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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.
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On February 19 2024 07:45 Cerebrate1 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2024 23:56 ChristianS wrote:On February 16 2024 23:25 JimmiC wrote:
Ya, it was initially Greek, then the Roman’s brought it back when they took over, then it stopped again until the ottomans lost control and Brits brought it back.
I could be wrong but I’m not sure if Palestinians have really ever had self determination, basically just taken over by different over and over. Even right now it’s a battle between Israel and Iran for control. When Isreal won the war it was part of Jordan and Syria, not even one country, they have a pretty terrible history. I mean, skimming through this Wikipedia page it looks like “Palestinian” is an ethnic identity and nationalist movement that first started bubbling up in the 19th century but became particularly pronounced following WW1. Ya know, the same timeline a huge number of ethnic identities and nationalist movements in Europe followed. In fact, wasn’t Zionism on a pretty similar timeline? If that’s accurate, Cerebrate saying people didn’t identify as Palestinian in 1948 is wrong. But more than that, it seems motivated by a desire to imply Palestinian is not a “real” identity (much the same way Russia likes to do with Ukrainians). I mean, I agree that Cerebrate is a respectful and thorough poster and I’m glad he’s here, but that seems worth calling out, no? Edit: On February 16 2024 23:54 mcxds wrote:On February 16 2024 23:10 ChristianS wrote:
“Local Arabs didn’t even call themselves [Palestinians] yet?” Is that… true? The region had been called “Palestine” for nearly a couple thousand years, hadn’t it? Cerebrate1 has talked about this in Post #3928 in this Thread. Yeah okay, I went and read that one too. TL;DR is basically “Palestine was just a name used by Roman or British conquerors, the local people never thought they were anything but Arabs.” So yes, quite explicitly pushing the “not a real identity” angle. I mean, I’m not particularly well-versed on the history of Palestinian nationalism but even a quick googling reveals stuff like a series of Palestinian Arab Congresses held following WW1 trying to decide what “Palestinian” means and advocate for political autonomy. That’s exactly the kind of thing Germans or Italians or Hungarians were up to in the 19th and early 20th centuries as nationalism became the organizing principle of the world. Seems like it’s as “real” an ethnic identity as any other to me! To clarify my stance on national identity, I basically agree with what you and WombaT said that people basically make up their own identity. So the Arabs of the region of Israel/Palestine are certainly "Palestinians" now. You'll note that I, in fact, do call them Palestinian when referencing them in posts related to more recent time periods. The question is when they developed that identity as a unique and separate group of Arabs, distinct from other Arabs in the region. The first time they started referring to themselves as "The Palestinians" from my understanding is with the advent of the PLO in the 1960s as part of an effort to contest Israel's claim to land outside of the West Bank and Gaza. The fact that they were apparently happy under Jordanian and Egyptian rule does indicate, that even at that point they didn't see themselves as distinct from those other Arab groups. The PLO were quite successful in spreading this Palestinian identity, and, regardless of the original intent of creating it, that identity has developed much since then. As for the local Arabs prior to the formation of the PLO, if you had gone back in time and asked them what they were, they would each have answered either "Arab" or "Muslim." They lived within the region called "Mandatory Palestine" by the British, so they might have said they were from "Palestine", but no more so than Jews living in the region would have. Various references to "Arabs of Palestine" are talking about a group of people living in a place. There are similar references to the " Jews of Palestine," but that does not mean that those Jews identified as a nation of "Palestine." In fact, the fact that all the groups back then were called "the X of Palestine" ( B'hai, Druze, Armenians, etc), is actually proof that there were many groups within Mandatory Palestine and that none of them had exclusive claim to the term "Palestinian." As for your link, a cursory read seems to support the conclusion that the nationalist vibe of Arabs in that time and place was something like this: The borders drawn by the French and British were arbitrary and dumb. The whole Levant is really one giant Arab territory and we want to reunite with our other bretheren into one big Arab super country. The fact that individual groups in what would be Jordan, Syria, and Israel/Palestine all came to similar conclusions, is not a demonstration that those groups had distinct national ambitions. Quite the opposite. It's clear that they felt they were one contiguous people and British borders had nothing to do with their national identity. This is from your link: Show nested quote +The resolutions of the Jerusalem Congress were as follows:
"-We consider Palestine nothing but part of Arab Syria and it has never been separated from it at any stage. We are tied to it by national, religious, linguistic, moral, economic, and geographic bounds."[5]
-Rejection of French claims to the area
-"Our district Southern Syria or Palestine should be not separated from the Independent Arab Syrian Government and be free from all foreign influence and protection"[6]
-All foreign treaties referring to the area are deemed void
-To maintain friendly relations with Britain and the Allied powers, accepting help if it did not affect the country's independence and Arab unity
It was decided to send a delegation to Damascus and representatives attended the Syrian National Congress in Damascus on 8 June 1919[7] "to inform Arab patriots there of the decision to call Palestine Southern Syria and unite it with Northern Syria"
“One big Arab supercountry” doesn’t really seem to be the gist of that article at all. Even in the portion you quoted they’re calling for unification with Syria, not the entire Arab world.
That said, I’ll agree that compared to, say, Italian or German or Hungarian nationalist movements, this one seems a lot more focused on rejecting European sovereignty over the region than establishing a specifically Palestinian national identity. That is, they were happy enough to be a district of some, say, Syrian government rather than their own polity if it would get the Europeans out of there. And a lot of those Congresses are primarily dedicated to saying to the British “Hey, that Balfour Declaration stuff sounds pretty crazy, you’re not really gonna do that to us, right?”
But I’m gonna have to contest that the fact they were willing to accept Jordanian or Syrian or Egyptian rule precludes the idea that a national identity was forming and had formed to a significant extent by that point. Like any political movement, they were trying to figure out what political alliances they could or should make in order to avert their worst nightmare outcomes. And like any nationalist movement, it was a slow progression from pre-existing local (e.g. “Damascan”) or supernational (e.g. “Muslim”) identities into a single, regional, explicitly political identity. But an organization calling itself the PLO in the 1960s is an endpoint in that process, not the start of it.
This conversation is getting dangerously close to involving the word “reification,” which I usually take as a sign that I’m in too deep. But I think it’s a significantly older and more complicated story than “people only started calling themselves Palestinians when they wanted to contest some land claims in the 1960s.”
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On February 19 2024 00:36 FriedrichNietzsche wrote:
I did not compare anything. Also I did not get banned - what are you talking about?
I did not say it has anything to do with China? Dude you honestly lack simple reading comprehension. One last time:
This topic is ofc also about geopolitics. I just in a side sentence wrote that I would be worried if China got more active. Nothing more nothing less.
Like I am at the point of getting an urge to be insulting. But I will stay calm and ask one more: What is your problem with my post? I did not say it has anything to do with China.
I just literally wrote what I wrote. So TL;DR for you again:
I dont like escalating stuff (vs Iran e.g.) & I would be worried when/if China started to be more active geopolitically.
(I honestly feel like you might be psychotic. As in you literally think everything is aimed at you & a challenge)..
One last time. All I wrote was:
I dont like things escalating in regards to Iran. I would be worried if China started getting geopolitically more active.
What is your issue?
It's statistically far more likely that you're a returning user or previously banned user than a genuine, new user that wandered in here and came to hang out. New accounts on TL don't seem terribly common. Obviously, it's not impossible, but I can respect the kneejerk reaction of "user might be a PBU" given the 2024 account creation.
That said, Jimmi and I are also technically both previously banned users (No perma yet, fingers crossed) so I don't think the comment holds that much weight, but that's where it's coming from.
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On February 19 2024 12:06 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2024 07:45 Cerebrate1 wrote:On February 16 2024 23:56 ChristianS wrote:On February 16 2024 23:25 JimmiC wrote:
Ya, it was initially Greek, then the Roman’s brought it back when they took over, then it stopped again until the ottomans lost control and Brits brought it back.
I could be wrong but I’m not sure if Palestinians have really ever had self determination, basically just taken over by different over and over. Even right now it’s a battle between Israel and Iran for control. When Isreal won the war it was part of Jordan and Syria, not even one country, they have a pretty terrible history. I mean, skimming through this Wikipedia page it looks like “Palestinian” is an ethnic identity and nationalist movement that first started bubbling up in the 19th century but became particularly pronounced following WW1. Ya know, the same timeline a huge number of ethnic identities and nationalist movements in Europe followed. In fact, wasn’t Zionism on a pretty similar timeline? If that’s accurate, Cerebrate saying people didn’t identify as Palestinian in 1948 is wrong. But more than that, it seems motivated by a desire to imply Palestinian is not a “real” identity (much the same way Russia likes to do with Ukrainians). I mean, I agree that Cerebrate is a respectful and thorough poster and I’m glad he’s here, but that seems worth calling out, no? Edit: On February 16 2024 23:54 mcxds wrote:On February 16 2024 23:10 ChristianS wrote:
“Local Arabs didn’t even call themselves [Palestinians] yet?” Is that… true? The region had been called “Palestine” for nearly a couple thousand years, hadn’t it? Cerebrate1 has talked about this in Post #3928 in this Thread. Yeah okay, I went and read that one too. TL;DR is basically “Palestine was just a name used by Roman or British conquerors, the local people never thought they were anything but Arabs.” So yes, quite explicitly pushing the “not a real identity” angle. I mean, I’m not particularly well-versed on the history of Palestinian nationalism but even a quick googling reveals stuff like a series of Palestinian Arab Congresses held following WW1 trying to decide what “Palestinian” means and advocate for political autonomy. That’s exactly the kind of thing Germans or Italians or Hungarians were up to in the 19th and early 20th centuries as nationalism became the organizing principle of the world. Seems like it’s as “real” an ethnic identity as any other to me! To clarify my stance on national identity, I basically agree with what you and WombaT said that people basically make up their own identity. So the Arabs of the region of Israel/Palestine are certainly "Palestinians" now. You'll note that I, in fact, do call them Palestinian when referencing them in posts related to more recent time periods. The question is when they developed that identity as a unique and separate group of Arabs, distinct from other Arabs in the region. The first time they started referring to themselves as "The Palestinians" from my understanding is with the advent of the PLO in the 1960s as part of an effort to contest Israel's claim to land outside of the West Bank and Gaza. The fact that they were apparently happy under Jordanian and Egyptian rule does indicate, that even at that point they didn't see themselves as distinct from those other Arab groups. The PLO were quite successful in spreading this Palestinian identity, and, regardless of the original intent of creating it, that identity has developed much since then. As for the local Arabs prior to the formation of the PLO, if you had gone back in time and asked them what they were, they would each have answered either "Arab" or "Muslim." They lived within the region called "Mandatory Palestine" by the British, so they might have said they were from "Palestine", but no more so than Jews living in the region would have. Various references to "Arabs of Palestine" are talking about a group of people living in a place. There are similar references to the " Jews of Palestine," but that does not mean that those Jews identified as a nation of "Palestine." In fact, the fact that all the groups back then were called "the X of Palestine" ( B'hai, Druze, Armenians, etc), is actually proof that there were many groups within Mandatory Palestine and that none of them had exclusive claim to the term "Palestinian." As for your link, a cursory read seems to support the conclusion that the nationalist vibe of Arabs in that time and place was something like this: The borders drawn by the French and British were arbitrary and dumb. The whole Levant is really one giant Arab territory and we want to reunite with our other bretheren into one big Arab super country. The fact that individual groups in what would be Jordan, Syria, and Israel/Palestine all came to similar conclusions, is not a demonstration that those groups had distinct national ambitions. Quite the opposite. It's clear that they felt they were one contiguous people and British borders had nothing to do with their national identity. This is from your link: The resolutions of the Jerusalem Congress were as follows:
"-We consider Palestine nothing but part of Arab Syria and it has never been separated from it at any stage. We are tied to it by national, religious, linguistic, moral, economic, and geographic bounds."[5]
-Rejection of French claims to the area
-"Our district Southern Syria or Palestine should be not separated from the Independent Arab Syrian Government and be free from all foreign influence and protection"[6]
-All foreign treaties referring to the area are deemed void
-To maintain friendly relations with Britain and the Allied powers, accepting help if it did not affect the country's independence and Arab unity
It was decided to send a delegation to Damascus and representatives attended the Syrian National Congress in Damascus on 8 June 1919[7] "to inform Arab patriots there of the decision to call Palestine Southern Syria and unite it with Northern Syria" “One big Arab supercountry” doesn’t really seem to be the gist of that article at all. Even in the portion you quoted they’re calling for unification with Syria, not the entire Arab world.That said, I’ll agree that compared to, say, Italian or German or Hungarian nationalist movements, this one seems a lot more focused on rejecting European sovereignty over the region than establishing a specifically Palestinian national identity. That is, they were happy enough to be a district of some, say, Syrian government rather than their own polity if it would get the Europeans out of there. And a lot of those Congresses are primarily dedicated to saying to the British “Hey, that Balfour Declaration stuff sounds pretty crazy, you’re not really gonna do that to us, right?” But I’m gonna have to contest that the fact they were willing to accept Jordanian or Syrian or Egyptian rule precludes the idea that a national identity was forming and had formed to a significant extent by that point. Like any political movement, they were trying to figure out what political alliances they could or should make in order to avert their worst nightmare outcomes. And like any nationalist movement, it was a slow progression from pre-existing local (e.g. “Damascan”) or supernational (e.g. “Muslim”) identities into a single, regional, explicitly political identity. But an organization calling itself the PLO in the 1960s is an endpoint in that process, not the start of it. This conversation is getting dangerously close to involving the word “reification,” which I usually take as a sign that I’m in too deep. But I think it’s a significantly older and more complicated story than “people only started calling themselves Palestinians when they wanted to contest some land claims in the 1960s.”
I did say the "super country" was supposed to be in "the Levant." Considering Mandatory Palestine at that time included the areas of modern day Jordan, Israel, and Palestine, if those regions all joined with Syria, that would be almost all of what is generally known as "the Levant." Add to that that Syria itself was so into this idea that they unified with Egypt into a confederation in 1958 and you see how far the Pan-Arabism movement might have gone.
As an interesting and related side note, I just noticed that the Palestinian flag is actually the same as the Pan-Arabism flag, just with the white and green bars flipped. I'd venture to guess that that's no mere coincidence either.
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Sure, I’m not gonna deny the existence of Pan-Arabism throughout the 20th century but that doesn’t preclude the existence of smaller cultural, ethnic, or “national” identities within the Arab world. Pan-Africanism has been an influential idea for a long time, and I don’t see anybody claiming that proves the nonexistence of cultural, ethnic, or national identities within Africa.
I mean, doesn’t the act of holding Palestinian Arab Congresses seem to be a recognition that people in this region have similar cultural background and political circumstance such that they should get together and try to establish some kind of consensus about what they want and how to achieve it? More specifically that Palestinian Arabs might have something useful to talk about together that might not repeat as directly to Arabs from other regions. It might just be lines drawn by Europeans that put them in common circumstance with each other, but even so there’s an explicit identification of people under the name “Palestinian” for purposes of common political action.
I’m trying to think what the practical significance of this dispute is. It doesn’t really change 1948 being an ethnic cleansing – whether it’s “Arabs” or “Palestinians” you’re forcibly removing that’s still the term. And we’re agreed they’re still “Palestinians” now – I should hope you’re not hoping to discount the legitimacy of the term based on its newness, considering “Israeli” is at least as recent.
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On February 19 2024 15:33 ChristianS wrote:
Sure, I’m not gonna deny the existence of Pan-Arabism throughout the 20th century but that doesn’t preclude the existence of smaller cultural, ethnic, or “national” identities within the Arab world. Pan-Africanism has been an influential idea for a long time, and I don’t see anybody claiming that proves the nonexistence of cultural, ethnic, or national identities within Africa.
I mean, doesn’t the act of holding Palestinian Arab Congresses seem to be a recognition that people in this region have similar cultural background and political circumstance such that they should get together and try to establish some kind of consensus about what they want and how to achieve it? More specifically that Palestinian Arabs might have something useful to talk about together that might not repeat as directly to Arabs from other regions. It might just be lines drawn by Europeans that put them in common circumstance with each other, but even so there’s an explicit identification of people under the name “Palestinian” for purposes of common political action.
I’m trying to think what the practical significance of this dispute is. It doesn’t really change 1948 being an ethnic cleansing – whether it’s “Arabs” or “Palestinians” you’re forcibly removing that’s still the term. And we’re agreed they’re still “Palestinians” now – I should hope you’re not hoping to discount the legitimacy of the term based on its newness, considering “Israeli” is at least as recent.
I wasn't making some larger point here. I was criticized for using the term "Arabs" to describe the locals in 1948. I explained that that is literally what they called themselves and that they didn't take on the name "the Palestinians" until later in history. At which point, you asked if that was true. We then went through the weeds investigating some Palestine Arab Congresses and how that was similar to the "Palestinian Jews," except that it would eventually lead to the Arabs taking the title "Palestinians" in full from all other residents of the region at a later point in history.
Edit: worth noting that I also did not refer to the "Jews" as "Israelis" in that post because that would be similarly anachronistic.
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On February 19 2024 09:25 Cerebrate1 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2024 23:44 Nebuchad wrote:
So, obviously many many people who support Israel have a very distant view of what the conflict looks like and aren't intentionally deceptive about their beliefs, they just don't know any better because they are uninformed, or misinformed. Once you know the facts, in terms of morality everything is extremely simple. The very notion that it's complex and that people disagree because of the moral complexity of what's happening is already cringe.
Also Shaun's video on Palestine is out on Patreon, I'll post it here as soon as it's public. I usually don't know as much about the topics that he covers so this time I didn't learn as much as usual. I didn't know that in the 1980s Biden was so pro-Israel murdering civilians that Reagan and the Israeli prime minister of that time had to distance themselves from him, that's one thing I learned. Still the skull man is good, and it's good to have a cohesive 1h30' piece about this, I'm glad it exists. Listen, I'm not going to rehash the whole conflict with you. If you don't think things like freeing hostages from Hamas or preventing Hamas from committing another Oct 7th on the people of southern Israel at least adds moral complexity to the situation (and the fact that Israel had no intention of doing any of this until those factors were on the table), then we have very different systems of morality that we believe in. Regardless, your claim was that I was a liar. The proof you bring as evidence goes something like this: 1. Cerebrate1 is intelligent (I do appreciate this part, thanks) 2. Cerebrate1 disagrees with some stance/point of Nebuchad (it's not entirely clear which stance of yours you are saying I disagree with, so you aren't leaving room for us to resolve our differences here) 3. No intelligent person could possibly disagree with this [unspecified] stance of Nebuchad (a pretty high bar of morality for whatever this stance is) 4. Therefore, Cerebrate1 must actually agree with Nebuchad, but he is claiming that he does not because he is a liar. Without delving too deeply into your proof, it's worth noting that you chose not to use a much more straightforward proof that I was a liar. That is, you could have provided examples from my hundreds of posts here that I had actually intentionally lied. Which really gets back to a point I made earlier about Ad Hominem attacks, which is that they are logically irrelevant. That is, even if you do believe me to be a liar in general for whatever reason, as long as each individual post I make is accurate, it doesn't really matter.
Freeing hostages or fighting against terrorism are not morally complex ideas, they're very simple. They add zero complexity, it's not morally complex to oppose Hamas.
(But you knew that.)
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I see the effort to delegitimize Palestinians has reached another level. It's fascinating that there's no discussion that the Jewish diaspora apparently has had a self-described ethnic component - while not being locally bound - that could legitimately be formed into a Jewish state, but the local Palestinian population allegedly did not? That's even though Jews were largely connected through religion prior to the formation of the State of Israel, while Palestinians were connected through all aspects: territory, culture and religion.
Somehow the concept of Palestinians hinges on the idea of them calling themselves Palestinians. They couldn't possibly have already been Palestinians looking for a name? And that even though it's clear as day that they were obviously dissimilar from non-Palestinians the whole time? So much so that they could easily be weeded out by the Zionist rulers according to ethnicity during and right after the formation of the State of Israel? Fascinating.
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Northern Ireland22951 Posts
I believe there’s been plenty of discussion of just that in the past in this particular thread.
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@Magic Powers
I'm not going to even try to dissect the complexity of how a group of people spanning in the hundreds of thousands behaves on a macro and micro level, spanning over a certain stretch of time and covering a vast swath of land. I'n not sure how borders worked before Western imperialism. I'm not sure how culture actually manifests into something cohesive if you don't have some overarching power keeping (i.e. forcing) it together. I think the Palestinian matter is very murky and making bold statements like that sets you up for failure.
@Nebuchad
It's one thing to claim "freeing hostages" and "fighting terrorism" in a vacuum are easy moral standpoints, but when Hamas actively tries to casue IDF to make as much collateral damage as possible, you need to make some extra considerations, no?
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On February 19 2024 21:26 Uldridge wrote:
@Nebuchad
It's one thing to claim "freeing hostages" and "fighting terrorism" in a vacuum are easy moral standpoints, but when Hamas actively tries to cause IDF to make as much collateral damage as possible, you need to make some extra considerations, no?
First, this picture is kind of wrong, it makes it look like the IDF is actively trying to avoid collateral damage but unfortunately Hamas forces them to do this, that's not remotely how the IDF has been operating, either in the past or today:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrine
https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/
Second, even in your framing it's pretty clear in my opinion that the answer should still be that there are no extra considerations, as there are no ways in which Hamas could have behaved that make the current situation a morally acceptable outcome.
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On February 19 2024 21:26 Uldridge wrote:
@Magic Powers
I'm not going to even try to dissect the complexity of how a group of people spanning in the hundreds of thousands behaves on a macro and micro level, spanning over a certain stretch of time and covering a vast swath of land. I'n not sure how borders worked before Western imperialism. I'm not sure how culture actually manifests into something cohesive if you don't have some overarching power keeping (i.e. forcing) it together. I think the Palestinian matter is very murky and making bold statements like that sets you up for failure.
@Nebuchad
It's one thing to claim "freeing hostages" and "fighting terrorism" in a vacuum are easy moral standpoints, but when Hamas actively tries to casue IDF to make as much collateral damage as possible, you need to make some extra considerations, no?
Regarding today's borders, Britannica has one of the best articles under the topic of nationalism, covering how nations/states came to be. They don't go deeply into the ideology of nationalism, but they provide a descriptive order of events.
One takeaway regarding today's nations (and especially the concept of nation states) is that they're a modern phenomenon (rooting roughly around the 18th century). Nation states began in the Western hemisphere and the concept spread to other continents. The ME and Africa picked it up fairly late.
The merger of ethnicity and/or culture with a nation is an entirely modern concept. This is something that is very important to keep in mind when judging things from our modern lense, and also from that of the Western hemisphere.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/nationalism
While nationhood wasn't inherently tied to nationalism per se, some nations turned into brutal nationalist regimes that oppressed people and started terrible wars - a direct consequence of the supremacist nature of nationalism. Over time it was understood that nationalism had to come to an end or else the brutality would never stop. Nations and nation states however persisted, and that's where we are today.
Most nations today were founded on the principles of a common ethnicity, culture and religion. For this reason the supremacy and therefore also the brutality between and within nations never completely ended, but fortunately there were other forces at play (such as secularism, democracy, checks and balances, progressivism, etc.) that worked tirelessly to find ways towards peaceful co-existence.
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On February 19 2024 21:48 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2024 21:26 Uldridge wrote:
@Nebuchad
It's one thing to claim "freeing hostages" and "fighting terrorism" in a vacuum are easy moral standpoints, but when Hamas actively tries to cause IDF to make as much collateral damage as possible, you need to make some extra considerations, no? First, this picture is kind of wrong, it makes it look like the IDF is actively trying to avoid collateral damage but unfortunately Hamas forces them to do this, that's not remotely how the IDF has been operating, either in the past or today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrinehttps://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/Second, even in your framing it's pretty clear in my opinion that the answer should still be that there are no extra considerations, as there are no ways in which Hamas could have behaved that make the current situation a morally acceptable outcome.
While I disagree with this statement (they could have killed x50 more people than they did, for example), I get the point you’re making. The issue is the severity of Israel’s response.
As much as I hate to bring out analogies, let’s say you’ve got a partner and a family of 3 children, and someone murders that child. In addition, you have good reason to believe not only are they willing and able to do it again, they’re being sheltered by neighbors, some willing and some unwilling, shielding their exact location and ability to harm them. What would we do as individuals in this particular situation?
- We wouldn’t go on an arson spree burning down all our neighbor’s houses at 3 in the morning, shouting a warning at 2:30 and all other consequences be damned. While that can be certainly cathartic for the pain felt from losing a child, and may help you feel your family’s safer, I hope we can all agree base vengeance or non-immediate concern of danger is not justification for killing innocents and wanton destruction. In addition, we would rightfully be arrested for arson with a jury of our peers likely saying “I’m sorry for your loss, but that’s way out of line”.
- We wouldn’t go to our neighbors and say “hey I’m sorry for wrongs I’ve committed to you all in the past, let’s try and get along and maybe you won’t keep the murderer in your midst anymore” and integrate your family with them and invite them into your house. One, it’s opening yourself to get more of your family murdered, two your family would be horrified and never feel safe in their own home, and three some of your neighbors couldn’t get rid of the murderer from their house even if they wanted to. It invites huge risk with a minuscule likelihood of success.
- What most of us would do, is immediately call the police and report the situation and give them at least some time to do what needs to be done (or at least let them take the lead while you provide support). They (for the most part) have the will of the populace to use violence, more resources, tools and experience at their disposal to accomplish the specific task needed, and they’re way less likely to let emotions cloud their judgement and de-prioritize civilian lives. Finally, no one would hold us accountable for any incidental harm done to the innocent neighbors. Only if the police are shown to be ineffective or unwilling to do their job, would we more strongly consider vigilantism.
Obviously the police in this case would be “The West”, predominantly the US. Or whoever it is who’s supposed to enforce stuff like the ICJ. IMO, based off everything I’ve learned so far about this conflict since Oct 7th, I don’t think Israel gave enough time/opportunity to the international community to step in and act as a third-party dispute resolver, before embracing essentially vigilantism. In addition, the evidence from polling of the general populace of Israel along with statements from the higher-ups indicate base thoughts of either vengeance or fight-flight response are much more prevalent than thoughts of restraint or concern for civilians. These all coincide more with the 1st option I listed above. Israel certainly isn’t the first country to respond this way (9/11 as an obvious example) and it’s understandable why they would, but that doesn’t make it any less wrong.
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On February 19 2024 16:40 Cerebrate1 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2024 15:33 ChristianS wrote:
Sure, I’m not gonna deny the existence of Pan-Arabism throughout the 20th century but that doesn’t preclude the existence of smaller cultural, ethnic, or “national” identities within the Arab world. Pan-Africanism has been an influential idea for a long time, and I don’t see anybody claiming that proves the nonexistence of cultural, ethnic, or national identities within Africa.
I mean, doesn’t the act of holding Palestinian Arab Congresses seem to be a recognition that people in this region have similar cultural background and political circumstance such that they should get together and try to establish some kind of consensus about what they want and how to achieve it? More specifically that Palestinian Arabs might have something useful to talk about together that might not repeat as directly to Arabs from other regions. It might just be lines drawn by Europeans that put them in common circumstance with each other, but even so there’s an explicit identification of people under the name “Palestinian” for purposes of common political action.
I’m trying to think what the practical significance of this dispute is. It doesn’t really change 1948 being an ethnic cleansing – whether it’s “Arabs” or “Palestinians” you’re forcibly removing that’s still the term. And we’re agreed they’re still “Palestinians” now – I should hope you’re not hoping to discount the legitimacy of the term based on its newness, considering “Israeli” is at least as recent. I wasn't making some larger point here. I was criticized for using the term "Arabs" to describe the locals in 1948. I explained that that is literally what they called themselves and that they didn't take on the name "the Palestinians" until later in history. At which point, you asked if that was true. We then went through the weeds investigating some Palestine Arab Congresses and how that was similar to the "Palestinian Jews," except that it would eventually lead to the Arabs taking the title "Palestinians" in full from all other residents of the region at a later point in history. Edit: worth noting that I also did not refer to the "Jews" as "Israelis" in that post because that would be similarly anachronistic.
Sure, and I still think that’s oversimplifying the identity locals would have had in 1948. But if you’ve backed away from any practical conclusion that might be drawn from the distinction then I’m not sure it’s worth arguing the point.
One regrettable consequence of a world order built on nations and national identity is that groups of people that didn’t conform to some rigid conception of national identity around the time Europeans decided they should wind up homeless. They’re just trying to live the same way they always did, but a bunch of Brits show up and ask who the national government is, and insist that you have to have a national government and if you don’t they’re going to set you up with one you probably won’t like much.
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I haven't even mentioned any practical applications (at least within our current conversation over the last few pages), so I feel like saying that I've "backed away" from any is a bit misleading.
I just think anachronistic descriptions of historical events are bad. Like if someone said that the Nazis put Israelis into concentration camps, I would call that inaccurate, even if some of the very people in those camps later went on to become Israeli. When they were in camps, they didn't identify as Israelis, so they weren't yet.
And according to your Wikipedia link: Since 1964, they have been referred to as Palestinians
You could argue that we should always use the phrases "Palestinian Arabs" and "Palestinian Jews" when discussing that time and place I suppose, but I personally feel that is cumbersome and extraneous when discussing people within Mandatory Palestine. Like how I wouldn’t say American Democrats and American Republicans when having a discussion in the context of domestic American politics.
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If you’re not trying to draw any particular conclusions about, say, legitimacy of land claims on the basis of insisting there weren’t actually “Palestinians” in 1948 I don’t really care that much if you’re just picking a naming convention and following it. I originally objected on grounds that this sort of rationale is often used by, e.g., Russia to denigrate the legitimacy of, e.g., Ukrainian sovereignty (“There’s not even really such a thing as a Ukrainian, they all just thought of themselves as Russians until like 2014.”).
But I’m not trying to put words in your mouth, and if you’re explicitly denying a position like that we’re fine. I mean, I bet we have some disagreements about the ethics of what happened in 1948 (and what’s happening now) but I don’t think they really hinge on the question we’re arguing about now.
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On February 20 2024 00:01 Ryzel wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2024 21:48 Nebuchad wrote:On February 19 2024 21:26 Uldridge wrote:
@Nebuchad
It's one thing to claim "freeing hostages" and "fighting terrorism" in a vacuum are easy moral standpoints, but when Hamas actively tries to cause IDF to make as much collateral damage as possible, you need to make some extra considerations, no? First, this picture is kind of wrong, it makes it look like the IDF is actively trying to avoid collateral damage but unfortunately Hamas forces them to do this, that's not remotely how the IDF has been operating, either in the past or today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrinehttps://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/Second, even in your framing it's pretty clear in my opinion that the answer should still be that there are no extra considerations, as there are no ways in which Hamas could have behaved that make the current situation a morally acceptable outcome. While I disagree with this statement (they could have killed x50 more people than they did, for example), I get the point you’re making. The issue is the severity of Israel’s response. As much as I hate to bring out analogies, let’s say you’ve got a partner and a family of 3 children, and someone murders that child. In addition, you have good reason to believe not only are they willing and able to do it again, they’re being sheltered by neighbors, some willing and some unwilling, shielding their exact location and ability to harm them. What would we do as individuals in this particular situation? - We wouldn’t go on an arson spree burning down all our neighbor’s houses at 3 in the morning, shouting a warning at 2:30 and all other consequences be damned. While that can be certainly cathartic for the pain felt from losing a child, and may help you feel your family’s safer, I hope we can all agree base vengeance or non-immediate concern of danger is not justification for killing innocents and wanton destruction. In addition, we would rightfully be arrested for arson with a jury of our peers likely saying “I’m sorry for your loss, but that’s way out of line”. - We wouldn’t go to our neighbors and say “hey I’m sorry for wrongs I’ve committed to you all in the past, let’s try and get along and maybe you won’t keep the murderer in your midst anymore” and integrate your family with them and invite them into your house. One, it’s opening yourself to get more of your family murdered, two your family would be horrified and never feel safe in their own home, and three some of your neighbors couldn’t get rid of the murderer from their house even if they wanted to. It invites huge risk with a minuscule likelihood of success. - What most of us would do, is immediately call the police and report the situation and give them at least some time to do what needs to be done (or at least let them take the lead while you provide support). They (for the most part) have the will of the populace to use violence, more resources, tools and experience at their disposal to accomplish the specific task needed, and they’re way less likely to let emotions cloud their judgement and de-prioritize civilian lives. Finally, no one would hold us accountable for any incidental harm done to the innocent neighbors. Only if the police are shown to be ineffective or unwilling to do their job, would we more strongly consider vigilantism. Obviously the police in this case would be “The West”, predominantly the US. Or whoever it is who’s supposed to enforce stuff like the ICJ. IMO, based off everything I’ve learned so far about this conflict since Oct 7th, I don’t think Israel gave enough time/opportunity to the international community to step in and act as a third-party dispute resolver, before embracing essentially vigilantism. In addition, the evidence from polling of the general populace of Israel along with statements from the higher-ups indicate base thoughts of either vengeance or fight-flight response are much more prevalent than thoughts of restraint or concern for civilians. These all coincide more with the 1st option I listed above. Israel certainly isn’t the first country to respond this way (9/11 as an obvious example) and it’s understandable why they would, but that doesn’t make it any less wrong.
Unfortunately your analogy really falls apart when you assume option 3 (that there is some sort of international police force who takes care of all the bad guys) is a realistic option. Don't get me wrong, I agree it would be the best option if it existed. Israelis would agree with you too. They certainly wouldn't shutter their economy and send their sons to die in battle if there were some third party military who would save the hostages and remove Hamas from power for them.
But we have 70+ years of history showing that no one will ride in to prevent Israeli deaths but the Israel Defense Force.
-In 1948, the world mostly just sat on and watched as it looked like 5+ Arab armies were about to kill every Jew in Mandatory Palestine.
-In 1967 though, when the Arabs made their second genocidal attempt, there was a UN Peacekeeping force right on the border between Egypt and Israel with the explicit purpose of keeping the peace between the two countries! On May 17, 1967 “[t]he Egyptian chief of staff, Gen. Mohamed Fawzy, called today for the immediate withdrawal of United Nations peace-keeping force” from Gaza (NYTimes). On May 18, 1967, U.N. Secretary General U Thant announced he “decided to withdraw the United Nations Emergency Force from the armistice line between Israel and the United Arab Republic [Egypt]” (NYTimes). One day after being asked to abandon their mission by a belligerent, they just up and complied...
-In 2006, the UNSC unanimously voted to have a taskforce (UNIFIL) use force to ensure that Hezbollah was disarmed and never moved south to start up with Israel. You can see how well they have used that 17 years as Hezbollah is better armed than ever, firing from just over the southern border at Israel, and even feeling comfortable enough to fire rockets from just outside of UNIFIL's own bases.
-I could probably add a lot of terrorist attacks and wars to this list, but it's late.
Even in the current conflict, no one is offering to save the hostages. The US had trouble even getting many nations to join their task force against the Houthis, even as Houthi attacks on ships directly effect the economies of most countries in Eurasia. It's looking increasingly likely that no one but Israel will even be willing to keep the peace in Gaza after the war, ostensibly an easier task than fighting the war.
So your analogy would have to mention that the one cop in town was lazy and a coward. He would occasionally make a show of protecting you, but then would leave whenever criminals asked nice enough and sometimes murders even happened right in front of his police station. That guy ain't arresting any dangerous murderers. Although, he might issue you a parking ticket while you're talking to him.
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On February 20 2024 00:01 Ryzel wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2024 21:48 Nebuchad wrote:On February 19 2024 21:26 Uldridge wrote:
@Nebuchad
It's one thing to claim "freeing hostages" and "fighting terrorism" in a vacuum are easy moral standpoints, but when Hamas actively tries to cause IDF to make as much collateral damage as possible, you need to make some extra considerations, no? First, this picture is kind of wrong, it makes it look like the IDF is actively trying to avoid collateral damage but unfortunately Hamas forces them to do this, that's not remotely how the IDF has been operating, either in the past or today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrinehttps://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/Second, even in your framing it's pretty clear in my opinion that the answer should still be that there are no extra considerations, as there are no ways in which Hamas could have behaved that make the current situation a morally acceptable outcome. While I disagree with this statement (they could have killed x50 more people than they did, for example), I get the point you’re making. The issue is the severity of Israel’s response. As much as I hate to bring out analogies, let’s say you’ve got a partner and a family of 3 children, and someone murders that child. In addition, you have good reason to believe not only are they willing and able to do it again, they’re being sheltered by neighbors, some willing and some unwilling, shielding their exact location and ability to harm them. What would we do as individuals in this particular situation? - We wouldn’t go on an arson spree burning down all our neighbor’s houses at 3 in the morning, shouting a warning at 2:30 and all other consequences be damned. While that can be certainly cathartic for the pain felt from losing a child, and may help you feel your family’s safer, I hope we can all agree base vengeance or non-immediate concern of danger is not justification for killing innocents and wanton destruction. In addition, we would rightfully be arrested for arson with a jury of our peers likely saying “I’m sorry for your loss, but that’s way out of line”. - We wouldn’t go to our neighbors and say “hey I’m sorry for wrongs I’ve committed to you all in the past, let’s try and get along and maybe you won’t keep the murderer in your midst anymore” and integrate your family with them and invite them into your house. One, it’s opening yourself to get more of your family murdered, two your family would be horrified and never feel safe in their own home, and three some of your neighbors couldn’t get rid of the murderer from their house even if they wanted to. It invites huge risk with a minuscule likelihood of success. - What most of us would do, is immediately call the police and report the situation and give them at least some time to do what needs to be done (or at least let them take the lead while you provide support). They (for the most part) have the will of the populace to use violence, more resources, tools and experience at their disposal to accomplish the specific task needed, and they’re way less likely to let emotions cloud their judgement and de-prioritize civilian lives. Finally, no one would hold us accountable for any incidental harm done to the innocent neighbors. Only if the police are shown to be ineffective or unwilling to do their job, would we more strongly consider vigilantism. Obviously the police in this case would be “The West”, predominantly the US. Or whoever it is who’s supposed to enforce stuff like the ICJ. IMO, based off everything I’ve learned so far about this conflict since Oct 7th, I don’t think Israel gave enough time/opportunity to the international community to step in and act as a third-party dispute resolver, before embracing essentially vigilantism. In addition, the evidence from polling of the general populace of Israel along with statements from the higher-ups indicate base thoughts of either vengeance or fight-flight response are much more prevalent than thoughts of restraint or concern for civilians. These all coincide more with the 1st option I listed above. Israel certainly isn’t the first country to respond this way (9/11 as an obvious example) and it’s understandable why they would, but that doesn’t make it any less wrong.
So, the first thing I want to say is that if Hamas had killed x50 people what Israel is doing would still not be justified. I think the easiest way to realize this is to wonder if what Hamas does is justified, considering that Israel more or less kills x50 people. And it's not. So just adding bodies on the other side doesn't really work, it's the nature of what's happening that's morally problematic.
As for your analogy, I think it's missing a very key component: in reality, it's not really the neighbor who killed your kid, it's the guy who used to own the house. He lives in the basement, because your grandparents locked him there and you keep him locked there. But honestly I think this is quite interesting as an analogy in that it mirrors how people talk about the actual conflict: this state of affairs, that guy being locked in the basement, is so normalized that events are often framed as if that's just a neighbor who went into your house and killed your kid.
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The first step before justifying morality is justifying utility. I'd say if - purely hypothetically - Hamas had killed 60 000 Israelis (i.e. 50x) rather than 1200, then from a utility perspective Israel's war in Gaza can be considered justifiable. That would mostly depend on how likely it is that the mission of eliminating the threat will be accomplished. Assuming that - also purely hypothetically - victory was certain, then the utility of this war would be fairly clear. I would have a hard time opposing Israel's war effort in that scenario.
While none of that would automatically or directly lead to a moral justification (the second step for a complete justification), at least it could become a reasonable matter of debate. From my point of view it would fall into a morally gray area.
That being said, in reality Hamas poses a much lesser threat than that. Realistically they'll never kill more people than they have, especially not now that they've been clearly identified as the greatest threat to Israel. They'll also never realistically be able to threaten the State of Israel. So moving away from the hypothetical back to reality, Israel's war in Gaza is not justified on any level.
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On February 20 2024 14:10 Cerebrate1 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2024 00:01 Ryzel wrote:On February 19 2024 21:48 Nebuchad wrote:On February 19 2024 21:26 Uldridge wrote:
@Nebuchad
It's one thing to claim "freeing hostages" and "fighting terrorism" in a vacuum are easy moral standpoints, but when Hamas actively tries to cause IDF to make as much collateral damage as possible, you need to make some extra considerations, no? First, this picture is kind of wrong, it makes it look like the IDF is actively trying to avoid collateral damage but unfortunately Hamas forces them to do this, that's not remotely how the IDF has been operating, either in the past or today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrinehttps://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/Second, even in your framing it's pretty clear in my opinion that the answer should still be that there are no extra considerations, as there are no ways in which Hamas could have behaved that make the current situation a morally acceptable outcome. While I disagree with this statement (they could have killed x50 more people than they did, for example), I get the point you’re making. The issue is the severity of Israel’s response. As much as I hate to bring out analogies, let’s say you’ve got a partner and a family of 3 children, and someone murders that child. In addition, you have good reason to believe not only are they willing and able to do it again, they’re being sheltered by neighbors, some willing and some unwilling, shielding their exact location and ability to harm them. What would we do as individuals in this particular situation? - We wouldn’t go on an arson spree burning down all our neighbor’s houses at 3 in the morning, shouting a warning at 2:30 and all other consequences be damned. While that can be certainly cathartic for the pain felt from losing a child, and may help you feel your family’s safer, I hope we can all agree base vengeance or non-immediate concern of danger is not justification for killing innocents and wanton destruction. In addition, we would rightfully be arrested for arson with a jury of our peers likely saying “I’m sorry for your loss, but that’s way out of line”. - We wouldn’t go to our neighbors and say “hey I’m sorry for wrongs I’ve committed to you all in the past, let’s try and get along and maybe you won’t keep the murderer in your midst anymore” and integrate your family with them and invite them into your house. One, it’s opening yourself to get more of your family murdered, two your family would be horrified and never feel safe in their own home, and three some of your neighbors couldn’t get rid of the murderer from their house even if they wanted to. It invites huge risk with a minuscule likelihood of success. - What most of us would do, is immediately call the police and report the situation and give them at least some time to do what needs to be done (or at least let them take the lead while you provide support). They (for the most part) have the will of the populace to use violence, more resources, tools and experience at their disposal to accomplish the specific task needed, and they’re way less likely to let emotions cloud their judgement and de-prioritize civilian lives. Finally, no one would hold us accountable for any incidental harm done to the innocent neighbors. Only if the police are shown to be ineffective or unwilling to do their job, would we more strongly consider vigilantism. Obviously the police in this case would be “The West”, predominantly the US. Or whoever it is who’s supposed to enforce stuff like the ICJ. IMO, based off everything I’ve learned so far about this conflict since Oct 7th, I don’t think Israel gave enough time/opportunity to the international community to step in and act as a third-party dispute resolver, before embracing essentially vigilantism. In addition, the evidence from polling of the general populace of Israel along with statements from the higher-ups indicate base thoughts of either vengeance or fight-flight response are much more prevalent than thoughts of restraint or concern for civilians. These all coincide more with the 1st option I listed above. Israel certainly isn’t the first country to respond this way (9/11 as an obvious example) and it’s understandable why they would, but that doesn’t make it any less wrong. Unfortunately your analogy really falls apart when you assume option 3 (that there is some sort of international police force who takes care of all the bad guys) is a realistic option. Don't get me wrong, I agree it would be the best option if it existed. Israelis would agree with you too. They certainly wouldn't shutter their economy and send their sons to die in battle if there were some third party military who would save the hostages and remove Hamas from power for them. But we have 70+ years of history showing that no one will ride in to prevent Israeli deaths but the Israel Defense Force. -In 1948, the world mostly just sat on and watched as it looked like 5+ Arab armies were about to kill every Jew in Mandatory Palestine. -In 1967 though, when the Arabs made their second genocidal attempt, there was a UN Peacekeeping force right on the border between Egypt and Israel with the explicit purpose of keeping the peace between the two countries! On May 17, 1967 “[t]he Egyptian chief of staff, Gen. Mohamed Fawzy, called today for the immediate withdrawal of United Nations peace-keeping force” from Gaza ( NYTimes). On May 18, 1967, U.N. Secretary General U Thant announced he “decided to withdraw the United Nations Emergency Force from the armistice line between Israel and the United Arab Republic [Egypt]” ( NYTimes). One day after being asked to abandon their mission by a belligerent, they just up and complied... -In 2006, the UNSC unanimously voted to have a taskforce (UNIFIL) use force to ensure that Hezbollah was disarmed and never moved south to start up with Israel. You can see how well they have used that 17 years as Hezbollah is better armed than ever, firing from just over the southern border at Israel, and even feeling comfortable enough to fire rockets from just outside of UNIFIL's own bases. -I could probably add a lot of terrorist attacks and wars to this list, but it's late. Even in the current conflict, no one is offering to save the hostages. The US had trouble even getting many nations to join their task force against the Houthis, even as Houthi attacks on ships directly effect the economies of most countries in Eurasia. It's looking increasingly likely that no one but Israel will even be willing to keep the peace in Gaza after the war, ostensibly an easier task than fighting the war. So your analogy would have to mention that the one cop in town was lazy and a coward. He would occasionally make a show of protecting you, but then would leave whenever criminals asked nice enough and sometimes murders even happened right in front of his police station. That guy ain't arresting any dangerous murderers. Although, he might issue you a parking ticket while you're talking to him.
The similarities between this paragraph and a description of police in general in the US didn't so much jump out at me as much as it did strap on brass knuckles and punch me in the face. Really gave me a GreenHorizons moment of realizing how full of shit the idea of a global order actually benefiting all nations is. Much like the idea that the police are in it to enforce entrenched status quo while putting up just enough of a veneer of helping people to justify themselves to the public, the idea of UN and its global peacekeeping forces are doing the same thing for The West™.
Anyway, yeah then in my opinion the real fuckup is from other countries with the power and supposed prerogative to roll up their sleeves and get involved not doing so. Because it seems like there's a lot of evidence for Israel to be justified in defending themselves, and if no one else is going to assist them in doing so then Israel doesn't have a lot of reason to listen to them. That also applies for the Palestinians and their terrible acts against Israel. It's basically like bystanders watching two people stabbing each other, one guy getting stabbed way more than the other, and saying "man why can't they just stop stabbing each other?" instead of all the bystanders getting together and actually pulling them off each other.
On February 20 2024 21:30 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2024 00:01 Ryzel wrote:On February 19 2024 21:48 Nebuchad wrote:On February 19 2024 21:26 Uldridge wrote:
@Nebuchad
It's one thing to claim "freeing hostages" and "fighting terrorism" in a vacuum are easy moral standpoints, but when Hamas actively tries to cause IDF to make as much collateral damage as possible, you need to make some extra considerations, no? First, this picture is kind of wrong, it makes it look like the IDF is actively trying to avoid collateral damage but unfortunately Hamas forces them to do this, that's not remotely how the IDF has been operating, either in the past or today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrinehttps://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/Second, even in your framing it's pretty clear in my opinion that the answer should still be that there are no extra considerations, as there are no ways in which Hamas could have behaved that make the current situation a morally acceptable outcome. While I disagree with this statement (they could have killed x50 more people than they did, for example), I get the point you’re making. The issue is the severity of Israel’s response. As much as I hate to bring out analogies, let’s say you’ve got a partner and a family of 3 children, and someone murders that child. In addition, you have good reason to believe not only are they willing and able to do it again, they’re being sheltered by neighbors, some willing and some unwilling, shielding their exact location and ability to harm them. What would we do as individuals in this particular situation? - We wouldn’t go on an arson spree burning down all our neighbor’s houses at 3 in the morning, shouting a warning at 2:30 and all other consequences be damned. While that can be certainly cathartic for the pain felt from losing a child, and may help you feel your family’s safer, I hope we can all agree base vengeance or non-immediate concern of danger is not justification for killing innocents and wanton destruction. In addition, we would rightfully be arrested for arson with a jury of our peers likely saying “I’m sorry for your loss, but that’s way out of line”. - We wouldn’t go to our neighbors and say “hey I’m sorry for wrongs I’ve committed to you all in the past, let’s try and get along and maybe you won’t keep the murderer in your midst anymore” and integrate your family with them and invite them into your house. One, it’s opening yourself to get more of your family murdered, two your family would be horrified and never feel safe in their own home, and three some of your neighbors couldn’t get rid of the murderer from their house even if they wanted to. It invites huge risk with a minuscule likelihood of success. - What most of us would do, is immediately call the police and report the situation and give them at least some time to do what needs to be done (or at least let them take the lead while you provide support). They (for the most part) have the will of the populace to use violence, more resources, tools and experience at their disposal to accomplish the specific task needed, and they’re way less likely to let emotions cloud their judgement and de-prioritize civilian lives. Finally, no one would hold us accountable for any incidental harm done to the innocent neighbors. Only if the police are shown to be ineffective or unwilling to do their job, would we more strongly consider vigilantism. Obviously the police in this case would be “The West”, predominantly the US. Or whoever it is who’s supposed to enforce stuff like the ICJ. IMO, based off everything I’ve learned so far about this conflict since Oct 7th, I don’t think Israel gave enough time/opportunity to the international community to step in and act as a third-party dispute resolver, before embracing essentially vigilantism. In addition, the evidence from polling of the general populace of Israel along with statements from the higher-ups indicate base thoughts of either vengeance or fight-flight response are much more prevalent than thoughts of restraint or concern for civilians. These all coincide more with the 1st option I listed above. Israel certainly isn’t the first country to respond this way (9/11 as an obvious example) and it’s understandable why they would, but that doesn’t make it any less wrong. So, the first thing I want to say is that if Hamas had killed x50 people what Israel is doing would still not be justified. I think the easiest way to realize this is to wonder if what Hamas does is justified, considering that Israel more or less kills x50 people. And it's not. So just adding bodies on the other side doesn't really work, it's the nature of what's happening that's morally problematic. As for your analogy, I think it's missing a very key component: in reality, it's not really the neighbor who killed your kid, it's the guy who used to own the house. He lives in the basement, because your grandparents locked him there and you keep him locked there. But honestly I think this is quite interesting as an analogy in that it mirrors how people talk about the actual conflict: this state of affairs, that guy being locked in the basement, is so normalized that events are often framed as if that's just a neighbor who went into your house and killed your kid.
That's a good point, but I think a key difference is that even if the story was flipped (e.g. Hamas committing Oct 7th in response to Israel killing 60000 (which is not lost on me that ratios like this have historically occurred, so this isn't even that untrue)), it's not like Hamas committing Oct 7th would have been done to stop the oppression or protect itself. They did it seemingly to either provoke a response from Israel, or enacting vengeance on them, or both. Those motives are not justifiable at all, whereas if Israel's actions result in their people being protected and hostages freed (admittedly a big if), those are way more justifiable.
And yeah I hate analogies precisely because they can never be perfect. But that being said, wouldn't the murderer more be like the escaped grandson of the guy your grandparents locked in their basement, who wants his house back? Because if he's still chained in the basement that implies a level of control over that individual that would prevent him from doing anything. Otherwise I see your point though.
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On February 21 2024 00:34 Magic Powers wrote:
The first step before justifying morality is justifying utility. I'd say if - purely hypothetically - Hamas had killed 60 000 Israelis (i.e. 50x) rather than 1200, then from a utility perspective Israel's war in Gaza can be considered justifiable. That would mostly depend on how likely it is that the mission of eliminating the threat will be accomplished. Assuming that - also purely hypothetically - victory was certain, then the utility of this war would be fairly clear. I would have a hard time opposing Israel's war effort in that scenario.
While none of that would automatically or directly lead to a moral justification (the second step for a complete justification), at least it could become a reasonable matter of debate. From my point of view it would fall into a morally gray area.
That being said, in reality Hamas poses a much lesser threat than that. Realistically they'll never kill more people than they have, especially not now that they've been clearly identified as the greatest threat to Israel. They'll also never realistically be able to threaten the State of Israel. So moving away from the hypothetical back to reality, Israel's war in Gaza is not justified on any level.
Your first paragraph more or less echoes my earlier thoughts, but the second one seems confusing.
1. Hamas commits Oct 7th
causes
2. Hamas labeled as Israel's greatest threat
causes
3. Hamas both won't be able to kill more people than they have (not even 1 person?) nor threaten the state of Israel
causes
4. Israel attacking Hamas is completely and utterly unjustifiable
How will 2 cause 3 without some sort of force behind the acknowledgement that they are a threat? And how will that force be provided without some sort of military action? It's almost like you're saying Israel could flip a switch and turn off Hamas at any time, and just chose not to because they weren't a big enough threat in the past, but now that Oct 7th happened they are seen as a threat and should just be switched off instead of invading Gaza? Israel does not have absolute power over Hamas to do that, the whole reason they're invading Gaza is to switch them off and that's the only way they can.
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EPT
