Your argument now is that the IRA didn't kill civilians or didn't target civilians as in the Birmingham pub bombings or Enniskillen? Because they did. So, you're reduced to arguing that if Hamas had blown up pubs full of Israeli civilians or a hotel with the entire Israeli cabinet in it, they would only have been as bad as the IRA and Israel would not be justified in responding as they are now. Your position is quickly being revealed as absolutely absurd.

, I won't hold my breath. — 180 Proof

I'll keep asking the question until one of them has the guts to answer it

Yes, most Israelis are Jewish, so what? My thesis above is that Palestinians are non-white and that's a significant factor in why their deaths are more acceptable to westerners than the deaths of, say, white Irish. So, would it have bothered you if the British had sent warplanes in to bomb the Catholic population of Northern Ireland in which IRA operatives were embedded (something you have supported in the case of Israel)? Yes or no? And, do you not agree, at least, it was inconceivable for that to happen? Have you asked yourself why?

What's truly anti-semitic imo is the presumption that being Jewish defines your character is such a way that you must support the actions of Israel's right-wing government or take any particular political or ethical stance. There are plenty of Jewish people (Israeli and otherwise), including posters here, who are perfectly entitled to disagree with your position. So, I caution you to curb your anti-semitism in this regard as it is a bannable offence.

So I don't think it's much about racism. We just adapt to people being crazy. Anywhere. — ssu

Not convinced. Sure, there are political reasons for the British not to have bombed Ireland or the Spanish, Catalonia, but it begs the question to bring them up (and obviously if events did unfold in that direction, they would no longer be inconceivable though the reaction imo would not be nearly as glib as you predict). So, the point remains unanswered, why is it inconceivable to us that white western civilians be subject to heavy military artillery bombardments as part of defensive actions against so-called terrorists while perfectly natural that brown non-westerners should be? The idea of the former we find shocking, the latter is simply shrugged off. In the absence of some other explanation for the disparity, my thesis is racism. I invite anyone who objects to provide an alternative (without going off on irrelevant tangents) or maybe tell me why they think the British should have gone ahead and bombed the Irish. At least there might be some consistency there.

Let's get them out of the closet.

Generally Accepted: Israel has a right to defend itself
Generally Accepted: Britain has a right to defend itself
Generally Accepted: Israel has a right to defend itself [with almost no restrictions][against brown people].
Generally not Accepted: Britain has a right to defend itself [with almost no restrictions][against white people].

You either bite the bullet and say that you would have supported the British in bombing Catholic civilians in order to kill embedded IRA operatives or you are a racist. Own it. (Or explain a fundamental difference between the two "defensive" scenarios.)

(The worst offenders here, imo, are liberals who like to virtue signal about BLM but turn a blind eye to what's happening in Palestine. A racist hypocrite is probably even worse than an honest racist.)

Final point, if the British had been carrying out (intentionally or otherwise) civilian massacres resulting in, effectively, collective punishment for IRA attacks (some of which were as atrocious as anything Hamas has done*), the whole Island of Ireland would have risen up against them and received massive levels of support in doing so.

*IRA attacks

So the question arrises, why should this be so? — Banno

We are more or less compelled to move with the zeitgeist, no? When I started posting in PF, for example, I didn't take sexism particularly seriously. Now, I do, and I think I should.

"We're sorry about those dead children but the IRA were using them as human shields and we had no intention of blowing them into little bloody pieces".
"Oh, no problem. Can we sell you some white phosphorus?"

The opposing sides in the troubles hated each other but there wasn't the same level of dehumanization. It would have been absolutely inconceivable for the British to have sent warplanes in and bombed Catholic neighbourhoods due to them harboring IRA suspects while the US and other western nations blithely pontificated, over the bodies of dismembered children, about Britain's right to defend itself. No, the Western world would have been in uproar because white Catholics are considered human whereas the Palestinians have yet to reach that level, as demonstrated aptly in this thread. Conclusion: racism is the primary driver behind the defenders of the recent civilian massacres in Gaza.

As long as we're not funded by Hummus, I don't care. Hate that stuff.

Active discussion on that thread means that bitcoin is topping (or at least, has been so). — ssu

Fair bellwether. It topped (unless it makes a miraculous recovery) just about at the most recent post there a month ago.

You may, quite possibly, have been right about this all along.

I don't know, but we do get these types of threads every few years. On the old forum too. So, it could be a "remember the good old day's" phenomenon. Then again, if you look at discourse in general, e.g. compare a 1970's U.S. celebrity interview with one today, there can be a clear decline in some quarters over time.

The debate now, as usual, (and I'm also guilty of this myself) has largely turned into "Israel is an occupying force murdering its victims" vs "Hamas are evil, so Israel can do what it likes to the Palestinians". So, it's pretty much indistinguishable from every other thread on this general topic. Might as well just call it "Israel vs. the Palestinians" and be done with it. Anyway, I'm not going to intervene much as it would be heavy handed at this point to try to keep it strictly on topic.

Israel's defenders on this thread (and in the media) have one major play, equivocating between "Israel has the right to defend itself" and "Israel has the right to defend itself [by any means]". The former sounds reasonable but seeing as what's meant is the latter, what's presented is not only unreasonable, but obviously false. Morally speaking, there must always be a limit to the means. And where that is is what should be the basis for debate. Not acknowledging that is simply refusing to have the debate. As is focusing on Hamas, religion, and Arab culture. You can despise all the aforementioned without it being remotely relevant.

Another way of saying, yet again, stay on topic, which concerns the proportionality of Israel's military response and whether the U.S. should support it.

Hamas persecutes innocent Palestinians. Therefore, why can't Israel kill them? I mean if you're against Israel's disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians then surely you must support every despicable thing Hamas does to them too, right?

You opposed the invasion in 2002 I hope. — fishfry

I protested it in London.

52 kids who won't grow up to be Palestinian terrorists. — fishfry

I'll just presume this is a sardonic barb. Riiiight?

I think we're up to 95% of the killing being done by the Israelis now and rising. But they could kill every single Palestinian, man, woman and child and their apologists here would still plead self defence. It's just bizarre that some here think the idea of proportionality has no moral relevance. Apparently if a bad guy comes to my house, the powers that be are justified in killing us both and all my children too. No questions asked. He used us as a human shield. *Shrug*. Yes, that's just the way it works everywhere. Nothing to see here.

Reminder of the topic:

Whatever else will be said about this massacre, Israel cannot be said to be defending itself from territory it is occupying. It's a contradiction in terms.

The US needs to stop sending military support to the only country in the Middle East which has nuclear weapons and is destroying the lives of civilians which lands it is stealing. This issue will not stop until the occupation stops. Utterly horrifying and contemptible behavior from the Israeli state. — Manuel

No doubt many Muslim countries do terrible things. And no doubt there are anti-semites around, some of them on the left, some on the right. No doubt this thread is not about either of those things. Please focus your agreement or disagreement at least mostly around the points raised.

No. I am saying the premises of the debate are fallacious. Moral debates are mainly garbage. I am antinatalist/ No one who creates children has a moral leg to stand on in my opinion. — Andrew4Handel

I see.

No one is entitled to anything, humans rights don't exist. We are just part of nature struggling to survive — Andrew4Handel

How can you partake in the ethical argument if this is your stance though? Aren't you just saying you've picked a side and that's it?

Both of you will need to stay on topic. You can start your own thread about purported anti-semitic left-wing Corbynism if you wish. This thread is specifically about whether Israel is justified in killing civilians.

To re-emphasize, you can either argue that the killing is justified and present relevant arguments or it's not and present relevant arguments. Being emotive is OK given the subject matter but going totally off-topic isn't.

You are the argument. Thank you. — StreetlightX

As is anyone who unashamedly supports one side on an ethical issue because of who they are rather than what they do. And I presume the absurd attempted distractions concerning communism and UK politics will continue until they are modded out, but that anyone with any sense will ignore them.

I'm genuinely sorry about your situation. I don't support Islam or any other religion and am very anti-fundamentalist. To me, that's not the issue here though. So, please stay on topic.

Here's a simple ethical point supporters of Israeli actions should address. In "defending" themselves against the Palestinians, what are the limits in terms of civilian casualities Israel can justifiably inflict relative to the civilian casualties they themselves have endured? Should there not be a limit? Israel is currently running over 99 to 1, would they be justified in making it 1000 to 1 (if they haven't got there already), 10,000 to 1, more? Is there any point at all where you would concede that their response is disproportionate. You tell me. If it makes it easier to answer, take out the terms Palestinian and Israel and replace them with Power A and Population B.

You brought in information absolutely irrelevant to the thread. The only reason to do so apparently to attack Muslims. Don't do that again.

On a wider note, it's symptomatic of these threads. There are always attempts to make it about who we like more, Muslims vs Jews. It's not. The ethical argument concerns what is a justified use of force by party A against party B. The relevant contexts are things like power asymmetries and the killing of civilians in terms of method and extent by both sides.

Ah, I see, you're an Islamophobe. Some of us have no difficulty condemning these types of things based on the idea that they're wrong not on who's doing them. It's totally irrelevant to me whether the guilty party is Muslim, Christian, or Jewish. All of the above are capable of the same.

You're really losing it now. Israel's biggest supporters are American Christians. Anyway, done with you. Anyone who supports terrorist attacks on children is not someone I want to spend time talking to.

99% of the killing is done by Israel. 99% of the children murdered are murdered by Israel. The idea that's just defending themselves from the vastly inferior power they are violently occupying is where the parody comes in.

Just want to point out what an insult it is to Jews, including very many Israeli Jews, to presume they must, by definition, support these terrorist attacks on Palestinian civilians.

Your argument is that not supporting Israel while they are doing this is anti-semitic.



You are either trolling or very ill.

I suspect he's a Hamas propagandist parodying the enemy. It's brilliant.

A thread based on the premise of "Israel killing civilians" will and should elicit moral stances. You're not going to be allowed to use it to jump on your hobby horse of morally condemning anyone who morally condemns anything. You do that regularly as a way to attack other posters, particularly mods, and it sidetracks and disrupts threads. So, stop now (and no need to answer this post because it's not up for debate).

Off-topic posts like this will be deleted in future.

I wish I could tatto over every comment in this thread the fact that whatever your view is on who started this or who the most intransigent or unreasonable party is, Israel has always, and is still now, doing at least 99% of the killing in this conflict.

I believe the surviving baby is Hamas too, so they should probably go in and finish the job. Like, literally this is the logic of apologists like @BitconnectCarlos. And then he'll ask you why you care, are you an Arab? It's beyond comprehension.

Of course Israel was just defending itself against those terrorist children in the refugee camp. The bombers did nothing wrong. Just ask @BitconnectCarlos.

"The baby was found clutching his dead mother’s chest when the first responders in Gaza dug him out from underneath the rubble of a three-storey building.

In a split second 11 members of the Palestinian family, who had gathered for Eid, were buried by the giant claw of an Israeli airstrike.

The remains of the building in Gaza’s Shati refugee camp were strewn with children’s toys, a Monopoly board game and plates of uneaten food from the holiday gathering.

In total 10 were dead: eight children and their two mothers, who were sisters-in-law.

But by some miracle there was a cry: five-month-old Omar, the youngest, was alive.

“What had they done to the Israelis to be targeted while wearing their special Eid clothes as they sat in their uncle’s house?” the distraught father Mohamed al-Hadidi, asked The Independent, from Shifa hospital where his son was being treated.

“They are only children, they haven’t fired rockets, ” he added, breaking down.

“Except Omar, I lost my entire family, in an instant.”

A mass slaughter of civilians, many of them children, by an absolutely dominant occupier as a form of deliberate collective punishment. If you can't step out of your partisan stance and see this for the inexcusable moral wrong it is and continue to distract with whatsboutism, you are just missing something human.