If Palestinian children (of "David") are valid targets, then Israeli children (of "Goliath") also must be valid targets. — 180 Proof

Yeah, this was all I needed to hear. As long as you believe this you're an enemy of the Jewish people and I'm not engaging with you. There's no way around this truth.

Even Jewish holocaust victims would not have been justified going after random Germans or murdering the children of Nazi war criminals. Do you know why? Because many of them recognized that they were bound by moral principles and responsibilities at all times and they knew that God was watching. God does not give victims blank checks to set the world on fire. You quote all this bullshit when you can't even follow very basics of the systems that you draw from.

But seriously I can't engage with you as long as you condone (and that's exactly what you're doing) the murder of my people. Bye.

If you feel like re-joining civilization or morality at some point let me know.

Then you've quite clearly not paid attention. — Benkei

Maybe I haven't; I'm not perfect. I just remember last time I tried to get you to condemn terrorist groups for intentionally targeting civilians you wouldn't (?) (or maybe there was just some hesitation?) I've never claimed to have a perfect memory and maybe you've moderated your positions over time. I'm happy to revisit this.

If you want to unequivocally condemn the intentional indiscriminate murder of civilians by terrorist groups then welcome back to the side of humanity. Welcome back to the discussion. Because if not you are getting what I wrote to 180 in the first few paragraphs of this post.

Fuck off mate. The hubris of your last post as if you're an arbiter who gets to decide what is and isn't part of the discussion. :lol:

Don't tell me you wouldn't react in the same way if someone told you that Dutch children (including your own) were valid targets. It's not my fault you have zero empathy for Israeli civilians so no need to lash out.

It's a rule of moral equivalence you dolt. If murdering Palestinian children is permitted then obviously the murder of Israeli children would be too or Dutch ones for that matter. The consequence of your position and defence of Israel is that you must accept terrorism as a valid reply to Israeli crimes, because those crimes are terrorism too. In your failure to condemn Israel, it becomes impossible to condemn Palestinians. At no point has 180proof said he condones the murder of children.

If murdering Palestinian children is permitted then obviously the murder of Israeli children works be too or Dutch ones for that matter. — Benkei

a) The intentional murder of Palestinian children is not permitted morally and is not a practice of the Israeli government. 180 took one statement out of context.

b) Even if the intentional murder of palestinian children was condoned by the Israeli government (which would obviously make the Israeli government illegitimate and evil) even then the intentional murder of Israeli children would remain a deep moral crime.

I don't know why basic morality is so difficult for people to understand.

At no point where 5-year old children of Nazis "valid targets."

In your failure to condemn Israel — Benkei

I'll criticize Israel on multiple occasions, it's you who refuses to strongly criticize any of the Palestinian movements.

a) The murder of Palestinian children is not permitted. 180 took one statement out of context. — BitconnectCarlos

But it quite clearly is. Every time the "right to self defence" is exercised by killing children as "collateral damage". Every time they reinforce "Palestinians children today are terrorists of tomorrow", when Jewish Israelis overwhelmingly buy into the racist idea they are superior to Arabs, when they try children in military courts, hold them in administrative detention, rob them of a future, expel them from their homes etc. they tell the world it's fine to kill Palestinian children.

b) Even if the intentional murder of palestinian children was condoned by the Israeli government (which would obviously make the Israeli government illegitimate and evil) even then the intentional murder of Israeli children would remain a deep moral crime. — BitconnectCarlos

If your were to defend the former you would have to defend the latter. You now refuse to defend it but have been doing precisely that for 61 pages by pointing to countries that are worse than Israel or highlighting Hamas' crimes. This is self-evident to everyone except, apparently, you.

The moral equivalence holds, either it's both wrong, or it's both right.

At no point where 5-year old children of Nazis "valid targets." — BitconnectCarlos

Said the same guy defending killing Palestinian children as collateral damage.

But it quite clearly is. Every time the "right to self defence" is exercised by killing children as "collateral damage". — Benkei

Collateral damage is an inevitability of war/military conflict and not the same thing morally as intentional murder. Even when the allies targeted Nazi military bases children were killed because children live on military bases. There is literally no way to avoid civilian casualties, it's always just a matter of how many. Even though children end up dead in both cases, the is no moral equivalence.

Said the same guy defending killing Palestinian children as collateral damage. — Benkei

If collateral damage has moral equivalence to intentional murder then FDR and Churchill are basically Hitler. Virtually every government that has ever been at war for whatever reason is evil and illegitimate.

Yeah, this was all I needed to hear. — BitconnectCarlos

Tellingly, you only partially quote me, leaving out my reference to the Torah. Of course, fascists like you violently misappropriate your own heritage as you seek to colonize and steal the heritage of those in your way (i.e. lebensraum = settler occupation of so-called "Greater Israel").

As long as you believe this you're an enemy of the Jewish people and I'm not engaging with you.

You speak only for "my oppressor-regime right or wrong" Zion-Nazis – hell yeah, I'm their / your "enemy" – and clearly not for "the Jewish People". Unlike you, jackboot-licker, I'm no more an "enemy" of Jews (or Israel) than Antifascism Zionists such as Martin Buber, Abraham Heschel, Hannah Arendt, Elie Wiesel & Noam Chomsky who've informed and still inspire my opposition to your racist, reactionary, ideology. Get the fuck over your shitty self, BC.  

If you feel like re-joining civilization or morality at some point let me know.

Unlike you, I've never left. It's (US-backed) Israeli apartheid, ethnic cleasing, oppression which is, in theory & practice, barbarism that has slipped the leash of "civilization".

Collateral damage is an inevitability of war and not the same thing morally as intentional murder. — BitconnectCarlos

Yes, 'civilian killing prohibitions' obtain in "wars" between state-militaries but "the rules of war" have never obtained during insurgencies (i.e. armed liberation struggles on shared / disputed territory) of Occupied peoples against Occupier regimes and their constituents. IDF-Mossad terrorism produces (incentivizes) Hamas (Arab) terrorism; the latter have nothing to lose (but subjugated lives) and the former have everything to gain (from the US Treasury & Pentagon), and so the self-cannibalizing cycle grinds on. Israel's savage, terrorist, oppression justifies resistance of the oppressed Palestinian people "by any means necessary", including terrorism. :fire:

Said the same guy defending killing Palestinian children as collateral damage. — Benkei

Absolutely sickening hypocrite. Truly deluded. Highlights the real difference here is not between Jews and non-Jews or even Palestinians and Israelis but hyper-partisan nutters and the rest of us.

:up:

Israel's savage, violent, oppression justifies resistance of the oppressed Palestinian people "by any means necessary", including terrorism. — 180 Proof

I just couldn't help myself.

Hey 180 are you a man? Straight? Able-bodied? Neurotypical? Do you have savings? A place to live? Any speech problems? Why do you uphold and reinforce systems of oppression? Don't tell me you don't. Why do you viciously, savagely, brutally, repeatedly oppress others when you uphold and reinforce these systems? You want to see the evil oppressor? Look in the mirror. I hope someone rips your face off and as they're doing so they remind you it's because they're fighting oppression "by any means necessary." It would be perfectly justified and also hilarious. One more dead oppressor = less oppression, let that sink in.

:mask:

I wasn't even talking to you, Benkei, — BitconnectCarlos

Seems a good plan to me.

The irony of this debate is that if Israelis were to take my suggestion, pack up everything and move to America, leaving the Middle East entirely....

Palestine would most likely become just another ruthlessly corrupt Arab dictatorship.

And the outraged leftist moralists would likely have nothing to say about that. We've seen this movie before....

1) Before the American invasion of Iraq the outraged leftist moralists had nothing to say about Saddam's ruthless oppression of Iraqis.

2) During the American invasion the outraged leftist moralists whipped themselves up in to a hysterical frenzy of fantasy moral superiority.

3) After the American invasion the outraged leftist moralists went back to caring not a whit about
the Iraqi people.

That is, the outraged leftist moralists never cared about the Iraqi people, just as now they don't care about the Palestinians. If Israel were to surrender to Hamas, and all Jews left the Middle East, the outraged leftist moralists would fist bump celebrate for 48 hours. And then they would happily walk away and completely ignore whatever psychopathic crimes were inflicted on the Palestinians, just as they now contently ignore the crimes of all the other Arab dictatorships.

As problematic as some of the actions of Israel really have been, they don't begin to even vaguely compare to what's been happening next door in Syria. Let us observe how little the outraged leftist moralists have to say about that.

Where is the thread on this forum which goes on for weeks spewing venom at Assad, or his Russian allies who have spent years now deliberately bombing hospitals and the like? Where is the thread which condemns an Iranian regime which shoots it's own people down in the streets when ever they become inconvenient? The absence of such threads reveals the absence of reason on these topics.

The logic failure being displayed here is comparing Israel to some fantasy ideal which doesn't exist anywhere in the world. A better plan would be to compare Israel to all the other options available in the Middle East.

And now, in fairness, a challenge to the Israelis...

The irony here is that while Israelis are among the most intelligent and competent people anywhere in the world, with a sincere longstanding interest in moral questions, they've deliberately chosen to raise their children in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods on Earth.

And why is that? Because their ancestors lived on that land 2,000 years ago.

If one moves to the ghetto, and then drive by shootings become a routine part of daily life....

Well...

What did you expect?

Do Israelis truly care about protecting their innocent civilians, their children? If yes, get the hell out of there while there is still time. Or, stay, and stop whining to the rest of us about what tragic victims you are.

Imagine both-sidesing this so hard that the standard of comparison is between an actually existing apartheid regime which regularly murders children and an imaginary future construct. Not to speak of the wahtaboutisms. These people may as well be bots at this point considering how they recycle such shit talking points.

If collateral damage has moral equivalence to intentional murder then FDR and Churchill are basically Hitler. Virtually every government that has ever been at war for whatever reason is evil and illegitimate. — BitconnectCarlos

This seemed to merit a re-run. Not that doing so will matter.

All three were mass murderers and only one got a bit of what each deserved.

It's always hilarious to me that bootlickers always assume everyone else is as enamoured of power and myth as they are.

yeah they're all basically the same everyone is hitler.

Well no I would have given FDR and Churchill a slightly more comfortable wall.

So, maybe we could try to elevate the conversation a bit? Here's my try...

When I first saw this thread I immediately decided to have none of it, as I know from long experience how political threads typically go.

But then a day or two later I thought, it can't hurt to take a look.

And then I thought of some "insanely clever" remarks which would promote me as some kind of insightful person, at the expense of others I was thinking weren't so insightful.

And so it went, bit by bit, as I was sucked slowly but steadily in to the rhetorical violence unfolding here.

The point here is that violence, all flavors of it, seem to have a tangible appeal to many of us, and engaging in the combat can be quite addictive.

I wonder if the Middle East is a lot like threads like this? Once the pattern of calling each other fucking nitwits begins, it sucks us in, grabs a hold of our egos, and it can be hard to escape the grip.

Wait, hang on a second, I gotta reload my rhetorical rocket launcher.....

Why do we engage in such rhetorical violence on forums? There can only be one answer. Because we enjoy it.

I would surely agree it's far more complicated in the real world. But I wonder to what degree enjoyment of conflict plays a role. But, just like here I suppose, if such enjoyment exists, no one is likely to admit it.

Collateral damage. What a horrible and anti human concept. A euphemism for innocent,non combatant deaths being acceptable.

If collateral damage has moral equivalence to intentional murder then FDR and Churchill are basically Hitler. Virtually every government that has ever been at war for whatever reason is evil and illegitimate.— BitconnectCarlos

So what do folks make of this?
Is all modern warfare illegitimate?
What becomes of revolutionaries who justify violence to overturn supposedly oppressive regimes?
Is collective violence ever justified?
@StreetlightX @BitconnectCarlos @180 Proof

Your general question is off topic and worth a thread of its own, but as to the collateral violence thing I fully agree. It means nothing other than: "violence I am allowed to dismiss and put out of mind". In any case Israel kills children willingly and the idea that they were just a series of ooopsy-daisies is the kind of thing only clowns can take seriously.

@Foghorn I wouldn't say its necessarily rhetorical violence in most cases. Sometimes it's just venting by posters,which speaks to a kind of paranoia or ultra defensiveness of ideology.
Some enjoy it because they think it bolsters their self esteem and prestige.
Some enjoy the competitive nature of debate,but still have the morality and mental clarity to keep things on point without descending into rabble and idiocy.

@StreetlightX For sure,I'm against state warfare as both sides justify collateral damage.
It's more the morality of supporting any cause where collateral damage is justified and ignored.

Well, political threads at least seem to have a pretty consistent pattern of rapidly devolving in to patterns of personal conflict. And most of us know that is going to happen before we join the thread. So, there's that...

I'm really not trying to change the subject to forums. I'm wondering whether at least some of the conflict in the Middle East and beyond exists because there is part of us that enjoys conflict.

You've surely noticed how incredibly popular victim claims are, not just in the Middle East, but pretty much through out the human experience.

Imagine that the United States offered every Israeli and Palestinian U.S. citizenship and a billion dollars in moving expenses if they left the Middle East and came to America. That wouldn't solve the problem, right? Lots of people in both camps would choose to stay and continue the conflict, right?

Just as we are doing here. Voluntarily engaging in what can only be described as pointless conflict. Conflict for the sake of conflict.

Not me though. Cause I'm WAAAAAY better than all you little fucking nitwits! C'mon, c'mon, don't be a sissy, put'em up you wankers!!!!! :-)

Israeli collective punishment:

Collective punishment is an inflamed scar that runs across the entire 53-year-old Israeli occupation of Palestine. Over these years, two million Palestinians in Gaza have endured a comprehensive air, sea and land blockade since 2007, several thousand Palestinian homes have been punitively demolished, extended curfews have paralyzed entire towns and regions, the bodies of dead Palestinians have been withheld from their families, and critical civilian supplies – including food, water and utilities – have been denied at various times. Notwithstanding numerous resolutions, reports and reminders critical of its use, Israel continues to rely upon collective punishment as a prominent instrument in its coercive toolbox of population control.

A fundamental tenet of any legal system – domestic and international – which respects the rule of law is the principle that the innocent cannot be punished for the crimes of others. A corollary of this tenet is that the collective punishment of communities or groups of peoples for offences committed by individuals is absolutely prohibited under modern law. Individual responsibility is the cornerstone of any rights-based legal order, as explained by Hugo Grotius, the 17th century Dutch legal philosopher: “No one who is innocent of wrong may be punished for the wrong done by another.”

Throughout history and in contemporary times, belligerent armies, colonial authorities and occupying powers have commonly employed a spectrum of collective punishment methods against civilian populations hostile to their alien rule. The methods used have included civilian executions, sustained curfews and closures of towns, food confiscation and starvation, punitive property destruction, the capture of hostages, economic closures on civilian populations, cutting off of power and water supplies, withholding of medical supplies, collective fines and mass detentions. These punishments are, in the words of the International Committee of the Red Cross (“ICRC”), “in defiance of the most elementary
principles of humanity.”

The logic of collective punishment has been to project domination in order to subdue a subjugated population through inflicting a steep price for its resistance to alien rule. Punishment has been imposed on civilian populations for practices ranging from having knowledge of fighters and refugees in the vicinity, to offering passive opposition and noncooperation, and to merely being related to, or neighbours of, resistance fighters. Yet, not only are these punitive acts profoundly unjust, they invariably backfire on the military authority, as the 1958 commentary by the ICRC on the Fourth Geneva Convention stated:
Far from achieving the desired effect such practices, by reason of their excessive severity and cruelty, kept alive and strengthened the spirit of resistance. They strike at guilty and innocent alike. They are opposed to all principles based on humanity and justice, and it is for that reason that the prohibition of collective penalties is followed formally by the prohibition of all measures of intimidation or terrorism with regard to protected persons. — UN 15 July 2020 report

@Foghorn Yep! But I think it's that the ruling class loves it's land and business interests and is willing to cheat steal and murder to keep them. Joe public loves to play the victim,but not always to the level of war.
The Israeli Palestine situation is primarily for land and prestige. And some sickos enjoy the conflict.
But those who live by the sword...
On the forum,I think some enjoy preaching moralising and trolling,some love branding people.
I love the competition,but I choose my battles.
Last comment of yours is lol!! Are you English?