America killed many more Japanese children in WWII. By virtue of simply choosing to go to war with Japan we guaranteed the deaths of thousands of Japanese children. Japan would recruit as young as 15, similar to Hamas.

Fighting the Germans, too, meant sometimes fighting and killing children.

And of course if we wish to avoid all child casualties then it would be child murder to attack the Houthis. :roll:

let’s compare what was done to [Japan] in WW2: there’s bound to be “collateral damage” in a just war against evil. — Mikie

America killed many more Japanese children in WWII. — BitconnectCarlos

Shocker. :yawn:

Emotion and pity is not an argument. I could argue like you, it's not hard: "How could you ever go to war and kill people? OMGGG genocide and child murder."

And of course the victor is always in the wrong because, well, he's the victor and inflicts more casualties.

:up:

victor is always in the wrong — BitconnectCarlos

Nope.

But Mikie, the victor kills thousands of children

The terrorists should be eliminated. We can all agree. So let’s start with the ones who kill, injure, and starve the most people— in that case, the Israeli government. Maybe kill 10 or 20 thousand Israeli children as well, in pursuit of such ends. I’m sure the forum chickenhawks would be fine with this, given how consistent they are. — Mikie

Hey Mikie, why doesn't Hamas stop the fighting? I think they could do it. Do you think they could do it? It might have been nice if they didn't start the fighting, but that's just a fait accompli.

Of course it might involve them changing some of their fundamental beliefs, about the Jews being guilty of existing, punishment being annihilation. So while at the moment the Israelis are doing some things that look pretty ugly, I gotta figure Hamas wants it; wanted it, worked very hard for it, sacrificing generations of Palestinians - worked for it, earned it, and now they have it, and they still want it. How about the hostages, Mikie, you down with them being murdered, assuming they're still alive at the moment?

Hey Mikie, why doesn't Hamas stop the fighting? I think they could do it. Do you think they could do it? It might have been nice if they didn't start the fighting, but that's just a fait accompli. — tim wood

:100:

Hamas could stop the fighting if they choose to release the ~150 people they've stolen from Israel.

the victor kills thousands of children — BitconnectCarlos

Nope.

It might have been nice if they didn't start the fighting — tim wood

They didn’t start the fighting.

How about the hostages, Mikie, you down with them being murdered, assuming they're still alive at the moment? — tim wood

That’s up to Israel.

They’ve already “accidentally” killed a few themselves though.

Hamas uses children in its armed forces. Even if Israel were to only kill Hamas, children would die.

Keep up the good work of defending genocidal rapists, torturers, and murderers. :up:

How about the hostages, Mikie, you down with them being murdered, assuming they're still alive at the moment?
— tim wood

That’s up to Israel. — Mikie

Really? Exactly how do you figure that? Try making sense, or don't bother answering.

don't bother answering. — tim wood

Try not asking questions that all but Israel apologists find rather obvious. Or don’t bother responding to me in the first place.

I guess when you live in a concentration camp, and are massacred intermittently for decades, you should accept the further torture that’ll be inflicted on you by your oppressors if your government decides to fight back with equally brutal tactics. If only Palestinian 3-year-olds could be as logical as our forum’s resident genocide apologists and see the light of day, it would make things easier.

But again, since our resident apologists see Likud as the good guys fighting an evil force, nothing will change their minds. Not even killing innocent children. They’ll invoke something from WWII.

Hamas’ perpetrators of crimes should be brought to justice. Likud leaders, responsible for this ongoing genocide, should also be brought to justice.

…The second sentence simply cannot be thought by our handful of apologists. :: shrug ::

Another reason why not everyone should read philosophy— it leads to defending terrorists. (Oh no wait it’s the Palestinians that are terrorists…yada yada yada.)

(Oh no wait it’s the Palestinians that are terrorists…yada yada yada.) — Mikie

To my way of thinking, on 7 Oct. Hamas rendered history irrelevant. The same way Yassar Arafat and the PLO did, and Black September, and their predecessors. The Jew's crime is existing, and for that they are condemned, apparently. To my way of thinking the Jews/Israelis are cornered into acting in self-defense from necessity. But they compound their crime by not dying nor consenting to be annihilated.

Which absolves, apparently, Palestinians and their terrorist gov't of the moment, and the neighbors, of all, repeat all, responsibility. And again to my way of thinking the Israelis are justified by necessity for any action they take for so long as the hostages are an issue. They being safe and returned, then maybe some progress toward peace possible. But certainly not on the same model as before: Hamas blew that up!

This is a recipe for the cycle to continue. With Isreal becoming armed to the teeth, if it’s not already.

I agree with everything you say in your last point with the following caveats.

Regarding the historical record of the inhabitants of the land in question. I am aware of this history, however I was specifically referring to the more recent nation building exercise by the British in 1948 and the fact that it produced an injustice in the minds of the people who were uprooted. The past 75yrs of tension and conflict originated here, as far as I’m concerned.

I agree that the Jewish people had a pre-existing claim and right to live there, as did the Palestinian people who were living there at the time. But the way it was done was in the superior imperial manner adopted by the British colonialists at the time, which set up this tense situation from the beginning. I’m sure if it had been gone about in the right way, a successful settlement could have been reached.

Regarding the wider geopolitical situation, I see the other actors around the world as bystanders with a bit of influence here and there, the geopolitical situation of the region. But they are in no way instigating this current crisis, but rather seeing it as an opportunity for geopolitical game playing. Russia stands to gain the most from this, while Iran is happy with how things are going. I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin were pulling some strings behind the scenes which we are not aware of. Putin needs to win Kiev in order to recover his reputation, the reputation of his country and to realise his vision of a rebuilt Soviet Union. If he fails his legacy will be greatly diminished, or seen as a failure.

So if there is an everlasting mastermind behind all this, we know who it is.

If the comment of Benkei was actually an implicit threat of banning or post suppression because they smell as racist, instead of being racist, that’s rather disappointing. Indeed, claiming that the "psyche of a group of people” smells too close to racism smells as dumb as claiming that blaming Israelis for their “rather one sided” conflict with Palestinians smells to close to anti-semitism, doesn’t it? — neomac

If people are too dumb to see that to make general claims about the mental state of a group of people isn't close to racism then I look forward to banning them when they do cross the line.

edit: here's a nice example of the jewish psyche according to most Europeans mid-century:

Regarding the historical record of the inhabitants of the land in question. I am aware of this history, however I was specifically referring to the more recent nation building exercise by the British in 1948 and the fact that it produced an injustice in the minds of the people who were uprooted. The past 75yrs of tension and conflict originated there, as far as I’m concerned. — Punshhh

I asked you 3 questions evidenced in bold, you didn’t answer any. What are your compelling reasons to take your “specifically referring to the more recent nation building exercise by the British in 1948” or the PERCEIVED injustice of ONE SIDE (the Palestinian) as the starting point for an explanation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

I agree that the Jewish people had a pre-existing claim and right to live there, as did the Palestinian people who were living there at the time. But the way it was done was in the superior imperial manner adopted by the British colonialists at the time, which set up this tense situation from the beginning. — Punshhh

Again, what are your compelling reasons to claim that Palestinians or Jews had a “right to live there” or that they have equal rights to land? Those people practically knew ONLY imperial rules and rules until the end of the British Mandate. There was no democratic referenda or elections within the people living in a geographically circumscribed territory in Roman, Byzantine, Muslim/Arab, Ottoman, British empires. There were NO nation-states over there during the imperial rule. “Rights to land” are what those imperial rulers and rules established. So why do you think the PERCEIVED injustice about PEOPLE's right to land of ONE SIDE was a strong argument BACK THEN? Not to mention that the UN resolution at the end of the British Mandate which Israel accepted and Palestinians didn’t BACK THEN, was very much what the Palestinian side may claim to want NOW.

I’m sure if it had been gone about in the right way, a successful settlement could have been reached. — Punshhh

Another counterfactual. Why are you sure? Jews fled from their land ALSO because of the Arab/Muslism colonization and oppression. Arab/Muslism still today massacre civilians belonging to other Christian and Arab/Muslim communities.

Regarding the wider geopolitical situation, I see the other actors around the world as bystanders with bit of influence here and there, the geopolitical situation of the region. But they are in no way instigating this current crisis, but rather seeing it as an opportunity for geopolitical game playing. — Punshhh

Again you didn’t address any of the points I brought up, you keep just repeating what you think it is the case, maybe inspired by a self-serving understanding Hamas’s own declarations (https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/hamas-denies-claim-that-oct-7-anti-israel-attack-was-in-revenge-for-iranian-general-s-death/3093908). Yet, not even pro-Palestinian propaganda ignores the international factors that may very much have MOTIVATED Hamas (https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/10/11/analysis-why-did-hamas-attack-now-and-what-is-next)
In any case what I claimed is “the problem of the Israeli is best understood IN RELATION TO numerous others issues around the world (which is what I'm claiming)” and, as elaborated later, there is no need to for me understand the massacre of October 7th as a direct execution of entirely Iranian orders to still make my point. I would even go so far as to say that the “increased tensions between Israel and Gaza and West Bank in the past two years” as the exclusive or far more relevant motivation of Hamas to conduct the massacre of October the 7th, is totally irrelevant wrt its international repercussions of the massacre and Israel’s threat perception.
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/2023-12-27/ty-article/.premium/irans-revolutionary-guard-oct-7-attack-was-in-response-to-soleimani-assassination/0000018c-abb7-d044-a5fd-ebbf050b0000
https://www.timesofisrael.com/irans-guard-corps-hamas-oct-7-attack-was-revenge-for-killing-of-soleimani-in-2020/
https://www.thejc.com/lets-talk/the-evidence-shows-irans-lead-role-in-october-7-pgzng3q0
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-israel-hamas-strike-planning-bbe07b25
https://www.memri.org/reports/saudi-journalists-hamas-october-7-attack-was-meant-torpedo-peace-efforts-iran-knew-about-it
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4407277-oct-7-was-the-opening-attack-in-irans-ring-of-fire-war-against-israel/

If people are too dumb to see that to make general claims about the mental state of a group of people isn't close to racism then I look forward to banning them when they do cross the line. — Benkei

Dude, ok let me break it down to you before you keep embarrassing yourself:
- "Close to racism" doesn't mean "racist", does it? So to my education, you'll ban and censor based on how things smell to you? Punsh was talking about the (psychological) trauma of the Jews as a historically persecuted community, not about their greediness for money and usury, so what is racist in that? Even Jews talk about historical traumas when talking about themselves: https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-12-10/ty-article-opinion/.premium/how-the-nakba-has-eclipsed-the-holocaust-in-u-s-media-since-october-7/0000018c-5328-db23-ad9f-7bf8c3be0000
- Have you ever read in this forum people talking about "greedy capitalists", "crazy evangelicals", "murderous idiots"? Do they smell racist to you?
- If you consider "Jewish" to be a race instead of a social/cultural construct, then I can better get why talking about Jewish "psyche" smells as racism to you. Do you?

Until there's a "problem" with their psyche and it's suggested such a thing is inherent to such a group, which is what was being discussed. It's the same as the "death cult" statements we've seen attributed to Palestinians here because schopenhauer made an observation some time about the Quran. Everybody can consider themselves warned without resorting to dumb questions trying to figure out what is and isn't permitted here.

Until there's a "problem" with their psyche and it's suggested such a thing is inherent to such a group, which is what was being discussed. — Benkei

Dude, I see you can't answer very simple questions. But since you enjoy embarrassing yourself, I'll absolutely enjoy giving you another chance.
The meaning of "psyche" doesn't imply any reference to "race", but magically "psyche of group" does, why? "Psyche" is inherent to one individual human being as it is inherent to groups of individuals equipped with psyche. And if individual human beings can have psychological problems because of biographical traumas, there is no reason why we should not also talk about psychological traumas of groups like the Jewish community who has suffered historical traumas [1]. We can talk about problems of collective psychological traumas without having any racist intention explicit or implicit, and we can have psychological traumas because we have a psyche, a psyche with problems, individually or collectively.
Your dumb argument depends on your convenient claim "it's suggested" that apparently doesn't require evidence to support it other than what looks to you (you didn't ask Punsh what she meant, did you?), and on your catastrophic confusion between "inherent to a group of individuals" and "inherent to the race of a group of individuals", or "psyche of a group" and "psyche of a racial group".

Everybody can consider themselves warned without resorting to dumb questions trying to figure out what is and isn't permitted here. — Benkei

At your place I would suppress that embarrassing post of yours, Holy Benkei, and say sorry for pointlessly threatening us. It's for your own credibility as a wise moderator, you know.

[1]
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-12-10/ty-article-opinion/.premium/how-the-nakba-has-eclipsed-the-holocaust-in-u-s-media-since-october-7/0000018c-5328-db23-ad9f-7bf8c3be0000
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9893309/
https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2010/09/holocaust-survivors

on 7 Oct. Hamas rendered history irrelevant. — tim wood

Bye.

If people are too dumb to see that to make general claims about the mental state of a group of people isn't close to racism then I look forward to banning them when they do cross the line. — Benkei

So saying MAGA are a bunch of conspiracy minded dupes will get me banned?

Language controls the world. Words are not just potent signifiers; they construct our emotions and beliefs. Like code, it programs us. And it requires another code to--not "de-program", but--reprogram us. I am not weighing in on the politics or morality of the issue in Israel/Palestine. This is not a judgement but an observation of what is often the first insurmountable barrier to any honest attempt at harmony.

Perhaps it's simple, and the Language holds no power save and except to describe the actions. Perhaps anyone who uses violence or threats to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or government to further political, social, or ideological objectives is fittingly deserving of the moniker "terrorist" period. Perhaps any suggestion otherwise is manipulative propaganda, designed to control our thoughts.

I reiterate that I am not taking a stand on the two sides, nor am I condoning the violence. But I may be addressing the first necessary step to a final resolution of any similar problem: the care used in Language (notwithstanding the anticipated ire of those who, in the name of free speech, pretend to barf at any mention of political correctness).

If the 17th century African's rebelled; escaped in large numbers from a plantation, and massacred the white civilians occupying their and nearby plantations, would we call that Terrorist today? What about if Jewish captives of the Nazi’s, escaped en masse, a concentration camp, and massacred the civilians in nearby Mansions, including, god forbid, even the Nazi children out in harms way, skipping and living it up behind the walls of their fathers’ death prisons? Or the indigenous First Nations of the Americas pushed out of their homes by the fascist/racist expansion of their colonialist occupiers? Or the indigenous Africans of South Africa violently reacting to Apartheid. Today, would they be called terrorists?

And what about the Pxxxxxxxxxxs?

Would raping, kidnapping, torturing, and murdering white south african civilians under apartheid be justified resistance? What it comes down to is conventional (Judeo-Christian) morality versus this idea of "by any means necessary" which identifies and judges individuals and actions through the lens of group membership.

Violence against X group is justified; violence against Y is not. All members of X are the oppressor group; Y is the oppressed. It's nothing new. But it is sociopathic.

Regarding humanitarianism I would tend to agree, and Israel has actually fought this war fairly humanely. — BitconnectCarlos

Well, compared to putting down the Warsaw Uprising, a battle that took 64 days with a city with less people and which ended up with 15 000 dead fighters from the Polish Home Army and 150 000 - 200 000 civilians killed, we can surely say that IDF fighting methods are different from Hitler's army and the SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger. (The remark on the actual whole Iraq war isn't here comparable, as you should know it was also a civil war between the sunnis and shias and not all urban comment.) So yes! The "most moral" army (as Bibi puts it) isn't in the Dirlewanger-brigade level...

Yet there's the use of air power: now IDF has used bombs multiple times more than the US did in it's six year war in Iraq, which is telling.

And even to the Warsaw of WW2 there is one eerie kind of similarity:

By January 1945, 85% of the buildings were destroyed: 25% as a result of the Uprising, 35% as a result of systematic German actions after the uprising, and the rest as a result of the earlier Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the September 1939 campaign.

In Gaza:

(BBC, 9th February) Gazan officials say more than 50% of housing units in Gaza have been destroyed, left uninhabitable or damaged since the start of the conflict. They say more than 500,000 people will have no homes to return to, and many more will not be able to return immediately after the conflict because of damage to surrounding infrastructure.

The map below - using analysis of satellite data by Corey Scher of CUNY Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University - shows which urban areas have sustained concentrated damage since the start of the conflict.

They say at least 150,000 buildings across the whole Gaza Strip have suffered damage. North Gaza and Gaza City have borne the brunt of this, with at least 70% of buildings in the two northern regions believed to have been damaged, but their analysis now suggests up to 62% of buildings in Khan Younis have also been damaged.

Even if 50% or 70% isn't 84%, the idea that Hamas has built in more than 50% of housing a military positions is simply outrageously ludicrous. It simply isn't the case. The simple fact is that there's what, only 30 000 Hamas fighters at most while buildings have been attacked. And since the Israeli administration has thought of "voluntary movement" of Palestinians, having cabinet members cheering for building new Israeli settlements to Gaza, the case that South Africa made to the ICJ is quite credible.

That make Gaza unlivable is a worrying possibility.

I don't deny such notions exist. We're only human after all. I have no idea what the post-war order will look like, only that a military response towards Hamas is justified. — BitconnectCarlos

That's the problem. Because actually the current Israeli administration is thinking exactly like you. They have no real post-war plan, they are making things on the fly. Day by day. They seem to hope that it becomes so unbearable that the Palestinians simply have to be moved somewhere else. They aren't interested in thinking how those Gazan Palestinian people and children will remember this and how the fight will go on once a new generation comes to age.

To look a bit further and to think just how this conflict will end is not something that people will want to hear. Israelis don't want to hear about a two state solution. And Palestinians aren't either wanting now to sit down and continue where the Oslo peace process ended.

Millions of Evangelical votes? Do you have any compelling evidence that millions of Evangelicals would vote for Biden, if only Biden let Netanyahu do whatever he wants in Gaza? — neomac

Naturally most of the vote for Trump, of course, but notice that the Israeli lobby is so powerful in both parties. And isn't Bibi just waiting for Trump to arrive?

And it's going to be even worse when Israel attacks Lebanon.

I recognize your point and agree with it. My point was certainly not a contradiction. To be clear, violence is never the advisable approach, nor justified. Another way to express my point is to ask, is it harmony or victory we are after? If it's the former, remember to use Language functionally, as a constructive tool, in its promotion. If it's the latter, admit that and carry on using Language as a weapon. I sincerely hope you didn't receive my comment in the spirit of the latter.

If the 17th century African's rebelled; escaped in large numbers from a plantation, and massacred the white civilians occupying their and nearby plantations, would we call that Terrorist today? — ENOAH

It depends. Suppose you have plantation slaves that revolt and massacre the plantation family, kids and all. After all, the kids will surely run to the next plantation and sound the alarm. I think the slaves would be morally justified in doing that.

Now suppose the slaves have made good their escape and travelled to an island and set up a local community. In this community, women are forced to wear burqas. They have to be escorted by men everywhere they go. They are horrifically abused by their husbands and often acid is thrown in their faces. Their marriages are arranged. They're de facto slaves of the men.

Now, I'm thinking, "You killed that plantation family for this??? You men are as bad as the slave owners! The women would have been justified in killing the plantation family AND you male slaves."

And that's how I view the Mideast countries. A bunch of misogynistic theocratic assholes. Israel should roll through the entire region and clear out the whole rat's nest.