing about letting Israel bomb the hell out of Gaza as a reasonable response "to stop Hamas", yourself included.
The implication of calling others genocide enablers is pretty clear. It also shows the double standards of some in the thread. Calling others genocide enablers is not called out but anti semitism is. As for the bombing I've already explained how removing them from power in Gaza is legal under international law. That Israel uses more powerful weapons does not make it disproportionate.
On November 11 2023 02:32 Magic Powers wrote:
On November 11 2023 00:56 JimmiC wrote: [quote] Then you are extremely generous with your outlook. When someone starts claiming their genocidal ideology, talk, actions are not. Asks if they are justified. Starts to beat around the bush about the IDF doing the Hamas killing in spite of them taking credit, all the evidence including the self shot body cam and cell cam videos. When people are making claims about how the “west” treats Palestine without seemingly any realization that none of the Muslim or “Eastern” countries recognized Palestine before.
I’m not sure if it is that people are not in tune to the left dog whistle’s the way they are to the right, maybe because they can not believe someone that shares their values in many ways can differ so hard on other things. But for me there is posters here who dog whistle’s have crossed into such blatant territory that it is impossible to ignore.
I'm open to being educated about left-wing dog whistling. Is HasanAbi one of the people doing it? Can you also give an example of a comment in this thread?
About recognition of a/the State of Palestine: I'm reading that Egypt has in fact recognized it, but the US has not. Neither have Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico or the United Kingdom (Source: Wikipedia). You are right that other Middle Eastern countries have not recognized the State of Palestine, but that can be explained by the tensions with Israel. Why single out the ME (ignoring Egypt?) if Europe and the US aren't taking a strong stance? 138 of the 193 states in the UN apparently fully recognize Palestine. What about the rest?
I'm not an expert on dog whistles but I've seen anti Semites do the following at least: 1. From the river to the sea chant 2. Pulling out the bingo book of war crimes whenever Israel does something and instantly labelling everything a war crime even if we don't even have nearly enough information to establish such a fact 3. Hiding behind 'criticism of Israel is not anti semitism'. True, but anti Semites also use this to hide their anti semitism just like racists say that being anti immigration does not make you racist.
As for people in the thread I don't know if anyone is anti semetic. I'm working off the assumption that everybody has some decency and is not anti semetic. But from the top of my head these are some prominent people/organisations that are anti semetic in my view:
Corbyn's labour had issues with anti semitism, Tlaib, Melenchon, two Dutch parties in parliament used from the river to the sea chant and one of them has one Palestine with the Palestinian flag in their party programme.
Luckily Labour got purged of their anti-Semitic elements so they can unequivocally support Israel now, that’s much better eh?
I don't care who the Labour party supports. I gave an example of an organisation that had problems with anti semitism.
I said that people denying that there is a ethnical cleanse going on are genocide enablers, not that Israel is commiting genocide. I stand by it, i don't think it's that confusing since most of the time it's a two step ladder, and at the time, people were discussing about letting Israel bomb the hell out of Gaza as a reasonable response "to stop Hamas", yourself included.
The implication of calling others genocide enablers is pretty clear. It also shows the double standards of some in the thread. Calling others genocide enablers is not called out but anti semitism is. As for the bombing I've already explained how removing them from power in Gaza is legal under international law. That Israel uses more powerful weapons does not make it disproportionate.
On November 11 2023 02:32 Magic Powers wrote:
On November 11 2023 00:56 JimmiC wrote: [quote] Then you are extremely generous with your outlook. When someone starts claiming their genocidal ideology, talk, actions are not. Asks if they are justified. Starts to beat around the bush about the IDF doing the Hamas killing in spite of them taking credit, all the evidence including the self shot body cam and cell cam videos. When people are making claims about how the “west” treats Palestine without seemingly any realization that none of the Muslim or “Eastern” countries recognized Palestine before.
I’m not sure if it is that people are not in tune to the left dog whistle’s the way they are to the right, maybe because they can not believe someone that shares their values in many ways can differ so hard on other things. But for me there is posters here who dog whistle’s have crossed into such blatant territory that it is impossible to ignore.
I'm open to being educated about left-wing dog whistling. Is HasanAbi one of the people doing it? Can you also give an example of a comment in this thread?
About recognition of a/the State of Palestine: I'm reading that Egypt has in fact recognized it, but the US has not. Neither have Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico or the United Kingdom (Source: Wikipedia). You are right that other Middle Eastern countries have not recognized the State of Palestine, but that can be explained by the tensions with Israel. Why single out the ME (ignoring Egypt?) if Europe and the US aren't taking a strong stance? 138 of the 193 states in the UN apparently fully recognize Palestine. What about the rest?
I'm not an expert on dog whistles but I've seen anti Semites do the following at least: 1. From the river to the sea chant 2. Pulling out the bingo book of war crimes whenever Israel does something and instantly labelling everything a war crime even if we don't even have nearly enough information to establish such a fact 3. Hiding behind 'criticism of Israel is not anti semitism'. True, but anti Semites also use this to hide their anti semitism just like racists say that being anti immigration does not make you racist.
As for people in the thread I don't know if anyone is anti semetic. I'm working off the assumption that everybody has some decency and is not anti semetic. But from the top of my head these are some prominent people/organisations that are anti semetic in my view:
Corbyn's labour had issues with anti semitism, Tlaib, Melenchon, two Dutch parties in parliament used from the river to the sea chant and one of them has one Palestine with the Palestinian flag in their party programme.
This bombardment of Gaza is an atrocity. Call it what you want, war crime or not, it hardly makes a difference. I don't see how such a disproportionate level of aggression can be justified. And that's on top of Israel having a history of oppression.
I'd like people to imagine a hypothetical. Imagine Germany doing something of this nature. Oppression of an ethnic group through Apartheid, displacement, imprisonment and starvation. What would the world say? We all know what the headlines would say.
Regarding your examples of dog whistling, I can only agree with the first one. That can be an indicator. Point two and three don't qualify as dog whistling.
It makes a difference. You can't see how it can be justified because you don't engage with the arguments put forth by the opposing side.
Which argument that justifies the bombardment has not yet been refuted? We've been discussing this for many pages and I can't remember anyone being able to explain why so many civilian deaths are required or acceptable. No one has been able to explain why Israel can't leave it at having stabilized and secured its borders after October 7. Far from it, we've only seen mounting evidence that the counter measures are over the top, that they're only going to lead to further oppression of Palestinians, and that the total lives saved vs lives lost of innocent people speaks heavily against the bombardment.
Please, do engage with these points, I'll gladly continue the discussion.
My previous post wasn't very productive so my bad for that.
Let's go through the hypothetical where Israel does not respond militarily with an invasion into Gaza. In the short term there's no question it would lead to less casualties. Civilian or otherwise. In the long term it will lead to more casualties instead. If we look at it from the perspective of Hamas their expectations were probably as follows: 1. attack 2. kill Israeli's and take hostages 3. celebrate the great victory 4. wait for and endure the military response. Eventually the calls for a ceasefire will become overwhelming and Israel stops fighting, leaving Hamas in control of Gaza 5. exchange the hostages for a release of Hamas prisoners. These prisoners can help for the next attack as we've seen with the last exchange 6. prepare for the next attack on Israel
In that military response many Palestinian civilians and low level Hamas militants will die but the leadership and what they consider important things are relatively safe in their tunnel network below hospitals. For Hamas the Palestinian casualties are martyrs. It doesn't matter if thousands die as long as the leadership survives and continues to be in charge of the Gaza Strip they can fight for another day. Now what do you think happens if there is no military response? Do you think Hamas will see the error of its ways and stop their violence? Of course not. Instead the opposite will happen. The operation went much better than expected. Israel wants the hostages back so the exchange still happens. It shows Hamas and Palestinians that their violent attack works. It shows that Israel is becoming weak and does not want to defend itself anymore. It increases their legitimacy while at the same time destroying any legitimacy the PA had left with their policy of engagement with Israel. As Cerebrale pointed out capability is not static. Reinforcing the border helps temporarily but eventually they'll find a way around it. Because you've not even damaged their capabilities, this moment will come sooner rather than later.
Doing nothing will lead to more support for Hamas, it will lead to more attacks on Israel from Hamas and other organizations, and eventually a military response from Israel becomes inevitable leaving us at the same point we're now. At that point Hamas is even more entrenched making it much more difficult to remove them and causing even more deaths not to mention all the Israeli deaths in the meantime. Additionally they'll have oppressed civilians in Gaza for many more years.
Coming back to the argument of proportionality the reason why I said you're not engaging with the arguments of the opposing side is a post like the following:
On November 08 2023 23:34 Magic Powers wrote: I'd also like to address the claims by some people of Hamas exaggerating the death count: Hamas fighters only make up a small portion of Gazan people. There's no chance that the numbers can be exaggerated to such a degree that the conclusion changes. Lets assume 1/4 or even 1/2 of the reported civilian deaths are actually Hamas fighters - that would change nothing. Reported deaths are 1400 for Israel (no longer increasing) and 10 000 for Gaza (rapidly increasing).
The brutality of the IDF is disproportional no matter how we slice it. So even if we have a stone-cold argument of utility over an emotional one of the morality of killing, it's clear that the level of death and destruction is too much regardless of false reports.
You cannot determine the proportionality of the Israeli response from the numbers provided by the Hamas health ministry for the following reasons:
- A proportional response to the attack from Hamas means the following. I've quoted The Economist before on this so I'll do so again:
Article 51 of the United Nations charter gives states the right of self-defence against armed attack, provided that, according to customary international law, the force they use is necessary and proportionate. Proportionality does not mean symmetry in the type of weapons used or the number of casualties caused. It means that the defending state can use as much force as is needed to address the threat—and no more.
Drawing that line is a subjective and contentious process. But Israel’s campaign so far would meet those criteria, argues Aurel Sari, a law professor at the University of Exeter who lectures to NATO armed forces. The scale of Hamas’s attack, its demonstrated intent and proven capability means that invading Gaza or even occupying it temporarily to destroy the group “will be relatively easy to justify” legally, he says.
Notice how it does not require symmetry of civilian casualties between the two sides. The reason for this is because if you do compare civilian casualties like that there's an incentive to use civilians as human shields and a disincentive to protect civilians. For individual strikes it is different. There it has to be proportional to the military advantage gained. But this has to be judged on a case by case basis. - The numbers don't distinguish between militants and civilians - The numbers don't record the cause of death. It could be caused by someone falling from the stairs for all we know - The numbers don't distinguish between deaths caused by Israel or by militants in Gaza - The numbers do not take Hamas' use of human shields into account - The numbers do not take Hamas' use of child soldiers into account - The numbers do not take into account the military value of what was destroyed in the strikes
To summarize even if the amount of deaths is correct you cannot use them to conclude whether Israel's response is (dis)proportional. Your post only really takes the second point into account.
Far from it, we've only seen mounting evidence that the counter measures are over the top, that they're only going to lead to further oppression of Palestinians, and that the total lives saved vs lives lost of innocent people speaks heavily against the bombardment.
What evidence is there that it will lead to more oppression? That depends in large part on what comes next and what we've heard about that is very little and vague. One of the issues is that Netanyahu and his right wing coalition have lost their legitimacy due to 7/10 and are almost certainly going to lose power after the war.
Then one last point I want to make. For Israel 7/10 is an existential threat. Their neighbours stopped invading because they lost militarily multiple times. Their security is based on the fact that the IDF and security agencies are considered world class. A mistake of this size massively dents that reputation. The military response is in part aimed at rebuilding deterrence to prevent other parties from becoming too aggressive. You can argue that what they've already done is enough for that but I think the IDF and Israels politicians disagree. Considering the nature of conflicts in the middle east I understand why.
The IDF was caught with its pants down when Hamas invaded. The Israeli administration was warned but they ignored the warnings. Their intel also failed. They also naively assumed that Hamas was moving away from terrorism (for reasons unbeknownst to me) and pursuing economic goals. They also ignored Hamas’ military exercises, including parachute landings. Hamas didn't just suddenly "grow too powerful". It was a preventable failure by Israel. You can't blame the cars for collapsing a bridge if you don't maintain the bridge and keep it up to standard. Hamas will keep attacking Israel, and Israel didn't take appropriate measures. They lowered their guard for no good reason.
That was in large part due to misdirection from Hamas. They stopped firing rockets in 2021 and purposefully signalled to Israel that they were focused on economic development in the Gaza Strip. At the same time weapon deliveries to the West Bank increased. That is why Israels attention was on the West Bank, why they were allowing more aid into Gaza, and why they gave more work visa to civilians from Gaza. The point that apparently flies over your head when the argument is made that Hamas capability is not static is that they're not a passive actor. They're an active participant in the conflict and quite capable. Furthermore it is not realistic to expect Israels security establishment to work without mistakes. Yes large mistakes were made but this is something that will inevitably happen again.
And yet even this colossal failure has resulted in no more than 1400 deaths on Israel’s side. They can quite clearly be much better defended than this if they want to. The claim that Israel will suffer another 1400 deaths during another future attack is absurd. Yes, they'll lose lives, just as they have over previous decades, but it won't be anything close to 1400. Israel is once again very afraid of Hamas, so they will never let that happen again. It's in their own hands. Hamas has little say in that.
On the 6th of October the prediction that Hamas would overwhelm Israels border defense and massacre more than a thousand people was a fantasy. It still happened. What's absurd is thinking it will not happen again when they've shown time and again they'll continue their attempts. You're also still going back to the amount of deaths while ignoring that looking at death ratios in that way is an incentive to use human shields and a disincentive to protect civilians. It also fails to address the argument that stopping when the border is secured means the assault was a success. That it shows that violence works. That it increases their legitimacy while decreasing the legitimacy of the party that wants to engage with Israel through non-violent means. You're emboldening Hamas to keep attacking in Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel.
Israel's willingness to kill and destroy can instead be turned into a willingness to protect. There’s a very specific reason why they’re not doing it: the Netanjahu administration. There’s no other reason. A benevolent administration strictly wouldn’t be doing this, as they would understand that it wouldn’t be right, and it's not even clear that it's productive either. The claim that Israel can only protect its citizens by causing this much death and destruction and more is completely unfounded. Israel has the means to strengthen its borders and improve its intel. There is no excuse.
You completely misunderstand the IDF and Israel. Gantz entry into the war cabinet neutralised the more extreme parties in the coalition as I've already explained earlier. The IDF is also an institution that has long supported a two state solution. Pretty much all the politicians that came out of it recently are to the left of Netanyahu. A coalition that has existed for the small amount of time that it has cannot suddenly change an institution like the IDF. The solution that they'll just have to do a better job at protecting their border to prevent terrorist attacks on their civilians is ridiculous. Hamas has to stop their attacks and recognise Israels right to exist. It has to amend their founding document to remove the anti semetic passages. It has to remove the passages calling for the killing of Jews. It is the bare minimum we should expect from any organisation that aims to represent its people. If they cannot do the bare minimum then Israel has every right to remove them from power. Edit: to be clear they have to follow the laws of war when doing this. Criticism of their conduct is valid.
As to part two of your argument regarding proportionality: Israel has already stabilized the border situation. "It means that the defending state can use as much force as is needed to address the threat—and no more." Israel has accomplished that goal weeks ago. Therefore I reject the argument from The Economist. It's nothing but a justification for more death.
Again you're not engaging with the argument made. Hamas has shown the intent and ability to make the attacks. They've signalled they will continue with them again and again. This is why the threat does not stop when securing the border.
The absolute worst attack Israel has ever suffered has cost 1400 Israeli lives. The absolute worst retaliation that Israel has ever committed has cost 10 000 Palestinian lives. You're not thinking rationally if you think Israel can't effectively defend against Hamas just by strictly defending their borders without destroying Hamas. Israel is currently turning Gaza into rubble. They have the capacity to literally glass the entire strip. They have the capacity to destroy entire countries. You're out of your mind if you think Hamas is powerful enough to seriously threaten Israel.
Actually read my arguments and come back to me if you have.
On November 14 2023 00:55 Magic Powers wrote: You're not thinking rationally if you think Israel can't effectively defend against Hamas just by strictly defending their borders without destroying Hamas.
I don't know how it is so hard to understand this: Israel has all the power. They have so much free reign that they had the confidence to announce a massive increase of the DMZ just a few days after the attack. They can walk around in that whole area and just do as they please. Does that sound like a country enduring an existential crisis? Seriously? Even now, several weeks later? Where are the reports of continued offensives by Hamas?
Hamas has barely managed to kill 0.015% or 1 : 6400 of the Israeli population in their worst attack to date. Perhaps even less. And that's been (by far) the highest Jewish death count since the Holocaust. At the risk of sounding heartless - because on an individual level this is absolutely horrible - but on a state level it hardly qualifies as a scratch. And that's with all the reported security failures. Imagine if the IDF had been better prepared. Yet somehow people call Hamas an "existential threat" to Israel.
The only people that have to fear for their lives are Palestinians residing in Gaza, and a few hundred remaining hostages in Hamas' hands. The Israeli administration should make a great effort to get those hostages to safety, and stop acting like barbarians.
The reason that this is not currently an existential threat to Israel is because the US so quickly sent in one of the largest fleets since WW2 and told every other country in the region to stay in their seats. Because of that, Israel is not currently fighting a full blown two front war with Hezbollah (who are much stronger militarily than Hamas), Syria, and the direct engagement of Iran's rather impressive catalogue of rockets (plus possibly Iraq and others). I was honestly shocked at how swift and strong America's response was, but they are clearly the thing preventing this from being an all out regional war (meaning the whole region vs Israel by itself).
That is the existential threat. And that regional war was Hamas' goal. A goal, which may not yet have come to fruition, but could in the future.
The US is currently willing and able to send impressive levels of support like that, but they may not always. If China invades Taiwan and they have to send the bulk of their forces there? If a more isolationist president like Bernie Sanders wins an election? If Israel doesn't remove Hamas from the equation, they will continue to setup conditions for regional war against Israel time and again. But next time, conditions might be ripe for Israel to be attacked from all sides without restraint.
EXCLUSIVE RAW FOOTAGE: Watch IDF Spokesperson RAdm. Daniel Hagari walk through one of Hamas' subterranean terrorist tunnels—only to exit in Gaza's Rantisi hospital on the other side.
But the video in the tweet isn't raw footage, doesn't show anyone walking through one of Hamas' tunnels, and certainly doesn't exit a tunnel into the hospital. The deceptions don't stop there though.
EXCLUSIVE RAW FOOTAGE: Watch IDF Spokesperson RAdm. Daniel Hagari walk through one of Hamas' subterranean terrorist tunnels—only to exit in Gaza's Rantisi hospital on the other side.
But the video in the tweet isn't raw footage, doesn't show anyone walking through one of Hamas' tunnels, and certainly doesn't exit a tunnel into the hospital. The deceptions don't stop there though.
I dunno, seems pretty convincing to me. Of course, I didn't need a lot of convincing that Hamas are horrible and do horrible things. Things like using hospitals as operational bases for firing rockets from. And it stands to reason those would be connected by tunnel. None of it's very surprising if you start from the generally accepted premise that Hamas does bad shit.
I'll grant you that holding hostages in a basement of a hospital doesn't really sound like a bad spot for that. Holding hostages at all is obviously not good, but if Israel is throwing hundreds of bombs an hour, keeping those civilians safe in a hospital basement seems like the least bad place to keep them.
On November 14 2023 00:55 Magic Powers wrote: You're not thinking rationally if you think Israel can't effectively defend against Hamas just by strictly defending their borders without destroying Hamas.
I don't know how it is so hard to understand this: Israel has all the power. They have so much free reign that they had the confidence to announce a massive increase of the DMZ just a few days after the attack. They can walk around in that whole area and just do as they please. Does that sound like a country enduring an existential crisis? Seriously? Even now, several weeks later? Where are the reports of continued offensives by Hamas?
Hamas has barely managed to kill 0.015% or 1 : 6400 of the Israeli population in their worst attack to date. Perhaps even less. And that's been (by far) the highest Jewish death count since the Holocaust. At the risk of sounding heartless - because on an individual level this is absolutely horrible - but on a state level it hardly qualifies as a scratch. And that's with all the reported security failures. Imagine if the IDF had been better prepared. Yet somehow people call Hamas an "existential threat" to Israel.
The only people that have to fear for their lives are Palestinians residing in Gaza, and a few hundred remaining hostages in Hamas' hands. The Israeli administration should make a great effort to get those hostages to safety, and stop acting like barbarians.
The reason that this is not currently an existential threat to Israel is because the US so quickly sent in one of the largest fleets since WW2 and told every other country in the region to stay in their seats. Because of that, Israel is not currently fighting a full blown two front war with Hezbollah (who are much stronger militarily than Hamas), Syria, and the direct engagement of Iran's rather impressive catalogue of rockets (plus possibly Iraq and others). I was honestly shocked at how swift and strong America's response was, but they are clearly the thing preventing this from being an all out regional war (meaning the whole region vs Israel by itself).
That is the existential threat. And that regional war was Hamas' goal. A goal, which may not yet have come to fruition, but could in the future.
The US is currently willing and able to send impressive levels of support like that, but they may not always. If China invades Taiwan and they have to send the bulk of their forces there? If a more isolationist president like Bernie Sanders wins an election? If Israel doesn't remove Hamas from the equation, they will continue to setup conditions for regional war against Israel time and again. But next time, conditions might be ripe for Israel to be attacked from all sides without restraint.
Why would it matter if the US is or isn't the reason why Israel's existence is not threatened? The conclusion remains the same. But even that is provably false. Israel has already defended itself successfully against combined offensive efforts by several surrounding nations. Not only was Israel victorious, it was as one-sided as it could possibly get. The US didn't even have to intervene. The point stands, Israel is too powerful to be seriously threatened. It's time for people to accept that Hamas is not a serious threat to the state, but only to individual people.
Anyone more versed in wider European politics have a theory as to why Macron is actively calling for a ceasefire when others aren’t?
I know France has a very large Muslim population, I believe the highest in Europe both in absolute terms and proportionally but equally it has a large Jewish population as well, so I’m not sure if the Occam’s Razor explanation cuts the mustard in this instance.
Personally my extremely lukewarm (read tepid) enthusiasm for Starmer’s Labour completely evaporated with the pointed refusal to adopt a call for a ceasefire, which IMO is kind of the bare minimum threading the needle neutral stance on this particular issue. IIRC German leadership has done much the same, unsure of wider Europe.
Leo Varadkar, a man I have historically not had a lot of time for has actually showed some vague balls and moral courage on this as the representative of my Irish neighbours but I haven’t seen a huge amount elsewhere from national leaders. Am I missing some exceptions among other European leaders whose words might not enter our media sphere over here?
On November 14 2023 18:48 WombaT wrote: Anyone more versed in wider European politics have a theory as to why Macron is actively calling for a ceasefire when others aren’t?
I know France has a very large Muslim population, I believe the highest in Europe both in absolute terms and proportionally but equally it has a large Jewish population as well, so I’m not sure if the Occam’s Razor explanation cuts the mustard in this instance.
Personally my extremely lukewarm (read tepid) enthusiasm for Starmer’s Labour completely evaporated with the pointed refusal to adopt a call for a ceasefire, which IMO is kind of the bare minimum threading the needle neutral stance on this particular issue. IIRC German leadership has done much the same, unsure of wider Europe.
Leo Varadkar, a man I have historically not had a lot of time for has actually showed some vague balls and moral courage on this as the representative of my Irish neighbours but I haven’t seen a huge amount elsewhere from national leaders. Am I missing some exceptions among other European leaders whose words might not enter our media sphere over here?
As you point out correctly, Macron is in the minority regarding world leaders expressing discontent over Israel's actions. That puts additional pressure on him and makes it even more unlikely he's doing this to score points. I think chances are Macron is sincere. You can see in the interview that he struggles several times with maneuvering around the term "international law", but has no difficulty at all calling Israel's actions a "bombing of civilians" and asking for a ceasefire. If he's facing pressure, it would likely come from the pro-Israel camp. That's the older generations. The youngest generations are far more against Israel than any generation before them.
On November 14 2023 15:39 GreenHorizons wrote: The tweet says
EXCLUSIVE RAW FOOTAGE: Watch IDF Spokesperson RAdm. Daniel Hagari walk through one of Hamas' subterranean terrorist tunnels—only to exit in Gaza's Rantisi hospital on the other side.
But the video in the tweet isn't raw footage, doesn't show anyone walking through one of Hamas' tunnels, and certainly doesn't exit a tunnel into the hospital. The deceptions don't stop there though.
I dunno, seems pretty convincing to me. Of course, I didn't need a lot of convincing that Hamas are horrible and do horrible things. Things like using hospitals as operational bases for firing rockets from. And it stands to reason those would be connected by tunnel. None of it's very surprising if you start from the generally accepted premise that Hamas does bad shit.
I'll grant you that holding hostages in a basement of a hospital doesn't really sound like a bad spot for that. Holding hostages at all is obviously not good, but if Israel is throwing hundreds of bombs an hour, keeping those civilians safe in a hospital basement seems like the least bad place to keep them.
The tweet is shown to be untrue by the video it is supposed to be describing and you describe it as "pretty convincing".
I suppose this at least makes it easier to understand how they thought they'd get away with "the list where every terrorist writes his name... guarding the hostages" actually just being a plain calendar with the days of the week written on it.
It's embarrassingly bad propaganda, but I guess as the saying goes, If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid.
Stories like this show the true intentions of Israel, imo. They are not interested in de-escalation, and they are not interested in peace. The Hamas attack presented an opportunity to further their land grabs, and they're taking it without hesitation while the world is looking elsewhere. There's absolutely no excuse for this sort of thing, especially so when tensions are already sky high.
On November 14 2023 15:39 GreenHorizons wrote: The tweet says
EXCLUSIVE RAW FOOTAGE: Watch IDF Spokesperson RAdm. Daniel Hagari walk through one of Hamas' subterranean terrorist tunnels—only to exit in Gaza's Rantisi hospital on the other side.
But the video in the tweet isn't raw footage, doesn't show anyone walking through one of Hamas' tunnels, and certainly doesn't exit a tunnel into the hospital. The deceptions don't stop there though.
I dunno, seems pretty convincing to me. Of course, I didn't need a lot of convincing that Hamas are horrible and do horrible things. Things like using hospitals as operational bases for firing rockets from. And it stands to reason those would be connected by tunnel. None of it's very surprising if you start from the generally accepted premise that Hamas does bad shit.
I'll grant you that holding hostages in a basement of a hospital doesn't really sound like a bad spot for that. Holding hostages at all is obviously not good, but if Israel is throwing hundreds of bombs an hour, keeping those civilians safe in a hospital basement seems like the least bad place to keep them.
The tweet is shown to be untrue by the video it is supposed to be describing and you describe it as "pretty convincing".
I suppose this at least makes it easier to understand how they thought they'd get away with "the list where every terrorist writes his name... guarding the hostages" actually just being a plain calendar with the days of the week written on it.
It's embarrassingly bad propaganda, but I guess as the saying goes, If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid.
Lol, that is some Putin level bullshit right there. Actually, a lot of similarities with Putin's bullshit -- the whole shtick about 'our state being threatened' and 'regrettable but necessary action' and so on.
On November 14 2023 15:39 GreenHorizons wrote: The tweet says
EXCLUSIVE RAW FOOTAGE: Watch IDF Spokesperson RAdm. Daniel Hagari walk through one of Hamas' subterranean terrorist tunnels—only to exit in Gaza's Rantisi hospital on the other side.
But the video in the tweet isn't raw footage, doesn't show anyone walking through one of Hamas' tunnels, and certainly doesn't exit a tunnel into the hospital. The deceptions don't stop there though.
I dunno, seems pretty convincing to me. Of course, I didn't need a lot of convincing that Hamas are horrible and do horrible things. Things like using hospitals as operational bases for firing rockets from. And it stands to reason those would be connected by tunnel. None of it's very surprising if you start from the generally accepted premise that Hamas does bad shit.
I'll grant you that holding hostages in a basement of a hospital doesn't really sound like a bad spot for that. Holding hostages at all is obviously not good, but if Israel is throwing hundreds of bombs an hour, keeping those civilians safe in a hospital basement seems like the least bad place to keep them.
The tweet is shown to be untrue by the video it is supposed to be describing and you describe it as "pretty convincing".
I suppose this at least makes it easier to understand how they thought they'd get away with "the list where every terrorist writes his name... guarding the hostages" actually just being a plain calendar with the days of the week written on it.
It's embarrassingly bad propaganda, but I guess as the saying goes, If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid.
Pointing to a calender is some weak criticism considering the amount of evidence they provide in the video. I'll agree that the word of the IDF alone is not enough because they're a party in the conflict. They'll have to embed journalists when it's safe to go in. But it's not exactly a secret that Hamas uses these buildings for military purposes.
On November 13 2023 04:31 ChristianS wrote: The New Yorker just ran an interview with Daniella Weiss, a leader in the Israel settler movement for decades. Isaac Chotiner interviews are infamous for coaxing people into making themselves look awful, but even against that background this one stands out. It reads a little to me like interviews with senior neo-Nazis or Klansmen – facially collegial, but with anger and aggression on a hair’s trigger if the interviewer asks something even slightly disagreeable.
It’s worth reading in its entirety, but the highlights are pretty open expansionist ambitions (“The borders of the homeland of the Jews are the Euphrates in the east and the Nile in the southwest.”) and an emphatic belief that Palestinians are not entitled to rights (especially voting rights), but can stay in Israel-owned territory as long as they acknowledge Jewish supremacy (“We the Jews are the sovereigns in the state of Israel and in the Land of Israel. They have to accept it.”).
I’m not going to dwell on how appalling her position is. It’s worth asking, though, how representative her position is among Israelis. She claims settler movements are extremely popular in Israel, which is part of why they’ve had such a long string of right-wing governments. I think that’s plausible. But my impression was that Netanyahu’s position had largely been “I’m not going to try to achieve any long-term solution; I’ll keep you safe and mostly maintain the status quo.” The settlements are obviously expansionist, but they haven’t been especially fast (not in the way you’d expect of someone who wanted to conquer from the Nile to the Euphrates in his lifetime, anyway).
In other words, I don’t think Netanyahu’s pre-war success is obviously interpreted as the Israeli public supporting a fully expansionist goal like Weiss espouses. It seems more like Israelis mostly wanted safety and maintaining the status quo; they were okay with a little expansionism as long as it was mostly led by private settler groups.
I have no idea what the post-war consensus will be, though. It seems obvious now that there is no long-term security to be had from maintaining the status quo. But I don’t think Israel has the capability to conquer everything Weiss wants to conquer, and their international backing is on life support as it is. I don’t actually see any coherent post-war plan that doesn’t involve some sort of two-state solution, but at the same time that kind of peaceful conclusion has never seemed further away.
Support for the settlements seems to be pretty balanced. That is not the whole story though since the settler movement is not a monolith. The settlements were initially founded for security reasons. The settlements with the aim of annexation only came later. This article gives a good overview of the West Bank settlements. The paper it links to is also interesting. It analyses how much of a problem the settlements are to a two state solution. More to the point only one third of the settlers are there for expansionist reasons:
In terms of settlers’ personal reasons for living in the West Bank, one-third of Jews in the West Bank are motivated by religious ideology, while the rest were drawn to the region by the potential to improve their quality of life. Of the 127 recognized settlements, 64 were established for religious reasons, while 63 (home to 67% of Jews in the West Bank) were built with the motivation to provide a high quality of life.
In other words people like Weiss are not even a majority in the settlements let alone Israel as a whole. Their aim of a greater Israel is a fantasy anyway. It includes parts of Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan. That's not going to happen.
On November 13 2023 04:31 ChristianS wrote: The New Yorker just ran an interview with Daniella Weiss, a leader in the Israel settler movement for decades. Isaac Chotiner interviews are infamous for coaxing people into making themselves look awful, but even against that background this one stands out. It reads a little to me like interviews with senior neo-Nazis or Klansmen – facially collegial, but with anger and aggression on a hair’s trigger if the interviewer asks something even slightly disagreeable.
It’s worth reading in its entirety, but the highlights are pretty open expansionist ambitions (“The borders of the homeland of the Jews are the Euphrates in the east and the Nile in the southwest.”) and an emphatic belief that Palestinians are not entitled to rights (especially voting rights), but can stay in Israel-owned territory as long as they acknowledge Jewish supremacy (“We the Jews are the sovereigns in the state of Israel and in the Land of Israel. They have to accept it.”).
I’m not going to dwell on how appalling her position is. It’s worth asking, though, how representative her position is among Israelis. She claims settler movements are extremely popular in Israel, which is part of why they’ve had such a long string of right-wing governments. I think that’s plausible. But my impression was that Netanyahu’s position had largely been “I’m not going to try to achieve any long-term solution; I’ll keep you safe and mostly maintain the status quo.” The settlements are obviously expansionist, but they haven’t been especially fast (not in the way you’d expect of someone who wanted to conquer from the Nile to the Euphrates in his lifetime, anyway).
In other words, I don’t think Netanyahu’s pre-war success is obviously interpreted as the Israeli public supporting a fully expansionist goal like Weiss espouses. It seems more like Israelis mostly wanted safety and maintaining the status quo; they were okay with a little expansionism as long as it was mostly led by private settler groups.
I have no idea what the post-war consensus will be, though. It seems obvious now that there is no long-term security to be had from maintaining the status quo. But I don’t think Israel has the capability to conquer everything Weiss wants to conquer, and their international backing is on life support as it is. I don’t actually see any coherent post-war plan that doesn’t involve some sort of two-state solution, but at the same time that kind of peaceful conclusion has never seemed further away.
Support for the settlements seems to be pretty balanced. That is not the whole story though since the settler movement is not a monolith. The settlements were initially founded for security reasons. The settlements with the aim of annexation only came later. This article gives a good overview of the West Bank settlements. The paper it links to is also interesting. It analyses how much of a problem the settlements are to a two state solution. More to the point only one third of the settlers are there for expansionist reasons:
In terms of settlers’ personal reasons for living in the West Bank, one-third of Jews in the West Bank are motivated by religious ideology, while the rest were drawn to the region by the potential to improve their quality of life. Of the 127 recognized settlements, 64 were established for religious reasons, while 63 (home to 67% of Jews in the West Bank) were built with the motivation to provide a high quality of life.
In other words people like Weiss are not even a majority in the settlements let alone Israel as a whole. Their aim of a greater Israel is a fantasy anyway. It includes parts of Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan. That's not going to happen.
Not to quibble too much on minutiae, but “only 1/3 of settlers are there for religious reasons” is not the same as “only 1/3 are there for expansionist reasons.” Arguably 100% are there for expansionist reasons; if I show up to take somebody else’s land because I think I’m gonna be able to build a great house on it, that’s just as expansionist as it I show up to fulfill God’s plan for me to have it. If I was opposed to expansionism I wouldn’t have shown up at all.
More generally, all these motivations run into each other. The religious zealots show up to restore the ancient Land of Israel by any means necessary. Usually that means intentionally settling in the middle of big Palestinian communities and going out of their way to pick fights (e.g. dumping sewage on their crops). But the more self-interested settlers need those guys on the front lines to feel safe taking the land in less overtly provocative settlements; if I’m gonna speed on the freeway by 10 mph it feels a lot safer if there’s a bunch of cars speeding by 25 mph around.
Meanwhile from the government’s perspective they start out doing this for “security” reasons; but even from the start they’re figuring out what annexation would look like and placing settlements based on that plan. Because if the settlement just exists to defend other places, it’s more like a military outpost or fort; but once there’s a civilian population there you feel like you need to defend, it’s actually pretty inconvenient for it to be this isolated outpost with long, vulnerable supply lines. It’s the same vicious cycle every empire goes through – you expand in the name of creating a defensive buffer, but then in peacetime you build a bunch of shit in the buffer zone you want to defend, so now you have to expand again to defend that shit, and so on.
One of the worst qualities of the settlements is that it puts Palestinians in closest contact with the Israelis who are most viciously antagonistic to them. If you’re an Israeli who fundamentally views Palestinians as people who deserve rights and dignity, you probably live in Tel Aviv or something; if you’re an Israeli who thinks settlements are a sweet deal to get some cheap land, you probably live in one of the further-back settlements; if you think Palestinians are vermin who need to accept Jewish supremacy, leave or die, you’re probably on the front lines with Daniella Weiss scheming ways to contaminate their water supplies or vandalize their mosques.
EPT
