"If you make me bleed, I make you bleed worse. That's the only way to be even." Unfortunately, you can see how it leads to a feedback loop when two unintelligent people (the only people who get into fights) get into a fight. — Outlander
At this point we should change this thread to genocide apologism”. — Mikie
Back to admission of condemnation, then. — jorndoe
It depends. Many Westerners consider the US the Great Satan and Israel its sidekick in the Middle East. Besides, the reason why there are those in the West who consider the US "the good side" despite the evil committed is that the West has actually benefited for decades of the US protection and the support for Western-led international order. It's not clear to what extent the current war is benefiting Western countries and the Western-led international order (for example, Israel has not engaged in a direct, large-scale military campaign against ISIS, nor was it part of the official US-led anti-ISIS coalition, Israel has mostly refrained from strong, visible support for Ukraine, particularly in terms of military aid, compared with other Western countries, while the current war has lots of troubles: genocidal accusations, ambitions for territorial annexations, destabilized commercial routes to the West). Even more so after Trump's re-election. And Netanyahu's confrontational attitude showing a sort of full commitment to war in all directions, as long as possible doesn't bode well. — neomac
I just think the strategy is reprehensible and not to be used by an actor that wishes to be in the moral highground. — ssu
Perhaps. And perhaps we simply shouldn't judge Israel on the level we judge European or North American state, but as a Middle Eastern state. — ssu
A bad guy taking out another bad guy don't make him an angel. It was still a totalitarian and imperialist regime, just with a Marxist ideology. Now we just don't have the fig-leaf of Marxism-Leninism anymore, but the monster of a regime is still there. — ssu
Well, if the enemy makes the living conditions of the civilians totally unlivable that leads to famine, that's a war crime. That's not inescapable. — ssu
You can easily fight the worse suicidal motherfuckers around and NOT have a famine among the civilians and the children. Here I would refer to look at how the US Armed Forces fought Al Qaeda and ISIS. Or to historically to ANY fighting force that has successfully put down an insurgency. — ssu
Analogies to family dynamics aren't good ways of understanding geo-politics if that's where we end. — Moliere
At least you aren't denying that it's a genocide — Moliere
It's like if you're a father with children and you opened the door into your kid's room one day and your kid randomly said "oh I'm a nation all of a sudden and you can be my citizen". You'd smack that little s**t into next week. — Outlander
What about the ones that don't have full rights?
Consider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_citizenship_law#Status_of_Palestinian_Arabs
They were forced from their land and required to apply for citizenship with Israel and if they couldn't -- which most didn't -- they lost their property.
Technically speaking they're not citizens so it's not a "second class citizen" de jure -- but it is de facto. — Moliere
There are significant differences between those and what's happening here, though, such that the "war" designation isn't exactly apparent to me. — Moliere
I see that situation as much closer to the situation in Israel -- Israel offers different rights to Jews than to non-News. — Moliere
Palestinians are segregated into different locations within the state of Israel. This is largely due to a desire for an ethno-state -- i.e. Arabs over there and Jews over here.
Suppose that South Africa, in response to a political act of terrorism on white people, set up artillery and began to systematically eliminate the Black neighborhoods in retaliation. — Moliere
So my theory of war needs refinement, but I don't see an apt comparison to either the United States' civil war or its revolutionary war. — Moliere
There's more than one condemnable action here. — jorndoe
Whereas here we have the IDF carrying out the deliberate and systematic destruction of Hamas while killing anyone that gets in their way. — Moliere
A war is between two countries that recognize one another. — Moliere
It's not like Hamas just decided to be evil. There are reasons for why they were voted for that lead up to Oct 7th. — Moliere
Is the objective just to take out Hamas, or is it some kind of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from Gaza by making the strip totally unlivable. — ssu
What is a genocide, in your view? — Moliere
I wouldn't say that Israel is "holding back", but that's a vague criteria. — Moliere
Now if you're killing combatants that's one thing -- but Palestine isn't even a state. It's an occupied territory where we have stories of people shooting Palestinians where they excuse their shot by "I just didn't understand why he cared about that body" -- drawing a literal line in the sand for when to kill. — Moliere
The part that I know is that I'm in the United States and we give weapons to Israel -- where the line gets drawn eventually or if it's a one-state solution all that, right now, is so far out of scope due to how long the genocide has been going on. — Moliere
And so is the past prior to that one event -- sometimes an occupied territory decides to revolt.
Perhaps it could not have been occupied. — Moliere
I'm not convinced.
Hamas goes on a murderous heinous rampage :down: :death:
Netanyahu bombs away and causes a large humanitarian crisis :down: :death:
When you keep condemning one, and keep making excuses for or dodging the other, then your posts might as well be propaganda. — jorndoe
"Would" -- it's already there. And what you describe is ironic given that this is what happened to the Palestinians -- imagine a group of people show up and then.... — Moliere
Suppose they had the means, though. — Moliere
And suppose it'd been an 80 year occupation. — Moliere