I make a genuine post and you call me a troll and then follow up with stupid.

If you do not wish to address my point that is your choice obviously. I think it was a valid point and an appropriate one to make on a philosophy forum.

Lol. You don't care about a war where thousands of civilians are being killed but you insist on posting on the thread because you do care that someone else might care about it because then they might think their voice matters and that would really bother you. Go away, you fool.

I'm very saddened by the reports of shelters, hospitals and schools (such as they are) being blown up in Gaza with mass casualties. I've always been supportive of Israel's claim to statehood and its right to defend its borders and its citizens, but I'm finding it increasingly difficult to retain that sentiment in light of what is happening on the ground. I fear that the sophisticated video-renderered presentation of the so-called Hamas control centre tunnels under the hospital will turn out to be something like George W Bush's 'weapons of mass destruction', that is, non-existent; and that those appalling scenes the world has witnessed the last few weeks, with maimed children and premature babies screaming on blood-stained floors, will not have served any legitimate military purpose in the end. They have, so far, found a couple of rough hand-dug tunnels and small caches of Kalashnikovs, nothing like the 'Dr No' scenarios that they had depicted as grounds for their assault. Netanyahu, asked about this, said of course Israel doesn't wish to harm civilians, but if it does, they're 'collateral' (and that's a direct quote.) It is all horrible beyond words, and immensely disheartening for the future.

Thinking about how many more Muslims will be radicalized watching those scenes and how much more death and destruction they'll mete out to innocents and how the innocents around them will suffer with further retaliatory attacks as the cycle continues, it's very hard to see anything at all being achieved by this bloodbath not to mind anything that would justify killing babies. Sadly though, this was predictable.

So Hamas gets to commit civilian atrocities, but when Israel starts bombing them while they hide behind human shields, — RogueAI

Would it change your view if instead Hamas was hiding in Israel using civilians as human shields there? Should the IDF kill its own citizens to get at Hamas?

What if Hamas was hiding in New York?

So you cannot answer my question. Just childish behaviour. Great show

How long can we expect to wait? What measures can ease the transition?

I have evidence of a secret network of Hamas tunnels under GB News headquarters.

What question? The one where you display you're so emotionally stunted you cannot comprehend why other people care what happens to innocent people?

I asked if people disagreed and to state why.

So this is not a hard question to answer. Yes, you would prefer to live in a world where Israel is in charge. — RogueAI

Unless you're an arab.

It's a bit like arguing Nazi Germany was a perfectly fine place to live. If you were a blond, blue eyed ethnic german.

The world is a better place without Hamas in it, and if Palestinians support the Hamas attacks, the world is a better place with fewer of them too. — RogueAI

My standard response to this is the following:

Since you're in favour of killing people, I think the world is a better place without you. Therefore, please apply your own logic.

Peoples sometimes have to be dragged into the civilized world kicking and screaming. It happened with Germany and Japan. It will happen with Palestine too. — RogueAI

Germany and Japan were not civilised before 1945?

I've made an ethical argument: both Israel and Hamas kill innocent people. Israel stands for democratic rule and protection of women and minorities. Hamas stands for Islamic rule and degradation of women and minorities. Therefore, we should prefer Israel wins. — RogueAI

Which would be an ok argument If you're 9. Are you?

And I have no sympathy for Hamas who are homicidal extremists who don't give a damn about the lives of anyone, including their own population. — Baden

The question isn't how you feel abut them. Instead a single simple question: what do you do about them? You're the prime minister of Israel: what do you do about Hamas?

Just a hypothetical question for everyone, why isn’t anyone (especially Palestinians) calling on Hamas to release the 240 hostages?

I guess it just seems pointless. Though Qatar has claimed they're close to a deal.

I guess it just seems pointless. — Echarmion

Can you elaborate why one wouldn’t want to advocate for the nearest proximal thing for a cease fire? And I’m talking mainly Palestinians and adjacent allies.

Of course the, civilian at least, hostages should be released because they are innocents and keeping them hostage is a war crime. Military personnel taken hostage on both sides are prisoners of war and should be protected, treated humanely and released at the end of the war.

However, the question of why Palestinians aren't calling for the release of the hostages while Israel is murdering their children in hospitals and the hostages are their only bergaining chip to make the slaughter stop is naive at best.

Remember this bit of propaganda that helped cause the first Iraqi war:

"In her testimony, Nayirah claimed that after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers take babies out of incubators in a Kuwaiti hospital, remove the incubators and leave the babies to die."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony

A shocking and horrific story that brought the world into line against Saddam Hussein. Only it was a lie. Iraq was never that brutal. Israel on the other hand has effectively done just this by cutting off the electricity to incubators in Al Shifa hospital on the basis of a claim about a Hamas "command centre" for which there is no credible evidence. And even if there was, do you think that would have mattered in the case of Saddam? Do you think the world would have said "Oh fine, they killed premature babies but there were a couple of militants nearby in a tunnel somehere, so that's acceptable..."? I doubt it. I expect it wouldn't have made a difference because the world had already decided Saddam was a bad guy and so that was the frame in which the story became real and confirmatory. Whereas, in this situation, Amercian public opinion is conditioned to think of Israel as the good guy so the frame doesn't allow for the recognition of reality but only excuses for reality. The IDF take full advantage of this by carrying out acts of absolute barbarity with relative impunity. They rely on naive apologists to make excuses for them so they can keep on getting away with it. Saddam never had that advantage so people believed the lie of what he hadn't done while they will excuse the truth of what the IDF has done.

The question isn't how you feel abut them. Instead a single simple question: what do you do about them? You're the prime minister of Israel: what do you do about Hamas? — tim wood

First of all, if I'm Prime minister of anywhere, I work within international law from the start and within a moral framework that balances national interest with a wider notion of justice. How that's done isn't a new debate. It goes back to Socrates vs Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, Glaucon, and Adeimantus (Book 1-2 of the Republic). I take Socrate's side. Others here seem to be on the side of his interlocutors. So, consider that as a first principle.

Secondly, where do you want me to start, now? Oct 7th? Before that?

Military personnel taken hostage on both sides are prisoners of war and should be protected, treated humanely and released at the end of the war. — Baden

Indeed, but these aren't military personnel, unless you think a 9 month olds and 85 year old grandmas are military personnel.

However, the question of why Palestinians aren't calling for the release of the hostages while Israel is murdering their children in hospitals and the hostages are their only bergaining chip to make the slaughter stop is naive at best. — Baden

I didn't quote the rest because none of that answered my question.

Indeed, but these aren't military personnel, unless you think a 9 month olds and 85 year old grandmas are military personnel. — schopenhauer1

I just said:

Of course the, civilian at least, hostages should be released because they are innocents and keeping them hostage is a war crime. — Baden

Don't distort my point like that.

Don't distort my point like that. — Baden

Got it. For some reason putting those together seemed odd and looked like it was conflated.

But then, the question at hand which I don't think was really answered except by way of a tangent on something else?

The confusion is 100% on your side. How hard is it to understand that civilians should be released when it's written in black and white in front of you. And obviously military personnel captured can be considered prisoners of war.

Yes, I just don't know why military personnel was added. We were talking about hostages. But I get that you obviously think that the civilian hostages should be released. I wasn't doubting that you would think that.

But then, the question at hand which I don't think was really answered except by way of a tangent on something else? — schopenhauer1

What question? Why the Palestinians don't want the hostages released? Israel hasn't promised a ceasefire if they are, has it? What do you think the benefit is to the Palestinians to call for this?

By the way, to any of those on the Palestinian "side" who think the hostages should be kept as bargaining chips, I say again, get your moral head out of your arse. Don't play games with the lives of innocents. But the Palestinians themselves are hardly going to listen considering what's going on, are they?

Maybe I'm banging my head against a brick wall but I want to say again, the lives of Israeli and Palestinian civilians, especially children, are equally sacred and deserve full respect regardless of the political crimes of their rulers / overlords / political exploiters. If we could agree on that and work forwards on that basis most of the rest would fall into place.

It was and is a simple question. You're PM. What do you do about Hamas.

My own answer is what the Israelis are doing now - and I do not see that they have much choice. Hamas eliminated and Gaza at least somewhat pacified, then there are lots of possibilities and shoulds and oughts. And it might be interesting then to see how much the Arab/Muslim world will contribute to rebuilding Gaza and working towards establishing a real, durable peace. But these future considerations: what do you do now?

What question? Why the Palestinians don't want the hostages released? Israel hasn't promised a ceasefire if they are, has it? What do you think the benefit is to the Palestinians to call for this? — Baden

I think it would indeed lead to some sort of cease-fire. But why wouldn't you if that is one of the continuing incentives. I mean, some of the perpetrator's parents were elated when they talked to them live on the phone, but surely you would think that letting go of the hostages would be at least one avenue for stopping it. From what I have heard from what is stated, it is the letting go of hostages that have to happen first from the Israeli perspective, being that Hamas started and continue to hold hostages from their attack.

and I do not see that they have much choice — tim wood

That's frankly stupid and exculpatory. Of course they have a choice. They could have chosen not to kill babies in Al Shifa. You're not worth talking to if you're this ignorant.

Hamas eliminated and Gaza at least somewhat pacified — tim wood

I think it's been explained to you that you can't eliminate an idea and that by killing Palestininan civilians you create more Hamas especially in the long term. Anyhow your whole shtick here seems a blithe, glib and thoughtless exculpation of Israel while blaming everything on Hamas. It's painfully ignorant.